De best verkochte computer ooit is veertig jaar oud. In januari 1982 werd de Commodore 64 geïntroduceerd op Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, in augustus gingen de eerste exemplaren in de verkoop. Ik speelde er eindeloos Pacman en Chuckie Egg op, ingeladen met cassettebandjes. Op IEEE Spectrum verscheen een mooi stuk over de ontstaansgeschiedenis van deze homecomputer.

De ontwerpers hadden vrij spel. Ze keken naar bestaande concurrenten als de Texas Instruments 99/4A en de Atari 800, ‘leenden’ ideeën die ze leuk vonden en probeerden zo veel mogelijk in het apparaat te stoppen.

““Al [Charpentier] was given the freedom, within a certain die size, to put in everything he could, working backward within the size we planned. When he ran out of registers he stopped,” said Winterble. “We defined in advance the silicon size that would give a yield we were willing to live with; at that time, a die size that was reasonable in 5-micrometer technology was less than 200 mils. Then we prioritized the wish list from what must be in there to what ought to be in there to what we’d like to have, so the decisions that were needed at various points became fairly automatic.””

Het verhaal leest als pionierswerk, een klein team met handige toegang tot chips. Ze gingen in werktijd aan de slag:

“The cost of developing the Commodore 64: No one knows. “I had no formal budget accountability,” said Winterble, “other than Jack [Tramiel] watching me. Jack said that budgets were a license to steal.” Because MOS Technology’s fabrication facility was not running at full capacity, the equipment used for C-64 test chips and multiple passes of silicon would otherwise have been idle. “We were using people who were there anyway,” said Ziembicki. “You waste a little bit of silicon, but silicon’s pretty cheap. It’s only sand.”

Although custom chips are usually considered expensive, the C-64 chips were not. Not only were development costs absorbed in company overhead, but there was no markup to pay, as there would have been inf the chips had been built by another company. And yields were high because the chips were designed for a mature semiconductor-manufacturing process.”

Uiteindelijk werden de productiekosten per stuk vastgesteld op $135 en de verkoopprijs op $595, veel goedkoper dan de concurrentie. Het werd een groot succes.