ABOUT C64 ZONE
A RETRO FAN, A FATHER AND A COMMODORE UNDER HIS ARM
► THE ORIGIN: A FRIEND, HEALTHY ENVY AND A FATHER
I'm an old-young man nudging fifty. In the late 80s, a couple of our friends had a Commodore 64, and my brother and I didn't take long to reach our conclusion: we had to get one. We told our father we were passionate about computing, that we wanted to learn, that we needed that machine. I don't know whether he believed us or simply gave in to the persistence, but one day he came home with the Commodore under his arm.
It was one of the happiest days of my childhood, and perhaps one of those that shaped my future the most.
► WHAT THAT MACHINE LEFT US
My brother ended up as a computer engineer. I went into telecommunications. I'm not sure all that came from that computer, but... what if my father had never bought it?
What I do know is that the C64 taught us things no school ever put on the curriculum: patience while a game loaded from cassette, ingenuity to get the most out of a few kilobytes, and a feeling — still impossible to explain — that that machine was almost magical. I suppose that's why I'm still here, decades later, talking about it.
The sound of the datasette loading a game — that rhythmic, endless beeping — was both the most frustrating and the most exciting thing in the world. You learned to be patient. You learned that good things are worth waiting for. The C64 had a life philosophy built into its hardware.
► WHY THIS SITE EXISTS
This site is a tribute to all of that. To those summers, those datasette beeps, that blue screen with the blinking cursor waiting for you to say something. It is the site I would have loved to find as a child, and one I want to build today so no one else has to look for it elsewhere.
C64 Zone was born with a simple idea: to create the largest archive of content about the Commodore 64 in English. Game reviews, hardware history, trivia, emulation, SID music... everything surrounding this unrepeatable machine, in our language, with care and without rushing.
This site has no advertising, sells nothing and has no commercial purpose whatsoever. It is simply love for the Commodore 64 and the desire to preserve its memory for generations who never experienced it... and for those of us who did and never want to forget it.
► WELCOME TO C64 ZONE
Welcome if you lived it too — if you remember the smell of the manual, the weight of the joystick, the endless wait of the tape. Welcome also if you are new here, because it is never too late to fall in love with the Commodore 64.
This machine shaped a generation of engineers, musicians and creatives who do not even fully know why they ended up where they are. Maybe it was the C64. Maybe not. But what if your father had never bought it?
That is what the C64 was. And that is what this site tries to be: something for everyone, without snobbery, without barriers. Just the blue screen, the blinking cursor, and you.
READY.