The above might look like something out of the Fallout universe, but it’s actually a very real and very functional piece of tech. A small Polish auto repair shop in Gdansk uses this Commodore 64 to run its day to day operations, highlighting that old tech still has a place in this world despite the fast pace we see in the US and beyond.
The original photo comes from back in January according to a comment on the official Commodore USA site, noting that the image and background caused a spike in popularity for the old machine. Not bad for a machine that was put out to pasture in 1994 and made its debut over 30 years ago. The official Commodore website drops heaps of praise on the machine and possibly shows why it could still be in use today:
The Commodore 64 is arguably the easiest to use programmable computer that has ever been made. Like the PET and VIC-20 before it, the 64 booted to a friendly screen with the Commodore Basic Operating System ready and waiting for instruction. If writing your own programs was daunting, and loading software from cassettes or floppies was ‘just too much’ for you, you could just jam a cartridge in the back of the unit and like magic your machine was doing whatever you wanted it to.
Creating the best selling machine in history is no small feat. Commodore did not ‘knock the ball out of the park’, they ‘knocked the park into the next city’. The pushed the industry to a level of scale that was previously thought impossible.
The entire thing pales in comparison to the machines you’re likely reading this article on. The phone in your pocket could run circles around this little treasure, but it still does the job. When we’re discussing new uses for the Raspberry Pi or the march of progress within each new Apple release, it’s cool to take a moment and look back at this tech. I couldn’t imagine using it myself, but it does make me question the need to constantly upgrade. Not to say that upgrades aren’t warranted in some sectors.
(Via Commodore USA)