Veteran technology firm Commodore has launched a new generation of high-end gaming computers at the Cebit trade fair in Germany. The company released its first home computer, the PET, in 1977. It had a monochrome display and a "datasette" for storing information. The Vic 20 arrived in the US and Europe in 1981, and was one of the first home computers to feature a colour display. Owners could expand its 5K RAM with expansion cartridges. The C64 became a 1980s icon. It remains the biggest-selling computer model of all time, selling more than 17m units worldwide. Despite its name, the Commodore 64 had only 38K of usable RAM for programming in the BASIC language. Thousands of games were released for the Commodore 64 including the split-screen driving game Pitstop II. Many veteran gamers still play Commodore 64 games like Impossible Mission on PCs using emulation software. 1985 saw the launch of the Amiga. The successor to the Commodore 64, the Amiga was designed to compete with Atari's ST computers. Despite selling well in Europe, the Amiga CD32 did not perform well enough globally to stave off Commodore's 1994 collapse. The Commodore brand has been resurrected in recent years, and has now released a new range of high-end gaming PCs. The new machines have two video cards, up to 4GB of RAM and customised artwork on the outer case. Back 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next



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