Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: Andreas Wallstrom, Commodore 64, Commodore 64: For the Love of a Machine

Commodore 64 The Book

Published Wed, 12 Apr 2017 07:45:42 -0500

Commodore 64: for the Love of a Machine is a book tribute to the Commodore 64, the people who created it, the people who used it, and the people who still use it today. Because, yes, people do still use the Commodore 64 today. It's not just a throwaway line from Joss Whedon's The Avengers. The book is a passion project from writer Andreas Wallström who calls himself a "43-year-old Commodore 64 fanatic."

The book is full of exclusive photographs, in-depth interviews, pixel art and contributions from the Commodore 64 community.

The book launched it's Kickstarter campaign and has about 17 days left to go. As of press time, the campaign was at about 50% of the book's goal.

The full list of the books features include:

Exclusive in-depth interviews with Bob Yannes and Al Charpentier who created the C64, the SID sound chip and the VIC-II graphics chip.
In-depth interviews with the people who created the fantastic games we remember so fondly. Some of the interviewees include: Donna Steiner-Buttlaire (Tapper), John Twiddy (The Last Ninja), Ben Daglish (Krakout), Chris Hülsbeck (The Great Giana Sisters), and Dave Collier (Hyper Sports) in his first-ever interview about the old C64 days.
The book will include a world-exclusive interview with Zoltan Kelemen, a.k.a. Mr.Z/Triad, who is the most famous cracker ever to be part of the C64 scene. The interview is covering many subjects, including why he started cracking, what the hardest part about cracking was, and whether he felt there was a moral issue around cracking games for other people to then share for free.
Professional photography of industry legends, people from the demo scene and C64-related events will be on show throughout the book. Those featured will include Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway, Karen Davies-Downey, Colin Porch, Michael Tomczyk, as well as people from scene groups such as Fairlight, 1001 Crew, The Judges and Triad.
Pixel art from today's best artists will also form a central part of the book. Some of the artists will be creating new exclusive art especially for the book!
Rob Hubbard is the most famous computer musician from the 1980s and 1990s. He wrote the music to games like Sanxion, Thing on a Spring, Crazy Comets and Spellbound. For the first time ever, readers of the book will be given the chance to look at his original music notes and gain insight into how he used to compose his famous C64 tunes. This is indeed a world exclusive!

If the campaign reaches a currently undisclosed stretch goal, one person will be the sole owner of an original, hand-written Rob Hubbard music sheet that he wrote for his 2003 concert at Back in Time Live Brighton.

A gallery of some of the book's pages is below. You can check out even more of the book here on it's Kickstarter page, or head on over and join the ranks of the C64 backers club.