Stefan Höltgen et al., "Commodore 64: Past, Present, and Future of a Home Computer" (Projekt Verlag, 2026)

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to the New Books Network

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hi everyone and welcome back to New Books and Game Studies, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. Here we trace the ideas, histories and debates that shape how we understand games and play across cultures, technologies and academic disciplines. I'm your host, Rudolf Inders, professor for Game Studies at the University of Applied Sciences, Neue Ulm, Germany. Before we get started, if you enjoy the show, please consider leaving us a five star review on Apple Podcasts or whichever platform you prefer. It really helps others discover us. Also, feel free to share this episode with your community or gaming groups. And now back to today's topic. I'm delighted to welcome Stefan Hultgen, co editor of the new volume Si fioren sichtzig or C64 past, present and Future of a Home Computer, published as part of the Computer Archaeology series. Bringing together 19 contributions from scholars across multiple disciplines, the book explores the enduring significance of the Komodore Furenzeichtzig or Commodore 64, from its role in the digitalization of society and computer literacy to its continuing impact on digital art culture and emerging technological fields. Welcome to the show, Stefan.

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Yeah, hello. Welcome everybody. Nice to be here.

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To begin, could you briefly reintroduce yourself? Yes, Stefan has been on the show before. Dear listeners, please check out our other Conversation in the Dark archives. Stefan, please tell us what motivated this volume? What made the Commodore 64 worthy of a fresh scholarly examination more than four decades and after its original release?

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Yeah, okay, thank you. Yeah, it's been a while I've been here, so something changed and it's probably worthy to introduce myself again. I'm a scholar at the University of Bond. I am running a DFG funded project on the programming cultures of the 1970s to 1990s with the basic programming language. And the idea of this project is to examine specific programming styles to learn about the cultures behind the codes. So what I'm doing, I'm not reading texts about programmers and historiographies about it, but I'm reading computer codes and try to learn from that. Codes about Those scenes and those cultures and specific programming styles and other things like that. And while I did this, of course the C64 gained a lot of impact on my work since it's the most sold home computer platform of the 1980s and 1990s. And of course there are plenty basic programs for the Commodore 64 written by hobbyists in the 1980s and 1990s, and some of them got into my project. So when I read about that and I collected huge amounts of paperware to scan and found those basic programming listings, basic program listings within the magazines and books and handwritten stuff, the idea came to look what made these platforms so important back in the day. And as a part of the retro computing community, as I am, I know the platform is important today as well. So the first two parts of the book, the past and the present of the Commodore 64, were quite obvious to think about. And then I thought, okay, what about the future? And I was astounded to find people who are working on, let's say, futuristic projects with the Commodore 64, especially in the fields of computer science and physics. And then I, I think it was at the end of a party I spoke to one of my co editors, Jens Schroeder, who is the professor where I'm working for at the University of Bonn, and he himself had a C64 back in the day. And we came to the idea, okay, let's, let's think about doing a conference on the C64. And that got quite fast, quite real, and we thought about participants for the conference. And then in the summer of 2024 we had this conference at the University of Bonn in the media studies department and introduced some of the people who are also here in this book, and had a three day conference, even with a programming workshop on the third day. And, and of course the next idea was how do we save the outcome from this conference? We are doing a book and this is why the book is here. And then while working on the book, we thought, okay, there were too many people. We had to deny a talk on the conference since there was no time in the schedule anymore. And we wrote to them, if there will be a book, we come back to you and we offer you the opportunity to write a chapter of your ideas for the book. And so we got 19 of them together.

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Now, the C64 is often remembered very fondly, nostalgically, as a beloved home computer. But your volume clearly aims to move beyond nostalgia and nostalgia only. How do the contributors position the C64 as a historically significant Technological and cultural

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artifact, then, yeah, that specific viewpoint on computer history. Is the main idea of computer archaeology. To view, to take a look at the history not as a real past, but as a thing that happens even now. So if we are talking about history, we are getting history into our talk today and now history is present here. And it's the very same with the C64, even if it has built in 1982, if I switch it on today, it will do the things it does today. And of course, there is a kind of historiography and a kind of history with this platform. And of course, this is the main topic of the most people who are entangled with the C64 even today, to do things with it they did 40 years ago. And some of the chapters, we gave the book a specific order, the order you can see on the front page, Past, present and future. So there's a main collection of essays concerning the past, some of the present and some of the future. And the people from the past are. Are mostly the authors that wrote chapters for the past part are mostly interested in summing up the ideas that were actual or the ideas that had been very intriguing back in the day and what had become of them. Like writing a C compiler for the Commodore 64 in the 1980s, when nearly nobody knew about this programming language in the private field. And why did they do this? And of course, it was not very popular, this C compiler. But the guy who did this, he's also a professor for computer science now, remembered this and tried to recapitulate the ideas from back then and what it. What it did for himself and what it did for the Commodore 64 scene back in the day and even today. Of course, there are also people who write about preservation of the past, of the computer past, like how can we. Or what can we do to enable people in the future or today to learn from computer games, from computer programs for the Commodore 64, how do we preserve them, to work with them even today? There's someone who's professional in writing computer emulators, and he did a chapter about emulating the main processor of the Commodore 64, even in this also in the past part of the book showing how did they manage to emulate it in the 1990s, in the early 2000s, until now? And what did they learn about emulating microprocessors and making the Commodore 64 emulation better and better Right now, this actually

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builds a perfect bridge to my next talking point, because now one of the aspects of the book is, is also Its emphasis on the past, present and future, as you just have mentioned. But could you give our listeners a sense of how the volume balances historical analysis with contemporary practices such as retro computing, preservation and ongoing community engagement?

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Yeah, yeah, of course. I myself contributed a chapter to the Present to the Present part of the book where I speak about or where I write about using the Commodore 64 in universities programming courses for Media Studies students Of course the Commodore 64 is not a platform to be programmed in computer science. Nobody is interested in this kind of technology today. So what might be interesting for media studies students to use this platform and it is first the huge amount of the huge pile of documentary, of books, of papers, of programs you can use to examine, to learn about the past, even about the past of how did they program computer games, how did they program C compilers, things like that. And the other side is the simplicity of this platform. You can learn about every aspect of the C64 without studying electronics or computer science. You can open the machine, can look at the parts of the machine, you can learn what the specific parts mean by measuring it or by programming them. And this is one thing. The simplicity is one thing. The students began to laugh very much when I first introduced that I will give a programming course. Then everyone was shocked since they studied media science to become a news host and not a programmer. But when they saw that you can manage to build your own game within one semester without any previous knowledge of programming, then the joy of doing things starts very very soon. And in my chapter I summed up what ideas from historic programming lessons I learned and I transported into the present for these courses to build a kind of programming didactics for non programmers. And this is not a fictional topic, but a sum up of my of the last 10 years experience I gained from giving programming courses with the Commodore 64. So this might be a perfect bridge from the past to the present part of the book.

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As you have mentioned before, this collection emerged partly from a 2024 conference at the University of Bonn and was expanded then with contributions on topics, different topics. I was wondering at first glance these topics, they seem far removed somehow from an 8 bit home computer. What connection do the authors draw between the C64 and these contemporary fields?

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Yeah, this is very interesting how we learned about those authors. Mostly we found them on YouTube as kind of computer science influences who used the C64 to show off some programming tricks and programming skills and programming topics that are not very common with home computers from the 1980s, like using the Commodore 64 to program algorithms for quantum computing or using the C64 to do AI stuff with it. And some of the people did this, some of the authors did this as a kind of, let's say, as a kind of nostalgic feeling, since they had the Commodore 64 back in the day when they were children. And they asked themselves, now quantum physicists, or now people from the computer science who program artificial intelligence, how can I use my beloved C64 to do things with that? And even they use the Commodore 64. The author from the Quantum computing. Quantum computing chapter uses the364 for teaching purposes to show how easy it is to program algorithms from the quantum computing realm with small basic programs on the C64 to take away the angst from their students to learn about such complicated things. So if the Commodore 64 can do it, you will do it too. You can think it. Yeah.

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Now, before we continue, here's a little message for you. Dear listeners, if you are involved in running an academic program in game design, game development, game art, media studies, digital culture or related fields, this podcast might be just the right place to share your very vision. Our listeners include engaged scholars, educators, students and professionals from around the world. Consider placing a short promotional segment to highlight your program and connect with an international audience passionate about games, media and research. And now back to the show. Stefan, the book repeatedly suggests that the C64 was more than a machine. It was a site of learning, experimentation and creativity. As we have heard. Now, looking across the contributions, what do you think was the platform's most lasting contribution to digital culture?

B

Yeah, games, of course, games. I don't think that there was any platform with such an amount of games than the C64 back in the day. Even the Atari platforms, the 8bit computers and the 8bit video game consoles had not as much games as the C64 had when it comes to professional games. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, since below that there are the non professional games that had been programmed by people and published as basic listings or assembler listings or machine language listings in magazines and somewhere else.

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So

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the first people who became famous by programming video games did this for the C64 and likewise computers and you can say in the beginning of the 1980s, besides Atari or Coleco or other big companies, the video game era started to be or became professional and the first studios established and the first people established who are even today programmers or game designers. So I think games, the364 and games is a thing that has to be thought at the same time, since all the aesthetics from these games, the graphics, the pixelated graphics are the chiptune sounds and the game mechanics and so on, became iconic. So if someone thinks of retro games from the 1980s, he would have immediately pop up a screenshot, a mental Screenshot from some 64 game. 64 game.

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Actually, my first game on the C64 was the. The TV show adaption adaptation of Airwolf.

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Yeah, it's a shooter. It's a helicopter shooter, I think. Yeah, yeah.

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Computer archaeology often asks not only what technologies did, but also how they were experienced by their very users. Were there any particularly surprising findings, perspectives or case studies in the volume that challenged your own understanding of the C64?

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Yes, especially when it comes to the question why such an academic like me or the other authors of this book use the C64 as a topic for research or as an object to study. And as we all know, we are always entangled, personally, psychologically, mentally, emotionally entangled with the things we study and with the things we do research on. But I think with home computers and with technical devices from the past, take the record player or take the telephone or take the cinematographic apparatuses, we have a special. We are especially entangled with these machines. And Melanie Fritsch did a chapter for the book who asked about this fenish attitude, the fetish attitude we all have with our study objects and why the fetish attitudes people have with computers, especially with computers and computer games, is so

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often

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distrust as a kind of nerdy, like a kind of craziness. Yeah. And this is one thing I was faced with earlier, the question why do you study old computers? And I also, I always said it is not for nostalgic purposes, but for scientific purposes. But this is. Melanie shows this is just a kind of, how do I say this explains only half of the thing. Half of the thing, since studying an object makes you part of this object, somehow makes you part of this object, and you don't also study the object, but you also study yourself and you give your personal viewpoint on these things. And this is one, one of the chapters I learned a lot about and I'm very happy that Melanie wrote it down for the book. And of course there are other things, like getting insights in the retro computing and especially in the demo scene back in the day from Jasper Jules, chapter, who was part of the demo scene back in the day and who offered private photos from those days from demo parties and some of the objects he discovered discussed in this chapter. So the professionals who wrote about Their own experiences with the C64 always mentioned some things I didn't even know about. Like the chapter on Chiptunes where a Chiptune composer talks about his techniques to simulate electric guitars with the SID sound chip from the C64.

C

Yeah. So shout out to Melanie Fritsch. I have definitely. I have to get her on the show someday. Yeah. So, Stefan, finally, if we look ahead, what can today's researchers, the young guns out there, the developers and artists, educators, still learn from a platform that first appeared in 1982? Why does the Commodore continue to matter in 2026 and beyond?

B

Yeah, it's a perfect link in many ways. A link from the past to the present. Since all these machines are here, not all, but Most of the 37 million machines are somewhere. And you can get one from ebay if you like, for 100 bucks working C64 so you can make a connection to the past, even as a researcher. And it's a perfect way even to bridge the gap between the STEM departments and the humanities departments, since it offers the opportunity for humanities students and humanities scholars to learn about technology and to understand technology, and since the technology just changed quantifically but not qualitifiky quality in quality, you can understand your smartphone if you understand your C64. And understanding the C64 is not a hard thing to do. So there's another bridge you can do. You can build bridges. I'm giving a course on composing Chiptunes music next semester. You can do bridges about the musical sphere and the composing sphere, and even the history of synthesizers using this easy to program sound chip in the C64. So it's a thing of bridges. It's a thing of the best of both worlds. And it doesn't matter which kind of worlds you are speaking of.

C

Right? Stefan, thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing insights from C64 past, present and future of a home computer. And maybe Stefan, you want to add, where can you I get my hands on this lovely book?

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Yeah, of course you can buy it anywhere. You can buy books at online platforms. I would suggest to buy it at the publisher itself. It's the Projekt Verlag in Bochum. Since we are able to print our books at the Projekt Verlag without any money to give them, so they believe it's a good thing for them and us. And if you buy it there, they have the most of it. If you buy the book at the publisher Project Falak, look at our computerarchaeology.de website and you can download a chapter for free to get a look into the book and see what other books we have in the computer archaeology series.

C

Perfect. Stefan, thank you very much.

B

You're welcome.

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Dear listeners, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you are an author or editor in game studies, media studies or related fields and would like to discuss your latest work, please feel free to reach out@rudolph.industoulmail.com you can also find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky under amestudies or even TikTok under Amestudies for all that matters. And please leave. X. So take care and goodbye.

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Sam.