On Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:04:26 -0600, ron_tom
wrote:

[snip]

Could probably find the OS for my
hubby's Commodore 64 ) I think he said it has 3k of memory )

The 20K OS was burnt into ROM on the C-64. The 64 in the name referred to
the 64K of available RAM, though only 38K of it was available for BASIC
programming.

The previous machine, the Commodore VIC-20 (The worlds first color
computer for under $300) came with 5K RAM (3.5K available for BASIC
programs). There was an additional 1K*4 bit RAM for color. It was
possible to add 24K additional RAM using a plug-in cartridge (plus
another 3K and 8K, but the screen makes it non-contiguous)

Though you can find the OS and many C-64 emulators online
today

The Bally Arcade sold in 1977-78 with the drop in BASIC cartridge had 2K of
RAM and 2K of ROM. It preceded the C-64 by a couple years. You'd be
surprised what you can author in only 2K of RAM if you are creative enough.

I wrote a BASIC expansion (called BASIC PLUS) for the C-64, which was
designed to fit into the lo cartridge address space ($8000-$9FFF). I
really got a lot into that 8K. I added a version for the C-128 too.

BTW, these Commodore machines had very slow disk drives. A 1200BPS
modem was faster.

[snip]
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us

"How could you ask me to believe in God when there's
absolutely no evidence that I can see?" -- Jodie Foster