City of Armadale - History House > Records

HANDS ON BASIC PROGRAMMING BOOK

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Byte Books

1984 - 1992

Overview

Rectangle book with purple and orange cover with yellow and black text with a white pointed explosion design with purple text. Title in yellow [Hands - On / Basic]. Purple text [FOR THE / COMMODIRE / 64]. Bottom black text [HERBERT PECKHAM / with WADE EKKIS, JR. / and ED LODI].
Book held in place by a white plastic spiral spine. White plastic sticker bottom left of front with text in blue pen.
Purple back cover with yellow title text, white text across bottom with information about author. Publisher information, bottom right corner in white with with rectangle with black numbers, ISBN number, under it.

Historical information

In the 1980s Mr Ken Brown purchased a Commodore 64, programming books and software to teach himself how to use a computer and to do computer programming. At the time the City of Armadale and the City was introducing computers and Ken did not know how to use a computer. The computer, manuals and software were used at his home on Albany highway. The computer was also used by other family members to play games.
The Commodore 64 was the first mass produced home computer. Was produced between 1982 and 1992 and is considered the highest selling computer in history.
The Commodore C64 was a home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International. The C64 name came from its 64 kilobyte of RAM. Retailing at US$595 (equivalent to $1545 USD in 2018), it was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as being the highest-selling single computer model of all time. Selling 17 million units worldwide during its life time. Between 1983 and 1986, the C64 outsold its competitors companies IBM PC Compatibles, Apple Computers and Atari 8-bit. This was achieved through selling at regular retail stores rather than electronics only and computer specialist stores. Proximately 10,000 software titles were made for the C64 including office productivity applications, development tools and video games. It was discontinued in April 1994, however remains popular in society today with collectors and computer enthusiasts. In 2018, the C64 mini 'retro' console was announced, introducing a new generation to the wonders of the C64.

Details

Registration number

cwa-org-33-COA2008.6

Item type

Books

Themes

People
Social History

Material

Cardboard

Paper

Plastic

Width

16 mm

Height or length

172 mm

Depth

238 mm

Inscriptions and markings

on back publisher name [BYTE BOOKS MC / GRAW / HILL / ISBN 0-07-049154-2]

Keywords

Mc Graw-hill Book Company

ELLIS Wade Jr

PECKHAM Herbert

Commodore International Ltd

BROWN Ken Mr

ARMADALE

ALBANY Highway 3093 Brown family residence

Year

1984 - 1992

Statement of significance

This object is part of a collection that represents how technology has evolved over time and how those changes have impacted on daily life. These changes can relate to common professions or jobs that have either disapeared or appeared i.e. Blacksmiths or electricians. They can relate to how technology has made jobs or tasks easier or more convienient i.e. doing the washing by hand vs an electric washing machine.

Comparative significance criteria

Interpretive capacity

Object’s condition or completeness

Rare or representative

Well provenanced

City of Armadale - History House

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