Can the 64 and 128 survive? (1988) [pdf]
Perhaps the most interesting part is the last question:<p>Gazette: Despite this, the machines sometimes get rapped as being old-fashioned, obsolete.<p>McIntyre: Today, if we positioned the 64 in the marketplace – forget RAM, bytes, bits – if we went out and functionally described the Commodore 64, it would be heralded as a fantastic advancement in personal micro-computing.<p>The problem is that if you start to talk to people who have been in the business since its inception, they start to get jaded: &quot;it&#x27;s only eight-bit.&quot;<p>Who cares? You are buying this machine for a specific reason. If it satisfies that need, it is never obsolete. Only your requirements become obsolete. If you no longer require it, then you obviously no longer need hardware to satisfy the need. The need ceases to exist – not the hardware. If the need continues to exist until the year 2000, then that machine is still satisfactory.<p>There is no such thing as hardware obsolescence. That is a phrase that was coined by the naysayers in this industry. That&#x27;s baloney.<p>---<p>In a way, he&#x27;s not entirely wrong, but I think it&#x27;s also quite myopic. Sure, a C64 can be &quot;satisfactory&quot; even today for many tasks in the sense &quot;it&#x27;ll work&quot;, but that&#x27;s not the same as &quot;good&quot;. The C64 is 320×200; even just a doubling of that to 640×400 (never mind fancy things like 800×600 or 1024×768) can be a huge productivity boost in many scenarios simply because you can display more text, never mind all the &quot;RAM, bytes, bits&quot; that <i>do</i> actually matter since you can do more faster.