Which Ruled: Commodore 64 or Atari 800?

The VAR Guy met a bunch of other bloggers this weekend at a small convention in Dallas. While there, he somehow got locked in a fun debate with another attendee. The topic … Which system ruled the home PC market in the early 1980s: The Atari 800 or the Commodore 64?

Frankly, The VAR Guy preferred the Atari 800. First shipped in 1979, the $1,000 system sported a 1.8MHz processor and supported up to 48k of memory. Our resident blogger learned to program in BASIC, and wrote thousands of lines of bad code on that system. It has only taken him 30 years to transition from bad coder to bad blogger. Go figure.

Another blogger at the Wordcamp Dallas convention, J. David Curlee of RealcookN.TV, mentioned his love for the Atari 400 and 800. Then he threw in his affection for Commodore 64.

Ah yes, Commodore. The Apple of its time: A loyal following. Great graphics. Fun software. But The VAR Guy had shallow pockets in the 1980s (in fact, he still does) and couldn’t afford more than one PC. So he was an all-Atari shop.

ReakcookN’s Curlee, it seems, was a multi-platform CIO far before his time, supporting Atari 800s and Commodore 64s in his house decades before our kids discovered Guitar Hero.

Before he signs off, The VAR Guy has a confession: His garage is filled with full-size Atari arcade games, and there are still a few Atari 800s up in his attic. Oh, and let’s not even explore his office closet, which contains well-preserved systems like the Intellivision, Colecovision, Atari 2600 and 5200, and Magnovox Odyssey 2.

But if you had to choose one system from the glorious 1980s, would it be Atari 800 or Commodore 64?