Thirty years ago, Commodore gave the gift of hi-res graphics and sound synthesis.
It seems laughably primative compared to modern technology, but in 1982 the Commodore 64 was one of the most successful and powerful computers on the market. The push for big sales during the holiday season was no different three decades ago, and Commodore made a major effort to promote its product as a must-have gift. To do so, it created the demo shown in the video, which was provided to dealers in order to show off the graphical and computing power of the Commodore 64. The demo celebrates Christmas in pixelated style, concluding by touting features like “hi-res graphics” and “64K memory.”
The holiday spirit didn’t end there for the C64; several Christmas-themed games were released throughout the 1980s for the system, like animated story Jingle Disk in 1985, Twisted Christmas in 1987, and the creatively titled Merry Christmas in 1989. While these aren’t exactly remembered as classic titles of the era, they’re kind of charming in retrospect. As one commenter notes, “Every year we owned a Commodore 64 my family would gather around the TV and load up this: Jingle Disk. It’s a silly little story and animation with chiptups renditions of some holiday classics.”
Holiday-themed games aren’t limited to the Commodore 64, but I can’t recall any modern publishers making Christmas tech demos to appeal to customers. Until Christmas games become popular again, we’ll just have to settle for getting a visit from Jingle on Toy Day.
Source: Rhizome
