Commodore 64
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50 free Commodore 64 trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Commodore 64 arrived in 1982 and became a fixture of living rooms and bedrooms for more than a decade. For millions of people it was the first computer they ever owned, the first they wrote a program on, and the reason they still remember the long wait for a favorite title to load. This quiz covers the whole story: the hardware inside the case and the engineers who designed it, the company that sold it and the rivals it fought, the software and composers that made its name, and the spin-offs and would-be successors, including the Commodore 65. It is written for anyone who owned one, anyone who loves retro computing, and anyone putting together a retro-themed quiz night. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will pick something up even from the ones you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The number in the Commodore 64's name refers to how many of what the home computer had?
Kilobytes of memory
Kilobytes of memory gave the machine its name: Commodore's boss demanded 64 KB of RAM, betting that pricey memory chips would be cheap by the time production began.
Q 02What kitchen-inspired nickname do fans give the original Commodore 64 because of its chunky, rounded case?
The Breadbin
The Breadbin name stuck after 1986, when Commodore launched the restyled 64C and owners needed a way to tell the old case from the new.
Q 03Quantum Link, a 1985 online service for Commodore 64 owners, later grew into which giant internet provider?
AOL
AOL began life as Quantum Link: the service was renamed America Online in 1989 and opened up to PC users.
Q 04Which company sold Commodore its BASIC language for a one-off fee, earning no royalty on any Commodore 64?
Microsoft
Microsoft took a flat payment in 1977 after Commodore's boss turned down Bill Gates's request for a fee on every machine sold.
Q 05Before computers, Commodore began in the 1950s by importing and selling which portable office machines?
Typewriters
Typewriters gave Commodore its start: the firm was incorporated in 1958 as Commodore Portable Typewriter to import machines made in Czechoslovakia.
Q 06Which 1987 Lucasfilm adventure, designed for the Commodore 64, introduced the SCUMM engine that carries its name?
Maniac Mansion
Maniac Mansion supplied SCUMM's last two letters: Ron Gilbert called his tool the Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion, and it drove many later LucasArts adventures.
Q 07Whose first game, Raid on Bungeling Bay for the Commodore 64, inspired him to create SimCity?
Will Wright
Will Wright enjoyed the game's island editor so much that he kept tinkering with it as a personal toy, and it eventually became SimCity.
Q 08Which 1987 Epyx sports hit for the Commodore 64 let players try surfing, BMX, half-pipe skating and footbag?
California Games
California Games was bundled with the Atari Lynx handheld when it launched in 1989, and its surfing event was written by a real surfer.
Q 09Which Commodore 64 platformer was pulled from shops after Nintendo objected to its strong resemblance to Super Mario?
Great Giana Sisters
Great Giana Sisters was commissioned as a legally distinct take on Nintendo's hit, and it kept spreading through piracy long after it left the shelves.
Q 10Which 1984 Epyx game stunned Commodore 64 owners with digitized speech from its villain, Professor Elvin Atombender?
Impossible Mission
Impossible Mission got its voice from Electronic Speech Systems, which sharply raised its prices once the game had proved that talking software could sell.
Q 11Which Commodore 64 sound chip, designed by Bob Yannes, worked like a single-chip music synthesizer?
SID
SID, short for Sound Interface Device, was planned with 32 voices, but time ran out and its one finished oscillator was simply copied three times across the chip.
Q 12The Commodore 64's processor is a modified version of which famous chip, also used in the Apple II?
The 6502
The 6502 was the cheapest microprocessor on the market when it launched, and versions of it also ran the BBC Micro and the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Q 13Which chip maker, bought by Commodore in 1976, let the company build the Commodore 64 far more cheaply than rivals?
MOS Technology
Q 21Which 1985 Commodore computer had a built-in mode that ran almost all Commodore 64 software?
The C128
The C128 gained that compatibility by stealth: two of its designers built it in without telling management until it was too late to change.
Q 22The Commodore SX-64, a 1983 luggable version of the Commodore 64, was the first portable computer with what?
A color screen
A color screen five inches across was built into the 23-pound SX-64, which sold poorly against rivals such as the Osborne 1 and Compaq Portable.
Q 23In 1990 Commodore repackaged the Commodore 64 without a keyboard as what kind of product, sold only in Europe?
A games console
MOS Technology made the key chips in-house, so a computer that launched at $595 cost Commodore an estimated $135 to build.
Q 14What name is given to the movable graphic objects that the Commodore 64's video chip could show eight to a line?
Sprites
Sprites filled about three-quarters of the video chip's surface, and games could glide them smoothly in front of or behind the background.
Q 15What trade name did Commodore give the dedicated tape drive that loaded many Commodore 64 games from cassette?
Datasette
Datasette blends the words data and cassette, and the drive gave Commodore owners cheap storage on ordinary compact cassettes.
Q 16What size of floppy disk did the Commodore 1541 drive, the usual partner of the Commodore 64, use?
5¼-inch
5¼-inch disks were single-sided in the 1541, and the drive's notorious slowness was blamed by its designers on a flawed interface chip in the earlier model it had to match.
Q 17Which 1984 Commodore 64 film tie-in did David Crane build in six weeks from an unfinished game called Car Wars?
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters swapped the prototype's guns and missiles for ghost-catching gear after Activision gave the team six weeks instead of its usual several months.
Q 18Which BASIC command, the partner of PEEK, did Commodore 64 users type to write a value straight into memory?
POKE
POKE was the only way to reach the graphics and sound chips from Commodore 64 BASIC, which had no dedicated commands for either.
Q 19Which Berkeley Softworks operating system gave the Commodore 64 a graphical desktop resembling the early Macintosh?
GEOS
GEOS came with a graphical word processor and a paint program, and Commodore bundled it with the restyled 64C for years.
Q 20Which Commodore founder, an Auschwitz survivor, quit in 1984 and bought rival Atari's consumer division?
Jack Tramiel
Jack Tramiel learned to repair office machines in the US Army and was driving a taxi when he bought his first repair shop in the Bronx.
A games console was the plan, but the C64 Games System was a commercial failure, launched into a market that Nintendo and Sega already dominated.
Q 24In which country did Commodore launch the MAX Machine, a cut-down cousin of the Commodore 64, in 1982?
Japan
Japan was the only confirmed market for the MAX, which had a membrane keyboard and just 2 KB of RAM, and it was dropped after poor sales.
Q 25The 2004 C64 Direct-to-TV packed a whole Commodore 64 and 30 games inside what plug-in device?
A joystick
A joystick held the entire computer on a single chip designed by Jeri Ellsworth, and shopping channel QVC sold 70,000 of them on the first day.
Q 26What became of the Commodore 65, the successor to the Commodore 64 that engineers developed in 1990 and 1991?
It was canceled
It was canceled in 1991 by Commodore's chairman, yet prototypes later reached the open market, with estimates running from 50 machines to 2,000.
Q 27Which earlier Commodore home computer, the first of any kind to sell a million units, did the Commodore 64 succeed?
The VIC-20
The VIC-20 was also the first computer sold in Kmart, and its successor was code-named VIC-40 before the name changed for launch.
Q 28Which calculator giant quit home computers in October 1983 after losing a bruising price war with Commodore?
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments had nearly ruined Commodore's calculator business in the 1970s by undercutting it, so the price war was widely seen as revenge.
Q 29The Commodore 64 is often credited with starting which subculture devoted to showy real-time audiovisual programs?
Demoscene
Demoscene groups grew out of the intro screens that software crackers added to pirated games to claim credit for removing the copy protection.
Q 30Which 1987 System 3 hit for the Commodore 64 mixed martial-arts combat with exploring an isometric world?
The Last Ninja
The Last Ninja was begun by a Hungarian team that missed its deadlines and went uncredited, so the engine was rewritten in London by John Twiddy.