May 24, 2026
BASIC Instincts, Budget Betrayal
Ask HN: Why didn't the C64 come with Simons' BASIC in the box from 1983 onward?
Fans say the real reason was simple: keep it cheap, even if power users screamed
TLDR: Commodore likely skipped the upgraded built-in coding language because most buyers wanted a cheaper machine, not extra features, during a fierce price battle. In the comments, people are split between calling it smart business and blaming old-school penny-pinching, with plenty of retro snark along the way.
The retro-computing crowd just turned a dusty old 1980s question into a full-blown comment-section cage match: why didn’t the Commodore 64, one of the most famous home computers ever, ship with a better built-in coding tool after 1983? The calm, practical answer is that Commodore thought most buyers cared more about a lower price tag than a fancier version of BASIC, the beginner-friendly programming language many kids first used to make simple games and experiments. And with the company already slugging it out in a brutal price war, freebies were apparently off the table.
But the community was absolutely not content to leave it there. One camp instantly went for the classic villain theory: this was all because Commodore boss Jack Tramiel was "too cheap," a take that feels tailor-made for retro tech drama. Another commenter pushed back with the boardroom reality check: no, this was about survival, margins, and not adding extra costs during a corporate knife fight.
Then came the nerd-on-nerd sparring. One commenter flat-out scoffed at the idea that Texas Instruments was a real threat at all, basically asking, "Serious competitor? To what?" Others argued that even if a better language had been included, many users wouldn’t have cared, because serious tinkerers were already using other tools for speed and games anyway. So the vibe is deliciously split: was this smart business, cheapness, or just a reminder that mass-market gadgets live and die by price? In true internet fashion, everyone has a theory, and nobody is conceding.
Key Points
- •The article says Commodore believed only a small fraction of customers would highly value a better BASIC interpreter.
- •Most customers were seen as caring more about the C64's price than about an improved BASIC environment.
- •Commodore was involved in a cutthroat price war with Texas Instruments.
- •The article states that this price war nearly sank Commodore.
- •Because of that financial pressure, the article says Commodore could not afford to include additional software for free.