During the Commodore 64's lifetime, sales totaled 17 million units, making it the best-selling single personal computer model of all time. For a substantial period of time (1983–1986), the Commodore 64 dominated the market with between 30% and 40% share and 2 million units sold per year, outselling the IBM PC clones, Apple computers, and Atari computers.
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982. Volume production started sometime in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$ 595. Preceded by the Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore MAX Machine, the C64 features 64 kilobytes (65 536 bytes) of memory with sound and graphics performance that were superior to IBM-compatible computers of that time. It is commonly known as the C64 or C=64 (after the graphic logo on the case) and occasionally as the CBM 64 (for Commodore Business Machines), or VIC-64. It has also been affectionately nicknamed the "breadbox" and "bullnose" due to the shape and color of the first version of its casing.
