The Commodore 64 was originally released in 1982 by CBM and features a MOS Technology 6510 processor which has an operating frequency of 1023 MHz. This “PC” or console (depending on how you look at it) comes equipped with only 64KB of RAM and 20KB of ROM, and at the time of its launch it was one of the most powerful computers on the market. However, surely no one expected that almost 40 years later they would be used to mine cryptocurrencies (more than anything because they didn’t even exist), but that’s what happened. is now in the middle of 2021.
How is it possible to mine Bitcoins with a Commodore 64?
This is all because a Youtuber (8-Bit Show And Tell) video game programmer and retro computer collector had fun modifying his Commodore 64 to mine Bitcoins, just to see if it could. … and the result is that yes you can, although obviously the performance result is not, say, very good.
In fact, this is not the first attempt to adapt old PCs or consoles to mine cryptocurrencies; Last month we got to see how they used a Nintendo GameBoy to mine Bitcoin, and in fact the creator of this video we posted above claims it was his inspiration to try and do the same. with a Commodore 64, which is still the oldest hardware.
The mining performance of the Commodore 64 is around 0.3 hrs / s, but as the author says, the code is written in C programming language, not pure machine language, which could potentially improve performance. 10 times more. The Commodore 64 can also be upgraded with an additional expansion card called SuperCPU which boosts performance even more (around 20x more), which the modder himself verified.
Unfortunately, even with this speed boost, it’s not as efficient as any modern PC (and let’s not talk about ASIC miners) which can hit up to 18 Terahash / s, but of course this news is always a very interesting curiosity.
Mine Bitcoins Anywhere
There is no doubt that in the computer industry, programmers seem to be an endless source of curious news. Not that long ago, it seems like programmers’ biggest desire was to be able to run DOOM or Quake on all kinds of devices, like an Apple Watch or even the built-in screen in a smart fridge, but now it seems that desire has changed to make any kind of device capable of mining Bitcoins.
So, as we already commented a few weeks ago, they showed how it was possible to use an old Nintendo Gameboy to mine Bitcoins and now the news has jumped because they realized it in a Commodore 64, a team that is already 39 years old. old. It is possible that in the coming weeks they will surprise us again by having your smart fridge or a car to mine Bitcoins or something similar; who knows, of course, with the number of modern devices that incorporate microchips, the possibilities are almost endless.
