--- title: How to install an app on your Commodore 64 | daily.dev description: Installing a game on a Commodore 64 in 1986 meant biking to a bookstore for a copy of COMPUTE!'s Gazette, costing three dollars (about nine dollars today).... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-install-an-app-on-your-commodore-64-6pxgz6gwl twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How to install an app on your Commodore 64 | daily.dev og:description: Installing a game on a Commodore 64 in 1986 meant biking to a bookstore for a copy of COMPUTE!'s Gazette, costing three dollars (about nine dollars today).... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-install-an-app-on-your-commodore-64-6pxgz6gwl og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/6pxGz6gWL.png og:image:alt: How to install an app on your Commodore 64 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How to install an app on your Commodore 64 **[Anil Dash](https://daily.dev/sources/anildash)** · 8 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Installing a game on a Commodore 64 in 1986 meant biking to a bookstore for a copy of COMPUTE!'s Gazette, costing three dollars (about nine dollars today). Back home, you'd type in roughly 30 lines of BASIC plus 350 lines of hex code by hand, first building helper tools like the MLX typing utility and an Automatic Proofreader. The estimated time to get the game Survivor running was about 8 hours. The post also shows how to change screen colors with commands like POKE 53281,1 for background and POKE 53280,4 for a purple border, changes that vanish once the computer is turned off. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How do you change the background and border color on a Commodore 64 using BASIC? Use POKE commands targeting specific memory registers. POKE 53281,1 sets the main screen background to white, while POKE 53280,4 sets the border to purple. There are 16 color codes available for each register. These changes are not saved permanently and are lost when the computer is turned off or a new program is run. _Developers exploring retro hardware tricks like this can find more deep dives on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64](https://daily.dev/posts/i-owe-my-life-to-the-commodore-64-22h0okzcb) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [AGI-64 Brings Sierra Adventures to the Commodore 64](https://daily.dev/posts/agi-64-brings-sierra-adventures-to-the-commodore-64-xh4qnw0gr) · Two Stop Bits · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Help\! My c64 caught on fire\!](https://daily.dev/posts/help-my-c64-caught-on-fire--brl1xlv4h) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Diving into Retro Computing with the Amstrad PCW 8256](https://daily.dev/posts/diving-into-retro-computing-with-the-amstrad-pcw-8256-yksnkio8j) · Scott Logic · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#retrocomputing](https://daily.dev/tags/retrocomputing), [#computing-history](https://daily.dev/tags/computing-history) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-install-an-app-on-your-commodore-64-6pxgz6gwl) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How to install an app on your Commodore 64","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-install-an-app-on-your-commodore-64-6pxgz6gwl","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-install-an-app-on-your-commodore-64-6pxgz6gwl"},"datePublished":"2026-10-20T17:39:48.502Z","dateModified":"2026-10-20T17:44:07.637Z","description":"Installing a game on a Commodore 64 in 1986 meant biking to a bookstore for a copy of COMPUTE!'s Gazette, costing three dollars (about nine dollars today)....","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/23d7354a8731cf458a7463042d194385?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/23d7354a8731cf458a7463042d194385?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Anil Dash","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Anil Dash","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--WXp3YspL--/f_auto,q_auto/v1774960040/logos/anildash?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/anildash"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-install-an-app-on-your-commodore-64-6pxgz6gwl","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"retrocomputing,computing-history","timeRequired":"PT8M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Anil Dash","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/anildash"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"How to install an app on your Commodore 64"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-install-an-app-on-your-commodore-64-6pxgz6gwl#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How do you change the background and border color on a Commodore 64 using BASIC?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Use POKE commands targeting specific memory registers. POKE 53281,1 sets the main screen background to white, while POKE 53280,4 sets the border to purple. There are 16 color codes available for each register. These changes are not saved permanently and are lost when the computer is turned off or a new program is run. Developers exploring retro hardware tricks like this can find more deep dives on daily.dev."}}]} ```