The Commodore 64 known as the C64 or the CBM 64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International. It has been listed in the Guinness World Records as the highest-selling single computer model of all time, with independent estimates placing the number sold between 10 and 17 million units. Volume production started in early 1982, marketing in August for US$595. Preceded by the Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore PET, the C64 took its name from its 64 kilobytes of RAM. With support for multicolor sprites and a custom chip for waveform generation, the C64 could create superior visuals and audio compared to systems without such custom hardware; the C64 dominated the low-end computer market for most of the 1980s. For a substantial period, the C64 had between 30% and 40% share of the US market and two million units sold per year, outselling IBM PC compatibles, Apple computers, the Atari 8-bit family of computers. Sam Tramiel, a Atari president and the son of Commodore's founder, said in a 1989 interview, "When I was at Commodore we were building 400,000 C64s a month for a couple of years."
In the UK market, the C64 faced competition from the BBC Micro and the ZX Spectrum, but the C64 was still one of the two most popular computers in the UK. Part of the Commodore 64's success was its sale in regular retail stores instead of only electronics or computer hobbyist specialty stores. Commodore produced many of its parts in-house to control costs, including custom integrated circuit chips from MOS Technology, it has been compared to the Ford Model T automobile for its role in bringing a new technology to middle-class households via creative and affordable mass-production. 10,000 commercial software titles have been made for the Commodore 64 including development tools, office productivity applications, video games. C64 emulators allow anyone with a modern computer, or a compatible video game console, to run these programs today; the C64 is credited with popularizing the computer demoscene and is still used today by some computer hobbyists. In 2011, 17 years after it was taken off the market, research showed that brand recognition for the model was still at 87%.
In January 1981, MOS Technology, Inc. Commodore's integrated circuit design subsidiary, initiated a project to design the graphic and audio chips for a next generation video game console. Design work for the chips, named MOS Technology VIC-II and MOS Technology SID, was completed in November 1981. Commodore began a game console project that would use the new chips—called the Ultimax or the Commodore MAX Machine, engineered by Yash Terakura from Commodore Japan; this project was cancelled after just a few machines were manufactured for the Japanese market. At the same time, Robert "Bob" Russell and Robert "Bob" Yannes were critical of the current product line-up at Commodore, a continuation of the Commodore PET line aimed at business users. With the support of Al Charpentier and Charles Winterble, they proposed to Commodore CEO Jack Tramiel a true low-cost sequel to the VIC-20. Tramiel dictated. Although 64-Kbit dynamic random-access memory chips cost over US$100 at the time, he knew that 64K DRAM prices were falling and would drop to an acceptable level before full production was reached.
The team was able to design the computer because, unlike most other home-computer companies, Commodore had its own semiconductor fab to produce test chips. The chips were complete by November, by which time Charpentier and Tramiel had decided to proceed with the new computer; the product was code named the VIC-40 as the successor to the popular VIC-20. The team that constructed it consisted of Yash Terakura, Shiraz Shivji, Bob Russell, Bob Yannes, David A. Ziembicki; the design and some sample software were finished in time for the show, after the team had worked tirelessly over both Thanksgiving and Christmas weekends. The machine used the same case, same-sized motherboard, same Commodore BASIC 2.0 in ROM as the VIC-20. BASIC served as the user interface shell and was available on startup at the READY prompt; when the product was to be presented, the VIC-40 product was renamed C64. The C64 made an impressive debut at the January 1982 Consumer Electronics Show, as recalled by Production Engineer David A. Ziembicki: "All we saw at our booth were Atari people with their mouths dropping open, saying,'How can you do that for $595?'"
The answer was vertical integration. Commodore had a reputation for announcing products that never appeared, so sought to ship the C64. Production began in spring 1982 and volume shipments began in August; the C64 faced a wide range of competing home computers, but with a lower price and more flexible hardware, it outsold many of its competitors. In the United States the greatest competitors were the Atari 8-bit 400, the Atari 800, the Apple II; the Atari 400 and 800 had been designed to accommodate stringent FCC emissions requirements and so were expensive
The Château de Meung-sur-Loire is a former castle and episcopal palace in the commune of Meung-sur-Loire in the Loiret département of France. The château, located next to the collegial church, was the country residence of the Bishops of Orléans, it was destroyed several times. The oldest still existing parts were built by Manassès de Seignelay. Still standing are the main rectangular plan building, flanked by three towers, a fourth having been destroyed, it was occupied by the English during the Hundred Years' War. The rear façade was rebuilt in the Classical style by Fleuriau d'Armenonville. Beneath the castle are dungeons, a chapel and various medieval torture instruments, including one used for water torture, it has been listed since 1988 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture. It is open to the public; the first castle was built in the middle of the 12th century. It consisted of a square tower built against the south face of the church bell tower, itself abutting in the south two round towers.
In the 13th century, the bishops of Orléans abandoned the castle and it was used as a prison. Among those incarcerated there was François Villon. From 1209, construction began of a more important castle, rectangular in plan, with a tower in each corner; the guard room, the lower hall with ogive vaults and the cellars are the last elements which constituted the 13th-century castle, the episcopal palace at that time. During the Hundred Years' War, the building was transformed into a fortress. At the end of the 15th century and start of the 16th century, building to the north incorporated a tower with a drawbridge; the castle was abandoned from the Wars of Religion until the start of the 18th century, when Bishop Fleuriau d'Armenonville undertook the transformation of the structure into a comfortable residence. The central part of the main building was replaced by a cour d'honneur; the façades' openings were redesigned in the Classical style. The tower openings were remade and lost their machicolation.
In the middle of the 18th century, a wing was added to the south east with a staircase serving the upper floors of the wing. In 1784, the chapel was built with sculpture by Delaistre; the two pavilions in the grounds are contemporary with this chapel. In 2016, the château hosted a fashion show shortly after Paris Fashion Week, celebrating historical fashion and displaying the evolution of fashion from antiquity to the First World War. List of castles in France Ministry of Culture listing Ministry of Culture photos History and Pictures
Otto Frederick Warmbier was an American college student, imprisoned in North Korea in 2016 on a charge of subversion. In June 2017, he died soon afterward. Warmbier entered North Korea as part of a guided tour group on December 29, 2015. On January 2, 2016, he was arrested at Pyongyang International Airport while awaiting departure from the country, he was accused of attempting to steal a propaganda poster from his hotel, for which he was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment with hard labor. Shortly after his sentencing in March 2016, Warmbier suffered a severe neurological injury from an unconfirmed cause and fell into a coma, which lasted over a year. North Korean authorities did not disclose his medical condition until June 2017, when they announced he had fallen into a coma as a result of botulism and a sleeping pill, he was freed that month, still in a comatose state after 17 months in captivity. He was repatriated to the United States and arrived in Cincinnati, Ohio on June 13, 2017, he was taken to University of Cincinnati Medical Center for immediate treatment.
Warmbier never regained consciousness and died on June 19, 2017, six days after his return to the United States when his parents had requested his feeding tube to be removed. A coroner's report stated. Non-invasive internal scans did not find any signs of fractures to his skull. In 2018, a U. S. federal court found the North Korean government liable for Warmbier's torture and death, in a default judgment in favor of Warmbier's parents after North Korea did not contest the case. In 2019, U. S. President Donald Trump caused controversy after saying that he believed the word of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that Kim was not responsible for Warmbier's death. In response, Warmbier's parents criticized Trump for making excuses for Kim and "his evil regime". Otto Warmbier was born on December 12, 1994, the eldest of three children of Cynthia and Fred Warmbier, he was raised in Ohio. He attended Wyoming High School, where he was considered popular and studious, graduated in 2013 as salutatorian, he went on to enroll at the University of Virginia, where he was pursuing a double major degree in commerce and economics, did a foreign exchange at the London School of Economics.
His minor was in global sustainability. He was a member of the Theta Chi fraternity. Warmbier's mother is Jewish, Otto was active in Hillel on his college campus, he had an interest in other cultures, had visited Israel, Europe and Ecuador. Warmbier was scheduled to undertake a study-abroad program in Hong Kong in early 2016, decided to visit North Korea en route over the New Year period, he booked a tour of North Korea with Young Pioneer Tours, a China-based budget tour operator whose slogan is "destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from". Warmbier's father Fred said that Young Pioneer advertised the trip as safe for U. S. citizens, that Otto was "curious about their culture... he wanted to meet the people of North Korea."On December 29, 2015, Warmbier flew via Beijing to North Korea with his tour group for a five-day New Year's tour of the country. Ten other U. S. citizens were in the tour group. The tour group celebrated New Year's Eve by carousing in Pyongyang's Kim Il-sung Square before returning to their accommodations at the Yanggakdo International Hotel, where they continued drinking alcohol.
Early in the morning of New Year's Day, Warmbier tried to steal a propaganda poster from a staff-only area of the hotel. The poster stated, "Let's arm ourselves with Kim Jong-il's patriotism!" Damaging or stealing such items with the name or image of a North Korean leader is considered a serious crime by the North Korean government. On January 2, 2016, Warmbier was arrested at Pyongyang International Airport while awaiting departure from North Korea. Danny Gratton, a British member of Warmbier's tour group, witnessed the arrest, he said: No words were spoken. Two guards just came over and tapped Otto on the shoulder and led him away. I just said kind of quite nervously,'Well, that's the last we'll see of you.' There's a great irony in those words. That was it; that was the last physical time. Otto didn't resist, he didn't look scared. He sort of half-smiled; when the group's plane was about to leave the terminal, an official came aboard and announced, "Otto is sick and has been taken to the hospital."
Some media reports indicated that Warmbier spoke by phone to a Young Pioneer tour guide following his arrest, but this was denied by a Young Pioneer spokesman who told BBC News that "none of its employees had direct contact with Otto after he was escorted away." The others in his tour group left the country without incident. North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency announced that Warmbier had been detained for "a hostile act against the state," without specifying further details. North Korea refused to elaborate on the precise nature of his wrongdoing for six weeks, although a Young Pioneer spokeswoman advised Reuters there had been an "incident" at the Yanggakdo Hotel. In a press conference on February 29, 2016, reading from a prepared statement, confessed that he had attempted to steal a propaganda poster from a restricted staff-only area of the second floor of the Yanggakdo Hotel to take back to the United States, it is not known whether the confession was forced, as Warmbier never regained consciousness after his return to the U.
S. However, various sources, including Gratton, said that he was under duress. Former prisoners of North Korea have recanted their confessions aft