The Future We Were Promised

I opened my Christmas present alone this year.

My sister recently moved to the East Coast. My grandmother is in Spokane. I visited her for her birthday on December 5th, and I know it meant the world to her. And because so much of December was heads-down work on infrastructure projects, it was a Christmas on my own.

The present was a Commodore 64 Ultimate, the first real Commodore computer in over 30 years. Not an emulator. Not a PC running software that pretends. An FPGA recreation of the original hardware, wrapped in a clear case with blue LEDs, made by people who genuinely care about what the Commodore represented.

I’d pre-ordered it months ago, along with a Sinclair ZX Spectrum Next that’s still working through manufacturing. I couldn’t entirely explain why at the time. It was one of those gut feelings I’ve learned to trust. You sit with it, make sure it stays, and if it does, you go for it.

I never had a Commodore 64 growing up. My friend did, and we’d hang out in his bedroom playing it. A cool but cramped little room in a house with a musty smell and 70s decor. This was in Spokane, where I’d visit my grandparents, sometimes because of the challenges going on between my parents. He was obsessed with Ultima. I liked it too, but I mostly remember the feeling of being there, sharing something simple and good when other things weren’t.

What I had was a Timex Sinclair, the small black box with the cramped membrane keyboard. I must have been six or seven. I spent countless hours in my grandmother’s basement, in her small sewing room, plugged into an old TV. Working with cassette tapes, trying to program in BASIC, making small simple things. I don’t consider myself a great programmer (at least not compared to some of the greats I worked alongside at G-Log), though I am a fuckin’ wiz at architecture and design *wink*. But I loved the freedom it represented.

That sewing room is the same place my grandpa and I would set up an electric train set and let it run. I remember the trains, but more than anything I remember the smell. That oily electric smell. It comes back to me clearly, even now.

I set up the C64 on my dining room table first, just to get everything running. It was fun. Cool. But something was missing. I went downstairs and found some Bose speakers so I could hear the SID music properly. And once that happened, I realized: this needs a permanent home.

I had a desk I was preparing to donate. Real thick wood, surprisingly heavy. Way more than you’d expect. I brought it in from the garage and looked at where it would go. I thought one spot, then considered the window, then realized no, it’s perfect there.

The machine came with SID Christmas songs. I put them on and let them play in the background while I continued to work. Christmas Day, building sovereign infrastructure, the same work I’d been doing all month.

And I wept.

When I’d first opened the box, there was a card inside.

That’s what broke me.

Because I remember when technology felt like this. When it wanted you to play and expand and create and program and do whatever you wanted with it. When there was knowledge sharing and collaboration. When money was involved but it wasn’t all about the money.

I felt the same thing last year when I used Kagi for the first time and it took me back to the early 2000s. I felt free. I felt like we were in this together. I didn’t feel like a product or something being manipulated. Somehow I felt more-than rather than less-than. Flourishing rather than diminishing.

The new Commodore is made by a man named Christian Simpson, Peri Fractic on YouTube, who spent years in the retro community before purchasing the entire brand last year. His mission statement says he wants to “keep the happiness of childhood nostalgia alive.” But it’s more than nostalgia. It’s a philosophy. Technology that enables rather than extracts. That invites you in rather than locks you down.

I bought this machine partly because I knew I’d enjoy it. But just as much because I wanted to vote with my dollars. To give my energy and currency to support a mission I believe in, even when currency is low. Even when I don’t know if I’ll have to sell everything next year and downsize.

So there I was. Christmas Day. Alone in my house. SID Christmas music playing from a machine that embodies everything I think technology should be. While I worked on building infrastructure for a future I believe in.

The future we were promised.

It’s still possible. People are still building it. And sometimes, on Christmas morning, you can hear it playing in the background.