In 1982, nothing was more technological than the Commodore 64. With an 8-bit processor and 64 kilobytes of RAM, it was a computing powerhouse that brought computing to homes around the world. Users would load games from cassette tapes, a slow process compared to modern standards, but it was worth it. The Commodore 64 offered coloured graphics and synthesized sounds that represented the cutting-edge technology of the day. At the time, it seemed almost magical.
Fast-forward to today, and the Commodore 64 is a relic, an object that has earned its place in the computer and video game hall of fame, but whose capabilities more closely resemble a school calculator than they do top-grade entertainment.
Even the most basic mobile phone models can perform tasks that were impossible in the Commodore 64’s heyday. Let’s look at seven standard features of modern mobile phones that were not even comprehensible in the early 1980s.
1 – Taking Professional-Quality Photos and Videos
Grabbing your phone to snap a quick 24-megapixel photo while out and about is as natural as walking. But the Commodore 64 offered absolutely no photography capabilities. In the 1980s, taking a picture meant you needed a film camera, and nothing else would suffice. Even then, you had no idea if the shot was any good. You needed to finish the whole roll of film, send it off for development, not knowing how the photos came out until days or even weeks later.
Today, we can snap off a series of professional-grade pictures, pick and choose the ones we want to keep, discard the rest, and carry on our day in a matter of minutes. A single photo taken on a mobile phone would totally overwhelm a Commodore 64, consuming memory multiple times over.
Furthermore, a mobile phone lets you edit your photos and upload them for the whole world to see, functionality that would have seemed alien to C64 users back in the day.
2 – Navigating Anywhere with GPS Precision
In the 1980s, if you needed to find your way somewhere, you grabbed a map or relied on the kindness and honesty of strangers. You certainly never thought about asking your Commodore 64 to give you directions.
Modern smartphones, on the other hand, can pinpoint your location anywhere on Earth. That level of GPS wasn’t even operational for military purposes until a good decade after the C64 hit its prime.
Your smartphone can also direct you to specific locations, such as the nearest gas station, or send you via the shortest route that avoids the freeway. This level of specificity would be unimaginable to someone folding a map while waiting for the tape to load their latest C64 software.
3 – Streaming Movies and TV Shows Instantly
The idea of watching a movie or even a single episode of a TV show on a Commodore 64 would have been laughable. It took long enough to load a simple game from a cassette tape, and even that could be a noisy affair. In the 1980s, watching a movie meant a trip to the local rental store. The idea of watching movies via the Commodore 64 would have sounded like science fiction to tech enthusiasts back in the day.
Compare that to modern smartphones, which can stream movies or series from all the main streaming services. You can watch a movie while on the train, walking the dog, or even while being a passenger in a car. Not only that, but the picture quality on mobile phones far exceeds that of the best television sets on the market back in 1982.
4 – Managing Your Money with Mobile Banking
Back in the 1980s, every town had bank branches. Buildings where people would go whenever they had a query about their account or finances. Accounting records were paper based, with everything checked and approved in person, signed off by signatures and stamps. It was a time of patience that extended beyond waiting for a game or program to load and into all aspects of adult life. Telephone banking or checking your balance via a computer or phone that fits in your pocket would have seemed ridiculous.
Nowadays, most smartphones can make payments, manage accounts, and even apply for loans or other financial aid. Real-time notifications keep you informed on what is happening with your account, while biometric features like fingerprints provide security and verify your identity.
5 – Accessing the Entire Internet Wirelessly
The internet was unheard of in most homes during the early 1980s. A few early tech adopters might have used primitive dial-up connections to access Bulletin Board Systems; however, it was not the norm, and it was far from the convenient resource we know today. The concept of using a system like the Commodore 64 to access a global information powerhouse was a preposterous notion.
Yet today’s mobile phones give us instant access to billions of web pages and virtually any information we could need. We can read scientific papers or theses, watch educational videos, take degree-level classes, and connect with others across the globe in real time. We can even access specialist sites and services such as Canadian casinos with a $10 minimum deposit from smartphones, which demonstrates how powerful and versatile modern smartphones have become.
6 – Video Calling Across the Globe
Long-distance phone calls were an expensive event back in the 1980s, often charged by the minute, with bad reception and limited to voice-only connections. While video call technology did exist, having first been used in the 1960s, the idea of using a house phone connected to a computer like the C64 was absurd.
Now, in 2025, mobile phones allow us to talk with people anywhere in the world, for free with high-definition video and crystal-clear audio. You can even have calls with multiple people in different countries while sharing your screen and sending files. The processing power needed to handle this technology would have taken an entire room filled with computers, all working simultaneously, in the C64 era.
7 – Voice Commands and AI Assistance
The Commodore 64 was advanced for its time, but it had no microphone access, and all commands were input with a keyboard. Voice recognition technology only existed in advanced research labs and had no practical use in the home.
Modern mobile phones have built-in speech recognition programs and will respond to conversational commands. AI assistants can answer questions, set reminders and calendar entries, offer language translation and even communicate with other smart-technology appliances in the home. The ability to understand speech and provide intelligent responses far surpasses any computational power the creators of the Commodore 64 could have fathomed.
The Amazing Journey Forward
The jump from the Commodore 64 to the smartphone represents one of the most dramatic technological leaps in human history. In just forty years, impossible features have not only become possible, but are now expected.
Yet we are still only in the infancy of the technical revolution, and the mind boggles at what the next forty years of development will bring – and what impossibilities we will take for granted then.
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