Posted by はまかわ on November 27, 2000 at 21:27:18:
2000 Commodore 8-bit Users Survey Results
This reporting is preliminary. We are currently awaiting results from non-Net-enabled Commodore users, which I will compare with this current group both separately and together. This will probably take several months, so I am posting these results now. Hernan Vergara and I are organising this. If you want to help get responses from non-Net-ready folks in your local users group, please mail me.
Well, folks, it's finally here: the Y2K Commodore 8-bit Users Survey. It's been 23 years since Commodore's original PET first graced the halls of technology, and there's still plenty of Commodore spirit out there! Almost three hundred people participated this year and submitted information, and we're expecting at least that many more from the by-mail campaign. Thanks for your participation and support! This survey represents a significant achievement, hopefully in accuracy :-), over the 1997 survey, which you can still refer to and bask in its amateurish glory.
First, let's get to the fine print, before we start on the survey results:
Adjustments
I thought it was kind of obvious that to be a current user, you had to at least own a Commodore 8-bit. Unfortunately, this was not so obvious as it might seem and three surveys were from people who did not currently own one. I appreciate your taking the time to fill out the survey (you know who you are) but I cannot use your information for the purposes of this analysis. Another survey was dropped for non-compliance (some information was conflicting and I could not get a response from the respondent because the E-mail address they had supplied was not valid). Some values were also manually tweaked based on information you specified in your comments that you added into the plain-text fields in the survey.
Statistics Notes
Those of you who don't know an arithmetic mean from a confidence interval can skip this section safely. :-)
Ranges, when reported, are 95% confidence intervals except where noted. n=275. Survey results were calculated with the proprietary ksurvey system and the raw stat digest, including mean, CI, mode and set percentage, is available upon request (standard error and standard deviation can also be derived from the raw digest).
And now, without further ado, the survey.
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The Big Picture
Here's what the survey says, in a nutshell.
The average Commodore 8-bit user of today is male, aged 28-31, lives in either North America or Europe, and got his first Commodore 13 to 14 years ago. He owns four to seven Commodore 8-bit computers of varying kinds, and anywhere up to six other computers besides. He owns between five and eight disk drives, and probably has a couple of Datasettes too, and about four to six joysticks. He primarily uses BASIC as his OS, and uses a PC or other kind of "more modern" computer to access the Internet. He probably also uses an emulator of some sort. His Commodore is not his primary computer, but when he's using it it's most likely for games or, less often, programming and actual work. :-)
Commodore users are also a very loquacious bunch.
Details
Let's get down to brass tacks.
The numbers were overwhelmingly from men: 96.7% of respondents were male, and of the 98.1% who answered, probably around 30 years of age. The most common age was 25. Yes, there are some younger women who are still using Commodores. No, you can't stalk them.
Worldwide, the biggest concentration of Commodore users appears to be North America (49.4%) but Europe is very close (42.5%). In distant third place is Australasia (this includes New Zealand and Australia) at 5.8%, South America at 1.8%, and a very lonely one respondent from Africa. No one responded from Asia, although I do know of someone in Japan personally.
Of the 99.6% responding, most of you got your first Commodore between 13 and 14 years ago. This would, of course, be right smack dab around the height of the 64's popularity. The most common figure was 15 years ago (17.8%). There is definitely new blood, however: someone got their first one just last year. Someone else said twenty-seven years ago, which definitely seems suspect since the PET came out in 1977 (i.e. 23 years ago), but maybe they were talking about the calculators or got the date wrong on a KIM-1.
Computers
100% of those surveyed own a Commodore 8-bit (duh). You probably own between four and seven of them. Someone out there has eighty-nine (and they all work?!), but interestingly the most common number is just one (16.7%). Of those owning a Commodore 8-bit, the percentage of you possessing each type of computer is as follows:
The brown breadbox 64, the classic of all classics, comes in at 71.6%.
64C, 65.4%.
The flat 128, including the "128CR"; 53.4%.
The 128Ds, including the DCR; 37.4%.
VIC-20s, 32%.
Plus/4s, 17%.
SX-64, a surprising 16%. This machine is turning out to be less and less uncommon all the time.
16s, 10.9%.
8000 series PETs, 6.5%. The leader of the still-hanging-in-there PET brigade.
64G, 5.8%.
4000 series PETs, 4.3%.
116s, 2.9%.
2000 series PETs, 2.5%.
3000 series PETs, 2.1%.
C65, 2.1%.
Educator 64s, including PET 64s and 4064s; 1.8%.
The 64 Game System, only 1%. KIM-1 (even including AIM-65s, which aren't Commodores at all), a sorrowful 1%, also.
Several people mentioned B series computers (B128s, 500s, 600s, 700s, B256s, P500s). I can't believe I forgot to include these in the survey. Sorry about that. I probably should have also asked about Ultimaxes, just for fun. No one seemed to own any of the other 264 series computers, which doesn't sound right (I know someone who does have a 364).
44% of you own another Commodore computer besides (and most of them have around one to three of them). Of that 44% of you who own one:
Any Amiga, 42.1%. (And in that 42.1%, 21.5% own 1000s, 81% own 500s or 2000s, 6.8% own CDTVs, 3.4% own 3000s, 43.9% own 600s or 1200s, 9.4% own CD32s, and another 9.4% 4000s.)
Commodore PC (any), 15.7%. I wonder how many of the currently manufactured Commodore PCs were included.
As for the CBM900, I put that in as a joke. Startlingly, someone claimed to own one, but he is not on my list of people whose houses I intend to break into and steal the unit ou^Uon my list of people who I know for sure in fact have the box in their possession. He has not responded to my verification E-mail, so if you want bragging rights, you know who you are!
Peripherals
Peripherals are listed in descending order of commonality (i.e., most commonly owned ones, first).
95.6% of you own a disk drive. (Egad, I feel sorry for the other 4.4%.) Most of you have around five to eight of them, but someone out there claims to have sixty-three. Of that 95.6%, the percentage of them possessing each type of disk drive is as follows:
Brown 1541, 69.2%.
1571, 61.9%. This count includes both external drives and 1571s in 128Ds and DCRs. This was counted for you in the form, which is why I didn't want people adding in those drives in the form manually.
1541-II, 53.9%. Wow. I didn't know they were that common.
1581, 34.6%. Another surprising number, considering that they're really rather difficult to find now (probably people are hoarding them :-).
1541C, 32.6%.
CMD FD-2000, 14.8%. The most popular third-party disk drive.
FSD/Oceanic Excelerator+, 8.3%.
SFD-1001, 6.4%.
1540, 5.7%.
8050, 5.3%.
4040, 4.9%.
CMD FD-4000, 4.1%.
Enhancer 2000, 3.8%.
MSD single drive, 3.4%.
MSD dual drive, 3.4%. (This sounds suspicious, doesn't it?)
2031, 3%.
8250, 2.6%.
Indus GT, 2.6%. So much for my favourite non-Commodore disk drive. *sigh*
1551, 2.2%. Not surprising; these are very difficult to find in the wild.
(Some other third party drives combined, 6.4%.)
94.5% of you own joysticks, usually five or six (and some person with lots of closet space has sixty-one). Interestingly, 23.8% of you just own one, so I guess they don't have many friends to play two-player games with, do they? I didn't ask about particular brands.
79.2% of you own a Datasette or some clone, usually just two (but the high score is twenty-one). Of that 79.2%, the percentage of them possessing each kind of Datasette/clone is:
1530 datasette, 63.7%.
C2N, 48.1%.
1531 (Plus/4), 15.1%. This alleges that there's quite a few 264-series computers connected to Datasettes.
(Third-party clones, 26.1%.)
54.9% of you own a Commodore monitor (I didn't ask about others). Most people have two or three (high 19). Within that 54.9%:
1084, 56.9%. Hands down winner. Included 1084P and S models.
1702, 35%.
1902, 24.5%.
1902A, 23.8%.
1802, 21.8%. The big three standbys (1702, 1802 and 1902) are still quite popular. 1802s include any of the rebadged CM-141s that got gussied up (in which case I feel sorry for those people).
1701, 11.9%.
1901, 6.6%.
CM-141 or 1703, 5.2%. You mean there's eight of you out there dumb enough to own one of these doorstops? :-P
54.1% of you own a Commodore-compatible printer (we'll talk interfaces shortly), usually two or three (high 23). Within that 54.1%:
MPS-801, 27.5%.
MPS-803, 20.8%.
Star NX-1000C, 18.1%.
MPS-802, 14%.
MPS-1000, 14%. Some of you owned the MPS-1250, but I didn't ask this question.
1526, 12.7%.
Okimate 10, 12%.
Okimate 20, 11.4%. Okimates combined are a pretty strong group, and they have nice colour output if low resolution.
Other Commodore-compatible Okidatas, 10.7%.
1525, 10%.
1520, 8.7%.
Star NX-10C, 7.3%.
(Other third-party Commodore-compatible printers, 33.5%.)
(For those of you writing printer drivers, it looks like the 1525 compatibles are still the ones to support. :-)
53.8% of you own a modem. Someone has 42, but most of you own around three. Within that 53.8%:
Modems requiring an interface (swallow this up under RS-232 modem), 57.4%. I should have also asked about accelerators like Datapumps, SwiftLinks and Turbo232s.
1660/1670 modems, 52%.
VICMODEM, 21.6%.
(Other Commodore-compatible modem (HesModem, Mighty Mo, Aprotek, etc.), 46.6%.)
51.6% of you own a mouse, and usually just one (high of 19). Within this 51.6%:
1351, 78.8%.
M3 mouse, 15.4%.
1350, 14%.
Datex mouse, 0.7%.
(Other third-party mouse, 16.9%. I assume this also includes CMD Smartmice, which for the second time running I have neglected to include.)
As far as printer interfaces go, 41% of you own one (and I assume with a printer to match), usually one to three (high 22). Within that 41%:
Xetec Super Graphics or SGJr., 53.9%.
geoCable, 33.6%.
Cardco +G, 32.7%.
Other Cardco interface, 10.6%. Our high scorer really likes these, since (s)he appears to own twenty-one of them. I wonder why (s)he bought a different interface for #22? :-)
(Other printer interface, 40.7%.)
40.3% of you own an REU or some kind of RAM expansion, usually two (high 11). Of that 40.3%:
1750, 52.2%.
CMD RAMLink, 36.9%.
1764, 36%.
CMD and Software Support REU clones, 26.1%. This includes CMD 1750XLs and the Software Support boxes.
geoRAM, 16.2%.
Quick Brown Box, 9.9%.
1700, 8.1%.
BBGRAM, 7.2%.
(Other third-party device, 8.1%.)
18.1% of you own hard drives. Naturally, virtually everyone has just one. Within that 18.1%:
CMD hard drives, the name we all know and associate with hard drives, leads with a whopping 92%.
Lt. Kernal drives (a solemn RIP for Ron Fick, the man who continued to carry the LtK torch), 10%.
(Other hard drives, 8%. I assume this is mostly the IDE interface.)
Some less common peripherals, in no particular order:
25.4% of you own a cartridge port expander. I didn't ask brands. Most people have just one.
14.5% of you own a light pen. Inkwell Systems' line of pens (the 170C and 184C) were most popular, at 37.5% of owners, followed by the Koala light pen (15%). Edumates came in at 5%. I must be missing an important brand, since 57.5% of owners owned a third-party light pen I didn't ask about (which?). Most people have just one.
21% of you own a touch tablet. The famous KoalaPad is the hands down winner at 91.3% of owners; 20.6% of owners have the Suncom Animation Station Pad. (Other third party, 5.1%.) Most of you own just one.
People also reported trackballs, scanners and light guns.
CPU Accelerators
I gave this its own section since many people are probably curious to see how the SuperCPU has impacted the Commodore community, but there are other important accelerators to be aware of.
Only 15.6% of you have CPU accelerators of any kind, including SCPUs, Flash8s, and Turbo Masters. However, the bulk of these are SCPUs, at a startling 90.6% (Flash8, 11.6%; TurboMaster, 6.9%; other, 4.6%). Given the rapid rise of the 16-bit capable Commodore community in the last few years, SCPU-only commercial software may become viable after all. Interestingly, most people have only one accelerator, except for someone with six Flash8's. I forgot the TurboProcess here, which is apparently the Flash8 predecessor.
Enhancements, Fastloaders and OSes
76.3% of you own a fastload device or upgrade of some sort. Of that 76.3%:
CMD JiffyDOS, 40.9%. Those of you with SuperCPUs automatically had this counted, but someone else said it's in RAMLinks, too. So this number might actually be higher.
Epyx FastLoad, 38.5%. My personal favourite. :-)
Final Cartridge III, 31.9%.
Action Replay v6, 24.2%.
Action Replay v5 or lower, 18%.
Super Snapshot v5, 14.7%.
Final Cartridge I or II, 9.5%.
Cinemaware Warpspeed, 9%.
Super Snapshot v4 or lower, 8%.
Access Mach5 (128), 7.8%.
Timeworks Partner 128, 7.6%.
Access Mach5 (64), 7.1%.
Dolphin DOS, 1.9%.
I probably should have gotten composite counts instead for the Final Cartridge, Super Snapshot and Action Replay versions, since the older versions are still surprisingly popular.
Operating systems Commodores run (besides BASIC, of course):
GEOS still has a commanding share of the Commodore OS arena at 53%. Within that 53%, 24.6% run Wheels and 10.2% run CMD gateWay. I should also have asked about MegaPatch 3.
22.5% can run CP/M. Of that, 32.2% can run CP/M 2.2 (64), and 85.4% can run CP/M Plus 3.0 on the 128.
Non-official Commodore OSes (I count GEOS as official, since Commodore bundled it with the 64C) are becoming quite popular, at 14%. Of the 14% that run these alternative OSes, Daniel Dallman's LUnix has a commanding lead at 64.1%. The venerable old CS-DOS is next at 41%, followed by OS/A65 (7.6%), and Asterix and CLiPS (both 5.1%). I made a terrible omission by forgetting Craig Bruce's ACE, which was mentioned by quite a few respondents also.
Despite GEOS' wide availability, people overwhelmingly prefer good ol' BASIC as their primary OS (76%). Only 15.6% prefer GEOS (8% Wheels, 7.6% other GEOS). CP/M and alternative OSes were each preferred by 2.9%.
Other Computers
92% of you own one of the other computers I asked about. Most of you own three to six of them. Of that 92%:
92.4% of you own "PCs" (any Intel-architecture system). I probably should ask what OS they run, also. The average respondent owned two. Someone has twenty.
Macintoshes, 16.6%.
Any eight-bit Atari, 12.6%.
Any Sinclair, 12.2%. This probably should not have included Timex Sinclairs, since they're not quite the same.
Any Atari ST, 10.6%.
Any TI-99 system, including Geneves (Myarc 9640 systems), 10.2%.
Any Apple II, including IIgs, 9.4%.
Tandy Colour Computers, 7.5%.
Other Tandy TRS-80s, 6.7%.
Any natively CP/M based system (no 128s!), like Kaypros, Cromemcos, etc., 6.3%.
Any MSX, MSX2 or MSX+ system, 3.1%.
Tomy Tutors, 0.7%. Oh my gosh, there's someone else besides me who has one of these things!
It would have been useful to find out how many people own other 6502-based systems, just to see if there's any correlation. In that case, I should also have asked about the BBC systems. And probably the wonderful Archimedes, yet another computer I must adore from afar, even though it's not a 6502 architecture.
Internet
Commodore users access the Internet in all sorts of ways. Most of them gravitate around PPP or, occasionally, SLIP (66.1%), but quite a few still use shell (20.3%). Unfortunately, only 19.6% of you can access the Net from an actual Commodore. Of that 19.6%:
Shell accounts are still the most popular method, at 81.4%.
SLIP/PPP, 27.7%. I should figure out how much of this is LUnix.
Of the 86.1% of you that can also do it from a non-Commodore access point, here's the breakdown:
SLIP/PPP, 72.5%.
Ethernet connection to LAN (dorm rooms, workplace, etc.), 28.2%.
Shell, 11.8%. I made it clear that logging in through PPP/SLIP and telnetting does not constitute shell dialup.
AOL, 10.1%.
Cable modem, 7.1%.
DSL, 2.9%.
I should have also asked about WebTV and other "network computer"-like devices. Getting a composite figure for "hardline" access to the Net, like ISDN, T1, DSL, cable modem, etc., might also have been useful.
Emulation
26.9% of you don't emulate. You use the real thing. Congratulations!
Of the 66.1% of you left, emulation can be broken down into platforms preferred and emulators used. Under platforms:
Win32, 76.3%. (Grumble.)
DOS, 58.2%.
Unix, 23.6%.
Amiga, 7.6%.
Mac, 4.3%.
BeOS, 2.7%.
(Other, 14.8%. Might have been some RiscOS in here.)
Under emulators:
CCS64, 64.8%.
VICE, 61.5%.
C64S, 29.1%.
Frodo, 27.4%.
PC64, 19.7%.
Minus4, 7.1%.
A64, 4.9%.
Power64, 3.8%.
GO64, 1%.
Emulators I forgot include VC20, Power20, PCVIC, Pfau Zeh, ComeBack 64 (which is becoming increasingly widespread), and Win64. C64Alive, ALE64 and Sally64 are so disused that I intentionally did not include them.
Commodore Living
This is sort of a catch-all category, where I find out what you still do with your 64, community support, etc.
29.4% of you subscribe to a current Commodore publication. Of that 29.4%,
GO64!, which includes the former Commodore World, 81.4%.
Loadstar, 43.2%.
Loadstar Letter, 28.3%.
Commodore Gazette, 4.9%.
What do you use your Commodore 8-bit for? You said:
Games (80.3%).
Programming and development (55.2%). This is probably where demo programmers should have checked off, but I should have been more specific.
Word processing, productivity (32.3%).
Music (32.3%).
Graphics (30.1%).
Internet access (16.3%). However, recall that 19.6% of you can use your Commodore to access the Net, so 3.3% of you must simply choose not to do so.
Educational (10.9%).
Is your Commodore 8-bit your primary system? 17.4% of you say yes. There were a lot of apologetic comments along the lines of, "well, I use my PC more, but the 64 is still my favourite!"
Would you buy new Commodore 8-bit software? 70.1% of you, surprisingly, said yes. However, the real shock is that even more of you (77.4%) would buy new Commodore 8-bit hardware. The Commodore software/hardware market is not dead yet! Hope you programmers and designers are listening!
That's the survey. Now for the ruminations.
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Conclusions and Trends Analysis
The last survey conducted, in 1997, had only sixty-five respondents and was not conducted in any manner even remotely resembling statistical relevance. (Hah, as if this one were.) The range of questions and investigations was also much smaller in scope. Nevertheless, we can still draw some conclusions about how the Commodore user landscape has changed and stayed the same.
Demographics are near identical, even down to the median age: mostly young twenty-something males.
While there have been some increases in the percentage of you owning some of the less common Commodores and peripherals, like the Plus/4s, the relative ranking of computers, and Commodore peripherals (especially diskdrives), is very similar.
Emulation has become a lot more popular, but the emulation playing field has shifted. C64S, once the leader in 1997, has now lost the lead by a considerable margin. Despite this, however, almost one-third of emulator users still use it. However, this change is nothing compared with the phenomenal growth of CCS64, which was still a novelty in 1997 but is now the most popular. The real puzzle is that PC64 has actually gained a sizeable chunk of emulation share, despite no upgrades or visible support. This can probably be chalked up to its freeware status.
Much more of you own PCs today than you owned in 1997. While the original survey reported only 56%, an absolute figure of 85% of you own PCs now. Macs are also up (15.2% vs. 6%), and so are Amigas (42.1% vs. 21%). Figures for most of the other computers I asked about are also up correspondingly, usually a few percentage points, except for the forlorn Colour Computers which are still about the same.
In spite of the highly publicised Wheels rollout (and MegaPatch3, too), GEOS seems to be losing popularity points. In 1997, the ratio of people who preferred BASIC to GEOS was about two to one, but now it's closer to five to one. The fact that over half of Commodore owners are GEOS-capable, however, is still good news for GEOS boosters.
For the next survey, I plan to:
Add all these reported peripherals and software.
Ask more about user's history, like user's groups, online services you subscribed to, and so on.
Try to make questions more specific to allow more reliable answers and involve less data massaging.
Finally, your comments count. Please check out what everyone wrote me and read comments from your fellow users.
That's a wrap for the 2000 survey. Tune in, as the next survey should be out in a few months. Keep the Commodore computers alive into the 21st century!
Cameron Kaiser #544 minus 3212