Commodore vs Raspberry Pi Infographic

I was interested in how “most popular computer of all times” (C64) sales compare to modern and about as popular devices. Thankfully, it was fairly easy to find sale stats for both C64 and Raspberry Pi, which now has presence in perhaps any and all hobbyist projects and prototyping, so was chosen as a worthy contender. Commodore at its peak popularity had almost entire US home computer market and corporation was looking at gaming and business sectors as their next venture, while slowly taking hold in Europe. Even now, in 2020s I am sort of fascinated by how a full-fledged PC of that time was built. Unique deisgn decisions, cutting-edge tech, custom chips… interesting, even if nowadays a “feature phone” (what a weird name) from 10-15 years ago can edge out a win in computing power and graphics.

Raspberri Pi however… is not what I would call a PC. It is a computer and very capable at that, won’t run Crysis (prove me wrong!), but good enough for a “DIY router” project, home-brew smart home system or a truly “travel-ready pocket PC” backup for your laptop.

Sadly, for C64 there are no definitive and precise stats, especially after almost 30 years have passed, so all I had were several different estimates, aprtially based on official sales data, their good analysis and Wayback Machine (thanks, Archive.org). RasPi numbers were in a neat spreadsheet describing each and every version, sub-version and special edition of it with sort of precise sales figures.