No Mario on the C64: How Platform Lock-In Forged My Open Source Soul

When I was a kid in Sicily, my mom and I would bike across the flight line at Comiso AB so I could play Frogger on a Commodore 64 at the BX.

That C64 became the genesis of everything for me: games, programming, running a school newspaper, and eventually discovering BBSes.

But there was one thing I wanted desperately and could never have.

Mario.

Yes, the original Mario Bros. (the one with the pipes and turtles) did exist on the C64. I knew that. But that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted Super Mario Bros. The NES version. The one scrolling across the TV in every commercial, every magazine, and every other kid’s living room.