by Yannick Pessoa

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Atari was often background noise during my childhood. The red, gold and green dance of equalizer lights like decibel bar charts and pepper-lights flickered in our backdrops, the eternal blue plasma and led lights of modernity had not supplanted the dim yellow tungsten bulbs that make today seem like the age of gaslight. Back then in the early 1980s, digital dreams were sold in bulky machines with keys that clacked like promises of tomorrow. For a kid from Jamaica, stepping into a Miami electronics store was like peering into a treasure chest. And there it was: the Commodore 64. Its sleek, unassuming form hid within it the infinite potential of a universe waiting to be created.

But for me, Yannick, this wasn’t just a computer—it was a rite of passage.

I remember that day vividly. My father had a knack for strategy, a laser focus and a way of ‘making things happen’. I think kids these days call it “rizz“. He’d scouted the shop, weighed our budget, and approached the deal like a chess game. I stood by, doubting whether this man who I looked up to could actually win the day. I doubted because I didn’t yet understand what determination, preparation, and vision could accomplish.

But when my father walked out with that Commodore 64 in hand, something clicked in my young mind. I learned that day that the tools we need for greatness are often closer than we think; we just have to grab them.

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The Commodore and the Code

The Commodore 64 wasn’t just a machine—it was a portal. It whispered secrets of BASIC programming, taught me that I could build worlds. It didn’t come loaded with Pac-Man or Tic Tac Toe, but it gave me the confidence to create for myself. Line by line, I learned to code my own games, well not exactly. My cousin Camara gave me a book on BASIC programming and it had a few game codes in there. With that book and the experience I saw the logic behind the screen and beauty of systems working in harmony. This was my first introduction to breaking things down into mental logical steps, “If this go to, if that then add, PRINT that”, before the word algorithm became a buzzword and joined popular understanding. Before Jamaican dancehall artists were cursing and quarrelling on riddims about the Youtube and TikTok algorithm, I was honing the rhythm of coding.

That little machine sparked a lifelong love affair with technology. It taught me that tech wasn’t magic—it was a language, one I could learn to speak fluently. And so, I did.

In the 1990s I was on dial-up Internet, and messing with HTML on Yahoo!’s Geocities, using Netscape and ICQ messenger. Knee deep in the Napster, Kazaa and AOL messenger, evolving and hopping to Opera and tabbed browsing. After the laughable but looming threat that was Y2K had passed, I was on my way to Kingston and UWI Mona where my tech life evolved further. I delved into the world of operating systems and cursed Windows 98 and ME till this day, shivering when I remember that blue screen of death. By the time I began using Linux in 2000, I was ready to mastertechnology. I taught myself HTML and CSS, delving into web development like an explorer charting new lands. I became the go-to techie when my father wasn’t around, setting up tape decks, figuring out VCRs, and splicing music like an analog DJ. I was a kid with soldered wires in one hand and infinite curiosity in the other.

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Connecting the Dots: Tech, Art, and Community

Here’s the thing about programming: it’s not just about technology. It’s about the way we think, solve problems, and create. This lesson on cognition was crucial for my degree in Philosophy at UWI, and tackling courses on philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, logic and etymology. Concepts like object oriented programming versus line based coding impacted how I use my mental space. Just like OOP made coding easier, it made handling mental objects and artefacts easier when applied to general thinking. That Commodore 64 taught me how to create, and I’ve been building in every part of my life since.

Today, as a writer, columnist, community advocate, a Rastafari activist, an artist and cartoonist, and entrepreneur, I wear many hats. But at the core of it all is that same kid who sat in front of a Commodore 64, realizing that the only limits were the ones I decided to believe in.

As a writer, I see the structure of a sentence like lines of code—each word carefully chosen to create something larger than the sum of its parts. As an artist, I map out ideas the way I’d map out a program, each piece fitting perfectly into the whole. As an advocate and community builder, I understand that systems—social, technological, or personal—are only as strong as the people who shape them.

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The Legacy of the Commodore 64

Looking back, the Commodore 64 wasn’t just a computer. It was a spark. The computer facilitated a larger dream. I learned to create with what I had, to find joy in the process of building something from nothing. It was the foundation of a mindset that still drives me today: the belief that technology is not just for consumption—it’s for creation.

Like my father showed me all those years ago, it’s not about what you’re handed—it’s about what you make of it.

So here I am, decades later, still powered by that same spark. Whether writing an article, leading a community initiative, designing digital art, or considering the latest AI advancements, I’m still that kid in Miami, staring at a Commodore 64, thinking what if.

For me the Commodore wasn’t just a machine. It was an invitation to imagine, igniting my imagination, initiating my technological dreams. And I’ve been following that call and initiation ever since, like Bob Dylan following Mr. Tambourine Man in the jingle jangle morning.

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About the author:  Yannick Nesta Pessoa, BA  is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Community Activist, Artist and Entrepreneur. Follow Yannick on Twitter and Instagram at @yahnyk | yannickpessoa@yahoo.com