Mr. Belvedere and a Commodore Computer commercial 1983
There are some who believe the reason for computers popularity is due to video games. Many people who got into computer science did it with the purpose of creating video games. And before video game consoles (which are computers themselves) became the norm, you had to use a computer to play those games. And in this commercial for Commodore computers, Mr. Belvedere, erm, I mean, Christopher Hewitt is looking for someone who knows about computers. Commodore is trying to sell us on the idea that you can not only play video games on their computers, but create them as well. Which is true, but I doubt you could create something as good as Pitfall on a Vic-20 using BASIC. Then again...
I don't know about the VIC-20 but there is a superb version of Pitfall! on the Commodore 64. Written in assembly and not BASIC but you can learn that too.
Was it written on a Commodore...? :)
I don't know but if it can run on one, it can be created on one. And while I'm not 100% sure, given the custom hardware in the C64 and the fact that Pitfall was released in 1984, I doubt there would have been anything better to develop on and I don't think cross-compilers for the C64 came along until later.
I believe it was pretty common to develop C64 games on the C64 though I would imagine it was also common to use RAM expansions and hard drives to make development easier, faster and more convenient.