Type-ins, Bulletin Boards, and Disk Magazines
Besides prepackaged commercial software, the C64, like the VIC before it, had a large library of type-in programs. Numerous computer magazines offered type-in programs, usually written in BASIC or assembly language or a combination of the two. Because of its immense popularity, many general-purpose magazines that supported other computers offered C64 type-ins (Compute! was one of these), and at its peak, there were many magazines in North America (Ahoy!, Commodore Magazine, Compute!'s Gazette, Power/Play, RUN and Transactor ) dedicated to Commodore computers exclusively. These magazines sometimes had disk companion subscriptions available at extra cost with the programs stored on disk to avoid the need to type them in. The disk magazine Loadstar offered fairly elaborate ready-to-run programs, music, and graphics. Books of type-ins were also common, especially in the machine's early days. There were also many books publishing type-ins for the C-64, sometimes programs that had originally appeared in one of the magazines, but books containing original software were also available.
A large library of public domain and freeware programs, distributed by online services such as Q-Link and CompuServe, BBSs, and user groups also emerged. Commodore also maintained an archive of public domain software, which it offered for sale on diskette. Despite limited RAM and disk capacity, the Commodore 64 was a popular platform for BBS hosting. Some of the most popular installations included the highly optimized and fast Blue Board program, and the Color64 BBS System, which allowed the use of Color graphics using the PET-ASCII system. Many BBS sysops used high-capacity floppy drives like the SFD-1001 or hard drives such as the Lt. Kernal.
Read more about this topic: Commodore 64 Software
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