One of the big difficulties with programming on 8-bit machines was that if you wanted to use anything other than the built in Basic, compilers were generally expensive. Usually the cheapest alternative to Basic was Assembly, a huge leap for a self taught programmer to make.<p>Compilers for C, Pascal, and other languages of the time were hundreds of dollars, which was a lot for a (often young) hobbyist to pay. When I first heard about gcc in the early 90s, I was blown away because compilers in my head were something that only big corporations, universities, and the government could afford.<p>While there was no shortage of homebrew software in the 8-bit era, I have to wonder how much more there would have been if the major manufacturers of computers had made access to developer tools inexpensive and easy instead of letting the third-party market fill that role with small volume, high cost products.<p>64FORTH was relatively inexpensive ($40-$50) and might be another reason why the C64 had so much software developed for it.