The C-64 booted into Microsoft Basic by default. The ",8,1" was part of the LOAD command. 8 is the number of the device, 1 tells Basic to load the program to the address where it was originally saved from.

It was contemporary to the original Nintendo. The NES even used a CPU that was based on the C-64/VIC-20 6502 CPU. The 6502 was designed by MOS Technology (a Commodore company).