11 ms·
Commodore Back in Germany
- hellofunk 10y agoThis is an extraordinary achievement for the industry and is something all of us should be proud of. It's the reason I became a developer and now I know I made the right decision. What fantastic news!
- akerro 10y agoDoes any one know if they're going to sell the same keyboards as they used to? I'm not sure if that means [1] full keyboards or just boxes [1]https://shop.return-magazin.de/newsletter/index.html https://shop.return-magazin.de/newsletter/index.html
- soylentcola 10y agoDo you mean just the keyboard or the whole computer that was in the same chassis as the keyboard? Honest question because I bet there would be at least some market for a new Commodore keyboard made to the same spec but just a USB keyboard that you could use for nostalgia, aesthetics, or for a more accurate emulation experience.
- akerro 10y agoI mean just keyboard. I would love to have one which would be compatible with PC.
- squozzer 10y agoIt would be fun to set up another c64. Not a fan of the 1541 drive though, any suggestions for a substitute?
- adam12 10y agoI just found this on google. http://store.go4retro.com/uiec-sd/ http://store.go4retro.com/uiec-sd/
- jerf 10y agoThere's something that tickles me about hooking up an SD card, a GigE network connection, a modern monitor, and modern USB keyboards and such... to a literal Commodore 64 to function as the CPU. I mean, "component mismatch" like the modern mismatch between RAM and CPU is one thing, and then there's "every peripheral in the system is orders of magnitude more powerful than my CPU". (Yes, I am aware of how powerful the 1541 was.)
- gaius 10y agoIt would have to be usable as a co-pro too...
- vidarh 10y agoDid anything actually make any "sensible" use of that other than fast loaders? In any case the Turbo Chameleon cartridge I linked to above emulates the 1541 entirely including the 6502, so should allow for that in theory at least (though you won't be able to have the satisfaction of banging the drive head)
- ZenoArrow 10y agoI wonder if the Turbo Chameleon can support SuperCPU software. I don't know how much was released for it, but I think Metal Dust looks decent. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperCPU https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperCPU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie79hicxteg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie79hicxteg
- Syssiphus 10y ago1541 Ultimate cartridge: http://www.1541ultimate.net/content/index.php http://www.1541ultimate.net/content/index.php
- vidarh 10y agoActually, Individual Computers who this article is about also sells the Turbo Chameleon [1] - an FPGA computer that can either run standalone, or plug into the cartridge port of a real C64, and offers SD card support, as well as 20MB RAM expansion, USB support, support or ethernet expansions, and more. It support cores to emulate Amiga's, Atari XL, Spectrum and Vic-20 as well. [1] https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/de/shop/product/Turbo_Chameleon_64.html https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/de/shop/product/Turbo_Chameleon_... EDIT: English link: https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/product/Turbo_Chameleon_64.html https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/product/Turbo_Chameleon_...
- asimuvPR 10y agoWhy not the 1541?
- vidarh 10y agoBecause it's huge, heavier than the C64 (after all it contains a full 6502 computer and a big PSU and the drive mechanism), noisy, loses alignment easily, and is ridiculously slow.
- rasz_pl 10y agowelcome to the eighties computing, uphill, in the snow, both ways, and we liked it.
- asimuvPR 10y agoNostalgia helps soften it. I used to own a 1541 back in the 80s and it was OK back then. Either way, if available new, I will buy one no matter what. The noises it made transport me to a time when all I did was code without deadlines (good ole days) :)
- stan_rogers 10y agoThe ultimate answer here, I suppose, would be to use some sort of miniature MP3 player/recorder as a cassette drive.
- paublyrne 10y agoPlease pretty please make an Amiga 1200, and also include Sensible World of Soccer in the box.
- jug 10y agoThere's a Kickstarter campaign for the A1200 case, with that one being Raspberry Pi compatible with ports and all. So if an emulator can run Sensible Soccer, so should that one. Read more here: https://www.a1200.net/ https://www.a1200.net/ Personally I would kind of like if there was an Amiga case that fit the mini ITX form factor and a graphics card. Not sure if the constraints for that would work out, but it would be awesome to have a full fledged gaming PC in an Amiga case.
- ekianjo 10y ago> Personally I would kind of like if there was an Amiga case that fit the mini ITX form factor and a graphics card. Not sure if the constraints for that would work out, but it would be awesome to have a full fledged gaming PC in an Amiga case. It should be possible the DIY-way, but the biggest problem is going to be air flow to cool things down. The Amiga had passive cooling and you'd need a lot more openings in the case to handle the heat generated by a modern motherboard and GPU card.
- ekianjo 10y agoThe Minimig should be right your alley then, hardware wise (FPGA that recreates the actual Amiga hardware).
- Keyframe 10y agoGuys have had a good time with RPi3 running emulated Amiga. People won't stop raving about it.
- panglott 10y agoThe company has NOS SID chips, but sold out of their 2015 C64 Reloaded motherboards (which have S-Video out and other useful modifications).
- dktbs 10y agoyeah, the fact that they have SID chips for sale was surprising to me. And they are 8580s!
- asimuvPR 10y agoThis is simply amazing. Looking forward to purchasing a new c64 whenever available.
- bsharitt 10y agoNeat to see a Commodore comeback, that's actually doing the retro C64 thing and not just slapping Commodore logos on new computers or phones. I supposed the Amiga rights are too much of a mess to hope for much movement there.
- vidarh 10y agoThe rights to the Amiga name are too much of a mess. But the AmigaOS name and rights are in the hands of Hyperion, who keeps developing AmigaOS 4.x, and new hardware is regularly (well, sort of - there's a new "high end" box in the works) released under the AmigaOne name by A-Eon, and supports running AmigaOS, so the situation there isn't that bad (incidentally, Individual Computers, which this article is about also produces a number of accelerators etc. for classic Amiga's).
- ekianjo 10y agoDidn't Hyperion file bankruptcy a couple of years back ?
- Keyframe 10y agoStuff is so complicated that even thinking about answering this question is giving me a headache! There are new Amigas (on the horizon and people have gotten hands on some already), but future is a mess IMO. I'd like to see a comeback of heterogeneity among desktop (home) computers, but I doubt it will happen again. If anything, the exact opposite happened and then mobile took over / moved in.
- vidarh 10y agoNo, someone filed a bankruptcy claim against them, and an administrator was appointed. According to Hyperion this happened because of an administrative error (they're a tiny company, consisting of part time staff and contractors who may or may not be paid for all of the work, and their registered address is with a service company; supposedly the service company had failed to pass on a summons for the bankruptcy court). The bankruptcy was reversed once Hyperion was able to appeal and either present their documentation or pay whichever creditor it was that filed the claim - I'm not sure which. In any case it was resolved. But it's not exactly a large, well funded company.
- carsongross 10y agoI hope that we've gotten to the end of the race to the bottom in desktop computers and that the market is ready for innovative, high quality hardware. With Moore's Law sputtering and becoming less and less relevant for day-to-day computing, build quality can now become a competitive differentiator.
- dijit 10y agough god, please! I've been looking for something as Linux/Unix friendly and sturdy as an IBM thinkpad for what feels like an age now. From what I can tell only the Macbook is of the same class, even business line notebooks have horrible keyboards, screens and touchpads. (in the best case you pick any 2 of those to be good.)
- ekianjo 10y agoI highly prefer older thinkpads' keyboards to the Macbook ones. And i'm not just talking about the fingertip pressure quality, but the layout as well.
- sedachv 10y agoMacbook chiclet keyboards are the worst possible keyboard in terms of key placement and shape (flat-top keys) in terms of typing speed and accuracy. There is a good paper about this in the first edition of Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction (copy is at home right now, will update with a better reference later). Even the "skateramp" shape of classic Thinkpad keyboards is not as good for speed and accuracy as the bowl-shaped keys of older keyboards and typewriters. The "skateramp" shape was a cost-cutting technique to enable keys to be cheaply labeled (bowl-shaped keys need to have the labels molded in in a two-step process: https://deskthority.net/wiki/Double-shot_molding https://deskthority.net/wiki/Double-shot_molding).
- sedachv 10y agoHere is the citation: Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction, Martin Helander, ed., 1990. Chapter 21, Section 4, "Key Size and Shape" on p. 483
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- placebo 10y agoInteresting to note the long post-Commodore history of the brand name. The Wikipedia entry does not even mention Polabe Holding NV from which the rights were licensed. Anyway, brings back some fond memories - I was a VIC20 kid...
- SonicSoul 10y agomy first computer! I sold one back in Poland for $100 when I left for US in '90. I've spent many all nighters playing Boulder Dash and tinkering with music production while connected to a shitty single speaker radio. I hope Datasette comes back too! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette
- jharger 10y agoBoulder Dash was awesome! I had Boulder Dash Construction Kit which I used to make many levels that none of my friends ever wanted to play (They wanted to play NES... so sad)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- davidjhall 10y agoWould love to see an Atari 8bit remake
- Luc 10y agoMight they be using the same moulds as the people who did this kickstarter for new 64C cases? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1670214687/original-commodore-64c-computer-housing-in-new-coo/posts/1288978 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1670214687/original-com... There's still a couple on eBay.
- AlbertoGP 10y agoYes, they bought those molds and will use them for the new cases: https://shop.return-magazin.de/newsletter/index.html https://shop.return-magazin.de/newsletter/index.html "The original molds from the 2015 kickstarter project are acquired by individual computers and will be used to produce a new batch of C64C cases in four super retro classic colors."
- acomjean 10y agoI remember there being a joystick released a few years back that had a full Commodore 64 in it. You could mod it with a keyboard and drive supposedly...... Found it [1] I'm wondering if the case is enough to bring people back. There is something about a these retro machines that you have full control over that is appealing. Maybe I'm just gettin nostalgic. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/C64_Direct-to-TV https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/C64_Direct-to-TV
- larrydag 10y agoDeveloped by Jeri Ellsworth (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeri_Ellsworth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeri_Ellsworth). She built it all from scratch by re-engineering the C64 board. Very fascinating to hear about her story of the process. She's also working on VR currently.
- branchless 10y agoI'm just reading "Commodore: a company on the edge" and the claims in this vs the received wisdom on Apple are very interesting. https://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/dp/0973864966 https://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/... Chuck Peddle didn't have the same opinions about Apple II nor Wozniak. It's a very interesting book. ps I also have a working commodore amiga 500!
- rasz_pl 10y agomy favorite apple commodore exchange summing up the whole deal happened during computer history museums Commodore 64 25th anniversary panel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBvbsPNBIyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBvbsPNBIyk. paraphrasing Tramiel: Unlike Apple I made computers for the lowest price possible enabling millions to own one. Wozniak: Unlike you Apple sold their computers at the price point that allowed them to not go bankrupt.
- branchless 10y agoThanks, it's great to see Tramiel in the flesh, he is as I imagined him from the book. I haven't watch all this yet but will do so. It never occurred to me to look this up on youtube as they seem from another age, but of course it's very recent history. Amazing.
- LarryMade2 10y agoOne of the die-hard manufacturers of Commodore/Amiga stuff. Individual computers, they were part of the C-One project and a few others. One of the more notable current devices is the Chameleon 64 a turbo 64 clone in a cartridge case (you can use is stand alone or plug it into a C64 to get the speed boost while enjoying better C64 compatibility. Also retro Replay and the RRNet (one of the many ethernet carts for the C64). They sometimes make it out to AmiWest in Sacramento, CA, (Oct 6th-9th http://www.amiwest.net/ http://www.amiwest.net/ ) from the site it doesn't look like they will be out this year.
- zbik 10y agotl;dr Individual Computers launches a new plastic case to house either an original C64 mainboard, or the "C64 Reloaded" board released by hardware designer Jens Schönfeld last year. http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/C64_reloaded http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/C64_reloaded Sadly the C64R is currently out of stock. https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/product/c64-reloaded.html https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/product/c64-reloaded.htm...
- gavanwoolery 10y agoMy dream is to buy up the Commodore / Amiga IP and make a "true" successor (as I have stated in the past several times!). People are growing increasingly jaded with OSX and Windows, both of which lack a passionate visionary and are becoming increasingly bloated and making weird UX choices. I do not mean making a retro device, or even playing off of some modern variant of AmigaOS, I mean rethinking/resurrecting the brand the same way Jobs did when he returned to Apple. It would not necessarily mean completely reinventing hardware or software. Apple's switch to a BSD-based OS and Intel chips was an example of how you can build a great computer on top of existing hardware and software. The Mac has no "real" competitors - that is, companies which manufacture both their own hardware and software to produce desktops (other than consoles, which are not really desktop replacements). Anyhow, it is obviously no small undertaking, but I refuse to believe there should only be two mainstream choices out there for desktops, or that the space for innovation is dead (more so on the software/coding/UX side).
- larrydag 10y agoHave you thought through the first principles? What is it about the Commodore/AmigaOS brand that is worth resurrecting? Is it hardware? Is it software? Will this redesign be a competitive advantage to current OSes? Does the world need another OS? I'm not raining on your parade. I'm just trying to help in the thought process. Don't let anyone get in the way of your dreams.
- gavanwoolery 10y agoThanks - all very important questions. A large part of marketing is perception. There was nothing radically different about the Mac when it got to the Intel/BSD revision - other than the overall user experience. Everything felt very clean and precise - from the hardware to the software. That said, I think there is huge room for improvement in a couple areas. One is rethinking the programming environment - how easy it is to get into, how fragmented it is by a hardware ecosystem, how can you gain C-level performance while making the environment less rigid, how can you make dependencies a no-brainer, how can you make a UI system so good that nobody will want to use anything else - the list goes on and on. I would love to rethink hardware but realistically that is the difference between a million dollar startup and a billion dollar one. That said, the superficial aspects of hardware have room for improvement or niches that can be attacked. For example, I would love to have a portable device (like a laptop) that is able to compete with the comfort of my desktop (and yes, I regularly use the best laptops - they do not compare to my desktop in my experience :) ). I.e. something that can be ported around easily, but does not necessarily have to rest on my lap. Does the world need another OS? Technically not - because need is a very strong word. :) Does the world want a better OS? To be honest, I am not sure how strong the demand is or how great the apathy is there - I think only the real-world market could tell. In a way, its really similar to the question "do we need any more programming languages?" We can make do with what we have, but I would be arrogant to say we could not produce anything better. :)
- mgalka 10y agoHad so much fun with these as a kid, I'd love to play around with one for a little while. Though hard to imagine why anyone would want to use one on a regular basis.
- tomcam 10y agoSadly the site of the company that owns the Commodore name is full of 404 pages, notably the one linked to from the "Hardware" tab. http://www.commodorecorp.com http://www.commodorecorp.com
- transfire 10y agoIt would be interesting to see a modernized C64 -- a C64g where "g" means gigabyte, with specs something like: * 1 GHZ 6510 compatible processor * 8+ GB RAM That alone would be interesting, but lets keep going. * Beefed up SID with 16 bit sound * Beefed up VIC supporting 32 bit RGBA color * Add 3D graphics coprocessor Probably not really feasible, but I find myself often wondering what it might be like to have the simplicity of a C64 back, but with present day specs.
- orionblastar 10y agoThere was a Commodore 65 project to make a 16 bit version with Amiga like sound and graphics chips. But it went nowhere.
- ataylor284_ 10y agoAn upgrade card with a 20Mhz 65816 and 16MB RAM was actually sold as a product: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperCPU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperCPU, but it didn't really make anyone happy. The C64 purists stuck with the 6510 and those looking for more power just switched to modern architectures.
- retro64 10y agoI think something the generation today is missing is in the 80’s we had a belief that we were truly on the cutting edge of the Star Trek future. But PCs were not yet really for the masses (despite what Mr. Tramiel claimed), but totally for the bedroom geek. You had to work hard to generate the smallest return, and trying to find information was difficult at best. There was CompuServe and Q-Link if you could afford it, but much of what you learned you learned by hacking on your own. Yes, yes, snow uphill and all that, but my point is all of that energy was driven by a belief that you were just beginning to tap into real power, cracking open a portal. A glimpse of the future was in there, and the future was awesome. Uh huh. Today I cannot believe how dystopian things have become. This is totally not the future envisioned back in the day. I’m not discounting all advances, but I am thinking about the state of the average home PC today. It is not filled with hopefully bliss, but instead it has become a nightmare of “how do I avoid Big Brother's claws today, this week, next month?” This of course was always the Sci-Fi possibility, but I personally never dreamed that this would be the norm. IMHO, today’s computer environment destroys the inner geek. Going retro brings it back. Maybe something good and modern will eventually blossom.