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Commodore 64 Ultimate
- postexitus 1y agoIs this using Jeri Ellsworth's implementation of Commodore 64 in FPGA?
- dijit 1y agoNo, it's based on the AMD Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA. Jeri Ellsworth's was actually an ASIC. She made a "C-One" which was FPGA based, but this one is different, the C64Ultimate uses Gideon Zweijtzer's design in the AMD Xilinx.
- postexitus 1y agoAh - but Jeri is still in the team. That makes me happy: https://www.commodore.net/team/ https://www.commodore.net/team/
- tromp 1y agoHaving Amiga legend Dave Haynie on the team also helps inspire confidence.
- duggan 1y agoI was scrolling through that list and did at a double take at... Thomas Middleditch? The actor from Silicon Valley?
- postexitus 1y agoOh, no, his start up running skills left much to be desired.
- duggan 1y agoI suppose hijinks will inevitably ensue!
- n0um3n4 1y agoWTF
- gabrielsroka 1y agothat's quite the team. Ellsworth, Charpentier, Herd, Tramiel, etc. (i didn't recognize all the other names)
- metabagel 1y agoLOL, Leonard Tramiel - Chief Tramiel Officer
- drivers99 1y ago"The motherboard is a heavily modified version of Gideon Zweijtzer's original design." [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BffeaLbKHkw&t=206s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BffeaLbKHkw&t=206s
- drivers99 1y agoOrdered a founder's edition in August. Looks like I might get it this year (originally estimated October). Retro Recipes x Commodore posted a video update about the manufacturing process recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BffeaLbKHkw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BffeaLbKHkw (In my case, it's not about nostalgia. I actually have been using a shared one in a hackerspace to play around with 6502 machine language and want my own.)
- reaperducer 1y agoThey kept the cassette port, but got rid of the User port? The User port is where all the good stuff goes. They could have put the Ethernet and other new stuff on the left side where there's plenty of room.
- drivers99 1y agoNot sure why, they have header pins for the user port and then an adapter if you want to use things that require the original edge connector. I'm guessing (although I'm not sure what those other chips on the adapter do) you could also connect directly to the header for new stuff. https://www.commodore.net/product-page/u64-userport-adapter https://www.commodore.net/product-page/u64-userport-adapter
- sys_64738 1y agoWas it the user port or cartridge port where we'd ground the reset line with a paperclip to reset the C64? I can't remember.
- Someone 1y ago$299 is about half the price, not corrected for inflation, of the original, which started at $595 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64). I think that’s impressive, given the (likely) way lower production run.
- georgemcbay 1y agoWhile this is true (and the price for the new device is still extremely reasonable) by 1983 you could buy a C64 for $199 (in the US anyway). This price reduction was the difference maker in allowing my family to (barely) afford to buy me a C64 in late 1983 (and this is what I learned to code on, first in MS BASIC, then in 6510 assembler).
- nosianu 1y agoIn East Germany, the GDR, you could buy C64 and C128 from private sellers advertising in the classified ads section of the major electronics magazine in the GDR. They usually received those devices from relatives in West Germany. The price for a C64 was thousands of East German Marks, at least half a year of salaries (the salary spread was low, so that's engineers or workers or managers). An Amiga cost 25,000 Marks towards the end of the GDR, which was about two years of salaries (income was from below 1,000 Marks to ca. 1,500 for high earners, much more than that was unusual). This put 16 bit computing at home or school out of the hands of almost everyone, unless they had generous relatives in the West who sent them one. Even at work, the 8-bit PCs were still much more common (e.g. PC 1715 - https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_1715 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_1715), with a CP/M clone OS. But at least they were all available. Our own CAOS (Cassette Aided Operating System- https://www.mpm-kc85.de/html/CAOS_42.htm https://www.mpm-kc85.de/html/CAOS_42.htm) 8 bit systems based on Z80 clone CPUs, KC-85 (1/2/3/4) where not too shabby, for work and serious stuff at least the later -3 and even more so the -4 lines were superior to the C64, easier to program, and much more usable screen (https://www.mpm-kc85.de/ https://www.mpm-kc85.de/). The state was pretty hands-off. My own school's physics teacher started a computer club in the 1980s and he spent thousands of public school money on exclusively Western computers, from ZX spectrum (the very first one) to Atari 800 XL, C64, C128, with both cassette and disk drives. That must have cost a lot. Still surprises me that nobody asked him to buy East German, especially since in the 8-bit range our own systems would have been perfectly fine for the purpose.
- LanceJones 1y agoI'm excited for Christian (Peri) and team... but also kinda bummed that the RR channel has gone on a bit of a hiatus (understandable). Wishing everyone success with this amazing new chapter...
- mondainx 1y agoI miss the days of BBS'ing on my 300 baud modem, boosted to 420-ish. Things were so much simpler. I'm thinking this might make a good xmas present for myself! :)
- IT4MD 1y ago100% with you. I miss those times.. High-5 to a fellow 300bauder!
- leptons 1y agoI built my own 300bps modem as a teenager, to connect to my C64. Tech was a lot more fun back in the day. It was exciting every year to see the speed of modems go up, and up, and up. 300 bps, 1200bps, and then when I got a 2400bps modem the C64 built-in serial code was too slow, I couldn't transfer files because there were so many dropped bits. So I wrote my own serial port code in assembly language and hacked it into my favorite terminal software (CCGMS) and that fixed the problem. I think by the time I got a 9600 baud modem I probably had an Amiga.
- jandrese 1y agoBy the time you get to 2400bps you're starting to stress how fast the abysmal disk interface on the C64 could write data, you had better not hit too many seeks.
- leptons 1y agoThe 1541 drive can write at ~400 bytes per second, much faster than the 2400bps modem could deliver (240 bytes/s). And buffering was a thing back then. A simple ring buffer would suffice. I had no problems downloading at 2400bps after I fixed the serial code.
- jandrese 1y agoFaster, but not "much faster". Depending on where you were writing it could be as low as 300 bytes/second. You're starting to cut close to the margins, especially if the C=64 is having to also manage the modem communications at the same time. So yeah, doable but that's about the max you can expect out of the hardware. A 4800 baud modem would be right out.
- tclancy 1y agoMaybe I can finally debug that cool-looking boxing game I typed in by hand from a magazine. To this day, I am sort of surprised I wound up a coder given that was my initial experience with programming.
- nonethewiser 1y agoI didn't really know about this until recently when I listened to a DHH / Lex Fridman podcast. The podcast started out with him retelling a very similar experience. I wasn't familiar with DHH either and found myself disagreeing with a lot of his takes (JS > TS ... really?) but it was a really interesting conversation none-the-less.
- georgemcbay 1y ago> I typed in by hand from a magazine. Probably Compute!'s Gazette. Figuring out where I messed up (or where they misprinted) in the hundreds of lines of code entered from some of these listings was my introduction to debugging :D
- fm2606 1y agoI loved Compute!'s Gazette. I miss good print magazines
- binarycrusader 1y agoIt’s back! https://www.computesgazette.com/ https://www.computesgazette.com/
- tclancy 1y ago100% that. And my Irish Catholic cynicism told me it was just as likely the person who wrote the article messed up the code as me so I went back to playing games.
- linsomniac 1y agoPages and pages of numbers to type in...
- jadbox 1y agoDoes not come with joy controllers and they are $40/ea.
- kbelder 1y agoAren't they the standard Atari-style, with the RS-232 style ports? It should be cheap to get ahold of some compatible joysticks. I would hope they kept all the ports the same...
- noelwelsh 1y ago"Your childhood just leveled up" as a tagline is pretty revealing. I'm not sure where the company goes after they have mined all the nostalgia. I like the statement "[t]his isn’t tech that controls you. It invites you to play, learn, and create" but I'm struggling to think of how that converts into a long-term product line. I wish them success though. More diversity would be nice!
- guerrilla 1y agoWhy do they need to? Can't that just be it? Why does everything need to grow forever? We all die. That doesn't mean it was necessarily a bad idea to live.
- Razengan 1y agoYou're reading too much into something innocent that just tries to join with the fans. Anyone today who knows what "Commodore" means will be happy at seeing that!
- AlecSchueler 1y agoIt can become part of new childhoods. I was actually born after the Commodore era but my first thought on seeing this was how great it would be to share with my daughter.
- sandlbn 1y agoIt’s the same as the Ultimate 64 Elite II from Gideon, which is great. It got me back into C64 coding https://github.com/sandlbn/whisper64 https://github.com/sandlbn/whisper64 , now in C.
- _spduchamp 1y agoIs it feasible to fabricate new MOS 6581 chips?
- guerrilla 1y agoPretty sure there are a bunch of different types of clones on eBay.
- _spduchamp 1y agoI thought all these were all simulations and not replicas of silicon. I'm talking about something that keeps all the interference flaws and weirdness of the analog synth intact, and every chip being just a little bit unique, like the original.
- guerrilla 1y agoMmmmm tricky, even replicas aren't usually done in the same exact process.
- pverheggen 1y agoreSID is one of the best simulators, and actually does capture a lot of the quirks of the 6581. Take a look at the source, some of the models are actually based on electrical characteristics (filter.cc and filter.h for example). https://github.com/VICE-Team/svn-mirror/tree/main/vice/src/resid https://github.com/VICE-Team/svn-mirror/tree/main/vice/src/r...
- jandrese 1y agoMaybe not, but there are clones of every single chip in a C64 available for sale now. Getting a perfect replacement is tricky because the originals were far from perfect, the sound you got out would vary between batches and many of the older chips have partially degraded in different ways. https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/SID_replacement https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/SID_replacement
- pverheggen 1y agoFabricating a custom chip costs several million dollars, which is kind of a non-starter for such a niche product. Is it theoretically possible? Maybe, there are high-res die photographs used for reverse engineering and improving simulator accuracy. But I doubt this is accurate enough to fab an exact replica. http://visual6502.org/images/pages/MOS_6581_SID_die_shots.html http://visual6502.org/images/pages/MOS_6581_SID_die_shots.ht...
- Aldipower 1y agoI am making music with original C64s. I am excited about this one to get maybe a more noise free experience. Let's see. I've ordered in July.
- codezero 1y agoPretty neat but I don’t love the price. I got a real working C64 for $100, and a turbo chameleon that can bring all the fpga benefits and connectivity for less. I also wonder whose fpga core they are using and if they licensed it or not.
- kybernetyk 1y agoI hope the keyboard is a USB keyboard so I can use it as input for my linux box :)
- Aldipower 1y agoI have the 8BitDo C64 retro keyboard. It even is wireless, but also has USB. It is a charm.
- christkv 1y agoI might get one, I have the C64 Max and the kids are having a lot of fun on it with their friends playing Bruce Lee 1 and 2 as well as Archon. I'm also really really interested in http://www.apollo-core.com/gfx/A6000.jpg http://www.apollo-core.com/gfx/A6000.jpg the amiga was my first programming machine and having a mostly useful computer that is compatible would be awesome.
- greendestiny_re 1y agoThat means no more screwing around with the cassette heads.
- afro88 1y ago> Isn't this just an emulator or rebadged something-or-other? >The Commodore 64 Ultimate from the only original Commodore® brand (est. 1958) is brand new hardware-based Commodore 64 technology. It features SID chip-reactive LEDs (case, keyboard, power light), the world's first transparent keyboard PCB, original and modern creators’ autographs etched in copper, and an updated FPGA that replicates the original C64 motherboard (not emulation). All customisable via a new, easy main menu. It’s a fully authentic new build from Commodore - who else? I was hoping they would have authentic SID chips. The analog side of the SID is a large part of it's sound so it comes down to how well they can model that.
- jacobgorm 1y agoI really wanted to buy an official Commodore T-shirt, and all the designer had to do was put the chicken lips logo on a white background, but whoever was in charge decided to instead get creative and come up with a range of very bad designs that have zero resemblance with anything ever produced by Commodore.
- ForgetItJake 1y agoWhoever owns the IP now seems to be going for this weird cyberpunk look.
- selfhoster11 1y agoThe guy in question has a contact link or email. I'd reach out and just ask.
- ForgetItJake 1y agoPleasantly surprised to see it's not just a Raspberry Pi in a keyboard shell.
- n0um3n4 1y agoI'm ordering one for each finger I have. This is my childhood like many here.
- jeberle 1y agoI would find the product more compelling in a puck form factor (sans kbd). I can't imagine missing the extra key labels. That would make it significantly smaller, more robust, & less expensive. I'd also prefer DisplayPort to HDMI, but that might have been chosen for cost, or for the home gaming / nostalgia play.
- actionfromafar 1y agoIsn't HDMI the one with the license fee?
- jeberle 1y agoAh, you're right: $10K/yr + $0.15/unit. I was thinking more of a BOM part that already did HDMI, making it a no-brainer. Just speculating.
- qingcharles 1y agoIt claims 99% compat. Anyone know what the holdouts are?