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Tulip to Relaunch C64 282

Posted by CowboyNeal from the blast-from-the-past dept.
Ola "4pLaY" Jensen writes "The Dutch PC manufacturer Tulip who bought the Commodore brand name has decided to finally do something with it and re-launch the C64 in some form. Exactly what it will be is still a puzzle in my mind but from reading their news it seems to be a PC with some OS flavour with a C64 Emulator." I spent many hours on a C64 when I was in elementary school, and this brings back a lot of memories.
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Tulip to Relaunch C64 More

Tulip to Relaunch C64

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  • What's in store for a moderm C64? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chmarr ( 18662 ) on Sunday July 13, 2003 @03:42AM (#6427155)
    So... what kinds of things do we REALLY expect from a newly-introduced machine?

    - DRM! No, you won't be able to play any of those old C64 games. You'll need to wait for the secret-key-signed versions... that is... until this version's DRM is cracked

    - Dolby 5.1! Now you too can play those Bruce Lee games, and Jumpman, in fantastic 3D sound

    - 24 bit colour! Okay, so you only get 16 colours total, but... you get a fantastic choice of exactly what shade of red you'd like

    - super-basic... does away with basic keywords and reprograms each of the graphic character sets to be a word all of its own

    - Games on tape are replaced with a CD rom... AUDIO CD roms :)

    - Keyboards no longer a couple of inches high... now a couple of feet high! Who needs a desk!

    - And other fantastic improvements...

    • Re:What's in store for a moderm C64? (Score:4, Informative)

      by WWWWolf ( 2428 ) <wwwwolf@iki.fi> on Sunday July 13, 2003 @04:16AM (#6427241) Homepage
      Games on tape are replaced with a CD rom... AUDIO CD roms :)

      *Yawn*... that was already done for Commodore 64 around late '80s, if I remember correctly. There was an adapter that plugged in the tape drive connector, and the cable was plugged in CD player audio out.

      And everyone was amazed on how much stuff you could fit on the CD, even when this particular method wasted space tremendously compared to plain old data CDs. =)

      • Re:What's in store for a moderm C64? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by FrostedWheat ( 172733 ) on Sunday July 13, 2003 @05:38AM (#6427380)
        There was an adapter that plugged in the tape drive connector, and the cable was plugged in CD player audio out.

        Ohhhhh I remember those.

        We hooked up a regular tape player to a small low-powered FM transmitter, and in two other rooms hooked up a radio reciever to the C64's using that CD adapter. Playing a C64 tape ('Ghouls' if I remember correctly, anyone remember that?) we where able to load the game on both machines at the same time from one tape. Amazingly, it worked. Most of the time. Sometimes one would load but the other would just stop mid-way.

        Ahhh, those where the days!

        Come to think of it, that could have been one of the first wireless networks! If only it had been two-way!

        • Re:What's in store for a moderm C64? (Score:5, Informative)

          by avij ( 105924 ) * on Sunday July 13, 2003 @06:18AM (#6427434) Homepage
          Forget the "low-powered FM transmitter", try the official radio stations instead. When I was young (circa 1987 or so), there was a weekly radio show for computer enthusiasts. It had an interesting feature: they were broadcasting C64 programs on the air, and anyone with a tape recorder and a radio were able to record the programs and then run them. It actually worked pretty well, all the programs I received that way worked nicely. A really efficient method for transmitting programs, I'd say.
          • Are you sure they just weren't playing 'Aphex Twin' music? :)

            Seriously tho, that's great! Where abouts in the world are you? They never did anything like that here. I doubt they'd even be allowed. I'm no expert, but I think UK radio laws forbid stations transmitting digital data on certain bands, like the commercial FM bands. Well, raw data anyway. Most FM stations have a digital stream called RDS these days.

            Anyways, sys 64738!
          • How robust are the sound-data signals for the various old 8-bit machines? Is there redunancy, or if you have a just barely flaky tape, or just a small spec of static while you're taping do you lose that chunk of the program? Or does it repeat the same bit 4 times, then go one, etc, so that yo uare sure to have a good copy?

        • Re:What's in store for a moderm C64? (Score:5, Funny)

          by Pflipp ( 130638 ) on Sunday July 13, 2003 @09:42AM (#6427903)
          I have been able to convince my little brother (then a fan of the new "house" music), that the audio noise on C64 tapes was a new sort of house.

          He told me and my other brother that he liked the "music".
      • Interesting, but the question is: how did you manage to put the programs on CD, considering that home-made CDs were a bit rare at that time? Or were there commercial programs/games released on CD? Another question, the CDs were probably 74 minute CDs, so wouldn't a simple 90 minute tape hold more data than a CD?

        • Re:C64 and CDs (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Hank the Lion ( 47086 )
          Another question, the CDs were probably 74 minute CDs, so wouldn't a simple 90 minute tape hold more data than a CD?
          No, it wouldn't. CDs have almost perfect channel separation, so you could put one side of the tape on the left channel, and the other one on the right.
          • CDs have almost perfect channel separation, so you could put one side of the tape on the left channel, and the other one on the right.
            Isn't the channel separation of a tape also good enough for the low data rate of C64 programs? Yes, doubling the capacity of a cassette this way would be a custom hack -- just like your CD idea.
    • "DRM! No, you won't be able to play any of those old C64 games. You'll need to wait for the secret-key-signed versions... that is... until this version's DRM is cracked"

      Yes, just imagine...Compute!'s Gazette might still be here, had they only been able to protect their MLX source from the rampant pirate hordes:

      49152 :076,032,195,000,001,003,051
      49158 :004,032,184,192,169,004,079
      49164 :133,252,169,216,133,251,182
      ...


      as it was, it was just too easy to duplicate....

  • Why wait? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Mr. Bones. ( 32317 )
    If you're running gentoo:

    emerge app-emulation/frodo
    • How does frodo compare to vice? That's the one I've always used, and it rocks!

      "emerge vice" works just fine on my Gentoo box. :)
    • Just finished rick dangerous on e32frodo for series60 phones(i use 3650), well i did cheat though, rick is a bitch without infinite lives. I just wish i had a pc around here so i could make a keymap to play elite. Mobile is the way to go for c64.
    • Why wait two weeks to install Gentoo? Just install Debian and run apt-get install vice

      Not only is vice faster than Frodo, but its almost more compatible.

  • Release it as a wrist watch... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by clambake ( 37702 ) on Sunday July 13, 2003 @03:52AM (#6427184) Homepage
    You could probably fit that c64 computeing power in a watch AND provide an LCD screen capable of rendering the stunning CGA style graphics all at a reasonable price and footprint... It would actually be a lot of fun to hack around with... I might see if I can do it myself if they don't. :)

    • Well, I have it on a phone (Score:5, Informative)

      by mccalli ( 323026 ) on Sunday July 13, 2003 @04:09AM (#6427228) Homepage
      Don't know about a watch, but it's certainly available on phones.

      Got a Symbian Series 60 phone (Nokia 3650, 7650, Ericsson P800)? Well then, go here for a C64 emulator [sourceforge.net]. Works well on my 3650.

      Cheers,
      Ian

      • Wow.
        You mean you can load arbitrary software in the 100k-byte range on your cellphone in europe/america and use/play the software you just loaded?

        How do you transfer it to the phone? IRDA or cable of some kind?

        Being in japan really sucks, the cellphone revolution is passing everyone by in here.

        Latest phones boast "20kbyte java deluxe" applis that cannot access hardware, screen, or anything on the phone directly, and run slow as molasses.

        That, and there is no method to load the stuff into the phone other
        • You mean you can load arbitrary software in the 100k-byte range on your cellphone in europe/america and use/play the software you just loaded?

          How do you transfer it to the phone? IRDA or cable of some kind?

          Can load up what you want, yes. To transfer, I downloaded it on a Powerbook and then sent it over Bluetooth. A similarly equipped PC would be able to do the same thing.

          Being in japan really sucks, the cellphone revolution is passing everyone by in here.

          Now this I'm stunned at. It's completely the

          • Re:Well, I have it on a phone (Score:4, Informative)

            by ultrapenguin ( 2643 ) on Sunday July 13, 2003 @06:20AM (#6427437)
            can't say for other mobile operators in japan, but NTT DoCoMo with its 5 manufacturers doing their cellphones (Sony, Mitsubishi, Sharp, Fujitsu, and someone else I cant remember), does not have anything even remotely similar to what you describe. I know for a fact there is no development environment which would allow hardware-access to the phone, and definitely not anything in the hundreds of kilobytes we are talking about with a project such as this c64 emulator.
            There's the Iappli java which is horribly limited, incompatible between different manufacturers, slow, and does not let you directly access any hardware except the vibrator / screen backlight, and is limited to 20k .jar size.

            I think the target market here is different.
            in Europe they go for usability and computer connectivity.
            Here, they go for useless shit like hello kitty backgrounds and 64 voice ring patterns and washed out 640x480 pinhole cameras for underskirt photography.
        • I have also played a bit with it on my 7650, it has IRDA but I got a bluetooth USB adapter like this [trust.com](40$). Which works much better since the phone just needs to be somewhere in my office. Which is also great for sync. to Notes.
          Only problem is that the drivers crashes both w2k and XP desktops when I try to use the serial connection. Works fine with file transfers though. Seems that this USB device is a rebranded device under different names, the drivers seems to be rebranded Megabit(or some name like that).
        • Those three mentioned devices are phone/pda combinations and thus it's quite obvious that they need to have bit better software platforms to be of any use.

          For your regular phones, things aren't quite that well. Mostly its those very same java midlets (memory is probably somewhere in ~100-300k range depending on the phone, no size limits other than that for invidual midlet, AFAIK, but I may be wrong).

          No access to hardware worth mentioning (in addition to MIDP standard, manufacturers own extensions that ten
      • The Ericsson P800 runs UIQ on SymbianOS 7.0, not Series 60 on SymbianOS 6.1. They are fairly compatible at source level but not at the binary level.
    • Well, the main problems would probably be that for full C64 emulation, you need a display bigger than the nominal 320x200 resolution, since one of the earliest "hacks" games programmers used was sprites-in-the-borders. So you'd need a biggish lcd screen.

      Alkso, a lot of programs relied on the precise timing of various system components - if you don't emulate the VIC and SID chips very carefully, a lot of games barf. This means you need a much more powerful computer to emulate the C64 accurately than you m
    • The C64 VIC video chip was far more powerful than any CGA display! CGA only supported four colors at a time; the C64 supported 16. With CGA you had to choose between text or graphics mode, and in text mode no graphics were allowed. The VIC could display sprites in text mode. Sprites are completely independant of the rest of the display, and could be moved to a different location on the screen with a single POKE command in BASIC (well, two of them if you wanted to change the X *and* Y coords). It also s
      • The C64 VIC video chip was far more powerful than any CGA display!

        The VIC-II also had some painful limitations, like the 8×8 color cells. In a fully-bitmapped multicolor display, two of the four colors were selected for each color cell. Also, in text mode, you couldn't have an independent background color for each screen position. And CGA was 640 pixels across instead of 320.
        • 640x200 only in black and white on the CGA. The PC1512 chip extended this to have 16 colors but was only found in select Amstrad XTs. For games, 320x240x2b was used the most. With the exception of Commander King, Commodore 64 games were far more advanced than CGA games.
    • Can't most of a c64 be crammed into a FPGA or some other programmable chip? I wonder if one of the emulators can be hacked to compile for one.

      Mostly I just use an emulator for nostalgia.

  • Neato... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by The Master Control P ( 655590 ) <ejkeever@nNETBSDerdshack.com minus bsd> on Sunday July 13, 2003 @03:54AM (#6427188)
    The only problem is, you can get a C64 and pretty much any game ever written for it on Ebay. A basic computer with cables starts around $10. I mean, Commodore sold, what, 22 million of 'em? Games are $5 each, other accessories are in the $10-30 range.

    Something we DO need to get a modern version of is Tandy's portable disk drive - Those things cost a fortune. I paid $40 for a drive in questionable condition, because it was the first to be seen on Ebay in weeks and those gauranteed to work cost $80+.

    Besides, there's something to be said for using the original. Despite the free availability of emulators, people consistently pay thousands of dollars for an Altair 8800 or Imsai 8080. I would if I could afford it.

    • Just remember (Score:2, Informative)

      by t0ny ( 590331 )
      LOAD "*",8,1

    • Despite the free availability of emulators, people consistently pay thousands of dollars for an Altair 8800 or Imsai 8080. I would if I could afford it.

      Fortunately for you, you can get a brand-new IMSAI Series Two [imsai.net], designed by the original IMSAI people, with an, um, ultrafast 20 MHz ZS180 processor, 1M of RAM and an original state-of-the-art S-100 backplane bus. (Actually, I shouldn't make too much fun of the S-100; I remember back in the days when the 80386 was the fastest x86 processor, S-100 backplane

  • I was hoping they'd bring back the hardware. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FauxReal ( 653820 ) on Sunday July 13, 2003 @03:59AM (#6427205)
    The custom synth chip made for the C64 is in short supply, in fact from what I understand there arent any bulk ones left. It's the basis of some pretty neat modern synth projects including the SidStation [sidstation.com], and the amazing DIY project The MIDIbox Sid [ucapps.de]. You might wanna check out this interview [tuwien.ac.at] with Bob Yannes the designer of the SID chip.
    • The C64 is also a great computer for homemade hardware projects. It has a "user port" that's really easy to program and contains a bunch of I/O-lines that can work as input or output. There are also two joystick ports that can have five inputs each. If my memory serves me right the joystick ports can also be configured to be analog inputs, but then you loose a few of the digital ones. Then there's the big cartridge port that I've never programmed, but I think it's something like the user port, perhaps a bit

      • Then there's the big cartridge port that I've never programmed, but I think it's something like the user port, perhaps a bit more advanced.

        The cartridge port gives you access to the processor bus, minus a few address lines. It can only address 8K directly, but has a couple of i/o lines that were sometimes used to swap different pages of ROM or RAM into the 8K space. It was typically used for ROM cartridges and RAM expansion cartridges, but it could also be used to map in additional i/o ports (potentially l

  • I might as well speculate on what it's gonna look like until someone posts a link to the google cache...

    I figure it'll look like a fat keyboard.
    There will be 2 usb ports on right side.
    on the back there will be a couple more usb ports, a few firewire ports.
    Also on the back will be VGA out, TV out and the sound outputs.
    maybe there might be a 10/100/1000 ethernet port on the back too.

    There will be no internal HD, CD/DVD/Writer or floppy drive. Everything will hook up through usb and firewire.

    I'm thinking t

  • 80's technology rebirth (Score:3, Funny)

    by SystematicPsycho ( 456042 ) on Sunday July 13, 2003 @04:14AM (#6427236)
    Is there an 80's home entertainment rebirth going on? First it was the atari 2600, now the commodore 64. This is what emulators are for.

    Anyway, they should bring back the commodore 64 to set a revival in the good old "GOTO".
    • Said SystematicPsycho, "Is there an 80's home entertainment rebirth going on? First it was the atari 2600, now the commodore 64." Yes, I think there is a rebirth going in progress because the people that remember are to the point of having more disposable income than sense. Technology that makes it relatively easy to do helps too. Who else played Jumpman till their thumbs were red & swollen? Anybody else think they were so cool for finding and changing the strings in Oregon Trail to start out with $10
    • Well, there's a live-action Transformers movie in pre-production as we speak, featuring the original characters from 1984.

      I'd suggest that we're just seeing the beginning of 80's nostalgia.

  • VICE emulator (Score:5, Informative)

    by DGolden ( 17848 ) on Sunday July 13, 2003 @04:18AM (#6427247) Homepage Journal
    If you want VICE, an excellent, essentially perfect, C64 (and C128, and some other CBM-machines) emulator, then it's here [t-online.de].

    I still use it about once a week when I feel nostalgic - while the graphics of C64 games totally suck, some of them still have better gameplay in my opinion than many of today's.

    Plus there's some games I had in primary school that I've never completed (or looped, for those games that don't really end).

    It's about 2 to 4 times faster than a real C64 on my now-ancient 400MHz PC.

    I remember laboriously translating 6502 assembly into DATA statements, by hand, when I was learning to program in the 80s - the C64 BASIC was so unutterably pants (yes, it was made by MS), that people jumped to assembly to get anything non-trivial done. Then I got a C128 with a built-in assembler.

    • Re:VICE emulator (Score:4, Funny)

      by anon*127.0.0.1 ( 637224 ) <slashdot@baudkarma. c o m> on Sunday July 13, 2003 @04:55AM (#6427314) Journal
      Yeah, I was pretty surprised to see that GTA:Vice City runs under a C64 emulator! Seems like a pretty kludgy way to get things done, but it's a great game so I guess I won't complain.

    • I remember laboriously translating 6502 assembly into DATA statements, by hand, when I was learning to program in the 80s

      Good grief, there WERE good free assemblers for the C64. I used the one put out by a book on assembly language programming by Compute's Gazette magazine.

      IIRC, you typed your asm like you would BASIC lines, then typed SYS11000 or something to run the assembler...

  • Cognitive Dissonance (Score:4, Insightful)

    by heironymouscoward ( 683461 ) <heironymouscoward&yahoo,com> on Sunday July 13, 2003 @04:19AM (#6427249) Journal
    It works like this. Bunch of people sit around saying, "wouldn't it be cool if...", and soon come up with a bunch of ideas. Unnoticed, the hard facts of reality gather round and start to ask for attention. "But will it sell?" "Does anyone actually want it?" "Did you check the current market for this product". >SPLOIT!SPLOIT!wicked thoughts.

  • C-one. (Score:3, Informative)

    by pmsr ( 560617 ) on Sunday July 13, 2003 @04:22AM (#6427252)
    Been there, done that.

    http://c64upgra.de/c-one/

    /Pedro

  • Hobbyist shakedown (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 13, 2003 @04:28AM (#6427268)
    "Currently there are about 300 commercial websites that use the name Commodore or Commodore 64 without having a license from Tulip. Tulip will not allow unauthorised use of the Commodore brand."

    So the thanks to all the people who have kept the name alive, archived all the old software and created amazing new programs and hardware is a kick in the face in the form of a cease-and-desist? Forget about VICE or CCS64, now you must use (and pay for) the "official emulator".

    Is this really the only way Tulip could reclaim the money spent buying the Commodore brand?
    • Mod parent up! If they're really planning to go after hobbyist sites due to the 'unauthorized' use of their trademark and want to make their (probably sucky) emulator the 'official' one, this is nothing like good news.

    • Re:Hobbyist shakedown (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Alan Cox ( 27532 )
      Well they say *commercial* web sites. In addition there are huge numbers of non infringing uses of a trademark that even if they were so inclined they could do nothing about.

  • C64 vs Speccy (Score:2, Insightful)

    by PhotoBoy ( 684898 )
    Hurrah, now we need someone to re-release the Spectrum and we can all relive the golden years of our childhood- arguing in the playground over which machine is better!

    And if someone can re-release the old BBC Micro both Spectrum and C64 owners will have someone to ridicule. Chucky Egg in all green? Nah.

    • Re:C64 vs Speccy (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In my playground, Spectrum owners ranked lower than BBC Micro (Model B) owners. The BBC owners were only just below C64 owners, and mainly because the C64 had some US-import games (the british games were much of a muchness.)

      The BBC's higher-res was far more valued than the spectrum's higher color count, especially since many people still had B/W TVs (!), and the fact you had the same home computer as your school's computer made life easier.

      Sure, the spectrum had colored blobs, but you could actually make

  • err, no. learn to read please. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 13, 2003 @04:44AM (#6427294)
    If you could actually *read* you'd see that they want to sue about 300 commercial sites which are using the commodore trademark, then release the only "official" C64 emulator (and work towards shuttig down distribution of any other emulator), work with one software distributor who currently holds many rights to a lot of games and in general give up up the buttocks to every project which currently keeps the C64 "alive"

    -t
  • Because we can!

    I guess I just don't understand the buying vintage computer EQ thing. I mean, I kind of understand people buying old cars-- they are *somewhat* comparable to new cars in performance, and therefore somewhat practical as well. Obviously, the cool factor is what motivates people to buy old cars, but they aren't going to find themselves driving down the interstate at 1 km/h. And that's a very favorable metaphor for a C64 in a C64 vs. modern PC comparison. Personally, if I ever see a C64 again,

  • 64 Bit computing (Score:5, Funny)

    by Fritzed ( 634646 ) <Fritzed@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Sunday July 13, 2003 @04:50AM (#6427306) Homepage
    Hmm, in some form. . .

    Maybe that means they will try and start competing, after all, 64 bit processors are IN!

    -> Fritz

  • reset (Score:5, Funny)

    by noisehole ( 300584 ) on Sunday July 13, 2003 @05:27AM (#6427360)
    back in those days you had to buy a reset button as expansion for about 2. it was plugged in the back slot of the c64.
    i remember collecting all these POKE commands you had to enter for some sort of cheat after a soft reset and getting back into the game with a SYS command.

    and still, if im playing games on my box im using emulators. c64 was, is and will be my favourite home computer. those times just rocked!

    and yeah, i still got the holer for the 5.25" disks so you could use them from both sides.

    buying reset buttons and using holers on floppy disks, heh nostalgia... who is with me?
    • Bah. Some of us just used a wire on the right pins of the user port - no need for a reset switch... :) And holer for the 5.25" disks? Way too hi tech, a pair of scissors will do just fine.
      • Back in the present day, I've been drilling holes in 3.5" DD disks after finding that all my blank HD disks are unreliable. I have about 200 DD disks from Amiga days that I have little use for so I figure I can afford to waste some in the search for one that works as HD.
    • Heh, there were dozens of points you could wire your own reset switch into the C-64. You could also do the same on any cartridge, not just the special one you could buy (although for most with no hardware mod ability that was the best choice). I remember taking my fastload cartridge, drilling it and wiring in a reset switch so I didn't need to have to remove it.

      I still can't figure out how the hell the fastload cart actually helped load stuff off the disk faster... *shrug*

  • press statement (Score:2, Informative)

    by wdebruij ( 239038 ) *
    from http://www.c64.org/ :

    "Global re-launch of COMMODORE by TULIP COMPUTERS N.V. and IR"
    by SCouT on Sat, Jul 12, 2003 15:00:25

    Amersfoort, July 11, 2003

    Today Tulip Computers NV (Tulip) and Ironstone Partners Ltd. (Ironstone) signed a licence agreement for a partnership, which is a major step in the global re-launch of the Commodore brand name.

    Tulip will receive a license fee for all Commodore C64 products delivered by Ironstone, installed on all computer brands using the Microsoft or any other ope

  • Danish C64 band (Score:3, Informative)

    by henriksh ( 683138 ) <hsh@freecode.dk> on Sunday July 13, 2003 @05:36AM (#6427375) Homepage

    There's a danish band called Press Play On Tape [pressplayontape.com] that makes music based on old C64 games. The music's very good.

    You should especially check out their "Game Boy Band Video" (downloadable from the band's website) - it's hilarious!

  • a bit of history (Score:3, Informative)

    by wdebruij ( 239038 ) * on Sunday July 13, 2003 @05:40AM (#6427386)
    As a dutch citizen I have seen many Tulip computers through the years. The company has been on the brink of bankrupcy a number of times. To divert this they have tried to reuse the commodore brand name previously.
    I'm not quite sure when it was. Even google
    (= god [slashdot.org]) couldn't tell me. It was probably somewhere around 1995

    • Re:a bit of history (Score:4, Interesting)

      by pe1chl ( 90186 ) on Sunday July 13, 2003 @06:08AM (#6427420)
      >The company has been on the brink of bankrupcy a number of times.

      Probably again...
      They show all the characteristics: digging through their old stack of patents and finding violations, and now looking in the pile of "brand names" they own and trying to cash-in on those.

      From the entire article it is apparent that they expect nothing less than a steady stream of royalty money coming in all by itself by just declaring "commodore is our brand name", fighting all people who setup sites of their own, and bringing out some software emulator for the PC that they blindly assume 6 million people will buy from them.

      I think it will be a great disappointment.
      • They show all the characteristics: digging through their old stack of patents and finding violations

        Yup... they already sued Dell for Motherboard Design Infringement [zdnet.co.uk], which was appearently baseless, but they settled out of court and got some dough from Dell anyway. Seems like a familiar practice to anyone? *cough* SCO *cough*
    • Escom (defunct PC beige-box shifter) bought the commodore name somewhere around 95, indeed. They then started to slap the C= Commodore logos onto the 'higher-end' beige-box PCs they were selling, which was in late 95 or early 96 iirc.
    • To divert this they have tried to reuse the commodore brand name previously.

      I bought a bare (no preinstalled OS) Commodore Pentium 60 in 1995... I think I got it at Escom on PC Skid Row on the Ceintuurbaan in Amsterdam. The machine served me for years as the chicago.xs4all.nl UUCP node, but now sits in my attic gathering dust. Looks like Escom [escom.nl] does not exist anymore.


  • I (heart) my C64. :) ...And I miss it dearly. Saw one in a resale shop, thought about buying it, but it was an old brown shoebox model. Mine was a C64c ...Sleek. :)

    A handheld C64+LCD screen should kick righteous ass. Thats what I'm doing now, incidentally... Got an old Fujitsu Stylistic 1200 tablet off ebay for $120 and have it boot directly into a C64 emulator. :)

  • Emulating a C64 on a PC? (Score:3, Funny)

    by El ( 94934 ) on Sunday July 13, 2003 @06:20AM (#6427436)
    Isn't that sorta like modifying your 350ZX to make it look just like a '57 Edsel?

  • Is this good news?! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As heise online news reported yesterday (in German) [heise.de],

    Tulip to intensify marketing of the Commodore brand

    According to estimates by the Dutch computer maker Tulip, owner of the Commodore trademark, there are still approximately six million loyal Commodore users world-wide. This community is said to use countless web sites for information or software downloads. 300 commercial web sites are reported to use the "Commmodore" (sic) and "Commodore 64" denominations without license. The unauthorized use of thes

    • IANAL, but don't trademarks have to be defended on a regular basis in order to win in court? Since they haven't been defending their trademark for quite some time, what's the likelihood of them winning any cases?
  • Include the caps lock and unlock key CUZ there is nothing more irritating then reading posts from people posting from COMMODORES.

    lol, Lameness filter wouldn't let me do the whole thing in caps .... kinda cool.

  • I bought my C64 for $199.00. Wonder what the new model will cost?
  • This is great news.. perhaps my waiting for an update to ughlympics is finally over!!!
  • A small handheld which can catalog those .d64 drive images and play the old games. THAT would be interesting.

    GJC

  • The CommodoreONE (Score:3, Informative)

    by downix ( 84795 ) on Sunday July 13, 2003 @09:22AM (#6427837) Homepage
    What I'm concerned about is Jens CommodoreONE project. [c64upgra.de] First new-Commodore hardware in ages, and I have this feeling that Tulip is going to squish her, for nothing other than keeping their brand name alive.

    • Re:The CommodoreONE (Score:3, Informative)

      by Tumbleweed ( 3706 )
      The thing about the Commodore-One, despite it's name, is that it's not _just_ a C64 platform - it runs 'personalities' like C64, but also the Atari 8-bits, Apple ][, etc. Basically anything that ran on a 65C02-type platform. Also, it's using the version of the 6502 with the 24-bit memory addressing, so it'll have lots of RAM, and it is a MicroATX mobo, so it fits into normal computer cases, etc. The newer proc they're using is 20MHz, too, so it's a bit faster than the original hardware platforms.

      The origin
  • There was quite a war between the Apple ][, Commodore 64, and Atari 400/800 back in the day. But within slashdot circles, the C64 always seems to engender the most nostalgia.

    I got my C64 t-shirt and bumper sticker from these guys [cafeshops.com] a few months back.

  • It would become interesting if they would get in contact with the old game manufacturers and convince them to license those games in a "legal to copy" sense, or if they would ship like ALL those games (and assemblers, etc.) with the new C64 (on one CDROM or so ;-). This way, you'd have all the C64 nostalgy together without the legal trouble you get with emulators.

    Not that I don't think this is stuff that should be in the public domain by now, but hey, I'm just thinking practically now.
  • What I remember the most about the C64 was the fact you could do sprite animation in basic and it was easy. I got a little walking man up and running in 2 minutes flat. I've never seen animation implemented so easily before or since.

    What I also remember is writing a great game with the excellent Koala pad, backing it up and losing both the original and the backup due to a flaw in the OS, later corrected. You had to put 3 lines of code at the start of each program I found out just AFTER this.

    I also remembe
  • I grew up in West Chester, PA, where C64 was based (or at least one of their factories was). I still remember when the factory shut down, our entire school district got thousands of C64's dirt cheap...we had them in all the classrooms, all the libraries. We didn't have a Windows computer lab and an Apple computer lab, but rather a Commodore lab and an Apple lab. I didnt even know what Windows was until 6th grade.

    My favorite game was Jumpman Junior...

    ---
  • I hate to post something entirely negative, but unless the thing is being ported to a digital watch or some kind magic decoder ring, the C=64 is *extremely* obsolete by now. Cheaply obtainable Palm devices have a ton more RAM and are considerably faster, even if they don't have color screens, and the Game Boy Advance, to put it bluntly, beats the stuffing out of the C=64 on almost all fronts (lacks a keyboard tho). Better sound, color, faster, more interesting ASM instruction set (without becoming insanel

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