Commodore 64..............It's back!

[bjoehandley]

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/112510/new-commodore-64-nyt#mwpphu-container

The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior
by Nick Bilton
Friday, April 8, 2011


provided by
The New York Times

The Commodore 64 is being re-released for the modern computer user.

I was just 6 years old when the Commodore 64 computer went on sale in the summer of 1982. Although I already owned a computer at the time -- a ZX Spectrum -- I remember my excitement about possibly getting my little hyperactive hands on the newly released Commodore.

At the time, the Commodore computer cost $595 and came with a whopping 64 kilobytes of memory. It also contained a graphics and sound card that stood apart from other computers of the day.

Now, nearly 30 years later, the Commodore brand has taken on new management and is re-releasing its flagship computer, this time with all the amenities of a modern-day computer packed inside.

In its heyday, the Commodore 64 was one of the most successful home computers made, shipping more than two million units a year for almost a decade after its release. Although exact numbers don't exist, experts estimate that the company sold between 15 and 30 million Commodore 64 computers.

But the Commodore 64's success was short-lived. Commodore International, the maker of the computer, declared bankruptcy in 1994 after several bad business decisions and aggressive competition from I.B.M. and Apple.

The new Commodore 64 comes with all the modern amenities needed to surf the Web and play video games.

Barry Altman, president and chief executive of Commodore USA, said he purchased the Commodore trademark in September of last year with the goal of reviving the company and offering a product that no longer exists.

"Thirty years ago computers were an all-in-one product, with the keyboard, memory and components built inside," Mr. Altman explained. "Over the years that has changed, and we believe there is a huge potential to revive the early format."

The new Commodore 64, which will begin shipping at the end of the month, has been souped up for the modern age. It comes with a 1.8 gigahertz dual-core processor, an optional Blu-ray player and built-in ethernet and HDMI ports. It runs the Linux operating system but the company says you can install Windows if you like. The new Commodore is priced between $250 to $900.

The company's Web site says that the new Commodore 64 is "a modern functional PC," and that although the guts of the device have greatly improved, the exterior is "as close to the original in design as humanly possible." Most people would not be able to visibly tell the old or new versions apart, it says.

"The response has been completely dramatic," Mr. Altman said. "We've been averaging about five registrations per second on our Web site. This is from people giving us their name and e-mail address to be kept abreast of updates on the new Commodore."

Some may wonder why someone would want to purchase this type of computer when a world of iPads and laptops exists.

Mr. Altman says he sees two types of customers for the new computer.

"There are a lot of really young computer users who want to own a retro-looking computer," he said. "And of course there are those 30- to 40-year-olds who owned the original Commodore 64 and want the nostalgia of their first machine."

The Commodore can run the Microsoft Windows operating system or a proprietary Commodore OS.

 

[Tdad]

If you find that exciting, I have an Atari 400 I'll sell you.
You haven't lived until you've tried to load a program that's stored as audio tones on a cheap cassette player. Ah....the good old days...

 

[MrShaft696]

I used to love that computer, I had all kinds of games on disk. Pitfall, airwolf or something, could play pong,asteroids, with the awsome joystick with the one button.

 

[urban yan]

me likey

 

[Johnnie Walker]

I have lots of old classic gaming and computer stuff if anyone wants to buy.
Atari 2600s, Intellivision, C64's, TI-99 Home computer, Tandy 1000, NES, SNES, Genesis, etc.

 

[5-90]

If you find that exciting, I have an Atari 400 I'll sell you.
You haven't lived until you've tried to load a program that's stored as audio tones on a cheap cassette player. Ah....the good old days...

Commodore C64c, Commodore Amiga, Atari 800XL, Atari Mega ST, Atari Mega2ST, Apple ][e, Timex/Sinclair TS-1000. Had buddies with TRaSh-80s, Tandy CoCos, ...

Ever boot a "naked floppy?" I can still remember going all over town whenever I heard anyone had answertape cassettes - because it was far easier to cue to a programme on a 15-minute cassette (7.5 min/side) than it was to cue to a programme on a 90-min (45 min/side) or 120-min (60 min/side) cassette!

I'd also gotten my hands on an old 10Mb (yes, megabit!) "washing machine/cake box) HDA. Buddies and I went and scored parts, and managed to assemble a machine that ran POSIX, I think. Figured out the right access sequence to get that big-ass drive to run in "horizontal" mode as well!

 

[87manche]

load "program" * ,8 ,1


that was my youth.

As for the new one, it's a dumb idea. If you want an integrated computer buy a notebook. Otherwise buy a regular machine and spend way less money and have much more felxibility. From the sounds of it and the form factor 'm going to say it's a dual core Atom CPU. I can build one of those in a standard form factor case about the size of a shoebox for less than $300, stash it underneath the desk and use a wireless desktop and it's every bit as discrete as that thing @ half the price with more performance.

Proprietary Commodore OS is intriguing, but it's probably just a tweaked FreeBSD or Linux. Nothing will ever come close to the original Amiga OS though.