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The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times)
The New York Times covers
the return of the Commodore 64. "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." (Thanks to Pete Link)
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The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 7, 2011 21:19 UTC (Thu) by jonabbey (subscriber, #2736) [Link]
A pure nostalgia play.
The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 7, 2011 23:20 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Really? I was a C64-head, but I'd not buy it. That... thing is just not a Commodore 64.
The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 7, 2011 23:22 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
The parent may be unclear. It may well be intended as a pure nostalgia play -- it probably is -- but if I'm a typical sample of an ex-C64-owner, it will fail.
(Just like everything else Commodore has done since the Amiga. I was quite surprised to learn that they still existed, and indeed they don't: this is a distant heir of multiple bankruptcies with almost no real relationship to the original organization.)
The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 7, 2011 23:51 UTC (Thu) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
Yup, there is nothing in common with Commodore Business Machines except a US trademark. They obtained some trademarks (or licenses for them) from a company trading as "Amiga, Inc" which in turn obtained them from another company (also using the name "Amiga, Inc") that was able to conveniently transfer all its valuable assets before sinking under a mountain of debt.
There's a long history of dubious business at work here. Recommendation: Don't give anyone money unless you have your hands on the goods. It's so much easier to take your cash and apologise than it is to actually make what was promised and deliver it as agreed.
If Mr Altman is true to his word, big retailers will "soon" have these on the shelves for anyone who wants one. If he isn't, you lose nothing by patiently letting the story unfold.
The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 8, 2011 5:15 UTC (Fri) by nicooo (guest, #69134) [Link]
I wonder what makes them believe they won't go bankrupt as well.
The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 7, 2011 21:56 UTC (Thu) by clump (subscriber, #27801) [Link] From the article:Rhythmbox, for example, looks like what you would get if the giant marshmallow man from the Ghostbusters movie wiped its fluffy white rear end on iTunes.
The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 7, 2011 21:57 UTC (Thu) by clump (subscriber, #27801) [Link]
Apologies, parent was meant for the Ars Gnome 3 review.
The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 7, 2011 23:45 UTC (Thu) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link] You mean no Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man with the new C64? Darn, I was almost excited about the resurrected Commodore! ;-)
The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 8, 2011 7:15 UTC (Fri) by rvfh (subscriber, #31018) [Link]
Are they trying to launch the same trend we saw in the car industry with the Beetle and the Mini? Maybe they'll sell us a copy of the first IBM PC with a Core i7 in it? Mind you, I used to like the click feeling of IBM keyboards...
The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 8, 2011 7:45 UTC (Fri) by lkundrak (subscriber, #43452) [Link]
I still use them.
The original buckling spring keyboards are still being manufactured and sold: http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/
Or you can get them from online auctions.
The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 8, 2011 7:53 UTC (Fri) by dark (subscriber, #8483) [Link] You can still get good keyboards :) Look up Das Keyboard. It's inspired by the Model M. I have one and I love it. The only problem is that ordinary keyboards (such as the ones at the office) feel all squishy now.
The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 8, 2011 9:02 UTC (Fri) by njd27 (subscriber, #5770) [Link]
I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of thing came into fashion eventually: if we can have steampunk then we can have beigepunk.
The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 8, 2011 9:54 UTC (Fri) by ekram (subscriber, #70515) [Link]
It's interesting to note that the 'impartial' BBC website news story on this labels the new machine a 'Windows PC':
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12997245
Hmmm.
The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 8, 2011 10:17 UTC (Fri) by gowen (guest, #23914) [Link] Never attribute to malice ... etc. Commodore's own product page says "you can even install and use the latest versions of Windows if you really feel you need to. We provide a beautiful graphical boot menu at start up from which Windows can be selected to run...", and yet doesn't mention Linux at all.If you really feel strongly about it (although the scare quotes around 'impartial' suggests you're merely trying to score a political point) send them a correction. The BBC are pretty good about altering factural errors.
The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 8, 2011 11:27 UTC (Fri) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link]
> and yet doesn't mention Linux at all.
Just above the section that mentions Windows: "In the meantime, units come with the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS operating system on CD ready to install."
The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 8, 2011 13:36 UTC (Fri) by ekram (subscriber, #70515) [Link]
I have already informed the BBC, and no correction is forthcoming yet. Their FAQ no. 10 (http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_FAQ.aspx) also states that the soon to be released Commodore OS is Linux-based, and also their intention to champion the cause of open source.
It's a real shame that the BBC have decided to label it a Windows machine, intentional or not. The BBC website does have a past history of mentioning Windows a lot more than Linux, where credit is due, and not mentioning Windows where discredit is due.
I can imagine that there will be a number of returns if it's being marketed as a Windows machine...
A-Eon AmigaOne X1000 Posted Apr 8, 2011 10:41 UTC (Fri) by jwmittag (guest, #43097) [Link] I dont get it. What about this is a C64? Its just a PC! Now, the A-Eon AmigaOne X1000, thats a different story. This is the first system since the Amiga 4000 that actually deserves the name Amiga. First and foremost: it actually runs AmigaOS. And it has a very interesting architecture, just like its grandfather, the Amiga 1000 from which it very consciously borrows its name. The most exciting piece is probably the Xena coprocessor. It is a customizable coprocessor intended as an evolution of the custom coprocessors of the original Amigas. Its actually an XMOS XCore XS1-L1, which is in some sense a successor to the Transputer. (XMOS was founded by, among others, a guy from Oxford Semiconductors, a guy from ARM and the chief architect of Inmos who designed both the Transputer and the Occam programming language.)
A-Eon AmigaOne X1000 Posted Apr 8, 2011 21:57 UTC (Fri) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
The XMOS chips are potentially interesting, and I'd encourage anyone who is interested to buy one, in the form of an XMOS official developer board from under $100.
A-Eon on the other hand (it will come as no surprise in this thread) is yet another tiny company making announcements with old brand names. About 1.5 years ago now they announced the imminent arrival of their mysterious AmigaOne X1000 (they have a license to the name 'AmigaOne' via a similar chain of dodgy business deals to those described earlier).
Mid last year they announced that lucky "beta testers" would get to hand over a large quantity of money via irreversible international funds transfer to have the opportunity to buy the unfinished and as-yet untested bare motherboard for the X1000.
Some unknown number of people "applied" by sending money and filling out forms acknowledging that they're not consumers under EU law, and most recently A-Eon has seen fit to release some poor quality photographs of a handful of these boards being manufactured. Will some of the people get their chance to "beta test" this product? Sure, it could happen.
The device itself is a fairly uninteresting dual-core PowerPC system of the sort Apple were unable to get shrunk down into laptops fast enough to retain customer interest last decade before they went Intel. Plus an XMOS chip is included on the motherboard for no particularly good reason except that it encourages rationalising of the sort jwmittag attempted - the Commodore Amiga had custom chips, and this is a customisable chip, so it's kinda similar?
The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 8, 2011 10:43 UTC (Fri) by johnny (guest, #10110) [Link]
I like this and I want to find a reason to buy one, but I just can't.
It will not replace my laptop, I no longer use desktop computers, and it doesn't even work as a TV computer since it's awkward to use an external mouse in the sofa.
Too bad, because it's pretty cool.
The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 8, 2011 12:52 UTC (Fri) by Yorick (subscriber, #19241) [Link]
A cheaper and more useful piece of hardware would be a c64 breadbox as a USB keyboard (with joystick ports). There are DIY designs available, but I wouldn't mind buying one. Everyone already have a computer to run the emulator on.
The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior (New York Times) Posted Apr 8, 2011 15:27 UTC (Fri) by titan7 (guest, #74198) [Link]
This is a perfect Home Theatre PC! This isn't a desktop replacement with an Atom and Ion, this is to stream movies from your main machine. But a generic USB remote and you've got a perfect media centre! Which anybody can build themselves with the same hardware, probably for a few dollars less, but this has the best case ever. This C64 shaped case makes this low end PC/HTPC worth a premium.
Now I want a large external HD for backups that looks like a 1541 and I'll have the coolest/nerdiest living room ever. :)
"Proprietary OS" Posted Apr 9, 2011 13:38 UTC (Sat) by Seegras (subscriber, #20463) [Link]
"The Commodore can run the Microsoft Windows operating system or a proprietary Commodore OS."
The "proprietary Commodore OS" being in that case Linux, so why didn't the fuckwits not at least write "the proprietary Microsoft Windows" also? It's arguably a lot more "proprietary".
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