Slashdot Mirror
Tulip to Relaunch C64
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.
fp
My favorite game was Strip Poker!
It had nekkid girls in it!
I also liked Bruce Lee.
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...
I'd like to arly, and announce that anybody who says "Ha! The *server* must be one of those C64s!" is a gimp.
If you're running gentoo:
emerge app-emulation/frodo
http://www.microdigital.co.uk/alpha.htm also reviewed here: http://www.iconbar.com/comments/view.php?id=353&ty pe=n
The parent post by chmarr is the same worn out troll posted in every other discussion these days. How does this guy post with a bonus? Please mod parent down appropriately.
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. :)
Tulips on my organ.
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.
Programming on the C64 as a kid taught me the basics of computers, and initiated a long interest in computers that carried me to an high-end education in the field, and the beginning of what promised to be an interesting career.
Now, my computer career is in ruins, there's no new jobs available, existing computer jobs are easily being sent to other countries, and the modern market for Computer Scientists is increasingly resembling the modern market for tulips in the Netherlands. Looking back, I realize young kids get hyped into "computers are cool" too easy, because they pick up on shit like the similarly over-hyped "Star Wars" movies.
I blame my old Commodore 64. I hope the original developers led horrible lives, and this new project fails miserably.
what are you talking about? its pure trolling so far. that's the only worthwhile content on here, the rest is all irrelevant chattering.
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, and the amazing DIY project The MIDIbox Sid. You might wanna check out this interview with Bob Yannes the designer of the SID chip.
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
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 the cpu will be underclocked until they don't need a fan in there
now, someone please post a copy of the article or a link to a cached copy before I think of any more insanity.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Hey, we Dutch also like tulips! We don't export all of them :-)
-- Cheers!
needless to say, the site is down :)
Got a Symbian Series 60 phone (Nokia 3650, 7650, Ericsson P800)? Well then, go here for a C64 emulator. Works well on my 3650.
Cheers,
Ian
You can run
E32Frodo in SymbianOS phones, e.g. in the Nokia 3650.
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".
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
I started coding basic on c64. My fave thing was to go up the memory locations poking in random bytes. Pretty confetti screens when it crashed. They set the standard by which I measure all computer art todat. C64 crash screens are badass art. And the MYSTERY SCREEN! There was some place, I forget where but I think it was some main graphics thing. I might have been doing harm to my monitor- you'd get these fuzzy rainbow bars at the top of the screen. Better than anything you could do with the sprites or anything like that. Totally not a commodore-sanctioned graphical effect. Something fucking up coolly. Ah memories.
waht is brown and in a babies diaper???????
michael jacksons hand
If you want VICE, an excellent, essentially perfect, C64 (and C128, and some other CBM-machines) emulator, then it's here.
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.
Choice of masters is not freedom.
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.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Been there, done that.
/Pedro
http://c64upgra.de/c-one/
I'm fine with the emulators, but what I really need for the perfect revival feeling is Joysticks of the old kind. I have a competition pro for gameport, but I could never combine it with a second gameport joystick. And now I don't have gameports anymore, and the usb adapters don't seem to work well either.
Hey I have a pair of C64 with drives in my closet. they work.. Big box of software and games.. They were so much FUN. I still burn PROMs with them too when needed. Now where did I put that tape drive.
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
"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?
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.
I remember seeing something like this for sale on QVC in the UK around 1999, it was bundled with Windows 3.1 and ran on a K5 processor.
;) ), but alas I failed as they were only taking questions from people who had actually bought the product.
/had/ a C65 made but brand name re-use is common). It did simply look like a PC + Brand Name + Emulator, and due to the majority not knowing about it we can safely say it wasn't a success.
;)
I tried desperately to get on air and ask them about Millenium Compliance (heh - remember that one?
I believe they called it the C65 (I know Commodore already
I think if Tulip are going to make a good go of this one they really ought to treat the nostalgia freaks with emulation via hardware, and a genuine SID chip installed. Anything less will just be yet another PC with the Commodore badge on it.
Surely it wouldn't be too expensive to fab up a c64 on a chip, so why the hell not?
Ruairi (www.rc55.com)
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, I will kick it down the stairs. Hey, wait... maybe I'll buy one for that!
====
Crudely Drawn Games
I released my version of the Commodore64 into the garbage heap years ago. WTF is this crap doing on a news site???
Checklist
---------
Relevant? No.
Interesting? Not really.
Doomed to failure? Obviously.
Hmm, in some form. . .
Maybe that means they will try and start competing, after all, 64 bit processors are IN!
-> Fritz
Spooooon!!!!!
but here on /. we must know "will it run linux?"
.v
i have been waiting so long to say that. but seriously, depending how it looks, i would buy one just for the name.
...some of us never got rid of our C64s in the first place. Hell, some of us have Vic20s too!
I have to very fond memories from my youth--Battlestar Galactica and Commodore computers (PET, Vic20, etc.)--with the C64 holding a very special place. They have raped Galactica and now they are doing the same to the C64. The original 2" high, brown box should never be tampered with.
Even mobile phones have more computing power than a C64.
The best thing they could probably do is make PC related products under the Commodore name, maybe decent sound and graphics cards.
Granted the Amiga was pretty advanced for its day, but a half decent modern PC blows it out of the water with the advantage of being upgradeable. I personally hate the fact that 80x86 processors won out over more logical contenders (680x0, Alpha), but that's life.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
yeah, that's nice, but imagine a beowulf cluster of those things! wearing pants too!
I remember when I first opened my C64 on Christmas day... I remember Radar Rat Race, the ten pound 5 and a quarter floppy drive, copying BASIC line for line from laminated spiral books that promised to teach you how to program... It was cool to be the only kid on the block with a computer. Ah, the good old days...
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?
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 operating system and all Commodore 64 branded products. In addition, Tulip will receive a license fee over the revenue from software downloads, subscriptions and advertising.
Even today there is still an extensive group of about 6 million loyal Commodore users and enthusiasts around the world. This community is currently spread over hundreds of unofficial websites. The community craves acknowledgement and authenticity from the true Commodore C64 brand. Tulip is the owner of the brand name Commodore. Through this partnership Tulip grants to Ironstone the exclusive rights to exploit the official Commodore C64 web-portal and use of the Commodore 64 brand name.
Ironstone and Tulip invite the Commodore community to join the official Commodore C64 web-portal. 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.
In this partnership, Ironstone will create the official Commodore C64 games and community portal designed to focus and harness the power of the Commodore C64 user base and to efficiently provide the services required by these individuals for a fee. The founders of Ironstone are experienced and successful, in previous similar projects Ironstone achieved a subscriber to pay subscriber conversion rate that was unparalleled in the Internet space.
The main objective of the Ironstone official C64 portal is to unite this massive global fan base of passionate enthusiasts. Through its web portal, Ironstone will market the official C64 emulator in various software and hardware formats. The games offered by the Ironstone web-portal will include the famous 'classic' C64 games as well as exciting new games and will also sell its Commodore-branded products through the site.
Tulip will get full access to the estimated 6 million users and will also sell its Commodore branded products through this portal. Tulip will introduce, the upcoming months, new hardware products under the Commodore brand name, being able to use the C64 emulator.
According to Bjorn Bruggeman, Brand Manager Commodore: "Through strategic partnerships we're creating a web of Commodore partner companies. Each partner, or licensee, is selected on his unique expertise and will focus on a specific market segment within the Commodore strategy. The synergy advantages are huge. The license agreement with Ironstone is an important step in this process and will enable Tulip to enter a complete new era with almost unlimited e-commerce opportunities. "
Darren Melbourne, Creative Director, Ironstone Partners commented, " The license deal with Tulip is a huge breakthrough for the millions of C64 enthusiasts and retro gamers around the world who are still loyal to this incredible games system. Ironstone is committed to bringing this technology and games library back to prominence on every platform available to us."
Commodore C64 facts and figures
The C64 is the biggest selling home computer in world history.
The C64 has an unparalleled heritage as a groundbreaking games and home use PC.
The C64's role in the evolution of the modern games industry was incredible powerful and the echoes of its influence still reverberate through the industry today.
Even today there is still an extensive group of about 6 million loyal Commodore users and enthusiasts around the world.
A countless number of hobbyists and Commodore
There's a danish band called Press Play On Tape 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!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) couldn't tell me. It was probably somewhere around 1995
I (heart) my C64.
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.
Bowie J. Poag
Isn't that sorta like modifying your 350ZX to make it look just like a '57 Edsel?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
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?
Follow your Euro bills at EBT
Slashdot article on Commodore C-One here
Well, if it was Aphex Twin music, I'd be very impressed that their songs were runnable on a C64 :)
The broadcast was done by the Finnish Broadcasting Company if my memory serves me correctly. We do have similar laws prohibiting mixing data and radio signals at the moment, but I'm not sure about the law situation some 16 years ago when this happened, it might have been legal back then.
Follow your Euro bills at EBT
Because my good old C64 still works! And so do my games.
Man, the C64 was the best system EVER made.
#include "sig.h"
There's the problem, though. Much as I enjoy reading crapfloods and trolls, it's actually a REASON for people like Malda to be employed in the first place.
I mean, let's face it, with reader-submitted stories and a voting system (to define which get on the front page), there'd be no reason to pay any full-time Slashdot staff. This site could easily run itself, and if only VA Ice Cream were more aware of that.
Instead, though, Malda and co. can say: "Look, we're always being attacked, I need more money to keep these trolls at bay". (Excuse the lack of grammatical errors etc.)
See? No way to win.
I found this place the other day looking for C64 stuff. Somebody's actually got t-shirts of all the old machines. They've got some pretty funny stuff... retrohacker
lol, Lameness filter wouldn't let me do the whole thing in caps .... kinda cool.
Their statement somehow reminds me of the SCO thing, especially with the questionable "facts" -- regarding the C64 being the biggest selling home computer of all time, I'm not sure whether that's assuming the IBM PC and Apple Macintosh are not home computers, or that they each comprise several different home computers...
Their actions, however, are well justified according to Gatesian Capitalism -- what's the point in all those people writing all those emulators, games, etc., if no-one's making any money off it? Damn lazy OSS communists. They must all be unemployed if they have enough time to give away their labour for free. And since they're all unemployed, they're bludgers, because they're not giving anything back, as anything that's given freely is valueless... Someone should send them a wake-up call. Charging them for the Commodore trademark will ensure that they have to sell their products to cover the royalties, which means they will then be producing a valuable product, and no longer be bludgers... Or perhaps they could just avoid the trademark? Call it a commie emulator instead (random thought).
This is the second time this week Tulip is in the headlines, making money from old patents. Apparently they reached a settlement with Dell for $50 million last week over a motherboard technology they claim.
Oh well, if you can't innovate...
I bought my C64 for $199.00. Wonder what the new model will cost?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
This is great news.. perhaps my waiting for an update to ughlympics is finally over!!!
I personally hate the fact that 80x86 processors won out over more logical contenders (680x0, Alpha), but that's life.
I think you're forgetting that back in the 1980's, the Intel 8086/8088 were weak processors compared to the more power Motorola 68000 and DEC Alpha CPU's. However, once the 80386 came out in 1986 with true 32-bit processing, the tide began to turn in favor of Intel because it could at least run all the legacy software written for the 8088/8086 unmodified.
As operating systems advanced, they could finally take full advantage of the 32-bit flat memory addressing model introduced by the 80386. Today, the Intel Pentium 4 and AMD Athlon XP CPU's still use the memory model pioneered by the 80386 some 17 years ago. It is with the arrival of the AMD Athlon 64 that x86 CPU technology will finally advance to the 64-bit flat memory model (sorry, the Intel Itanium is a totally new CPU that could run x86 code in emulation--it's not a true x86-class CPU).
A small handheld which can catalog those .d64 drive images and play the old games. THAT would be interesting.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
Try here for some awesome C64 remixes. (I personally recommend the prog-rock version of Lightforce, the 'Circles' remix of R-Type and the orchestral version of Commando, but there are hundreds of others!)
You must think in Russian.
I'm sure someone will manage to get it running some flavour of Linux
It's not Linux, but it is LUNIX, the little unix for the C64
http://hld.c64.org/poldi/lunix/lunix.html
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Looking some more on the www.tulip.nl site, it turns out that it really is like I described before.
The current management have cut away everything that made Tulip a computer manufacturer, and only left a small bureau that defends some patents, trademarked brand names, and "markets".
A news article on the site shows a clear intent to go the SCO way: not design, sell or make any product, but just cash in on existing names and try to get money from others who are actually trying to do some innovation (and may unsuspectingly thread on something you have registered in the previous century).
The manager is proud of it, and enjoys the good life in a house in France, a fast car, and an office in a classic old city center.
Well, what should we say... it is a way to approach things, but I doubt if it will ever make them as successfull as e.g. Dell.
What I'm concerned about is Jens CommodoreONE project. 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.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
I got my C64 t-shirt and bumper sticker from these guys a few months back.
I put the 'fun' in fundamentalism
http://www.gamebase64.com
(I'm not affiliated with the site in any way - just a fan.)
These guys have been struggling for years to put together a 100%-complete, fully catalogued and documented games package for the C64. Due for release soon.
YOU CAN HELP! - if you have any of the games on the Missing list, or any games that they don't have yet (e.g., stuff you wrote!), you can preserve them for posterity by getting them into the archives.
David Stein, Esq.
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
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.
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
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
Short answer: yes. As for memory, my Nokia 3650 has something like 2.5 Mb of phone memory free. I also have a 64 Mb MMC card for images, contact backups, etc. That's plenty.
So yes, you can put your own stuff in. Create a .sis package and upload it via IR, BlueTooth, or even send it as an e-mail message, then fetch with the phone. Or use an MMC card writer to write the package to the MMC card. Or write a "wget" client to fetch from the internet.
We're talking about Symbian programs... don't confuse them with Java midlet stuff... The Java stuff is quite limited.
You will never ever get Java stuff that can access the hardware directly, that's a fact of life. You will probably never get that close with SymbianOS either, very much closer, but you'll never have the "whole hardware for yourself".
As for the loading of stuff into the phone... there's emulators available, I think, so you don't theoretically even need a phone if you wish to develop applications to the phone (of course at some point you need to test with hw too).
Pretty amazing that nokia/etc phones are so much further along when it comes to writing your own software for them.
Well, it's just common sense.. you have the gadget and the skills, so who can come and say "verboten" and stop you from doing things with it? Nobody. So, as a side effect of the new phone features requiring a better OS, you get the possibility of storing your own programs etc. there.
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 remember being literally homicidally angry for three days after this happened. I followed the rules and took precautions and STILL got burned. Today I'd just re-write the program, but THEN I wasn't mature enough.
I never wrote another game for the C64 though. It would be good if the sprite animation thing was re-implicated on a RELIABLE system.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Loading...
Welcome to SENSE OF HUMOR 1.0
Ha!
I just got ahold of a working sx-64 (the breadbox c-64) from my wife's grandmother!
Pristine condition, everything there, and it's mine!
http://sx64.opsys.net/
This looks like a good upgrade though...
LOAD "*",8,1
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Search C64 on any P2P
C64 - maniac mansion.mp3 is my favorites!!!
and don't forget C64 - Ghosts 'N Goblins.mp3 or Way of the Exploding Fist!!!!
Don't underestimate the biggest selling home computer in world history.
Fortunately for you, you can get a brand-new IMSAI Series Two, 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 DOS cards were faster than conventional PCs.)
Meanwhile, though, I think I'll stick with running xtrs, the TRS-80 emulator, when I need to be reminded how far we've come. I missed the days of front panel switches, but, I don't think I really missed them, ya know?
If I remember correctly, the C64 was kind of cool in that it had user programmable ports, which made it eminently hackable.
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...
---
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
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 insanely complex), exceedingly portable...
I can only hope that if they do actually do bring this back, they'll have the sense to target the only hardware market they're likely to stand a chance in, the one where people want something a little fancier than usual to open and close circuits and monitor things. There the C=64 might actually have a shot... It's probably more powerful than about three-quarters of the ATMs out there and just as capable of performing those same tasks.
(Posting late, probably nobody will ever read this, but here goes):
Probably the same way the Compute! magazine `Turbodisk' program did it:
The 1541 used a serial interface (syncrhonous, I guess, because it had a clock line). TurboDisk and (probably) the Fast Load cart made the hardware use 2-bit parallel transfers instead.
The only reason this was possible was that the 1541 has a 6507 (basically a 6502 minus the interrupt lines, and minus a few of the upper address lines), and it was possible to download code into the 1541 and run it on the drive (from RAM; flash/EEPROM hadn't yet been invented, or at least wasn't affordable).
I always thought this was a really neat trick, and wished I could do the same sort of thing on the Atari 800 I had... but the 800's disk drive was way too dumb. There were hardware mods to speed it up, by increasing the baud rate and adjusting sector skew, but nothing like TurboDisk, which you could get for the price of an issue of Compute! plus the time it took to type it in... and at that age I had a lot more time than I knew what to do with.
On the other hand, the Atari did have some advantages: its BASIC was nicer, and its drives (I had the 1050 drives) were more reliable because they didn't beat the r/w head against a metal backstop during a format, which the 1541 did... though I suppose that could have been fixed by downloading a new format routine into the 1541 (never heard of anyone doing this).
Damn, it's been a long time since I thought about this stuff.. think I'll go play Jumpman for a while.
Anyone else into the mod business on the c64?
:)
I had the LED switched from red to green. I did 1541 realignment for $10 for the kids in school. I also has 2, count em, 2 SID chips installed. (The only upgrade I was afraid to do myself)
I later tried to make an add on cartridge for the second SID chip, but the project was put on hold when I was carving holes in the plastic cart for the audio lines. I slipped with an x-acto knife and went from hardware mods to wetware mods. I lost interest in the project after having cut my tendon and nerve in my finger then wearing a cast for 10 weeks while it all healed. The funny thing is, I'm glad I hit the nerve. I didn't even know that I had cut myself.
The best thing I love about my C64 is GEOS, the Greatest Ever Operating System. ;) I was still saving up for a SuperCPU, JiffyDOS, and a hard disk, so I could upgrade to Wheels or Wings, when RL events forced me to reconsider.
Emus would be fine, but I haven't found one that can do GEOS or Wheels well, or Wings at all. I'm still wondering what (if anything) Tulip's going to do concerning them. After all, CBM declared GEOS the 64's official operating system since '86 or '87.
(Wings, btw, isn't a GEOS upgrade, but a *nix-like GEOS-like multitasking os.)
Many years before the C64, even before the VIC 20, Noth Start came out with a fantastic Basic for their S-100 system. This Basic was by far better than C64 basic, or any M$ Basic. It was still Basic, so it had the go to statements and other issues of the language, but once you programmed in North Star basic you understood how bad M$ basic was.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Wow the originall people will emulate their own hardware, be dazled at lemings in 8 colors, see what happens when your old reliable keyboard that sounds like a train is now USB compatible (just like USB doesn't do anything when the OS crashes).
New software for the C64 would be a very good thing. Emulator stuff? Not interested. The press release is strangely worded in parts, I'm wondering whether Tulip understands the C64 market.
The only link you'll need for that old '64 nostalgia is this one..
http://www.tafty.com/cgi-bin/c64.php
It links to:-
CCS64 (the -BEST- emulator)
Lemon 64 (the most definitive game list)
Remember 64 (my personal list of games on the c=64 that are packed with lots of extras, title screens and optional trainers)
To me, the '64 was when software pirates were so much cooler than they are today. Sigh... I miss those days.
"Currently there are about 300 commercial web-sites that use the name Commodore or Commodore 64 without having a license from Tulip. Tulip will not allow unauthorized use of the Commodore brand."
For sake, Commodore 64, thats old stuff. Its retro gaming stuff. Why sue people for reviving old retro games? Tulip won a major case last month, worth the amount for about $100 million. I guess they have tasted the Lawsuit Greed Virus like SCO's McBride has demonstrated. Tulip's legal dept. is probably larger than their sales dept.
This has got to stop. A company can go start shopping for a brand name and then start sue-ing the shit out of it. Thats a solid example of ABUSE of Trademark Names.
Robert
I kept the C64 well past it's expiration date, and once the power suppy died, I kept my Mapping the C64 book forever, surviving the loss of the C64 and a couple moves. I think the reason I loved it so much actually was that book, and is the same reason why people love Linux and FreeBSD so rabidly.
Mapping the C64 exposed every byte of the OS and machine. You could control every aspect of the machine that the designers let anyone control. You could get under BASIC and play with 6502 machine language, which was simple enough that I picked it up from a 150 page book. In a couple weeks from getting the box you could be playing with all the cool memory locations, tossing sprites around during vertical blank interrupts.
I think Linux and FreeBSD and Atheos and all their friends scratch the itch for something that a hobbyist can unsderstand as many levels as they want to. Hobbyists can look under the hood and figure out whats going on, see every one of the APIs, even change them if they want. I think this is one of the advantages of Open Source, is it lets people who have massive geek interest look under the hood.
But when you look a little harder, you'll find the news on their Dutch site..
Just to give a small (translated) impression in English what is says under the 'goodwill' part at the bottom: (For those unable to read/comprehend Dutch)
There was more detail, but I removed it.. So, if you are a company, why would you advertise a possible bankrupcy ?? Because it's going so well ?? Nah.... Looks like another firm trying to make a buck from lawsuits to me.
The Comodore 128 was not only legacy compatible with all the C-64 software, letting you run BASIC at the command line, but it also had a CPM (I know there's supposed to be a slash in there, but forget where) mode. Lord, I remember doing my AP Comp Sci homework on a C-64 with Pascal in 1984. Upgraded to a C-128 in 1985. Nowadays I'm lucky if I can write a regexp that works as intended on the first try. Nostalgia...
Start a happiness pandemic
The wording of the article makes it abundantly clear that Tulip is not content with putting a few new C64 products up for sale and finding customers in the retro-computing community on fair business terms.
... the emulators are fine, the games are easy to find and they're so utterly obsolete that no-one would want to spend a penny on them. Besides, most of the companies that made those games in the 1980s, are long gone.
Tulip will instead put their lawyer muscle to work on shaking down the individual smalltime hobbyist operators of anything and everything commodore 64 related and attempt to collect fees and issue C&D's left and right. Most of those sites and services operate on goodwill alone with minimal budgets, often at a loss.
It usually takes only a stern letter from a DMCA litigation-bot for a c64 site operator to comply and pull down material even if they're related by a coincidence of filenames to the things that triggered the bot. Tulip's lawyers should therefore have a relatively easy time souring the whole thing and destroying the community as we know it, or at least dragging it underground. Unhappy times, indeed.
I can't imagine many members of today's c64 community flocking to join Tulip's "official" community portal. Especially if they succeed in destroying a bunch of the existing portals and taking offline the key emulators and games repositories. Tulip will sooner be known as corporate scum than benevolent saviors.
What can Tulip provide that the fans can't? Great sites like lemon64.com have an immensely rich and vibrant culture with genuine heart. People fondly share memories of when they first played this game or that
Why are Tulip doing this? The c64 is an obsolete platform. While the games in some cases are appropriate for small handheld screens, and potentially may be of value for the mobile phone and PDA market, there exist far better graphics hardware today and 6501 emulation on PDA chips is generally not a useful option.
So maybe they make a 6501-native handheld computer that plays the old games. So they should sell the damn thing instead of thuggishly deploying lawyer drones. Why would they want to sour up the community of fans that would seem to constitute the very customer base for such hardware?
It doesn't make any sense. Certainly they cannot realistically expect the fans who kept the c64 spirit alive all these years to suddenly begin to pay royalties and voluntarily submit to branding guidelines and and migrate their sites to the domain of some greedy corporate bastards just because they purchased some long-obsolete IP.
There are no money to be made from this market any more than you can draw blood from a stone.
What Tulip is doing is dumb and stupid and nobody will benefit. If Tulip has their way, The c64 will be rebranded and repurposed and soon it'll just be another corporate McPlatform for McLicensing into portable products.
I have a feeling this could be like how many fans felt betrayed when the old golden-age Warner Bros. cartoons was destroyed by the Cartoon Network and Warner Bros. studio stores, merchandising and whoring their characters left and right and milking the 'intellectual property' for every last dime until it was all spent.
Sort of related - I remember in the 1980s when the old cartoons were still relatively obscure and difficult to obtain, how rich and colorful the collectors' communities were. After Ted Turner opened the floodgates and put everything on heavy repeat and altered / censored the cartoons in the process, they began to lose their flavor, they faded away into nothingness.
In my opinion, Tulip should make licensed arrangements to sell C-Ones. BTW: CommodoreOne is now called C-One and it supports SD-RAM and is said to have some sort of FPGA implementation of SD-RAM controller features so we can have full bankswitching. The CPU that comes stock would be a 65c816 CPU. This CPU can directly address upto 16 MBytes but with the integrate SD-RAM control features, one can make full use of SD-RAM modules as large as upto 1 GBytes. I am in contact with Tulip and want to gather more information. From my understanding, Tulip should provide service support to actual Commodore users which is the key user base that is apparently noted by Tulip. I would be interested in PDA devices that incorporate C-One technology as well as PDAs that hook up to real Commodore computers as well as the C-One. It is fairly simple. They should market products that are more then just another Windows PC with an emulator. It is no Commodore. It will not clearly market well for just making Windows CE PDAs. It just isn't Commodore. We want something more worthy. For example, "Web.it" was a failure because it does not market well with Commodore users. I do see potential integration of modern products with upgrades to real Commodore equipment and C-One being a technology used in several Commodore branded products. What is of concern to me is that Tulip may be damages existing synergy and never really improve things because they cause detrimental effects on the Commodore community (scene). I know there are PC users here and am not saying that Tulip should't integrate PC technology but I think Tulip should not forget the real Commodore users. So guys, don't flame me. I see alot of different potential products they can correlate together but just opt to not mention it all in this message. Thank You.
Looks to me if you have a problem with this is - don't use "Commodore" and "Commodore 64" to describe your stuff.
"J. Robertson" wrote:
>
> Saw this mentioned on amiga.org then went to investigate it for myself. Found this on Tulip's on site (www.tulip.com more direct link:
> 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.
The key word here is: "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 operating system and all Commodore 64 branded products.
The Key word here is "Commodore 64 Branded products"
> In addition, Tulip will receive a license fee over the revenue from software downloads, subscriptions and advertising.
So the agreement with ironstone is to collect money every time someone downloads an individual file and/or receives material with the brand names.
> Even today there is still an extensive group of about 6 million loyal Commodore users and enthusiasts around the world. This community is currently spread over hundreds of unofficial websites. The community craves acknowledgement and authenticity from the true Commodore C64 brand.
We crave authenticity and knowledge from Commodore, not the brand name.
> Tulip is the owner of the brand name Commodore. Through this partnership Tulip grants to Ironstone the exclusive rights to exploit the official Commodore C64 web-portal and use of the Commodore 64 brand name.
I like the term "Exploit" there, very appropriate.
> Ironstone and Tulip invite the Commodore community to join the official Commodore C64 web-portal.
I.E. "Join us or we'll sue you for trademark brand infringement."
> 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.
If they aren't 'commercial' it get harder to sue for trademark infringement.
> In this partnership, Ironstone will create the official Commodore C64 games and community portal designed to focus and harness the power of the Commodore C64 user base
Glossary:
Money = Power
> and to efficiently provide the services required by these individuals for a fee.
Specifically, use of the "Commodore" and "Commodore 64" brand name.
> The founders of Ironstone are experienced and successful, in previous similar projects Ironstone achieved a subscriber to pay subscriber conversion rate that was unparalleled in the Internet space.
Searched for Ironstone via Yahoo, they must have been suing others previously under a different name.
> The main objective of the Ironstone official C64 portal is to unite this massive global fan base of passionate enthusiasts.
> Through its web portal, Ironstone will market the official C64 emulator
I wonder what the "Official C64" emulator is that they plan to use.
> in various software and hardware formats. The games offered by the Ironstone web-portal will include the famous classic C64 games as well as exciting new games and will also sell its Commodore-branded products through the site.
>
> Tulip will get full access to the estimated 6 million users and will also sell its Commodore branded products through this portal.
Read: Tulip gets everyone's e-mail addresses for targeted marketing.
> Tulip will introduce, the upcoming months, new hardware products under the Commodore brand na
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
That would be so cool. Maybe they'll bring out a new Amiga next. At last a proper computer for everyone, with hardware-accelerated graphics, sound-sampling and multi-tasking with a cool GUI. Maybe they aren't announcing it until they've sold all the C64's? Me, I'm holding off for a while to see what happens!
Stick Men
Yeah I dunno what these people are thinking... I do remember talking to one guy about 2 or 3 years ago and he said he used c64s to run message banners on billboards and signs. I remember putting a reset button on one of my c64s... hmm pin 7 on something and pin 12 of the cartridge port, something like that.. It was real cool I still have it too. Seth
There is a lot of potential in the old C64. In the media industry, IPR libraries (of movies, sounds, etc) are large assets that can be reused and reinvented (new media e.g. DVD, anniversary releases, etc). The gaming industry hasn't moved onto this level of sophistication, yet it could be very profitable. With the popularity of mobile phones and mobile gaming, there seems to be a huge possibility for reusing thse old games into a new medium, and if someone could ASIC and entire C64 (after all, it was only 1Mhz) and embed it into a PDA, or as a mobile phone "accessory", with online library of games - I think a lot of money would be in the bank.
I read the news blurb. They are not a friendly company. They claim that they are going to "Crack down" on anyone that uses the Commodore name on a website without paying them a fee! Good greif.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
the C64 is of course, an awesome brand name - but this seems to have all the angles of a business plunder and no real innovation (which is what made the Commodore brand name great).
What they should do is introduce a brand new Commodore 64 - a 64 Bit computer running an Amiga OS and chocked with enough dev tools to make any hobbyist developer/game designer/musician/photo nut quiver. Stick a C64 emulator in for pure shlock value.
But I guess that would go the same way as the BeBox...
Story at 11.
That wasn't at all funny.