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.

Comments

What's in store for a moderm C64?

[Chmarr]

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?

[FrostedWheat]

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?

[avij]

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.

Re:What's in store for a moderm C64?

[Pflipp]

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".

Release it as a wrist watch...

[clambake]

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. :)

I was hoping they'd bring back the hardware.

[FauxReal]

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.

Re:Bitter memories

[Walt Dismal]

Oh, you're just jealous because some people can survive on $400 a year, yogurt, and a loincloth. You're spoiled rotten. When I was a kid, we only had punched cards and we LIKED it.

I skipped lunch for 13 years, saving my lunch money to buy a 5-1/2 diskette drive for my C64. And when I bought it, I was so cool, I got laid almost every night. Hurrah for the C64.

Well, I have it on a phone

[mccalli]

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. Works well on my 3650.

Cheers,
Ian

VICE emulator

[DGolden]

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.

Hobbyist shakedown

[Anonymous Coward]

"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?

err, no. learn to read please.

[Anonymous Coward]

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

64 Bit computing

[Fritzed]

Hmm, in some form. . .

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

-> Fritz

reset

[noisehole]

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?

Re:a bit of history

[pe1chl]

>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.