Slashdot Mirror
Commodore Follows Up TV Game With ROM Selling
An anonymous reader writes "Since Commodore recently re-appeared selling a Commodore 64 joystick 'TV game', as previously mentioned on Slashdot Games (the company is now owned by Dutch computer builder Tulip), they're now expanding their efforts, and have set up a legal emulation site where you can buy classic Commodore 64 titles, initially including Epyx and Hewson titles. Apparently, in a later stage, Commodore will release a Gentoo Linux based set top box which plays MP3s and runs Commodore 64 games."
Since Epyx went belly up with their handheld console, they produced for Atari. Who is getting the royalties for those Epyx games sold over the net. I have sever doubts the developers of those games will see a single cent....
I was unable to find descent pricing information. There's talk of a monthly subscription fee (5 euro's for 7 titles), but does that mean I'm only allowed to (legally) use the game for one month?
How much do I have to pay to download just one game?
The Commodore brand also popped up on a cheap-and-nasty MP3 player a little while back, as shown on Dan's Data.
Apparently it's unlicenced, but certainlty a shock to the brain to see that logo on a recent product.
Remember, it takes 42 muscles to frown and only 4 to pull the trigger of a sniper rifle.
Because these are, uh, legal?
true, but they're also about 20 years old.
I wonder how much royalties the developers get from this? I'd rather pay them than Tulip.
not a penny most probably, which is the sad part.
it's legal but it ain't right still...
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
some company just brings about an updated Commodore 64. With modern day integration it seems to me you could easily get a 2.5" harddrive in the old C64 case, modem, ethernet port and even video and TV out ports. Make it dual boot Contiki OS and old school C64 OS and I'd buy it.
No real point to this post, just basking in the glow of potential off-the-shelf nostalgia.
Isn't this and the musicstore part of the site supposed to go along with their portable devices? To me that seems like the general idea.
So you can buy an eVic-20GB and download some old classics like Uridium and game away while listening to the newest crap dance hit or whatever.
Shows how much the submitter actually knows about the C=64. The 64 was one of those new fangled "home computer" things that had "disk drives". Not plug in ROM cartridges. Well, unless you count the BASIC cartridge. But I'm sure you weren't rushing to the internet to pirate that.
when do we get those?
VICE on Debian still doesn't ship with them. are they really sooper sekrit? c'mon. "anatomy of the C64" by abacus had the WHOLE FRICKEN ASM dump.
and why was THAT legal?
and, on another note - has anyone seen a project to do SMP between the C64 6502 and the 1541 (the 5" drives) 6502?
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
Dear StarRoms and Commodoreworld,
In case anyone who is responsible for business decisions in one of these companies is reading this...
The "Credits" system you folks have devised and deployed for purchaing ROMs is completely bogus unless you also have some way of earning credits other than spending money. If credits are equivalent to money, then please publish a price. You have to dig pretty deep and pull out a calculator to find out that a game will (for instance) cost you $7.00 up front or $3.25 if you purchase a monthly subscription instead.
I understand the reasoning behind the credits system, but if it is not easy for someone to equate it to a dollar value, then you are driving away customers. It is not very hard to calculate price tables in this manner. You might consider using wording to this effect:
"100 credits (as low as $1.00)"
In this example, clicking on the "as low as" should bring up a pricing table explaining that it's $5.00 if you buy it outright and can be as low as $1.00 if you buy a package of 2000 credits)
~GoRK
That game alone would make the thing worth buying.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Are these good original disk images, or are they all crack liked the ones floating around already ? :)
Of course I don't remember playing many Commodore games that didn't have a 'cracked by' intro
The legal status of Jumpman is somewhat different than the other Epyx titles. The rights to the game are now in the hands of its creator, Randy Glover. I'm guessing he'd make a deal with these people if one was offered.
If you'd like to play Jumpman again, check out the Jumpman Lounge at ClassicGaming. You can play faithful remakes, expanded games with editors (like Jumpman: Under Construction), or you can get my own game "Jumpman Zero" (a prequel available for Windows or Palm).
Jumpman is just as fun as you remember it...
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
.. to play Zork on my 52 inch plasma HDTV!
Make it dual boot Contiki OS and old school C64 OS and I'd buy it.
Or just emulate the C64 inside of Contiki...
Commodore's back. Apple's back. Amiga's next.
Microsoft will probably eat them all up again by 2010 just cause they want to. History repeats itself.
If you're going to go that route.
I'm not so good with names.
I don't think you can beat the C=64 version on a TV with an old-skool joystick though
True, in two ways: You can't do better than that, and I can't beat the original game (on a TV, an emulator, or any other way).
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
What kind of crackhead decided that Gentoo for an embedded device was a good idea?
I mean, for a static box that does one job & doesn't need any user configuration, what does Gentoo give you? Most of the functionality of Gentoo classifies as 'bloat' on this kind of device.
The same could be said for any real distro, of course.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Shows how much you know-- the original poster is correct. You're either not old enough to remember, or had a C64 late enough that the disk drives were cheaper and the software was more commonly on disk. For a long time, though, there were tons of games available on cartridge-- I had Zaxxon, Attack of the Mutant Camels, Jupiter Lander, among others.
That's true, and I do hope/think that the developers should at least get some money from any sales; but the law's the law, and they're the copyright owners...
I have a sudden desire to play Burger Time again. I wish I still had my C64. It was loaned to some extended family members long ago and I think they sold it or tossed it or something. Very sad. :-(
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
I don't understand companies like Tulip or Cloanto (who's been trying to do the same thing with Amiga). I see them more as rom squatters than people who are serious about supporting the existing retro-computer community. It's all about how they can squeeze a few dollars from some fossils, and, Oh! if someone tries to get around paying the toll, how they bite the hands that feed them! What I don't understand is why these people don't try to add some value to these products. They need to provide another answer than "It's illegal" when someone asks, "Why not just download the ROM for free?" Can Tulip or Cloanto offer *ANYTHING* of value other than the "good conscious" of paying people a toll who had nothing whatsoever to do with the development of these games? I can see value in Cloanto's games in a stick--but selling these old roms is just flat out silly. If I owned the patents or copyrights to this old stuff, the first thing I'd so is release it all into the public domain and spend the rest of my time trying to get people to take advantage of it and build some new markets.
They're not selling ROM images, they're selling DISK images. Most of those games never came out on carts, instead only released on disks, thus it is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to have a "ROM" of these games.
http://c64upgra.de/c-one/
ATX form factor, IDE, CF, SDRAM, 20 MHz 65816, hires graphics, multichannel SID sound.
READY.
#
If you're willing to settle for "really cute", grab the source code for this.
How could you forget Atari? Philistine! [sniffle]
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt