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Commodore - Back In The Hardware Biz At Last?
Aphrika writes "Commodore is back in the hardware business [via current owners Tulip Computers] and this time they're taking on... Apple? Due for release in August are three MP3 players; the eVic, fPet and mPet. The eVic is a 20GB (hence the name) hard drive-based player, while the mPet and fPet are closer to the Muvo/iRiver styled flash players. They'll also be hoping you pay a visit to the Commodore World Music Store once in a while to stock up on tunes..." We also recently mentioned Commodore's 'TV Game' and ROM-store projects over at Slashdot Games.
The fPet is a music CARRIER..
That reads like "Standard USB thumbdrive" to me, definitely not a player. I'd still get one because of the logo.
The Vic-20...remember?
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
One of their computers, the predecessor of the C64, was the "VIC-20".
Moll.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
And how in the world does the name eVic imply 20GB of storage? Is it something in another language (like vic means 20)
One of the first widely successful Commodore computers sold was called the VIC-20.
This one was /.'ed on the first reply!
Maybe they should host their site on one of these newfangled 933Mhz C64's
-- In Soviet Russia, radio listens to YOU!
Heres a hint...the full name of the VIC computer was the VIC-20.
About Commodore International B.V.
Commodore International B.V. is a daughter company of Tulip Computers. The CommodoreWorld concept is developed in cooperation with a number licensee-partners amongst others Yeahronimo N.V. and Ironstone Partners Ltd. Through this joint effort Tulip Computers and its partners will strengthen their power to act and will limit the financial risks connected to the development and production of new products considerably. In addition the introduction of new products and /or services will be much quicker.
About Ironstone
Ironstone Partners Ltd is a commercial vehicle created and funded by a number of individuals with a combined experience of over 100 years in the global games and media industries. Ironstone has offices in both the United Kingdom and Canada. Ironstone focus itself on projects in the worldwide games- and multimedia industry.
Commodore is a very strong brand with worldwide recognition introducing a solution what will bridge the consumer's eGap. An eGap is the entertainment Gap in the life of a consumer...
Seems possible that some new people bought the rights to use the commodore name.
And why is this corporate info written in Engrish?
...music like this and specifically these, of which, of course, the format is the SID :D
Although you'd need something like this to play them.
And, just because I thought it interesting, apparently, these are the best ever C64 game tunes:
* Monty on the Run
* R-type
* One Man and His Droid
* Spellbound
* Ocean Loader v3.0
* After the War
* Ghouls 'n' Ghosts
* Kinetix
* Auf Wiedersehen Monty
* Bionic Commando
Lord forgive me for jumping to the defense of a computer that's been dead nearly 20 years. But somebody's gotta answer this.
I forget what Apple IIe's cost around 1985, but they were well over a grand; actually I think close to two grand...unreachable if you were a high school student mowing lawns. On the other hand, you could get a Commodore for $200, and a disk drive for another $200, plug it up to a TV and you were set.
Additionally, the graphics and especially the sound were much better on the C64 than the Apple IIe. The Commodore had a SID chip, which was polyphonic (I think) and offered four different kinds of sound envelopes. You could even tweak the ADSR...all this on a computer that was released in, what, 1983? The Apples and their tinny speaker sure couldn't do that, not without some expensive add on sound card anyway.
I remember a friend who lived down the block who had an Apple used to always be furious that the same games looked and sounded so much better on my cheap computer than his expensive one.
I think for the time, Commodore made amazing hardware and practically gave it away relative to what others were charging. Really odd to see them dissed over something like this.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
God No
Its just not fair...
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
You missed the point. Napster, Atari and Commodore are all companies that failed and then had their assets bought by other companies who now use the name purely for marketing purposes. They are not the companies they are pretending to be, although they do have the legal right to use the name. Apple doesn't fit that category.
This is British standard usage. Commodore, being a company, hence a group of people, takes the plural form of the verb. It's a choice made on lexical plurality, as opposed to morphological plurality. In the US, however, we typically only employ the plural forms of verbs with morphologically plural noun phrases in the subject position.
What amazes me stayed at 1MHz, and was able to sell machines. The Apple I, released in 1976, was a 1MHz machine. The Apple II debuted in 1977, at 1MHz. The Apple II+ (my first computer, may God rest its soul) in '79, at 1MHz. The Apple IIe in '83, at 1MHz. The Apple IIc in '84, 1MHz. The Apple IIe Enhanced, at, you guessed it, 1MHz. That computer wasn't discontinued 'till 1993, for crying out loud.
Mind you, the Apple IIc+, Apple IIGS, and Macintosh were introduced during that timeframe at higher clock rates, but still, for 17 years, they sold a machine at the same speed. What the hell happened to Moore's Law?
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
The C64 blows away your 8088 with a dumb terminal CRT. What could you DO with that thing? Use Wordstar and print on your dot matrix printer?
The C64 was an incredible little machine. Yup, only 64K of memory, and you could only really use 32K of it. It was only 0.98Mhz. And people did amazing things with it. Full color graphics, three channel synthesizer (which people are still using in audio gear; long live the SID!) and easy connectivity to things like joysticks, modems, and even mice. You know, there's a reason Commodore sold millions of them.
Take a look at some of the C64 demos that folks STILL MAKE at www.scene.org (check out the past few assembly archives, and other parties,) and watch the video of some guy doing a live DJ set with a C64 (assembly 03).. then tell me the C64 is a Plastic K-Mart computer. Show me an Apple II demo or even a PC jr demo. Oh wait, there aren't any, because they weren't good enough to do anything except play Oregon Trail with the beeper speakers. 'BEEEEP. You win.' yay.
So do yourself a favor. Go download the VICE emulator, and then download some C64 demos, or even some of the wonderful games you can find at www.c64.org. Maybe you can see what you missed all those years, looking at your monochrome screen and listening to your computer beep at you.
It's not always about K's and Mhz. Thought people would have learned that by now.
Shit, even the TI99-4a was better then the early IBM PC's.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/pearse.html Read up .. I think he definitely deserves a mention whenever history of early flight is brought up.
almost everyone had MS BASIC on their 8 bit system, even Radio Shack and Atari.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
You need to be reading your Apple II History, not just Folklore's Mac history.
The relevant parts of how Applesoft BASIC came to the Apple II:
Back in 1975 and 1976, Microsoft was producing BASIC interpreters for nearly every microprocessor that was produced, in hopes of licensing or selling their BASIC to those who built a computer around that chip. In mid-1976, Microsoft's first employee, Marc McDonald, was given the job of creating a version of BASIC that would run on the then-new 6502 microprocessor, even though there not yet any computers that used that processor. They became aware of Steve Wozniak's efforts in designing his 6502 computer (the Apple-1), and one of Microsoft's programmers called Steve Jobs to see if he would be interested in a BASIC language for this computer. Jobs told him that they already had a BASIC (remember that Wozniak had been writing BASIC interpreters before he even had a computer on which to run them), and if they needed a better one, they could "do it themselves over the weekend".
Even without a potential customer for this product, McDonald worked on this BASIC, using a modified 6800 microprocessor simulator (the 6800 had an instruction set that was similar to the 6502). For several months Microsoft had their 6502 BASIC sitting on a shelf, unwanted and unused. But by October 1976 they finally had a contract to put this interpreter into the new Commodore PET computer that was being designed. This would ultimately become the first time that BASIC was included with a computer built into the ROM, rather than being loaded from a paper tape, disk, or cassette. However, the contract Microsoft had with Commodore was no good to them at that time, as far as income was concerned; it stipulated that they would not be paid until some time in 1977, when the computer was to be finished and ready to ship. With income and cash reserves running dangerously low, Microsoft was given a reprieve by none other than Apple Computer.[12]
Apple was receiving increasing numbers of requests by users of the Apple II for a floating point BASIC. Integer BASIC (which Wozniak had also at one time called "Game BASIC") worked well for many purposes, and a skilled programmer could even make use of the floating point routines that were included in the ROM of Integer BASIC.[15] However, the average Apple II user was not satisfied with Integer BASIC, especially as it made them unable to easily implement business software (where the number to the right of the decimal point is as important as the one to left). Wozniak tried to make modifications to his Integer BASIC to make use of the floating point routines, but at that time he was also hard at work on designing the Disk II interface card, and his efforts on creating a floating point BASIC fell further and further behind. Consequently, Apple's management decided to go back to Microsoft and license the 6502 floating point BASIC that had been offered to them in 1976.
In August 1977, Apple made a $10,500 payment to Microsoft for the first half of a flat-fee license that they were able to negiotate. Typically, Microsoft would license its BASIC on a royalty basis; they would be paid a set fee for every copy of BASIC that went out the door -- in this case, with every computer that was sold. The fact that Microsoft was willing to concede and let Apple license their 6502 BASIC on a flat-fee basis is a reflection of the financial straits that Microsoft was under.[13] The version Apple licensed was almost identical to the MITS extended BASIC that Microsoft had previously written for the Altair 8800.[4],[5] At Apple, Randy Wigginton was assigned the job of incorporating into Microsoft's BASIC the graphics commands that were unique to the Apple II.
And, how they kept from getting bent over by Microsoft:
A significant part of the story of Applesoft and Apple Computer occurred in March of 1985. At this time, Apple was still struggling to get the new Macinto