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.

Comments

You're the only one

[MacFury]

The name Commodore carries so little marketing power among non techies. Maybe the occasional person will remember using a commodore a long time ago, but most likely they will equate the name with old technology.

Re:You're the only one

[Dasher42]

I feel it necessary to say this: the way Commodore ran the Amiga into the ground made open source make a hell of a lot of sense. Amiga users, zealous as they were, were helpless to prevent the actual demise of their favorite platform.

Linux gained a convert in me for its immunity to just this kind of thing. At least the open source community cares about its products.

Re:You're the only one

[jimbolaya]

Nothing at all. But the remarkable thing about the iPod is its appeal among non-techies. The iPod really has become a cultural phenomenon much like the Walkman was decades ago.

Commodore may sell a few music players to techies, but taking on Apple, it is not. I still get a chuckle out of the almost weekly reports of the next "iPod killer". This sort of press alone demonstrates the leadership of the iPod.

Re:You're the only one

[master_p]

But the Amiga was about hardware; it could not be open source! No Amiga zealot would ever have the funds or the technological background to produce the next generation chipset that Amiga needed but in 90s. It's a totally different situation than software, where all one wants is an assembler/compiler and CPU emulator.

Of course there are open source hardware projects, but nowhere as sophisticated as the Amiga hardware itself. Amiga emulators still can't play all the Amiga software, since the Amiga had a set of unrivalled custom chips that can't be emulated 100% by a PC (especially A1200 games).

The problem with Commodore is that that they did everything they could to drive the Amiga off the market. In 1991, Commodore engineers had ready a prototype custom chip that could do 1,000,000 textured mapped polygons with hardware T&L. When the world was going 3d (in graphics), Commodore managers decided to scrap that chip and move on with CD32/1200/whatever instead. That was a major tactical mistake, which lead to the death of the Amiga in the following years.

No open source developer could save the Amiga.

Huh?

[MBCook]

OK, I didn't own a Commodore, but I know the name. That said, can someone explain the logic behind this? If they made laptops, desktops, or even web-tv devices, I could understand. I could even sorta understand if they made TiVos. But MP3 players?

This makes about as much sense to me as using the GE brand name to sell fresh carrots.

And how in the world does the name eVic imply 20GB of storage? Is it something in another language (like vic means 20), or was the poster meaning that the eVic was supposed to compete with the iPod based on similarities in the way they are capitalized and the lengths of the name?

None of this makes any sense. They should sell C64s today for hobbiesests and nostalgia. They could be very tiny, still use a TV, be tons of fun. Or make another hobbiest platform. But... MP3 players? Like the market needs more MP3 players.

I'd be more interest in

[Anonymous Coward]

... a new venture from Jack Tramiel, assuming he's still alive, than someone who just bought or co-opted the Commodore names.

Tramiel was a master, a guy who could read the market in real time and act quickly and ruthlessly. He was Commodore.

Bring me a handheld.

[JessLeah]

I want a handheld C64 system. No, not a Game Boy Advance emulating a C64. An actual handheld C64 gaming system. Maybe with a little keyboard a la the Zaurus. And I want it under $100.

curious marketing

[pedantic bore]

The names "Vic" and "Pet" will resonate with former Commodore users, perhaps, but since these represent a tiny fraction of the market, I think it would have been in their best interest to choose names that had more "meaning" to a broader market. (looking at the eVIC, the name "iPodKnockoff" comes to mind, although this might get them in trouble).

On a possibly unrelated note, I loved my Commodore 64 so of course I clicked on the link for "C64 DTV". This crashed my Mozilla. Since the people who hacked on old commodores are probably more likely to use Mozilla than IE, this worries me.

Re:I hope they can play .SID files [nt]

[AKAImBatman]

I hope they can play .SID files

Screw that. It damn well better be able to play my MOD files! I have such classics as "Girl from Ipanima" and "All that She Wants" just waiting for a portable player! I mean, who *doesn't* want to listen to "Ace of Base" while out and about?

Subject/Verb Agreement

[daemonenwind]

Commodore is a single entity under law. As a corporation, or more literally, as an "embodiment", it can sue and be sued, hold property and so on as a single legal entity.

In other words, stop using the plural. It's just wrong. Commodore is not the Borg.

Re:name

[jimbolaya]

Or Apple, for that matter. The iPod doesn't run DOS 3.3 or ProDOS. Companies evolve...or they die. Interestingly, Commodore has seemed to have done one, and now is trying to do the other postmortem.

Re:This is shameful

[TastyWords]

Why should you feel ashamed by hooking up again with a C-64? As lite as Linux has gotten, certainly you can find at least one flavor to satisfy your taste?

I mean, come on, I remember when the TRaSh-80 was around and used a tape recorder for persisting data or TI-99/4A which you could be paid for $0.50 in its final days. It was selling for $49.50 at K-Mart and there was a $50 rebate from Texas Instruments.

All of this is nicer unless you want to "adopt a mainframe" (someone begs & pleads for someone to come get a mainframe and give it a good home (usually basement or garage) before it's towed away. I think the CFO would not find the sharp spike in the electric bill very funny when she sees it, providing it doesn't blow something on the way to the house first.
I'm guessing it would be in the neighborhood of contest to see whose houses stand the greatest chance of being seen from Jupiter. (In a recent year, one of the houses said their December bill was $5kUS more than average.

Re:This is shamefulThis is shameful

[dasmegabyte]

So did the Apple, if you remember. In fact, it could be said that Apple's devotion to Microsoft BASIC is the reason we have Windows today.

The basic premise is this: in exchange for the rights to license AppleBASIC from Microsoft, some pinhead (who had been tasked with the deal because Jobs didn't think the Apple II had a future) gave the software company full rights to the Macintosh look and feel. Viola! Windows, all nice and legal -- and basically for free.

Old commodore commericals

[Sark666]

Getting nostalgic in my older years I found this site with a bunch of commodore commericals:

http://www.commodorebillboard.de/Commercials/Com me rcials.htm

But the one they're missing is the one with that jingle 'I'm playing games with my 64!'

The reason I want that one is my friend was actually in that commerical and it would be cool to see it again.

Re:This is shamefulThis is shameful

[dasmegabyte]

Well, not exactly true. Actually, not true at all. First off, Apple traded a few million dollars in stock for the right to bring their programmers -- already well versed in graphical user interfaces, having done work on them in college -- to the Xerox PARC, where he saw a prototype system with NO relation to the Star. In fact, this system didn't even have a file management UI. Apple invented that, and it was Xerox who stole quite a bit of the UI that eventually showed up on the Star, thanks to the close ties between Apple and Xerox. Besides the concept of visual file management, Apple also invented the concept of icons that WERE things and could have actions performed on them...in the Xerox model, icons DID things, like physical buttons. Windowing existed solely to permit multiple command lines.

Apple "won" the Xerox case because what Xerox was doing -- moving a cursor around on a screen and manipulate windows and buttons -- they didn't invent, anyway. It had been done in colleges for years.

Apple vs. Microsoft, on the other hand, was a big deal. Apple HAD invented something new. They HAD created a new interface. But, in hopes of getting Microsoft as an application developer for their new OS, they accidentally licensed them core technologies and were vague enough to infer that they'd licensed the whole system. A more vitriolic and pro-mac argument can be found here.