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Commodore 64 TV Game for Sale
KodaK writes "The Commodore 64 Direct to TV is on sale at QVC. QVC bought all available units (250,000 or so) so, for now, this is the only place you can get them. This is a full C=64 in a joystick form factor with 30 games included, meaning you can hack this sucker to add a keyboard and/or other IEC peripherials (like a disk drive). The full BASIC ROM is included. Buy one now and impress your friends. BTW, this was developed by Jeri Ellsworth, the engineer responsible for the C-One. Cool stuff." We mentioned the development of this earlier.
I feverishly search the list of included games.... No M.U.L.E.?!?!! Useless!
Impossible Mission is just crying out for a modern day remake. Excellent game that was ahead of its time. Highly recommended if you have the patience for yestertech graphics.
Nice idea. Too bad you can't use an AC adaptor in place of batteries. Any idea what the battery life on these units are anyway?
The PC Weenies: 11 Years of Online Tech 'Too
Problem I see with this is that if you break the unit by 'waggling' to much, you've got a heftyish replacement fee. Maybe that's why QVC are sellin em in packs of two.
On the hardware front, hope it is hackable to a degree, I'd like to see some of the Rowland Twins (or ACP) masterpieces like Creatures, Creatures 2 (LOVE those torture chambers) and Mayhem in Monsterland.
And Park Patrol and Wizball and.....snip!
I got fed up a few years back of the sheer amount of consoles i had sitting under my tv (nes, snes, mega drive, mastersystem, saturn, N64), the wires were getting some what cumbersome. These individual controllers go a long way to solving the problem but the best solution now adays seems a unit like the xbox or a tiny computer. to be honest i wouldn't play any new games on it, bit of a retro fan, i would mainly stick with emulators, offers a host more functionality, i.e. saving games, screen shots, four player support, and you can more or less drag and drop games as and when you like. For the moment my 300+ cartidges and cd's are very much retired to the loft. Is there really a need for these fancy game console controllers for anyone with a reasonable budget?
"all through my house i set up traps, it seems like the rats have a map, so now i feed the rats crack" - Donald D
So much time passed between the Apshai/Hellfire series and Gateway, that I think the term 'inspired by' is better than 'sequel'. Here's a shout out to Jon Freeman, designer of Apshai and most all of Automated Simulation's first games. He is one of the half-dozen founders of computer games and he deserves a hell of a lot more recognition in the development community.
Most of the games are dogs but Sword of Fargoal? Man, was I ever addicted to that game. I played it so long a few times that the C-64 was as hot as the power supply.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
Just get a used Dreamcast for $20 and emulate everthing, C64, Atari 800, 2600, 5200, Apple, NES, Genesis, Gameboy, MAME and more.
I wouldn't exactly call the C-64 a "console". It was a real personal computer in a sense that the Atari 2600 wasn't (but the Atari 800 was).
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For the record: I'm not a shill. I submitted this story because I think this is a kick ass piece of hardware, both from the hackability aspect and I think it's good to support hackable hardware. I have no financial interest in this device, nor does anyone that I know on a personal basis. I am familiar with the developer, but only inasmuch as I read comp.sys.cbm and lurk on the #c64friends chats every once in a while.
/. story, but not for much else...)
Sorry it took so long to reply to this accusation, I was out of town for Thanksgiving (I was able to stand using my parents dialup to order the DTV and to submit the
--J(K) DOS is like Unix in exactly the same way that a pinto is like an aircraft carrier.