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.

Comments

The Hardware for I/O is all exposed??

[bob beta]

Can you really 'add a keyboard' and 'disk drive', etc?

To do that, I would think this device would need a lot of exposed I/O hardware, i.e. pins, etc.

I suspect that rather, this is all embedded in some sort of an ASIC or FPGA.

Can anybody add more info?

Well, it's a step in the right direction.

[Rigor Morty]

After all, MAME cabinets are a pain to build, and are limited to a few free designs. With this, and a switch box, I can legally play all of my favorite arcade games from those arcade-in-a-stick controllers, and now all of my C64 favorites. Here's to hoping that they do the same for the Apple IIe series, because I can't wait to play Wizardry again "Jump down, turn around, and kill a bunch of wights"...and so on.

Re:What games are included?

[iGN97]

Should've included Alley Cat and Gribbly's Day Out. But I guess Uridium and Paradroid makes it go a long way.

Game selection sucks

[Gyorg_Lavode]

Damnit, it doesn't include the game I most wanted!
There used to be an old Spy vs. Spy game for the commadore 64. (Yes the MAD magazine spy vs spy.) I used to LOVE that game. Its a shame this system doesn't have it. I also had frogger for the commadore 64. Its missing too.

Re:Game selection sucks

[stratjakt]

There were three (?) Spy vs Spy games, I can only remember two of them distinctly though..

The 64 had plenty of kick ass games. Hmm, let me think..

Choplifter: First game I got, I had one of the first 64s shipped to canada, and had this on cart. Didn't get a disk drive for a couple years. Absolute classic title.

Archon, Archon II - Adept: Chess meets arena battles. Kicked ass.

Project Firestart: Ahead of it's time, IMO, a 4 disk scrolling adventure with a plot similar to "Alien".

Ghostbusters: I ain't fraid of no ghost!

Slap Shot Hockey: Not 'til the EA NHL games of the mid 90's did I play a more fun hockey title.

The Mucher eats Chewitz: Imagine if Rampage was really really freakin cool.

The Great Smurf Adventure: Hours of fun pressing the spacebar to make a white square sprite fall onto a smurf represented by a blue asterisk, only to have Papa Smurf, a red asterisk, raise the block using magic and reveal the crushed smurf who is henceforth represented by a red underscore. OK, maybe not a classic title but pretty good for something I wrote when I was 8.

Frankly, I didn't pay for C64 games then and I'm not about to start now. I'll just give Stew a couple blank floppies tomorrow at recess.

That's no C64 joystick.

[stratjakt]

It need's to be in a Wico Command Control, or "the Boss" to truly recreate the experience.

Anyone remember those sticks? Solid steel shaft, heavy duty construction, bad-ass leaf switches inside. They were every bit as durable as an arcade stick, hell probably moreso.

Hell, I still have a Command Control that's going on 25 years old. Still as good as the day I got it.

Compare to those "arcade sticks" they sell for PS2/XBox, etc. Cheap plastic pieces of shit that are broken inside a couple weeks. Look inside and see the cheapest microswitches Radio Shack can offer.

I know there are a couple on the market that are made with real arcade components, but they cost a bundle.

Re:AH - the beauty of Epyx . . .

[eddy]

About remakes I will just say one word; Rampage.

C'mon now.. you know you want it... side scrolling. Network and local multiplayer. Screen shakes, lush explosions and crisp new soundfx. Screen after screen of greater and greater buildings; mobile homes, apartment complexes, skyrisers, churches, Wallmarts ;-), bridges, etc.

Since you can only play three 'monsters', you could have a "multiplayer-lobby" where everyone else gets to play a poor little foot soldier, shooting their pea-guns at Ralpie et.al ....

>droool<

is it a FPGA like the C-One?

[nurb432]

Or did she do something else to create this thing?

And are all the pins/ports available or is 'attaching a keyboard' just not an option here...

Something like this could be put into a 1541 disk drive ..

Rebirth of the C-64 sw/hw scene?

[haggar]

Provided that these prove wildly succesful, the C-64 installed base will increase by a cool 1/4 million. I know there is still a lot of folks out there that use their C-64 on a regular basis, mostly for games (but not only).

What are the chances that a small software company ("one-man band") will find some financial interest in developing C-64 software? Same goes for hardware: I guess you could make an adapter to hook your existing carts and C-64 periferals to this thingy.

Re:Rebirth of the C-64 sw/hw scene?

[Feneric]

There's at least one commercial software developer already out there and active: Maurice Randall. He's got a functioning shell interface, FAX application, and more (be sure to check out "Wheels") for GEOS on the C64/C128. His site can be found at: http://www.cmdrkey.com/

There are also a lot of open source developers out there. Craig Bruce comes right to mind; his site is at: http://www.csbruce.com/~csbruce/cbm/"

There's been an amazing amount of high-quality software created for the C64 and (especially) the C128. GEOS (now found on some hand-helds and phones) cut its teeth on the Commodore 8-bit machines. There have been several superb operating systems designed for them. There are even graphical web browsers available. Yes, web browsers, in the plural.

Re:Not your typical developer

[Anonymous Coward]

This is awesome because of the technical merits, but also because the developer isn't your run of the mill parent-mooching-freak.
She's an attractive woman.

So because she's a woman, her work is awesome because she is beautiful. Jerk.

Paradroid!

[Anonymous Coward]

Trust me, for Paradroid alone it's worth it. Or at least worth seeking out the rom and an emulator.

Though Karateka and the Archons are sorely, sorely missed.

They -are- cracked games,..

[mccalli]

There was a post on comp.sys.cbm a few weeks ago, although they have the licenses to distribute these, the actual versions included are mostly cracked games. The reason given? It was easier to NTSC-fix the cracked versions than to strip off the copy protection of the originals.

So there you go - support your local C64 cracking crew. Even though I have a real C64, I might look at this for the convenience when the PAL version hits Europe. But please...Way Of The Exploding Fist! Ghosts'n'Goblins! One Man And His Droid for the music, the Monty Mole stuff...

Cheers,
Ian

Re:But why hack it?

[DaWorm666]

For one, it has 256 colors instead of 16. None of the games support it, but your own code could.