Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Commodore 64 TV Game for Sale

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the kids-these-days dept.

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.

4 of 371 comments (clear)

  1. The Hardware for I/O is all exposed?? by bob+beta · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

    --
    "What's the frequency Kenneth?"
  2. Well, it's a step in the right direction. by Rigor+Morty · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    Remove the spamfreak to speak.
  3. That's no C64 joystick. by stratjakt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  4. They -are- cracked games,.. by mccalli · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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