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The Return of the Commodore?
PseudoSapien writes "A Dutch consumer media company is hoping it can tap the power of the VIC 20, the PET and the Commodore 64 to launch a new wave of products, including a home media center device and a portable GPS (Global Positioning System) unit and media player. They're talking about Resurrecting Commodore." From the article: "Commodore is far from the first company to try to revive a once-popular tech brand. The Amiga, Commodore's onetime PC brand, has had its own decades-long history as fans tried to preserve both the computer's operating system and brand despite the lack of strong corporate backing."
Hypertalk and a resurection of hypercard. While I loved learning to code on my C64 I was quickly frustrated by what was required to get basic images on the screen. Hypertalk proved to me more useful to me for making basic games and such, and on top of it, it had enough basic OO like programing involved that the concept was easy enough to pick up when I hit actual OO languages.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Just don't publish programs in magazines. That really was a painful and stupid way to distrubute software.
When I was a kid, before going to kindergarten. I saw my dad copying code from an old Compute! magazine. I asked him what he was doing and he explained he was telling the computer what he wanted it to do. I asked how I could do this and Dad told me I would need to learn to read first. I learned how to read before going to school for the sole purpose of writing code. I now have an associates in programming and have been working with computers for about 6-7 years. I have the C64 and Compute! to thank for making me the geek I am today. This news brings warmth to my heart.
Beware the fury of a patient man
- John Dryden
Just don't publish programs in magazines. That really was a painful and stupid way to distrubute software.
It also happened to be the only viable way to distribute software, economically atleast.
Actually, in The Netherlands there was a programme on radio that broadcast data tapes (!). Just tape the radio show to cassette, run a translator from BASICODE (which was the "univeral" basic dialect the broadcasts were in) to your home computer's very own basic dialect, and you were in business. The show was called NOS HobbyScoop if I recall correctly.
Also, I recollect (fondly) an issue of MSX Magazine which had a flexi disc record (you know, like one of them vinyl records your grandaddy used to have, but the flexi disc was a superthin version of this) which you also copied onto cassette to load onto your machine.
Later on I even became aware of broadcasts of computer data using Teletext pages on Rai Uno (Italian tv - teletext is broadcast in the superfluent scanlines of PAL television, much like closed captioning is broadcast in the extra scanlines of NTSC); these were also targetted, at first, at home computer user, and only later at PC users (but by then, BBSes were the norm).
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Kids today have it easy.
I learned assembler when I was 12 because the BASIC in the ZX81 was so horrible. (The processor was a Z-80, so ironically I was unwittingly being spoiled by Z-80 assembler- the 6502 instruction set was a rude surprise when I upgraded to the Commodore.)
All the games in the articles had a short description and then pages of numbers between 0 and 255 that you had to carefully type in (the Commodore articles later at least included CRCs). Most of the excitement came from just getting the numbers into the machine so you could save to tape before the machine crashed, since the connection to the 16k memory pack was so flakey- the contacts weren't gold plated and the heatsink inside the zx81 itself was just a little thin prong that rose up from the motherboard to the aluminum case lining. I found that leaving a ziploc full of ice cubes on top of a zx81 was a good way to increase the likelihood of success.
I actually think C= has potential as a gamer's brand like Voodoo or Alienware.
A lot of people who grew up with C=64s are adults with money now who want high-quality gaming gear.
Just think about the commercials:
Fade in old-style C= logo, maybe some old-skool tv shots of people playing around with something on a C=64. Then an explosion and some new-style C= logo glowing or perhaps crackling with electricity behind it. Caption (or voiceover): "It's Back..."
+++ATH0
What is a name really worth? They spent millions on the Commodore name...and an old name at that. It is hard to believe. I don't buy a product because of a name. I buy a product because of its features and design. Yes, I do look at the reputation of a company and reputations are associated with names, but there is no relationship between this new Commodore and the old one so no prior reputation autmatically follows. Will people actually buy more product because they chose to use the Commodore name? My belief is that they won't. Yet, why would this company spend millions on the name if they didn't think it would help them? What do they know that I don't? I just can't wrap my head around it.
I'd like Dell or Apple to consider these traits.
. quiver...
I could flip a switch and start typing code in second or two. It was silent, no fans or hard drive. It's keyboard was well-cushioned and you could pound it comfortably all day. I could turn a knob on my "monitor" and watch David Letterman, then turn the knob back to switch tasks without installing any special software.
Comfortable, fast, silent, efficient...It was a good computer for writing code and making business spreadsheets in "multi-plan" I'd never be able to buy a computer with those characteristics today!...sniff...sniff...quiver...sniff...sniff..
so, you learnt something new and irrelevant again today!
If I remember correctly (almost positive) the tape drive was built into the case (by the keyboard). Which after reading the article looks like it was the first generation of PET. I also remember machines with the chicklet keys. And apparently I was wrong on the memory (looks like 8K, again after reading the article).
Offtopic but around that time I had an atari 1200XL at home (maybe it had 64K of memory before OS load) and used it in college for writing papers.
Who will guard the guards?
Assembly language sure.
But the difference with the old 8-bit computers was simplicity. No memory manager, no protected memory, no protected mode, absolute addressing, memory mapped screen and hardware ports, no library loading, no worrying about other processes or threads - the essential OS funtions were kept alive with interrupt routines, and as long as you kept away from the OSs reserved memory, you had the entire machine to yourself.
Imagine what would happen if somebody really did produce a modern-day equivalent to the commodore 64.
1. The C64 had all of its OS in ROM, which meant :
a) No patching could be done after manufacture, so it had to be right the first time
b) No unnecessary features could be added to the OS -- an add-on was required
c) Virus and Root kits were possible, by copying ROM to RAM first and modifying the copied code, but could not survive a cold boot.
d) Instant on
2. The C64 didn't use a native GUI, or DOS or a Unix shell, but the BASIC computer language (also in ROM). Anyone who learned to use the computer at all, was actually using a real computer language. Someone wrote a version of DOS for the 64, and people laughed at him. Who needs DOS when you have full BASIC as the command line?
3. A small tweak to the C64's screen editor converted it into a full screen editor that scrolled BASIC programs in both direction.
4. It used a standard TV for video output.
Now, I know this Dutch company is just using the Commodore name, but if you didn't have to worry about backward compatibility, what would a 21st Century version of the Commodore look like?
1. The OS written in 100% optimized machine language (not C++ or any other high-level language) and stored in ROM, so it could not be changed by malware (not even Sony's). The computer would, therefore, be instant-on.
2. The computer would power-up with a command-line window using some sort of easy-to-use language (any suggestions for something your Mom would be able to handle?)
3. The command-line would appear on a GUI screen of some sort (perhaps something like the XBox-360's?), and be a full-blown GUI text editor with syntax highlighting.
4. Connect natively to an HDTV, with settings for multiple resolutions including 1080p
5. Native output for 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound as well as stereo.
6. Dual-format HD DVD player/recorder
7. Native wireless networking
8. Native wireless keyboard, pointer (mouse, pad, whatever), and game controllers
9. Optional SATA hard drive
10. Optional model with built-in integrated HDTV receiver and PVR software
Anything I missed in this fantasy machine? Use a 64 bit CPU, and you can even call it a C-64! Now, not having played with one, I can't say how close this is to a real-life Xbox360, or a PS3, but I don't think either one is intended to be a computer, and I know Microsoft would have a fit trying to write optimized assembly code that worked right the first time, without patches or bloat. As for Sony, we know that they'll probably build their malware right into the PS3 from the beginning to save us all the trouble of installing it for them
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)