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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."
8 bit is back!
When processors/memory/lcds etc are getting cheaper by the minute, Why would you want to go back and use something that came to light so many years ago?
Generation Trance: What generation are you?
I remember the comodore PET I used back in high school. No HD. No Floppy. No color screen. 64KB of memory (?). Basic. Tape drive (you could use the same tapes that would play in your care stereo). Wow!
Who will guard the guards?
another visitor. stay a while, STAY FOREVER!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Memory
Writing programs in BASIC
Saving files to a tape drive
We were patient back then...
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Some Dutch company bought rights to use the commodore name and logo and is stamping it on some Chinese made OEM products?
Maybe it will run REBOL? That'd be cool, Carl Sassenrath has some interesting software. I'd buy a Commodore-branded GPS or handheld in a second.
Jack Tramiel, there is a special place in Hell for you. A place where you can gaze upon Jay Miner's shining brilliance, but never quite touch it. You killed the coolest computer ever, jerk.
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
An easy to use programming language for high schoolers and hobbists, like oh, I don't know... maybe BASIC? Not VB, but just plain ol' BASIC. None of the OO stuff, none of the "on click/on mouseover" crap, just something that we can mess with. Like the program that used to come with DOS.
Just don't publish programs in magazines. That really was a painful and stupid way to distrubute software.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Can't we just let the dead rest in peace anymore? I loved both my C=64 and my Amiga, but they're history. This is just marketing/branding, it has nothing to do with the original products, nor it's spirit.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
if you want real power you need a spectrum with a massive 128k of memory and a top of the range built in tape drive
In related news scientist hope to resurrect Dinosaurs to fill ecological gaps.
The good news: It will run Open Office. The bad news: The Open Office suite will come on 382 floppy disks.
I grew up with the Commodore 64. It was my first computer, and I loved it. I loved Zork, Shamus, Frogger, and CBasic. If these guys plan to tap the popularity of Commodore to market a new product (I'm assuming they won't be using any original code..that would just be amusing) - they need to tap the reasons why Commodore was so popular. Use some vintage graphic techniques. Use the cool shades of blue from the original C64 and expand on it - gradients..mmmm... Don't just rely on the brand to take your new product - make sure it works, and works REALLY well. You're not just marketing a new product with a brand nobody knows, people are going to expect more out of something with the Commodore name on it.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
That's all I have to say.
-- haaz.
So... This isn't Commodore, they aren't using old Commodore tech, they're just hoping that people are going to buy something because of the name.
I doubt this will work very well. Once people realise the association is fake, the products had better be very good, or else people will be angry that their good memories have been compromised, and they will be *less* satisfied than if they'd just bought a Brand Nobody product.
I think it's unlikely the products will be any good, or else they wouldn't have felt the need to tack any brand they could get their hands on as a way to promote them. Think of the ratio of good film tie-in games to bad.
Maybe they will make good use of the name, maybe they have the most wonderful products ever, but they are one wrong step from becoming unwanted graverobbers.
Maybe they'll buy my 400 shares of CBM. ;-)
I miss the user group meetings with my Amiga and Comodore buddies. Thank god I now have something to do.
Go here: http://www.viceteam.org/
Then here: http://www.c64.com/
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
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
Here in Argentina, there are Commodore brand clone PCs since over two years ago (and pretty cheap they are), take a look Here, so, wtf is this news?
Typing, typing, typing, typing, save to tape.
Typing, typing, typing, typing, save to tape.
Typing, typing, typing, typing, save to tape.
Typing, typing, typing, typing, save to tape.
Unplug computer from TV and watch news.
Plug in computer to TV and continue!
Slashcode bug # 497457 - unfixed since December 2001 - Go look it up!
o/~ Join us now and share the software
What's a Commodore?
You fail as a first officer.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
Is it wise to print a stack trace on a web page exception? I tried to click on the media center and got the following error: [FormatException: Input string was not in a correct format.] Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.DoubleType. Parse(String Value, NumberFormatInfo NumberFormat) +195
Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.IntegerType .FromString(String Value) +97
[InvalidCastException: Cast from string "" to type 'Integer' is not valid.]
Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.IntegerType .FromString(String Value) +212
Shopper.Shop.Home.initializeShop()
Shopper.Shop.Home.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)
System.Web.UI.Control.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +67
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +35
System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain() +731
(%i1) factor(777353);
(%o1) 777353
When you're older son we'll tell you. It's what peopled used before they discovered hard drives and monitors, not to mention store bought software. Remember working off a TV? Good times, good times.
from the smoke-me-a-kipper-i'll-be-back-for-breakfast dept.
captain ace zonk, what a guy
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.
Whoah whoah whoah... there were days without COMPUTERS? How did people LIVE?
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
I guess she is a brick house.
Its just the name that is returning, not the people that made the company what it was back in the 80's.
This is news?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I RTFA and click on the shop.
Then "Flash Players".
Got:
Million Dollar Screenshot
I stopped reading here.
I don't know what these people are doing with the Commodore name, but whatever it is, it isn't Commodore.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
go check out the abandonware section of alex-soft.net to go snag the PC version. Granted, you *WILL* want to run this on a 286, with DOS 5 installed. Emulation and slowdown programs just do not cut it.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
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..
Does that surprise you or is it in any way different from 95% of other companies out there today?
Sorry, just irritated that not only is this strategy so widespread, but that it is so effective in the market. Why are people generally more caught up in a brand than the actual product?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Just to let you know, there's still a vivid commodore demoscene (evolved from intros), producing enormous creative output. some links: http://scene.org/ - repository for all demoscene stuff; the bigger parties like breakpoint and assembly have c64/amiga compo categories http://scene.org/file.php?id=289244 - unbelievable amiga demo from 2004
Jeri Ellsworth is a self-taught VLSI designer (she also built racing cars for a few years.) She gave a great talk at Stanford on her experiences growing up as a hacker, putting up with prejudice against female high-school dropouts, hanging out at computer stores and starting one, learning VLSI and learning how to work with toy and electronics manufacturers to get things manufactured in China, and about the design itself. She did two C64 emulators. Commodore-One was the first, and the newer C64DTV is built into the base of a joystick. In addition to the commodoreworld site, it's available less expensively at Amazon.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
You could spill anything short of aqua regia on the keyboard, dead ones made dandy high tech doorstops, and oh yeah - we ran a radio interferometry rig off a ZX-80 - it collected the data and periodically (= when we remembered to walk over to it swap wires and do so) saved to cassette tape and printed the data. We'd previously paid $5K to get basically the same thing done with some solar energy data - AtoD to mass storage and printer.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Um, just the company that created the single most successful model of computer ever (the C64); had a bunch of other very successful models (the C128, the VIC-20, the PET, the Amiga 2000, the Amiga 500); is generally acknowledged for inventing multimedia (with the Amiga 1000); had switchable GUIs, multiple processors, independent graphics processors, decent (stereo) sound and graphics, and scripting capabilities back before most other computer platforms even thought about such things; had reliably chainable external hardware well before USB; etc. Most of the best programmers I know today started on one of the Commodore series.
I'm baaaack.....
Rocked my world. I loved that Sea Battle game and I wound up extending it. And the old computer magazines, like Compute!, Creative Computing, etc, that, gasp, all actually had -programs- in them.
This is my sig.
You kids. Remember loading the terminal driver for the 33ASR on front panel register switches, then bootstrapping from paper tape? Remember playing Star Trek games that printed out the entire board after every turn?
Remember where i put my teeth?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Actually a 64 bit computer way back then WAS pretty impressive ... no, wait ...
"Cats like plain crisps"
Wouldn't a non-portable GPS be kinda pointless? I'm seeing a big rock with "You are here" carved on it.
Here several computer stores sells Commodore branded PC. With WinXP as any other computer in the market. Now they are selling some with Linux (a local version, based on Xandros) just to pull the prices down.
Check this link.
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
Take a MOS 6510 core on 65nm process and pump up the Mhz. Add some 32bit instructions and build a modern C64 with a modern chipset and PCI bus. It could be done, and I think it would be interesting because Commodore never really made processor updates to the C64 or increased it's ram (unless you count the commodore 128). It would be completely impractical and useless, but it would have a very high cool factor. -R
The Commodore Musicstore does not carry any music by the Commodores?! If I can't use my revived computer of the 80s to play the music of the 70s, I'm not sure that it's worth it.
Personally, I think the 6502 would make a great CPU for embedded systems. It's really easy to program (small instruction set), memory-mapped IO makes that nice and easy too, and its performance was good compared to chips of its generation (e.g. Z80).
I'd like a good source of cheap single-chip 6502 programmable microcontrollers, in fact...
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
But it's not back as a 'full' or 'real' computer. It's back as a microcontroller. In either its Atmel AVR or Microchip PIC format.
What has brought it back is the integration of all the minimum memory resources and I/O into the chip itself. That, and the reduction of cost for the 8-bit 'system' from nearly a thousand dollars twenty years ago to about ten dollars today (for CPU, minimal LCD display, and floppy storage.)
Gates-style BASIC is rarely used on new AVRs and PICs, but it is available for the PIC in the BASIC Stamp device.
Eight Bitters are not used as stand-alone home computers but as controllers that intelligently interact and manipulate other machines and sensors. But the -feeling- of raw control; and the wonder of being able to create or reconfigure the operation of a machine through typing instuctions that determine what the machine will do; this feeling remains the same as it was twenty years ago. It's just much cheaper now.
It's also much easier. Both Atmel and Microchip freely distribute high quality development tools for their devices on the web for Windows PCs. And the memory itself is far more easier to use. No more expensive ultra-violet light EPROM erasers. The program is stored in internal Flash that can be rewritten tens of thousands of times. No more $10000 in-circuit-emulators to figure out what the chip is doing when it stops working. With modern JTAG interfaces, every chip has an ICE built in. Even the most complex program can be debugged with a $39 (or less home brew) JTAG-ICE and the factory-supplied free development system programs.
My favorites are the Tiny AVRs. These are eight pin DIP chips that sell for about $1 each. They program through the PC parallel port. They have multi-channel 10-bit Analog-to-Digital convertors built in. (Try finding a 10-bit dedicated ADC chip for $1!) They run at 20 MIPS (about 20 times faster than the Commodore 64) with internal system clock generators, no crystals needed, and the speed can be fine tuned. And they have a flexible, easy-to-use, and easy-to-learn instruction set.
There are even rock-bottom level Tiny AVRs (like the Tiny11) that sell for forty cents each. I use one to play a MIDI tone module with a cheap surplus PS2 PC keyboard. It reads the serial logic signals sent out from each keypress and release and transforms them into MIDI Note On/Off messages. Not bad from a 40 cent CPU.
And a 20MIPS CPU for $1 can replace a whole board of TTL chips. Sure so can a GAL or PLD for the same price. But the AVR can switch into power-down mode when not being used and burn only microAmps of current. It uses only about 10 milliAmps at full 20MIPS speed and a third of that when running at, yes, 1.8 volts! Try that with a GAL, good luck Chuck!
Plus there are lots of people on the specialized web sites from whom to get advice when you get completely stuck on something that makes no sense. Another thing that wasn't around for Eight bitters twenty years ago.
The 8-bit world is alive and dazzling well. It's just very quiet and no longer gets any media coverage as being the 'future' in the way that it was covered by the media in the Commodore and Atari years. It's still rockin'.
You're incorrect on both points.
FC Closer
Ahh the good ole 300 baud modem on the c64, great times. Remember when I finally got zmodem in a terminal and stopped using punter, life was good. Never did use kermit, all the c64 bbs's never used it.
And the joy of using a 3 pixel wide 40 column display to get 80 characters. Was so glad when the 128 came out and had real 80 column that did ansi. Even my Amiga 500 didnt have true ansi for the first few years. Petascii, ick..
But the website says using it for a media server or GPS, wtf? Really sad to see everyone keep passing the commodore buck around.
This news hit the C64 scene HARD a while ago. The first they did is announce that everyone playing C64 games on emulators was stealing from them since they now owned the name and demanded that they stop. The second thing was to announce an official C64 emulator and that they would sell the old games for it.
I would think their first step should not be to alienate every single interested person in the world. Last I heard, they were completely unrepentant. The Commodore name is going to be a huge money-sink for these people if they don't VERY quickly smarten up and ask their customers what they want.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
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)
I've keept my SuperPET (old photo) for years at the risk of divorce, and this comes out a week after I toss it
I agree with most of your post, but Commodore did not invent the Amiga. Commodore just purchased the Amiga development team when the latter nearly ran out of money.
http://outcampaign.org/
I noticed something long ago...Amiga fanatics have mostly moved to Linux...why?
The Amiga was kept alive by the fans...and the fans are what keeps Linux (any GPLed software) alive at its heart...
The only thing that the PC is missing as far as the hardware goes is in the architecture...the Amiga had specilaized "co-processors" for everything (Video, Audio, I/O, etc)...this made it seem a lot faster than it really was...the PC is moving in the opposite direction (everything is offloaded to the main CPU)...
If you don't belive that Linux is where the Amiga fans have gone, take a look at Dyne:bolic...it follows many of the same ideas that the Amiga was founded upon....
The revival of the Commodore name could only happen in a country where marijuana is freely available...
Despite the PC and all its capabilities, it would be very nice to have home micros in the style of the 80s updated with today's capabilities. There are plenty of reasons:
I believe there is still room for a home micro ala C64. Sony's Yaroze project and the success of console and arcade emulators, as well as the millions of open source programs that are made 'just for fun' proves that back-bedroom coding is alive and kicking. A home micro the size of a keyboard, with intergrated hard disk and DVD writer, modem and network ports, TV and monitor ports, a modern RISC low power CPU and standard 3D-accelerated video hardware with 256 MB of memory and a custom low-requirements multitasking protected operating system ala the Amiga's one booting of programmable EEPROMS, with a powerful object-oriented garbage-collected BASIC language that offers access to all the low-level interfaces, and with a colorful face would be a great item to have. a micro like that would position itself between big and bulky PCs and home consoles: it would sit in the living room, under the big 27" telly, filling the needs of people intimidated by big bulky PCs as well as be a family thing.
I do not know if the company mentioned in the article has such purposes, but using the Commodore brand one could make such a home micro with great success.
He didn't. Tramiel's Atari lost a dirty bidding war with Commodore for Amiga, Inc's technologies. If Atari had won, they would have used the chips to make a new console platform and probably kick out Miner & co.
The guy you want is Mehdi Ali, who along with Irving Gould ran Commodore to the ground as fast as they could. They are ultimately responsible for creating a company that would throw out any real innovation coming out of the engineering department and going for fast bucks instead. No R&D, just cheap crippled products -- that was Commodore in the 90's. They should have started a next-gen Amiga project as soon as they got the A500 on the market, but they didn't. And when Engineering *did* have a brilliant product (the A3000+) it was scrapped. And when Sun would have sold (shitloads of) rebadged A3000's as Unix workstations, the deal fell through because C= thought they could conquer the Unix market themselves. And...
Whatever. Commodore remains one of the great examples of management by idiocy.
Otherwise, I pretty much agree, but with the ever-increasingly powerful/featureful GPUs in graphics cards, DSP/hardware mixer equipped sound cards and so on, the x86-based PC world is really IMO moving to the same direction where Amiga was: less heavy-duty work for the CPU, which mostly just controls what is to be done/performs the generic processing that specialized processing units are less fit for. This has been the trend for last ten years or so, actually, although initially the move was pretty slow.
Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
I think most of us that have gone to Linux have ended up with Mac OS X.
/etc have really soured many of us. System configs used to be on-screen objects (seperate files of a system-recognized type) that we could grab and edit with a mouse, and most every GUI-fied system utility responded to standardized command-line arguments with equal efficacy.
:-\
:-)
Why Linux? It had so much promise 7 years ago as a "better desktop": It had a GUI environment where you could drop to a Unix-like shell, and great multitasking.
But 7 years of being unable to refer to your permanent/removable media by volume-name, and spending half that time unable to write control-scripts for arbitrary GUI apps, and all the needless thrashing in
Most Control Panel GUI tools on Linux still cannot configure a display or network-share half as well as Windows or OS X. API functions to change just the resolution or the refresh and then save to disk? Forget it-- You have to grok every nuance of their homebrew config format, both reading and writing, with your own distro-specific code. None of this stuff ever modernizes.
Want advanced technology? Well you get server-room Advanced Technology and just be happy with that. So the desktop environment remains primitive in striking ways.
The filesystem is even more an alarming ratsnest than 7 years ago, and there are gigantic and contorted "package managers" that chop applications into tiny pieces and spew them into a dozen or more disjointed paths. And then there's autofs.
OTOH, I can access all my disk volumes under '/Volumes' in OS X. BY NAME. Ahhhhhh.....
I can have multiple audio outputs at once (no fiddling!). Ahhhhhh....
Applications install/uninstall with a copy/delete of a single folder. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!
BUT of course, the Linux priests say this isn't possible... OS tools tailored to the end-user break security and cause havoc (or something)! By their logic, OS X shouldn't exist.
Yours truly,
Imaginary user on imaginary Unix system
As a very long time Amiga guy, I went to Linux in 1997, and stayed there.
No Macs for me. I'm never going down the proprietary hardware/software path ever again.
The downfall of Chicken Lips taught me that. That whole "free as in freedom" thing is important, and that is the true lesson of Amiga.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book