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The Commodore Comeback at CeBIT
Peter Malford writes "Earlier this month Slashdot reported on Commodore's return with new gaming PCs that would be officially announced at CeBIT. Cnet.co.uk has got a first look at the four new models called the XX, GX, GS and G. "The high-end XX packs enough grunt to make an Alienware machine run to its deformed alien mum. It uses an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 quad-core processor, 4GB of RAM and two Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX graphics cards running in tandem... Commodore uses what it calls a 'revolutionary painting process' to make them look pretty damn gorgeous." Commodore also officially launched the
Gravel In Pocket PMP and unveiled some new Gravel devices, one that has a 4" screen and one that features a built-in GPS receiver."
Alienware is not a serious competitor. At least not any longer. They're just another Dell brand.
Also, it's probably worth noting that the really high end systems are often hand-built. That way you can get both the hardware you want, and the case design you want. Many of the 'Gaming PCs' tend to be targeted at the market of wannabes who have too much money and not enough sense.
I'm so sorry, am I missing something here? Because "pretty damn gorgeous" is not how I'd describe these machines. "Pretty damn hideous" is a bit closer. "Treading on someone else's memories and goodwill to make a buck" is even better. "Looking li-"
OMFG! What the hell is that Giana Sisters skin!?!?! ('scuse me, C-Kin)
My beautiful sisters! What has become of you!?! I... I... I...
I think I need to go now. If you'll pardon me. I... need to find the nearest restroom before I hurl.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
too bad that it looks like just another PC clone. Well, a very good clone, it seems, however...
Pumbaa! I don't wonder; I know.
We need more information in the about us section: Having acquired the Commodore brand in late 2005 as part of a joint venture with Commodore International Corporation, Commodore Gaming aims to re-establish the brand as a leader in its industry. Who was it that ponied up the cash to buy the old C= logo? Are they at all related (by blood or money) to the people who drove CBM into the ground? How is CIC related to the former CBM? Are they interacting with the current owners of Amiga Technologies (if that still exists)? How long until they make laptops?
I want one... or four.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Preloaded with a C64 emulator, containing more than 50 classic games
Why do you need all that processing power for 50 classic C64 games? I mean, don't get me wrong, I love C64 games. But why would I buy a quad-core, 2xGPU computer for that? I was kinda hoping for a computer more in the spirit of the original commodore (of course updated), not just another prebuilt set of computers. I'd rather just buy the C64 DTV and continue building my own computers...
"We Open Store Mid April!" "You have dedicated time for your gaming and you want the edge that gaming supreme will give you." "The Commodore gaming extreme takes your frag count to a whole new level with this high performance..." Why does this remind if me "all your base are belong to us?"
Thank you Commodore, for putting out a new system actually capable of running Vista right out of the box!
Lighten up a little, Batman. Nostalgia has a great purpose in life. We can always mod the case (make our own C-kin) and the internal cards at a later date. I'm guessing it's not all integrated.
I want one of each so that I can test a home-grown aLFS in parallel.
You're right about the Giana Sisters C-kin. WTH?
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
"Gravel in Pocket"?
I'm speechless.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Ok, I'm back. Looking at the "Gravel" (who names this stuff?), I'm much more impressed by it than I am their PC offerings. The CNet article shows a very compact device that appears to be well suited to portable television applications. I must say that I'm impressed. At least with the form factor and control scheme. The memory size seems to be a bit of a show-stopper, though. It doesn't take much to fill up 2 GB (or even 4 GB) of storage. With iPod videos starting at 30GB, this thing looks woefully small for the task.
Of course, that's something that can always be fixed in future revisions. If it's going to fail in the marketplace, it will be because it lacks content. No media player ever sells without content. And with Apple sewing up the downloadable television/movie market, I'm not sure where that leaves the Gravel. (Groveling, perhaps?) It's a neat device irrespective of its Commodore branding, but I sincerely hope that The New Commodore(TM) has some content distribution deals in the works.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The PCs are a bit dull really. Would have been nice if they could run a different OS and have radically different hardware but I guess it's not 1985 anymore.
That Gravel media player looks kinda cute though.
Okay, so the "Classic" skins are fugly. But check out some of the other ones in the C-Kin library. I wouldn't mind having this one grace my compy at all.
Big flipping deal. These PCs are not the Commodore that I knew and loved from my teenage years.
The only way I'll buy another Commodore computer for gaming is if it's a PC in an original-looking Commodore 64-style case. There have been PCs-in-a-keyboard for a while now, and the C64 was a hefty-sized unit. Modding a PC into a C64-style case should be completely possible, barring some necessary key changes, like F1-F12 keys instead of the C64's F1-F8. Slim-line DVD drives and 2.5" hard drives should make it that much more likely to be a successful mod. Put USB ports where the joyticks ports were, ExpressCard port or extra PCI slot where the cartridge port was, and so on. Hell, I wouldn't doubt if someone's already done it.
Needless but appropriate extras like a Commodore emulator and C64-like startup screen would be great, kitsch add-ons. I know, these can be added by some downloads from numerous places, but it would be cool to add it.
Otherwise, the only people who are old enough to remember the golden days of the C64 are most likely building their own PCs and therefore have no need for these "Commodore" computers. Don't bother whistling Bach's Invention #13. This is a Commodore in name only.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
I'd love to get one of these XX riggs and set it up RetroStyle
with the Beige colouring and the heavy set Keyboard (that used to be the whole unit...)
Wonder how well the new 8800 Nvidia drivers are doing....
Man, Us fan will sure be dating ourselves...yes I'm over 40.. lol
End of Line.
Okay, I missed that in the article. My bad. It still doesn't make these PCs Commodores.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
well if they trully think about pc gamers, they should think about the gamers themselves. be a gamer instead and not just some company that targets people who awes at colorfull pieces. what does the gamers want? higher capability to run graphics and such is one of the main reasons. gamers also would like to bring their own cpu to tournaments if that is permitted. the different between this type of casings is that its only for the looks, a trend amongst developing company nowadays which doesnt fullfill the expected urge among consumers or customers. "They're not cheap, nasty plastic things, either -- Commodore uses what it calls a 'revolutionary painting process' to make them look pretty damn gorgeous." its not cheap, and its horribly wrong, the paintings i mean.
OMG WOW a 800W box to play video games. Good thing to know my 300mW gameboy can play games too.
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Or are people incapable of learning that lesson?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
At least, they didn't mess with the logo and butchered as Atari (the new Atari) did.
Look here
Pumbaa! I don't wonder; I know.
... But I would not want to have to answer "Commodore" when someone asks me what kind of computer I own.
I suppose most people don't even remember the old Commodore, but I would be afraid there may be another old schooler around. If he happened to have a mouthful of food or drink at the exact moment I answered, there may be quite a mess to clean up.
I think this company could have simply made more money by selling cases and maybe other components like power supplies and heatsinks -- if you look at their site, they focus 99% of the features on the damned case....
Radar Rat Race with dual GPUs and 5.1 surround? Sign me up!
"You will soon be more aware of your growing awareness." - My first recursive fortune cookie!
does it run... Mr Do's Castle?
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Is this company a hardware company at all?
They seem to own the branding, but do they even produce the mainboard PCB itself?
I'm sure they didn't write a BIOS. I wonder if they will support LinuxBIOS...
.. joke, he plays up the "you can download trailers" big deal, I read that as "you can pay us and we can serve you advertisements, isnt it great you sucker!". If this is a delivery for trailers (movei advertisements), why should I pay? Their devices are nothing awe inspiring, nothing that hasnt been done before. They are just a BRAND company, not a company of invention or revolution. They are just milking the old historical Commodore brand just as the Amiga brand was milked and failed.
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
system with 2 8800? they should put the high end X-FI card in.
I just got one of these babies . . . I can't get the CD rom to recognize, anyone know the load extension for it? I tried Load "zaxxon",8,1 And Seriously, my commodore tape drive isn't USB OR Firewire...any thoughts? If you could fit, in some cases, 10-15 games PER SIDE of a non HD 5.25" floppy, can you imagine a DVD worth of C=64 games!? ooh man....
It looks to me like someone bought the Commodore name just to stick it onto a generic custom PC. They must have gotten a nice infusion of capital from investors to get things off the ground. Whether they manage to turn a profit is another story.
They've really overdone it with the logos all over the box. They even went and printed the logo on the underside of the case and molded the rubber feet in the shape of the logo. That's just tacky.
I like clean case designs, there are some horrendous ones out there, but this Commodore case doesn't look any better than a generic $50 computer case. If it needs a big vinyl sticker to look "gorgeous" we've got problems.
I don't really see how the Commodore name would appeal to anyone who might be interested in these machines. Kids are unlikely to know anything about the original Commodore. And those who did grow up with the original are unlikely to be interested by such a machine. And if they were, they're likely to build an equivalent machine themselves.
I can't really see this going anywhere. They aren't offering anything compelling. They've got nothing to distinguish themselves from competitors.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I know you're saying that to be a smart ass, but actually that's a really cool idea. Make it a dual-boot system at power-up. Hold down the C= key at power-up to immediately boot into an emulator-on-a-chip that could be upgraded as necessary -- full C64 BASIC that could access .d64/.t64 images over a FAT-formatted USB drive or floppy disk. Otherwise, if you don't press the C= key it will boot up like any other PC.
For the people who grew up using the C64 back when it was in its prime, it would probably be enough nostalgia to sway a lot of them to buy it.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
How's that a commodore comeback?
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
This Case says it all
As a long time Commodore Fan it just makes me want to cry. :-( Though I think those who think Skateboard deck art is really cool will love it.
I was a big fan of the iMac flavors and Blue/Wite & Grey G3s and G4s, this new monoskin instead of a two-tone case look is really lousy looking (I always wished they did a ruby iMac with Chromed speaker grills and black trim.... sweeet.).
I noticed the options were United Kingf\dom and nothing else for country.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Nothing new here. I bought a "Commodore" branded PC (beige box Pentium 75) about 10 years ago. A Canadian company named Campus Computer bought the rights to the name (at least here in Canada). It even had the famous logo on the case. I also remember seeing the Commodore logo on some old army green filing cabinets, which must have pre-dated their entry into computers, back when they were an office supply and calculator company.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Coward.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
The full-tower PS/2 models had a great handle that folded into the top of the case.
Now that was a SOLID case, must have been bulletproof. Google tells me they weighed ~24 kilograms.
http://www.silicium.org/ibm/ibm/ibmps2mod80.htm
http://www.oldcomputers.arcula.co.uk/intl1.htm
That's why Jason only responds as AC. Tell us about the last time you took one in the pooper for the team, Jayboi.
Maybe you could buy the logo from them? If you first secure multibillion dollar government contracts to sell your new invention to school districts across the nation you could probably gain the support of government attorneys who could possibly wrestle the logo, based on some little known legal nitpick, away from them.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
If it can boot games with the same command, hook me up :)
Nice little handheld, that GIP. I can't help think that they've got a diluted group of products though. I see nothing special about their line of PCs, beyond what I can purchase locally, and (IMO) a superior alternative to the GIP is the GP2X. It doesn't have GPS, but it does have MAME, XviD/MPEG, OGG/MP3, eBooks, and runs on AA batteries & SD cards, and has stereo+S-VHS out.
http://gp2x.co.uk/
http://www.gp2xtorrents.com/
Though they use the same logo, can one truly call these systems chicken head computers with these specs?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
1985: Commodore announces the high-end Commodore as the Amiga, which means girlfriend in Spanish.
2007: Commodore announces the high-end Commodore as the XX, which is the genetic signature of a girlfriend (Even Spanish ones).
Why do they think that we-OMG I WANT ONE!!!
I would really like to praise these new C= machines, but just like the majority of comments here I can only feel shame and mindless dumbness by viewing them and reading notes from people from the new company who insist that they are as hardcore as the C64 and Amiga maniacs they gather to.
No matter how you twist and turn things this is in reality nothing else than a me-too case with C= logos. Hey lets have some creative mindstorming and help these guys conquer Europe again!!!
Idea nr 1,
Why do hardcore gaming PC's of today need to be as big as one sixth of a full size fridge? Why does it have to be as loud and draw as much energy? Why not create a slick, silent mini gaming box with SLI cards and tweak the power to max 150 watt?
Idea nr2,
How about delivering a computer with Linux but do not call it Linux. Create a window manager that is lightweight and borrows a lot of ideas from Workbench. Work hard by integrating Wine or such so that users can run a majority of Windows apps and games. Most Europeans have not forgotten alternative computers as Amiga/Atari ST and would not say no to a "new" (remember it is Linux) OS.
Idea nr3,
How about going back to the roots?
Put a SLI enabled gaming computer in a case like the good old C64 and make it as silent and cool running as the C64. A keyboard and computer built into one, but not just any hardware but the most hardcore hardware available. Tell buyers that you can use it in front of a VGA monitor or in your living room with your TV since it is so portable.
You know why we do not see ideas like these from C=?
Because these ideas demand brains to work and a gift of creativity. There is more to computers than creating 10 skins and profit.
My homepage: www.erkan.se
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
The cases may be pretty but from the looks of the pictures, they've resurrected Commodore's legendary problems with trapped heat as well.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Sorry, "Commodore", the only 'revolutionary painting process' I want to hear from out of you is the Amiga's Hold-And-Modify screen mode. 4,096-color graphics from a bit depth of only 6 bits per pixel? Now that's revolutionary.
Old Commodore: "revolutionary graphics chip" "revolutionary audio" "revolutionary OS" New Commodore: "revolutionary painting process"
I went there once, after making a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
I am not a crackpot.
"Preloaded with a C64 emulator, containing more than 50 classic games" While I'll never buy one of these systems, some of the interchangeable covers are rather spiffy. Making solid colour models available as well is a nice touch, now if they only market matching displays with the same interchangable cover feature. The next logical step of course is to incorporate LCD displays into cases so that the user can dynamically change the content at anytime. :P Why with that sort of technology, we could make computers more portable, no longer requiring independant displays! This will revolutionize the computer industry!
Lose: misplace or fail || Loose: not bound together
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
What? No Amiga emulator? WTF?
What is an X-FI? I didn't realize there was anything out faster than dual 8800 GTXs.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
"Idea nr 1,
Why do hardcore gaming PC's of today need to be as big as one sixth of a full size fridge? Why does it have to be as loud and draw as much energy? Why not create a slick, silent mini gaming box with SLI cards and tweak the power to max 150 watt?"
Are you being sarcastic? Or do you just not actually know anything about computers? A GeForce 8800 card takes up two slots, and is 10+ inches long. Two of them in a system and you're already pretty much above anything that could be called "mini" (or silent, for that matter!). As for the 150 watt suggestion, a single 8800 uses more power than that! (At least, the GTX's do. A single GTS might be under that, but you still have CPU, etc.) It's not like they can just call up nVidia and ask for the super secret unreleased GeForce 8800 GTX that only uses 20W and can be passively cooled. Perhaps they could reduce the noise with water cooling, but it still wouldn't be silent unless you conceded the size demands and allowed them to include a gigantic radiator with each computer.
"Idea nr2,
How about delivering a computer with Linux but do not call it Linux. Create a window manager that is lightweight and borrows a lot of ideas from Workbench. Work hard by integrating Wine or such so that users can run a majority of Windows apps and games. Most Europeans have not forgotten alternative computers as Amiga/Atari ST and would not say no to a "new" (remember it is Linux) OS."
Because they are selling gaming computers! Why on earth would they choose Linux? Yes, there are some games that have native Linux versions, but a vast majority do not. And among that vast majority, many are DX games which can be a pain in the ass to get working properly, even with Cedega. Who is going to shell out thousands of dollars for a gaming computer, only to have to turn around and buy XP (or, god forbid, Vista) and install it to play the latest DX game?
"Idea nr3,
How about going back to the roots?
Put a SLI enabled gaming computer in a case like the good old C64 and make it as silent and cool running as the C64. A keyboard and computer built into one, but not just any hardware but the most hardcore hardware available. Tell buyers that you can use it in front of a VGA monitor or in your living room with your TV since it is so portable."
Isn't this basically idea number one, only without the sleekness? I guess you're also requiring they have various outputs commonly found on TV's, but every GeForce 8800 has composite/s-video/component/DVI+HDCP output anyways.
In order to both re-capture the grown-up gamer that once owned and loved a PET/Vic20/C64/C128/Amiga1000/2000/500/600/1200/300 0etc and has nothing but fond memories and much more disposable income, the 'new' commodore needs to make sometihng almost like a fusion of an Xbox and PC. What i mean is:
Build a truely uniquely styled case ala the imac, and include high quality but low-price PC-compatible hardware with the emphasis on a custom graphics processor that will not only run modern games tolerably well, but contain both a Commodore-customized distro of Linuk and also include a commodore-API that would allow hardware-level access to the custom hardware and allow 'commodore' games to be coded, that would allow it's own gaming library that would be superior to the average PC but still be fully PC compatible for all other games.
They would also have to develop their own 'commodore' games for the time being, as no 3rd party would touch it without extensive hardware sales, but the API could also be released to home-brewers. A very enthusiastic community, and also allow porting of a large Linux library.
It should also contain custom chip-based emulators of the Amiga 3000, 500, 1200 and C-128 (GO64 and all) I say chip-based and not software emulated because I want the emulated machines to also have hardware-level access to the HD and RAM and create their own partitions (and imagine a 1gb ram-disk for an amiga? heh)
Package this all together with a small-ish but high quality LCD screen and sell it for console prices at a small profit for now, with the hope of more later as costs go down and software sells. Commodore would truely be reborn.
Of course this is just a pie-in-the-sky dreamers wish, but I sure would like the new IP holders to consider this. It would probablly sell a lot better then plain old clones with images to cash in on our nostalgia and a copy of VICE pre-installed.
Devil bunnies! I snort the nose! Lucifer! Banana! Banana!
Amiga, Atari, now Commodore PCs again.
What's next, a Sinclair ZX Spectrum toaster?
But seriously, the sad thing is that this PC company bought itself a lot of publicity just by buying the rights to use the Commodore name.
Hell, even BBC News did a feature on "Veteran technology firm Commodore" listing all of the amazing things "they" did in the past:
In pictures: Commodore computers (bbc.co.uk)
It's an expensive thing that Vista can't use.
No sig today...
With all that new and expesive hardware out there, we should have a tag called - justbringmoney
If you're looking for a portable video/audio player with a long battery life and more space (30GB) then check the Cowon A2
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