Commodore 64 Primed For a Comeback In June

angry tapir writes "The Commodore 64 is getting a makeover, with a new design and some of the latest computing technologies, as the brand gets primed for a comeback. The revamped computer will be available through the Commodore USA online store, which is set to open June 1. The computer will be an all-in-one keyboard, with Intel's 64-bit quad-core microprocessors and 3D graphics capabilities."

Comments

Clear Hoax

[1karmik1]

Look. at. the. site. It's a chinese 3rd rate gadget imitator wet dream. There is a pseudo-configuration page vaguely mimicking Dell's one with no functionality. No logo. No design. and GOD that heinous thing in the pictures looks CLUNKY and CHEAP. This is a hoax. /. have seen several in the past years tied to the good old C64. I'm very surprised it made the front page :(

Re:Clear Hoax

[1karmik1]

Slashdotted, nice! Anyway, the site i meant was the homepage of this supposed "manufacturer" that licensed Commodore's brand. Here is the link. http://www.commodoreusa.net/index.html It's ludicrous :P

Re:Clear Hoax

[XiX36]

I am suspicious as well, the built-in keyboard has windows keys. If it is being marketed as a machine to run multiple OS's, why not put the old C= symbol on those keys. Since they are using the name, why not use the logo as well? It's a minor point, but if this is real and they are resurrecting the name to appeal to those of us who remember messing around with Commodores then details like that might matter a bit. Certainly anyone who remembers playing around with basic on the livingroom tv could figure out that the C= key functions as a windows button.

Re:Clear Hoax

[postbigbang]

Sustaining six connections per minute is all a C64 can do. No wonder it's slashdotted.

Re:Clear Hoax

[hob42]

Wouldn't say it's a hoax... This keyboard PC has been on the market for years. This company sells it as the ZPC (for Zero-footprint PC).

Frankly, I wondered why it took so long for someone to decide to rebadge one as a Commodore. It was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw it.

Re:Clear Hoax

[that this is not und]

The actual issue is not so much that it looks like a hoax, but that it is so endlessly poorly carried out.

I would tend to agree. But the original C64 was poorly carried out, too, so this as a nostalgia product has some merit.

Now, before people roll out of the shag carpeting to rage at me, the C64 was an inexpensive and well marketed, but technically second rate product. I mean, they put a whole second 6502-type processor in the disk drive and set the machine up to read/write from the disk over a pokey-doke serial interface. That was never impressive. Adding a Hard Disk to your C64 system amounted to again buying a whole separate subsystem significantly more expensive than the C64 itself that, again, was a whole separate system with another processor, that talked to your C64 over.... get this... a pokey-doke serial interface.

Not impressive, except in a marketing sense. The C64 was a marketing phenomena, and as a result many youngsters 'cut their teeth' on it. Then, said youngsters went on to make good use of their C64 in spite of what was built into the system, basically doing an end-run around the way it was set up.

Re:Clear Hoax

[Orion Blastar]

Made in China?

"They took our jobs!" :)

Re:Clear Hoax

[crossmr]

apparently timothy is picking up kdawson's slack.

Re:Clear Hoax

[rayd75]

I suspect that you had no first-hand experience with the 64, or that you experience was well after its heyday. When introduced, the 64 was more capable than most of its competitors and lower-priced as well. Remember, we are talking about a machine that occupied store shelves unchanged (save for cosmetic and cost reductions) for over a decade. By the time home users of any machine were considering hard drives, the C64's day was long-since over. At launch, its graphics were among the top available and its sound capabilities blew absolutely everything in the consumer market out of the water. Yes, the serial disk interface was slow even by 1982 standards, but only as an early example of a company opting for backwards compatibility over performance. The fast loader programs and cartridges didn't do some kind of magic, or fix a bug that Commodore let ship for 11 years; They simply rewrote the disk drive code to favor speed over compatibility with old PET systems.

Re:Clear Hoax

[idontgno]

It really is rather pathetic -- they're looking for people to only purchase this slapped together crap for nostalgia's sake.

In that case, other than the nostalgia angle, I think they've captured the fundamental essence of Commodore marketing perfectly.

-- idontgno, a still-frustrated-after-all-these-years Amiga partisan

Re:Clear Hoax

[Mister Whirly]

Sweet, bringing back the "retro" BBS feel to the internet! Can it serve stuff up faster than 300 baud though?

Re:Clear Hoax

[UnknownSoldier]

> When introduced, the 64 was more capable than most of its competitors and lower-priced as well.

1. And all those expansion slots on the C64 are where again? Where was your 80x25 text again?

2. It may be hard for you to take off the rose-colored history glasses. Let's take a look at the facts: The Apple I and Apple ][ open slot architecture and daughterboards spawned serial cards, parallel cards, modems, CPU daughter boards (could YOUR C64 host a Z80?), sound cards, voice (Echo I) cards, mouse, floppy disk controllers, RAM cards (16K / 128K / 1 MB), hard drives, RAM capture (Replay & Wildcard) cards, just to start with. I don't remember any other computer that early that influenced the PC computer more.

3. To be fair, sure, the C64 created the demo scene, and yeah the Sid chip p0wned, but most people at the time didn't care! Why pay for things you will never use or need?? The C64 was seen as a toy, because that's what it was. Businesses used VisiCalc, AppleWorks, Wordstar, dBase, spell checkers, and financial software (e.g. PeachTree) because they wanted to get stuff done, not goof around.

Me thinks you need to re-think "more capable than most of its competitors" ...

Re:Clear Hoax

[NiceGeek]

Oh christ..did we run in to a rip in the fabric of space/time? We're having a C64/AppleII/Atari 400/800 flamewar?

Re:Clear Hoax

[JWSmythe]

Don't get too impressed with yourself. You missed the obvious part. Look at the filename.

    http://www.commodoreusa.net/i//zpc9100_full.jpg

    It's over 3 years old, and has nothing to do with Commodore, except someone set up a crappy site with the name on it to get the Commodore fans all wound up.

    A 2007 article about the ZPC9100

    Or the real manufacturer site

    I'm not surprised it was shot with an expensive camera, the *REAL* manufacturer had those done by a professional, I'm sure.

    Any of the rest of the crap in the summary or on their site can be assumed to be absolute BS. But hey, for those interested I have a 16 core 4THz machine with 32TB RAM that's the size of a matchhead. It runs off of a patented method for gathering and storing static electricity from the air, and interfaces to all external devices (display, HID, etc) wirelessly. I'll start selling them for $1,950,000. If I sell one I can move to a nice island. If I sell 1000 I'll buy the island. Err, I mean, ummm, we'll reinvest in the company to make our products even better. :)

64-bit?!

[Anonymous Coward]

with Intel's 64-bit quad-core microprocessors and 3D graphics capabilities

Then it's not a Commodore 64, it's just a modern product trying to cash in on the famous name.

Re:64-bit?!

[bjourne]

Whew! Thanks for clearing up that misunderstanding for us. I mean, I don't think I was alone in thinking that a computer with an Intel 64-bit quad-core cpu was a Commodore 64. Internet needs more people like you to stop people from trying to cash in on famous names from spreading their disinformation!

Re:64-bit?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bonus points to the first person that can rip an mp3/flac from an old cassette and get the program to load.

-- gid

Re:64-bit?!

[RulerOf]

Bonus points to the first person that can rip an mp3/flac from an old cassette and get the program to load.

Has anyone ever done that? Come to think of it, since MP3 discards audio outside of human hearing ranges, would it even work? I suppose that since (usually by limiting to 9600bps or so) you can get a fax machine to work on a VoIP line, this could work as well though.

That'd be really neat/useless, feeding MP3 files to a c64 emulator to load applications. :D

Re:64-bit?!

[ehrichweiss]

Have you forgotten that cassette tapes only recorded *within* human hearing ranges?

Re:64-bit?!

[TomC2]

I managed to transfer some Acorn Electron tapes onto audio CDs once, and was also able to speed up the loading time by reducing the long "padding" beeps between the blocks (which I'm sure have a proper name..)

Oddly enough there was one tape that it just would not work with - though it loaded fine directly from the tape, so goodness knows what strange analogue copy protection had been implemented.

Re:64-bit?!

[drinkypoo]

Bonus points to the first person that can rip an mp3/flac from an old cassette and get the program to load.

tests show that there is no real difference between square and sine waveforms in terms of MP3 packing. WAVs with 3675 bps can be packed as 128 kbps MP3, those with 5512.5 - at 192 kbps (of course, at max quality and with frequency filters switched off). That's for MSX though. But if the bitrate is not too high, then it ought to work.

Re:64-bit?!

[that this is not und]

That's not really impressive, when you consider the audio quality of the cassette recorders used to store data on those low-end cassette-based computers from the 80's. In fact, Radio Shack recommended against using too 'high quality' of a cassette recorder. The data is encoded in basically the voice band. Too wide a frequency response just increases the artifacts and noise that get recorded, which is actually detrimental to the quality of the digital record.

Re:64-bit?!

[dingen]

Believe me, cassette tapes discard a lot of sound well within the human hearing range as well.

Re:64-bit?!

[KlaymenDK]

As an analog device, I can't think of any reason off the top of my head why such devices wouldn't record outside of human hearing ranges

It's rather simple, really; even analogue devices have a maximum 'resolution'. For film, this is the graininess. For tape, there's a certain magnetic response time.

Imagine, if you will, a nice 440Hz waveform; this is stored as a nicely wavy pattern in the magnetic particles. Well, if you were to store a 0.01Hz signal, there just wouldn't be enough offset, inch-by-inch, to detect it (that is to say, generate a magnetic current) when playing back (at normal speeds, anyway). In the opposite case, the wave pattern of a 1GHz signal would be way too steep for the magnetic head and tape to handle; I suppose there's no telling what the recorded signal would actually end up being, but my guess is it'd be rather like white noise.

Put another way, look at an analogue gauge -- sound would correspond to movement of the needle. Very slow movements would be effectively undetectable, and an overly fast signal would just result in a jittering (and lagging) needle because it can't keep up.

Re:64-bit?!

[zr-rifle]

LOAD "VMLINUZ",8,1

A Commodore In Name Only

[rsmith-mac]

TFA says it's an Intel x86 based machine running Windows. The only thing Commodore about this thing is that it's built in to an oversized PC-style keyboard, and even that's a stretch. This is a Commodore in name only.

I already have one

[dmgxmichael]

Seriously! I pulled the sticker off my old Commodore 64 this morning and put it on my computer. Now it too is a commodore 64!

Re:I already have one

[BlackSnake112]

I have an apple sticker on my red dell mini 9 running OSX. I still have people asking where I got the red apple laptop at. They cannot find it at the apple store.

I so want to go to the apple store and just to see the sale people's faces when someone asks for a red (or any other color) apple laptop.

Riding the back of nostalgia.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, the C64 was a fantastic machine in its time. But that was the 1980s. Commodore hasn't been in the public consciousness for nearly two decades (the last Amigas from Commodore - the 1200 and 4000T - ceased production in 1996, if Wikipedia can be trusted). They're planning an all-in-one keyboard computer, just like the original C64, and I can pretty much guarantee: it'll flop. The design had good reason back in the 80s, but not so much now - they're banking upon the name driving sales, but I suspect a lot of people will look at it and discount it for that same reason.

Re:Riding the back of nostalgia.

[plague3106]

And this is why your generation sucks at programming.

Re:Riding the back of nostalgia.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I see no reason for this particular outfit to succeed(keyboard computers are a niche, the C64 name isn't worth paying any extra for, Asus's oddball EEEboard will be out real soon now, etc.); but, the product itself has been around for some years now, which suggests that it is still making money, albeit in a niche.

Unless the latest outfit wearing a mask made from Commodore's flayed face is simply stealing clip art, what they are selling is a simple rebadge of Cybernet's "ZPC". Those things have been around at least since the P4 was the face of "intel inside" possibly earlier. Unless Cybernet is an ass about small quantities or something, there is absolutely no reason to order from some fly-by-night rebadge house; but the product is real enough, and presumably has enough of a niche(probably space constrained POS applications and similar) to justify the engineering costs of shoving a laptop motherboard into a keyboard housing for the past few generations of x86 hardware.

Re:Riding the back of nostalgia.

[TheCycoONE]

Your post makes me sad on two levels; first that at 25 I'm no longer part of the younger generation (nearly everyone my age has seen/used a C64 at least in their early grades of primary school); and secondly because there are poor people out there who have never had a chance to use one.

Limited pfft: POKE, PEEK, and 64k is all anyone will ever need.

Re:Riding the back of nostalgia.

[Mikkeles]

As one who did programme back then (and earlier), I can assure you that his generation sucks no more or less than did the older generation; just in different ways.

Re:Riding the back of nostalgia.

[somersault]

The older generation have a lot more experience when it comes to sucking. Lack of teeth also helps.

Re:Riding the back of nostalgia.

[Linker3000]

Yeah, but us C64 programmers could, like, totally suck in only 39K of RAM - this generation needs at least 512MB just to load up suckage.dll

Re:Riding the back of nostalgia.

[TangoMargarine]

What? Because he's never used a C64, because he would like to see how far we've come, because the brand doesn't mean anything to him, because he doesn't feel like an all-in-one, or because he thinks this product won't do well? I'm missing something.

Not really a comeback

[zr-rifle]

... but a rebranding that - put simply - insults the name of the good old '64.

Seriously: what does this have to do with the old 8bit microcomputer?

• Can I peek or poke the memory?
• Can I play Turrican and Hawkeye on it?
• Does it have a SID?
• Does it even read my old datassettes?

• And yes... it does run Linux, sadly...
  
  Those wishing to a Commodore 64 should look elsewhere (or Ellsworth - haha, lame I know...)

Not Commodore 64

[Sockatume]

It's called the "Phoenix". "Commodore" is just the brand.

A computer of rank!

[xerent_sweden]

Looks like the new commodore is a computer of rank, as it's been through major revisions in general. I wonder what kernel it will incorporalte.

GEOS

[tepples]

That's interesting. I didn't know you could run Windows with 64K of RAM.

You can't, unless you count GEOS. That's why the 64 in this stands for a 64-bit CPU, like the Nintendo 64.

HDTVs with VGA input

[tepples]

At least if it had come with a HDMI port to be by default attached to a HDTV, then it would be closer to the Commodre 64 legacy.

Almost any PC since 1987 can be connected to a TV because most HDTVs sold where I live have a VGA input. But the original C64 also competed with the NES as a game console; how will the new C64 compete with the Xbox 360?

Re:HDTVs with VGA input

[tepples]

Still, I wonder why it's VGA input. Why not DVI?

TVs tend to have both VGA and HDMI inputs. But a lot of computers, especially netbooks and the like, have room for only one output.

HDMI seems to be present on all HDTVs, but not DVI... I wonder why...

Because HDMI is signal-compatible with DVI, and a cable from a computer's DVI output to a TV's HDMI input is under $10 on Amazon.

this reminds me of Acorn

[FuckingNickName]

Slap a familiar [UK] logo on a Wintel

Upgrades?

[wjousts]

From the commodoreusa website:

There’s nothing like it. At just 17.5 inches wide and 2 inches tall, it’s designed to take up far less room — and use far less energy — than any other desktop computer.

So, in other words, it's a desktop that will be a colossal PITA upgrade and will probably use non-standard parts to get everything to fit. All the upgrade inconvenience of a laptop with none of the advantages.

Re:Upgrades?

[dingen]

So, in other words, it's a desktop that will be a colossal PITA upgrade and will probably use non-standard parts to get everything to fit.

Hmm... now that you put it that way, it kinda does resemble the original C64 after all.

Are they using original C64s...

[AC-x]

... to host their website?

The C64, an eulogy

[zr-rifle]

Since it will be some time before I get to see the good old C64 mentioned on the Slashdot first page, I'd like to say that Jack Tramiel is the unsung hero of the personal computer, even more than Steve Jobs in this regard. He advocated a computer 'for the classes, not for the masses'. By driving down the retail price and selling the C64 in toy stores and Walmart, he created a broader market and introduced a lot of low-to-middle class kids, who could not afford the Apple II or the Macintosh, to the joys of computing.

By sparking the low-cost microcomputer revolution of the eighties, he prepared a whole generation to the modern digital age.

Jack Tramiel's Wikipedia entry.

Re:The C64, an eulogy

[gregthebunny]

He advocated a computer 'for the classes, not for the masses'.

Jack Tramiel's Wikipedia entry.

Um... wiki article says:

It was during this time period that he coined the famous phrase, "We need to build computers for the masses, not the classes."

Re:The C64, an eulogy

[Delusion_]

Jack Tramiel may be an unsung hero of the personal computer, but he also had the dubious distinction of playing key roles in the destruction of two of the most important computer companies of the era, Commodore and later, Atari.

Tramiel - and more importantly, his engineers - is often left out in the modern retelling of the personal computer story, which is often presented as if everything that wasn't Intel, Microsoft, and Apple was some sort of bizarre tangental experiment that really didn't matter. Sadly, his management style was typical of the small-minded businessman, who treated his company as a fief and a playground for his personal grudges.

I often wonder how the Amiga would have fared long-term if a more competently-managed company than Commodore had bought it.

Re:The C64, an eulogy

[zr-rifle]

Tramiel had nothing to do with the Amiga or Commodore's reknown bad management, that came *after* he left the company; try asking David Pleasance about that. Atari was already in bad shape when Tramiel and his son took over.

Tramiel did try to buy out project Lorraine from Hi-Toro, but Commodore managed to land the deal (and 'f*ck up' the machine, as a famous Workbench easter egg recited).

By the way, long live Jay Miner, Commodore's Steve Wozniak.

Nope, not a commodore

[damn_registrars]

If it doesn't boot to BASIC, and require

load "*",8,1

to start software, it isn't commodore 64. Case closed.

Re:Nope, not a commodore

[justleavealonemmmkay]

If it requires to

load "*",8,1

it's not a C64, it's a fancy schmancy C64 with 1541.
Spoiled kid!

Re:Pick your OS flavor?

[natehoy]

Lawyers.

Looks just like a ZPC to me

[hazmat2k]

http://www.cybernetman.com/en/products/zero-footprint-pc/ hell, they didn't even bother to change the filenames for the images they nicked off the site

What it really is

[bickerdyke]

Casemod.

nothing more, nothing less. a Wintel-PC with funny hat.

Re:This is not a C64 at all

[Fred_A]

So how is it a C64 then? I bet it doesn't even have 64K of RAM.

Because they expect to sell 64 units ?

This is simply a Cybernet ZPC-GX31 system

[HonestButCurious]

Circa March 2008:
http://www.cybernetman.com/en/products/zero-footprint-pc/zpc-gx31.cfm
They even reused the stock footage.
Should cost at least $700, according to Gizmodo Australia:
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/03/cybernet_zpcgx31_a_pc_in_a_keyboardsized_case-2/

Good luck slipping that kit...

[L4t3r4lu5]

... into a ZX81 form factor.

ALL HAIL CLIVE SINCLAIR!

It's about time.

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Yes, I know, it's a Commodore in name only. However, it's about time that someone gave this venerable form factor another shot in the market. Why should I throw away a perfectly good monitor every couple of years just because the Macintosh inside it is obsolete? I've been saying for years that they should build the guts of the computer into the keyboard, not the monitor.

I'm ready to see this form factor start to get deployed again. Now that the typical desktop computer doesn't have quite as many cables coming out of it as it did a few years ago, it's time.

It claims OS X support?

[benwiggy]

If you go to the company's website, on the link in the article, they claim it will run OS X. Interesting to see how quickly Apple's lawyers move in for the kill

Oh, and I submitted this story to Slashdot a week ago. Tsk.

Not hoax, but rebranding of existing product.

[Ch_Omega]

Actually, I'm pretty sure it's the exact same product as the Zero Footprint PC, exept, maybe they put a Commodore C= Sticker on it, and market it as a new Commodore 64.

Seriously, compare these two pictures: Zero Footprint PC and "new" Commodore 64. Looks similar?