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Raspberry Pi Becomes Third Best-Selling General Purpose Computer of All Time, Beating Commodore 64 (raspberrypi.org)

Posted by BeauHD on from the bronze-medal-winner dept.

The Raspberry Pi has outsold the Commodore 64 by selling north of 12.5 million boards in five years, becoming the world's third best-selling general purpose computer. "The Commodore 64, had, until recently, the distinction of being the third most popular general purpose computing platform," Eben Upton told a crowd at the fifth birthday party. "That's what I'm here to celebrate," he said, "we are now the third most popular general purpose computing platform after the Mac and PC." The MagPi Magazine reports: The Raspberry Pi Model 3 is the best-selling Raspberry Pi. This chart shows that Raspberry Pi 3 has accounted for almost a third of all Raspberry Pi boards sold. The Model 3 sits next to its immediate predecessor, the Raspberry Pi 2B+ (which has the same board shape but a slightly slower CPU). These two boards account for over half of all Raspberry Pi boards sold. The rest of the sales are between older models. The original Model A accounts for just 2 percent of sales. So keep one if you've got it as they're pretty rare. We should point out, before the Commodore fan club arrives, that there are discrepancies in the total number of sales of the C64. The 12.5 million figure comes from an analysis of serial numbers. This article by Michael Steil explains in detail why the 12.5 million number is accurate. We hold it to be the most accurate analysis of Commodore 64 sales (other opinions are available).

81 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. Beating Commodore 64!!?! by Narcocide · · Score: 1

    Say it ain't so!!

    1. Re:Beating Commodore 64!!?! by narcc · · Score: 5, Insightful

      These numbers are crazy. They're probably counting sales and not use.

      Surely, most Pi's are just used as cheap C64 emulation machines, letting the C64 continue to reign supreme. (Those not being used as a replacement C64 are all obviously just collecting dust in a drawer.)

      --
      Required reading for internet skeptics
    2. Re:Beating Commodore 64!!?! by dwywit · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I get the joke, but mine is a very effective headless, X-less torrent client and media server. It streams internet radio into the home stereo, and without the buffering issues that Windows machines seem to have. I can add a Linux ISO to the torrent queue and forget about it until I actually want to try it out.

      Both of which could be handled by an old laptop running Windows or Debian, of course, but not for the price and energy consumption of the Pi.

      --
      They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
    3. Re:Beating Commodore 64!!?! by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

      They're probably counting sales and not use.

      I can confirm. I have:
      * 3x Raspberry Pi 1 Model B
      * 1x Raspberry Pi 1 Model A+
      * 1x Raspberry Pi 2
      * 2x Raspberry Pi 3
      * 2x Raspberry Pi Zero

      Out of these 10, I am using 2. I have one in an actual project and one running as a server because I had an extra static IP and couldn't think of anything useful to do with it.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    4. Re:Beating Commodore 64!!?! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      So that just confirms that 9 of them were sold to a tinkere without a plan, nothing more.

      Personally I have 2 Pi 2s and 1 Pi 3. All in active use.

    5. Re:Beating Commodore 64!!?! by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      It ain't so.

      They're mixing the different Raspberry Pi models together as one thing, and then counting all the 80386 or 8052 computers as different. It may even be that it is such apples/oranges that it is impossible to do an honest "head to head" type comparison, considering those types of differences in what is being measured. It may be that they would have to count all the "Intel Pentium" computers as one to count all the Raspberry Pi computers as the same, or maybe everything that Gateway or Dell ever sold.

      It is a non-metric, offered by a press release. This is the new slashdot; not even clueful enough to find some clickbait, and just linking directly to press releases as factual stories.

    6. Re:Beating Commodore 64!!?! by rochrist · · Score: 1

      They also make excellent Acorn emulators along with RiscOS.

    7. Re:Beating Commodore 64!!?! by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      These numbers are crazy. They're probably counting sales and not use.

      Do you have anything to base that wild assumption on, apart from the phrase "Best-Selling" in the headline?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    8. Re:Beating Commodore 64!!?! by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

      I don't think my case is all that unusual. I think there are a lot of Pi's collecting dust these days.

      The audio output left a lot to be desired, and the codec hats were rather pricey. So that killed off one of the projects I had in mind.

      The 3x Pi1's were for a Plan 9 cluster. But the buggy usb support on Plan 9 kept taking out the whole system and I was too busy with my day job to do more than hack a way around it. The results were not great and I was never able to move from Plan 9 to Inferno (which was the original goal.

      If only there were a site like hackaday, except where we could post our failed and abandoned projects. Maybe too depressing.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  2. Is it a "General Purpose Computer"? by mykepredko · · Score: 4, Informative

    It seems like a bit of a stretch to call it that. There are the basic features I would consider a "General Purpose" computer to have (and, to be fair, the Raspberry Pi has many of them):
    - Wall (or POE) Power Supply
    - SSD/HHD (the SD Card of the Raspberry Pi could probably be considered that)
    - USB Ports for Keyboard/Mouse (Raspberry Pi has that)
    - Video Output (Raspberry Pi has that)
    - Network Connection (Raspberry Pi has that)
    - Ready to use OS (I guess Raspberry Pi could be considered to have that with Raspbian)

    More philosophically, I would consider a General Purpose computer to be one that you take out of the box, plug in and turn on - the Raspberry Pi really doesn't fit that use case which makes it hard for me to consider it a "General Purpose" computer.

    I would consider it to be a very successful "Custom Purpose" computer, however.

    --
    Mimetics Inc. Twitter
    1. Re:Is it a "General Purpose Computer"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Excuse me, who's definition of "computer" are you using? Because none of those are requirements for a device to be called a general purpose computer.

    2. Re:Is it a "General Purpose Computer"? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      I don't see how you can call it custom purpose but not general purpose.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    3. Re:Is it a "General Purpose Computer"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Not sure of what I would consider my exact definition of a general purpose computer but I would definitely not include A Pi in it. I love my Pi but it is a specialist device, enthusiast device or such, it certainly isn't general purpose, it tends to be more custom specialised purpose.

    4. Re:Is it a "General Purpose Computer"? by zmooc · · Score: 1

      According to my definition of refrigerators, the Raspberry Pi is one. The thing with definitions is you cannot just make them up.

      --
      0x or or snor perron?!
    5. Re:Is it a "General Purpose Computer"? by mykepredko · · Score: 1

      I call the Raspberry Pi "Custom Purpose" simply because if you look at 90%+ of the advertised uses for it, they are just that, controlling machinery, kiosks, etc.

      Just look here: http://makezine.com/2013/04/14...

      Now, see how many of these types of projects your basic Dell system unit is used in.

      --
      Mimetics Inc. Twitter
    6. Re:Is it a "General Purpose Computer"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Rpi is missing one of the most important features for a general purpose computer:

      - Non-DIY hardware switch to initiate software shutdown / safe unmount of SD card (it's really not convenient to attach a network cable so you can ssh in and do sudo shutdown -h now every time you're going to move it).
      - USB core that doesn't have a critical hardware flaw that was known in model 1A but wasn't fixed in the model B or B+, and still hasn't been fixed years later in the model 2 or 3 (aka I hope you're not depending on the USB or anything that uses it -- including wired ethernet, because if so sooner or later you will be bitten by the bug.)
      - Real time clock (ntp helps, but the pi really needs a RTC).
      - Hardware division instruction (try compiling int div(int a, int b) { return a / b; }, then look at the disassembly and cry)

    7. Re:Is it a "General Purpose Computer"? by mykepredko · · Score: 1

      Okay, where is the accepted definition of "General Purpose Computer"?

      In response to the term "General Purpose Computer" used in TFA, I used what I would consider a definition and compare the Raspberry Pi to it to decide whether or not it fit the definition.

      If I ask Google "general purpose computer definition" I get 8.17 million results - if you read them, you'll see answers that include devices ranging from mainframes to smartphones to single board computers (and, I imagine, if I were to go far enough, I'd find some System On Chips (SOCs) that met somebody's definition as well).

      If you have a better definition or know where there is an "official" one, put it here and it can be discussed.

      --
      Mimetics Inc. Twitter
    8. Re:Is it a "General Purpose Computer"? by zmooc · · Score: 1

      Well most of your 8.17 million results probably agree on what these things are: computers that you can you use for many purposes. As opposed to computers you can only use for a specific purpose, like cars, washing machines, gaming consoles, dumbphones and toothbrushes.

      --
      0x or or snor perron?!
    9. Re:Is it a "General Purpose Computer"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Come on now, get with the program. This is how the game is played these days. Carefully craft a metric that puts you at the top of the heap.

    10. Re:Is it a "General Purpose Computer"? by Repentinus · · Score: 4, Informative

      A general purpose computer is simply a computer that can be used to compute any computable function when space and time constraints are ignored. Your phone is a general purpose computer. The opposite of that would be an application-specific integrated circuit or general purpose hardware locked down to running a limited set of applications.

    11. Re:Is it a "General Purpose Computer"? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      Well, I kinda disagree with your definitions but I see where you're coming from.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    12. Re:Is it a "General Purpose Computer"? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      More philosophically, I would consider a General Purpose computer to be one that you take out of the box, plug in and turn on - the Raspberry Pi really doesn't fit that use case which makes it hard for me to consider it a "General Purpose" computer.

      Why doesn't it fit that use case? You can buy it at the shops complete with wall power and memory card pre-loaded with a running OS.
      Just attach a screen keyboard and mouse and plug it in and turn it on.

      It's no less of a general purpose computer than any other. Actually it's more so because it takes far less time and effort to get Raspberian started on a freshly bought raspberry pi than Windows 10 on a freshly bought PC.

    13. Re:Is it a "General Purpose Computer"? by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      You can order one with the OS already installed on the SD card. Take it out of the box, plug in keyboard, mouse, hdmi cable, ethernet cable or use wifi and plug in the power. It's up and running in seconds.

    14. Re:Is it a "General Purpose Computer"? by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      Yes.

    15. Re:Is it a "General Purpose Computer"? by Shirley+Marquez · · Score: 1

      If you buy a bare Pi you have a bit of work to do to have a complete general purpose computer. That's appropriate because many of them are sold for embedded systems rather than to be used that way. But people are more computer savvy now and most don't find it a challenge to gather the other parts; if you want something simpler you can buy a complete kit that has it all (Pi board, case, NOOBS card, power supply) in the package. Still a touch of assembly required: you have to put the NOOBS card in the board and the board in the case.

      You also have to provide your own keyboard, mouse, and display. (Name brand desktop systems come with a keyboard and mouse, but the display is still a separate purchase unless you buy an all-in-one.) Many people already have those things left over from other projects, and if not your local office supply store or electronics store, or Amazon or eBay, will be happy to sell them to you.

    16. Re:Is it a "General Purpose Computer"? by Shirley+Marquez · · Score: 1

      The Pi 3 has hardware divide. Though the software won't take full advantage of it if you use any of the standard OS builds because they're designed to be compatible across the entire range of models; you'll need a built that is made specifically for that model, and if you develop your own software you'll have to choose to generate code specifically for it. The other shortcomings remain.

  3. Well, not really comparable... by MindPrison · · Score: 1

    ...Commodore 64 came complete with a keyboard, power supply and RF modulator / Video out/Audio out - and ready to use.

    And it was sold at a much higher price point, plus it wasn't really a dev-kit like the PI is. The PI is cute, but it's on the level with Arduino (faster of course), and other similar "devboards". So, if we're there - I can imagine there's a lot more sold Arduino Nano V3 Chinese clones sold than all the PI's in the world.

    --
    What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
    1. Re:Well, not really comparable... by MouseTheLuckyDog · · Score: 1

      Ok you need a keyboard/mouse and power supply but the Pi does give you HDMI ( the present day equivalent of RF/vid/audio).

    2. Re:Well, not really comparable... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      With the power supply its getting to the stage where many people already have one: any old phone charger will do.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re:Well, not really comparable... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      The PI is cute, but it's on the level with Arduino (faster of course), and other similar "devboards".

      No. It is not on the same level with Arduino, it belongs to a much higher level. Arduino is down with STM and PIC, Pi is up with embedded PCs. Before the rise of ARM and the rash of things like Pi we had actual PC-compatible machines in small form factors like PC/104. They were dramatically more expensive, of course, because technology hadn't shrunk everything cheaply yet.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:Well, not really comparable... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      With the power supply its getting to the stage where many people already have one: any old phone charger will do.

      No, it really won't. If it's a halfway decent phone charger it will do, but the Pi is very picky about its power input. That's just one of the many things that make it a not very good embedded board. You'll often need an additional power supply even if you've already got one. The fact that the USB is still crap is another one.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:Well, not really comparable... by rochrist · · Score: 1

      Eh. I use a 5 port Anker USB charger and run 3 pi's simultaneously off it with not trouble at all.

    6. Re:Well, not really comparable... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      No, it really won't. If it's a halfway decent phone charger it will do, but the Pi is very picky about its power input. That's just one of the many things that make it a not very good embedded board.

      Those are rather unrelated: for an embedded board you get to choose the PSU as well, so you can just spec out a decent one. That's what I did when I used it embedded.

      I've just got another one (the previous one I used for embedded stuff so I picked a PSU which works fine). I'm going to try it on all my phone chargers and see which work.

      The fact that the USB is still crap is another one.

      For embedded? Depends what you're using the USB for.I was using GPIO and audio, I wasn't using the USB. It's fine for anything not too taxing, but the existence of a decent amount of GPIO makes it decent for a lot of embedded tasks.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  4. Re:Which computer is in first place? by gravewax · · Score: 1

    LOL yeah NO. almost every single model of the Samsung Galaxy is massive outsold the pi, from that alone you can safely say they aren't including smartphones or even most computer lines, actually the whole claim looks to be bullshit as they are comparing multi pi versions against a single version of one system.

  5. Whoa! by Zurkeyon3733 · · Score: 1

    Congrats RPI! LOVE my Pi3s and Zeros! I makes them into NeaT StufFs! http://www.thingiverse.com/thi...

  6. Open firmware by radoni · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Open firmware: https://github.com/christinaa/...

    Coders wanted. Linux bring-up is done, needs USB and display to be more useful. Discussion happens on Freenode IRC #raspberrypi-internals

    When this popular embedded platform has a fully functional open firmware to use instead of the proprietary bootcode.bin then I'll be a little more cheery about the success of the Raspberry Pi worldwide.

    --
    SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
    1. Re:Open firmware by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      It's not ideal but it's still 1000x better and more trustworthy than Intel it AMD systems with their built in rootkits.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  7. Best selling by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2

    Not a surprise. To run win 10 you need 1000 of them.

    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    1. Re:Best selling by bigfinger76 · · Score: 1

      Or zero.

  8. Re: Which computer is in first place? by MouseTheLuckyDog · · Score: 1

    You do know that Mic4rosoft wrote the Commodore 64 Basic?

  9. 100% pure BULL SHIT by Jason1729 · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is 12.5 million units across how many different models of RPi? If I'm going to count all versions of RPi, what are total sales of Dell Latitude? How many total MacBooks of all versions have been sold?

    Also c64 sold 12-30 million units. Creative misuse of numbers on the RPi part.

    1. Re:100% pure BULL SHIT by Jason1729 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I'll take your word for it, since it doesn't say that in the article.

      Even so it's just more indication that RPi is full of bullshit. Now they're lumping way too many models from way too many companies over 35 years as a single "computer" because taking each product line individually would probably knock RPi off the top 100 list.

      If they want to do the math that way, how dare they not take all the commodore machines together as well putting the total several times higher than RPi.

      Not to mention they're counting the sale of a $5 PCB that needs $30 of support parts 1 for 1 with a complete computer that cost $1500 (corrected to inflation).

      Basically this entire claim by RPi is total bullshit and they deserve to be called out for it.

    2. Re:100% pure BULL SHIT by QuantumLeaper · · Score: 2

      The C64 also has the SX64, C128 (after all it did include the C64), 30 in one Joystick, and the C65, also I most likely missing some other versions of the C64 too. So if your going to include all the different versions of the RPi, you should all include all the different versions of the C64.

    3. Re:100% pure BULL SHIT by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      The C65 was totally different. Not that it matters as there were only a few made.

  10. Re:is he an idiot? by gravewax · · Score: 1

    Oh really? Me thinks someone must not be old enough to remember past 10 years ago then, hell Gateway went belly up best part of 15 years ago now.

  11. Ok but... by MouseTheLuckyDog · · Score: 2

    how many C64 do you need to hook up in parralell to get the power of one Pi?

    1. Re:Ok but... by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      0.5

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      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    2. Re:Ok but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      C64 was released in 1982. 1982's Cray supercomputer could do 420 million FLOPs.
      Raspberry Pi's GPU can do 24 GFLOPs. That's equivalent to 57 of 1982's Cray supercomputers.

      http://gaming.wikia.com/wiki/Instructions_per_second lists the C64's MOS Technology 6510 @ 1 MHz as having 0.43 MIPS and 0 MFLOPS.
      Note that the 6510 is an 8-bit CPU, so it would take a ton of instructions to do 32-bit IEEE floating point in software on it.
      I don't know the 6510 instruction set, but it's clear that to simulate a 32-bit fused-multiply-add (FMA) instruction, you'd need at least 32 8-bit instructions.
      My ballpark estimate using software floating point on C64: 24000 / 0.43 * fudge = probably at least 1.8 million C64s to equal one Raspberry pi.

      p.s. If you meant power consumption: about 10 RPIs = one C64.

    3. Re:Ok but... by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      MOS Technology 6502: 0.500 MIPS at 1 MHz versus CPU: 4× ARM Cortex-A53: 2458.1 MIPS at 1.2 GHz

      That's what? Almost 5000 times faster? Of course once you start figuring in all the other improvements besides CPU it's really worse than that. People that wanted speed on the C64 learned assembler and they also learned to bang the hardware directly. By the 90s there were some of the Eastern European guys that had been using the 64 for 10 years that could do things the original designers of the C64 couldn't believer were possible. Some of the German hackers I knew when I was stationed there in the 80s were also amazing. I can still spend hours watching demos on the 64 and trying to believe it's a 1mhz computer with 64K of ram.

  12. Re: No comparison to the C64 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    And the C64 cost $595 (equivalent to $1495 in today's dollars). They aren't comparable.

  13. Re:So all models vs like two? by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · · Score: 1

    In fairness, the first and second positions are occupied by PC and Mac which are kind of board categories themselves, especially PC! In fact, I think since Apple switched to Intel, those should really be counted as PCs and therefore the Mac number, whilst still undoubtedly huge, should remain static, and possibly passable by Rasp-pi some time in the future. Not sure the top position would ever be achievable though!

  14. Re: No comparison to the C64 by fisted · · Score: 1

    Except you could fit the entire C64 in a TQFP package these days - except perhaps the floppy drive - and crank it out for a few cents a pop.

    --
    CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
  15. Re: Which computer is in first place? by gravewax · · Score: 1

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  16. Commodore 64 was a single model by 0xdeaddead · · Score: 1

    Why not add in the Vic 20, and the 128.

    1. Re:Commodore 64 was a single model by Feneric · · Score: 1

      Agreed. If you're looking at "platform", at least the C128, C128D, 64C, Sx-64, C64GS, C64DTV, and C65 all need to be included as they were all C64 compatible. Note though that the VIC-20 wasn't compatible and shouldn't be included.

    2. Re:Commodore 64 was a single model by QuantumLeaper · · Score: 1

      Basic programs work sometimes between C64 and Plus/4, but I had a better change of getting C64 basic program to run a 128 than Plus/4.

  17. This is absurdly incorrect on its face by nctritech · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Commodore 64 is "the best-selling home computer of all time" which is based on the fact that the Commodore 64 is a very specific model of computer. The Raspberry Pi 3 IS NOT the same thing as a Raspberry Pi. That's like saying the Commodore 128 is the same thing as the Commodore 64. The C64C was "the same thing" as the C64 because it was a cost-reduced version that was otherwise a completely identical piece of hardware. Each RPi is a completely different computer from the core chip to the peripherals to the I/O.

    Combining all computers that are branded Raspberry Pi and saying they have sold more units combined than the Commodore 64 is one thing, but saying "The Pi has beaten the C64 as the most units of a single computer sold" is an outright lie. The Pi series is also not a computer made for general-purpose use; it's an embedded system, and by that standard I'm willing to bet that there's some model of wireless router that has sold more units than the C64; perhaps the venerable Linksys WRT54G?

    tl;dr: the C64 still holds the crown. The article is based on bullshit logic.

    1. Re:This is absurdly incorrect on its face by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You are mostly correct, with the one exception that the Raspberry Pi is an embedded system. Embedded systems don't come with HDMI output, 3d graphics acceleration, WiFi, Bluetooth, a NIC, four USB ports, audio out, and have both a choice of NOOBs, Debian, and Fedora (workstation, with Gnome 3!) as operating systems.

      I'm not going to claim it is performance driven, or that all of it's distros are as functional as the venerable as other better powered systems, but it is hardly in the same class of embedded systems as the Arduinos.

    2. Re:This is absurdly incorrect on its face by Titanek · · Score: 3, Informative

      This! I was looking for someone to point this out... Pooling all the different versions of the Raspberry Pi together against the C64 doesn't make sense. Instead they should either have pitted the RPi against all of Commodore (including the VIC-20 and earlier, the 64, 128 and all the Amiga models), or held like the RPi 3 against the C64, which has C64 win by 3:1.

    3. Re:This is absurdly incorrect on its face by Neo-Rio-101 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For this to be a valid challenge to the C64's record, only ONE model of the raspberry pi would have to beat C64 sales numbers, and then come with the operating system built in and ready to use with a functioning keyboard.

      The Pi just isn't in the same class. It's a great hobby computer board though, and more powerful obviously - but it's not a complete ready-to-use computer when you buy it.

      --
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      PRINT ""+-0
    4. Re:This is absurdly incorrect on its face by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Embedded systems don't come with HDMI output, 3d graphics acceleration, WiFi, Bluetooth, a NIC, four USB ports, audio out, and have both a choice of NOOBs, Debian, and Fedora (workstation, with Gnome 3!) as operating systems.

      Embedded systems can have any or all of those characteristics. They are simply designed to be embedded in another device, and not stand alone with their own case and power supply. An automotive infotainment system is an embedded computer. And they typically have 3d acceleration today, they certainly have networking, they usually have USB, they obviously have audio out... Or the computerized displays tucked into some otherwise-mechanical slot machines, those are embedded systems, but they're complete computers as well. They tend to run some variant of Windows. They don't have a case, they don't have their own power supply, they're designed to be embedded into a larger system.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:This is absurdly incorrect on its face by nctritech · · Score: 1

      Commodore released two major variants of the Commodore 64: the Commodore 64 and the cost-reduced Commodore 64C. The C64C used more dense DRAM chips (41464 instead of 4164) and had a case in the C128 style, but it was identical in all functional aspects to the original C64. The original C64 has three variants as well, though to claim that is almost nit-picking since it's the contents of the ROMs that differentiates them.

      Commodore never upgraded the C64. Expansions like an REU were made for it, but those were external devices. The processor upgrades like the SuperCPU were not integrated into the C64. You can't count in this kind of stuff as a change to the system itself.

    6. Re:This is absurdly incorrect on its face by nctritech · · Score: 2

      We can split hairs all day long over this. The Raspberry Pi and its successors are not general-purpose computer systems for the era they are built within. They don't come with a display, keyboard, mouse, they don't have enough RAM to run a modern browser (at least the original Pi doesn't) and even when the RAM was upgraded they still have a pokey ARM chip at the core. The Pi boards are just little bare compute boards. They don't even come with a case or a power supply. They are designed to be embedded devices, not general-purpose computers (in the colloquial sense, not the "it can do more than a highly specialized set of operations" sense.) The Pi is literally nothing more than a cell phone board design modified to expose various ports and GPIO pins. To say that it's a computer is like saying the Apple Watch is a computer. In a strict technical sense it is, but it's not useful to the general public for their day-to-day computing tasks.

      If I reference the HP Pavilion p563w, I'm talking about a complete general-purpose computer with very particular specifications sold to the public under a specific model number. Same thing for the Commodore 64, or the Apple IIe, or the Atari ST 1040. When I say "Raspberry Pi B+" I'm talking about a specific model of embedded processing board. To say that "The Raspberry Pi has beaten the Commodore 64 in total sales" while combining the Pi A, Pi B, Pi A+, Pi B+, Pi Zero, Pi 2B, Pi 3B, and all the other Pi variations into the entire brand name "Raspberry Pi" is complete and utter bullshit. To claim that the Pi is a general-purpose computer just because it has USB, ethernet, HDMI, and Wi-Fi is disingenuous at best because it can barely even execute a modern internet browser on some models, if it can run one at all, and once it's running it's unusably slow. Being able to spin up a copy of Firefox or Chromium isn't optional for a computer meant to be useful to the unwashed masses. It's intended to be an embedded device, plain and simple. My Pi B is sitting on a shelf next to me, unused because the only thing it's good for is Xbian, and even that struggles to perform acceptably.

      Before anyone says something: no, Midori does not count.

    7. Re:This is absurdly incorrect on its face by toddestan · · Score: 1

      The Linksys WRT54G has the same problem as the Raspberry Pi, in the sense that different revisions run very different hardware and not all revisions are compatible with each other. Which of course is confusing as hell since Linksys links to reuse the same model number over and over for some reason.

      Though I would argue that the Pi is a general purpose computer. Sure, many of them end up embedded in some application, but I've seen the same thing done to standard off-the-shelf desktop machines running the regular desktop version of Windows.

  18. Apples and Oranges. by westlake · · Score: 1, Informative

    The Raspberry Pi is a circuit board for hobbyists --- one component of the kit of parts you'll need for various projects. The C-64 and its cassette or disk drive a home PC designed for mass market sale. No assembly required.

    1. Re:Apples and Oranges. by 91degrees · · Score: 2

      You really just need a keyboard and mouse. At that point it's a functional PC with programming languages, and several utilities. Much more than the C64 had.

    2. Re:Apples and Oranges. by 91degrees · · Score: 1

      The C64 had no display. Didn't have a mouse either, and the Pi doesn't actually need one to be usable. Nor did it have ethernet or USB.

  19. Re: Which computer is in first place? by Desler · · Score: 1

    This isn't even good trolling.

  20. Similarities by dohzer · · Score: 1

    C64/RPi Similarities:
    1. Both are computers.
    2. Both are currently gathering dust in people's cupboards.

    1. Re: Similarities by Neo-Rio-101 · · Score: 1

      Try my sig out on a C64. It'll crash BASIC V2 !

      --
      READY.
      PRINT ""+-0
  21. Re: Which computer is in first place? by QuantumLeaper · · Score: 1

    MS wrote Basic 1.0 for Commodore, C64 has Basic 2.0, which at the time they were up to 4.0 but the C64 didn't have the memory for 4.0, so they put 2.0 in the C64. Every version of Basic on the Commodore computers were written by Commodore except 1.0. When the C128 was released MS was big enough to tell Commodore they wanted they NAME on it again.

  22. Re:So all models vs like two? by supremebob · · Score: 1

    Yeah, it would be counting every Audi A4 ever made and proclaiming that it's the best selling car ever because the combined total was more than the 2013 Honda Accord. Not really.

  23. Re: No comparison to the C64 by Aighearach · · Score: 2

    You can get an old 8052 processor if you want to build something similar, but if you want something in a small surface mount package the cheapest is actually going to be a 32 bit ARM, with a few 8 bit AVR and PIC micros close behind. But expect to pay over a dollar if you want 64K RAM, not a few cents.

  24. Re:Hype news for the rpi fanboys by rochrist · · Score: 1

    Funny, I got the impression it was C64 fanboys in full swing.

  25. Re: No comparison to the C64 by amiga3D · · Score: 2

    I bought my first C64 in 1984 for $199 with the C1541 5.25" floppy disk drive for another $199 at the BX on Keesler AFB. I still have them and they still work. I just hooked it up to a TV the other day to look for some text files I had on a disk. My 1084 monitor died unfortunately and finding one in my area has been impossible. I've also got 16 Raspberry Pi boards. 2 original B, 2 of the B2 boards, 4 A+ boards, 4 Rpi B3 boards, 2 pi zero boards and now 2 pi zeroW boards. I've got about half of them in use at the moment with 6 running cameras on a surveillance system. 1 with libreelec media center on it and 1 with retropie for games. I also have one that I have set up as a desktop and I sometimes use it just to fool around. That's the thing about the Pi. It's got so much it can do but they're so cheap you tend to just collect them. They use next to no power so if you want to run a torrent 24/7 it's almost free as far as electrical power so why tie up your big quad core Intel beast for something trivial? If you fry one experimenting ( I use the old first generation ones for that) it's not a big deal. Once I build a box to connect my 1541 I'm going to pull all the data off my old 5.25 floppies before I can't. I'm kind of shocked that I haven't lost any as far as I can tell, it's over 30 years now.

  26. Re: No comparison to the C64 by amiga3D · · Score: 1

    They're building a very nice FPGA accelerator for the Commodore Amiga system. Basically building a very fast version of a Motorola 68060 for less than the price of an old Motorola chip if you could even find one. It also does a lot of very neat things to speed up all phases of the Amiga. I never would have believed such a thing was possible 20 years ago.
    http://www.apollo-accelerators...

  27. Re:Raspberry Pi by amiga3D · · Score: 1

    Really. An 8 bit CPU clocked at 1 megahertz with 64 Kilobytes of RAM of which only 38,911 bytes were free for use by the user. Booted to a command line Basic Interpreter. I fucking loved mine, I still have it and boot it a couple of times a year. Computers are far more useful now but not nearly as much fun. That's what the Raspberry Pi does, it brings the fun back.

  28. ZoomFloppy for USB C64 floppy drive by Paul+Fernhout · · Score: 1

    http://store.go4retro.com/zoom...

    I bought one of those, but I'm having trouble getting a disk drive so I can pull data off old diskettes while I still can... Lucky you to still have one that works!

    --
    A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
  29. Re:ZoomFloppy for USB C64 floppy drive by amiga3D · · Score: 1

    I've got 3. And a C1581 3.5" drive for it as well. I need to ebay this stuff. I don't need 3 C64 systems. I would like a nice 1084S though.

  30. Re: No comparison to the C64 by jeremyp · · Score: 1

    I have got an Atari style joystick which has a TV out and contains an entire Commodore 64 and several games for it.

    --
    All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
  31. Re: No comparison to the C64 by pagebt · · Score: 1

    I just pulled mine out and shared it with my son who is learning the whole retro gaming scene. Challenged him to take it apart and add keyboard and storage with instructions on the internet.