My dream is to buy up the Commodore / Amiga IP and make a "true" successor (as I have stated in the past several times!).<p>People are growing increasingly jaded with OSX and Windows, both of which lack a passionate visionary and are becoming increasingly bloated and making weird UX choices.<p>I do not mean making a retro device, or even playing off of some modern variant of AmigaOS, I mean rethinking/resurrecting the brand the same way Jobs did when he returned to Apple.<p>It would not necessarily mean completely reinventing hardware or software. Apple's switch to a BSD-based OS and Intel chips was an example of how you can build a great computer on top of existing hardware and software.<p>The Mac has no "real" competitors - that is, companies which manufacture both their own hardware and software to produce desktops (other than consoles, which are not really desktop replacements).<p>Anyhow, it is obviously no small undertaking, but I refuse to believe there should only be two mainstream choices out there for desktops, or that the space for innovation is dead (more so on the software/coding/UX side).
I hope that we've gotten to the end of the race to the bottom in desktop computers and that the market is ready for innovative, high quality hardware. With Moore's Law sputtering and becoming less and less relevant for day-to-day computing, build quality can now become a competitive differentiator.
I think something the generation today is missing is in the 80’s we had a belief that we were truly on the cutting edge of the Star Trek future. But PCs were not yet really for the masses (despite what Mr. Tramiel claimed), but totally for the bedroom geek. You had to work hard to generate the smallest return, and trying to find information was difficult at best. There was CompuServe and Q-Link if you could afford it, but much of what you learned you learned by hacking on your own.<p>Yes, yes, snow uphill and all that, but my point is all of that energy was driven by a belief that you were just beginning to tap into real power, cracking open a portal. A glimpse of the future was in there, and the future was <i>awesome</i>.<p>Uh huh. Today I cannot believe how dystopian things have become. This is totally <i>not</i> the future envisioned back in the day. I’m not discounting all advances, but I am thinking about the state of the average home PC today. It is not filled with hopefully bliss, but instead it has become a nightmare of “how do I avoid Big Brother's claws today, this week, next month?” This of course was always the Sci-Fi possibility, but I personally never dreamed that this would be the norm.<p>IMHO, today’s computer environment destroys the inner geek. Going retro brings it back. Maybe something good and modern will eventually blossom.
I remember there being a joystick released a few years back that had a full Commodore 64 in it. You could mod it with a keyboard and drive supposedly...... Found it [1]<p>I'm wondering if the case is enough to bring people back. There is something about a these retro machines that you have full control over that is appealing. Maybe I'm just gettin nostalgic.<p>[1]
<a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/C64_Direct-to-TV" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/C64_Direct-to-TV</a>
One of the die-hard manufacturers of Commodore/Amiga stuff. Individual computers, they were part of the C-One project and a few others. One of the more notable current devices is the Chameleon 64 a turbo 64 clone in a cartridge case (you can use is stand alone or plug it into a C64 to get the speed boost while enjoying better C64 compatibility. Also retro Replay and the RRNet (one of the many ethernet carts for the C64).<p>They sometimes make it out to AmiWest in Sacramento, CA, (Oct 6th-9th <a href="http://www.amiwest.net/" rel="nofollow">http://www.amiwest.net/</a> ) from the site it doesn't look like they will be out this year.
Neat to see a Commodore comeback, that's actually doing the retro C64 thing and not just slapping Commodore logos on new computers or phones. I supposed the Amiga rights are too much of a mess to hope for much movement there.
tl;dr Individual Computers launches a new plastic case to house either an original C64 mainboard, or the "C64 Reloaded" board released by hardware designer Jens Schönfeld last year.<p><a href="http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/C64_reloaded" rel="nofollow">http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/C64_reloaded</a><p>Sadly the C64R is currently out of stock.<p><a href="https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/product/c64-reloaded.html" rel="nofollow">https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/product/c64-reloaded.htm...</a>
I'm just reading "Commodore: a company on the edge" and the claims in this vs the received wisdom on Apple are very interesting.<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/dp/0973864966" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/...</a><p>Chuck Peddle didn't have the same opinions about Apple II nor Wozniak. It's a very interesting book.<p>ps I also have a working commodore amiga 500!
Interesting to note the long post-Commodore history of the brand name. The Wikipedia entry does not even mention Polabe Holding NV from which the rights were licensed.
Anyway, brings back some fond memories - I was a VIC20 kid...
This is an extraordinary achievement for the industry and is something all of us should be proud of. It's the reason I became a developer and now I know I made the right decision. What fantastic news!
It would be interesting to see a modernized C64 -- a C64g where "g" means gigabyte, with specs something like:<p>* 1 GHZ 6510 compatible processor
* 8+ GB RAM<p>That alone would be interesting, but lets keep going.<p>* Beefed up SID with 16 bit sound
* Beefed up VIC supporting 32 bit RGBA color
* Add 3D graphics coprocessor<p>Probably not really feasible, but I find myself often wondering what it might be like to have the simplicity of a C64 back, but with present day specs.
Might they be using the same moulds as the people who did this kickstarter for new 64C cases?<p><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1670214687/original-commodore-64c-computer-housing-in-new-coo/posts/1288978" rel="nofollow">https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1670214687/original-com...</a><p>There's still a couple on eBay.
Does any one know if they're going to sell the same keyboards as they used to?<p>I'm not sure if that means [1] full keyboards or just boxes<p>[1]<a href="https://shop.return-magazin.de/newsletter/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://shop.return-magazin.de/newsletter/index.html</a>
Sadly the site of the company that owns the Commodore name is full of 404 pages, notably the one linked to from the "Hardware" tab. <a href="http://www.commodorecorp.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.commodorecorp.com</a>
Had so much fun with these as a kid, I'd love to play around with one for a little while. Though hard to imagine why anyone would want to use one on a regular basis.
my first computer! I sold one back in Poland for $100 when I left for US in '90. I've spent many all nighters playing Boulder Dash and tinkering with music production while connected to a shitty single speaker radio. I hope Datasette comes back too! <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette</a>