The New Commodore 64, Updated With Its Old Exterior

[IDemo]

April 6, 2011, 1:04 pm

I was just 6 years old when the Commodore 64 computer went on sale in the summer of 1982. Although I already owned a computer at the time — a ZX Spectrum — I remember my excitement about possibly getting my little hyperactive hands on the newly released Commodore.

At the time, the Commodore computer cost $595 and came with a whopping 64 kilobytes of memory. It also contained a graphics and sound card that stood apart from other computers of the day.

Now, nearly 30 years later, the Commodore brand has taken on new management and is re-releasing its flagship computer, this time with all the amenities of a modern-day computer packed inside.

In its heyday, the Commodore 64 was one of the most successful home computers made, shipping more than two million units a year for almost a decade after its release. Although exact numbers don’t exist, experts estimate that the company sold between 15 and 30 million Commodore 64 computers.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/the-new-commodore-64-updated-with-its-old-exterior/

[trotsky]

1. Sweet!

That thing was uncomfortable to type on though.

[Old and In the Way]

2. I built a custom wooden stand to accommadate my VIC-20.

When I upgraded to the C-64, it was a drop on replacement. :-) Learned to program BASIC on the VIC-20...no small feat with the cassette drive. But that C-64...whatta machine. Even bought a real floppy disk drive for it...but my favorite program was Flight Simulator....I can't describe how crude the graphics were compared to FS-X, but it was the first program that made me realize the potential of computers to do more than lkist out numbers.

[trotsky]

3. With you every step of the way.

Had a VIC-20 with the infamous tape drive, upgraded to a C-64 later with the sherman tank floppy drive. But can I do you one better? After that, I upgraded to the C-128! A full C64-compatible mode (you held down the Commodore key while powering on to enter it), but C128 mode was pretty slick.

[Old and In the Way]

5. Never made that jump...C64 was the end of the line.

I had a catastrophic fire about 11 years ago and lost pretty much everything. Those 2 machines had been packed away with the original boxes and documentation. I thought they might be interesting collectables to pass on to the kids. The fire completely toasted both. :-(

My next step after C-64 was kind of interesting though. My wife was a reporter for the regional newspaper and would have her copy typed up and sent via courier to the main office 35 miles away. They decided that they wanted to use a dial in modem to have the stories sent right away, then file edited...kind of a no-brainer there. I remember coming home and finding a brand new IBM PC with 2 disk drives, modem, and monitor! While she had 1st dibs on it for work, I got plenty of time to play around with it. I had bootleg Lotus 1-2-3, DBaseIII, and some write program (Qwrite?) floppies. I really started digging Lotus and learned everything I could about that software. It made me the goto guy for number analysis at work. Another cool program that I found around this time was a software package call Decision Pad. It allowed you to evaluate a bunch of competing products or options by developing a list of user defined characteristics and weighting values. The software would then prioritize the best option based on the values input. It was an indefensible piece of software that I used throughout my purchasing/materials management career. I'd use it today if I could remember my DOS file commands....

[struggle4progress]

4. It doesn't look like a particularly good computing deal to me:

barebones kit is the keyboard/case with a cardreader for $250; top of the line adds an itx mobo and psu, plus Atom D525 1.8GHz Dual Core, plus 4Gb Memory, wifi, bluray, and 1 Tb hdd for $900

It might be worth it if space is really a premium -- but you can get a lot more computing bang for your buck

[trotsky]

6. Since apparently the point went flying over your head...

I'm pretty sure the concept here is not to deliver raw power at a great price, but to put together a decent system in a cool retro case.

[struggle4progress]

7. T'each thar owns, I spoze.

[pscot]

8. Kind of like re-introducing

the '84 Chevette with all-new Kia components. :rofl:

[Occulus]

9. I still have my original C-64

And as far as I know it still works. These days, though, I emulate the thing if I want the nostalgia.

And yes, Agent USA is still sort of fun for five or ten minutes. While we're on the subject, someone once made a program for the C-64 that was a nuclear reactor simulation (this was released shortly after Chernobyl). If anyone can remember the name of that program, please post it; I'm sure I have it saved somewhere, but I can't recall the name.

The new C-64 doesn't have the internal horsepower it needs. I suppose it's worth it for the nostalgia purposes if you go for that sort of thing, but honestly there are much better PCs out there for the price they're asking.