[BRIEF NOTE] Is the Commodore 64 being revived?
Charles Sorrel at Wired's Gadget Lab shared the news about the unlikely revival of the personal computers that peopled my childhood.
Just before Christmas, Commodore teased us with an Intel Atom based Commodore 64 - a regular all-in-one Ubuntu PC in the shape of the classic C64 home computer, which could also boot into a game-playing C64 emulation mode. Now, finally, you can buy one, and you’ll soon be able to get the C64’s little brother, the VIC-20, in the shape of the VIC Pro and VIC Slim.
The C64x can be had in five confusing configurations. The Barebones model is nothing more than the case and keyboard with a card-reader and costs $250. The cheapest working version is the C64x Basic at almost $600, and to get luxuries such as Wi-Fi and a DVD drive you’ll need to cough up $700. If you’re in for that much, then you may as well jump all the way and spend $900 on the Ultimate edition, which puts in a 1TB hard drive, a Blu-ray drive and 4GB RAM.
[. . .]
And anyway, the real nerds will be waiting for Commodore’s next big project: The resurrection of the majestic Amiga, albeit in the shape of a DVD player. These machines will use PC hardware but run “Commodore OS”, a mysterious operating system that will either be awesome or awful. I can’t wait.
Dave Dunfield has a nice picture of a complete Commodore 64 system, to remind you.
Over at PC Mag, however, Lance Ulanoff is decidedly cool about the idea of bringing back Commodore computers that really aren't Commodores.
I get the nostalgic impulse to resurrect the old design as something fresh. Buying the new Commodore 64 is, though, like buying a custom car kit. What you really want is that sexy chassis-what's inside is immaterial. In the case of the new Commodore 64, which ranges in price from $250 to almost $900, the most expensive model stuffs a terabyte drive and a Blu-ray drive inside the classic-looking computer/keyboard.
Interesting and entertaining as this new Commodore 64 is, I'm not buying. I feel about this computer very much the way I do about any replica-disappointed. Replica classic cars, toys, signs, etc. always feel like a cheat. You see them out on the road or in a store and for one fleeting moment are excited: You marvel at the preservation and wonder if it still works. Then you find out it's just a simulacrum of the real thing. Anyone can build a PC with powerful insides and a retro-looking body. I have an old 8088-class PC in my basement. Perhaps I'll gut that, put in a Core i7 motherboard, an Nvidia GTX 590 graphics card and three 1TB hard drives in a RAID array (hey, that's not such a bad idea…), but to what purpose? People will marvel over the case, but know that the insides are brand new and work just the way their own new PCs do. Similarly, I think this new Commodore 64 overlooks all that was special about these early PCs.
Just before Christmas, Commodore teased us with an Intel Atom based Commodore 64 - a regular all-in-one Ubuntu PC in the shape of the classic C64 home computer, which could also boot into a game-playing C64 emulation mode. Now, finally, you can buy one, and you’ll soon be able to get the C64’s little brother, the VIC-20, in the shape of the VIC Pro and VIC Slim.
The C64x can be had in five confusing configurations. The Barebones model is nothing more than the case and keyboard with a card-reader and costs $250. The cheapest working version is the C64x Basic at almost $600, and to get luxuries such as Wi-Fi and a DVD drive you’ll need to cough up $700. If you’re in for that much, then you may as well jump all the way and spend $900 on the Ultimate edition, which puts in a 1TB hard drive, a Blu-ray drive and 4GB RAM.
[. . .]
And anyway, the real nerds will be waiting for Commodore’s next big project: The resurrection of the majestic Amiga, albeit in the shape of a DVD player. These machines will use PC hardware but run “Commodore OS”, a mysterious operating system that will either be awesome or awful. I can’t wait.
Dave Dunfield has a nice picture of a complete Commodore 64 system, to remind you.
Over at PC Mag, however, Lance Ulanoff is decidedly cool about the idea of bringing back Commodore computers that really aren't Commodores.
I get the nostalgic impulse to resurrect the old design as something fresh. Buying the new Commodore 64 is, though, like buying a custom car kit. What you really want is that sexy chassis-what's inside is immaterial. In the case of the new Commodore 64, which ranges in price from $250 to almost $900, the most expensive model stuffs a terabyte drive and a Blu-ray drive inside the classic-looking computer/keyboard.
Interesting and entertaining as this new Commodore 64 is, I'm not buying. I feel about this computer very much the way I do about any replica-disappointed. Replica classic cars, toys, signs, etc. always feel like a cheat. You see them out on the road or in a store and for one fleeting moment are excited: You marvel at the preservation and wonder if it still works. Then you find out it's just a simulacrum of the real thing. Anyone can build a PC with powerful insides and a retro-looking body. I have an old 8088-class PC in my basement. Perhaps I'll gut that, put in a Core i7 motherboard, an Nvidia GTX 590 graphics card and three 1TB hard drives in a RAID array (hey, that's not such a bad idea…), but to what purpose? People will marvel over the case, but know that the insides are brand new and work just the way their own new PCs do. Similarly, I think this new Commodore 64 overlooks all that was special about these early PCs.