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Hardware Technology

The Return of the Commodore? 241

Posted by Zonk from the smoke-me-a-kipper-i'll-be-back-for-breakfast dept.
PseudoSapien writes "A Dutch consumer media company is hoping it can tap the power of the VIC 20, the PET and the Commodore 64 to launch a new wave of products, including a home media center device and a portable GPS (Global Positioning System) unit and media player. They're talking about Resurrecting Commodore." From the article: "Commodore is far from the first company to try to revive a once-popular tech brand. The Amiga, Commodore's onetime PC brand, has had its own decades-long history as fans tried to preserve both the computer's operating system and brand despite the lack of strong corporate backing."
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The Return of the Commodore? More

The Return of the Commodore?

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  • 8 bit is back!

    • Re:Atari on the upswing! (Score:5, Informative)

      by EEBaum ( 520514 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @04:34PM (#14280795) Homepage
      Atari was bought out by French game publisher Infogrames a few years back, which uses the Atari name purely because people have a history with it. There's no Atari left in Atari.

    • 8 bit is back! (Score:4, Informative)

      by Simonetta ( 207550 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @08:40PM (#14282053)
      But it's not back as a 'full' or 'real' computer. It's back as a microcontroller. In either its Atmel AVR or Microchip PIC format.

        What has brought it back is the integration of all the minimum memory resources and I/O into the chip itself. That, and the reduction of cost for the 8-bit 'system' from nearly a thousand dollars twenty years ago to about ten dollars today (for CPU, minimal LCD display, and floppy storage.)

          Gates-style BASIC is rarely used on new AVRs and PICs, but it is available for the PIC in the BASIC Stamp device.

          Eight Bitters are not used as stand-alone home computers but as controllers that intelligently interact and manipulate other machines and sensors. But the -feeling- of raw control; and the wonder of being able to create or reconfigure the operation of a machine through typing instuctions that determine what the machine will do; this feeling remains the same as it was twenty years ago. It's just much cheaper now.

          It's also much easier. Both Atmel and Microchip freely distribute high quality development tools for their devices on the web for Windows PCs. And the memory itself is far more easier to use. No more expensive ultra-violet light EPROM erasers. The program is stored in internal Flash that can be rewritten tens of thousands of times. No more $10000 in-circuit-emulators to figure out what the chip is doing when it stops working. With modern JTAG interfaces, every chip has an ICE built in. Even the most complex program can be debugged with a $39 (or less home brew) JTAG-ICE and the factory-supplied free development system programs.

          My favorites are the Tiny AVRs. These are eight pin DIP chips that sell for about $1 each. They program through the PC parallel port. They have multi-channel 10-bit Analog-to-Digital convertors built in. (Try finding a 10-bit dedicated ADC chip for $1!) They run at 20 MIPS (about 20 times faster than the Commodore 64) with internal system clock generators, no crystals needed, and the speed can be fine tuned. And they have a flexible, easy-to-use, and easy-to-learn instruction set.

          There are even rock-bottom level Tiny AVRs (like the Tiny11) that sell for forty cents each. I use one to play a MIDI tone module with a cheap surplus PS2 PC keyboard. It reads the serial logic signals sent out from each keypress and release and transforms them into MIDI Note On/Off messages. Not bad from a 40 cent CPU.

          And a 20MIPS CPU for $1 can replace a whole board of TTL chips. Sure so can a GAL or PLD for the same price. But the AVR can switch into power-down mode when not being used and burn only microAmps of current. It uses only about 10 milliAmps at full 20MIPS speed and a third of that when running at, yes, 1.8 volts! Try that with a GAL, good luck Chuck!

          Plus there are lots of people on the specialized web sites from whom to get advice when you get completely stuck on something that makes no sense. Another thing that wasn't around for Eight bitters twenty years ago.

          The 8-bit world is alive and dazzling well. It's just very quiet and no longer gets any media coverage as being the 'future' in the way that it was covered by the media in the Commodore and Atari years. It's still rockin'.
    • You guys *REALLY* want to see the Commodore 64 come back? Take a look at Here [amazon.com], and here [wikipedia.org].

  • In the old days... (Score:3, Informative)

    by rodgster ( 671476 ) <rodgster@@@yahoo...com> on Saturday December 17, 2005 @04:31PM (#14280777) Journal
    I remember the comodore PET I used back in high school. No HD. No Floppy. No color screen. 64KB of memory (?). Basic. Tape drive (you could use the same tapes that would play in your care stereo). Wow!

    • Re:In the old days... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Graemee ( 524726 )
      In high school we had labs of these in 1980. The IEEE-488 bus allowing several PETS to use one printer and one dual disk floppy. These were PET 4000's 16K. I owned, still do, a PET 2000 8K. Later in grade 11 they upgraded to SuperPETs with the mupPET II system allowing 10? units to use one printer and one dual disk floppy drive. The floppy system BTW held 1MB, considering other systems disc storage was much smaller Atari =130K, Apple ~=80-150K.

      HD were too much $$$. Most 8-bit systems never had "offical" HD
    • 64K of memory? Our Commodore PETs had only 8k. I think after I graduated they got the upgraded 32k versions - not sure if they were ever capable of 64K.
      • It was probably the PET-4064 [zimmers.net], aka the PET-64, which was essentially a C64 in a PET case, to make it less portable for use in schools.

        • Re:In the old days... (Score:3, Interesting)

          by rodgster ( 671476 )
          If I remember correctly (almost positive) the tape drive was built into the case (by the keyboard). Which after reading the article looks like it was the first generation of PET. I also remember machines with the chicklet keys. And apparently I was wrong on the memory (looks like 8K, again after reading the article).

          Offtopic but around that time I had an atari 1200XL at home (maybe it had 64K of memory before OS load) and used it in college for writing papers.
    • And don't forget the most important feature ... an OS that could be hacked by middle-schoolers.

      Gone are the days of single-layer hardware/drivers/system calls, all accessible with the magic words PEEK( ), POKE( ), and CALL( ).

      *sigh*

      • Oh?
        How about magic MOV, JZ, CALL, etc?
        You can still use assembly on all the sane high level languages.
        Yes, PEEK, POKE and CALL were just abstractions of the hardware level for BASIC-du-jour.
        • Assembly language sure.

          But the difference with the old 8-bit computers was simplicity. No memory manager, no protected memory, no protected mode, absolute addressing, memory mapped screen and hardware ports, no library loading, no worrying about other processes or threads - the essential OS funtions were kept alive with interrupt routines, and as long as you kept away from the OSs reserved memory, you had the entire machine to yourself.
      • I seem to remember typing SYS 1024 put you into monitor mode.
    • My PET 2001 started out with 4K of memory, but it was upgraded to 8K for a couple of thousand dollars.

      Unfortunately, it stopped working 4 years ago when I moved.

  • I feel a song coming on... (Score:3)

    by The I Shing ( 700142 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @04:32PM (#14280785) Journal
    Memory
    Writing programs in BASIC
    Saving files to a tape drive
    We were patient back then...

  • So basically, (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17, 2005 @04:33PM (#14280792)
    Some Dutch company bought rights to use the commodore name and logo and is stamping it on some Chinese made OEM products?
    • Some Dutch company bought rights to use the commodore name and logo and is stamping it on some Chinese made OEM products?

      Yes. Like some French company did with Atari, minus the Chinese OEM products.

    • Yes... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Junta ( 36770 )
      Does that surprise you or is it in any way different from 95% of other companies out there today?

      Sorry, just irritated that not only is this strategy so widespread, but that it is so effective in the market. Why are people generally more caught up in a brand than the actual product?
      • Because choice of brands is now a signal to others of your personality and "lifestyle". It's fashion. We buy so much and have so much available to us to buy that we have the ability to buy based on whim and fashion rather than necessity and practicality.
    • The Commodore name has been in dutch hands for a while now, with Tulip bv. Also, I remember applying Commodore logos to PCs in Escoms' Nieuw Vennep factory in the Netherland when I had a temp job at Escom as a kid, before Escom went bust (Escom owned the name for some reason, they were a thrower-together of commodity component whitebox PCs). That was about 9 years ago I think.

  • Sweet! (Score:2)

    by J05H ( 5625 )
    Maybe it will run REBOL? That'd be cool, Carl Sassenrath has some interesting software. I'd buy a Commodore-branded GPS or handheld in a second.

    Jack Tramiel, there is a special place in Hell for you. A place where you can gaze upon Jay Miner's shining brilliance, but never quite touch it. You killed the coolest computer ever, jerk.

  • An easy to use programming language for high schoolers and hobbists, like oh, I don't know... maybe BASIC? Not VB, but just plain ol' BASIC. None of the OO stuff, none of the "on click/on mouseover" crap, just something that we can mess with. Like the program that used to come with DOS.

    Just don't publish programs in magazines. That really was a painful and stupid way to distrubute software.
    • Just don't publish programs in magazines. That really was a painful and stupid way to distrubute software.

      Indeed! Especially when, after my 8-year old self spent a couple days entering code at about ten lines an hour, I'd succeeded only in animating the pretty flashing logo for the machine language editor, let alone even THOUGHT about entering the code for the actual game.

    • Re:How about (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MoneyT ( 548795 )
      Hypertalk and a resurection of hypercard. While I loved learning to code on my C64 I was quickly frustrated by what was required to get basic images on the screen. Hypertalk proved to me more useful to me for making basic games and such, and on top of it, it had enough basic OO like programing involved that the concept was easy enough to pick up when I hit actual OO languages.

    • Re:How about (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Lisandro ( 799651 )
      Just don't publish programs in magazines. That really was a painful and stupid way to distrubute software.

          It also happened to be the only viable way to distribute software, economically atleast. But hey, atleast running software you spent hours transcribing was rewarding :) I did, and also happened to learn a lot in the process.

      • Re:How about (Score:5, Interesting)

        by wfberg ( 24378 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @05:03PM (#14280904)
        Just don't publish programs in magazines. That really was a painful and stupid way to distrubute software.

        It also happened to be the only viable way to distribute software, economically atleast.

        Actually, in The Netherlands there was a programme on radio that broadcast data tapes (!). Just tape the radio show to cassette, run a translator from BASICODE (which was the "univeral" basic dialect the broadcasts were in) to your home computer's very own basic dialect, and you were in business. The show was called NOS HobbyScoop [hobbyscoop.nl] if I recall correctly.

        Also, I recollect (fondly) an issue of MSX Magazine which had a flexi disc record (you know, like one of them vinyl records your grandaddy used to have, but the flexi disc was a superthin version of this) which you also copied onto cassette to load onto your machine.

        Later on I even became aware of broadcasts of computer data using Teletext pages on Rai Uno (Italian tv - teletext is broadcast in the superfluent scanlines of PAL television, much like closed captioning is broadcast in the extra scanlines of NTSC); these were also targetted, at first, at home computer user, and only later at PC users (but by then, BBSes were the norm).
        • Also, I recollect (fondly) an issue of MSX Magazine which had a flexi disc record (you know, like one of them vinyl records your grandaddy used to have, but the flexi disc was a superthin version of this) which you also copied onto cassette to load onto your machine.

          A UK Spectrum magazine did that, with a game featuring the Thompson Twins (iirc); there was a song by them, then a demo of a game they featured in.

          I never did get the damn thing to work...
        • Um...downloading any program of any kind from the net is, virtually, "getting software over the radio..."

          In case you're wondering where all the wonder's gone.

        • Actually, in The Netherlands there was a programme on radio that broadcast data tapes (!). Just tape the radio show to cassette, run a translator from BASICODE (which was the "univeral" basic dialect the broadcasts were in) to your home computer's very own basic dialect, and you were in business.

          Fond memories, indeed. Funny how history repeats itself: BASICODE could be seen as a precursor to Java [xs4all.nl]. Write once, run anywhere, early 1980s version.

          One funny detail is that the former Communist East Germany's

      • Re:How about (Score:3, Interesting)

        by MillionthMonkey ( 240664 )
        Kids today have it easy.

        I learned assembler when I was 12 because the BASIC in the ZX81 was so horrible. (The processor was a Z-80, so ironically I was unwittingly being spoiled by Z-80 assembler- the 6502 instruction set was a rude surprise when I upgraded to the Commodore.)

        All the games in the articles had a short description and then pages of numbers between 0 and 255 that you had to carefully type in (the Commodore articles later at least included CRCs). Most of the excitement came from just getting the
        • You could spill anything short of aqua regia on the keyboard, dead ones made dandy high tech doorstops, and oh yeah - we ran a radio interferometry rig off a ZX-80 - it collected the data and periodically (= when we remembered to walk over to it swap wires and do so) saved to cassette tape and printed the data. We'd previously paid $5K to get basically the same thing done with some solar energy data - AtoD to mass storage and printer.
        • Like other programming languages, assembler is a matter of taste. Personally I hated Z80, but loved 6502. (Also hated 8086 and loved 68000.)
        • You learned them the wrong way round. 6502 was a much more elegant processor.
      • I agree. Back 20+ years ago, when you got a personal computer, you pretty much HAD to learn programming to get so much out of it. That seems to be lost on today's PCs for a newer generation. Those kids that typed in magazine-listed programs 20+ years ago most likely are the developers of today, but what about the ones for tomorrow?

    • Compute! this (Score:2, Interesting)

      by GeekyMike ( 575177 )
      Just don't publish programs in magazines. That really was a painful and stupid way to distrubute software.

      When I was a kid, before going to kindergarten. I saw my dad copying code from an old Compute! magazine. I asked him what he was doing and he explained he was telling the computer what he wanted it to do. I asked how I could do this and Dad told me I would need to learn to read first. I learned how to read before going to school for the sole purpose of writing code. I now have an associates in pro

    • Re:How about (Score:2, Insightful)

      by bumptehjambox ( 886036 )
      Just don't publish programs in magazines. That really was a painful and stupid way to distrubute software.

      Yea, it was painful, but it was all we had man!
      I was about four years old when I first started with the C64, and my mom was a secretary at that time, so she typed the code for a while. It took me a few years to wrap my mind around it, but it was a great way to dissect the language and learn through repitition. But, honestly, I do strongly doubt they'd print complete game/app code in magazines these da

    • I think the problem these days is that most people want to get something equal to VB apps, at least. Otherwise, they'll just do HTML with some Javascript.

      And, remember, that real basic is strictly line-oriented programming. The very source of spaghetti. Bash OO all you want, but you do NOT want to get people started in that paradigm. At least teach them to use structured loops and function constructs. (Or get them into real assembler ;-)

      (I started in BASIC myself on a PC clone with MS-DOS 2.1 at the age o

  • Oh no! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mr2cents ( 323101 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @04:39PM (#14280815)
    Can't we just let the dead rest in peace anymore? I loved both my C=64 and my Amiga, but they're history. This is just marketing/branding, it has nothing to do with the original products, nor it's spirit.

  • pfft (Score:3, Informative)

    by know1 ( 854868 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @04:42PM (#14280828)
    if you want real power you need a spectrum with a massive 128k of memory and a top of the range built in tape drive
  • In related news scientist hope to resurrect Dinosaurs to fill ecological gaps.

  • Open Office? (Score:5, Funny)

    by rolypolyman ( 933130 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @04:43PM (#14280830)
    The good news: It will run Open Office. The bad news: The Open Office suite will come on 382 floppy disks.
    • go check out the abandonware section of alex-soft.net to go snag the PC version. Granted, you *WILL* want to run this on a 286, with DOS 5 installed. Emulation and slowdown programs just do not cut it.

      • IMHO the C128 version was better than the PC version in both the graphics and sound department. I'd say that in fact a C128 with multiple drives was probably the best platform to run Ultima V on overall.

        Ultima VI in contrast was a horror show on the C128 with multiple drives. In fact, if you had more than one drive on your system, it wouldn't even boot. Although Origin promised a patch to fix that particular bug and generally enable multiple drive support for it, they never delivered. Quite a few Ultim

  • Nothing to see here (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17, 2005 @04:55PM (#14280874)
    So... This isn't Commodore, they aren't using old Commodore tech, they're just hoping that people are going to buy something because of the name.

    I doubt this will work very well. Once people realise the association is fake, the products had better be very good, or else people will be angry that their good memories have been compromised, and they will be *less* satisfied than if they'd just bought a Brand Nobody product.

    I think it's unlikely the products will be any good, or else they wouldn't have felt the need to tack any brand they could get their hands on as a way to promote them. Think of the ratio of good film tie-in games to bad.

    Maybe they will make good use of the name, maybe they have the most wonderful products ever, but they are one wrong step from becoming unwanted graverobbers.

    • Re:Nothing to see here (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tomjen ( 839882 )
      Even if they make the best software ever, they are still going to get disapointed customers - because what you are buying is not so much a computer as a piece of you childhood - all the memories about learning programming and the fun you had. When you bring it back all you get is a computer, and you will be horiblely disappointed.

      Na let it stay as just the memories, you will be happier that way.
  • I miss the user group meetings with my Amiga and Comodore buddies. Thank god I now have something to do.

  • Aready done (Score:2, Informative)

    by cachimaster ( 127194 )
    Here in Argentina, there are Commodore brand clone PCs since over two years ago (and pretty cheap they are), take a look Here [compumundo.com.ar], so, wtf is this news?
    • That's a company simply using the Commodore brand for its custom made PCs. It would be interesting to find out if they have the right to use it or not.

  • Ohhhhh - Memories (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dethboy ( 136650 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @05:05PM (#14280906) Homepage
    Typing, typing, typing, typing, save to tape.
    Typing, typing, typing, typing, save to tape.
    Typing, typing, typing, typing, save to tape.
    Typing, typing, typing, typing, save to tape.
    Unplug computer from TV and watch news.
    Plug in computer to TV and continue!
    • Heh. How fondly I remember those days.

      After the strict monitor/TV separation of the past 10-15 years (other than TV-in cards, which are still the rarity), it was pretty cool to see a monitor with picture-in-picture (composite or s-video!) input at work the other day. Made me think of the C64 days.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @05:07PM (#14280912)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • What's in a name? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by eyebits ( 649032 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @05:23PM (#14280972)
    What is a name really worth? They spent millions on the Commodore name...and an old name at that. It is hard to believe. I don't buy a product because of a name. I buy a product because of its features and design. Yes, I do look at the reputation of a company and reputations are associated with names, but there is no relationship between this new Commodore and the old one so no prior reputation autmatically follows. Will people actually buy more product because they chose to use the Commodore name? My belief is that they won't. Yet, why would this company spend millions on the name if they didn't think it would help them? What do they know that I don't? I just can't wrap my head around it.
  • Its just the name that is returning, not the people that made the company what it was back in the 80's.

    This is news?
  • Damn they don't use their own tech.
    I RTFA and click on the shop [commodoreworld.com].
    Then "Flash Players".
    Got:

    Server Error in '/' Application.
    c:\inetpub\wwwroot\layout\default.as cx
    Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

    ...

    System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain() +731

    Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:1.1.4322.573; ASP.NET Version:1.1.4322.573

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @05:35PM (#14281013)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • "The Commodore Navigator is a Windows CE-based portable device..."

      I stopped reading here.

      Agreed. There are some devices out there that do utilize Commodore technology; the Commodore One [c64upgra.de] is just one example. These deserve the name far more than any WinCE device ever could.

    • Here several computer stores sells Commodore branded PC. With WinXP as any other computer in the market. Now they are selling some with Linux (a local version, based on Xandros) just to pull the prices down.
      Check this link [compumundo.com.ar].

  • I'd like Dell or Apple to consider these traits.

    I could flip a switch and start typing code in second or two. It was silent, no fans or hard drive. It's keyboard was well-cushioned and you could pound it comfortably all day. I could turn a knob on my "monitor" and watch David Letterman, then turn the knob back to switch tasks without installing any special software.

    Comfortable, fast, silent, efficient...It was a good computer for writing code and making business spreadsheets in "multi-plan" I'd ne
    • No, you can't *buy* it, but you can build it:
      Part 1: Buy a multi-function LCD, just switch between input sources to watch TV or work.
      Part 2: Get a good keyboard. They're not rare, just not the $9.99 wal-mart ones.
      Part 3a: Go to SilentPC.com, and build a system from their silent components list, but only after
      Part 3b: check potential parts for Linux SWSuspend safety (ten minutes with google/forums + IRC)
      Part 4: Install Linux, and don't shut down, SWSuspend.

      Tada! Seconds long initalization, silent operation

  • c64/amiga scene (Score:2, Informative)

    by sounddesignz ( 866275 )
    Just to let you know, there's still a vivid commodore demoscene (evolved from intros), producing enormous creative output. some links: http://scene.org/ [scene.org] - repository for all demoscene stuff; the bigger parties like breakpoint and assembly have c64/amiga compo categories http://scene.org/file.php?id=289244 [scene.org] - unbelievable amiga demo from 2004

  • Portable GPS? (Score:5, Funny)

    by BradleyUffner ( 103496 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @07:02PM (#14281547) Homepage
    Wouldn't a non-portable GPS be kinda pointless? I'm seeing a big rock with "You are here" carved on it.
  • Ahh the good ole 300 baud modem on the c64, great times. Remember when I finally got zmodem in a terminal and stopped using punter, life was good. Never did use kermit, all the c64 bbs's never used it.

    And the joy of using a 3 pixel wide 40 column display to get 80 characters. Was so glad when the 128 came out and had real 80 column that did ansi. Even my Amiga 500 didnt have true ansi for the first few years. Petascii, ick..

    But the website says using it for a media server or GPS, wtf? Really sad to see e

  • Commodore's return... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Aladrin ( 926209 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @10:44PM (#14282505)
    This news hit the C64 scene HARD a while ago. The first they did is announce that everyone playing C64 games on emulators was stealing from them since they now owned the name and demanded that they stop. The second thing was to announce an official C64 emulator and that they would sell the old games for it.

    I would think their first step should not be to alienate every single interested person in the world. Last I heard, they were completely unrepentant. The Commodore name is going to be a huge money-sink for these people if they don't VERY quickly smarten up and ask their customers what they want.

  • A Modest Proposal (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Prototerm ( 762512 ) on Saturday December 17, 2005 @10:54PM (#14282529)
    Imagine what would happen if somebody really did produce a modern-day equivalent to the commodore 64.

    1. The C64 had all of its OS in ROM, which meant :
            a) No patching could be done after manufacture, so it had to be right the first time
            b) No unnecessary features could be added to the OS -- an add-on was required
            c) Virus and Root kits were possible, by copying ROM to RAM first and modifying the copied code, but could not survive a cold boot.
            d) Instant on
    2. The C64 didn't use a native GUI, or DOS or a Unix shell, but the BASIC computer language (also in ROM). Anyone who learned to use the computer at all, was actually using a real computer language. Someone wrote a version of DOS for the 64, and people laughed at him. Who needs DOS when you have full BASIC as the command line?

    3. A small tweak to the C64's screen editor converted it into a full screen editor that scrolled BASIC programs in both direction.

    4. It used a standard TV for video output.

    Now, I know this Dutch company is just using the Commodore name, but if you didn't have to worry about backward compatibility, what would a 21st Century version of the Commodore look like?

    1. The OS written in 100% optimized machine language (not C++ or any other high-level language) and stored in ROM, so it could not be changed by malware (not even Sony's). The computer would, therefore, be instant-on.
    2. The computer would power-up with a command-line window using some sort of easy-to-use language (any suggestions for something your Mom would be able to handle?)
    3. The command-line would appear on a GUI screen of some sort (perhaps something like the XBox-360's?), and be a full-blown GUI text editor with syntax highlighting.
    4. Connect natively to an HDTV, with settings for multiple resolutions including 1080p
    5. Native output for 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound as well as stereo.
    6. Dual-format HD DVD player/recorder
    7. Native wireless networking
    8. Native wireless keyboard, pointer (mouse, pad, whatever), and game controllers
    9. Optional SATA hard drive
    10. Optional model with built-in integrated HDTV receiver and PVR software

    Anything I missed in this fantasy machine? Use a 64 bit CPU, and you can even call it a C-64! Now, not having played with one, I can't say how close this is to a real-life Xbox360, or a PS3, but I don't think either one is intended to be a computer, and I know Microsoft would have a fit trying to write optimized assembly code that worked right the first time, without patches or bloat. As for Sony, we know that they'll probably build their malware right into the PS3 from the beginning to save us all the trouble of installing it for them
    • 1. The C64 had all of its OS in ROM, which meant :
                      a) No patching could be done after manufacture, so it had to be right the first time


      And that's where the machine will fail.

      The C64 is a case in point: What happens when you fill a floppy disk? The files on the disk are lost because the drive attempts to write to the alternate side of the disk.
    • The only modern computing devices I can think of that keep its OS is ROM are PDAs like the Palm devices. However, that fits only one of your 10 criteria.
  • I noticed something long ago...Amiga fanatics have mostly moved to Linux...why?

    The Amiga was kept alive by the fans...and the fans are what keeps Linux (any GPLed software) alive at its heart...

    The only thing that the PC is missing as far as the hardware goes is in the architecture...the Amiga had specilaized "co-processors" for everything (Video, Audio, I/O, etc)...this made it seem a lot faster than it really was...the PC is moving in the opposite direction (everything is offloaded to the main CPU)...

    If y

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