Commodore 64 Primed For a Comeback In June 330
angry tapir writes "The Commodore 64 is getting a makeover, with a new design and some of the latest computing technologies, as the brand gets primed for a comeback. The revamped computer will be available through the Commodore USA online store, which is set to open June 1. The computer will be an all-in-one keyboard, with Intel's 64-bit quad-core microprocessors and 3D graphics capabilities."
GEOS (Score:3, Interesting)
That's interesting. I didn't know you could run Windows with 64K of RAM.
You can't, unless you count GEOS [wikipedia.org]. That's why the 64 in this stands for a 64-bit CPU, like the Nintendo 64.
HDTVs with VGA input (Score:3, Interesting)
At least if it had come with a HDMI port to be by default attached to a HDTV, then it would be closer to the Commodre 64 legacy.
Almost any PC since 1987 can be connected to a TV because most HDTVs sold where I live have a VGA input. But the original C64 also competed with the NES as a game console; how will the new C64 compete with the Xbox 360?
this reminds me of Acorn (Score:3, Interesting)
Slap a familiar [UK] logo on a Wintel [acorncomputers.co.uk]
Re:64-bit?! (Score:2, Interesting)
Bonus points to the first person that can rip an mp3/flac from an old cassette and get the program to load.
-- gid
Re:64-bit?! (Score:4, Interesting)
Bonus points to the first person that can rip an mp3/flac from an old cassette and get the program to load.
Has anyone ever done that? Come to think of it, since MP3 discards audio outside of human hearing ranges, would it even work? I suppose that since (usually by limiting to 9600bps or so) you can get a fax machine to work on a VoIP line, this could work as well though.
:D
That'd be really neat/useless, feeding MP3 files to a c64 emulator to load applications.
Re:64-bit?! (Score:2, Interesting)
I managed to transfer some Acorn Electron tapes onto audio CDs once, and was also able to speed up the loading time by reducing the long "padding" beeps between the blocks (which I'm sure have a proper name..)
Oddly enough there was one tape that it just would not work with - though it loaded fine directly from the tape, so goodness knows what strange analogue copy protection had been implemented.
Re:64-bit?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Bonus points to the first person that can rip an mp3/flac from an old cassette and get the program to load.
tests show that there is no real difference between square and sine waveforms in terms of MP3 packing. WAVs with 3675 bps can be packed as 128 kbps MP3, those with 5512.5 - at 192 kbps (of course, at max quality and with frequency filters switched off). [cax.nm.ru] That's for MSX though. But if the bitrate is not too high, then it ought to work.
Re:Upgrades? (Score:2, Interesting)
There's nothing like it. At just 17.5 inches wide and 2 inches tall, it's designed to take up far less room -- and use far less energy -- than any other desktop computer.
So, in other words, it's a desktop that will be a colossal PITA upgrade and will probably use non-standard parts to get everything to fit. All the upgrade inconvenience of a laptop with none of the advantages.
Seems more like an updated Amiga 600HD to me. A600 was 14x9.5"x3" and weighed about 6 lbs (with a big goofy external power supply whereon lies the switch... ugh.) 'Course, that had a 68000...
Re:Clear Hoax (Score:2, Interesting)
The actual issue is not so much that it looks like a hoax, but that it is so endlessly poorly carried out.
I would tend to agree. But the original C64 was poorly carried out, too, so this as a nostalgia product has some merit.
Now, before people roll out of the shag carpeting to rage at me, the C64 was an inexpensive and well marketed, but technically second rate product. I mean, they put a whole second 6502-type processor in the disk drive and set the machine up to read/write from the disk over a pokey-doke serial interface. That was never impressive. Adding a Hard Disk to your C64 system amounted to again buying a whole separate subsystem significantly more expensive than the C64 itself that, again, was a whole separate system with another processor, that talked to your C64 over.... get this... a pokey-doke serial interface.
Not impressive, except in a marketing sense. The C64 was a marketing phenomena, and as a result many youngsters 'cut their teeth' on it. Then, said youngsters went on to make good use of their C64 in spite of what was built into the system, basically doing an end-run around the way it was set up.
Re:64-bit?! (Score:3, Interesting)
As an analog device, I can't think of any reason off the top of my head why such devices wouldn't record outside of human hearing ranges
It's rather simple, really; even analogue devices have a maximum 'resolution'. For film, this is the graininess. For tape, there's a certain magnetic response time.
Imagine, if you will, a nice 440Hz waveform; this is stored as a nicely wavy pattern in the magnetic particles. Well, if you were to store a 0.01Hz signal, there just wouldn't be enough offset, inch-by-inch, to detect it (that is to say, generate a magnetic current) when playing back (at normal speeds, anyway). In the opposite case, the wave pattern of a 1GHz signal would be way too steep for the magnetic head and tape to handle; I suppose there's no telling what the recorded signal would actually end up being, but my guess is it'd be rather like white noise.
Put another way, look at an analogue gauge -- sound would correspond to movement of the needle. Very slow movements would be effectively undetectable, and an overly fast signal would just result in a jittering (and lagging) needle because it can't keep up.
It claims OS X support? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you go to the company's website, on the link in the article, they claim it will run OS X. Interesting to see how quickly Apple's lawyers move in for the kill
Oh, and I submitted this story to Slashdot a week ago. Tsk.
Re:Clear Hoax (Score:3, Interesting)
apparently timothy is picking up kdawson's slack.