On the outside, these self-contained "keyboard computers" will look as they did back when Ronald Reagan was in the White House and "Miami Vice" was bringing moody pastel hues to TV. Under the hood, however, they will be very up-to-date.
The new Commodore 64's hardware includes a dual-core 1.8 Ghz Atom processor, Nvidia Ion2 graphics chipset, up to 4 GB of RAM and HDMI output for desktop viewing on TV. It also features USB connectivity, a multi-format memory card reader and Wi-Fi capability.
Claimed price is around $600 for the computer only, which seems a little on the pricey side for nostalgic kitsch. On the other hand, it's only a hundred bucks or so for a 17" monitor, and that doesn't take up much more room than a laptop on the island in the kitchen - might make for a fun conversation piece rather than just a plain laptop. My kids would be horrified to learn the truth about the original - no graphics, no internet, just a box that would make lines of text appear on the television...
That was something we noticed when we visited the National Spy Museum in DC. While my wife and I - children of the '80s that we were - remembered a lot of the devices from movies of the time, our kids were utterly disinterested in a camera the size of a pack of cigarettes. From their vantage point, there's good reason - my son has an iTouch that's smaller, takes video, and can access the internet. A simple camera that's double the size of his iTouch is a curious relic, not an object of marvel and wonder.
I wonder what the norm is going to be for my grandkids?
That is all.
8 comments:
I might have to get one just because. God, I spent a lot of my pimple-faced junior high years pounding away at one of those.....
Whaddaya mean, no graphics? Evey one of the characters in those lines of text was a graphic. That thing wasn't whacking your TV screen with typewriter slugs after all.
But I really have a C64! and a 128 not to mention a whole raft of other CC&R computers.
Oh noes, I might have to have a license for them. ;)
Eck!
So, it's a glorified netbook with a bad keyboard.
I approve of the general form factor, but there's no chance, at that price and with that keyboard.
I can run a horrible C64 emulator on any computer, after all...
Have one...
A Curio and Relic that is...Original with a box full of programs and games....
Cannot seem to find the boxes of RUN magazines I know I haz!! Or do I?
Hmmmm must speak with the MBWITW about this...
Heh...
Wanna buy it?
I sellz it to yaz!!!
Now had they kept the original C64 keyboard layout, that would have screwed with people. Shift-2 was the double quote.
I had one of these babies when I was a kid. Got it between 9th and 10th grades. And don't forget the 1541 floppy drive. Nothing is slower than a serial floppy drive.
<Nerd>
But, thanks to Compute magazine, we had Turbo Load which downloaded software to the 1541 (had a 6502 CPU) so it used 2 wires to transmit data. Double speed!
CPU: 6510 running at I believe 1.2 Mhz (That's 1,200,000)
Video: VIC-II chip
Sound: SID (Sound Interface Device), 3-note polyphonic with white noise generator
</Nerd>
"I wonder what the norm is going to be for my grandkids?"
The way things are going, it might be colander helmets, leather chaps, and Thunderdome...
Jay, you do know they have a bunch of C64 games up on the Wii Shop Channel.
Been loving the crap out of Tower Toppler!
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