Has anyone noticed Commodore's return from the dead?

[rexbeng]

Now, that's something you don't see every day. It appears that a British actor who also is a known retro-computers youtuber, acquired the Commodore brand.

They also have a first official computer launching.

There's discussions at Pouet and csdb.
 

[Gryzor]

If it's as good as it says, the price point is nice. But somehow I doubt this will go down well...

[dodogildo]

Yeah, Compute's Gazette's so-called "first edition in 35 years" has a coverage on them. Free download: https://www.computesgazette.com/free-edition/

[HAL6128]

If it is the real Ultimate64 (from Gideon) under that case (maybe an older batch, not the Elite I/II), then the price is pretty nice.

[St-BeidE(DE/GB)]

No resurrection possible.
Its more like snatching corpses.

Stefan 

[Prodatron]

I first heard about this a few weeks ago (7.6.) when Christian (Perifractic) posted his idea of buying Commodore on his channel. At first, I thought it was a silly joke, but then it happened very quickly, so it was probably planned for a while.

Christian 'Peri Fractic' Simpson is a nice guy; I wrote with him a few years ago when he did an episode about SymbOS for the Amstrad PCW.

I have no idea how this will end, but for a start, it sounds very nice that an enthusiastic person like him is now a leading part of the new "Commodore Company" team

I wish we could have the same for Amstrad, but I'm not sure how enthusiastic Lord A.M.S. is about the CPC spirit. At least it's very cool and an honor to have the CPC as the title screen of his new website.

[Brocky]

to me..this is just silly... 
slapping the commodore name on a system doesnt make it a commodore... even if ya have all the licencing...

...and the price is absolutely outrageous

[Devlin]

It can't really be any *less* Commodore - they have the licensing, they have a couple of the original C= staff on board. They seem to be doing something with it though and at least trying to reclaim the spirit of the original Commodore.

I'm quietly hopeful, but I fear some bullshit is going to happen *somewhere* and people are going to get screwed over by it.

I might not be a fan of Peri, but I honestly hope them the best and we get a renaissance of cool shit coming from Commodore again.

[andycadley]

They have the chicken head logo and the name Commodore and, well, that's really it. They don't own any of the original hardware designs. They don't own the ROMs (or the original agreement with Microsoft to use the BASIC in as many machines as they want). 

So right now they can slap the branding on existing products and that seems to be where they're going but visibility is going to be a double edged sword. A guy in his basement knocking up FPGA C64 replacements can probably get away with shipping the ROM, it's not clear someone with as much pressure coverage can.

There have already been multiple attempts to "revive" Commodore by slapping the brand name on cheap Android Phones, mugs or generic tat and none of those have lasted very long.

[eto]

to me..this is just silly... 
slapping the commodore name on a system doesnt make it a commodore... even if ya have all the licencing...

...and the price is absolutely outrageous

My first thought was also "not again" but this one is different from all the other retro gimmicks.

This system is a full working (non emulated) C64 and full compatibility with the original C64 not only on software but also on hardware level. 

If that doesn't make it a Commodore what does?

Also the price can't be compared to a cheap emulator with fake keyboard like with the C64 mini. Seems this computer is based on en existing FPGA design and the original FPGA board alone already costs around $250. Without any case, keyboard or software licenses. 


That being said I don't really know if there is such a huge market for a computer that in the end is still just a C64. If it's just for games the C64 mini is probably nostalgia enough for the vast majority outside of the community. Let's see if real enthusiasts replace their real C64 with this one. But it will be clearly a nice gimmick on the shelf or next to a TV set (at least the shiny versions).

[andycadley]

But they're "selling" that currently without any software licenses. They're "hoping" to sort out the ROM issue or "provide guidance on how to supply your own ROM". Which might be fine for a hobbiest project, played with by people who don't mind tinkering, but the whole advantage of this is supposed to be a "finished product".