Commodore USA prices up revived C64, VICs
Not the games machine its father was
It's official: the new Commodore 64 - well, new innards, old casing - is a nettop.
Commodore USA, the latest in a long line of CBM revialist movements over the years since the original company went bust, has revealed the machine will be based around a 1.83GHz Intel Atom D525 with 2-4GB of 800MHz DDR 2 memory.
Yes, the D525 is dual-core, but it's not the Core i-something that many folk were hoping for. It does at least use Nvidia's Ion 2 chipset platform, so it should perform as well as a nettop can perform.
But, alas, it's not the games machine its namesake was.
Prices range from $250 (£153) for a barebones - casing, keyboard and mobo - to $895 (£548) for a fully specced model with 1TB of storage, 8GB of memory, built-on 2.4GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi and a Blu-ray drive.
There's $51-183 (£31-112) postage to the UK on top of that, depending on how quickly you want your C64 shipped.
The VIC-Pro...
For a speedier CPU, you'll need the newly renamed VIC-Pro - formerly the Commodore Phoenix - which has a choice of Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad CPUs, all with integrated graphics. Prices run from $495 to $1195 (£303-732).
Or there's the new VIC-Slim, which has essentially the same spec as the C64, but comes in a new casing that, like the VIC-Pro, is more Amiga than VIC-20 so has far less nostalgia value.
...and the VIC-Slim, neither a spit for the VIC-20
More details on all these models at the Commodore USA website. ®
COMMENTS
External HDD
If I had one of these, I'd SO want to put an external HDD into the shell of a datasette cassette player. That would look sweet :-)
Sir
Well, sling a 64-bit O/S on it and your half way there!
Re: C=64
The moronic thing is that, had they just produced a very cheap PCB with a micro-controller running a dedicated emulation of the original C=64 (sort of like those 10-in-1 games bundled in a joystick looking device that plug into your TV), and house it in that molded retro case, they could have sold it for $50 bucks a piece and made a killing in the retro-collectors market.
But no, they have to turn it into a "modern" PC with crap components, limiting its appeal to just the "look" of the box.
This reminds of whenever Hollywood re-makes a classic old movie, they can't leave it the hell alone, and need to "actualize" it to include such modern day staples as terrorists, teenage sex, hip-hop, and of course, the Internet.
-dZ.
@Ian
So, what you are saying is, that if you're tired of showing off the same old devices everyone else is using, the new C=64 allows you to go retro and be different, just like everybody else.
-dZ.
Space saving
Space saving is all well and good, but I would imagine that thing will be a b1tch to type on! If you wanted proper space saving, it makes a lot more sense to pack it into the monitor instead and to use any keyboard you like.
