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Commodore 64 Makes a Comeback
PCWorld ^
| 07/14/03
| David Legard
Posted on 07/14/2003 6:40:59 AM PDT by bedolido
Popular computers, games from the 1980s will be relaunched.
Tulip Computers, which owns the Commodore brand name, plans to relaunch the brand to take advantage in an upsurge of interest in the obsolete Commodore 64 (C64) computer and its 1980s-era games, the company said in a statement Friday.
Tulip estimates that there are still 6 million Commodore users, who can choose from a range of 6,000 games which were developed for the system.
Tulip is working with Ironstone Partners, which will handle all sales of Commodore 64-related products worldwide and take over the main C64 Web portal. Enthusiasts have made over 10 million game downloads, the site owners have said.
Unauthorized use of the Commodore name by other organizations will be stopped, Tulip said in the statement.
Playing Games Even if the Commodore 64 hardware is obsolete, enthusiasts have written emulators for Windows PCs, Apple Macintoshes, and now PocketPC-based PDAs to enable original Commodore games to run on those systems.
Commodore was one of the pioneers of the PC industry, entering the market in 1977 with its 8-bit PET (Personal Electronic Transactor). The C64 was launched in 1982, followed a few years later by the Amiga.
Slowly, the crucial graphics edge that these systems enjoyed was eroded by successive improvements in Microsoft's Windows OS, and Commodore went into liquidation in 1994. Tulip, based in Amersfoort, Netherlands, bought the Commodore brand name and other assets in 1997.
TOPICS: Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Technical
KEYWORDS: 64; comeback; commodore
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To: bedolido
A few months sgo I pulled an old hard copy of a class program project in assemble. All it was was looking for data in a dump and I could not figure it out. I was so depressed. I thought I would always be able to do that in my sleep up until the day I died.
To: Paleo Conservative
Usually, I build my own machines, got enough spare parts, boards, and processors to make about 8 right now. Every machine I make for me has a 5 1/4 drive in it. I still have hundereds of old floppy disks.
82
posted on
07/14/2003 10:24:36 AM PDT
by
djf
To: bedolido
You still work with the big iron?
83
posted on
07/14/2003 10:26:56 AM PDT
by
djf
To: quack
Load "*",8,1 If it's possible to have flashbacks to being 12 years old, I just did it.
PEEK POKE
84
posted on
07/14/2003 11:25:22 AM PDT
by
AgentEcho
(If you're in a fair fight you've done something wrong.)
To: bedolido
Hehehe
To: hattend
emulator available
hereSeach for MULE to find the game.
To: Paleo Conservative
They can't stop an emulator from being downloaded, but they can stop the ROMS for the games... even though the machine is obsolute the copyrights are still valid on the code.
To: Richard Kimball
The next town over to me (Lowell, MA) has a huge skyscraper by Route 3 near the Chelmsford town line. It is a massive building as well - about the length of three football fields.
It used to be the world headquarters of Wang Computer. It is hard to believe that just 20 years ago, Wang Computer was a powerhouse Fortune 500 company with unlimited potential. I have never seen a company crash so fast (not even Enron) as Wang. Ten years ago, the building went up for bid at an auction and some enterpreneur snapped it up for a couple hundred thousand dollars. We're talking a building with the square footage of an average mid-size Manhattan office building here!
That was probably the deal of the century. The building was converted into office space for a large number of firms and it appears to be fully leased. That guy must be doing real well for himself.
88
posted on
07/14/2003 11:50:57 AM PDT
by
SamAdams76
(Back in boot camp! 245 (-55))
To: quack
I had the C=128S. This one looked more like a pizzabox workstation rather than being an all-in-one system.
89
posted on
07/14/2003 11:53:30 AM PDT
by
AgentEcho
(If you're in a fair fight you've done something wrong.)
To: bedolido
I wrote a complete bookkeeping program with payroll for the C-64 for one of my clients... worked great and you didn't have to subscribe to a tax update service! She was still using my package last year on her C-128.
90
posted on
07/14/2003 12:32:26 PM PDT
by
Swordmaker
(Tagline Extermination Services, franchises available, small investment, big profit)
To: RightWhale
POKES and PEEKS... lots of fun...
91
posted on
07/14/2003 12:34:13 PM PDT
by
Swordmaker
(Tagline Extermination Services, franchises available, small investment, big profit)
To: The_Victor
Gool animated graphic! Hey, does anyone here use Opera 7 as their web browser? Set it to "nostalgia" mode; it's like using a C-64 to browse the web.
To: Swordmaker
She was still using my package last year on her C-128That's cool (and frightening at the same time)...lol
93
posted on
07/14/2003 12:37:31 PM PDT
by
bedolido
(Ann Coulter... A Conservative Male's Natural Viagra)
To: The_Victor
I had to figure out M.U.L.E. without the manual. Played that sucker for hours...JFK
94
posted on
07/14/2003 12:39:08 PM PDT
by
BADROTOFINGER
(Life sucks. Get a helmet.)
To: SamAdams76
I have never seen a company crash so fast (not even Enron) as Wang. A one-man show. He died, the company died. Or maybe it was the other way around.
95
posted on
07/14/2003 12:40:42 PM PDT
by
RightWhale
(gazing at shadows)
To: bedolido
Ahhh, the memories. I remember connecting to Compuserve with my first Commodore 64 and a 300 baud modem. It took hours and $$$$ just to download and display a .GIF file. I used it to hack local BBSs (never hurt anything, just grabbed all the password files). And the games were just plain fun (JumpMan, etc.)
96
posted on
07/14/2003 12:42:23 PM PDT
by
Spiff
(Liberalism is a mental illness - a precursor disease to terminal Socialism.)
To: reagan_fanatic
My first computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000 that I paid $99.95 for at the local Venture dept. store. I also bought the optional expansion pack which gave it a whopping 64K RAM! Wow, and I thought I was the only one who had one of those. I remember in one of the magazines there was a music generation program...I thought it was the cats a$$ back then!
97
posted on
07/14/2003 12:44:46 PM PDT
by
BureaucratusMaximus
(if we're not going to act like a constitutional republic...lets be the best empire we can be...)
To: bedolido
I had twelve C64 power supplies stored out in my workshop up until a couple of years ago. (Got them at an auction in 1991 and threw out the entire lot 3-4 years ago). I'd be rich beyond the dreams of avarice (well, kind of) if I had kept them and Ebayed them.
98
posted on
07/14/2003 12:52:24 PM PDT
by
strela
("Each of us can find a maggot in our past which will happily devour our futures." Horatio Hornblower)
To: JustAnAmerican
Don't forget the Radio Shack Trash-80. :)
99
posted on
07/14/2003 1:59:09 PM PDT
by
anymouse
To: bvw
Boy, I haven't seen an IMSAI-8080 since high school. It was the first "personal computer" that I ever used. Saving to and loading from a cassette recorder was better than keypunch cards or teletype tape.
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