Comment by marcusestes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by marcusestes | Hacker News Reader

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Cramming a modern PC into a vintage C64 reproduction really is a terrible idea. But as an old Commodore / Amiga fanboy I have to admire Barry Altman (CEO of Commodore USA) for attempting to reawaken the brand.

After the sad bankruptcy spiral and eventual shutdown of Commodore the trademarks ended up in the possession of a company based in the Netherlands called Tulip Computers (Now Nedfield) who makes commodity PC workstations. The did a little cheapo licensing of the brand here and there but basically showed no intention of breathing life into the brand again.

Mr. Altman appears to have incorporated Commodore USA with the sole purpose of attaining trademark licenses and attempting to tap into the large and very latent Commodore enthusiast market.

It doesn't feel like he's going to succeed. But I applaud him for trying. Now that Steve Jobs' face has taken the place of Big Brother in that 1984 ad, it feels to me that the landscape needs a new "creative computing" competitor. The Commodore brand could be such a cool fit, if they only had a decent product.

They should reproduce the 4000 / Video Toaster combo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nymVNhy4dw8

> it feels to me that the landscape needs a new "creative computing" competitor.

If you're looking for a creative hobbyist computing platform, I think you're looking for Linux. I used Apple from Apple II to original Mac up through the early PPC systems and then switched to Linux because it has the hacker culture that originally lured people to Apples/Macs.

The creative potential is not limited just because Linux -can- look just like a mainstream desktop OS.

I was a C64 and Amiga user until 1995. In 1995 I switched briefly the Windows 95, and then, already disgusted and bored by Windows, switched to Linux.

I found that nearly everything I had loved about the Amiga and C64 culture was stronger and more vibrant in the Linux and Open Source world. The only negatives were that the graphics and sound capabilities of Linux at the time (and still do, honestly) lagged behind Windows significantly, making it difficult to think of it as a creators system, unless what you were creating was software. I suspect part of the reason I moved more and more into software development and IT-related work was partly because the system I loved to work with was simply not capable of doing music and audio on a professional level (and still isn't, despite near-heroic efforts on the part of a few developers; if the kernel can't maintain an audio stream that doesn't skip and sputter, it's impossible to ever produce great audio).

Anyway, Linux and Open Source is definitely the heir apparent to the Amiga and C64, and I know many people from those communities ended up in the Open Source world.

I went the same route, though I did OS/2 for a couple of years in there (even had a team OS/2 t-shirt).

In 2000 though, I switched from Linux to Mac because I was a bit tired of X tweaking. I found that the hobbiest culture of the Mac and NeXT crowds reminded me of the C64 days. What sealed the deal was OS X where basically I had a BSD workstation with a good desktop.

Most of my old Mig and Commie friends are sadly on Windows 7. They don't care for UNIX for some reason and dislike Apple. Maybe it's like those folks that "outgrow" the music they liked when they were younger...

X tweaking: I spent years trying to get suspend/resume work without issues under X on a series of cheap laptops; I got close but never quite there. Now I run Linux only on servers and under Parallels on Mac. Not the same, such a shame.

Not sure I agree with your comment about hackers migrating to the original Apples/Mac. In my opinion the original PC environment felt more "hackerish" and the Apples/Macs were known for their good graphics and consistent user interfaces and not as hacker machines. Perhaps this was different in America as I come from a European background.

I am also from Europe and I have a pretty hackerish feeling about macs.

In the 90s, we developed a large science application in our lab for the Atari ST. When our last ST broke down, we used a Macintosh Performa instead that came with an Atari Emulator.

Everything worked fine and the old ST application, that ran a complex atomic physics experiment, was even faster on the Mac. It also did a job sharing with an eltec lab computer, like the Atari did before.

Although this was by far not a hacker job, we felt pretty cool with the good old Mac. It also saved a phd thesis that could not have been finished without that program.

In science, Macs always were a (strong) minority in the labs, even in Europe. Today they are in the process of becoming a majority and replace linux (there are only a few windows machines that could be replaced ;o).

The problem with Linux is that it works better with people who like to fix stuff than with people who like to make stuff.

> the landscape needs a new "creative computing" competitor

I hadn't really thought of it this way before, but there is one. Arduino.

Yeah, Arduino does have that same spirit.

The nearly direct access to the hardware was what made the C64 so cool. This new C64 has none of that, unfortunately.

> The nearly direct access to the hardware was what made the C64 so cool. This new C64 has none of that, unfortunately.

Every PC has near-direct access to the hardware. There's nothing stopping you from writing your own BIOS, bootloader, kernel, or anything else -- it's easier than it ever was before. Many people (including myself) really do this, and enjoy it.

This may be true, but the C64 booted into a BASIC interpreter with PEEK and POKE commands, making it possible to read and write to all of the system's memory, including mapped IO ports, from the command line. Plus, monthly magazines like COMPUTE'S Gazette offered in-depth tutorials on just about every sub-system, from audio to video to disk I/O. System-level programming was incredibly easy on the C64 -- I was doing it as a teenager, whereas I have yet to write a device driver for a Linux PC.

I practically wet myself with joy the first time I changed the colours of the border and main screen with, erm, peeks or pokes; I can't remember.

POKE 53280 and 53281. Values 0 to 15.

Just today I found an old issue of a magazine called "Ahoy!" that was devoted to the commodore 64. What a neat time period, it was so exciting. I remember typing in games for my TI in the early 80's. Now programming feels like work to me.

You will have to choose two from:

A) Written in less than ten man-years without being a Unix clone and/or using existing C drivers

B) Displays modern video

C) Runs on a neighbor's PC

I speak as a frustrated OS developer.

Could you recommend resources for learning more about Arduino? Is http://www.arduino.cc/ a good place to start?

It is a great place to start! Additionally Make magazine has good articles and a slew of projects for the Arduino.

1)Arduino Issue: http://makezine.com/25/

2)Arduino Projects: http://makeprojects.com/Topic/Arduino

And the Beagleboard came in mind (http://beagleboard.org/).

When I saw the title, I hoped the story was about Arduino hardware...

Thanks for that Video Toaster vid! Really brought me back.

The Video Toaster was way ahead of its time. When I was doing video production, we were still using a Video Toaster for live CG and graphic display, and that was in 2002.

I got that video in the mail when I requested it in 7th grade. I must have watched it at least 30 times.

Copernicus. Wasn't he Polish?

...and the Lords of Acid soundtrack.

The Video Toaster introduced me to non-linear editing...in 1993.

Video Toaster Flyer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Toaster#Video_Toaster_Fly...

> Cramming a modern PC...

Sadly, there is little option to that these days. A computer that can't run Windows instantly loses 90% of its possible buyers.

If you go that way, you'll have to price the computer as a novelty item and you won't be able to use high-quality components like the cherry keyboard these computers have.

Among Commodore fans? I doubt it.

This computer is still useful as a desktop PC. A c64 isn't and whoever bought one would still need another PC.

I could give this to my son and he would still be able to browse the web, read his e-mail and do his class assignments. A c64 is a toy.

An Asus Eee Keyboard is useful as a desktop machine and you can install a C64 emulator on it. If you are buying this product, it's for the nostalgia factor (as I doubt they will be able to hit a commodity nettop/netbook price point).

An Asus Eee Keyboard has no Cherry switches, so, this is probably better built. And yes - nostalgia has something o do with buying this instead of the Asus or any other probably cheaper small PC.

So, how much would you pay for a computer unable to run Windows that can emulate a C64? Chances are, not much.

It wouldn't need to be much. Per one of my other posts in this thread [1] computers that can emulate a C64 (but lack a keyboard and other features of the original) have been sold in the past for around $20. I'm guessing the cost of the machine I am envisioning would be dominated by the cost of the Cherry keyswitches. I'd buy it for $100 and I bet they could make a nice profit margin selling it for even less than that.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2408752

You still need the space for one more computer (or one more keyboard), but I think it's a fair assessment. This one is more compelling to the space constrained who want to solve two problems (one almost nobody has - needing a C64) with only one computer.

And your solution is not constrained by the need to have a PC-like keyboard - it could be very faithful to the original C64. And I'd be delighted to buy one for US$ 100, as long as it was a C128D with an SD card for its hard drive.

My wife would kill me, of course, but there are things worth dying for.

Why is it a terrible idea? Why doesn't it feel like he's going to succeed?

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