April 7th, 2011 ~ by admin

The Commodore is back!

Commodore USA has started taking pre-orders of its newly revamped Commodore 64 Home Entertainment system.   Of course this version comes with Blu-Ray and a dual core Intel (gasp!) processor running a version of Ubuntu Linux, it will include a Commodore OS 1.0 emulator, which should run all your favorite C64 6502 based games.

Commodore USA C64 - 1.8 Dual core Atom - 2GB RAM

The Original C64 had 64k of RAM, the Intel Atom D525 has 112k of just L1 cache.  At least the die size is similar :).
Commodore USA is also making modern version of the VIC computers for your enjoyment, albeit in slightly modified cases.

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Just For Fun

February 2nd, 2011 ~ by admin

How many Commodore 64 computers were really sold?

Production numbers of vintage technology have always been a somewhat mysterious subject.  How many 4004 processors did Intel actually make? I am not even sure Intel knows.  Unlike modern car companies who can track production numbers down to the shift of the day it was made, computer companies of the 70’s and 80’s were rather fast and loose with record keeping.

Thankfully with some research, serial numbers and some math (the famous tank equation) Michael Steil of Pagetable.com came up with what appears to be a very good estimate of Commodore 64 production.  12.5 million units, somewhat less then other numbers that have been thrown around, but backed by research and supported by math.  Read how he came to the conclusion here.

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Research