But I don't want that Commodore 64 today.
I want the Commodore 64 of 2025. A machine where middle schoolers can learn the basics of programming while having fun with graphics and sound. Maybe even have a simple 2D gaming engine built-in. I don't know. I want the spirit of the Commodore 64, not the actual machine itself.
Exactly. This is what I think every time I see one of these old revival projects. I don't want a Spectrum, C64, Atari ST, etc...we have those, they're fairly easy to acquire and renovate. And are more than capable of being run on a FPGA. And there are dozens of projects built around the same old 6502, Z80, etc.
Stop locking your perspective into the 80s to try to recapture that nostalgia.
No, give me a new "hobbyist" computer in the spirit of those days. Throw an ARM m-series/RISC-V/etc on it with some custom blitter/vdpu and sound ASICs and 512MB of RAM. Give it some easily accessible programming environment on ROM, with an option to baremetal with ASM, C, etc. Add a few slots that are MMAPed in. And let the hobbyist field run wild.
Isn't a pi awfully close to that, at least in spirit? For my 10 year-old's science project, I bought a trio of interesting sensors off amazon, showed her a diagram of the GPIO pins and a diagram of the sensor pins, explained how to map between the two, and had her draw it out with colored pencils.
Then I burned a fresh raspbian image onto a sd card, connected a keyboard, mouse, and tv, and helped her figure out how to read the GPIO pins in python. The vibe of the whole thing felt a lot like the old things we had in the 80s and early 90s, but more accessible because I didn't have to deal with weird serial/parallel junk or with putting together a PCB for the slots.
It does sound like this crew harbors ambitions of moving past nostalgia to embracing that spirit a little more, but I don't personally feel like that's lacking in the Pi ecosystem, at least...
- Some 32-bit CPU, whatever, anything that is a bit easy to program through C/ASM, just to make sure there is no weird kirks.
- Support keyboards, displays, mouse, etc., just the usual ones. So a lot of drivers.
- Some 256MB - 512MB memory should be good enough.
- Has an OS, some programming languages, some tools, a good editor, etc.
This is like the Ben Eater 8-bit computer in adrenaline. It is probably a LOT of work just to figure out how to source the correct components, and build the thing, then a LOT more work to write drivers for them, and MORE work to write OS and compilers and tools for them. We can't use Linux because it has memory protection all over the place. We need something that newbies can poke and peek into, and simply reset the CPU if something is wrong, just like the micro computers in the 70s/80s. We DO want capable compilers and interpreters (e.g. C/Python) and good tools (like, some editors that have good auto-complete at least).
It's a bit like building a pad or a mobile phone, but without all those commercial consideration. Nowadays, to build a pad or a mobile phone, if I'm not mistaken, one simply push Android into the chipsets and call it a day, which is not what I want. But what I want probably doesn't make $$ so no one is going to do it.
* Capture "the spirit" of an all-in-one, simple computer that boots to an accessible language.
* Recreate an actual 80s computer via software, FPGA emulation or compatible CPU. A major sub-group is those wanting support for physical 80s media which can include disks, cartridges and even tape.
Within these major groups are a variety of different requirements. A big one is whether the machine must support modern displays (HDMI) or authentic retro displays (CRTs). If you don't have a CRT then HDMI is a requirement, however inserting what was originally low-res analog composite video into a hi-res digital container involves some significant trade-offs and design complexity. It's not trivial or cheap to do well with high-quality and high-compatibility. Then there are those who split on whether modern connectivity and conveniences like Wifi, Ethernet and SD card media are mandatory, nice-to-haves or definite should-not-haves. Of course, those conveniences aren't much use without sufficient CPU power and resolution to support a modern browser and OS capable of reading modern media which involve more cost and potential compatibility issues.
The great thing is that those who are retro-interested now have a lot of good options ranging from OG hardware to software emulation, FPGA systems and all-new designs. My advice is to be clear on what experience you really want, the specific traits you care about and the various trade-offs and challenges those entail before diving in.
I think the challenge is computers these days can do so much that tinkering with something like this no longer feels futuristic or cutting edge like a C=64 did back then.
Which is based on the 6502-compatible 65C816 but used a simple banking scheme instead of the broken 24-bit address space that chip natively supports (no 24-bit index registers) The way video memory works in it is really clever and lets it really surpass 1980s machines in many ways.
My favorite retrocomputer though has to be
https://www.olimex.com/Products/Retro-Computers/AgonLight2/o...
which is priced right though it doesn't have the keyboard and instead based on the eZ80 which really does extend the Z-80 with 24-bit registers so that you can use all the RAM easily.
Also, Python would have been better than BASIC as the built-in default language.
The C64 had good graphics and excellent sound but so much of it was behind a brick-wall learning curve of poking. Atari's native BASIC at least provided some rudimentary access. You want something where the user can get a win on day 1, or it's getting buried in the closet with the rock tumbler.
Or maybe if they packed in a super-extended BASIC ROM. But pretty quickly you end up wanting something with more modern flow control and structures, maybe closer to "Qbasic with sprite commands" and then you're probably demanding more than what can be reasonably asked of a 6510-class CPU.
This was not my experience at all.
I started with an Atari 400 when I was 11, and there was little to no documentation about the machine. I took a BASIC programming class taught on a Vic 20 when I was 10 years old. But then I saved up and got an Atari for my 11th birthday. I cut my teeth on Atari Basic, but it seemed so limited to me. I wanted full access to all of the machine but there was simply no documentation my 11 year old self had available, the internet was not a thing, and there were no books about it at my local library in the early 1980s. The BASIC cartridge didn't really offer much in the way of using the machine to its full capacity.
Then I got a C64 and everything changed. The C64 manual I had included BASIC programming, as well as how to program the sound chip to make simple music and sound effects. There was a complete memory map of the C64 including all the chips, the VIC, the SID, the CIA chips - everything. All the pinouts for all the I/O ports were mapped out.
And in the back of the manual were all the opcodes for the CPU, with detailed information about how they work, A, X, and Y registers, status registers, program counter, address modes, etc, etc... it was absolutely fantastic how much was documented, literally everything about the computer. The book even had a full schematic of the C64 in the very back as a large fold-out poster. Atari had nothing like this.
It was like night and day compared to the very closed Atari platform. I quickly ate up BASIC on the C64 and moved right into assembly language, when I was 14. I got very into the European "demo scene", while being a teenager in America in the mid/late 1980s. Atari 8-bit just seemed like a toy compared to what was going on with the C64 in the world at the time.
https://archive.org/details/c64-programmer-ref/page/n425/mod...
that felt like that spirit.
This was great at the time, I feel it should of come with a 'computing partner doc' like a piece of paper with how to backup and restore with a second sd card, and links to stuff about censorware and what people think about certain places attached to the internet..
I saw one of these at a pawnshop with a $250 price tag and I think a chrome book can be had for less.
not sure what the current availability and pricing of PI type things are these days - but the kano kit was a perfect fit at the right time back then.
https://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?platform%5B0%5D=Commodore...
Some of it is astonishing given the limitations of the machine.
The technical mastery and creative problem solving going on here is what keeps the demoscene alive. The C64 is still going strong, new productions come out all the time.
And I can't think of a better machine for a kid today to start out with than an 8-bit machine. If they learn assembly language on a C64, they will have a far better understanding of how computers actually work than anyone taking a class in web or crypto or whatever they teach kids about computers today.
Why not have both?
You could buy this and you could setup EndlessOS:
Raspberry Pi 400 / 5 would be that.. but, in reality and pragmatically since it needs to be something widespread I'd argue it's actually a browser. In Chrome you hit Ctrl-Shift I and console is right there.
Is this all just nostalgia? Nostalgia is one of our two core pillars - alongside modern innovation. Like yin and yang, these forces balance and strengthen each other in that retro • futurism approach.
The commercial power of nostalgia is real - and it will help fuel and fund the development of modern, forward-facing products in turn. It’s a symbiotic cycle: retro inspires, modern sustains. Commodore isn’t returning. It’s evolving, with purpose.
This sentence is 100% AI generated: "It’s a symbiotic cycle: retro inspires, modern sustains. Commodore isn’t returning. It’s evolving, with purpose."
I have a Commander X16 and my kid had fun doing that Basic infinite maze program, but after that, my dream was over :)
Computers used to be fun and yet require actual interest and effort, it's why I ended where I am. What a bait and switch.
All that said I do miss this era of computing greatly where one could understand it inside out and that was encouraged. I loved the C64 demo scene in the 80s.
> absorbing all resistance
Because its was not resistance in the first place ...
> hoping to ride on everyone’s burnout from modern tech
And with 'everybody' you mean a tiny group of nerds who know what a C64 is?
10 FORL=54272T054295:POKEL,0:NEXT
15 POKE54296,15:TI$="000000"
20 POKE54277,255:POKE54278,255
25 POKE54284,255:POKE54285,255
30 POKE54276,17:POKE54283,17
40 FORA=8TO1STEP-1:FORB=ATO1STEP-1
45 T=TI+2952/B
50 POKE54273,3: POKE54272,A
55 POKE54288,3:POKE54279,A+B
60 PRINTA,A+B
70 IFTI<TTHEN70
80 NEXT:NEXT
90 POKE54276,16:POKE54283,16
I think what sets SID apart are things like high/low pass filters, finely adjustable PWM width and maybe even finely tunable pitch.
Also, what's the source for this program? I tried it on VICE and failed miserably. Maybe something (else) was copied wrong? Or is it supposed to fail on emulators?
This was just sitting in his garage. "Take it - take it all" he said. Then... was sort of forceful with it, and started putting it in my car. :)
I took it back home, and... realized I can't connect it to anything. And I'm not a hardware guy. I hate hacking on that sort of stuff. So I ended up giving it all to a friend who was getting in to retro stuff with his son. I think they got it working and connected up to something. I also gave him my C128.
I still have the original Commodore 'Prolog' and (IIRC) 'Forth' packaging somewhere in the office here. :)
Looking at these (and probably some other incarnations) I'm tempted to get one only because of the built in HDMI.
I've poked around with some emulators online and it's fun, but the combination of the original keyboard and shape plus HDMI might be enough to get me to commit. Probably just the original beige though.
Actually I'm going to do an experiment on my soon to be 5-years-old son. I have exposed some cartoon shows to him, but none of them is very fancy. I gave him Curious George and Bluey, both fall more into the hand-drawn camp than the CG camp. I have never expose him to any games or mobile apps like TikTok. I'm going to expose NES games or C64 games to him and see if he is interested. Despite my respect to John Carmack, I'm always in the camp of "you don't need post-2000 graphics to make any genre interesting, even for FPS", and I always believe the advancement of graphics hurts games more than benefiting them.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to have the box, but to me commodore means the complete opposite. It was the tech that inspired me to start learning and later building complex systems. The evolution of tech after this machine did not steal anything from me, but enriched my life both financially and otherwise.
Huge labour of love, and far more interesting.
I have a couple of KIM-1 "clones" and enjoy them as well. I feel like, in my old age, whenever that comes, I will enjoy them even more. Diving at long last deep into assembly....
How about a new operating system with backwards compatibility that runs on modern arm hardware...
I don't care about a keyboard. I don't care about retro computing.
What I care about is a modern amiga operating system, running on modern hardware.
And make it backwards compatible for the retro computing crowd.
I hate to break it to you all, but retro hardware is a novelty, nothing more.
You can play games and even program (basic, assembly, etc) using a real keyboard. Pretty cool!
I like this is hardware based rather than emulated. However, I'm unconvinced by the color changing case, which the C64 didn't have...
> I'm unconvinced by the color changing case, which the C64 didn't have...
They have beige.
Is this the same folks?
The PCB looks like a rebranded "Ultimate 64" FPGA board [2], which has been out in a couple of iterations for a few years.
I've done a lot of work with the IBM i Series (AS400), which has an interface from that era, but no games.
It's my hope they brought the individual who did this work in to help make the minimum changes necessary to accurately document the differences. These recreations are really quite nice.
Let's see!
I have a feeling many who buy this product will ultimately do the same.
Sometimes the nostalgia doesn't kick in, and clearly many things were objectively bad in a way that hits differently now. I wouldn't want to sit long nights writing assembly code and battle bad sectors on floppy disks. But I still think it's a great little gaming computer.
As for the games... some are a pain to play today, but others are surprisingly good and the music is beyond cool. Of course, nostalgia is a big factor, but still...
Emulators are all about running the software. This is more about the full package, you know? The breadbin in all its glory. Going clickety-clack with its keyboard. It brings back memories.
I own a TheC64 by RetroGames just for this. All the convenience of HDMI and instant loading software with the form factor of the C64 of my youth, with a working keyboard with PETSCII characters!
If you just want to play games, agreed, you just need VICE.
20 GOTO 10
RUN
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/checkmate1500mini/retro...
(Stephen Jones' project - he also has Commodore background, IIRC)
Edit: I think this is where you meant to link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/checkmate1500mini/retro...
Instead, I have to recommend the OSSC / OSSC Pro, with your favourite modern display.
Jeri Ellsworth as Technical Advisor is also a solid member of the C64 community.
But not just the coders, the artists (visual/audio) are also wizards.
There are also communities for making C64 piel art and -- get this -- art doing entirely in PETSCII (sort of like ASCII art, but PETSCII has a more interesting set to work with).
