The Commodore 64 is back – and it’s running Ubuntu

By , Published July 18, 2011

If you’re old enough (and might I say cool enough) to remember the original Commodore 64 home computer then prepare to get stoked: not only is the device back rocking the same retro look, but it’s back running Ubuntu as well.

The original Commodore 64 was released back in 1982, and went on to become one of the most popular and well-known home computers of all time. The reborn Commodore 64 heeds to the mantra of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix” by keeping the same ‘look’ as the original.

You do need to bring your own mouse and monitor, but you do get a keyboard.

Boy do you get a keyboard: -

The outside might look ancient but the inside is more than capable as a general purpose home computer.

A dual core Atom processor is teamed with a Nvidia Ion2 to make 1080p video playback a smooth affair. 2GB RAM comes as standard, although the C64 supports up to 4GB.

There’s the usual smattering of USB, Audio in/out and VGA ports. A card reader is thrown in for good measure, too.

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Somewhat annoyingly the “basic” model ships without a DVD drive or WiFi! The meagre 160GB HDD included hardly cushions this oversight, either.

The ‘new’ Commodore 64 costs $595 – the same price as the original Commodore 64 back in the early 80s. For this price you could undoubtedly find better value for money elsewhere, but you’d lack the Commodore look and the Commodore brand.

“Extras”, such as a larger HDD, WiFi and a Blu-Ray drive can be added, but will bump the price. The OS provided is Ubuntu 10.10.

Fancy biting one of these beauties? Nab them @ the Commodore 64 Website

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  • http://twitter.com/GiannisTP Giannis Perrakis

    COOL!

  • http://twitter.com/GiannisTP Giannis Perrakis

    COOL!

  • http://twitter.com/marcusklaas MarcusKlaasDeVries

    Disappointing hardware. A fusion processor would probably be a better fit, so you could game a little on it. Not too sad about the DVD drive, who still uses those anyways? Optical media is really a thing of the past, I think.

    • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/7GXJ4CL5A6A5YPPUO47UQXGP5Y Johan

      I agree. A Core i3 or and AMD APU would be better suited.

      • http://twitter.com/tommisas tommi saira

        And?

      • http://twitter.com/MotionShot Heimen Stoffels

        The Fusion, alright, but an i3 would bump the price really, really up.

      • http://twitter.com/MotionShot Heimen Stoffels

        The Fusion, alright, but an i3 would bump the price really, really up.

    • Carl Hjerpe

      Indeed they are, USB memorys works better and are more durable and reliable :)

    • Carl Hjerpe

      Indeed they are, USB memorys works better and are more durable and reliable :)

  • Sam Reaper

    nice

  • http://www.twm-kd.com/ BigWhale

    If it doesn’t include 2 9pin d-sub male joystick ports it is close to useless! Just like the joysticks were when you started playing Decathlon and broke several in a row with furious left-right movement. :>

  • Anonymous

    If only this thing runs the amiga os……..

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Kyle-Osborne/100000321459509 Kyle Osborne

      you can run AROS on it if you like…. if you don’t mind it not being “real” amiga hardware, there’s Amiga Forever and UAE which’ll tun under linux. (if you want “real” amiga hardware there’s the minimig, natami, and possibly other projects too)

    • http://www.corbindavenport.com/ Corbin Davenport

      It’s still being made.

      (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmigaOS_4)

  • Anonymous

    I’m not that old but I actually love this things. I had a Tandy PC 1000 (yeah the ones that RadioShack made)  until I was like 8 or 9 years old and it broke up :( How much I would like to have one of these old computers again and try to put some linux to run on them haha.

  • Rachel Greenham

    I would totally go for a BBC Micro along the same lines. Lovely keyboard, and I actualy have a nostalgic link to it, having used one for years; never used a C64.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001362927700 Arthur Couto

    man, i need my X-Com Defense…
    and i still have my commodore 64 running in home, in a tube television 21″ =p

  • http://profiles.google.com/be.slayed Benjamin Slade

    I wish they did this with the old Atari.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Fredrik-Tykosson/100001199343659 Fredrik Tykosson

    Right on, just a bit on the expensive side. Those who commented on using Intel or AMD graphics should be reminded of how bad those works in Linux. Nvidia was the right choice, its a perfect htpc with XBMC commodore 64 emulation hehe.

    • http://twitter.com/MotionShot Heimen Stoffels

      They were talking about processors from Intel or AMD, NOT video cards.

    • http://twitter.com/MotionShot Heimen Stoffels

      They were talking about processors from Intel or AMD, NOT video cards.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Fredrik-Tykosson/100001199343659 Fredrik Tykosson

    Right on, just a bit on the expensive side. Those who commented on using Intel or AMD graphics should be reminded of how bad those works in Linux. Nvidia was the right choice, its a perfect htpc with XBMC commodore 64 emulation hehe.

  • http://twitter.com/chris_winter_ Chris Winter

    I was always an Atari ST man myself.

  • Anonymous

    Very not ergonomic. High keybord = joint pain. Beware.
    except that, for the price I would expect Core i3 if not i7 in mobile variant.

    • http://twitter.com/MotionShot Heimen Stoffels

      Agreed on the keyboard. But the i-series is too expensive. For large purpose it’s cheap, but for something like this…

    • http://mark-y-a.myopenid.com/ Mark

      Just got back from the site linked above. There is a slim version of it but it won’t look like the epic Commodore anymore.

  • Anonymous

    I was a ZX Spectrum boy myself, though I understand someone has done the same thing with the rubber key version too.
    Will unity run on 48k?

    • http://twitter.com/MotionShot Heimen Stoffels

      Unity on 48k? Whahaha no. Better look at E17 for that.

  • http://about.me/nlsthzn Neil Oosthuizen

    Finally something with even more hype than substance than a Mac… do NOT want…

    • http://www.facebook.com/SeanYoung247 Sean Young

      I agree, though it’s still not quite as overpriced as a Mac. If Apple hand made it it would be $700.

      • http://about.me/nlsthzn Neil Oosthuizen

        At least a lot of the price could be justified through the quality of the hardware… not so sure in this case…

        • http://twitter.com/SarcasticSloth Steven Garza

          Foxconn hardware is not “quality” by any means.

      • Anonymous

        And then they would have sued the original makers for patent infringement or something…

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Vladimir-Kooznetsov/1660704458 Vladimir Kooznetsov

          Speaking about patents, how do you guys think, since Apple now have Launchpad in their new Mac OS X, will it harm Canonical with our Launchpad.net? 

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Vladimir-Kooznetsov/1660704458 Vladimir Kooznetsov

          Speaking about patents, how do you guys think, since Apple now have Launchpad in their new Mac OS X, will it harm Canonical with our Launchpad.net? 

          • Anonymous

            You’re asking whether Apple’s choice to jump on the stick-a-pda-interface-on-a-screen-orders-of-magnitude-too-large-for-it-to-be-pragmatic bandwagon will it hurt another company that has an identically,  generically named web domain name?  Well, if things did get that asinine, I think NASA would be a far juicier target for a trademark violation suit than Canonical.

    • Not Available

      If there is anything I hate more than Macs – that be products that rich people would buy for nostalgic reasons while leaving all the toxic waste to 3-rd world countries children.

      • Carlos Espinal

        And where do you think your average asus, acer ot toshiba will end? 

        • Not Available

          I meant: buy if you gonna use it, not to so it would be just another item to brag about to your geek friends.

        • Not Available

          I meant: buy if you gonna use it, not to so it would be just another item to brag about to your geek friends.

  • Thomas Aaron

    Fricken cool! I cut my teeth on one of those babies back in the day!

  • http://dmenounos.myopenid.com/ Dimitris

    Alright! I see they also plan Amiga models! What I want is an Amiga 500 or 1200, with a better CPU/GPU combo and builtin Ubuntu of course.

    As a matter of fact they could innovate a little by embedding the linux kernel into the ROM like the original Amigas did with kickstart. That would mean lightning fast boot times!

    • http://www.facebook.com/aspexdesign Dean Thorpe

      I loved my A1200, I upgraded it until at the time it was more powerful than any of my PC owning friends computers, It had a whole 18mb of Ram, a 50mhz CPU plus a 50mhz FPU, it was so amazing at the time, it even had a 500mb hard drive! A dream machine back then!!!

    • http://www.facebook.com/aspexdesign Dean Thorpe

      I loved my A1200, I upgraded it until at the time it was more powerful than any of my PC owning friends computers, It had a whole 18mb of Ram, a 50mhz CPU plus a 50mhz FPU, it was so amazing at the time, it even had a 500mb hard drive! A dream machine back then!!!

    • http://www.corbindavenport.com/ Corbin Davenport

      That would be really cool, since AmigaOS is still being developed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmigaOS_4).

  • Stijn Verwaaijen

    so cool! if only it had 4 GB ram and wifi…

    • http://twitter.com/MotionShot Heimen Stoffels

      4 GB and Wifi are sold as upgrades to the basic-version.

      • Stijn Verwaaijen

        hmm…

    • http://twitter.com/MotionShot Heimen Stoffels

      4 GB and Wifi are sold as upgrades to the basic-version.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/KME6NDF3KTWK6NNPG5SF36PLBI Ambleston

    Sorry folks, it ain’t a C64 if you can’t SHIFT + RUN/STOP to load your games.

    • Anonymous

      Well, it IS running Linux. I’m sure you can change key mappings to do whatever you like. Have to re-keycap one of the keys for RUN/STOP but anything’s possible.

  • http://tomslominski.net/ Tom Slominski

    Is this actually made by Commodore?

    • Anonymous

      Commodore, as a company, stopped years ago, but the brand name and rights have been changing hands some time now.

      It was once also a computer chain store that sold normal pc’s, I think. 

  • http://onlineitguide.com James Thoenes

    They took the cartridge port off??
    I think an external drive would be much more nostalgic then a built in optical drive  anyway.

  • eMcE

    eeeh.. just an emulation.. :|
    No VIC, no SID? No fun!
    ;P

  • Emmanuel Aerssens

    What happend to commodore OS ??

  • Anonymous

    I thought you guys had covered this a while back. Maybe I’m thinking of some other tech site with a good visual design. This made me crack up before, and I totally want to get one as a gag gift for someone that actually needs a desktop replacement.

  • Anonymous

    I thought you guys had covered this a while back. Maybe I’m thinking of some other tech site with a good visual design. This made me crack up before, and I totally want to get one as a gag gift for someone that actually needs a desktop replacement.

  • https://launchpad.net/~shnatsel Shnatsel

    Now I know why this blog is called OMG!

  • http://twitter.com/_shokunin Michal Olgierd

    actually i am always dazzled why all new systems with ubuntu are so expensive

    • http://www.facebook.com/joeseph.rodrigues Joeseph Rodrigues

      Because the companies know we think as highly of ourselves as Mac users do themselves.

  • http://mark-y-a.myopenid.com/ Mark

    What I would give to have that and bring it at the coffee shop. Everybody would be staring at that dinosaur-looking PC and laugh at me. LOL! 

    What are the dimensions on that thing? If it’s not wide enough and not as thick, that will fit well in a messenger bag. Now all I have to figure out is how to bring the monitor. :)

  • Anonymous

    I think that could be a nice toy for a geek, using linux with the emperor of home computers! I like it very much and I think I’ll catch it very soon (probably the version 2.0, to avoid bugs)

  • Anonymous

    Nothing new here… Check the date on this…

    http://mini-itx.com/projects/c64/

  • Anonymous

    There will be lovers and haters of this for sure. I can imagine the folks over at EAB are crying over this.  Still, it would be fun to own one for sure ;-) It would go nicely with my A500, A600, A1200, Plus4, Tatung Einstein. And my beloved Dream Linux :-)

  • Elvin

    is that a mechanical keyboard? :)

    • http://www.facebook.com/joeseph.rodrigues Joeseph Rodrigues

      Cherry brand =]

  • Marc Pavone

    so it LOOKS like a C64 but it otherwise runs like any modern PC? Please explain why I should waste my money on this? I don’t even want a real C64, those things run like dead dogs compared to my cell phone.

  • Nathan Hulse

    Windows would’ve been more appropriate; the C64 is back, but this time its for suckers!

  • http://twitter.com/tardegrade tardegrade

    That’s pretty epic! I had a ZX Spectrum instead of a C64. I upgraded it from 16K to 48K. In those days you had to solder the new chip on to the board yourself. Ah those were the days. Tape loading Jet Set Willy and programming using basic. :)

    Does it have an emulator on it?

  • fatriff

    why is it an oversight about it not having a dvd drive?? It’s netbook spec isn’t it, so why would it have one? I don’t need one, i haven’t used a cd/disc for a few years now as I use pen drives and all my movies are either streamed or downloaded.. If you still rely on a disc drive then you need to wake up and move to 2011 pronto or your going to find yourself in a situation you don’t like when they do away with them, and anyway, anybody who might buy one of these would probably have an old external dvd burner laying around. A wireless dongle costs a few quid and most people have several laying around so that’s hardly a deal breaker either as this isn’t something you can carry around with you and use.

  • daas88

    I’m 22 and what’s this?

    • Alex B

      I’m 14 and although I’ve never seen one in person, even I know what this is!

      • http://www.corbindavenport.com/ Corbin Davenport

        I’m 13 and I know some about the C64.

    • Joseph Abell

      You my friend are full of win.

    • Anonymous

      I’m 23, never owned one or seen one, but this device has a legend that speaks for itself. People really loved this machine. It’s basically Playstation mark #1

  • Mark McCorkell

    I know I’m old now that precious childhood items have become kitsch ‘retro’ accessories. A shame, in its time the C= name was almost a guarantee of low-cost but innovative kit.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jose-King/100002127364490 Jose King

    Nice Nice.  but seem certain heavy, i don’t know. other one type, like sleek, i am not sure if it would be work on Ubuntu 10,04 LTS. 

  • Anonymous

    If it half the price (even with half the specs) i would have purchased one. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/franc.gorenc Franc Gorenc

    Take your notebook or netbook pc with a broken screen, connect a regular desktop screen to it and voila you got a commodore-like pc.

  • Dane Peterson

    I’ll take my ACTUAL Apple //e that’s actually sitting on my desk (with its actual 5 1/4″ drives) any day, sorry. (Or my Apple //c sitting under my TV.)

    What’s the retro computer worth without 5 1/4″ drives anyway. I mean certainly at least some part of the motivation for owning it would be the desire to emulate the old machine. And while I recall from previously looking at it that the C64 does come prepackaged with emulation software, I’d want to be able to read old disks.

    All that aside, I think the whirrr-clik-clik-clik-whiiirrrrrrrr-bzz-zz-zz-zz-zz-zz-CLACK is an inseparable part of the experience of using any old computer and reason enough to buy the actual old box.

    • Anonymous

      I would indeed rather have an old C64 for REAL nostalgia than this personally.
      I can’t help thinking that if they are going to do a modern take on the C64 then it should at least be capable of modern gaming?

      Maybe it would have been better as a console?

      • Gábor Lénárt

        Indeed, as a C64 fan, I would call this as a “PC” which is built-in a C64 case, nothing more. For a real C64 feeling, I want C64 compatible hardware. Yes, you can run emulator on it, but I can do that on a “regular” PC too, it does not make it C64 more. I still prefer things like the C64DTV. It hasn’t got a “C64 shape” (it’s a joystick) but still, the hardware can run original C64 softwares and also it gives the feeling that you have the “next gen C64″ as it has more capabilities than C64 had (2M ram, DMA/Blitter, extended VIC, etc). Sure that means something which was not in the original C64, but it feels as the “natural” expansion of the C64 architecture, unlike this stuff, which is only a “case design” but it hasn’t got anything more common with the good old C64.

    • Anonymous

      > All that aside, I think the whirrr-clik-clik-clik-whiiirrrrrrrr-bzz-zz-zz-zz-zz-zz-CLACK is an inseparable part of the experience of using any old computer and reason enough to buy the actual old box.

      You sir … I take my hat off you! ;) 

      That said, if I get it, I be using the old disks from .img files. 

      But I would not.  My notebooks, netbooks, ipad, android tablet-phone, is keeping me way too busy as it is … :p 

  • http://www.facebook.com/critanime James Parkinson

    Fair enough the guts are alright. But the cost, especially compared to off the shelf computers, just makes it a bit of a joke. This is like taking a replica Ford Mustang body and sticking a Gee Whiz engine in it. Then still asking Ford Mustang prices for it.

    It would be interesting to see what they have done with Ubuntu when they created their Commodore OS. From stuff on their website it’s not going to be on the light side. 

  • Anonymous

    Hmmm…If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. ;)

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1360935494 Shawn White

    Enough with digging up the 80′s already, especially since the majority of people romanticizing might barely have been born in the late 80′s, time to move on, if I hear one more Journey song… -as far as the product, cute, but not worth it (go find a shell, get a mini-mobo and all the parts you need)

    • Anonymous

      I was born in the early 70s … grrr …ಠ_ಠ

      And before long, many of the 60s babies will be telling me how ‘young’ I am!! ಠ_ಠ

  • http://twitter.com/MarcCoquand Marc Coquand

    If this had good gaming specs it would be the bomb for lans

 
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