Commodore - Back In The Hardware Biz At Last? 400
Aphrika writes "Commodore is back in the hardware business [via current owners Tulip Computers] and this time they're taking on... Apple? Due for release in August are three MP3 players; the eVic, fPet and mPet. The eVic is a 20GB (hence the name) hard drive-based player, while the mPet and fPet are closer to the Muvo/iRiver styled flash players. They'll also be hoping you pay a visit to the Commodore World Music Store once in a while to stock up on tunes..." We also recently mentioned Commodore's 'TV Game' and ROM-store projects over at Slashdot Games.
This is shameful This is shameful (Score:5, Funny)
I'm torn. I feel ashamed because of it. Bastards.
Re:This is shameful This is shameful (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is shameful (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is shameful (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is shamefulThis is shameful (Score:5, Interesting)
The basic premise is this: in exchange for the rights to license AppleBASIC from Microsoft, some pinhead (who had been tasked with the deal because Jobs didn't think the Apple II had a future) gave the software company full rights to the Macintosh look and feel. Viola! Windows, all nice and legal -- and basically for free.
Re:This is shamefulThis is shameful (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is shamefulThis is shameful (Score:5, Funny)
Apple sells something that only costs 100 dollars?! Where do I sign??
Re:This is shamefulThis is shameful (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is shamefulThis is shameful (Score:3, Funny)
If you spell that word wrong again, I'll express my anger with violins.
Re:This is shamefulThis is shameful (Score:3, Informative)
You need to be reading your Apple II History [apple2history.org], not just Folklore's Mac history.
The relevant parts of how Applesoft BASIC came to the Apple II:
Back in 1975 and 1976, Microsoft was producing BASIC interpreters for nearly every microprocessor that was produced, in hopes of licensing or selling their BASIC to those who built a computer around that chip. In mid-1976, Microsoft's first employee, Marc McDonald, was given the job of creating a version of BASIC that would run on the then-new 6
Re:This is shamefulThis is shameful (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple "won" the Xerox case because what Xerox was doing -- moving a cursor around on a screen and manipulate windows and buttons -- they didn't invent, anyway. It had been done in colleges for years.
Apple vs. Microsoft, on the other hand, was a big deal. Apple HAD invented something new. They HAD created a new interface. But, in hopes of getting Microsoft as an application developer for their new OS, they accidentally licensed them core technologies and were vague enough to infer that they'd licensed the whole system. A more vitriolic and pro-mac argument can be found here [mackido.com].
Microsoft had a BASIC monopoly back then (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is shameful (Score:3, Interesting)
Since these first IIc's had nothing emulated in slot 5, the firmware authors immortalized themselves by making a "ghost" peripheral appear to be present in that slot. Entering this Applesoft program:
]100 IN# 5: INPUT A$: PRINT A$
and running it would print the names of the authors. (They used a decoding scheme to extract the names, character by character, so a simple ASCII scan of the ROM would not show their little trick). This "feature" had to
Re:This is shameful (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, come on, I remember when the TRaSh-80 was around and used a tape recorder for persisting data or TI-99/4A which you could be paid for $0.50 in its final days. It was selling for $49.50 at K-Mart and there was a $50 rebate from Texas Instruments.
All of this is nicer unless you want to "adopt a mainframe" (someone begs & pleads for someone to come get a mainframe and give it a good home (usually basement or garage) before it's towed away. I think the CFO would not find the sharp spike in the electric bill very funny when she sees it, providing it doesn't blow something on the way to the house first.
I'm guessing it would be in the neighborhood of contest to see whose houses stand the greatest chance of being seen from Jupiter. (In a recent year, one of the houses said their December bill was $5kUS more than average.
Re:This is shamefulThis is shameful (Score:3, Funny)
64K RAM SYSTEM 38911 BASIC BYTES FREE
READY.
PLAY
SYNTAX ERROR
READY.
PLAY *.MP3
SYNTAX ERROR
READY.
LOAD *,8,1
Music CARRIER (Score:5, Informative)
That reads like "Standard USB thumbdrive" to me, definitely not a player. I'd still get one because of the logo.
Re:Music CARRIER (Score:5, Funny)
NO CARRIER
marketing ploy (Score:5, Insightful)
You're the only one (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You're the only one (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, as you say, they may not. I'd say there's at least a chan
Re:You're the only one (Score:2)
Anybody remember the "Omega RIPport", the satire newsletter on the death of Commodore wherein Ali gets lynched by members of a mysterious "Omega" group? Where Irving Gould swears to stamp out the Omega at any price
Re:You're the only one (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux gained a convert in me for its immunity to just this kind of thing. At least the open source community cares about its products.
Re:You're the only one (Score:3, Interesting)
Commodore's response: let's put the same hardware in a smaller case, keeping the processor the same but requiring users to have to buy expensive 2.5" hard disks instead of the cheaper 3.5" drives.
DOH! DOH! DOH! DOH! DOH! DOH! DOH! DOH!
That was when I finally realised Commodore knew as much about marketing hardware as I know about the East China Tea Corporation. Th
Re:You're the only one (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course there are open source hardware projects, but nowhere as sophisticated as the Amiga hardware itself. Amiga emulators still can't play all the Amiga software, since the Amiga had a set of unrivalled custom chips that can't be emulated 100% by a PC (especially A1200 games).
The problem with Commodore is that that they did everything they could to drive the Amiga off the market. In 1991, Commodore engineers had ready a prototype custom chip that could do 1,000,000 textured mapped polygons with hardware T&L. When the world was going 3d (in graphics), Commodore managers decided to scrap that chip and move on with CD32/1200/whatever instead. That was a major tactical mistake, which lead to the death of the Amiga in the following years.
No open source developer could save the Amiga.
Re:You're the only one (Score:2)
Umm, and your point? It has a lot of marketing power among techies. What's wrong with marketing something like this to techies?
Re:You're the only one (Score:5, Interesting)
Commodore may sell a few music players to techies, but taking on Apple, it is not. I still get a chuckle out of the almost weekly reports of the next "iPod killer". This sort of press alone demonstrates the leadership of the iPod.
The difference (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure how I feel about this aspect of patents, but you have to admit it gives the iPod some legs.
Re:The difference (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree , but... (Score:3, Insightful)
That just adds to my point tha the iPod has a lot longer legs than the Walkman. First a company has to realize what makes it great - then the hard wor
Re:marketing ploy (Score:3, Insightful)
Napster ain't the same (Score:3, Insightful)
iTunes on the other hand never was a place to get free music, so it doesn't have that negative vibe.
I hope they can play .SID files [nt] (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I hope they can play .SID files [nt] (Score:3, Interesting)
Screw that. It damn well better be able to play my MOD files! I have such classics as "Girl from Ipanima" and "All that She Wants" just waiting for a portable player! I mean, who *doesn't* want to listen to "Ace of Base" while out and about?
C64 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:C64 (Score:2)
name (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like if I started calling my garage Digital Equipment Corporation and started selling pet rocks, it doesn't have anything to do with a VAX.
Re:name (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:name (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:name (Score:5, Informative)
Re:name (Score:3, Interesting)
I take your point onboard, but even there, Apple was founded by Jobs and Woz and since 1997 it's Jobs again, so it's actually closer to being the original Apple company now than in the wilderness years. The spirit of the company is also closer to what it was originally
Re:name (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:name (Score:2)
Well, I'm using an Alpha processor as a paperweight, so you'd at least have a little brand recognition going into your venture
Apparently (Score:5, Funny)
No (Score:2)
Interestingly, that's at least the second webserver to be made for a C64 - when I searched for it I was thinking of another one, which did not implement TCP/IP and had all the requests and responses sent over RS232 or something like that.
Tim
Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
This makes about as much sense to me as using the GE brand name to sell fresh carrots.
And how in the world does the name eVic imply 20GB of storage? Is it something in another language (like vic means 20), or was the poster meaning that the eVic was supposed to compete with the iPod based on similarities in the way they are capitalized and the lengths of the name?
None of this makes any sense. They should sell C64s today for hobbiesests and nostalgia. They could be very tiny, still use a TV, be tons of fun. Or make another hobbiest platform. But... MP3 players? Like the market needs more MP3 players.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Moll.
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Informative)
One of the first widely successful Commodore computers sold was called the VIC-20 [oldcomputers.net].
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Once again google, if not memory, to the rescue: http://www.google.ca/search?q=vic20 [google.ca]
Great! (Score:5, Funny)
Commodore server? (Score:5, Funny)
Commodore *are* back? (Score:5, Funny)
But on topic, I think this is great! Nothing quite like reviving an old computer brand name to rekindle the embers that we thought were long dead. I foresee that Atari will be back with their own portable media player; then we'll see the iAmiga, followed by the eAtari, followed by Apple's own iPod-GS, and then even IBM will join the fray with a portable player called the iPC-jr, complete with cooling fan and proprietary bus that won't take anyone else's add-on harddrive.
Heck, I might even get big hair and a skinny tie, too!
rather sad.......... (Score:5, Funny)
I find this really sad. Those products look terrible, and re-using the old commodore brands (Vic, PET) just makes it that much more sad. Though, it's not *that* sad, because Commodore stuff was never really that good (the Amiga had its moments though).
They need to fire their copywriter ASAP, that's for sure:
With this USB 2.0 data&music carrier you can easily extend your pc, notebook or mac with an extra storage harddisk.
PC, notebook, or Mac? What if I have a Mac Notebook do I have to order two? Is it really a hard disk?
The stick can be used for copying, store and move data...
The English can be used for speak and write words!
Exclusive Commodore design!
Yes, we used both red *and* blue plastic on this bad boy! Ka-ching!
you can enjoy listening hours and hours to all your favorite songs with just one battery!
Wow, just one battery! Folks, portable music doesn't get any better than this. Hell, even my car works with just one battery!
The player is including a neck cord,
It's including a neck cord with what? Its tax forms?
Just connect the camera to the docking, drag the made photos to the storage device and you can make new photos again!
Hey, I hope nobody finds my maid photos.. my wife will kill me. I better not connect the camera to the docking as they suggest. And besides, when my memory card fills up, I do what any smart person does! I buy a new camera to hold more pictures!
Beware the docking..
commodore's hardware was fantastic (Score:5, Informative)
Lord forgive me for jumping to the defense of a computer that's been dead nearly 20 years. But somebody's gotta answer this.
I forget what Apple IIe's cost around 1985, but they were well over a grand; actually I think close to two grand...unreachable if you were a high school student mowing lawns. On the other hand, you could get a Commodore for $200, and a disk drive for another $200, plug it up to a TV and you were set.
Additionally, the graphics and especially the sound were much better on the C64 than the Apple IIe. The Commodore had a SID chip, which was polyphonic (I think) and offered four different kinds of sound envelopes. You could even tweak the ADSR...all this on a computer that was released in, what, 1983? The Apples and their tinny speaker sure couldn't do that, not without some expensive add on sound card anyway.
I remember a friend who lived down the block who had an Apple used to always be furious that the same games looked and sounded so much better on my cheap computer than his expensive one.
I think for the time, Commodore made amazing hardware and practically gave it away relative to what others were charging. Really odd to see them dissed over something like this.
Price of Apple IIe (Score:5, Informative)
What amazes me stayed at 1MHz, and was able to sell machines. The Apple I, released in 1976, was a 1MHz machine. The Apple II debuted in 1977, at 1MHz. The Apple II+ (my first computer, may God rest its soul) in '79, at 1MHz. The Apple IIe in '83, at 1MHz. The Apple IIc in '84, 1MHz. The Apple IIe Enhanced, at, you guessed it, 1MHz. That computer wasn't discontinued 'till 1993, for crying out loud.
Mind you, the Apple IIc+, Apple IIGS, and Macintosh were introduced during that timeframe at higher clock rates, but still, for 17 years, they sold a machine at the same speed. What the hell happened to Moore's Law?
Re:Price of Apple IIe (Score:3, Informative)
> that timeframe at higher clock rates, but still, for 17 years, they sold a machine
> at the same speed. What the hell happened to Moore's Law?
Moore's Law doesn't talk about clock speeds, it talks about complexity (or logic density). In the Apple II line you can observe it when it comes to RAM and ROM size:
Apple I: 8 + 1 + 0.25 kB
Apple II: 4 + 12 kB (max 64 + 12)
Apple II+: 48 + 12 kB (max 64 + 12)
Apple IIe: 64 + 16 kB
App
Re:commodore's hardware was fantastic (Score:4, Informative)
Some of the music composed on the C64 was amazingly complex given how limited it was. The C64 was also one of the first platforms used for "demos" (mostly in the form of crappy scrollers.)
For those who really really love the sound of the SID chip there are lots of options to get it back. Most notably is the SidStation [sidstation.com] which is sadly no longer made and the HardSid. [hardsid.com]
I also can't recommend Kohina [kohina.com] enough.
Are you kidding me? (Score:3, Informative)
The C64 was an incredible little machine. Yup, only 64K of memory, and you could only really use 32K of it. It was only 0.98Mhz. And people did amazing things with it. Full color graphics, three channel synthesizer (which people are still using in audio gear; long live the SID!) and easy connectivity to things like joysticks, modems, and even mice. You know
I'd be more interest in (Score:3, Interesting)
Tramiel was a master, a guy who could read the market in real time and act quickly and ruthlessly. He was Commodore.
Hence the name?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
Um, am I missing something here? How does the name eVic in any way imply 20GB of space???
Re:Hence the name?!? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hence the name?!? (Score:2)
Really just a Dutch company called Tulip... (Score:5, Insightful)
So this isn't really Commodore -- why should anyone care?
Re:Really just a Dutch company called Tulip... (Score:2)
They shouldn't...but that's not going to stop unenlightened people from buying it because it has the Commodore name. And I doubt there are people who will make a point not to buy it because of the name. I don't see how the name could hurt them.
Bring me a handheld. (Score:5, Interesting)
The question is... (Score:5, Funny)
DOA (Score:2, Informative)
This one was /.'ed on the first reply!
Maybe they should host their site on one of these [mini-itx.com] newfangled 933Mhz C64's
April Fools? (Score:2)
Not your childhood commodore? (Score:5, Informative)
About Commodore International B.V.
Commodore International B.V. is a daughter company of Tulip Computers. The CommodoreWorld concept is developed in cooperation with a number licensee-partners amongst others Yeahronimo N.V. and Ironstone Partners Ltd. Through this joint effort Tulip Computers and its partners will strengthen their power to act and will limit the financial risks connected to the development and production of new products considerably. In addition the introduction of new products and /or services will be much quicker.
About Ironstone
Ironstone Partners Ltd is a commercial vehicle created and funded by a number of individuals with a combined experience of over 100 years in the global games and media industries. Ironstone has offices in both the United Kingdom and Canada. Ironstone focus itself on projects in the worldwide games- and multimedia industry.
Commodore is a very strong brand with worldwide recognition introducing a solution what will bridge the consumer's eGap. An eGap is the entertainment Gap in the life of a consumer...
Seems possible that some new people bought the rights to use the commodore name.
And why is this corporate info written in Engrish?
It would help if... (Score:2)
too late... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm really surprised that they're introducing something like this, so late in the game. Sure, the market for digital music players may be growing fast, but there are a lot of others in this market, too.
There doesn't seem to be any indication of price, but I think they're going to have a hard time grabbing any kind of market share at all unless these things are cheaper than air... since the feature list for the eVic [what kind of name is that, anyway?? short for Victrola?] looks fairly standard, they're going to have to compete mostly on price.
One potentially useful feature would be the recording capabilities, assuming the interface allows live monitoring of levels. The specs mention bitrates for "music" and "voice" recording, but with a 20GB hard drive in there, it would seem reasonable to have the option to record uncompressed as well.
Of course they'll only let you play... (Score:3, Informative)
Although you'd need something like this [sourceforge.net] to play them.
And, just because I thought it interesting, apparently, these are the best ever C64 game tunes:
* Monty on the Run
* R-type
* One Man and His Droid
* Spellbound
* Ocean Loader v3.0
* After the War
* Ghouls 'n' Ghosts
* Kinetix
* Auf Wiedersehen Monty
* Bionic Commando
Re:Of course they'll only let you play... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Of course they'll only let you play... (Score:2)
Incidently, I never had a C64 (did use one at school though)... no, I was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum boy myself, all 48K of goodness that it entailed.
curious marketing (Score:5, Interesting)
On a possibly unrelated note, I loved my Commodore 64 so of course I clicked on the link for "C64 DTV". This crashed my Mozilla. Since the people who hacked on old commodores are probably more likely to use Mozilla than IE, this worries me.
Re:curious marketing (Score:3, Funny)
"World" Music Store? They must be joking... (Score:2, Funny)
There should be a requirement that websites wanting to incorporate the word "World" in their name be able withstand (at the very least) a late-evening Slashdotting.
The way their current bandwith tolerance looks, iTunes-level traffic would not only crash their server, but also burn down the office it's kept in.WHAT? (Score:2)
Manufacturers still don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Taking on Apple (Score:5, Funny)
Get a Slashdot-proof web site.
Pet? (Score:3, Interesting)
Subject/Verb Agreement (Score:3, Interesting)
In other words, stop using the plural. It's just wrong. Commodore is not the Borg.
brand necrophilia (Score:3, Insightful)
The name "Commodore" screams "MP3 player"... (Score:3, Funny)
Are these actually Commodore/Tulip hardware? (Score:2, Interesting)
Win-win for consumers (Score:3, Insightful)
And if Commodor beats out Apple, then good for them.
Re:Win-win for consumers (Score:4, Funny)
Commodore will do poorly. Apple will feel no pressure whatsoever and will not change their pricing, as it is already quite fair. And Slashdotters will continue to be befuddled at their inability to understand the music player market, affect the profitability of Microsoft's OS division or impress girls with their knowledge of regular expressions.
What's better? (Score:2)
or Tulips on your organ?
Wow, this is just plain sad (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I the only one that sees this as cynically as the rebirth of Atari?
I think the most ironic part is that you need WMP (with optional Commodore skin) to play your purchase from the Commodore music store. I wonder if they have the Amiga version ready yet?
"At Last"? (Score:3, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Technically a bit silly (Score:3, Insightful)
There is even a tracker [kahlin.net] for making music on the VIC-20 and the VIC-I.
Old commodore commericals (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.commodorebillboard.de/Commercials/Co
But the one they're missing is the one with that jingle 'I'm playing games with my 64!'
The reason I want that one is my friend was actually in that commerical and it would be cool to see it again.
For shame... (Score:3, Interesting)
So, basically, they are attempting to wipe out all of Commodore's history post-C64, and jumping straight to MP3. Why? Because they don't have the rights to the Amiga (thank god). Want to see what's happening with that little flagship? Go here [amiga.com] - a darn sight more interesting than that little bandwagon of naffness.
I find it really depressing when some company buys a legacy name (such as Infrogrames did with Atari) and begins peddling merchanidise using that name, hoping for the retro-cool aura surrounding it to bring it sales.
I kinda hate this (Score:3, Insightful)
But it kind of makes my skin crawl that a group of completely unrelated people are marketing completely unrelated stuff under the commodore name. I don't know exactly why it bothers me, but it does. Maybe because it's such a blatant attempt at manipulation?
I don't know. But I sure loved the machines and software back in the day.
Cheers.
Re:I kinda hate this (Score:3, Interesting)
No really, I'm not even that old (21) but I did have an A500, and I find this really disgusting as well. Even if they were selling something worthwhile I still wouldn't buy it out of principle.
New battery technology though... (Score:4, Funny)
Nicole Lithium, hmmmm...
if it's really white with red hair, I'm sold.
Microsofts iPod Killer (Score:3, Funny)
You can see it here
http://rspress.home.comcast.net/Winpod.jpg