A key part of the computer industry marked its anniversary this week as the Commodore 64 turned 30 years old. The hardware was unveiled at CES in early January 1982 and became one of the longest-lasting computers of its era, with variants in use until the company shuttered in April 1994. The keyboard-sized PC, which shipped in August that year for $595, ran at just 1MHz and with its namesake 64KB of total memory.
Commodore is now shipping a higher performance version of its retro form-factor Commodore 64x computer. The new C64x-EX Extreme is the second in its series of updated computers to be squeezed into the shell of the old Commodore gaming console/computer that was popular back in the early 1980s. The Extreme is rare in its category and carries a quad 2.2GHz Core i7 mobile processor borrowed from notebooks to get its speed in a small design.
Asiarim, the company that holds the rights to the Commodore name, has announced that three of its directors, who are also officers of the company, have resigned. In their place, Dr. J.C.M. Hovers has become the sole director as well as Chairman, President and CEO. Eugène van Os, managing director the company's Commodore Licensing subsidiary, will become Treasurer, Chief Financial Officer and Secretary.
Commodore on Friday said it had nearly finished its first wave of production for the remadeC64. The now dual-core Atom PC is due to ship this coming week. Its launch coincides with the company opening an office in Fort Lauderdale that will handle custom orders beyond the pre-configured models on tap.
Commodore USA has put its 21st Century take on the classic Commodore 64 up for pre-order, along with a more contemporary take on the same concept, the VIC Slim. The new C64 is fundamentally a retro nettop. Its external design matches in most respects the original design of the C64. However, instead of an 8-bit MOS Technology 6510 CPU, VIC-II graphics and 64KB of RAM, it now features an Intel Atom D525 1.8GHz dual-core CPU, NVIDIA Ion graphics, and up to 4GB of RAM.
In Brief: The officially-licensed Commodore 64 iPhone app has finally been approved. Meanwhile, sources shed doubt on the widespread expectations that Apple is ready to release camera-equipped iPods at the media event scheduled this week. Israeli reports suggest Apple may be ready to launch the latest iPhone locally, as early as October 15th.
Commodore today seized on the holidays to launch a new set of MLB custom skins for its gaming PCs. The initial lineup lets buyers of any of the company's existing systems choose a theme based on the Boston Red Sox, New York's Mets and Yankees, or the Philadelphia Phillies that covers nearly the entire outer surface of the mid-tower case. The company's assembly process applies the artwork directly to the case and so is more scratch-resistant and permanent than a sticker or vinyl cover.
Proving not to be a former household name, Commodore has come back and introduced the UMMD 8010/F netbook at the IFA 2008 show in Berlin. The new Commodore netbook is built around a 10-inch screen, with processing power coming from a 1.6GHz VIA C7-M CPU. While full specs are not known, including the operating system, an 80GB hard drive is to be part of the picture, along with 1GB of RAM.
