Commodore, famous for revolutionizing the personal computer space, has had many ups and downs. But now the name is back, emblazoned on a handheld that does the lot – the Commodore Combo. The Combo is a portable NAV/MP3/MP4/CE device based on a Windows CE platform.
Commodore.. Microsoft.. Commodore.. Hmm. 🙂
Well, whatever. It’s just a few guys who got the name of well know, now dead, comapny. They can only hope that thier devices would hit computer market as C=64 or Amiga did. 😛
Sorry, but that is one ugly and pricey toy.
This is just some company who bought the Commodore name to make some money off geek nostalgia and brand recognition. Like when Infogrammes became Atari which also had the advantage of making the company sound less French.
Anyway, “Commodore” already had an HD mp3 player but I never actually saw one in the wild. Also the styling of these products isn’t that good but that may be in the commodore spirit, after all the original c64 was nicknamed (though affectionately) the “breadbox”.
At least the Vic products (mp3 players) were sort of cute and the C64 DTV rocked. This device is just horrid and the platform makes it wholly uninteresting. May it crash and burn.
At least it shows that little is learnt from history. People who release stuff, that is actually related to real C= items tend to make money. People who put a C= sticker on third grade uninteresting hardware tends to go broke. Just look at the previous owners of the name.
Edited 2006-01-05 19:45
nice device, a bit ugly, but nice.
The question is what are its competitors and what sets it appart, other than the commodore name? Quite honestly I find this device to look awful for playing games.
Take a PSP, throw in GPS, an HD and proper support for video/audio transfers and I will take that instead 🙂
How come they put Windows CE in to that… where’s the Comodoro in that!
They could have tried to come up with their own stuff… even if it were some derive system from anywhere etcept microsoft… thats sets it appart from the rest…
Even the GP2X looks better… and cheaper!
There’s nothing here that puts Commodore in a different (and interesting) position. Using WinCE puts it in the same catagory as a PDA. It would be cool if they used the Amiga OS though.
The C64 had it’s os made by Microsoft but back then Microsoft had less bugs with its os.
AmigaBASIC was written by Microsoft as well.
It is said that Commodore bought Microsoft Basic for a low figure and then used it in all the vic-20, cmd 64s, 128 etc all for the one off payment, Jack Trammel was the only person to get one over Bill Gates when it came to money!
Jack Trammel was the only person to get one over Bill Gates when it came to money!
Uh-huh. Where is Jack Tramiel now? and what became of the companies he led? Commodore drove him out; Atari collapsed under his rule.
Gates leveraged the ubiquity of Microsoft (their BASIC was also on the TRS-80 computers and a few others, and of course there was the fortuitous MS-DOS score) into what we see today. Maybe Gates understood better that having your name everywhere the big players were would, eventually, make you bigger.
Then again, maybe he was just young & lucky 🙂
Geeks know better that to get fooled by some company that purchases the right to the Commodore name.
The name doesn’t make the Commodore, the LOAD”$”,8,1 does!
What, NES games? While I love the NES, if something has the name Commodore, at least they would have bothered including games like Beachhead, Raid Over Moscow or Spy Vs. Spy.
No thanks, I pass.
… somebody hit that device with an ugly stick.
Blah. No thanks.
It’s really sad that people seem to try and capitalise on such a historically significant and culturally recognised brand.
All these companies that purchase well known names are really fake to me. The Commodore 64/128/Amiga/etc were known for their awesome capabilities, extendibility and library of (mostly) good games.
There’s a history there which unfortunately this device does not hit. When I saw this article title I thought.. wow a C64 in a handheld.. faster loads, etc. But now that I see it’s just a fancy PDA with the C64 sticker on it, I’ll definately pass.
And at $700.. pull the other one, seriously.
Looks like shit and are expensive. Doesn’t deserve to have the name althought the real Commodore sucked aswell.
Blaspheme! The Commodore 64 and Amiga 500 _rocked_!
I really wish they would build a small computer that ran emulators. C64, NES, SNES, GBA, etc.. Although getting the licensing rights to include such emulators would be hard I suppose (apart from the C64 one).
10 PRINT “HELLO, WORLD!”
20 POKE 53281,0
30 POKE 53280,0
40 PRINT “THIS IS LAME”
50 GOTO 40
Ahhh, memories.
Check out this site : http://www.64hdd.com/projects/hardware/c64-dtv64.html
They took a C64 direct-to-tv joystick which actually functions as a real c64 (it can load most c64 software) and modded it to include ps/2 and joystick ports. The result? A c64 “Micro Tower” measuring 180x100x55mm , how cool is that!
The Enquirer: proof-read by JeffK.
Dead I think.
I don’t think anyone knew at the time that MS were responsible for C64 Basic, which was very badly regarded back in the day compaired to the more user friendly Spectrum or classic BBC basics, I do remember a “good” point about it was that it help the ease into assembler, what with all the pokes and stuff.
Amiga Basic for the A500, yes. well….
Why not make a cheap pda based on licenced MorphOS or AmigaOS instead? That would be a lot more interresting, at least from my point of view.
*Because it wouldn’t be cheap?*