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After 30 Years, You Can Buy a New 'Commodore 64 Ultimate' for $299 (fastcompany.com) 85

Posted by EditorDavid from the classic-computing dept.
"Commodore has returned from a parallel timeline where tech stayed optimistic, inviting, and human," explains the official web site for "the first real Commodore computer in over 30 years..." You can check out an ad for it here. "Not an emulator. Not a PC... Powered by a FPGA recreation of the original motherboard, wrapped in glowing game-reactive LEDs (or classic beige of course)."

Fast Company calls it "a $299 device that its makers claim is compatible with over 10,000 retro games, cartridges, and peripherals." In a YouTube video posted last month, "Peri Fractic" said he'd purchased the company for "a low seven-figure sum," and said he'd recruited several former Commodore employees to help relaunch the brand. The new C64s are expected to begin shipping as early as October, though that date could slip... There are three models to choose from, all with the same internal components. If you were expecting a vastly outdated machine, however, you're in for a surprise. The Commodore 64 Ultimate will include 128 megabytes of RAM and 16 megabytes of flash memory. It connects to modern monitors via HDMI in high-definition 1080p resolution and features three USB-A ports and one USB-C port. Beyond the computer itself, the power source, and HDMI cable, your $299 also gets you a spiral-bound user guide, a 64-gigabyte USB drive featuring over 50 licensed games, a quick-start guide, and stickers.

Aesthetically, the Commodore 64 Ultimate is available in the original beige or in premium variants: the Starlight Edition, with a clear case and LED lights ($249), or the Founder's Edition, which includes 24-karat gold-plated badges, satin gold keys, and a translucent amber case ($499). Just 6,400 units of the Founder's Edition will be produced, according to the company. The preorder setup resembles a Kickstarter campaign, though it doesn't use that platform. Commodore says all preorders come with a money-back guarantee, but it chose to skip the service's fees. Buyers should be aware that accounts are charged at the time of preorder...

The product will come with a one-year limited warranty, and Commodore says most parts are already in production, including the updated motherboard, the case, and the keycaps that recreate the blocky keys that early users remember.

After 30 Years, You Can Buy a New 'Commodore 64 Ultimate' for $299 More | Reply

After 30 Years, You Can Buy a New 'Commodore 64 Ultimate' for $299

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  • I recall my VIC-20 case being light beige and my C-64 having a gray colored chassis.

  • Commodore 64 Ultimate will include 128 megabytes of RAM and 16 megabytes of flash memory. It connects to modern monitors via HDMI in high-definition 1080p resolution and features three USB-A ports and one USB-C port.

    Why would you need any of that for a commodore 64? It was released in 1982. The original had 64kb of ram.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mysidia ( 191772 )

      Even in the 1980s there was a lot of talk about RAM expansions for the C64, And of course some of the C64 software may require RAM expansions. Or it's just much more convenient to have 100 meg than to have 64K; that's for sure.

      • I put a couple of jet engines on my toyota tercel. It is more convenient for me to get to the corner store in 2.2 seconds.

        • I put a couple of jet engines on my toyota tercel. It is more convenient for me to get to the corner store in 2.2 seconds.

          Jet engines will be finicky as a daily driver. A small block V8 is probably a much more practical project.

          • You do not get to tell me what to do. Youre just like the gubermint. If i want to potentially kill or maim a bunch of people just to save a few minutes, this is amurica! Freedom! U-S-A!U-S-A!U-S-A! Now will you excuse me, Im going to go kiss my poster of Hulk Hogan.
            • It's true government is the enemy of freedom, I have no use for them either. That said, it was just a friendly suggestion that the small block will be less maintenance but if you are dead set on the jet engines by all means you do you. There have been a handful of turbine powered cars in the past you can take inspiration from.
      • My favorite C64 cartridge was definitely the RAM expander, though I think it may have added some other capabilities that I never used. Jumpman was a close second.
      • not really when they made the c128 most people still only wrote for the c64 because well more people had them.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mysidia ( 191772 )

          Perhaps most people only wrote for the c64, But I would suggest that C64 enthusiasts of today would most likely be pleased not to be restricted to the base 64 and potentially have other capabilities from that FPGA, such as potentially? having all the memory expansions available that were possible under the original hardware including the 256kb REU expansion and the geoRam the expansions that had been made for use with the GEOS 8bit Operating System, Etc.

      • Or more likely, trying to source smaller memory chips would cost more. And as C64 already uses bank switching, there's no reason to not allow switching to more banks. Like, C128 shipped with 128KB, could be easily extended to 256KB, and its CPU could handle up to 640KB.

        As 128MB = 32768 4KB pages or 65536 2KB pages (I don't know the granularity of the I/O port used for bank switching), I suspect this limit is due to bank numbers not the memory chips' size.

        And the fun thing being, original software that was

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mysidia ( 191772 )

          Or more likely, trying to source smaller memory chips would cost more

          I'm rather thinking they would have more then C64 functionality in mind for the board, otherwise they could have just implemented an ASIC. Also; the original Commodore 64 did not have WiFi, or a LAN port, or USB ports, but this board has all those things.

          The whole point of a FPGA chip is that it is programmable. And presumably hackers will want to do cool things with it if possible. Also there should be some memory overhead for lo

    • Commodore 64 Ultimate will include 128 megabytes of RAM and 16 megabytes of flash memory. It connects to modern monitors via HDMI in high-definition 1080p resolution and features three USB-A ports and one USB-C port.

      Why would you need any of that for a commodore 64? It was released in 1982. The original had 64kb of ram.

      To store the diskette images

    • Back in the day some software, probably GeOS being one of them, could use ram expansion. Some games, like the port of Sonic requires expanded RAM.

  • Cost basis (Score:5, Informative)

    by NadNad ( 550015 ) on Saturday July 19, 2025 @12:47PM (#65531378)

    For comparison, C64 was released at $595 in 1982 and later came down to $250 the next year https://americanhistory.si.edu... [si.edu] which are $1,988.85 and $809.64 in today's dollars.

    • You're not counting the cost of the television used as a monitor. My brothers and I had to replace used black and white televisions occasionally until my dad finally let us have his old Trinitron, which was another amazing piece of hardware for its time.

  • The Commodore 64 was ahead of its time in having capabilities in the 1980s like the SID chip for complex sound than other home computers.

    Many coders/software engineers/programmers cut their teeth on the Commodore64. When I bought an external mechanical keyboard, it reminded me of the Commodore 64.

    For nostalgia value this new one at $299.00 is interesting, although better late than never. :) I'm waiting for a retro TRS-80 or Coleco Adam myself.

    JoshK.

    • For some reason there were very few Commodore 64s in my area when I was a kid. Most of us had TRS-80 CoCos with a few TI994/As added in for good measure. In 1984 my high school introduced their first computer class and it was filled with 20 Commodore 64s, ugh. They were clunky beasts and the damn diskette drives were slower than my CoCo's tape drive. Now, if someone were to offer a Tandy CoCo3 today with modern amenities (yes, I realize the CoCo SDC exists among other modern add-ons) I would be interested.

      • The Commodore64 was awesome yet, when it failed, it failed big time. I remember playing video games on a friend's TI/94a. In high school we got some donation, I think was ex-Army stuff, and it was T/94a. I spent more time coding than doing the electronics stuff. I remember a friend and I tried to get a disk drive working.

        Once a friend got "Flight Simulator" for the Commodore64, and it never loaded. We got a new copy, and still wouldn't load. Then I was reading something and the command was like LOAD "file",

        • Of all the computers from that era I would have to say the TI994/A was the best. First, it was really a 16bit computer and supported true sprites. A friend and I spent a weekend programming our custom BattleZone on his TI994/A and it came out amazing (in our eyes at least). We did it in TI Basic! On my CoCo I would have had to dust off EDTASM to get similar results. Yeah, the was you had to load disks on the Commodore was fantastically horrible. As far as universal BASIC goes; most of the 8 bit computers fr

          • I liked the TI-99/4a, I remember some of the cartridges, and the games. I remember doing "pair programming" as my friend would enter the code, and the Compute! magazine checksum would match. I loathed DATA statements all the numbers that did not make sense. :)

            Oh yes QB64. I recently did some rewrites of some QBASIC for a colleague, his son is interested in programming, but I suggested going "retro" and play some of the QB64 games like Gorillas, and Sort Demo. I found some old IBM BASICA games, and one that

            • While QB64 is 99.9% compatible with old GWBASIC and QuickBASIC code, it's real power lies in the slew of new commands added to take advantage of today's modern processors. A good tutorial highlighting the new commands can be found here: https://www.qb64tutorial.com/ [qb64tutorial.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by wwphx ( 225607 )
      I still have my TRS-80 Model 100, works just fine but has a bit of battery leak corrosion.

      I was at an electronics scrap shop in Las Cruces, NM a couple of months ago, and among the many amazing things I saw were some TRS-80s, including some Model 3s. I would imagine that they would need some capacitor replacements on the motherboards, considering their age, but that's a guess.

      • I had a friend in high school who had a TRS-80, and he was alot better coder. We'd often figure out how to rewrite the BASIC programs from Compute! magazine to work on his computer. Another awesome computer, that had a notorious nickname, the "Trash-80" but yet, Tandy put out alot of BASIC programs, and other stuff. I remember doing an text adventure, it was easier to write in BASIC on the TRS-80 than at the time, my VIC-20. :) Also my friend had a Compuserve account in the 80's that was a close to Interne

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by wwphx ( 225607 )
          I got my first computer job because of my Model 100! We had a game company in town - not a store, a company that made games - Flying Buffalo. They also ran computer-moderated, play-by-mail games. The owner saw me doing my homework and things on my M100 and needed someone to do a bunch of data entry to get a commercial mailing list going that he was going to sell labels from it to other game companies as another revenue stream, and he hired me for it as he saw I had good typing skills. He collected addre

    • My mind was blown when I got the HESMON assembly coding cartridge. You could actually scroll up and down through the code, without commands like "LIST 10-1000"!

      It wasn't easy learning how everything worked, but it gave me a foundation on which I built my entire career.

      • Indeed, I learned assembly for the 6502, but at first in college my direction was hardware, but half-way through my EE curriculum I realized I liked software... :) I remember doing some assembly using POKE and PEEK, like to turn on the datasette (remember those, the data tape cassettes? :-)) to load, and play an AC/DC song for a computer game I did. Yes Commodore 64 was ahead of its time in many features, and how many software developers got into coding. :)

        JoshK.

        • Yes, I remember the data tape cassettes, that is *not* one of my fond memories. I had to save the same thing on multiple cassettes, hoping that the result would be readable on at least one of them. The unreliable cassette interface was the reason I bought the $300 floppy drive.

          Unfortunately, my machine went up in smoke, literally. I came to my desk one day to find smoke rising from the keyboard. It never worked again.

          • Complete nightmare!! A cassette interface was a disaster on *every* platform I used it with. Had a neighbor growing up who ran a fitness business, and he a Coleco Adam for his business ( or to play Buck Rogers... ). I helped them set it up, seemed cool enough at first but that damned Coleco tape drive was finicky. But then after a couple weeks, wow - it started eating tapes all the time. My own Atari 800 would regularly error out loading tapes. I got the disk drive eventually too because the computer was al

          • The originally floppy drive was notorious for breaking down, in between trips to the repair show I backed up things to tape. I did have a tape drive with signal meter and tuning knob, though.

            • I spent the $300 or $400 to buy a disk drive, and it was twitchy at best. I remember some computer games that required you to "swap" the 5.25" floppy disks, if you didn't get it just right, you'd get a read error. But the datasette on the Commodore 64 was well it worked or it didn't. :)

              JoshK.

          • I had the same problem, I switched on my Commodore 64 and the screen was...well I could tell something had happened but not what. I read later that Commodore 64's had a high failure rate. I sent it to a computer store, a high school friend handled it...but when I fell out with this friend, well the computer was gone. :( Then I moved up to Atari 800 XL :)

            JoshK.

  • "...with a clear case and LED lights ($349)..."

  • And my friends laughed ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by drnb ( 2434720 ) on Saturday July 19, 2025 @01:27PM (#65531434)
    And my friends laughed when I didn't throw out the Commodore 64 Programmers Reference Manual in the 1990s, 00s, 10s, or 20s. :-)
  • I'd dispute their claims it's not using an emulator - an FPGA is still an emulator of sorts, not of software but of hardware. But it demonstrates more effort than just slapping a cheap Arm board into a case and calling it a day. An FPGA should be capable of running C64/C128 software almost perfectly, aside from any weird video PAL/NTSC blanking tricks that might not work when output on HDMI.

    Since there are already FPGA based C64/C128 boards including one already called Ultimate 64, I wonder if this is jus

    • fpga isn't emulation its hardware programmed to act just like the original hardware.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by DrXym ( 126579 )
        Yes, programmed to act like the original hardware. It's not software emulation but it's still imitating the original hardware, i.e. emulating it.

  • 128MB of RAM?? (Score:3)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Saturday July 19, 2025 @02:23PM (#65531528) Homepage

    The CPU in the original Commodore 64 was a MOS Technologies 6510 which could address at most 64K of RAM. So how do you use all this extra RAM? Bank-switching tricks? Or a new mode that's not completely faithful to the old CPU?

  • What ports does this new model have compared to the original? Joystick, serial, cartridge port, cassette, user port etc?

    • All of them! except the user port is just a header on the board, commodore sells an adapter if you want to converter the header into an authentic user port.

  • I never had a C64 but I still have my original Atari 1200XL, the cassette drive, an external 5.25â floppy drive, and a 32â CRT to plug it into. I even have my original BASIC cartridge and a copy of âoeMapping the Atariâ that Iâ(TM)ve been meaning to show off to my kids (now adults) for 30-ish years. I need to see if I can find original cartridges for JumpMan Jr and other games and original (still readable) diskettes of old Infocom games & one chess derivative game I used to play

  • That commercial made me cry like a baby.

  • The C64 had a very limited version. Lots of PEEKS and POKES to get it to do anything fancy.

  • Serious question.
    Why?

    Every time this happens, the people doing it pretend it's the first time this has happened in the last x number of years since the c64's release.
    Although, this is the first time a project doing it has filled their entire site with unedited slop. Doesn't make me feel great about the process here.

    Things I want from a project like this:
    - Technical specifications and circuit board porn.
    - Operating system details
    - Wifi available, you say? Tell me more about the networking stack!

    What exactly

    • Serious question. Why?

      Every time this happens, the people doing it pretend it's the first time this has happened in the last x number of years since the c64's release.

      Why? They are fans of the 64. They and other fans want something that IS a C64 (to varying degrees of "is" of course)

      Has it been done before? More or less but not by FANS as it is this time (to my knowledge anyhow)

      Myself I skipped these and other early machines and went straight to a PC so I am not a fan and have limited knowledge of the machines.

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