@OneTimer1

Quote:

The pattern in gold and brown would make a nice overpriced bag for the wife of a C= fan.

Yep, all these avenues need exploring once the limited market for new FPGA C64s dries up (surely already tapped with the C64 Mini/Maxi)?

Last edited by BigD on 15-Jul-2025 at 01:09 PM.

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"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

An important factor for many is that the Ultimate 64 has sockets for two real SID chips, and audio can be modified like on real C64 for those who wish to use it more as a synth than a gaming system. However, the ultimate 64 has existed for years already… but this time, it comes with case and keyboard.

Last edited by kolla on 15-Jul-2025 at 02:14 PM.

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OneTimer1 Quote:

Ack! It's a retro product, bringing back Commodore would mean something completely different. Commodore was selling up to date Personal Computers and Home Computers when they where active. If they would exist like they where back than, they would sell x86-64 or maybe ARM hardware, cheap hardware including Laptops, Tablets and Mobile Phones without or without own OS based on Linux, maybe they would only exist as rebadging and marketing company.

Yes, Commodore sold x86 PCs back then. In fact, it looks like they tried to pivot away from the Amiga and back to commodity PCs when Mehdi Ali put Bill Sydnes in charge of engineering. He brought in more PC engineers which easily outnumbered the number of Amiga engineers according to Dave Haynie. Commodore was likely going to let the Amiga wind down and die. Then the C64 market died and the PC market crashed leaving the Amiga market as the most profitable market for Commodore but they had stopped investing in an Amiga product pipeline. The commodity PC market was easier than developing the Amiga but management should have known that commodity hardware producers have no pricing power. Dave Haynie said Commodore payed more to produce their PCs at one point in the 1990s than they could sell them for which is entirely possible. I have also witnessed negative profit margins on some commodity PCs which are sold at a loss with the hope of high margin accessories making up the difference. For the desktop, it was usually the low end models sold at a loss. Oddly, this is flipped for the RPi where the RPi's margins for the high end RPi 5 are lower while accessory profits have increased (heat sinks, fans, ventilated cases, high rated power cables, etc.). There is not much competition for standard small footprint hardware at the low end of the market where RPi started but the competition heats up as SBCs approach $100 USD, including from x86-64 SBCs which are more standardized with more software than most ARM embedded hardware.

The new Commodore really does not want to continue like the Jack Tramiel or the Irving Gould Commodore. Simply rebadging and recasing PC or ARM commodity hardware results in higher priced hardware for nostalgic 50+ year olds. This market will disappear with the C64 fans and then the Amiga fans. Competitive hardware is needed to attract new and younger users and the best place is very cheap small footprint hobby/retro/toy hardware competing with RPi offerings. Current Commodore and Amiga fans want more faithful hardware anyway as the majority of the community rejected the Commodore 64x but accepted the more faithful Commodore 64u. The majority of the Amiga market rejected the non-faithful PPC AmigaNOne commodity embedded hardware. The Commodore 64u likely outsold the Commodore 64x in 2-3 days and will likely outsell over a decade of AmigaNOne hardware in about 5 days. The faithful and competitive C64DTV hardware with 70,000 units sold on the first day, likely outsold the Commodore 64x in 30 minutes on the first day and the AmigaNOne over a decade of sales in less than 2 hours on the first day. The C64 is past its window of opportunity but the 68k Amiga is not. It needs faithful and competitive hardware like the C64DTV but much better because the technology can be brought forward much further while retaining compatibility. It would be more expensive to develop but production costs should not be much more than a C64 SoC ASIC. It may require joining forces financially to develop it. I have known a 68k Amiga ASIC SoC is needed for a long time and I sound like a broken record. It should have been started years ago which I attempted as part the Apollo team but Gunnar was not investment worthy. One of the most desirable case form factors is pretty clear which is the A1200. Amiga Corporation, RGL, AmigaKit and possibly the new Commodore, as the Commodore A1200, are wanting to use the "A1200". There is already the FPGA based A1200 MiSTer+MiSTress that could receive similar treatment as the Commodore C64u to reduce the price of a package deal. There was a rumor that the RGL A1200 Maxi is also FPGA based. The problem is that the Amiga market is divided and resources are wasted instead of investing in more competitive hardware and improving economies of scale together. How many FPGA based A1200s do we need in the $200-400 USD price range? Would they sell that well with other options like original 68060 Amigas, WinUAE/Amiga Forever, AROS x86-64 hardware, MorphOS Macs, AC/Vamp hardware (closed IP FPGA based), etc.? Maybe FPGA Amigas would attract some returning Amiga users and replace dying ancient 68k Amigas but how many new and younger generation users would it attract compared to the RPi 400/500 that is less than half the price and has much more performance and value?

OneTimer1 Quote:

You can specialize on keyboard computers like the C64 (with all it technological downs) but the breadbox design is mainly retro and to bulky for actual users.

The wedge or breadbox design can be slimmed down to keyboard size with modern "integration" technology if the power is not too high.



Integration of the Amiga chipset is what made the Amiga possible. The Amiga was sometimes criticized for using a SoC like chipset instead of discreet parts like PCs but the integrated Amiga way is becoming more popular, cheaper and offers higher performance. Commodore stopped integrating the Amiga and Commodore and the Amiga died. The 68k Amiga SoC they planned was expected to reduce the price of an AGA Amiga by $100 USD, according to internal Commodore documentation, which likely would have saved Commodore. It also would have reduced the size of a SBC and the CMOS design would have reduced the power. The logic of even the most modern 68060 Amiga is tiny by today's standards and could be mass produced very cheap, less than $1 USD for a 68060&AA+ ASIC SoC without modern enhancements. With fabless semiconductor development, it should be possible to produce competitive 68k Amigas hardware again that can proliferate like RPi hardware instead of EOL retro emulation and FPGA hardware.

Last edited by matthey on 15-Jul-2025 at 08:31 PM.