Quote:

DiscreetFX wrote: @MEGA_RJ_MICAL Will you transverse to that long forgotten Galaxy on a Starlink Super Mega Starship SpaceBall?

Friend DiscreetFX,
right now I would be happy to just transverse the space that separates me from Kansas,

to have a chance to witness in person the mystery of Matthey's communication disorder,
how it plays out live, if his written diarrhea is mirrored by an equal stream of consciousness with the spoken word, and so forth!!!!!


/DR. MEGA

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@PhantomInterrogative

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PhantomInterrogative wrote: @thread I'm perplexed about the C= Callback. The Clicks Communicator, which was created according to the same "disconnect" philosophy, has a better keyboard and screen for only $199 USD. The Commodore branding does not give it an additional $300 of value, does it? A basic flip phone is a bargain at under $50 bucks. I'm perplexed? Perhaps the Callback has ZORRAM?

That $199 USD is only a reservation deposit for the Clicks Communicator. The full price for it is $499 + shipping/duties. Commodore has done it's homework, as can be witnessed under the title "Price Comparison: More is less" on this page.

Last edited by Magitius on 18-Jun-2026 at 09:44 AM.

@Magitius

Good investigation of the source. The Clicks still has a better keypad and screen for the price. I'm still not convinced that the price is justified when an IRIS quad core linux flip phone can be bought for $89. If Commodore's intent is to get people to stop doomscrolling their lives away, something comparable to the IRIS in specs and price should have sufficed. Heck, a basic cell phone meets the need of a phone that will keep you from being a slave to the social networks.

If Commodore did their homework, I think they gave the wrong answer to the question "What do the consumers actually want?" For Fractic's sake, I hope I am wrong. I don't want the new Commodore to fail. I just don't get this product strategy.

Last edited by PhantomInterrogative on 18-Jun-2026 at 10:17 AM.

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@PhantomInterrogative

Quote:

PhantomInterrogative wrote: @Magitius Good investigation of the source. The Clicks still has a better keypad and screen for the price. I'm still not convinced that the price is justified when an IRIS quad core linux flip phone can be bought for $89. If Commodore's intent is to get people to stop doomscrolling their lives away, something comparable to the IRIS in specs and price should have sufficed. Heck, a basic cell phone meets the need of a phone that will keep you from being a slave to the social networks. If Commodore did their homework, I think they gave the wrong answer to the question "What do the consumers actually want?" For Fractic's sake, I hope I am wrong. I don't want the new Commodore to fail. I just don't get this product strategy.

Well my thoughts on the matter are that they are trying to carve out some money from a greater (as in sales volume) niche than retro computers. Peri's strategy seems to be alternating with a future and a retro product, so if that phone succeeds enough it could enable them to produce a retro product that this community maybe would like. From what I've gathered around the internet it seems that some people could actually buy this phone, but will that be enough remains to be seen.

@Magitius

"some" collectors buy anything as long "commodore" label is on it. But such a product is only profitable if it also sells outside the classic niche. That will not happen.

Quote:

Magitius wrote: That $199 USD is only a reservation deposit for the Clicks Communicator. The full price for it is $499 + shipping/duties.

OK that explains the different prices that where mentioned on different sources.

@Thread

According to cgutjahr, Peri was always looking for a 'Detox Mobile' .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2ps-6PvT5Y

Many people are talking about Digital Detox, but in reality most of them have been locked into the mobile infrastructure, they are using them in public transport, they are paying with it or listen to them as replacement of a radio.

Last edited by OneTimer1 on 19-Jun-2026 at 09:16 PM.

@OneTimer1
Back to the 1980s with an 8 GiB flip phone that has 131,071 times the memory of the C64 64 kiB?

8 GiB * 1024 MiB/GiB * 1024 kiB/MiB = 8,388,608 kiB
8,388,608 kiB / 64 kiB = 131,071 times more memory than the C64

Are you keeping up with Commodore bloat? 'Cause the Commodore is keeping up for you!

It's not how much you pay – it's how much memory you get that you don't need.

Only Amiga makes it possible to use less memory again.

Last edited by matthey on 20-Jun-2026 at 01:41 AM.
Last edited by matthey on 20-Jun-2026 at 01:28 AM.
Last edited by matthey on 20-Jun-2026 at 01:27 AM.

@matthey

Quote:

matthey wrote: @simplex True. Italians have had many cultural and ethnic influences over a long history. There still are certain features that make people think someone may be Italian. Of the group, I would have guessed Alex Rozenblat as Italian first followed by Christian and Mike who also have German features. John Errico is difficult for me to place but the last name is maybe a hint. They did not dress too much like tourists but their clothing still likely stands out some. As you say, speaking is the sure give away though. The dark Italian I know is Sicilian showing that Italian diversity. Skin complexion can change in one generation but he has the complexion of his father and brother while his mother is moderately lighter. Oddly, some people mistook my mother as Italian even though she is mostly German while I look more German like my father who is also mostly German. My mom would sometimes prank people with her best Italian accent which was good enough to fool some people here.

@simplex

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simplex wrote: @matthey I've known lots of non-Sicilian southern Italians with dark skin. Northern Italians, not so much. Northern Italians are more likely to have light-colored hair, which is rare among southern Italians. (Not counting highlights: Giorgia Meloni is not a natural blonde, and it's a crying shame that she and so many Italian women dye their hair blonde.) I was once told that curly hair among southern Italians is typically a sign of Greek ancestry. 'Twas a Calabrian who told me that, Therefore It Must Be True (TM). Anyway, so many Italians (including southern Italians) now have office jobs that a lot of their darker skin color tends not to stand out as much as it ordinarily would. Exposure to the sun helps bring that out, at least in my experience.

That's mostly true. Sicily was the land of conquerors: we had plenty on them in our history, and each one brought new genes, so we have a mixed population.
That's why part of our population has a darker skin (we had 200 years of Arabs domination). But we're also very used to "color" taking the Sun during the spring/summer time.

Quote:

simplex wrote: @MEGA_RJ_MICAL Quote: WORRY NOT! I made sure to preserve it in a complete, well documented quote. That might be very helpful, actually. Once people see the sorts of things I say & withdraw lest someone be offended, I should be forever inoculated against accusations that I say something genuinely offensive. Then again, the world has gotten so much stupider over my lifetime, so maybe not. Quote: JOIN ME, AND TOGETHER WE WILL RULE THIS PARTICULAR, NICHE, MOSTLY FORGOTTEN GALAXY Would that I had the time & talent for humor. I mean, aside from the stepping-on-a-rake-that-smacks-you-in-the-face type of humor. All too good at that.

No problem. I don't find offences.

BTW, I'm a citizen (I was born in Connecticut), but I'm Sicilian. And my mother language is the mixed Sicilian-American that you can hear on movies like The God father (especially the second one).

@kolla

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kolla wrote: @matthey Quote: There still are certain features that make people think someone may be Italian. 🤌🤌🤌

Indeed. With also don't need to open the mouth for being recognized.

@matthey

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matthey wrote: DaveHaynie Quote: Already, Peri is doing something that Commodore didn't do in the 11+ years I worked there: planning products at the corporate level, with an overall strategy. Back in the day, it was Engineering pushing this or that and trying to confuse, coerce, cajole, or confound the management into letting us at least build a "trial balloon" prototype and get it front of marketing people at Commodore and buyers at CES, CeBit, etc. But I digress... Commodore: The Next Chapter Unfolds | Official Reveal Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixD_fqrnA_c

That's the most interesting part (which I've highlighted) of all stories about Commodore that I've read 'til now.

The days of ‘read my lips, no new chips’ are a distant memory...

@matthey

Quote:

matthey wrote: @OneTimer1 Back to the 1980s with an 8 GiB flip phone that has 131,071 times the memory of the C64 64 kiB? 8 GiB * 1024 MiB/GiB * 1024 kiB/MiB = 8,388,608 kiB 8,388,608 kiB / 64 kiB = 131,071 times more memory than the C64 Are you keeping up with Commodore bloat? 'Cause the Commodore is keeping up for you! It's not how much you pay – it's how much memory you get that you don't need. Only Amiga makes it possible to use less memory again.

In 1976 the KIM-1 had 1 kiB of RAM. In 1982 the C64 had 64 kiB. Extrapolating this exponential growth for another 44 years we get 17 TiB.

So Commodore is keeping the bloat down much more than they did in 1982.

@matthey
Quote:

matthey wrote: Only Amiga makes it possible to use less memory again.

It's not about Amiga
It's not about memory
It's not about code density.
It's not about CPU performance.

@matthey
Quote:

matthey wrote: It's not how much you pay ....

It is about paying more for getting less.

@cdimauro

Quote:

That's mostly true. Sicily was the land of conquerors: we had plenty on them in our history, and each one brought new genes, so we have a mixed population. That's why part of our population has a darker skin (we had 200 years of Arabs domination). But we're also very used to "color" taking the Sun during the spring/summer time.

Northern Italy had its fair share of conquerors, too. Lombardy, after all. But, fair enough, those conquerors were fair-skinned and blond.

My mother's paese has a lot of dark-skinned folk, too, though they're a bit north of Naples, and a lot of the darker-skinned folk are farmers. But I always had the impression that Italians in general, or at least those from around Tuscany on down, start with an olive-hued, "Mediterranean" skin (I call it) which is more likely to brown in the Italian sun, even without sunscreen, rather than the pale or pinkish skin further up north which is more likely to redden, even with sunscreen. (I had the opportunity to witness this on my last visit...)

Quote:

No problem. I don't find offences.

You, perhaps, but there are others, and I was trying to avoid derailing things even further.

Quote:

BTW, I'm a citizen (I was born in Connecticut), but I'm Sicilian. And my mother language is the mixed Sicilian-American that you can hear on movies like The God father (especially the second one).

Neapolitan sometimes makes sense to me, because my ancestors speak a variant of it, only not quite so heavy on the consonants. (Heard a Neapolitan pensioner on the train recently complaining about his pension, and the t's and c's were too much to take.)

I doubt I would understand Sicilian, but I thought I understood almost everything in the Godfather films just fine, so maybe it's not that different -- or maybe they cleaned it up a bit.

Nun sacce ch'altre aggia di', ne che puozze.

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cdimauro Quote:

That's the most interesting part (which I've highlighted) of all stories about Commodore that I've read 'til now. The days of ‘read my lips, no new chips’ are a distant memory...

Developers or at least consultants at the new Commodore like Dave want to give Commodore a 2nd chance doing it right this time. Unfortunately, they do not have much retro tech that can be modernized without the Amiga. They are stuck with rebranding non related to Commodore products and trying a retro angle to modern tech but this digital detox flip phone is more restricted modern bloat with a retro facade. I do not believe it will sell enough to the enthusiastic 8-bit retro crowd but maybe there are enough wealthy grandparents out there that still remember Commodore, want a simplified phone, like LEDs and still have good enough vision to see the small screen to make it a market success. Branding is cheap and it increases sales but bad products can tarnish the brand. Christian is not as hard headed as original Commodore leadership and has successfully pivoted once already so we will see what happens.

bhabbott Quote:

In 1976 the KIM-1 had 1 kiB of RAM. In 1982 the C64 had 64 kiB. Extrapolating this exponential growth for another 44 years we get 17 TiB. So Commodore is keeping the bloat down much more than they did in 1982.

Interesting perspective but with only 2 data points. No 256 kiB in 1985, 512 kiB in 1987, 1 MiB in 1991, 2 MiB in 1992 data points without Amiga?

Speaking of "MOS Technology" products which the new Commodore trademarked even though the old Commodore changed the name to CSG, some disappointed fans were asking for retro chips along with the Amiga instead of the flip phone. Registering the MOS trademark gave fans hope even though producing new replacement ASIC chips would be difficult. Maybe they could make a deal with Bill Mensch and WDC to produce a C64 SBC in the spirit of the KIM-1 SBC. Fabless semiconductor development like WDC is possible, but lots of tiny chip dies adds expense instead of combining them into one small die. This is why we have SoCs and MCUs today with the latter what WDC still produces with 6502 family cores. A 68k Amiga SoC ASIC still makes more sense to compete with RPi SBCs as it can provide more value and functionality. The market for small footprint standard hardware with existing software below where Linux can scale easily looks fertile. There would be significant startup costs to create a new fabless semi development business but the few I recall have become valuable quickly.

o P.A. Semi was founded in 2003 and acquired by Apple for $278 million in 2008.

o SiFive was valued at $3.65 billion in 2026 and Intel was rumored to offer $2 billion for them in 2021.

o RPI has a market cap of ~$2.27 billion USD and is relying on fabless semi development more and more. RPI semiconductor device volumes exceeded those of boards and modules, with 8.4 million semiconductor units sold for the first time in 2025. Also, ARM now holds a 13.08% ownership stake in RPI.

OneTimer1 Quote:

It is about paying more for getting less.

Value is the name of the game alright. One GiB of memory costs $7-$15 USD with the sale price of a product usually increased by around 3 times this. The price of an 8 GiB phone could be increased by $80 USD or more for the cost of memory. In a competitive market, locked in volume discount agreements, large inventories of memory and/or hedging of memory prices becomes more important for when events like AI sucking up all the memory occur. Using less memory is a cost advantage and is easier to manage, especially for the smaller newer market players with economies of scale for computers being so important. RPI CEO Eben Upton built an over $2 billion USD business with small memory footprint hardware using the cost advantage it provided and his 68k Amiga experience in how small of memory footprint is possible and still useful. Eben only planned to produce 1000 RPi SBCs for the first production run, which is a similar volume to AmigaNOne production runs, but value is important and a small memory footprint helps a lot.

Last edited by matthey on 21-Jun-2026 at 01:51 AM.

@matthey

Quote:

Unfortunately, they do not have much retro tech that can be modernized without the Amiga

Nothing modern about the Amiga either, really. The IMO biggest officially "untapped" market for both C64 and Amiga is that of music production, both professional and hobbyist markets. However, with the numerous third party SID based modules that exists, it could very well be too late.

_________________
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

Quote:

simplex wrote: Neapolitan sometimes makes sense to me, because my ancestors speak a variant of it, only not quite so heavy on the consonants. (Heard a Neapolitan pensioner on the train recently complaining about his pension, and the t's and c's were too much to take.) I doubt I would understand Sicilian, but I thought I understood almost everything in the Godfather films just fine, so maybe it's not that different -- or maybe they cleaned it up a bit. Nun sacce ch'altre aggia di', ne che puozze.

OH NO I had no idea I was facing yet another dweller of The Boot.
WILL THE PLOT TWISTS EVER END ON AMIGAWORLD????


Quote:

the hunchback of notredimauro wrote: BTW, I'm a citizen (I was born in Connecticut), but I'm Sicilian. And my mother language is the mixed Sicilian-American that you can hear on movies like The God father (especially the second one).

OH LORD,
so not only your English is broken, but your Italian too.
SUCCESS!!!!!!


/MEGA

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@MEGA_RJ_MICAL

Quote:

OH NO I had no idea I was facing yet another dweller of The Boot. WILL THE PLOT TWISTS EVER END ON AMIGAWORLD????

You can stop reaching for the meds: I'm a descendant, not a dweller. Occasionally I visit.

Quote:

so not only your English is broken, but your Italian too.

Despite what the Italian version of a Yankee might claim, neither Neapolitan nor Sicilian are Italian, itself is a language assembled from Florentine (Dante) and Lombard (Manzoni) that somehow, despite its freakishly Frankenstein origins, sounds quite beautiful when placed in the correct mouth.

That mouth would not be mine, as I'm a descendant, not a dweller. And so the circle is complete.

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@simplex

Quote:

Despite what the Italian version of a Yankee might claim, neither Neapolitan nor Sicilian are Italian, itself is a language assembled from Florentine (Dante) and Lombard (Manzoni) that somehow, despite its freakishly Frankenstein origins, sounds quite beautiful when placed in the correct mouth. That mouth would not be mine, as I'm a descendant, not a dweller. And so the circle is complete.

Friend Simplex you misunderstood me:
the second paragraph was aimed at that malformed goblin cdimauro.

BUT LET'S GO BACK TO DISCUSS THE LET'S BUY COMMODORE PROJECT
BACK ON TOPIC MY FRIENDS!!!! AHOY!!!!

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@MEGA_RJ_MICAL

Quote:

Friend Simplex you misunderstood me: the second paragraph was aimed at that malformed goblin cdimauro.

Friend Mega (if I may call you such) you misunderstand me:
I did not misunderstand you;
I was just clarifying that cdimauro's lingua siciliana is not broken.

Not as far as I know, anyway. I am not skilled in Sicilian, so maybe it is. My point was simply that lingua siciliana is not lingua italiana, let alone lingua franca, which is a broken language.

But you are correct, we digress.

Quote:

BUT LET'S GO BACK TO DISCUSS THE LET'S BUY COMMODORE PROJECT BACK ON TOPIC MY FRIENDS!!!! AHOY!!!!

A proposito di questo
Surely someone with your name recognition, especially after promotion from RJ Mical to Mega RJ Mical, a wholly deserved promotion might I add (judging at least from the biceps & triceps in your avatar), would have the command of the masses that would succeed at fundraising sufficient to buy the Commodore Project?

Surely you are negotiating with Trevor, Michele, and whoever has replaced Ben to for your NIL rights?

(If not, I am sure you will agree that this is a fine idea, and would request only a small proportion of the proceeds to cover the expenses of running this data center that substitutes for my former brain.)

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