@persia

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How long before you guys have your own products?

The goal is to release both the PC64 and C500 models this year. We're gonna be busy.
Otherwise, the Phoenix is already out of course and the Invictus quite soon.

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What would be a great use of the Commodore name is to put it on some of the tablets that are coming out of China and being sold like hotcakes on Ebay.

I agree....We thought long and hard about that. However this whole tablet market is a bit crazy at the moment. Not ruling it out, but it isn't our top priority right now. We want to establish ourselves in the keyboard niche at the moment. Play to the brand's strengths.

There will be other exciting mobile products we hope to bring to market soon, but we're not ready to make those announcements yet or to even show pictures. There's one in particular I'm quite excited about above all others. I really think everyone will like it. It's a must have. Sorry for the tease.

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Leo Nigro, CTO Commodore USA, LLC
Opinions expressed are my own and not those of C= USA.
Commodore/AMIGA "Beautiful, High-Performance, Home Computers for Creativity and Entertainment."

@BigBentheAussie

Just to be clear, at some points you make reference to 'me' while at others you refer to 'Commodore.'

How exactly are you involved in this venture?

@ne_one


read his signature. :P

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Support AROS sponsor a developer.

"AROS is prolly illegal ~ Evert Carton" intentionally quoted out of context for dramatic effect

@terminills

Yep - I did catch that.

More to the point, I meant is this more of a holding company that is commissioning the products from a third party or is the hardware being designed and manufactured internally?

@ne_one

Quote:

More to the point, I meant is this more of a holding company that is commissioning the products from a third party or is the hardware being designed and manufactured internally?

The PC64 and C500 are being developed from scratch by Commodore.

_________________
Leo Nigro, CTO Commodore USA, LLC
Opinions expressed are my own and not those of C= USA.
Commodore/AMIGA "Beautiful, High-Performance, Home Computers for Creativity and Entertainment."

@BigBentheAussie

Ok man, you surely got my attention! You are in the path of making some of my dreams come true.. so I take the time to express some of my opinions.

First of all I don't like touch pads or any other "unnecessary" display add-on to the keyboard/computer design. That's why, I won't be buying none of the products so far since I believe the design is ruined.

However, the "Amigo" System (btw is this the C500 you are referring to?), catches my eye! Elegant, small, unique. That's the proper way of doing it! So, this is my dream list;

OS side
- Make iMica version of AROS and/or Broadway to fully support this machine (send the to developers machines!).

Hw side
- Put at list 256 MBs of ram to the on-board gfx (imo, best option would be 512MB 9600GT M).
- Put any CPU you believe that could beat a maxed out G4 Apple Mac-Mini.
- Double the Amount of Ram with a speed of at least 1033Mhz
- Implement a slim sata DVD-RW!

Manufacturing
- Use the shine material on the surface of the keyboard
- I like the fact that in the Amigo page, the Windows key is missing, I believe that you should customize it with a C= letter/logo
- Make two version, white / vanilla and black

Question: What is the purpose of having 2 internal USB ports without being able to install anything on it? I mean, say I would would to connect a usb mouse, keyboard and a joypad, how will the cable reach the internal? Also what is the port on the last picture of the Amigo to the right?

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@Cool_amigaN

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However, the "Amigo" System (btw is this the C500 you are referring to?), catches my eye! Elegant, small, unique. That's the proper way of doing it! So, this is my dream list;

Ummm... No the Amigo is not the C500. See the current first picture on www.commodoreusa.net

Quote:

I like the fact that in the Amigo page, the Windows key is missing, I believe that you should customize it with a C= letter/logo

The intention is that there will be no Windows keys on any of these machines ever.
They will feature Commodore logo keys instead.

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What is the purpose of having 2 internal USB ports without being able to install anything on it?

The Amigo(as it is currently called) could use the internal USB ports to either boot off USB or have a wireless USB dongle. In fact the Amigo can even boot off an internal SD Card.

Colours are a thing we're looking into.
The Phoenix currently comes in Silver and Black. I want it in white too.
The Invictus will come in silver and black.
The PC64 initial run will be in beige.....maybe totally in black later.
The C500....well I think it ought to stay black....not two tone like the image.
The Amigo.....Well I know it comes in black but I'm also pushing for white.

The Amigo will take a HD, but it isn't meant to be expandable. It is a light web browsing machine really. I'm sure it could run a good C64 game though. I haven't touched one yet.

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say I would would to connect a usb mouse, keyboard and a joypad,

There are USB extenders generally available that will give you more USB ports.

Last edited by BigBentheAussie on 11-Aug-2010 at 04:59 PM.
Last edited by BigBentheAussie on 11-Aug-2010 at 04:59 PM.

_________________
Leo Nigro, CTO Commodore USA, LLC
Opinions expressed are my own and not those of C= USA.
Commodore/AMIGA "Beautiful, High-Performance, Home Computers for Creativity and Entertainment."

@BigBentheAussie

Do cream color instead of white (if you can)... that would be more "Commodore" IMO.

Like the others said, the web page NEEDS an update. Put an "about us" on there because it's kinda scary at the moment. I found the page a while back and thought they might be fake, so re-assure people that you ARE Commodore.

Send me the geometry file (lwo or obj) of that C64bit computer and I'll render you a photo-real image. The image there looks... not real.

Very cool stuff Mr. BigBen. I think you guys will do well... mainly because you seem to understand the fun, retro side of these computers. That's what will sell them.

@tommywright

Quote:

Do cream color instead of white (if you can)... that would be more "Commodore" IMO.

Most consumer electronics is either white, black or silver.
Unfortunately beige or cream are rather rare colours and therefore cost significantly more to produce.
We believe it most appropriate to do beige for the PC64, which is really a special edition of sorts to the line-up.
Thanks for the offer for the rendering but we hope to take care of that some time soon.

The site revamp will feature an updated About page and a standard News page.
There may even be an open letter from Barry, introducing himself and presenting his vision, when he has the time. There's a lot going on this week.

_________________
Leo Nigro, CTO Commodore USA, LLC
Opinions expressed are my own and not those of C= USA.
Commodore/AMIGA "Beautiful, High-Performance, Home Computers for Creativity and Entertainment."

@BigBentheAussie

I am soooo happy that I logged in today. This news is easily the best news I've seen in years, and I'm very much looking forward to learning more as things progress.

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@BigBentheAussie

Hmm, so the C500 will actually look like the famous Amiga fantasy case, correct?

If yes, from the specs I see that you are aiming high enough but you will be suffering the bottleneck of the on-board GFX because, other than that, it looks like an (almost) gaming machine. It could be a very good upgrade to people with 4 years old machines or so. However, I believe that you should focus more on the middle range rather than the upper/power user.

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It's odd that I posted a link about these guys a few years ago;

http://www.cybernetman.com/

And now someone else is re-branding and selling them.

Where's my finders fee?

Wizz.

Last edited by Wizzard_o on 11-Aug-2010 at 06:44 PM.

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Rev 1D3 Amiga 1200, Apollo 1240 (40Mhz '040, 64MB RAM), Indivision MKII, Fast ATA MK V, Rapid Road USB, PCMCIA WIFI & OS 3.14

@Cool_amigaN

We are fairly confident the PC64 will end up with the specs we put up.

To be honest, the specs for the C500 are a bit up in the air at the moment. It's what we're aiming for. If we can't achieve it with the C500, we'll achieve it with another design we are considering for high-end stuff. The C500 specs will ultimately be dictated by the constraints our design team may encounter as they get closer to completion. Obviously ventilation is of vital importance not just component fit.

It's still early days. When we have something close to an availability date there will be a news item. We were pretty excited that it's finally happening, as we've been talking about it for quite a while, and were eager to share.

Last edited by BigBentheAussie on 11-Aug-2010 at 07:09 PM.

_________________
Leo Nigro, CTO Commodore USA, LLC
Opinions expressed are my own and not those of C= USA.
Commodore/AMIGA "Beautiful, High-Performance, Home Computers for Creativity and Entertainment."

@BigBentheAussie

Whatever you build should be fast enough that it can playback 1080p video smoothly. Both the C64 and Amiga were the leading graphics computers for their time and any new generation of Commodore machines should continue that tradition.

While I like the proposed C500 form factor for a traditional bedroom or office environment, I'd also like to see a CDTV-like design that works better in the living room, with output meant for a big screen tv.

And pricing is of course a consideration, as such a box would be competing with devices like the Roku at $79 all the way to the Playstation 3 at about $399.

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C64 / A1000 x 2 / A4000 / A4000T / iMica

@Wizzard_o

Yeah, all their current offerings are rebranded, but computer firms nowadays are more about marketing than building anyway. The PC in a keyboard design has largely been a failure, these guys think that marketing them as "retro" they may get a share of the market, look at the numbers, sales of PCs should be around 336 million units. Half those units are desktops so a 0.5% share of desktops is still 840 thousand units. You don't have to sell everyone, just a small fraction of people. It doesn't matter if 99.5% of people think it's a stupid design, that 0.5% will keep you in beer and skittles for a long time.

A lot of parents had C64s when they were growing up, they might just get one for their kids or one for home out of nostalgia. People buy things for all sorts of silly reasons. Never over estimate the intelligence of consumers....

You've got a small front office, an outsourced distribution service and you are on your way. This is actually doable. If you asked me to bet who'd be around in 2020 A-Eon or this new Commodore, I'd have to bet on the new Commodore....

@IslandDreamer

Comparing prices to a PS3 or XBox is unrealistic.
This is not a games console, it's a PC, with all the bells and whistles and everything that entails. We don't have the same economies of scale nor are we subsidised by games purchases. The Bill of Materials alone will quickly show you it is unlikely you can even get the parts at console price point let alone manufacture and assemble them. Comparison to PCs of the same spec and form factor would be fairer, but being a specialty computer it definitely won't be cheaper than them. It's just a fact of life. Sorry. We have to be realistic here. Console prices are impossible. Yeah, I know... I wanted it cheaper too but there is only so much you can do.

Last edited by BigBentheAussie on 11-Aug-2010 at 08:32 PM.

_________________
Leo Nigro, CTO Commodore USA, LLC
Opinions expressed are my own and not those of C= USA.
Commodore/AMIGA "Beautiful, High-Performance, Home Computers for Creativity and Entertainment."

@BigBentheAussie

I hear you and I sympathize with the challenge of trying to bring a low volume unit to a market that has become highly commoditized.

Nevertheless, you're going to need to keep your margins razor thin to gain any traction. No matter how much we want to support any positive development in the Amiga space, it's very difficult to justify paying much of a mark up for technology that is several years old before it hits the market.

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C64 / A1000 x 2 / A4000 / A4000T / iMica

@BigBentheAussie

Is this a joke...?

@IslandDreamer

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it's very difficult to justify paying much of a mark up for technology that is several years old before it hits the market.

We'll be using the very latest components and technology on the market. In fact the innards we'll be using are only starting to trickle out now. Availability is a concern.

_________________
Leo Nigro, CTO Commodore USA, LLC
Opinions expressed are my own and not those of C= USA.
Commodore/AMIGA "Beautiful, High-Performance, Home Computers for Creativity and Entertainment."

@BigBentheAussie

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There's a mini mini mig? edit: oh wait... smaller than a mini-mig. Wow!!

Mini Minimig is designed as hand held console. I wonder if anyone will build one out of it.