Commodore 64 ultimate

ForrestGrump

ForrestGrump

ForrestGrump

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Will anyone be getting one?

I myself never owned a commodore 64 back in the day. Having an Amstrad.

The device looks amazing. Ive seen videos where they swap out their original C64 with genuine peripherals and it just works.

I even saw someone take the top case and keyboard off a C64 and it lined up perfectly and just worked.

I love the modern amenities introduced into it. Such as wifi, hdmi, usb. And virtualised tale/disc drives.

im seriously considering getting one to experience what it would be like to own a C64.

im hoping because its the actual commodore commodore making this that they also do an amiga version.

That would be a day one purchase for me.

I used to love my amiga.

Having a legit 2026 amiga would be amazing
 
An 'official' Amiga is a way off purely down to the splitting of rights from back in the 90s/00s, so the Amiga as we understand it is completely divorced from Commodore. Unless there is a business licensing deal put in place with the new Commodore with the various stakeholders such as Cloanto and others - not to mention the existing Commodore brand shenanigan - there is zero chance of it happening. Plus the very nature of how the C64 Ultimate came together allowed for a shortened design and development - an Amiga would require a lot more work - though cases and keyboards are out there. There are obviously MiSTer project related efforts, some with limited IO functionality, but none really applicable to a final production design
TheA1200 from Retro Games due in the summer is the closest option as an all-in-one device. Not everyone's cup of tea, but will hit the spot of those just looking for hits of nostalgia and those unwilling to invest a bit more money in an actual A1200 that is properly serviced and maintained. Won't have the legacy compatibility factor of the C64 Ultimate all the same, more just akin to a mini console with a keyboard. .

FWIW, the C64 Ultimate is excellent and would highly recommend it to anyone looking to get back into the C64 or looking for a modern drop-in replacement. Received it before Xmas and have spent a good few hours with it and love what they've cobbled together from existing projects. Already had a build with an Ultimate 64 Elite for the last few years, so was pretty familiar with the guts of the new device, but it's a great effort to bring together it in one retail product at a decent price level - U64 Elite II, RetroFuzion case and new mechanical keyboard separately is not a cheap or immediately available option by comparison, plus it looks as though they may no longer be as Gideon has effectively discontinued U64 mainboard production and it is under Commodore's umbrella. Plus the actual Commodore branding and roms doesn't hurt.
 
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Yes. I ordered the beige on October 11 (yet to be shipped).

Like comments above. I could only dream of a C64 as a pauper and would often spend hours on end in Holborn Library (reference floor) where they had a selection of 8-bit systems to book. I eventually got an ex-display rubber-keyed Spectrum from WHSmith, High Holborn for a fiver (grandmother gave me the money). Good times, although father was initially disappointed as getting the speccy relegated the Acorn Electron to the cupboard!

I jumped on this as soon as it was announced. Like-wise I'd go for an Amiga too, as my 16-bit journey went via the ST. More good times and rivalries!

-
As a side-note, I'm gutted I missed out on the Spectrum Next Issue 3 kickstarter.
 
mcdermotx said:
An 'official' Amiga is a way off purely down to the splitting of rights from back in the 90s/00s, so the Amiga as we understand it is completely divorced from Commodore.
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Yeah, I had a suspicion that was going to be the case. Shame.
However, I’ve watched a few more videos of the C64 ultimate, and I reckon I will pick one up.

It will be a different kind of nostalgia. To see what it would have been like to own a C64. Having an Amiga would be fun and all, but I know everything about that, so Imagine the novelty will wear off quite quickly.

I used to do some crazy Basic programmes on the Amstrad. But it never had hardware sprites. It would be fun to code a few programs with that capability.

And the fact you can simply increase the speed of the machine, negates any issues with Basic being rather slow.

Also, it will be much more fun to play the C64 versions of all the games I used to play.

The more videos I watch, the more I want one. The BBS idea appeals to me as well.

The early internet was out of my reach at that time. And these days I’ve given up on social media, and much prefer forums like this over places like Reddit.

Pretty sure you could run CP/M on the C128. So might even give that a go.

Having written all this, in fact I think it would be better than an Amiga, because all of this is new, yet still nostalgic.
 
If someone was to tell me in 1984 that I would finally be getting a brand new Commodore 64, some 38 years later, I would have looked at you like you were crazy.

I’m quite looking forward actually.
 
Aye. Being a teenager in the 80's was rad!

The Acorn Electron - BBC Micro / ZX 80/81 - 48k Rubber Speccies / Commodore C16 / Vic-20 / C64 / Dragon 32/64 / Oric-1 (uncle had one of those) / Amstrad CPC464 and then it rolled in to the 16-bit era. Tinkering with my first IBM-PC Olivetti 386-16Mhz PC and hacking Dos 5 to eek out the base RAM and fuddle extended vs expanded memory allocations etc for college work. Then alongside all that, the video game consoles. What an absolute beast of a time to be alive to not only watch it but play it as all unfolded and evolved.

The nostalgia is real and shouldn’t be ignored; it’s worth revisiting those simpler, more discrete times
 
I got one delivered just before Christmas and it's ace! Basic Beige, so no keyboard flex. Running on my original C64 monitor, but my tape and disk drives don't load any more. Might be able to fix the tape drive with new drive belts. Original monitor, carts and joysticks all work fine.
I'll probably transplant the SID from my old, faulty C64 to get the best sound compatibility, as the built in UltiSID is pretty good (great for most uses), but not perfect.

Most noticeable is there's zero input lag, especially compared to TheC64 Mini/Maxi and Vice.

If you're a C64 fan then I'd say this is an essential purchase, especially if you don't have an original machine or have peripherals but no working C64 to connect them to.

It's recommended that you use JiffyDos (which is a paid purchase) or use a physical fast load cart or fast load cart ROM image, as it has the original slow floppy disk loading otherwise.
 
Ravenger said:
I got one delivered just before Christmas and it's ace! Basic Beige, so no keyboard flex. Running on my original C64 monitor, but my tape and disk drives don't load any more. Might be able to fix the tape drive with new drive belts. Original monitor, carts and joysticks all work fine.
I'll probably transplant the SID from my old, faulty C64 to get the best sound compatibility, as the built in UltiSID is pretty good (great for most uses), but not perfect.

Most noticeable is there's zero input lag, especially compared to TheC64 Mini/Maxi and Vice.

If you're a C64 fan then I'd say this is an essential purchase, especially if you don't have an original machine or have peripherals but no working C64 to connect them to.

It's recommended that you use JiffyDos (which is a paid purchase) or use a physical fast load cart or fast load cart ROM image, as it has the original slow floppy disk loading otherwise.
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What was your order date?

I'm reading up on this JiffyDos and the fastload stuff but isn't this all moot when using images? Or do they offer something extra?
 
Ordered middle of July last year. Arrived a week before Christmas.
D64 disk images load at exactly the same speed as original floppy drives did, i.e. slow. .tap files load the same as on a datasette, so the speed depends on the game and its turboloader.
.prg or .crt files can be DMA loaded and load instantly.

So it depends on what the majority of your C64 library is. I have a lot of D64 images, so having JiffyDos helps as it's about 5x faster than default.
 
I just clocked this video.
Looks like I'll need to buy the pack he suggested!
 
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Ravenger said:
With JiffyDos installed the tape drive is disabled but it's easy on the C64U to swap back to the standard kernel ROM to load tapes.
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Ahhh ok. Thank you. I never owned a C64, so these new intricacies are both bewildering and enticing!

I ordered on Oct 11; I expect it will be another few weeks yet before I get mine.
 
Wanted a C64 the paper round didn't pay that well so ended up with Spectrum till college when got the Acorn Electron.
 
nft_99 said:
Wanted a C64 the paper round didn't pay that well so ended up with Spectrum till college when got the Acorn Electron.
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I originally wanted a Spectrum but couldn't afford one, so had to get a ZX81. Then I wanted a BBC Micro, but was persuaded by a college friend to get a C64 instead. That purchase eventually led to a lifelong career, and my life would have been very different if I'd got the BBC or another computer instead. Amazing how these fairly innocuous choices of the time pan out.
 
darkgen said:
Ahhh ok. Thank you. I never owned a C64, so these new intricacies are both bewildering and enticing!
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Wen you get it I really recommend reading the superb included manual and going through the various BASIC examples to get a feel for what the machine can do. It's based on the original manual you got with the original, and is an excellent read.
 
Ravenger said:
Wen you get it I really recommend reading the superb included manual and going through the various BASIC examples to get a feel for what the machine can do. It's based on the original manual you got with the original, and is an excellent read.
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Aye. I was pretty au fait with basic, having learned on an Acorn electron in the early 80's (mostly forgotten).

Looking forward for the refresher! *rubs hands*
 
darkgen said:
Aye. I was pretty au fait with basic, having learned on an Acorn electron in the early 80's (mostly forgotten).

Looking forward for the refresher! *rubs hands*
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Be prepared for a shock. C64 basic is ummm... very basic compared to the excellent BBC BASIC of the electron, and quite slow.

Commodore managed to buy BASIC off Bill Gates for a knockdown price for the PET and never paid for it be be updated to properly use the C64s advanced capabilities.

You have to use the POKE command to set the memory registers directly to do anything advanced.

The advantage is this way you learn the hardware properly which massively helps with learning to code in Assembly.
 
Aye. I was only ever introduced to "POKE" when I got my Spectrum. Assembly I never touched till the ST and through Devpac 2 on the Motorola 68000. That blew my head off; understanding, or not, low-level v high-level coding / compiling. So many decades ago, mostly fog now.
 
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