Commodore 64 Ultimate

Commodore 64 Ultimate Back in June of 2025, a retrocomputing-enthusiast YouTuber I hadn't heard of started a series of videos talking about a new project he had embarked on to save the classic computer brand, Commodore . It was a pretty audacious (and expensive) idea, but his plan wasn't just to resurrect the trademarks and whatnot, but to also bring together a variety of hobbyist and small-scale projects into a large-scale re-release of the iconic Commodore 64 personal computer itself. While I'm not very familiar with what has sprung up over the years, I know there have been many enthusiasts and companies periodically releasing hardware to fill this particular nostalgic niche - often in the form of a mini (or even full-sized) box that looked more or less like a C64, but functioned largely as an emulator-in-a-box bundled with a variety of games in a menu and maybe some USB ports with a nonfunctional decorative keyboard. So while these products scratched some itches, they weren't "real" in the sense that you could have an experience the way you would with genuine hardware. Unfortunately real hardware has been getting more and more difficult (and expensive) to obtain, and it seemed likely that these emulator products might be the best "new" option more casual enthusiasts were ever likely to get. The game-console-like products weren't the only Commodore 64 projects out there, though. There were (and are) dedicated fans working on designing and building replacement parts for folks restoring the actual aging hardware from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. There were projects to recreate the keyboard keycaps, the cases, the main boards, and even the microchips inside among other things. What the YouTuber Christian Simpson (aka Peri Fractic ) managed to do was to get the band back together. He raised a bunch of capital, bought the rights to the Commodore name and iconic logo, and even managed to convince some of the original folks who worked at and ran Commodore back in the day to get on board. He also convinced a lot of folks running hobbyist projects designing and building Commodore 64 replacement parts and upgrades to join, too, and together they combined forces into a brand new reincarnation of Commodore International with the intention of building a new authentic Commodore 64 machine. This machine would be a faithful hardware-level reproduction - not just an emulator running on a modern processor, but a recreation of the underlying chips and circuitry using an FPGA . By July they were taking pre-orders for a product that promised to be as true to the original as makes sense in 2025. Right about the same time in July I was feeling especially nostalgic for hardware from the magical 8-bit era and this project seemed almost too good to be true. I wasn't sure if I wanted to throw money at what seemed like a vaporware product, but dang it, something about it somehow felt right. I figured if they took 2 years to ship it'd...

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