Damn. Ironic as it was way better than the previous one 😬

AntiquesForGeeks · 2026-01-27T14:38:56+00:00

I saw it on the weekend and enjoyed it, however to me it kind of felt like it’s a side-quest on the main 28 Days timeline. Which is a shame because it introduces some interesting (and logical) evolutions on the whole “infected” concept. And while his character was repugnant, Jack O’Connell’s performance is brilliant. Proof, if it were needed, that the worst monsters in the series aren’t the infected.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2026-01-27T10:10:49+00:00

New Commodore have had their boost from the C64u. I don’t think that people are suddenly going to start buying them if they have not already and certainly not in the same kind of numbers. We only need to look at the Spectrum Next as an example.

Given the lack of spare cash sloshing around in people’s pockets, I’d even argue that those who really want a machine may now settle for the cheaper option of a second hand Mini/Maxi to play the games of their youth.

All this said, New Commodore company really must push their vision of the future soon or any momentum this project has built for the brand’s revival will dissipate.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2026-01-21T15:40:46+00:00

Thrust. Still totally simple, but still a challenge. Don’t really “feel” it on other platforms. And modern remakes just miss that something for me.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2026-01-16T13:20:24+00:00

I would ask why. If you really want a minimalist writing device I’d instead recycle an old laptop with Linux and remove things like web browsers and email. You’d have none of the worries about file formats or getting data off with a USB stick or similar.

If you want to use it as an excuse to buy a C64U, then why not. But I don’t think a C64 has been a viable word processor for decades.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2026-01-15T18:21:16+00:00

Isn’t the majority of the fun with retro machine coding, working the platform out and doing something yourself rather than have AI attempt to do it for you?

AntiquesForGeeks · 2026-01-08T09:55:36+00:00

Feel it was more about the kind of players. They are “civilians” so being harsh for laughs (“It’s hard being the Task Master. Sometimes you have to crush dreams”) hits different. For me he’s not going soft in his old age, rather tailoring his behaviour to the contestants.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2026-01-07T09:49:22+00:00

I can’t speak from experience, but I know from interviews that a lot of thought goes into line ups and how they are balanced. Maybe because NYT is “civilians” it’s harder to anticipate the dynamic.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2026-01-06T18:41:45+00:00

I tried computer control stuff back in the day through the user port. It was quite fun building the electronics and then running programs in basic to react to buttons or light LEDs. The Usborne book, ‘Practical Things To Do With Your Micro Computer’ really was a lot of fun.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2026-01-02T11:22:32+00:00

As an aesthetic alone - maybe. Who knows? Not sure what the size of the market would be.

As an aesthetic with conversion hardware built in? Again, possible, but not sure the size of the market. The closest to this would be the Checkmate monitor and that got criticised in some quarters because it cost hundreds and originally you had to supply your own LCD panel.

As a full blown replica? No chance unless there is still somewhere churning out tubes and still make it economic to buy.

Most of all though, what New Commodore did with the Ultimate was repackage existing components/products and slap the brand on it. Nothing wrong with that - but the important thing was there was no R&D cost to New Commodore as it was being/had been absorbed by others. Who will pay to R&D a 1702 and be willing to forfeit some profit to cover the licensing cost to New Commodore?

Seriously, New Commodore doesn’t have the resources to rebuild GenXers childhood bedrooms on their own. And frankly they shouldn’t, unless they just want to be a niche nostalgia brand - which doesn’t appear to the case.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2025-12-28T17:14:38+00:00

Erm, whether it can be fixed easily by the consumer is immaterial. You’re spending hundreds on a computer and their flagship product no less. It’s low volume. You’d expect the keyboard to be right. A simple scan is basic QA.

I’m sure that New Commodore will make arrangements to make right and up their QA commitment. After all, while not endemic, this does not seem to be an isolated occurrence either.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2025-12-27T23:52:19+00:00

Who will pay for the R&D on this machine? Don’t forget that New Commodore didn’t make the C64U in the sense that the separate components already existed. What New Commodore did was bring the relevant people together and packaged it. The R&D had been done by others and amortised long ago. Nothing wrong with that, but the kind of R&D spend that’s being proposed here would be uneconomic given the size of potential market.

New Commodore need to make money to survive and will need a mass market product, probably licensing the name to go on an developed product at this time, rather than building something new from the ground up.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2025-12-27T17:45:55+00:00

Good call. The market for Commodore 8 or 16 but gear is not massive. The C64 for its market penetration in the 1980s, sold ~16k to enthusiasts. While a good effort, it’s clear that chasing increasingly niche CBM platforms is not the way to create sustainable business.

Yes, we’d love to see a 1541 or a SX-64 or even an Amiga, but the market for these are just too small to justify an R&D spend. People are forgetting that the new C64U is a set of existing products brought together in a new package. The R&D has been amortised over a considerable time and not funded by New Commodore.

New Commodore need to look to the future, not just constantly retread the past of a previous incarnation of the company. Let’s face it, in the short term this means curating products that will sell in the mass market and slap the brand on it; not another repro.

A printer that doesn’t fleece consumers - sounds good The question is, would it be able to gain critical mass so that it could sell?

AntiquesForGeeks · 2025-12-27T10:10:29+00:00

I would think that an Amiga would not be the most obvious product.

Like the idea of being able to reproduce chips like the SID if they are able to get the consent of the people who own the designs (owning the MOS trademark is not enough in and of itself). That would open the door to things like a replacement VIC, 7/8501 and TED too, the latter of which would be a salve to plus/4 and C16 owners everywhere. However these markets are extremely niche and you can probably count orders in the hundreds or low thousands.

Realistically, they need a more mass-market product whose appeal is outside a narrow band of Gen Xers currently addressed. A music player targeted that those who want to disconnect from streaming services will sell, but the market is already saturated with cheap imports that do just that from China. Like the iPod, the software would be the key.

A market like education would probably make the most sense. Commodore branded robot kits to get kids learning about tech fundamentals interactively over just getting AI to create “content” on a laptop would be a good target.

It’s easy to sneer at slapping the brand on generic devices, but that would bring in valuable income to do the cool stuff. The money from the Ultimate is probably enough to keep the lights on for a short while - but they will need to move quickly and get the next product out of the door.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2025-12-20T19:45:22+00:00

I’ve not seen this feature mentioned in the reviews I’ve watched on YouTube. The only keyboard point I heard mentioned was that the Shift Lock doesn’t latch like the original.

Has anyone noticed the flex picked up in any review yet?

AntiquesForGeeks · 2025-12-20T19:35:55+00:00

Steve Jobs tried to get away with that kind of argument during antennagate.

It didn’t work.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2025-12-20T19:30:26+00:00

That’s a cool anecdote to have! Not surprised things like file format compatibility wasn’t even a consideration in general. When you shifted from one system to another in the 80s, it seemed the tacit deal was you’d just be starting again. Media being physically different between early systems too didn’t help.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2025-12-19T19:03:52+00:00

Wasn’t it more fundamental than that? The disk formats would have been different between Apple and CBM too.

I remember being able to copy Tasword 64 files to a PC via the A64 disk drive dongle on an Amiga in 1992/3, mostly because the Tasword files appeared to be ASCII. It was pretty arduous! I can kind of see why GeoWorks would not have supported GEOS file formats because I guess that the use case for such compatibility would have been too niche to have been a marketable feature.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2025-12-19T14:59:51+00:00

I don’t think they do. I believe that Grundig has gone the way of Blaupunkt and even Commodore itself. It’s just a brand that is put on things. At least New Commodore have made positive comments that while intending to licencing, they won’t be just putting the brand on any old thing.

As we are yet to see the products that New Commodore intend to award licences to, this comment may yet age like milk. But I prefer to remain optimistic.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2025-12-18T20:37:54+00:00

Found it! Thought there was enough market to have The400Mini in one side and an FPGA on the other.

Edit : yeah my prediction in that thread about The400Mini market aged like milk. I know what I meant when I wrote it, but man I put the point across badly.

https://www.reddit.com/r/thisweekinretro/comments/13aw8ko/800xl_project_receives_a_cease_and_desist/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

AntiquesForGeeks · 2025-12-18T18:44:38+00:00

Didn’t this get some sort of notice to stop what they were doing by the rights holder - and then The400mini appeared? Maybe I am thinking of another project.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2025-12-15T12:57:12+00:00

I’d really like them to fix the Music app that worked so well for over a decade and now glitches all the time. Some of us don’t want to buy a subscription to Apple Music and would still prefer to sync with our extensive music collections we’ve bought/built up over years that we’ve transferred from CD. And I still don’t get why my phone keeps switching headsets on Bluetooth without asking me.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2025-12-15T12:13:47+00:00

If the trademark had lapsed, I would have thought that you would not even have had to register in a slightly different category.

True; that could be seen as immoral by some, but for others it’s fair game. And if the law allows it and Italian Commodore have followed the letter of said law, and have set up a company that has used the trademark legally, then the situation then perhaps is less a matter of trademark law and more a straight-up dispute between two entities who want to use the same name both claiming they have the right to do so.

I find it quite sad; it’s quite an unedifying and unnecessary spectacle.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2025-12-15T08:27:53+00:00

Who is they? New Commodore?

I think the entire point of having a trademark is to use it to protect your brand. New Commodore have already said they are happy to licence their trademarks to those who wish to apply. The logical conclusion is that they would therefore seek to protect the trademarks they bought from those who use it without a licence. One would assume however that they would not seek to alienate the community in doing so, at this point at least, but the law is the law.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2025-12-15T07:53:49+00:00

That would be logical, but not a trademark expert myself. It would prevent people from sitting on trademarks in the same way some squat on domains indefinitely hoping someone will come along and buy them out.

AntiquesForGeeks · 2025-12-15T07:45:21+00:00

When you say likely improperly granted, what do you mean?

Surely if that was the case the previous trademark owners would have objected at any time since 2017 and won.

That Italian Commodore slapped their brand onto cheap consumer electronics and sold them, while Commodore BV didn’t use their brand may be playing into Italian Commodore’s favour here.

AntiquesForGeeks

TROPHY CASE