Commodore 64 mini game console to be launched

Tulip Computers launches Commodore 64 mini game console



Amersfoort, April 27, 2004

Tulip Computers N.V. (Tulip Computers) today announced that the company, together with Ironstone Partners Ltd (Ironstone), has developed a Commodore 64 (C64) mini game console with the powerful name C64 Direct-to-TV. This entertainment system for videogames is based upon the world famous Commodore 64 home PC, the most famous and well known home computer for videogames and will be brought to the market by Tulip Computers. With a simple and straightfoward to use connection to the TV, users of the C64 Direct-to-TV can play 30 popular C64 games. This will be the first of a whole series of entertainment products of which Tulip Computers will launch on the market using the Commodore name and label.

The expected retail price will be approximately € 30,-. The product will be available in shops in Europe and the United States in the second half of 2004.]

Ain't that cool?

kinda funny looking. maybe they should have included support for CF or SD cards and used a keyboard instead. honestly i think that would be better.

30 games? Pfft.

I have yet to find a C64 user whose game collection exceeded 100.

EDIT: Meant to say "did not exceed" for christ's sake-- see later post.

If they include: Hero, Pitfall, 1942, Ghost & Goblins and Galaxy I will buy one. Does anybody know any good c64 emulators for the PC?

Memories

Have you ever visited the "Links" page of that site? Guess not.

But... if you're asking what the "best" emulator is, CCS64 is the popular opinion. Not too user-friendly, but you realize it's capable of a lot when you read through the FAQ's a few times.

Numbermind said:

30 games? Pfft.

I have yet to find a C64 user whose game collection exceeded 100.

My collection stands at 230.

o_O

That's a little odd.

Numbermind said:

30 games? Pfft.

I have yet to find a C64 user whose game collection exceeded 100.

My dad had around 50. Of course, they were all copied from friends, but still. Mmm...Choplifter.

Heh, meant to say "did not exceed".

My moth-infested C64 game collection probably stands at around 500.

Numbermind said:

I have yet to find a C64 user whose game collection exceeded 100.

I have yet to find a C64 user whose game collection was legally purchased :P

i use to have a c64, some where. i do however have a apple macintosh, IBM ps/2, and a tandy 286 system.

why not make a simple computer with a similar property, maybe a box about the size of a dual CD case.

sample specs
486DX4 100
8MB system ram
2MB VESA video ability
PS/2, serial, parelle ports, video (s-vidoe)/audio out
CF II slot, with built in 32MB flash memmory

a toy like that would be kinda neat. basicly a small old school computer. i could see a price of about $50-$65, minus keyboard and CF cards

hey, maybe i will build a device. i know device kits can be purchased for cheap. the only problem i might have is with the video out and such

GooberMan said:

I have yet to find a C64 user whose game collection was legally purchased :P

Cracking was incredibly popular then (not shunned like it is now). My father belonged to a cracking team of about 20 people. Authors of games wanted people to try and crack the protection - it was the best way to get your game distributed and well known.

Yeah, you're not kidding. Back then you had to fight for international distribution-- seeing as how there just weren't enough customers in any single country to make a living. So the cracks went around instead... thus increasing chances of people hearing about the game, then buying the sequel when it came out. That's why games used to concentrate on short episodes or sequels with minor upgrades. Plus the fact that people actually used to send the authors money for their creations(something that kids today wouldn't understand).

Also, is it just me or were C64 games virtually bug-free?

Zoost said:
Does anybody know any good c64 emulators for the PC?

http://www.computerbrains.com

CCS64 is the one.. the only C64 emulator. It's perfect in all aspects.

There's also a site with thousands of games for download. I don't know if C64 tape files are still technically warez though (Nobody's been trying to make money off of selling these games for more than 15 years.. Some publishers allow and even encourage publicity of long-forgotten titles... It's a kind of grey-area), so I'm not going to link to that site. :-/

Kristian Ronge said:

There's also a site with thousands of games for download.

That would be the C64 homepage.

Numbermind said:

30 games? Pfft.

I have yet to find a C64 user whose game collection exceeded 100.

I know for a fact that I have/had (I doubt the disks still work) at least 300 games. My dad was a huge C64 person, and even made a couple games back in the day.

On topic: That certainly is an interesting little thing.. I'm sure it might be interesting to see.

My C64 and all of its stuff still works. One of my floppy drives is sketchy, but I have hundreds of disks/games. Many in their original packaging. I made a handful of my own games with a various construction kits that came out. In the commodore 64 magazine they had pre-written games that you entered by hand with a hex editor. It took a long time but the games were pretty sweet.

Heh. Debugging those games were a bitch, even more so if they got it wrong in the magazine...

Numbermind said:

Also, is it just me or were C64 games virtually bug-free?

The simpler the software, the more likely it is to be correct. A game then probably had what would now be a couple hundred lines of code. Eternity has over 120,000 lines by contrast, and more modern game engines are certain to exceed that by far, even though they use languages like C++ with a lower average LOC/FP metric. Imagine how many LOC the entirety of a recent Final Fantasy game must have.

Also, when the amount of code needed increases, the number of people you need to get the job done increases. Back in the day most game dev companies had one programmer working alone like a haggled old wizard conjuring up tricks from his pot of goodies. Nowadays the programming credits stretch as far as those for any other aspect of the game. The problem? The Nth person added to a project can add at most N-1 new channels of communication (heirarchies and narrow assignments are employed to lessen this, but the problems are still real). The more communication you have to do, the more chance there is for an error to occur.

So that is why games are more buggy these days. Most game companies don't employ proper software engineering techniques for the size of their teams and their programs, either, which makes it far worse than it should be.

C64?!??!?! I used to have one of those suckers. I miss some of the old games it had.......

That thing has been out for ages...or at least something very much like it, remember seeing it the argos catalouge ages ago, theres also something theyre always pedalling in the Grafton centre (main shopping centre in Cambridge) that looks a bit like a miss-shapen N64 controller that contains 100-odd old-style games

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LOAD "IK+" ,8,1

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