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Classic Games (Games) Emulation (Games) Entertainment Games

Commodore Follows Up TV Game With ROM Selling 64

Posted by CowboyNeal from the pets-and-vic-20s dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Since Commodore recently re-appeared selling a Commodore 64 joystick 'TV game', as previously mentioned on Slashdot Games (the company is now owned by Dutch computer builder Tulip), they're now expanding their efforts, and have set up a legal emulation site where you can buy classic Commodore 64 titles, initially including Epyx and Hewson titles. Apparently, in a later stage, Commodore will release a Gentoo Linux based set top box which plays MP3s and runs Commodore 64 games."
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Commodore Follows Up TV Game With ROM Selling More

Commodore Follows Up TV Game With ROM Selling

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  • I wonder (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MemoryDragon ( 544441 ) on Friday June 18, 2004 @04:42AM (#9461223)
    Since Epyx went belly up with their handheld console, they produced for Atari. Who is getting the royalties for those Epyx games sold over the net. I have sever doubts the developers of those games will see a single cent....

  • How much? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Tune ( 17738 ) on Friday June 18, 2004 @04:46AM (#9461236)
    I was unable to find descent pricing information. There's talk of a monthly subscription fee (5 euro's for 7 titles), but does that mean I'm only allowed to (legally) use the game for one month?

    How much do I have to pay to download just one game?

    • Re:How much? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Sancho ( 17056 )
      Here [amazon.com] and here [amazon.com], but I don't recall this game being on the Commodore 64.
    • The site lists all games as being '100 credits'. If one credit is one US quarter, that is $25 for a single game that is about 20 years old. Waaaaay to much, IMHO. Even if a credit is one thin dime, that is still $10 per title. Still not low enough to make me bite.

      But I did see a couple of good titles. Impossible Mission, Paradroid, and Uridium are all keepers. Brings back memories.

  • Commodore MP3 player (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hool5400 ( 257022 ) on Friday June 18, 2004 @05:20AM (#9461342)
    The Commodore brand also popped up on a cheap-and-nasty MP3 player a little while back, as shown on Dan's Data [dansdata.com].

    Apparently it's unlicenced, but certainlty a shock to the brain to see that logo on a recent product.

  • I wonder how long before (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FunkyRat ( 36011 ) * <funkyrat AT gmail DOT com> on Friday June 18, 2004 @06:51AM (#9461592) Journal
    some company just brings about an updated Commodore 64. With modern day integration it seems to me you could easily get a 2.5" harddrive in the old C64 case, modem, ethernet port and even video and TV out ports. Make it dual boot Contiki OS and old school C64 OS and I'd buy it.

    No real point to this post, just basking in the glow of potential off-the-shelf nostalgia.
  • Isn't this and the musicstore part of the site supposed to go along with their portable devices? To me that seems like the general idea.

    So you can buy an eVic-20GB and download some old classics like Uridium and game away while listening to the newest crap dance hit or whatever.
  • when do we get those?

    VICE on Debian still doesn't ship with them. are they really sooper sekrit? c'mon. "anatomy of the C64" by abacus had the WHOLE FRICKEN ASM dump.

    and why was THAT legal?

    and, on another note - has anyone seen a project to do SMP between the C64 6502 and the 1541 (the 5" drives) 6502?

    • when do we get those?

      Yeah, I think someone should track down who really has the copyrights to those these days and beg until they let folks distribute the ROMs freely. It's not like they're really valuable these days or anything...

      ...and right now I'd need a really cool lo-rez pixel font too, and C64's is my favorite =)

      Another cool project would involve complete rewrite of the firmware. A further optimized OS and a new BASIC interpreter that doesn't suck would rule... =)

      has anyone seen a project

      • ...and right now I'd need a really cool lo-rez pixel font too

        If you're willing to settle for "really cute", grab the source code for this [pineight.com].

    • and, on another note - has anyone seen a project to do SMP between the C64 6502 and the 1541 (the 5" drives) 6502?

      The problem with doing SMP is that, IIRC, the cable between the C64 and the 1541 had a data rate of 300bps -- even for a pair of 1MHz processors, you need a faster connection than that. A Beowulf cluster, now, that's a different matter -- if you can find something where you can fit program+data into 2kb of RAM, plus however much virtual memory you want to pull off a floppy disk.

  • "Credits system" (Score:5, Informative)

    by GoRK ( 10018 ) on Friday June 18, 2004 @08:43AM (#9462330) Homepage Journal
    Dear StarRoms and Commodoreworld,

    In case anyone who is responsible for business decisions in one of these companies is reading this...

    The "Credits" system you folks have devised and deployed for purchaing ROMs is completely bogus unless you also have some way of earning credits other than spending money. If credits are equivalent to money, then please publish a price. You have to dig pretty deep and pull out a calculator to find out that a game will (for instance) cost you $7.00 up front or $3.25 if you purchase a monthly subscription instead.

    I understand the reasoning behind the credits system, but if it is not easy for someone to equate it to a dollar value, then you are driving away customers. It is not very hard to calculate price tables in this manner. You might consider using wording to this effect:

    "100 credits (as low as $1.00)"

    In this example, clicking on the "as low as" should bring up a pricing table explaining that it's $5.00 if you buy it outright and can be as low as $1.00 if you buy a package of 2000 credits)

    ~GoRK
    • I have to agree, the credits system always makes me think like its an attempt to rip me off. even after you have the calculation done you still have to think about it in the back of your mind with every purchase. Of course at least it makes some sense with starroms as they were arcade games that used "credits"
    • If credits are equivalent to money, then please publish a price.

      Simple: one credit = one Club Z point. 800,000,000 Club Z points = one man made leather wallet.
      See also this conversion table:

      1 credit = 1 Club Z point
      1 credit = 50 Esso gas points
      1 credit = 0.005 "The Bay" points
      1 credit = 0.0001 Air Miles points
      1 credit = 0.00000000001 blow jobs for a typical Slashdot reader
  • That game alone would make the thing worth buying.

    • Jumpman's status.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by JMZero ( 449047 ) on Friday June 18, 2004 @09:31AM (#9462806) Homepage
      The legal status of Jumpman is somewhat different than the other Epyx titles. The rights to the game are now in the hands of its creator, Randy Glover. I'm guessing he'd make a deal with these people if one was offered.

      If you'd like to play Jumpman again, check out the Jumpman Lounge [classicgaming.com] at ClassicGaming. You can play faithful remakes, expanded games with editors (like Jumpman: Under Construction), or you can get my own game "Jumpman Zero" (a prequel available for Windows or Palm).

      Jumpman is just as fun as you remember it...
      • I have been playing your game for some time. If you remember, I sent you a 3d prototype of my own game, though it had a rocket-boy model in it. :)

        I don't think you can beat the C=64 version on a TV with an old-skool joystick though.

        Tell Randy to talk to them. I am sure that it would be mutually benefical.

        • I'm not so good with names.

          I don't think you can beat the C=64 version on a TV with an old-skool joystick though

          True, in two ways: You can't do better than that, and I can't beat the original game (on a TV, an emulator, or any other way).

  • The real question (Score:4, Funny)

    by Captain Rotundo ( 165816 ) on Friday June 18, 2004 @09:27AM (#9462758) Homepage
    Are these good original disk images, or are they all crack liked the ones floating around already ? :)

    Of course I don't remember playing many Commodore games that didn't have a 'cracked by' intro
  • Commodore's back. Apple's back. Amiga's next.

    Microsoft will probably eat them all up again by 2010 just cause they want to. History repeats itself.

  • Gentoo? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ameoba ( 173803 )
    What kind of crackhead decided that Gentoo for an embedded device was a good idea?

    I mean, for a static box that does one job & doesn't need any user configuration, what does Gentoo give you? Most of the functionality of Gentoo classifies as 'bloat' on this kind of device.

    The same could be said for any real distro, of course.
  • I have a sudden desire to play Burger Time again. I wish I still had my C64. It was loaned to some extended family members long ago and I think they sold it or tossed it or something. Very sad. :-(

  • Bad Economic Model (Score:2, Insightful)

    by blacklily8 ( 780659 )
    I don't understand companies like Tulip or Cloanto (who's been trying to do the same thing with Amiga). I see them more as rom squatters than people who are serious about supporting the existing retro-computer community. It's all about how they can squeeze a few dollars from some fossils, and, Oh! if someone tries to get around paying the toll, how they bite the hands that feed them! What I don't understand is why these people don't try to add some value to these products. They need to provide another ans

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