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posted by chromas on Wednesday July 25 2018, @10:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the POKE⠀53271,0⠀:⠀POKE⠀53277,0 dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

In case you missed it, last September Retro Games announced it was going to put out a mini version of 1982's Commodore 64 called the THEC64 Mini. The system actually shipped in Europe earlier this year, and is finally coming to North America on October 9, just in time for the holiday season. It's available for preorder now for $70.

Half the size of the original version, it comes with 64 preinstalled licensed games including Impossible Mission II, Boulder Dash, Jumpman, Pitstop II and Speedball II: Brutal Deluxe that may bring back some fond memories if you were born in the '60s or early '70s. Perhaps because it's too retro, it doesn't have quite the same kind of appeal as Nintendo's NES Classic or SNES Classic mini consoles, which sold out quickly at launch.

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @03:38AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @03:38AM (#712900)

    ...or make it a lot smaller.

    Sign me up for the thin and light one with the i9 processor.

  • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday July 26 2018, @04:44AM

    by jmorris (4844) on Thursday July 26 2018, @04:44AM (#712925)

    Uh, it is a little low spec Arm based SoC, it could be a "stick" form factor almost as easy as the big case it is in other than the USB ports would need a breakout or adapters from MicroUSB. That is why it is so annoying to see it in such a large box with a fake keyboard stuck on it. Either make the keyboard work or forget it.

    In fact forget it. Somebody should just make retro keyboards and if they are feeling really adventurous add some ports on the back of them to connect original peripherals. In this case a pair of original 9pin joysticks / paddles? (Did the C64 have the A/D conversion like the Atari had? Can't remember anymore.) and a port for a 1541 and maybe the other port on em. Going all out they could have the edge card so you could plug in a cartridge. It wouldn't run it from there of course, just suck it out into a file. On the other hand even "Full Speed" USB is fast enough they could allow any device to run plugged into it. Getting driver support would be as easy as downloading several of the popular emulators, looking at the credits and emailing the lead author(s) asking where to ship their sample unit to. By definition anyone maintaining an emulator is almost certainly hard core enough to jump at the opportunity.

    If ya really wanna get nuts, add USB storage, preload a live distro that could just boot directly into an emulator. Plug this in, reboot and RETRO TIME. Don't think you can easily make one image that would boot on an x86 or a Pi but one switch could solve that problem and really make the buzzword bingo go off.