Commodore Gaming disavows Commodore USA (and its decals)
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted April 12th 2010 6:18PM
posted April 12th 2010 6:18PM
Remember back in March, when Commodore USA CEO and longtime Commodore user Barry Altman excitedly told us about how he'd spent "the better part of a year" untangling the red tape, finally getting the rights to the Commodore name? As far as we are able to tell, Yeahronimo Media Ventures acquired the rights to the Commodore brand back in 2004, when it changed its name to Commodore International Corporation. Among its many projects are a joint venture with Amsterdam's Content Factory called -- you guessed it! -- Commodore Gaming. Today we received an email from Commodore Gaming's Global Product Manager Taco van Sambeek, informing us that Commodore USA has not been granted a license to use the Commodore name, and that "Commodore USA Ltd. has no legal rights to be using the Commodore trademark." When we went back to the old Commodore USA site, we found a few updates, including this line in the fine print:
- Commodore trademark logo used pending licensing rights, used above for illustrative purposes only.
In case you're curious, the company has also started shipping its "barebones and configured systems" (also known as the Cybernet all-in-one PC). But there's a catch! Your purchase, according to the site, "will not be branded with the Commodore logo or markings. These self-adhesive logo label plates will be shipped to you at no charge when they are available." Thanks for clearing that up. Now, if you'll excuse us, we have to go order some Silicon Graphics decals to put on our Toshiba Satellite laptop.
That is the ugliest looking computer I have ever seen. And, uh, no Commodore branding to negate the ugliness?
@brian515 I think it looks great! Building keyboards into consoles always improves everything. The xbox and PS3 would look much better with a keyboard built into them. I think that should be a modding project for someone, +1 if the keyboard actually works.
it would be very nice if "COMMODORE"would come back to the market....some brands just never die..!!
i think they nust go to the telecom market..!!
Nothing beats the original Commodore 64. Remember the advert guys? "Can you keep up with the commodore because the commodore is keeping up with you!"
...good old memories with that computer.... :) It's nice to see the company trying to revive the oldtimer :)
ah,the good old days :)
Great stuff and they had to cram complete programs into that tiny amount of memory ( and succeeded as well) .And in the early days you had to use that tape-recorder to load games which took forever .That Dutch company simply bought the name Commodore ,they have nothing to do with the old company.
I sure would like to see someone buying the Amiga brand and subsequently release state of the art PC's under that name .
I remember typing line after line of Basic just to hear my Commodore beep out "Hang down your head, Tom Dooley".
I was never intending on buying one anyway since they didn't even bother to have it in the classic beige color.
I still have my VIC-20 up in the attic, good times.....
@Firesuite
I still have my Vic-20 as well. I have fond memories of using the cassette tape recorder to store my programs. :-P
@HaoleM
Good guy :) Do you?
I started programming with Vic20 with its 2k RAM. The first program was a number guessing game :)
It belonged to my friend and he did not use it until I saw it.
Aaaaaaa! I was a young boy at that time. I am a no more young computer scientist now.
Does your Vic20 work yet?
@wmac
Yes, it still works. I just wish I had kept the box it sat in. :-P A few years ago I went back through my cassettes of programs and found that most of them had deteriorated beyond usage, but I did find a simple screensaver program that I used as a school project- The rotating colored bars were timed to rotate to the beat of Journey's "Open Arms". :-P
AGAIN? Stop posting about the laptop with the screen ripped off! Its stupid.
OK
Load "Why would anyone buy this?" ,8,1
@grapeape
LOL..You know, I remember typing load "*",8,1 but I cannot for the life of me remember the parameters that ,8,1 represented!
@Maeztro
I remember typing: left arrow + L + return...
:)
@Maeztro '8' represented the amount of times you would need to try and load the game to get it to work properly '1' time. It's a little known secret that typing Load '*' 1,1 would ensure all the games would run straight away.
@Maeztro
Load "program",8,1 means load from device 8 (first disc drive) and ,1 means run when loaded. if you just took load "program" it tried to load from tape, and if you took load "program",8 it loaded but you had to write run.
@moijk
It has been a long time, but I believe the ",1" signified loading a binary file.
@moijk
addendum:
"and the '1' signifies that the file is to be loaded not to the standard memory address, but to the address where its program header tells it to go—the address it was saved from. This usually signifies a machine language program, as opposed to a BASIC program."
I feel kinda bad for these guys. I really don't see it selling to well, and yet it seems like they've put a bit of effort into them.
thats what I thought, owned by Commodore Gaming.
Poke 36879,1
@Firesuite 10 print "oh those were the days", 20 print goto 10 lol
Come now...was anyone seriously going to buy this anyway?
Wow just after I mentioned about Commodore in the Asus EEE keyboard article!
wow the only part anyone would buy this for and the commodore name isnt even gonna be on this SHIT!! My Dream Will never come True
I REMEMBER WHEN I WAS like 8 or something during the 80's we used to have the COMMODORE the light brown one in the left picture just wish I knew what my dad did with it. Have to call cousin to see if its still in their.
So what about the Commodore Amigo:
http://www.commodoreusa.net/amigo.html
The conspiracy theories already abound:
http://twitter.com/freeamiga
Wait, what was this story about? I got distracted by the guy from Commodore Gaming named "Taco."
@MichaelF
Yeah, I read that and suddenly I came over all peckish.
@MichaelF Taco van Sambeek, no less. That guy wins.
@therealmusashi
Thanks guys... my name does get some nice comments, specially in the states.... ;)
@Burrito
Err... yes, I am Taco van Sambeek... Burrito would be my nickname (wonder why? ;))
I remember friends in high school who were into the good ole C64 and the Amiga. One friend had gotten into making his own fastload cartridges which included a reset button and some other goodies.
In fact, he used to run a BBS on it that was a part of Fidonet's Net 371. Good times indeed.
Yikes, their website looks as though it was designed using a C-64. It's nothing but a cheesy all-in-one with a commodore sticker (which it doesn't even come with)? I fail to recognize why this is blog-worthy. Modders have been shoving pc's into commodore cases for at least a decade.
SYS64738