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Commodore USA begins shipping replica C64s next week, fulfilling your beige breadbox dreams (video)
If you're like us, you've probably been holding your breath in anticipation since Commodore USA announced its replica of the famous C64. It promised a keyboard PC that duplicated the original's retro-beige finish, with an Atom CPU and an NVIDIA Ion graphics card under the hood. But despite numerous announcements, and even after a cross-promotion with Tron: Legacy, they've yet to ship any products. The latest word from the company has pre-orders shipping next week, in five different varieties, from a barebones chassis and card reader to the C64x Ultimate – an $895 machine that includes 1TB hard drive and a Blu-ray player. If you haven't been teased enough over the past year of delays, hit the video after the break for more preview images.
Commodore USA announces the PC64, an Atom-powered PC in a replica Commodore case
We have a fondness for Commodore computers (as you've probably noticed by now) and we are psyched that Commodore USA is still flying the flag for the once-ubiquitous brand, but as they always are in this biz, things are a little... complicated. We were first contacted way back in March when the company shared the news that it had acquired the rights to sell PCs under the name. Then what happened? Turns out this was not exactly the case... although CEO Barry Altman assured us that they were on their way towards hammering out a deal. And here we are, in possession of a press release saying that indeed, Commodore USA, LLC, and Commodore Licensing B.V. have finally come to an agreement, meaning that your subsequent purchases will at least come with a Commodore decal. But that ain't all! This also paves the way for the company's newest offering, the Commodore PC64, an Intel Atom-powered PC featuring 4GB DDR3 memory, SATA 1TB HDD, HDMI output, optical drive (either DVD/CD or optional Blu-ray), and more -- all in "an exact replica" of the original beige C64 chassis. Of course, doing any significant amount of work with the original Commodore keyboard will probably be a challenge, but we like to think we're up to it. As always, we'll believe it when we see it, but in the meantime we'd like to be the first to formally request a review unit. If everything goes according to plan, this bad boy should be out in time for the holidays. PR after the break.
