Robot Cousin Soundworks

The Commodore-64 coming back?

Ok, so apparently, my news is late, and this was announced a while ago. Now, there’s an issue with using the name…

From the article:

When the Commodore 64 returns from the dead, it may not be called the Commodore 64.

In mid-March, a company calling itself Commodore USA unveiled what appeared to be a new incarnation of the iconic early-80s machine. “You fell in love then. Fall in love again,” the site said as it dissolved from an image of the original Commodore 64 to a slightly-less-retro machine with, yes, a built-in keyboard. According to the site, this apparent reincarnation of the Commodore would include not a mere 64 kilobytes of memory, but a 64-bit quad-core processor – plus Gigabit Ethernet, a DVD-RW drive, and a 500GB hard disk.

The site – which has a retro look of its own – said the machine would debut in June, and according to Barry Altman, the man behind the company, it’s still set for a June arrival. But when Altman originally launched the site, he didn’t have the rights to the Commodore name. And now he says the company has merely secured the temporary right to use the name as he negotiates a more complete deal. And if he does secure the rights, he’s not quite sure the machine will be called the Commodore 64.

“We’re still toying with that,” Altman told The Reg today. “We could call it a Commodore 64, ’cause of the 64-bit processor. Should we or not? I don’t know.”

Altman says he slapped the Commodore name and logo on his site in an effort to, well, locate the rights holder. That way, he could negotiate a deal that would allow him to slap the name and logo on his site. “It’s such a convoluted entanglement of corporations and subsequent corporations and sell-offs and resales of that trademark over the years, it was very difficult to determine who the real trademark owner was – or is,” Altman explained.

“We wanted to go to the dance. We didn’t have a partner. In order to entice whoever that legal entity was or is, we just put the logo up on our website.”

Sadly, I doubt it will include a SID chip, unless they emulate one, which would be fantastic. Anyone who would be interested in making some classic C64 SID tunes, should check out reFX’s QuadraSID.

There are always things I want to learn. Sometimes, I find it really tough, other times I find it not challenging enough, but I always want to learn new things, especially if it expands on something I already basically know. I’m going to try and set some goals for myself this year, in reference to me learning new things. For example, this year I want to learn the following (or at least make an attempt)

• 1- Modes (Lydian, Phrygian, etc) – I know what they’re for, but having them memorized would really help. Maybe that doesn’t count in “learning” them, as all it is to me at this point would be pattern recognition, rather than the understanding I already have/had of them, but I want to learn/memorize them nonetheless.
• 2- All of my synths – I know how synths work, so when someone says to increase the attack time on the envelope generator, I know where to go. That’s not enough, though. If you take a synth like the ImpOscar or especially the Minimonstah, even though you know the functionality of each control on its own, I could really use to get to know my synths, as it can only help me get where I want to go faster. See also: quadraSID… that one’s currently a bit of a mystery.
• 3- Flash Scripting (edit – found a good resource!) – quite a change from the musical goals above, but I believe having a basic-to-good understanding on how to actually get something done in Flash would really benefit not only this site, but perhaps any program I may think of making in the future… which brings me to…
• 4- Programming/C++ – This was a goal for last year as well, and I’ve checked out a lot of resources I’ve been given, and this is something I could definitely grasp. Alongside this, I would love to get to the point of making an iPhone app or game.

So, as of right now, that’s what I want to fill my brain up with this coming year. Easier said than done, but I have a number of books on a few of the topics listed above, so at least I could take some of it in while being stuck at work.

So, people out there reading… is there anything you’d like to learn in the near future?