It really seems like quite the ultimate c64 board. Pretty much the only thing I can imagine it needing is a image resampler to scale the frame to full 1080p in some way. As many if not most screens are 1080p, it would make sense to have the scaling to be done on the board because it probably can do it better than the random crap that is built-in in screens.
My 2c about the price; do not try too hard to squeeze it into low price point. I can't imagine there being a huge difference in volume between e.g. 200 and 250 eur, but it is absolutely crucial that you actually have the ability to ship it.
The MEGA65 is promising a 1080p output but will cost more (and is still months/years away). I don't know that it's really all that important to me, as long as I can use modern monitors, which this seems to offer.
I mean, right now, to get my C64 onto a modern display, I use a TV interface that has composite inputs (this has the nice side effect of allowing me to put it into a PIP on my laptop display). I also have a tiny composite monitor for when I don't want that hassle. So, really, anything that gives me an HDMI output is gonna be awesome.
And, I like their idea of line doubling at lower saturation to give a CRT effect. That's a fun idea.
Also, I agree on the price. I'd love for it to be cheap, but what's an extra fifty bucks between friends? There certainly is an upper bound, but it's not $200.
Yes. The newly pressed cases are the original molds from Commodore for the C64C, and that model C64 can accommodate any C64 mainboard. Since this new Ultimate-64 is compatible with C64 cases, in turn it's also compatible with these newly pressed ones.
You'd also need a keyboard. So...I'm more likely to hit up eBay for a broken complete unit (though I just browsed, and found none with all their keys!). Then again, a red or blue C64 sounds kinda amazing.
I can't resist any C64 story. It's just impossible for me to not read them.
This sounds super cool, even though I told myself I was gonna wait for the MEGA65 to get back into poking at 8-bit stuff. The expected price point of €199 is also really good (and you can find a broken C64 to provide the donor case and maybe real SID for cheap), so it's not a major investment for a lot of tinkering fun.
We have a couple of these sorts of projects happening for the Oric-1/Atmos line of computers as well .. its truly an awesome time to be into 8bit computing as an art form, because it doesn't look like these obscure platforms are going away any time soon.
I have the 1541 Ultimate II cartridge for my C64 and it is a fantastic unit. But the C64 itself is getting on and I wonder how much longer it will last. This is very exciting!
Does it resolve the C64 Chroma/Luminance interference issue? I would love to get a real hardware implementation of the C64 without the interference flaw and see it on a modern display without the horror colour bleed.
I also vaguely remember reading a guide on how to solve the problem on an original C64 with some modification, but I simply cannot find the page anymore. Does anyone have any info on this?
I love these resurrection projects for old processors. I'm currently trying to bring back the Texas Instruments TMS34020 graphics processor without its compiler.
My 2c about the price; do not try too hard to squeeze it into low price point. I can't imagine there being a huge difference in volume between e.g. 200 and 250 eur, but it is absolutely crucial that you actually have the ability to ship it.