...a market for the Commodore smart phone? + read up-to-date messages from scuzz *and his Amiga friends* in your inbox :-)

2015-07-15 klockan 13:59

Klassiska Commodore - nu som mobil

Ny mobiltelefon riktar sig till nostalgiska datoranvändare

På det glada 1980-talet sålde datorer från Commodore som smör, men 1994 gick det anrika företaget i konkurs. Varumärket lever emellertid vidare, nu i form av mobiltelefonen Commodore Pet. Namnet har hämtats från en klassisk dator som lanserades redan 1977.

Commodore Pet har en skärm på 5,5 tum, en åttakärnig Mediatek-processor på 1,7 gigahertz, 3 gigabyte arbetsminne, en kamera på 13 megapixar och ett batteri på 3 000 milliamperetimmar. Operativsystemet är Android 5.0, även känt som Lollipop. Som en bonus följer en emulator med, något som gör det möjligt att spela klassiska spel för Commodore 64 och Amiga.
 

Commodore ny smart phone kommer i ett första skede endast att säljas i Tyskland, Polen, Frankrike och Italien, men tanken är att mobilen ska släppas i fler länder under hösten. Prislappen ligger på motsvarande 3 000 kronor för modellen på 16 gigabyte och 3 600 kronor för modellen på 32 gigabyte.

=> LINK TO THE SOURCE <=

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What is a smart phone? ... mobile phone with an advanced mobile operating system which combines features of a personal computer operating system with other features useful for mobile or handheld use. They typically combine the features of a cell phone with those of other popular mobile devices, such as PDA, media player, recording player, and GPS. Most smart phones can access the Internet, have a touch screen, can run third-party apps, support all kinds of music players on the market, and are camera phones. Most smart phones that exist on the commercial market *support* high-speed mobile broadband... => https://en.wikipedia.org <=


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Why should =>anyone on this planet<= buy a Commodore smart phone?

Commodore, the name that helped usher in the PC revolution, is back. With a phone. For those of you too young to remember, Commodore was a hot company in the mid-1980s (until late 90s when the adventure - The Feeble Files - where released => and further until this day even though most people were gone sporadically <=). It was a leader in personal computers, shipping thousands of Commodore 64 desktops daily. Guinness has named it the single biggest-selling computer ever—the company sold as many as 17 million of them—and the brand name is still widely remembered. Still, the company went bankrupt in 1994, and the brand saw several fuzzy changes of trademark ownership over the years. Now it’s appearing on a smartphone created by a pair of Italian entrepreneurs. It’s called the Pet—sharing its name with Commodore’s other iconic PC—and its custom Android build includes two emulators so owners can enjoy old C64 and Amiga games. Rumors have swirled around the phone for months, driven in part by design renders published online. With its release imminent, I met with the guys behind it and tried out a prototype. How can a company that folded two decades ago =>suddenly<= release a new product?

Loooong history...

Jack Tramiel founded Commodore International in 1954 in Toronto. After launching the Pet in 1977 and following up with the VIC-20 and Commodore 64, he left. The company slowly withered and folded in 1994. A buyer snapped up its assets, including 47 patents related to the company’s Amiga line, but the Commodore trademark changed hands several times. In 1996, the German PC conglomerate that owned the rights to it filed for bankruptcy, and the Commodore name bounced around some more, going through two more bankruptcies. Two years ago, a federal court ruled that the trademark belonged to Commodore Holdings B.V., a Dutch company that has been silent ever since. That’s where things stood until March, when Massimo Canigiani and Carlo Scattolini registered Commodore Business Machines Limited in the UK. The Italian entrepreneurs claim to have acquired rights for the brand and trademark in the mobile industry in 38 countries, including the US. This isn’t the first time Commodore has risen from the dead. Five years ago, an American company called Commodore USA released the C64x, an all-in-one PC sporting an Intel Atom processor, Nvidia Ios2 graphics, 4GB of RAM, up to 1TB of storage, and a Blu-Ray reader. Nostalgia and retro gaming weren’t enough, however, and Commodore USA shut down in 2013.

Meet the New Commodore

The new Commodore smart phone is an Android phone of rather common design. It is well-built, with an aluminum frame and interchangeable polycarbonate covers. The shell displays a big C= logo, and a smaller one could replace the home button below the 5.5-inch IPS 1920×1080 pixel resolution display made of Gorilla Glass 3. The phone will feature a 1.7 GHz Mediatek 64-bit octa-core processor with ARM Mali T760 GPU and a huge 3000 mAh battery. The main camera uses a 13-megapixel Sony sensor with a bright f/2.0 aperture. It can make images up to 4096×2304 pixels, and videos up to 1080p HD. The front camera is an 8-megapixel rig with an 80-degree wide angle lens. Both can be operated with the dedicated shutter button on the right side of the case. The smart phone has dual-SIM 4G connectivity. Other custom functions I spotted include a nice implementation of Daydream (the Android feature that lets you chose what information appears on the display during charging), and system gestures that let you interact with the phone by shaking it, flipping it, or waving at it. And =>of course<= there is a guest mode.

A classic arcade in Your Hand

Although nostalgia is not the core of the product, there is of course room for retro gaming. The Commodore PET runs a custom version of Android 5.0 Lollipop and two preinstalled emulators. They weren’t finished on the prototype I used, but I’m told they’ll be customized versions of the VICE C64 emulator and the UAE Amiga emulator. The team also is working with unnamed software houses to bring some of the 1980’s best games on the Pet before shipping. When it launches later this week across Europe, the Commodore Pet should come in two different versions, a light one (costing around $295) with 16GB of storage and 2GB of RAM, and a regular one (costing around $360) with 32GB of internal memory and 3GB of RAM. Both will have a 32-gig microSD card included—though the dedicated slot will support cards up to 64GB, too. Users can choose a white, black, or classic biscuit-beige case, though I’m told green, blue, and other colors might be added. Initially, the smart phone will be available in Italy, France, Germany, and Poland, with plans to add more countries in the future. It’s an inarguably niche device, but at the very least proves that technological nostalgia is an incredible =>and very cool<= thing.

=> LINK TO THE SOURCE =>THE MAG WIRED<= | PICTURES <=

 

 

Commodore Business Machines (or acronym CBM) | Commodore presents you it's first smart phone: The Commodore Pet. Follow us for news... <= /..../ /..../ /..../ /..../ => Official site | Shop <=

/..../ /..../ /In the year 2015 => Commodore Business Machines <= owns the Commodore brand rights within 38 countries all over the world and proudly presents an awesome, unlocked smartphone: the Commodore Pet. It's the result of an accurate and long time work in researching of “the right thing in the right time” in order to put again the Commodore brand in the market it deserves...
/..../ /.!../ /!!.!/ /..../ /..../ /.!../ /!!.!/ /..../ /..../ /.!../ /!!.!/ /..../ /..../ /.!../ /!!.!/ /..../ /..../ /..../ THE END!!!...

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Date: 2015-10-11 21:57 GMT+02:00
Subject: [Commodore_Amiga_Retro] SnoopDOS

Hi

No not an American rap artist... but still an Amiga application that has an active website link. Such a rarity these days.

http://www.iol.ie/~ecarroll/snoopdos.html

Last updated in 21st of July -06.

Not my words.

SnoopDos is an Amiga utility that allows you to monitor all file activity on your system, as well as what tooltypes a program is checking, what fonts, libraries and devices are being loaded, and so on. If a program won't start correctly for some reason, SnoopDos can often help track down the cause.

Or maybe try Sensible World of Soccer

http://www.swos247.beebgames.com/

Last updated in 8th of April -07

The original Amiga version included info from the 94/95 season. Released late in '94 it was hailed as the best game on the Amiga ever. With a transfer option, careers and lots more besides, this really gave the series a much needed kick up the backside and everyone focused on it again. Released by Renegade.

That’s me done for today. Stand down.

scuzz

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Date: 2015-10-11 21:45 GMT+02:00
Subject: [Commodore_Amiga_Retro] And Dreams

Hi

And dreams do come true...

The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit of memory in many computer architectures.

The world of computing and the essence of small is better.

When I first saw the ZX81 I became convinced that we were striving to make things smaller faster and better. The essence of microchip technology and micro circuits etc. If you could have seen the monster that occupied a whole room at my college that was loosely called a computer, you would have realised that the technology had to get smaller. The early Intergraph systems that ran drawing programs in the office were in special air conditioned rooms that filled a whole floor. And yet in no time what so ever it seemed we were using PC units doing more work that sat on the disk.

When I first saw an Amiga 500, then a 600 and 1200 I just knew that the limit to size was the literal size of the human finger and the ability of the eye to read text. The Amiga was for me a work of art. It not only was very functional, it really did look the part.

I am not sure what happened to the dreamers that wanted to develop smaller, faster and efficient into a working art form. I really am no great fan of the telephone. For me I need to enjoy what I am doing. I don’t want to be bent over and struggling with finger painting. I like the keyboard and I like a big flat screen. I fear I may be a dying breed. But for me the Amiga 1200 will always epitomise everything that I needed in a computer.

Sad the dream had to end before it had realised its full potential.

Thought for the day.

Early in the development of the Amiga computer operating system, the company's developers became so frustrated with the system's frequent crashes that, as a relaxation technique, a game developed where a person would sit cross-legged on the joyboard, resembling an Indian guru.

scuzz

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Date: 2015-10-11 21:25 GMT+02:00
Subject: [Commodore_Amiga_Retro] Joe Pillow

Hi

I copied my 1.3 disk today and used a single DD floppy disk formatted 720K. I then played Space Invaders which occupied a very small part of yet another 720K disk. Amazing that so much has been created from that tiny disk.

My Windows folder on this computer stands at 43 126 755 328 bytes. Maybe that is progress. Byte for Byte I am not sure.

So to Joe Pillow.

And Joe Pillow? At one point an early Amiga prototype was taken to be shown somewhere, and they didn't trust hold baggage, so they booked an airline seat for the Amiga as well as the couple of employees looking after it. The airline insisted on a name for the "passenger" so Joe Pillow was born."

Joe Pillow extended his fifteen minutes of fame when the Amiga went to production. All 53 Amiga team members who worked on the project signed the Amiga case. This included Joe Pillow and Jay Miner's dog Michy who each got to "sign" the case in their own unique way

http://www.gregdonner.org/workbench/wb_13.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Pillow

And dreams do come true.

scuzz

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Date: 2015-10-10 1:20 GMT+02:00
Subject: Re: [Commodore_Amiga_Retro] Sound and Data

Paul

Trying to get a player with trebble was difficult. We found a really good
cassette player that the girlfriend used for interviews as part of a project
she was undertaking. It really was a case of getting that tone to sharpen
the signal. I hated the ZX81. The amount of times I would record stuff and
never be able to use it again. And that line in Red Dwarf... ' Crashed more
times than a ZX81 ' is totally true. The difference between the 81 and the
Spectrum was leaps and bounds better. Once you got those colour bars running
across the screen you were made.

I have a 5" National Panasonic TV [ still do ] that was the same size as a hi-fi
unit slot for say a tape or amplifier. It was designed or if you prefer meant
to fit in a hi-fi system to receive good quality audio. The old tuning knob
was invaluable for receiving my ZX81 text. When I look back on it all now I
do wonder how much of our brains cleared up bad images, bad sound, bad
quality generally. I struggle these days just to watch films on video. I
recall buying the Spectrum+ and returning it cus the image display on the TV
just bled out and was dreadful. The first time that I really saw a crystal
clear image was on the Amiga when I first bought a real monitor. My
impression was to be literally knocked off my chair. It was that stunning.
Life was never to be quite the same.

Hadn't heard of the old ' Chuntey ' before. Kinda made me smile. I guess if
I close my eyes I can hear all my old computers. From that white noise of
the ZX, the fax scramble of the Speccy, the disk clunking of the 9512, the
gentle click of the Amiga, the annoying fan on the 95 and today with the
constant USB drives winding up after they have gone to sleep. The room still
isn't as quiet as it was with the ZX, though I did shout a lot more in those
days. Machine Code. Peek and Poke. Oooh er!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEEK_and_POKE

National Panasonic TV

http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/panasonic_uhfvhf_component_televis.html
http://www.hupse.eu/radio/frameset.htm?Panasonic_TR565ES.htm&ContentFrame

scuzz

From: Paul Hill pxxxrxxxxxhxxx@gmail.com [Commodore_Amiga_Retro]
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2015 9:42 PM
To: Commodore_Amiga_Retro
Subject: Re: [Commodore_Amiga_Retro] Sound and Data

On 8 October 2015 at 22:58, scuzz.mail@btinternet.com
[Commodore_Amiga_Retro] <Commodore_Amiga_Retro@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hi
>
> My first experience of data loading was with the ZX81 and then the
> Spectrum.
> On the Spectrum you got this black box and colourful lines. The art was
> adjusting the volume on the tape machine to improve the chance of load
> success. Yet another sound from the past that is burnt into my memory. The
> time it took to load games was massive.

Don't forget the 'tone' setting!

The funny thing is that it probably took ages to display the loading
graphics.
Which I am fine with BTW, some of those 8-bit graphics were great.

Speccy folks might be familiar with 'Chuntey':

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/cssfolklore/#chuntey

The Speccy loading "aura". i.e. the mystical field set up when the
Speccy was loading that was sensitive to the slightest disturbance
e.g. your mum walking into the room. Of course causing a disturbance
in the chuntey instantly causes any game currently loading to fail.
Coined by La Haineaccidentally as a misspelling of "chutney", and
defined by Llama-Wax Len.

--
Paul

Date: 2015-10-08 23:58 GMT+02:00
Subject: [Commodore_Amiga_Retro] Sound and Data

Hi

My first experience of data loading was with the ZX81 and then the Spectrum. On the Spectrum you got this black box and colourful lines. The art was adjusting the volume on the tape machine to improve the chance of load success. Yet another sound from the past that is burnt into my memory. The time it took to load games was massive.

Seems lost these days the use of sound to identify data transfer. The last time I actually sat and listened for a sound response to a computer loading activity was with the modem. Was like looking into the Matrix. In the end you became one with the transfer process almost able to understand what the noises meant. Changed my whole perspective of fax machines.

Dial up. Interesting period I have to say. At least then you knew when the computer was trying to interact with the internet. It was its calling card. Today you have no idea when your computer is talking to the world. I miss those little green monitors in my tool bar telling me there was active communication. Right click and switch them off.

Bugga... my cup of tea has gone cold.

scuzz

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Date: 2015-10-08 23:47 GMT+02:00
Subject: [Commodore_Amiga_Retro] Classic Cover Disks

Hi

Trip down memory lane and some of my favourite disks... so many great memories.

Amiga Computing... Dec 95 Main Actor and Final Data. Jan 95 CanDo2. April 95 MiniOffice. Nov 95 CygnusED. Sept 95 ARCHandler. Christmas 95 Image Engineer.

AF 54a SuperJAM. AF 58a Music X. AF 62a Octamed. AF 54b Cannon Soccer. soldiers playing football dirty. AF 60c DreamWeb. didn’t sleep for a month.

AF PD-DIY Pro-Tracker. CU 83 Video Tracker. CU 171 DirWorks 2.1. CU 87 Valhalla. Amiga Computing 1994 Kindwords.CU 168 Draw Studio 2 Lite.

CU 181 SBase4.

And two very memorable PD disks SeaSoft MUI and Fish Disk No.1

Just a selection from my first dig into the disk vault. All those disks were used to death. I really really miss my Amiga fix from monthly magazines. Life was just so magical. I would trek to Arena, John Menzies, Smiths, Game and EB and come back with bags of magazines and games. I was never ever disappointed. I always knew that from just one of those little gems I could be active for weeks on end.

The disks and magazines were so colourful. The theme was always having fun with your computer. I guess that is why I cling to the Amiga and the past. Today all I sense is a serious social theme and dark games. Life on the computer was very different then. Always colourful and bright. Always a new adventure. Always rewarding. The Amiga gave and I was glad to receive. Today computers are all about take... and fish has taken on a whole new meaning.

Now close your eyes and listen to the sound of a DD disk sliding back the metal cover. And the click and whir of an Amiga disk drive and that wonderful sense of anticipation.

scuzz

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THE MESSAGES ABOVE HAS BEEN EDITED A BIT FOR BETTER READING EXPERIENCE, AND THIS IS NOT ALL FROM THESE SPEC. DATES. YOU CAN EXPECT AN ETERNAL FLOW IF YOU ARE A MEMBER OF THIS AND/OR ANY OTHER  GROUP(S) ON YAHOO *OR ANY OTHER SERVICE LIKE FOR INSTANCE THE MOST WELL KNOWN GOOGLE OR FACEBUCH OR PERHAPS ... , AND/OR ...*. WHY NOT BECOME A FORMAL MEMBER AT SEVERAL, AND PROD YOUR EXPLORING AND  ?* :-)

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NEW MAG! 880 GAMER IS PUBS AGAIN!

!!! *.PDF !!! =>

880 Gamer issue 1
...
880 Gamer issue 2
....
880 Gamer issue 3
.....
880 Gamer issue 4
......
880 Gamer issue 5
.....
880 Gamer issue 6
....
880 Gamer issue 7
...
Amiga Point of View #1
...
Amiga Point of View #2
....
Amiga Point of View #3
.....
Amiga Point of View #4
<= !!! *.PDF !!!

This issue => 880 Gamer issue 7 <= is about classic games like Frontier - Elite II, Qwak, one of those Shadow of The Beast remakes, Final Fight, Elite, Narco Police, Savage, Kick Off *by Anco*, Ninja Warriors => I played this classic arcade/ninja/action game on C64 <= and MUCH MORE...

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A NEW BLOG POST WILL BE PUBLISHED ABOUT THE ADVENTURE =>THE FEEBLE FILES<= WITH A LOT OF PICTURES FROM ALL OF A TRULY HIGH QUALITY GAME



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=> LugaruHD => Overgrowth to AmigaOS/MorphOS/AROS | 1 2 3 4 5 Overgrowth - playlist <=



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Speed Dreams is a racing game for /\MIG/\ => of course it's relesed as a FOSS/FLOSS game <=|



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Commodore Business Machines ---- or  CBM ---- on YouTube

Commodore USA ---- or CUSA ---- does other machines for instance with a Linux distro =>Commodore OS Vision<= in classic VIC64 covers, something called Amiga mini and similar projects... on YouTube 
=>
Official site | Commodore OS Vision is developed by Commodore Business Machines