From: Cameron Kaiser <spectre(a)floodgap.com> Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: The Future of Commodore (fwd from cbm-hackers) Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 07:01:08 -0700 (PDT)

I spoke with Darren Melbourne, the man behind Ironstone, as well. Ironstone is responsible for the C64-joystick C= will start to sell around october/november. I, of course, asked him about the hardware. The bad news: it will a single chip ASIC. I only forgot to ask him if the ROM with OS and games were inside the ASIC or apart. The good news: I know about who is behind the development of this C64 and therefor we can expect quite some suprises: - The new C64 will have at least 265 colours - It will have higher resolutions - It will have two SID's onboard - The ASIC runs on 27 MHz. I hardly can imagine it needs 27 cycles to emulate one of the original C64. - I asked Darren if there are plans to produce a big C64 based on this print. So he revealed that, although it resembles a joystick, all connections of the normal ports are available in the form of pads. So one could solder his own expansionport, userport or whatever to this stick. - Regarding the extra features: they want to publish the memorymap and other technical details so programmers are able to develop new games etc. for this new C64.