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Commodore 64 Ultimate Review: 21st Century Computing

erek

erek

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“If you just want to play Commodore 64 games on a big screen, get one of the emulated consoles, run VICE, or buy Cloanto’s C64 Forever. The Commodore 64 Ultimate is a love letter to a time when 1MHz and 64KB of RAM were enough to power your world. Those of us who love old computers will lap this up, and rightly so. It is a seriously good system that provides a platform for retro gaming, retro homebrew, and video game preservation. Musicians will love the SID options, the chance to use a real SID, and the reliability of the new hardware means there is little or no chance of your audio developing issues.


You’re paying $300, but as we’ve already seen, the cost of retro computing ain’t cheap, and this machine is new hardware, wrapped in the cloak of retro, but there are no bad surprises hiding here. Just a portal to a time when computing was fun.”

Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/retro-gaming/commodore-64-ultimate-review
 
I think it's pretty awesome they made it work with original chips/hardware/accessories/software.
 

“Commodore 64 Ultimate Review​

What I love about the machine is this seamless integration of modern tech into a retro environment. You can plug it into a modern monitor via HDMI, but the menus and inputs are all redolent of the 1980s era – lists of text, Ascii art, cursor keys or W, A, S, D for navigation. The memories of interacting with this ancient hardware came flooding back. Everything you did on the C64 required some effort and expertise, whether that was loading a game or writing little programs – there was no drag-and-drop, no plug-and-play; you were a computer user not a platform consumer. In its press release announcing the product, Commodore referred to itself as “the Digital Detox Brand – a bold stand against today’s toxic tech”. And while that’s a little polemical and self-aggrandising, there’s some truth in it. Exploring the C64 these last few weeks has given me more pleasure than downloading an app on to my phone ever has.


Set to be priced at £260.50 ($349.99/AU$524), it’s not cheap and begs the question – is there value to this machine beyond its appeal to original owners? I think there is. In a more accessible way than the incredible PDP-10 replica I wrote about last year, it’s a living historical relic, a way to reconnect with the original concept of a desktop home computer – as something we learned and coded for. The excellent user’s guide it ships with is filled with useful information on how to get it to make music and display graphics; I sincerely hope that an alternative indie gaming scene thrives here as a result. There is intrinsic value in understanding computers at a fundamental level beyond slick user interfaces; there is value in developing a knowledge of how programs work, however simple.


And even the machine’s nostalgic impact has worth. It has been fun to show my sons this fossilised contraption – no curated walls of games to buy, no ads, no pop-ups, no social media notifications. Meanwhile, playing those old games again has proven the value of great design and clever programming over hype and visual impact. It’s a lesson we could all afford to learn.”

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/jan/15/commodore-64-ultimate-review-computer
 
Ended up getting one. Have an original Amiga 500 so i should be able to use that monitor for it also if i want. Base 64's unit prices on Ebay aren't bad, but anything more than that (Games, monitors, drives, ect) added to the mix drives the price up a lot in a lot of cases.
 
I got one of these and I'm pretty happy with it. The SID emulation isn't the best, but at least there are two sockets inside where you can put original SID chips.

Turbo Boost is really nice, provided that the game you're playing works with it.
 
I dunno, I'm still running my original C64 Breadbin complete with 1084S, VIC-II Kawari, and an Ultimate II+ and it's awesome. Hardware 8x8 80 columns that's better than the C128 implementation (and mostly compatible with the C128 implementation) is amazing.
 
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