[1]The C64 Community Loading... This site is best viewed in a modern browser with JavaScript enabled. Anyone Here Using Commodore OS..? spannernick1 I just wondered if anyone one here knows about it and is still using it,on the PC..? I am.. [2]:) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Goclastninja Dont know anything about it,but you have me interested,please explain[3]👍[4]😀 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jumpmanjr [5]Goclastninja [6]Commodore OS was a linux distribution bundled with Vice for x86 architecture. It came with the Commodore PC's from Commodore USA (defunct in 2013). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- synchromesh Made specifically for the Commodore 64X .. I have one but use Windows 10 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jammet I never even heard of it until now. Interesting! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gurce Aah, I really regret not getting one of those in 2013... I was sitting on their online order form, hesitantly wondering if I should proceed with the order or not. In the end, I backed out, due to reading a lot of haters in forums nit-picking and rubbishing the system. Ah well, the experience taught me that with anything new, there will naturally be skepticism and doubts, so sometimes you just have to use your gut and take the risk. That's why I hesitated less when the opportunity to back the c64 mini came up on indiegogo. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- synchromesh [7]Gurce I backed out, due to reading a lot of haters in forums nit-picking and rubbishing the system. Pity .. And they were wrong -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gurce [8]synchromesh Yup, they were :-) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gurce Another thing that made me regret not purchasing the 2013 incarnation was that I later stumbled across this podcast interview with Commodore USA founder, Barry Altman: [9]https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-rebirth-of-commodore-usa-podcast/ Listening to it, I couldn't help but like the guy, hearing out the reason for his passion, his dream, and his own personal history that spawned that vision. So yeah, listening to that podcast made me really regret not supporting him when I had the chance. I transcribed a segment of the podcast for you, in-case you find it enticing enough to listen to the whole thing. Speaking of his business back in the late 70's: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- We had 187 stores throughout the country, and everything that we did was done manually, with carbonless forms, handwriting and paper... We had no computers, couldn't afford one. I had a couple of quotes from some big huge IT guys, and the numbers were just way beyond our reach. "One day, one of the salesman brought his son to work, a 12 year old kid, and he said, "Y'know you don't need all this fancy stuff, we can do all of this with a commodore computer!" "You're kidding! What're you talking about?! That's a gaming computer!" "No no! You could do spreadsheets and payrolls, accounts receivable, accounts payable, etc" I said, "show me!" He came in the next weekend, with a Commodore 64, with all kinds of cartridges and stuff, and a floppy drive, and a monitor, hooked it all up, and I almost had a heart-attack. I mean, the dot-matrix printer was spitting out forms and invoices, inventory control, it was marvelous! So I knew I had to have that system, but I needed 187 of them. So for the next 3 weeks, my wife and I spent the entire weekend going to every Toys-R-Us: New Jersey, Long Island, New York; buying the c64, the 1541 floppy drive, the matching monitor... They were selling it in supermarkets, it wasn't, y'know, a conventional computer store product. So that's what we did, we bought them, and shipped them all over, and from that point on, I was hooked. For seven years, we ran an entire business, a substantial business, that ran on Commodore 64's. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- synchromesh Oh wow I must listen to that ... A lot of people think Commodore USA failed and went bust but this is not true Barry Altman Died from cancer and he was the founder and driving behind Commodore USA and it just ceased to trade after this .. The current viability of the company is still unknown .. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gurce [10]synchromesh Ah yes, another thing that I admired about the guy was that instead of putting his feet up and relaxing in his golden retirement years, he decided to take on this ambitious venture. I was saddened to hear of his passing. Here's hoping his legacy inspires others to keep on pursuing their dreams too... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- synchromesh And here ya go The only successful remakes of the 64 since the 80's [11]:) [12][IMG] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- MIK Check out some Bil Herd videos on Tube, he was one of the designers of the C16/Plus4 TED series and shares some cool inside stories about his days working at Commodore. [13]:+1: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- spannernick1 I asked because I remade the OS and have a big following on facebook... [14]:D There was not a 32 bit version in 2012 only the 64 bit and I made one for one of my PCs,nice to use it on a pentium 3.. [15]:D,, carried on making the OS after CUSA went down ... [16]:D 32bit versions at the moment,64bit will be coming. It's here.. [17]https://www.facebook.com/groups/commodoreos32bit/about/ COS is still alive... [18]:D -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gurce [19]spannernick1 Wow, good on you for that endeavour man, thanks for letting us know... Yknow, I was always pondering installing commodore os on an old pc or virtualbox one day, just to see what I missed out on... Maybe now's my chance :-) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gurce Speaking of alternate ecosystems, another system I've dabbled with is the open-source Mega65 project, an attempt to create a successor to the c64 with beefed up specs. I think its max cpu speed got up to 40Mhz, last I recall, making it feasible to write a decent action game in BASIC [20]:) I contributed an enhanced remote debugger to the project (m65dbg), which gave the remote serial debugger a richer gdb-like interface, to step through the original assembly source a lot easier. I'm actually up late tonight trying to improve it some more, hoping that it will be able to step through c-file source code too (courtesy of the cc65 compiler, which does c --> 6502 assembly). Wanted to mention this, as I'm getting the impression that a lot of us in this community have a dev background, and some of us might be happy to contribute something to the c64 mini project too, despite it being a closed-source project. I was pondering one means might be to: * Add the micro-sd connector * Boot to some compatible Arm linux * Drop in another emulator to test against * Plug in a troublesome device (e.g., PS4 controller) and start debugging its linux driver to see why it is playing up, then report any findings back to the community here Not sure how this approach will go, but I'll try do some more study of the smd components I'll need this weekend, make myself a shopping list, order the bits online and then have a stab at this. Hopefully in a weekend or two ahead... [21]:) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- spannernick1 Sounds interesting..[22]:D Would anyone be interested in a group on Facebook for TheC64 Mini...?,I thought I ask first,no point if no one wants it.Its not to replace here, just another place you can go.. [23]:D -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gurce I think a few facebook groups have popped up already, I joined the one that the c64 endorsed on their website's links page. It's hard to keep my eyes peeled on so many posts in various places but I'm trying :-) I guess one reward is different online communities have ppl sharing their unique observations, experiences, tips and insights. I'm still itching to compile the cream of the posts into some wiki format one day, just need to find the time... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- PantherUK The linked mini group is pretty good as it goes... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- References Visible links 1. https://community.thec64.com/ 5. https://community.thec64.com/d/279/2 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_OS 7. https://community.thec64.com/d/279/6 8. https://community.thec64.com/d/279/7 9. https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-rebirth-of-commodore-usa-podcast/ 10. https://community.thec64.com/d/279/10 12. https://postimg.cc/image/cl6ughe91/ 17. https://www.facebook.com/groups/commodoreos32bit/about/ 19. https://community.thec64.com/d/279/14