This isn’t the first time a Commodore 64 laptop has been made but it’s probably the coolest one. Commodore’s original SX 64 was built in 1984 and featured a tiny 5 inch CRT screen with a hardly portable body weighing in at 10kg!
I actually saw an SX 64 years ago in Cork Micro, the small computer shop run by the late Sean Bossang in Cork.
A couple of years ago there was the Picodore, a tiny little laptop built from the innards of a C64 DTV joystick. The keyboard’s a little small for my tastes though!
And finally, Benjamin has created a real, “normal sized” laptop from the motherboard of a C64C, the final version of the C64 built by Commodore.
It uses the original keyboard too, and “1541-III DTV” to emulate the original 1541 disk drive. This device takes FAT32 formatted SD cards so you can copy D64 images from your PC on to it, insert the card in the laptop and load them immediately. Judging by the movie below, he needs an Action Replay cartridge or something to speed up loading. The emulated drive emulates the slow loading of the original drive too well methinks.
Nice to see Thunderblade make an appearance. I’m sure I have the original C64 tape of that game around here somewhere..
More info on Ben’s post.
8 Comments
James (2 comments.) on April 7, 2009 at 12:00 pm.
Saw that on BB and thought you’d like it
I was firmly spectrum though – a laptop with matchday 2 loaded on it would be something else!
Donncha (1707 comments.) on April 7, 2009 at 12:09 pm.
Hehe. My brothers loved that game AFAIR. I’m not into sports at all so I passed on it. Loved the Speccy too, but never got into coding on it..
You should check out http://www.zxdemo.org/index.php – I think you’ll like it. I had no idea there was much a demoscene on the ol’ 48k!
Gavin (3 comments.) on April 7, 2009 at 12:12 pm.
Ah Golden Axe…
Gamma Goblin (43 comments.) on April 7, 2009 at 7:37 pm.
10kg! O_O ha ha ha
Eoin (1 comments.) on April 10, 2009 at 11:47 am.
Ahh the days of the 64
me I was a vic man .. tape ready to go ..
clunky keyboard and of course the cartridge games..
always remember the hours spend coding to see a block move accross the screen changing colours..
the simple days..
Brad Hart (1 comments.) on April 10, 2009 at 9:58 pm.
I haven’t thought of my old c64 in years. It is nice to know the old friend wasn’t forgotten, even if I wouldn’t give up my oldest of laptops for one…
John (1 comments.) on April 11, 2009 at 12:01 am.
God, it brings it all back.
C64, how quickly we forget.
Reggy on June 20, 2009 at 9:20 pm.
The little Computer that could