Mini-consoles get serious - The C64 Mini

Commodore have come out and announced they're getting in on the mini-console game with an official C64-mini.

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Launched in 1982, the C64 home computer went on to dominate the home computer scene throughout the 1980s. Millions of units were sold across the world and have a special place in the hearts of its former owners.

35 years later and it’s back. THEC64® Mini plugs into any modern TV via its HDMI port and gamers can play any one of the 64 licensed classic pre-installed games. This includes games from original legendary developers such as Epyx, Gremlin Graphics, Hewson and The Bitmap Brothers; and boasting titles such as California Games, Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe, Paradroid and Impossible Mission. Most of these were rated over 90% by leading publications of the day, with many winning coveted awards. From sports to shooters, platformers to puzzlers, there’s a plethora of titles to keep the most discerning retro enthusiast happy.

First in the range to be released will be THEC64® Mini

As befits a home computer you can also plug in a standard USB PC keyboard and use as a classic C64 to type in those old BASIC computer listings or program new games.

THEC64® Mini will hit the shops in early 2018 with a suggested retail price of £69.99/$69.99/€79.99.

Official Blurb from the Commodore People

The games include

• Alley kat
• Anarchy
• Armalyte - Competition Edition
• Avenger
• Battle Valley
• Bounder
• California Games
• Chip's Challenge
• Confuzion
• Cosmic Causeway
• Creatures
• Cyberdyne Warrior
• Cybernoid and Cybernoid 2
• Deflektor
• Everyone's a Wally
• Firelord
• Gribbly's day Out
• Hawkeye
• Heartland
• Herobotix
• Highway Encounter
• Hysteria
• Impossible Mission and Impossible Mission 2
• Insects in Space
• Mega Apocalypse
• Mission A.D.
• Monty Mole and Monty on the Run
• Nebulus
• Netherworld
• Nobby the Aardvark
• Ranarama
• Robin of the Wood
• The Arc of Yesod

The C64 was the first home computer that we had in my family home and is my earliest gaming memory. I played it long up until I had a PS1 and then the C64 just died one day.

I still remember how long it would take some games to load and how you could get stuck with a bad tape trying to load Golden Axe.

I have to say if nothing else, their website is kind of cool. Each game has a page dedicated to screenshots and controls and what the game is about as all credits for the people (often one or two people) who made the game.

No Skool Daze?!?

Count me out!

This looks really well made. The C64 was before my time but this has piqued my interest, and maybe I'll check it out.

Load "$", 8

That's all I recall from the commands :p

it was actually,

LOAD"*",8,1

You were telling the C64 to load the first file the drive could find on device 8 (floppy drive), drive 1

I can just imagine the E3 Press Conference spin if something like this was new today: “And we built the computer... right in the keyboard.”

@retrometal: Nope, @dussck is correct - LOAD "$",8 loaded the directory from disk, as a BASIC program that you could then LIST.

And the ",1" on the end wasn't the drive number, it told the machine to load the file into its original memory location (or more precisely the address specified in the first two bytes of the file) rather than into BASIC program memory.

Screw that. Amstrad for life. RUN ""

Well, it got Cybernoid at least, but the lack of Last Ninja, or for that matter EA's sci-fi survival horror game Project Firestart is disappointing. I hope it'll be easy to add more games to it.