The Commodore 64 Ultimate computer is the company's first hardware release in over 30 years — Tom's Hardware
The Commodore 64 Ultimate will be the first new hardware released under the auspices of the new management, and pricing starts at $299.
New Commodore 64 has been announced
- Thread starter Boing-ball
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Already pre-ordered the Starlight Edition 
BTW, Do we know which version of AMD Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA is in this thing? Tech spec on website is not specific to point out FPGA LCs and the C64 core is not exactly demanding. And...anyone know if this will eventually run other cores or is pure C64?
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Tech specs are hard to come by on this at present. All we know is that it's a revised version of Gideon's mainboard and where/who the other bits such as case and keyboard are from.
I suspect we won't really know until we take a screwdriver to the product itself and see whats under the hood.
Warranty? What warranty?
I suspect we won't really know until we take a screwdriver to the product itself and see whats under the hood.
Warranty? What warranty?
@miggymad - excellent clue. I'm looking at videos, and I can't stop a frame to see which one is in the FPGA module, and no one talks about it. While I investigate further, perhaps someone can confirm which actual AMD chip their Gideon Ultimate 64 Elite II came with? Chances are, this is what is shipping now, but we shouldn't assume same AMD chip in case they reduced cost or plumped margin of if costs may have decreased, as well as with volume, and therefore perhaps allowing higher spec. So as you note, either way, it needs actual physical confirming. Strange that they don't just come out and say it in the spec TBH. It's not an insignificant detail.
EDIT: @miggymad - I found an quite recent (May 31st) Ultimate 64 Elite II unboxing video that gets close enough to FPGA chip to read the print. Looks like XC7A50T, with 52,160 logic cells. It would make it less than 1/2 the LCs of the Intel Cyclone V SE found on MISTer DE-10 Nano (110,000). Understandable, as the C64 core doesn't exactly need much power and resources. 52,160 is more than enough, but limitting on future cores. Conveninetly, the FPGA board is replacable and potentially upgradable in the Ultimate 64 Elite II. As FYI, (to those who aren't familiar, this LC spec is key for what an FPGA can potentially do or turn into) the DE-10 Nano 110,000 allow for an Amiga with 020, AGA and RTG support or a 486SX at 100Mhz with SVGA & SB16. That's nice in addition to a C64 core the MISTer runs.
Here is a framefreeze on the FPGA from that video. Reads like XC7A50T to me.
EDIT: @miggymad - I found an quite recent (May 31st) Ultimate 64 Elite II unboxing video that gets close enough to FPGA chip to read the print. Looks like XC7A50T, with 52,160 logic cells. It would make it less than 1/2 the LCs of the Intel Cyclone V SE found on MISTer DE-10 Nano (110,000). Understandable, as the C64 core doesn't exactly need much power and resources. 52,160 is more than enough, but limitting on future cores. Conveninetly, the FPGA board is replacable and potentially upgradable in the Ultimate 64 Elite II. As FYI, (to those who aren't familiar, this LC spec is key for what an FPGA can potentially do or turn into) the DE-10 Nano 110,000 allow for an Amiga with 020, AGA and RTG support or a 486SX at 100Mhz with SVGA & SB16. That's nice in addition to a C64 core the MISTer runs.
Here is a framefreeze on the FPGA from that video. Reads like XC7A50T to me.
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@YouKnowWho
Gideon has stated over on FB that his mainboard is indeed to be inside this "new" C64 but it's been modified in some way. So until we get confirmation or hands-on we won't truly know for certain.
BTW in case anyone is interested : Sales figures
Gideon has stated over on FB that his mainboard is indeed to be inside this "new" C64 but it's been modified in some way. So until we get confirmation or hands-on we won't truly know for certain.
BTW in case anyone is interested : Sales figures
Thanks! So we can estimate about one and a quarter million USD sales so far. If I was forecasting this out, I wouldn't push it beyond 10K commit on boards/plastics for first run, so 2.5x what's sold so far. People in this venture probably start making money at 5K sales after cost. Overall, it's a small project no large tech would be interested in. They look for $50M, $100M revenue point for starters. That's probably why the retro market overall has been left to the community, just too small in terms of TAM/revenue for any vendors to touch. Although if all retro stuff was somehow consolidated under a single brand, it could become something. And what brand is better to do it under than Commodore? So product roadmap wise, there is potential. An FPGA Amiga 500. An FPGA Amiga 1200. An FPGA Commodore 1040STe (ouch! - but isn't there an open verision of TOS)
...in essence, how many FPGA retro things is the market willing to absorb? Add merch, retro digital watches, including Commodore Calculator watch. The potential is there to spin Commodore up to something that can generate $500K retro revenue per month.FYI - I'm seeing XC7A50T for about a dozen dollars out there, so not bad to build out a $299 starting price product based around such a low cost chip. Plenty of room for a price drop in a year or so, I'm guessing.
Also, have you visited www.commodore.com
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An FPGA Amiga 500. An FPGA Amiga 1200. An FPGA Commodore 1040STe (ouch! - but isn't there an open verision of TOS)
In the case of the Commodore 64, it was "relatively" easy because there is already an existing product (Ultimate 64). In the case of FPGA Amiga, there is no "Amiga Gideon" to provide you a ready to go motherboard with HDMI and everything. True, there are a hundred different versions of Minimig but none of them support HDMI (I guess not possible).
So if the new Commodore wanted to release an FPGA based Amiga, they would need to find an FPGA developer to design the board and create the core.
A1200 NG? Vampire?
I mentioned that I'm now enjoying an Amiga 1200 with a clean MISTer install in it. The product I'm using is this by 8bits4ever:
MiSTer FPGA | 8bits4ever
www.8bits4ever.net
The issue here is obvious as far as 'new' Commodore is concerned: MISTer DE-10 Nano is The Bee's Knees as far as FPGA for retro compute is concerned. It cannot be locked down and restricted because the community "owns it". This is why I believe new Commodore is using the ARTIX FPGA, because it is NOT Cyclone V SE, there are no cores for it and they can lock down or limit the ecosystem for a few years before it catches up...if ever. For starters, why would core developers push to develop cores for ARTIX, when the superior MISTer cores are here already, right?
If you look at past versions of Ultimate 64 Elite by Gideon, it appears it was Cyclone V SE based. Perhaps over the pandemic they shifted to ARTIX for chip availability and cost. Hence the use of lower power FPGA.
My opinion of this FPGA situation is simple - ATRIX based solution is a worse product than Cyclone V SE based product. As noted, Cyclone V SE has more than double the LCs of the ARTIX being used, and more importantly the Cyclone V SE cores available now, today, are simply amazing. My Amiga 1200 MISTress 1200 equipped MISTer DE-10 Nano FPGA solution is everythign FPGA available out there up to PS1 era, all in a stunning Amiga 1200 system. In essence, I already have no reason at all to buy any of these FPGA products, unless we step up on the FPGA to 200K LCs, which will allow for the cap of PlayStation 1 era being exceeded.
Issues have been worked out of the 8bits4ever MISTress1200 solution, and I for one recommend it as an option. But indeed, to your point, I don't see 'new' Commodore using it, because I don't think they will give us MISTer FGPA Cyclone V SE based solutions that allow it to be used as freely MISTress1200 (for example) or any MISTer based setup.
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NG is an ARM running an emulation package, right? Vampire, I'm having a hard time to see which Cyclone V they are running exactly, but I'm thinking the LC count on what they are using maybe higher than MISTer DE-10 Nano's 110,000 LCs, which would allow more functionality and higher 68K CPU performance potentially. Or perhaps they have managed to free up resources with their dedicated Amiga core, and this optimization allows for the performance of their 68K core that they call 68080. Either way, it is a clear demonstration of what is possible with FPGA.
I really feel that as far as FPGA goes, whoever is putting out a piece of hardware with an FPGA chip should be upfront about the LC spec of their chip, because that is key piece of spec for us to be informed about.
Vampire to me is a lovely looking piece of kit. It may well be the best Amiga FPGA experience available. MISTer, while not able to deliver same level of performance as Vapire, shines in versatility, core selection and strength of community development. This versatility, cores and community is a significant value and for me personally, very hard to look past as a key selling feature. Fortunately, considering most of us are Amiga crazy, we don't have to choose between these pieces of hardware offering killer value either way. And if we do, either choice has valid arguments for that choice. So the bottom line once again is, here we are, 2025 - spoiled for choice.
FYI:
I've posted the AMD Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA chip summary above.
Here is the Cyclone V chip summary:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/details/fpga/cyclone/v/products.html
A1200 NG is not FPGA. Vampire game compatibility is not great and it’s only limited to 720p
Vampire V2 is just an accelerator card and with current cores it works just as fine for games as any 68060 board.
Perhaps you are refering to Apollo V4? I can't tell i don't have one.
Hi yes, sorry, I meant the standalone card.
Zsolt DESI
New member
Thank you for the info , I have been looking for a truly elegant conversion kit for years.I mentioned that I'm now enjoying an Amiga 1200 with a clean MISTer install in it. The product I'm using is this by 8bits4ever:
MiSTer FPGA | 8bits4ever
The issue here is obvious as far as 'new' Commodore is concerned: MISTer DE-10 Nano is The Bee's Knees as far as FPGA for retro compute is concerned. It cannot be locked down and restricted because the community "owns it". This is why I believe new Commodore is using the ARTIX FPGA, because it is NOT Cyclone V SE, there are no cores for it and they can lock down or limit the ecosystem for a few years before it catches up...if ever. For starters, why would core developers push to develop cores for ARTIX, when the superior MISTer cores are here already, right?
If you look at past versions of Ultimate 64 Elite by Gideon, it appears it was Cyclone V SE based. Perhaps over the pandemic they shifted to ARTIX for chip availability and cost. Hence the use of lower power FPGA.
My opinion of this FPGA situation is simple - ATRIX based solution is a worse product than Cyclone V SE based product. As noted, Cyclone V SE has more than double the LCs of the ARTIX being used, and more importantly the Cyclone V SE cores available now, today, are simply amazing. My Amiga 1200 MISTress 1200 equipped MISTer DE-10 Nano FPGA solution is everythign FPGA available out there up to PS1 era, all in a stunning Amiga 1200 system. In essence, I already have no reason at all to buy any of these FPGA products, unless we step up on the FPGA to 200K LCs, which will allow for the cap of PlayStation 1 era being exceeded.
Issues have been worked out of the 8bits4ever MISTress1200 solution, and I for one recommend it as an option. But indeed, to your point, I don't see 'new' Commodore using it, because I don't think they will give us MISTer FGPA Cyclone V SE based solutions that allow it to be used as freely MISTress1200 (for example) or any MISTer based setup.
@Zsolt DESI - it is a really nice product. Can you share if the keyboard and joystick ports fully worked out of the box when MISTress1200 was delivered to you? Just wondering if this user experience issue was addressed on this otherwise fantastic board.
EDIT...forgive, I misunderstood. But do update us if/when you get it if keyboard and 9-pin port worked out of the box.
EDIT...forgive, I misunderstood. But do update us if/when you get it if keyboard and 9-pin port worked out of the box.
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Zsolt DESI
New member
Sorry for the misunderstanding - don't actually own the MISTress1200. I just meant that thanks to your post I came across it, and I am really happy because it looks like exactly the kind of elegant solution I have been searching for.
Bixprotman
New member
The really looks intresting. Maybe i should order one
digii3
Member
I was tempted and almost bought one, but after trying to determine how the new C64u will benefit me. I can't think of a good reason. I decided that I will get a Mega65 after the tariff issues are resolved as Dan Sanderson's presentation at Midwest VCF of what the Mega65's concept is was convincing enough for me. I am already using the Commodore OS Vision 3 (linux) and find it more than good enough that I already planned to get a C64x. In the mean time, while my Amigas are getting fixed, I got an A1200 to start to save and convert my floppies to a floppy emulator.
