The Future of Commodore (fwd from cbm-hackers)

From: Bryan Pope <bpope_at_wordstock.com>
Date: Fri Jun 18 13:06:08 2004

And thusly Vintage Computer Festival spake:
>
> On Fri, 18 Jun 2004, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
>
> > One thing that has not endeared Tulip to the Commodore community was an
> > attempt to grind down on trademark enforcement. First it was the
> > Commodore name and logo, and then the system ROMs, and there is also some
> > argument over the IP of the 64 itself. Apparently a collabourator called
> > Ironstone is developing a new 64 of their own, separate from the C-1 being
> > created by Jeri Ellsworth, which is nearing completion. There is worry that
> > Ironstone/Tulip will clamp down on new hardware development as a result.
>
> So these people are fighting over a market worth, at most, $10,000? I
> think they've already spent two times that in legal fees.

I think it's a little more then that. At the recent Commodore Expo in
Louisville, KY, Greg Nacu (distributor of the IDE64) sold the nine IDE64's
he brought for $150 each plus all the Micromys PS/2 adapters for $40 apiece.

LOADSTAR sold quite a few of the email disk subscriptions for $35 each.

I was going to buy a Retro-Replay + RR-Net card for $45 until I won it.. ;)

That doesn't include all of the used stuff being sold there...

>
> > Anyone have any comments? This seems like the C64 community is going to get
> > stomped on. (None of this affects the Amiga, AFAIK, which is not owned
> > by Tulip.)
>
> I think the Tulip guys have a real success story on their hands here.
> Bill Gates had better start worrying.

:)

Cheers,

Bryan Pope
Received on Fri Jun 18 2004 - 13:06:08 BST