The retro Commodore 64 Mini will be available with 64 pre-loaded games from 29th March 2018 for US$70

**** COMMODORE 64 BASIC V2 ****
64K RAM SYSTEM 38911 BASIC BYTES FREE
READY.

LOAD"ARTICLE",8,1
SEARCHING FOR ARTICLE
LOADING
READY.
RUN

The Commodore 64, named so for the 64 Kilobytes of RAM inside, brings back youthful memories for many of us due to its persistence in the market. Production started in 1982 and continued over 12 years, to finally cease production in 1994 when Commodore filed for bankruptcy. I remember excitedly sitting there while my father loaded games for me from cassette or 5.25-inch floppy disk, and the old magazine clippings containing the multiple lines of code that were needed for certain tasks.

Now Retro Games Ltd have announced that the officially licensed Commodore 64 Mini (C64 Mini), which we first heard about in September 2017, will be available on the 29th of March. The C64 Mini comes as a 50 percent scale replica with USB power cable, HDMI cable, classic style joystick, and manual. Buyers must supply their own USB wall adapter, and the video output is only 720p — but keep in mind that this is emulating a platform from the 80’s that ran at 320 x 200 resolution. The integrated keyboard on the mini is purely for aesthetics and is non-functional.

In addition to the 64 classic games pre-loaded, the C64 Mini is emulating a full version of the Commodore BASIC operating system, so users can connect a USB keyboard and type out old BASIC code or create new games.

A full-sized and fully-working version of the Commodore 64 is expected later this year, and we suspect that fully working includes the integrated keyboard. For those with a hankering for retro gaming, a Raspberry Pi will happily emulate Commodore 64 games with the right emulator, but keep in mind that you are forgoing the replica look, included joystick, and Commodore BASIC operating system.

The C64 Mini will go on sale from the 29th of March with an MSRP of US$70/EU€80/GB£70 depending on region.

The 64 pre-loaded games are:

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