OK, here it is. I’ve received about a thousand emails from people asking if I was aware of
this product and if was going to review it. And, I think that’s like asking if the sun
is going to rise tomorrow, of course I’m going to review it. So, let’s go ahead and
get started.
OK, here we go, let’s cut the official seals.
Well, at first glance it certainly looks very convincing. So, let’s have a little closer
look.
Let’s see what’s in the little box here. Obviously, you get a joystick. And what’s
this? It looks like a power plug with a million little connectors. I bet the USA version won’t
be like this, but at least it does have a snap on part for USA style plugs. And we also
get an HDMI cable, and a user’s manual. While it’s not very thick, it’s actually
more informative than what you get with most actual computers these days. And so, these
things here are primarily what you get inside the box.
Let’s take a closer look at the keyboard. I’m very pleased they were able to get the
PETSCII characters printed on the sides of the keys. I had asked many times on their
facebook page if this would happen, and the early prototypes they showed didn’t have
this. So I’m thrilled they were able to get these on the final product. In fact, this
alone makes this superior to using most C64 emulators because you can actually see where
all of the special keys and characters are.
Taking a look at the side, we have THREE USB ports, which is great. The little Mini version
was always coming up short and I had to use a USB hub in order to plug everything in that
I wanted. So, that’s great. And over here is a soft-power switch. And on the rear, we
have power in, HDMI, and oh look! Another USB port, that makes 4! Plus since you have
a built-in keyboard that actually saves you another port. And as far as ports go, that’s
it.
So, let’s compare to the real C64.
So, obviously the color is a little bit different, but that’s debatable. Some people are saying
that the European versions of the C64 were a different color. So, you know, I can give
them a break on that. But there’s also something that’s a little bit hard to explain. And
maybe it doesn’t show up on camera as much, the real C64 has a little bit different sheen
to it than the new one. It’s like this one is a little bit more glossy and reflective
than the other one, which I don’t know, almost well, I hesitate to say but it’s
like a cheaper type of plastic. But there’s something that’s more glaringly obvious
to me. And that’s the height different between the two computers.
You can clearly see that the original C64 is shorter. So, let’s try a little experiment.
Let’s compare with the VIC-20. OK, yeah, it looks like a perfect match for the VIC.
So I think maybe the engineers modeled the case after the dimensions of the VIC-20 instead
of the C64.
And there’s one more thing I want you to see, or rather in the case, want you to hear.
This is how the keyboard sounds on the original C64. And now the modern one. This one sounds
far more hollow inside.
OK, so let’s fire this thing on for the first time and see what happens. OK, we get
a little logo screen. And we get an initial setup screen. OK, next it wants me to pick
50 or 60 hz operation. One important thing to know is that this will affect the speed
at which some games play, as well as 50 hz may not work on some older USA televisions.
And now it wants me to select if it is going to boot to the carousel or straight to C64
BASIC. What the heck, let’s try BASIC. Ok, I guess we’re done. The screen does seem
a little bit stretched maybe. I’m not sure.. well, let’s play around with some other
settings. Ok, so just like the mini version, there are many different display options.
Let’s try the North American 4:3. I’m not sure if this means you are using a 4:3
monitor, or if you just want it to be the right aspect ratio on a 16:9. So we’ll try
it out. Other settings are computer model. Looks like you can choose a VIC-20 or C64,
as well as PAL and NTSC. And here’ we go. I don’t know about this 4:3 mode. I measured
and it is considerably too skinny horizontally. So, again, maybe this is meant for actual
4:3 monitors, which are pretty rare in HDMI land.
Let’s see if there is anything we can load from the disk drive. Nope, it appears to be
blank.
Ok, here’s something I have to try. Run/Stop and Restore. Yep.. It actually works. This
is something that is always a pain to do in an emulator. OK, let’s power it off and
back on. I want to see how long it takes to boot straight to BASIC. Ok, so you get a little
intro screen still. And yeah, this certainly takes longer to boot than a regular C64, but
not terribly so.
So, it’s easy enough to exit BASIC and get back to the carousel mode. And of course,
if you’ve seen my previous reviews of theC64 mini, then you should recognize this. So,
rather than go through the carousel, let’s talk about the list of games, and what has
changed.
This is the original list of games that came with the UK version of the mini that I reviewed
a while back. It appears these games here, have been removed. So, if you liked any of
these games, sorry, they’re gone. However, they have been replaced by these games. I
will point out that these two are actually VIC-20 games. And this game is particularly
interesting as it is a very recent game that was just released a couple of years ago.
Of course, just like previous systems, the built in software is not the end-all be-all
of this computer, because you can put whatever you want on a USB stick. So, let’s try a
few things.
OK, first I’m going to copy over my delay test program to see what sort of lag time
this one has compared to the last. Also, I want to try the new super Mario brothers game.
And last, I wanted to try something for the VIC-20. This is a conversion of the game Pitfall.
Now, I’m going to add some characters to the end of the filename. These are tags that
tell the system how to treat this file, which is handy for a a lot of things.
So, you may be wondering what those characters mean, so I’ll give you a break down here.
The MV stands for model VIC-20. The TP stands for Type PAL, because yes, this game only
works on PAL systems unfortunately. And B1 stands for Bank 1, and of course Bank 2. These
enable extra banks of RAM on the VIC-20 because this game requires 16K of RAM on a VIC-20.
If you actually download the PDF version of the user guide for TheC64, it goes into great
detail about these filename tags, as well as giving you some other options you can use
instead. But it’s far more than I want to explain in this video.
So, let’s go ahead and plug this into the system and see what happens. I’ll go into
the menu here and select media access. Let’s start with Super Mario 64. And yes, for the
thousands of people that emailed me to let me know this game exists, now you can breathe
a sigh of relief since you have positive proof that yes, I have indeed played it.
OK, let’s try another one. I’m hoping it will automatically switch to the VIC-20
emulation due to the tags I put on the file. Interestingly enough, the file browser actually
doesn’t show the tags on screen. Well, it worked! So, much like the C64 version of Super
Mario, this VIC-20 version of Pitfall is unofficial and was released back in 2013. It actually
uses raster effects to create the trees, the ground, stairs, and tunnels. This way, it
helps overcome the lack of sprites on the VIC-20. The unfortunate part is that it requires
precise timing and thus doesn’t work on NTSC VIC-20s like mine. Still, I’ve always
thought this was a really cool VIC-20 game and have looked for an excuse to show it for
a while, as it almost rivals the Atari 2600 version.
I also wanted to take this opportunity to say the joystick feels really nice. I mean
way better than I expected. So, I dragged out the joystick from the mini to compare.
And while it looks almost identical, this one just feels and sounds different. This
is the new one, and it has a very satisfying clicky feel and sound to it. I suppose that’s
what they were talking about here on the box where it brags about including a microswitch
joystick. So yeah, I am impressed with the joystick.
So, now it’s time to test the delay on this thing. In order to be consistent I’ll use
the same test I used before, and the same television as well. Now, I’ll be honest,
I can at least hear a huge difference already. Just for comparison, here’s the previous
test. And now the new one. The way I measure the audio is by looking in Audacity. I measure
the time from the first sound of the space bar, to the time you start to hear the beep.
And so yeah, that’s for the last test I did. But looking at today’s test you can
clearly see there is a huge improvement in the audio lag.
Let’s compare on a chart with the previous data. So this is the first C64 mini I reviewed,
and the lag was pretty bad. This is the second revision of the unit, and you can see there
was a minor improvement in both audio and video. And here’s the new version. And while
the video is still about 3 frames of lag, that was never as big of a deal as the audio,
which is now vastly improved. In fact, it’s almost perfectly in sync with the video. As
an example, if I show you a direct capture so that you won’t see or hear me pressing
the space bar, you’ll have a hard time separating the sound of the beep with the screen color
change.
And you know, a lot of people thought I was trying to be really critical of the mini systems
because of the delay that they had, and that’s not entirely true. I was simply trying to
provide unbiased, accurate information so that people could make up their own minds.
But it is, after all, an emulator. There’s going to be some lag, and that’s just the
way emulators are. But for an interesting comparison, let’s try using my MacBook Air,
which is running a 1.8 ghz i5 CPU and see what sort of delay it has.
Well, believe it or not, the MacBook Air actually has about the same video delay, but the audio
delay is even worse than the new C64 maxi, but not as bad as the mini versions. So, I
think this is very telling. And while delay like this is inevitable on an emulator, I
think this new product actually nails it and I think it’s well within the acceptable
range for playing action games and the like.
Many people that emailed me about this asked if I got one of these, if I would take it
apart. And I think the answer to that is also a given. I’m going to start with the joystick
to see how it is constructed inside. Well, this is surprising.
These appear to be weights just to make the joystick heavier, This was actually common
even back in the day.
There are certainly lot cheaper ways this could have been made, but they appear to have
really wanted a good experience with this joystick by putting microswitches in here.
I know the previous joystick also had some issues with the stalk breaking off. Whether
that will happen to this one, I have no idea.
Well, now let’s unscrew this thing and get a peak at the insides. Externally, it has
the same 3 screws that the original C64 and VIC-20 had, let’s find out if the similarity
ends there or not.
Oh wow. It’s almost shocking when I open this thing exactly how empty it is inside.
I mean, I should have known that before hand, but I guess it still came as a bit of a surprise.
It looks like this board here, which is probably very similar to TheC64-Mini, is most of the
guts of the computer.
I’m going to go ahead and unplug some wires so I can further disassemble it.
And, well, here it is. It’s basically just a little ARM computer, probably similar to
the Raspberry pi. And over here is probably just a USB hub, along with a power button.
All right, let’s have a look at the keyboard. My guess is this is probably a USB keyboard
controller, but it could be something proprietary. Well, I want to get a look at how the keyboard
works mechanically.
OK, so it’s got this big metal plate here. This thing is pretty thick and I dare say
is probably most of the weight of the computer right here. Then we have this membrane here,
which I hate to say is similar in design to the Atari 800XL, which I hate. Mostly because
they quit working after a while and are very prone to corrosion. Hopefully that won’t
be the case with these, but time will tell.
The keys and all of this part here is surprisingly light without that metal plate in the back.
So, what do I think of the full sized “TheC64?” Well, it’s not a real C64 and I think most
people know that and are not expecting it to be a real C64. But, I can also say that
I think that the construction is actually a lot better than I was really expecting.
I mean, this could have been made a lot cheaper than it was. And, so I really feel like the
people that designed this, both the hardware and the software are actually really fans
of the Commodore 64 and so they were really trying to produce a product that, you know,
within certain price limitations could give a pretty good experience for the end user.
And so, and so yeah, I think they did the best job they could with the budget constraints
that they had.
And with the improvements in the performance, I don’t hesitate to recommend this product
to anyone.
So, if your goal is to sit down and play some of the thousands of titles for the Commodore
64 or VIC-20, I think this product will work absolutely fine for that.
If your goal is to tinker around in BASIC for either the VIC-20 or C64, this is also
a good product for that, especially being you have all of the correct key placements
on the keyboard.
Or, since it’s Christmas time, if you just want to enjoy the 1982 Commodore Christmas
Demo, well, you can also do that.
Unfortunately, this computer will not be available in the United States for Christmas this year.
The only reason I was able to get one is because a fan from the UK actually sent me this one.
So, I was very grateful for that. But, I think that if you put this on your Christmas list
for next year, you’ll probably be able to get one here in the USA. Other than that,
that is actually it for the moment. This is going to be the last video for 2019, most
likely. So, I’ll go ahead and take this opportunity to wish you a merry Christmas
and a happy new year. And thanks for watching.