I remember talking to my uncle about this and there it is, I wanted to show up to my uncle's house with this so we could dabble on it together, but sadly my uncle passed away only 2 weeks ago. He taught me everything I know about computers, and the commodore 64 was the first he ever used with coding, it gave him the skills he gained that helped him achieve his goal as a system manager. He told me many stories about him staying up late at night thinking where he went wrong in a certain code and spending hours trying to sleep but couldn't because that program didn't run yet. I hope people will remember him for the good man he was. My dear uncle Obaid, may you rest in peace. Edit: thanks to all the people who took the time and honored my late uncle’s passing. Your comments were wonderful and all the supports and thumbs up were heart warming. I love this channel and I love this warm community this channel has created. God bless you all. 🥰
Seems like a great guy! Sorry for your loss. Yet it is good to see that you are focused on what he gave you in terms of memories and I think there is a good lesson in his dedication and focus as well. Peace!
Don’t be sad he’s gone, be happy he was a part of your life, spent lots of time with you, and was someone you could look up to. He seemed like a really cool guy! I know this is late now but I still wanted to write this for you.
My amazing wife bought me mine for Christmas 2021 and i truly love it. I last owned a REAL C64 many years ago and loved the amazing games i used to play at the time. As soon as i got my "TheC64 MAXI" all plugged up i went ahead and updated it's firmare straight away. Then proceded to add more games (titles i used to play back in the day) onto a USB pen drive and spent hours reliving those games all over again. The beauty of this machine is the fact you don't need any actual game cassettes, cassette drive or floppy disc drive. Everything just works as it should. I know the machine is run through "Emulation" but so is my self build A1200 "FrankinPi" (which can run Amibian and PiMiga) so i'm able to replay all my favourite classic Amiga games all over again. Looking forward to future machines being launched by this company, as there's a "Full Size" Amiga being launched next year (2024).
Yeah, that's the C64-1 version, while the most common breadbin version is the C64-2, and the C64-3 is the C64C. P.S.: What an irony! I was the sixty-fifth to like this!
Also he got it wrong with the colour, the shade is right for other versions. As well, some of the games he has never heard from with this and the mini are either populare outside of the US or very highly rated like star paws
@@francistaylor1822 Various flavours of poop colour, matching various flavours of poop colours in the colour palette. No problem if there is a good assortment of poop on your shelves. Things get even more rainbow with various degrees of bromine discolouration.
ME: Remember how, back in the 1980s, when one turned on the TV, the sound came on instantly but he had to wait 5 seconds for the picture? MY FRIEND: Remember how, back in the 1980s, there was actually stuff on TV for which IT WAS WORTH waiting 5 seconds? :P
THIS IS AWSOME!! I’m a programming student and I have been fascinated with old 8bit machines, because they are great for learning computer infrastructure (and I want to learn basic). I have been looking into getting an original c64 for a short amount of time now but I was discouraged by the amount of work that is needed to ensure these systems keep running, like switching caps and all the model revisions. This has sparked my interest again and might just be my ticket into the c64 scene. Thanks you for doing an in depth review on this product and thank the designers of this product as well!!
No. You don't want to learn BASIC! I'm kinda joking, but kinda not. It was a terrible language that frustrated me out of learning programming. The Jupiter Ace had Forth, but hardly anyone bought those. The boot code of PowerPC Macs was also written in Forth, a lot of embedded stuff, too. Pascal was also better than Basic.
@@MrDirkles MSX computers had a pretty good built in Basic, but you can also find better Basic for the C64 itself in cartridge form, so it actually doesn't matter much
I bought the mini C64 and I can't wait to get the full sized one! I cut my teeth learning computers & programming on the C64 when I was growing up. Gaming on the C64 was simple but so much fun!!! I later upgraded to a C128D, then an Amiga 500+ before being forced onto the PC platform in college, after Commodore went bankrupt. I had my eye on an Amiga 4000 before Commodore shut down. A shame. Oh well, at least the good folks crowdfunding this little piece of nostalgia have our backs!
@@victor.elkins that is because after the first sales they upped their expectations again and again.. in the end they upped it too much, that is why i said it sold below expectations. but only at the end of it's sales life..
@@victor.elkins The cases were appropriated. The Vic 20 did sell incredibly well, but Commodore predicted more growth. Essp in Europe where Sinclair computers with more memory (or lower cost) dominated the market after mid 1981. That's also the reason the European cases are beige not grey. It was easier to convert to beige apparently
@@MiscName flashing tape I would have thought would make a difference, stick the stuff to the inside of the plastic this would inhibit the sound vibration of the plastic echoing inside, if you knocked the plastic with your knuckle with the flashing tape (stuff is used to line vans etc) that hollow sound would be almost gone
@@andrewandreas2625 Strange thing to say. Not everybody lives in a country where C64’s are readily available. Others just prefer the affordability, reliability and convenience of the “fake” version which uses almost no power, generates no heat, will probably run for 15+ years with no issues, and let’s you play all the same games with 99% accuracy.
I remember getting one of these on Xmas morning almost 40 years ago. I lived in front of that thing. First couple years I used the cassette tape storage device. Years later I got the disk drive. Anyone else dial up to BBS's with a 300 bps modem?
The C64 was my very first computer and i loved it. I was so stupid to give it all away and i had a lot of accessories to it. Damn i miss it. If i got one today how would i connect it to a modern 27" LCD monitor?
Yes, I am a veteran of the BBS and 300bps modem and the very distinct sound you got when you made the connection. But you needed everyone in the house to know you were online so they didn't pickup the phone and lose your connection. But this old dog now has, hsd with phones, tvs, and computers all running at the same time. But mine was not found under the Christmas tree. I had to get a job to pay for it which if I remember right at the time was more than this new one is over $200 on sale I believe. That would have been than two weeks pay at the burger joint where I worked at minimum wage.
Built my main PC myself, it has I think 2 USB 3.2, 6 USB 3.0/3.1 (they just had to make it confusing) and I've been thinking about adding some more or perhaps just getting a powered hub (preferably one I can turn off so I can put my computer to sleep without the lights staying on). PC includes Ryzen 7, RTX 2070, 16GB DDR4 3200, Blue Ray drive, and a 1TB M.2 SSD which cost me around $1,600 total. If I bought a prefab PC with the same specs it would probably cost $3,000 or more at the time and a Mac with similar specs would probably have cost $6,000 if I had to guess and wouldn't have half the USBs because Apple (not that Win10 isn't without issues of it's own but at least I don't have to buy a bunch of overpriced Apple products just to make stuff work). The one advantage Apple does have over Windows (or even Linux most of the time) is that they built their systems for specific hardware and are more optimized but as Moore's law is pretty much dead or at least dying at this point (depending on who you ask) I think PC developers are going to start optimizing more instead of relying on the hardware to do all the work.
Just wanted you to know that I love your video's and your method of review is superb. Love the way you actually open up the computers and have a look at what's inside. When I was a kid I was always doing that, trying to come up with ways to either fix broken computers or push the limits of what I had and get them to do just that little bit more. You've sold me on this terrific emulation because for all intents and purposes I'd only want to run ol'favourite programs and do a splash of Commodore basic programming. It would probably be fine for word processing and other business applications as well if you didn't mind having your work in a completely superceded format but for the nostalgia benefit and being able to have what now will cost you a lot more than the asking price for an original in good condition with disk drive/converters for a modern screeen/ floppies or tape cassette drives etc it's superb and a nice dedicated machine for simply enjoying all that great software that came out for this computer. The ability to check out all the VIC 20 software is a massive bonus as well. It would have been nice to know if it can save/load for adventure games etc but ultimately it's going to do most of what I want it for. Here's hoping that a long overdue mass produced Amiga 500 computer is released allowing all the great A500 software to be accessed on a unit that will have HDMI and USB as standard. Best of all it can be the full RAM upgraded model but no doubt if these developers put one together it will have all the various hardware options that the Amiga came in and who knows maybe even do the very hard to come by Amiga 1000. Many thanks for the video and I hope you had a terrific Christmas.
Nice review. My kids love retro-gaming so I sent them a link to this, because they would definitely be interested. I especially appreciate seeing the insides and the delay benchmarks.
I am looking forward to receive mine tomorrow... for me the mini version was not interesting due to the missing keyboard but this one is for me the best experience without getting a new power brick and revamping my old c128. And personally I think this will make more fun to play with than an emulator.
@Zero Cool Maybe the best thing they could have done is made the mini have a working keyboard. I mean the normal C64 size is just huuge(hell the whole thing is empty inside, seeing that tiny board that huuge keyboard seems kind of silly) and takes so much space and most will play games anyway so for those that want to do some basic and little basic programming a working small keyboard should still be enough. It may not be as comfortable but if we can type on smartphone screens we can type on that too. A mini with a working keyboard and more usb, will have been ideal.
@@SIPEROTH I'll fill the full size new one with foam so it won't sound hollow. ;) Plus I want that full keyboard since I started talking on BBS's back in 1985 on a C46 keyboard and I want to do it again.
I have a C128, a C64, and a VIC-20. My C128 was purchased for me by my grandparents in 1986. Original purchase price was $499...I don't know how much the monitor or disk drive was as the stickers aren't on them, just the original $499 sticker on the box itself. My C64 and VIC-20 I picked up a couple weeks ago from an electronics recycler & second hand shop for $19 each...in unknown condition, I took a chance, and got lucky both of the systems are functional...it was so cool to turn the switch on and see that old familiar BASIC screen. I just wish my mom were still here to see, she passed away last summer, so she never got to see the full size "THEC64", I got the Mini and she was able to see it, but the full size one was too late :(. I got the full size here in the US only because I am one of the original backers for the project. There isn't anything that would compare to the original, but they did a great job on the full size "THEC64" IMO.
@@SIPEROTH I wouldn't want to try and type on that mini's keyboard. The full size is the same size as the original C64, so no reason to have done it any different...heck the keyboard for your computer if you have a desktop PC is probably larger than the C64's platform LOL. I do agree though they should have made the mini's keyboard functional at least, it would sure make it more user friendly especially with only having 2 USB ports on it and a huge empty case they certainly could have added another couple of USB ports to LOL.
OK, I'm genuinely shocked. I'm european and this C64 looks exactly like the Commodore 64 I remember from the 80s, specially attending to the color, and I've been quite confused watching previous videos as the Commodore 64s shown had me wondering why there was something that felt wrong. I think it's not a wild guess that this resembles the european version and it might use the mold from the american VIC-20 with a brown-ish plastic back then.
it was the same for all early model C64's across the board NTSC/PAL as Commodore was saving those pennies by reusing the VIC-20 case molds, and as time went on, and we got improvements to the C64, and the molds wore out, Commodore switched to slightly smaller molds to again shave those pennies in plastic cost, before the redesigned C64C aka C64 slim models to go along with the look of the C128.
March 27, 2021 - I was finally able to order this yesterday on Amazon. Finally showed up as available in the U.S.! I own an original C64, but really wanted to get my hands on the Maxi.
Lucky you! I've been trying to find this in stock for over a year and I finally noticed Amazon has them back in again today so I nabbed one right quick.
Thanks David for being the only RUclipsr actually giving relevant information about the hardware! I can see myself getting one of these! To be honest. The delay is actually REALLY good. I think it is as fine as it gets through emulation with frame-buffer. Unless you do retroarch witchcraft technique of course, running multiple instances of the same emulation core in order to render the video ahead of the input and audio. Don't ask me how it works, it just does, but it increases CPU usage significantly).
At 4:30 you were discussing the 4:3 being too skinny. That's actually pixel perfect 4:3. Monitors of the era had non-square pixels and stretched the 4:3 screen wider, giving it a chunkier look than the Maxi has.
"That's actually pixel perfect 4:3." No, it isn't. Take a screenshot of it and crop away everything that isn't the C64 raster. The aspect ratio is about 1.24:1 (4:3 = 1.33:1), so he's right, it's too skinny. "Monitors of the era had non-square pixels and stretched the 4:3 screen wider, giving it a chunkier look than the Maxi has." No; CRT monitors don't have pixels at all. Only digital displays (e.g., LCDs) have pixels. The picture tubes had an aspect ratio of 4:3 (for example, 16" wide by 12" tall for a 20" monitor [20" being the diagonal measurement]), and then the horizontal and vertical width of the raster were adjusted to fill the screen (which was done with a potentiometer for V-width and a horizontal width coil for H-width; newer ones often had electronic adjustments for both, usually via buttons on the front below the screen), which inherently made the raster 4:3 regardless of what the digital resolution and pixel aspect ratio were before it was converted to an analog video signal in order to drive the electron gun(s) of a CRT monitor.
i had an original 64 in New Zealand i found it at a garage sale for $50 in 1986 and it didn't work so i took it to a repair guy who did repair it and it cost me over $200 to get repaired my Mother was not very happy with my purchase but i loved it and it was a huge part of my upbringing everything from Giana sisters to California games and Bruce Lee anyway i wanted to say my C64 was the same colour as this new full size model thanks for the video 8 Bit Guy !!
Oh yes. That reminds me of a family drama in the 80s. I tried to build a reset switch for the Userport and connected the wrong pins. *Poff* and black screen. Cost about 200 Deutsche Mark to fix; which was quite a sum in these days. My parents were hyper-angry.
Got this for Christmas here in New Zealand (it released a few or two ago here). Love it and I never had the original C64 so this is a refreshing experience for me!
@Trantor The Troll Yes it looks and feels great, a little hollow as Ron mentioned but it's not really an issue and I'm not about to stuff it with weights. Operation is great, menu wasn't too intuative at first but is good now. As for the games, well I can't complain because I wasn't expecting much as I never played the originals. Same for the BASIC coding. The joystick is clicky and responsive but I'm going to try to use a gamepad because I just prefer them. Overall I mostly bought this for the aesthetics and to cover this 8 bit era of computer gaming without having to spend a fortune on real hardware and having to fix it etc. I imagine a true C64 fan would like it even more than me.
i would say the hollow sound you are hearing when you type is the echo inside the case if you added some foam internally it would probably sound more similar to the commodore 64/vic 20
The C64 in the US came in multiple shades of gray anyway (no, I'm not confusing it with the VIC-20, I used to repair both C64 and VIC-20s in the 90s when you could pick them up for cheap).
@@walterg74 the c64 has several different revisions, the early models has the same exact case as the vic20 and they used different types of plastics over the years before finally settling on the 64C
@@walterg74 if you have a brown c64, it's plastic has probably been browned by UV light and should be treated with volume 40 salon cream (ask David for the specifics) and ironically more UV light.
@@LysiX well... yes, sorta. It's a "stabilized peroxide creme," "Volume 40" is a cheap and widely available source, but you can also do better (searching on the internet, anyways). There is some controversy (outside this channel) because it's not a permanent solution; the "restoration" will fade again. David's a fan, and it makes sense when selling "restored hardware", but do you really want to do it every few years for items you keep?
Oh the endless hours I spent with my Pet, Vic-20 and C64. Pretty much an encapsulation of my Jr. High years. So many great memories. May have to pick one of these up. Thanks for the great video!
Am I the only one having a little buyers remorse from buying the mini? Dave, you had me buying the maxi as soon as you gave it a thumbs up. I mainly ran a BBS on mine back in the day, but I'm sure the maxi won't be C-NET compatible. It bummed me out that they aren't available in the US yet, but I'm patient. :) Thank you Dave for your honest reviews, and for keeping retro computing alive.
Buyer's remorse? Nah, I have a mini and I think they both have their place. The mini is for people who just want a little nostalgia and the maxi for people who want features that require a full size, working keyboard. They'll be some crossover but primarily serve different fans.
Looking at the example shots @ 4:08 I think you may have wanted the European 4:3. You can see that it isn't as skinny as the North American 4:3. All of these modes are designed to be used on a modern screen and are setup to provide an expected aspect ratio for the games.
Thank you for this comment, two years in the future. Wanted to make my display look authentic but had no point of reference other than various Commodore 64 videos I've watched. Was thinking the EU ratio looked the best (with scanlines!).
Great review. Got mine for Christmas this morning. Having tons of fun with it. The included games are fun and challenging. Great that they included a nice range of genres. Will add some more to a memory stick just as soon as I can find a spare. Also spent a little time programming in VIC20 and C64 BASIC. Can see myself spending a lot of time playing with it in the coming months.
It's funny because I bought the same TV when I ordered my two Commodore 64s; one for fun and one to learn how to repair the Commodore 64. Excellent video on The C64. Btw, I think travelled back in time when I saw the Christmas demo. Thank you!!!
Isnt there at least 3 types of breadbin c64 cases? The early one being the same as a vic-20 but with a modified bottom half? Adrian Black made a video about it.
Yes there where, I had an early Bread Bin that matched in height to my Vic-20 as Commodore just reused the Vic-20 plastic molds to save cost, but as the VIC-20 molds wore out, and we got some improvements on the C64 they switched to smaller molds again to save just those few pennies in plastic cost. Gotta remember Jack's motto was "Computers for the masses, not the classes."
@The Greatest Man That Ever Lived I believe Jan Beta talked about that one(don't quote me though), and said it was sold as an Aldi special buy? like they where pushing the plastic molds to get the last bit out of them.
Nice review, love that you took it apart, too! Looks very high quality and I'm looking forward to getting mine here in the US. Happy new year indeed--if only we knew!
Nice... I'm a little bummed about the reboot times, but other than that it looks like a solid device. I have to admit when they initially went with the mini (after crowdfunding the full size model) I figured they were just pulling a bait-and-switch, and that the full size model would never see the light of day. Glad to see I was mistaken.
You also don't have to swap disks, or even have a 1541 attached at all. That will also save time. Plus, you can restore to a given state, rather than having to cold boot to BASIC and load programs.
Talk about a blast from the past! In the '80s I wrote a time slice multitask operating system for the C64/C128. It was (obviously) all in assembly code and was written to support "pop up" windows like a calculator, clock, notepad, etc. All the code lived in "shadow" ram whose address ranges are by default used by the Commodore OS and Basic. It was an intense, fun project. I'd probably be writing this from a snooty zip code if Timeworks hadn't beaten us. Grumble. (I still have the source code. LOL)
I wrote a RPG with "3d" character graphics (the diagonal lines, etc) that took about 30 seconds to draw lol. I would give ANYTHING to have my source code.
Great Review and I look forward to picking one of these up when they're released over here in the U.S.A! I have fond memories of playing on our Commodore 64 back in the mid to late 80s with my Dad! I'm thinking of hooking it up to our still functioning 1702 Monitor to make it more authentic! Cheers!
@@aziztcf Well, the problem with that is you need an old A500 to pick the custom chips from. Preferably a Rev 8 with Super Denise and 8375 Fat Agnus. If you don't the A500++ is more or less worthless. Not mentioning that you need to solder everything yourself. If you like to tinker with things then that's fine but if you don't it's not for you.
I just got one for Christmas. I still have my original VIC-20 and when playing VIC games on this I can easily forget that it is emulated hardware. The keyboard may sound a bit different, but still feels right, at least to me. Currently downloading a bunch of VIC ROMs to check all the games I have for the original. The C64 games are good and the inclusion of the VIC OS makes this twice as good for me.
For satisfying answers to the colour and size differences, check out 8bit Show & Tell's channel. The reality is that breadbin C64s came in various colours... and heights!
Thanks for the video. I had a C64, tape drive, floppy drive, monitor (which was really good), the 4 color pen plotter & Star Micronix dot matrix printer. Every engineer and technician I knew had a Commodore. Also, the colors of each piece weren’t quite the same. I wish I’d kept all that stuff and magazines. Compute’s Gazette and others.
The video settings having a 'European 4:3' setting is a nice touch. You have to remember PAL (or more accurately the underlying monochrome standard preceding it) Is not just 50 hz, but also a different resolution. NTSC is 525 lines per frame (262.5 per field), while PAL is 625 lines per frame (312.5 per field) After accounting for the screen bezels of CRT televisions, and effective blanking lines, this means in effect an NTSC television displays 224 lines, and a PAL one 267 (officially this is 240 and 288, but my own practical experience shows the earlier values to be closer to correct) OK, so what? Well a large proportion of 80's computers and consoles were designed for NTSC standards, then lazily converted for PAL. Leading to a variety of aspect ratio distortions and the infamous 'black bars' of some systems. It also had upsides; PAL systems ended up with an enormous increase in blanking lines per frame. (sometimes 80% more), which, if you understand your 8/16 graphics coding has huge implications for what you can pull off. (this is a principal cause why ntsc games can always be ported to PAL Machines even if the outcome is often graphically distorted and runs too slow, bur certain complex PAL games will just break on an NTSC system in ways that basically cannot be fixed.) Anyway, the issue at hand being that for a given resolution (say 320x240) this will have different image and pixel aspect ratios on PAL and NTSC. Take the snes. 256x224 resolution. On NTSC this gives a 4:3 image that fills the whole screen and pixels have a 7:6 ratio. On PAL this gives a different aspect ratio, and you get letterboxing. - even if you push up to 256x240 (technically possible), that still gives letterboxing on a PAL snes. Meanwhile the pixel aspect is now 25:18. Interesting side note; given how snes works, on paper, for a PAL system a resolution of 256x200 woukd give a 16:9 aspect ratio. On NTSC you have to drop to 256x168. Worth remembering if you create retro homebrew stuff. If you keep everything important to 256x192 then on a PAL system you can generally make stuff usable in 16:9 (using a TV's zoom mode, NOT stretch). In general, for most 8/16 bit systems, 192 horizontal lines with typical resolutions is technically 16:9 output on a PAL system.
Hallo David! Du sprichst deutsch, deshalb auf deutsch: Tolle Präsentationen, man spürt die Leidenschaft für das Thema. Super interessant, sympathisch und informativ! Frohe Weihnachten für dich und deine Familie!
but who has the space for something so big? keep in mind one will also have other consoles as well... i much prefer the mini retro models of 2018 and 2019
Vic20, C64, C128, and Amiga....what a lot of fond memories! Learned to program in assembly (hex) on the C64, which started a 30 year love affair. Thanks.
I repaired ALL (of the different kinds) of the original Competition PRO joysticks. The switches are just screwed into the case there, unlike this very nice PCB solution. I wonder if the general newly produced ones with the regular 9-pin output are this well made too? I mean, from the looks of it, you could just put in a DB9 cable and connect it at the neatly prepared solderpads on the board.
This is probably a hopeless request, but does this have the mini-assembler that the C64 had too? Or do i need to get my 6502 assembly itch scratched elsewhere? Minor nitpick, but writing 6502 assembly programs was my favorite thing to do on my old C64.
The mini-assembler was never a part of the C64. It was a part of the C128. Edit: You can use a mini-assembler, MONITOR$8000 or MONITOR$C000 (which is the same ML monitor compiled for different memory locations) but you need to load it off of disk first.
@@glenndoiron9317 I always thought you could use the MON command on the c64. I think you're right though, it might have been a cartridge in the back. Edit: Yeah, I just texted my mom. It was a TIM clone we had on cartridge.
@@EvilSandwich This video was just released as well and he does it. But no, it's straight forward unless you want a ram expander. Then it's complicated, but he shows that too. ruclips.net/video/z2GACGEucTI/видео.html
Ahh, I remember that Christmas demo from the C64 I bought either 1984 or 85. I'd just made the step up from the ZX Spectrum after seeing a comparison of the Ghostbusters game.
Brilliant 😃😃😃 I did the exact same thing after seeing Ghostbusters in a computer shop playing on a C64... I sold my BBC Micro B & promptly bought a C64 which I still have today boxed in my loft AND funnily enough I've JUST acquired another copy of Ghostbusters in a clam shell from eBay. The guy included it free of charge with a copy of Raid Over Moscow I bought from him for 3.10 UK Pounds. What a result 😃😃🎮🎮😂😂
I ordered a C64 mini last week for $25 from GameStop (sitting at UPS waiting for pickup) and just decided to order the Maxi from Italian Amazon (about $137 shipped).
I know something about c64 you don't! I watched another review before this. Turns out commodore made several cases, that were slightly different. That case matches nearly perfect, in color and size to one of the original cases.
Suppose the same version looks different in America and Europe, even in different European countries. Commodore had several plants in the US and at least one in Germany and the UK in Europe. Thus the same revision for Germans and British customers might differ in size and color.
Very true I did a review on THEC64 a week ago and measured a couple of BreadBox C64 with THEC64 some were different and some the exact same dimensions. Also one of the C64 I compared it with was almost exactly the same colour. Great effort by Retro Games Ltd.
@@CommodoreComputerMuseum I have 6 c64 Commodores, and drives. I also have a Raspberry pi, which I haven't done much with, other then image the card, and test it out. But I recently got a card reader for the commodore, and having fun copieing files off my floppy, and making d64 roms using a program called DirMaster. I been doing videos on programming basic programs on vice. I also started a code resource site, where people can download software I developed in the 80s. I have links to my web site under my videos. Check them out!
Thanks for your review. I’ve had one of these for a week now and can say if you want this for the many games onboard the carousel, it is brilliant. If you (like me) want to get back to programming and coding, it does have a few bugs, even after installing the upgrade. It often doesn’t recognise the usb drive and goes into shift mode after loading programmes. The cursor can have a mind of its own if you move it up several lines of basic at a time - shoots down the lines again and scrolls the listing off the screen if you are not quick to stop it. One last thing, sprite data can get corrupted. I do love this device though.
I’m not sure if you’ve done a video on this but, I think it would be cool to show the benefits of composite video! Sonic 1 and Earthworm Jim are great examples!
This holds a world of prospects for those who have an interest in amateur radio. There were many programs for RTTY and some other digital modes. While a vintage C64 might be the first option, I'd be very happy to have this one!
Yes, when you remember, that the bread case was in 1982 the smallest they could make the computer... and now you have an ARM computer that only takes 5% of the space. By the way, that means, in the end Jim Curry has won. Sinclair is dead, Commodore is dead, even Amstrad is dead - but everyone up to this day is using Acorn technology :D
I feel very bad that I never bothered to repair my original C64 and sold my C128. How would I know back then what treasures they would be considered today? So sad.
The main attraction for someone noob like me with C64 is how easy it is to turn it on. Its just plug and play, I don't need to look forward to specific ports I will never have or crazy adapters.
@Polite Society The C64 is a Raspberry Pi based unit and as such does NOT have a real SID Chip inside as you may have seen in the tear down scene. I too, as a musician, was interested and only let down. No C64 for me... Basically, this is a custom OS with emulation in software for all sound, video and so on. I expected at least the swinSID new fake SID chips but nope, not even that.. Em, I was in Office Max one day, in the merry merry month of May, and I happen across a system that had a ton of classic computer games in a modern mini console.. THIS seems to be a slightly more advanced and interactive version of THAT, since it does allow running your own C64 software and games,err em without the possibility to run any MIDI or SYNTH related music software or Voice synth software of course.. :-(
@@pianokeyjoe I would not have expected a real SID chip. But yeah, was hopeful for some kind of low level FPGA style modelling, or at least some solidly written emulation. Also a lot of music software tends to exploit glitches in the SID, so sometimes don't work on all emulations. I bet you could get midi to work with it, considering it has usb ports. Would just require something to handle class compliant midi in a way that the c64 emulation understands.
joysticks and joypads never lasting too long back in the day. I remember sooner or later being forced to open them up and try to fix them (of which was pretty easy to do most times)
I actually use a membrane keyboard for gaming, and I've spilled so much on it and had to take it apart immediately afterwards to clean it off and the membrane is just fine and the keyboard works just as good as if it was brand new.
I would guess that the relatively hollow sound when typing on TheC64 likely comes about because the case actually is less densely populated than the original was. Assuming the components don't run too awfully hot, you may be able to mitigate this by adding polyfill (the material inside stuffed animals). This is often used to provide richer sound in cheaper loudspeaker enclosures, for example. (The sound was night and day different in my 23 year-old pair.) It might help in this scenario as well. If the components do run too hot for this, you could add boundaries to keep the polyfill away from the circuitry.
I bet that USB port on the back is there to mimic where the CBM/IEC port was on the original, since it was right next to the monitor port (same here: a USB port next to an HDMI port).
I have an idea for a video where you trick the c64 mini into updating to the c64 maxi software so you get all the extra options for free! I would love to to see this! Love the video
Hmm, is the joystick fully configurable in the menues? Could you swap the joystick for a completely different joystick and configure the button to get the fire button and the menu buttons etc where you want them? Can you do this separately for P1 and P2? (microswitches or not, Im not sure I trust that bundled joystick)
you can actually switch it out for any type of usb-controller/gamepad made by well-known and some not-so-well-known manufacturers.. including controllers made for the megadrive mini , or the playstation mini.. or even use a playstation-to-usb converter to hook up the original playstation controllers i was told
@@rogerwennstrom6677 you only need the d-pad and one of the action buttons as the fire buttons.. i believe they might be configurable.. not sure since i have not tried it myself, but i have seen videos that claimed it was possible
David, I would be very interested in knowing two things about the C64 keyboard: Will it physically fit into a real Commodore 64 case? I realize it would require some adaptive mounting hardware, but is it a dimensional match? I know it’s a USB keyboard, but there are adapters for the electrical. Secondly, can you tell us if the keycaps will fit an original Commodore keyboard? Thanks!
I had the same question, are these key caps interchangeable at all? 8 bit guy, how did you not think of this! Also if you can harvest 6581 and 6526 chips out of the Maxi. Just kidding. Actually - not kidding, I really wish you could harvest those chips.
Great review!! Thanks 8-Bit Guy!! I have to get one of these C64 Maxi! Love the attention to detail (weights, solid metal plates, etc...) One thing I wish they did was provide two original joystick ports so we could use original joysticks or other controllers - perhaps for v2 of the Maxi?
I miss those days when you got a fat ring binded manual with your new machine. Did you know some of those Commadore 64s (later production models I think) Are the exact dimensions of this 'The C64'? Another youtuber compared them and they were the same height.
I like that they added weighted plates to the controller and console. That shows a real attention to detail, as does adding the PETSCII characters to the keys. I didn't even know weighted plates were added to things until I tore down an old landline phone a few months back and it was full of them.
"I didn't even know weighted plates were added to things until I tore down an old landline phone a few months back and it was full of them." If it had added weights then it wasn't very old. The Western Electric phones that nearly everyone had prior to 1984 (because The Bell System leased them to customers) didn't have nor need any added weights because they weighed about 4 pounds as-is. If you look inside one you'll see lots of steel and very little empty space. Modern landline phones are mostly just an empty plastic shell with some small PCBs, so without added weights they would only weigh a few/several ounces.
@@MaximRecoil If it was made before the turn of the century, it's old enough. Old is a subjective term anyways. So, to assume I know what your subjective definition of old is and that me and everyone else should abide by that esoteric definition (and somehow know what it is) is ridiculous. Given the date code on the chips, it's old enough. It's not that difficult to determine the age of most electronics, you know. I'm well aware of the progress of transistor technology and how it miniaturized all electronics, including landline phones. And I'm well aware of the fact that they put the plates in it because it's only a few ounces otherwise. That was the whole point of my comment, after all. But thank you for explaining it all to me again.
@@VoidHalo "I'm well aware of the progress of transistor technology and how it miniaturized all electronics, including landline phones." Old phones weren't electronic to begin with. They were electromechanical. Not even the early touch-tone phones (e.g., Western Electric Model 1500 and the early versions of the 2500) were electronic. Later versions of the 2500 used an electronic method of generating DTMF tones (such as a TCM5087N chip), but they still didn't need any added weights, because they still had a traditional potted network, metal-framed ringer with brass gongs, steel base plate, steel mounting brackets for the keypad and hookswitch assembly, and a steel lever for activating the hookswitch assembly. A 2500 with an electronic keypad wasn't significantly lighter than an older one. Hollow phones that need weights mostly came along in the mid 1980s (there wasn't much of a consumer market for phones before that due to the way the Bell System and other phone companies worked back then). The old method of making phones was pretty much the same for many decades, and then a new way of making them became prominent in the mid 1980s, which applies to how nearly all landline phones are still made today. The phone you took apart uses the current, and therefore, still new, method of making phones.
Those videos would have been so helpful and fun if they were posted back in the day more than now , but even now it is cool to know how they work so that you can understand the modern high-end chips and things
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
I remember talking to my uncle about this and there it is, I wanted to show up to my uncle's house with this so we could dabble on it together, but sadly my uncle passed away only 2 weeks ago. He taught me everything I know about computers, and the commodore 64 was the first he ever used with coding, it gave him the skills he gained that helped him achieve his goal as a system manager. He told me many stories about him staying up late at night thinking where he went wrong in a certain code and spending hours trying to sleep but couldn't because that program didn't run yet. I hope people will remember him for the good man he was. My dear uncle Obaid, may you rest in peace.
Edit: thanks to all the people who took the time and honored my late uncle’s passing. Your comments were wonderful and all the supports and thumbs up were heart warming. I love this channel and I love this warm community this channel has created. God bless you all. 🥰
Rest in peace, uncle Obaid ;,( I guess he would have been happy to see the C= 64 "reborn"...
Seems like a great guy! Sorry for your loss. Yet it is good to see that you are focused on what he gave you in terms of memories and I think there is a good lesson in his dedication and focus as well. Peace!
Sad to read.
Don’t be sad he’s gone, be happy he was a part of your life, spent lots of time with you, and was someone you could look up to. He seemed like a really cool guy! I know this is late now but I still wanted to write this for you.
Binjallaf Alremaithi Hey, I'm so sorry for your uncle, thank you for sharing this!
My amazing wife bought me mine for Christmas 2021 and i truly love it. I last owned a REAL C64 many years ago and loved the amazing games i used to play at the time. As soon as i got my "TheC64 MAXI" all plugged up i went ahead and updated it's firmare straight away. Then proceded to add more games (titles i used to play back in the day) onto a USB pen drive and spent hours reliving those games all over again. The beauty of this machine is the fact you don't need any actual game cassettes, cassette drive or floppy disc drive. Everything just works as it should. I know the machine is run through "Emulation" but so is my self build A1200 "FrankinPi" (which can run Amibian and PiMiga) so i'm able to replay all my favourite classic Amiga games all over again. Looking forward to future machines being launched by this company, as there's a "Full Size" Amiga being launched next year (2024).
The oldest Commodore 64s have the same, slightly larger breabins the VIC20 has. So TheC64 is modelled after the first Commodore 64.
Yeah indeed but the 8 bit guy does not know shame
Yeah, that's the C64-1 version, while the most common breadbin version is the C64-2, and the C64-3 is the C64C.
P.S.: What an irony! I was the sixty-fifth to like this!
Also he got it wrong with the colour, the shade is right for other versions. As well, some of the games he has never heard from with this and the mini are either populare outside of the US or very highly rated like star paws
@@francistaylor1822 Various flavours of poop colour, matching various flavours of poop colours in the colour palette. No problem if there is a good assortment of poop on your shelves. Things get even more rainbow with various degrees of bromine discolouration.
I remember when it took longer for the CRT monitor to warm up than it took for your computers start screen.
ME: Remember how, back in the 1980s, when one turned on the TV, the sound came on instantly but he had to wait 5 seconds for the picture?
MY FRIEND: Remember how, back in the 1980s, there was actually stuff on TV for which IT WAS WORTH waiting 5 seconds?
:P
What about having the ability to hear the high pitch peep of a CRT monitor/tv?
@@knikk77
I can hear the High pitched sound of my Panasonic VHS and TV combo
N64 vibes hit lol. Also am I the only one here under 18??? (And yes before you ask, I do have an n64, fixed it myself) c=
@@knikk77 I worry that's a problem with my aging ears and not the tech, though 😭
THIS IS AWSOME!! I’m a programming student and I have been fascinated with old 8bit machines, because they are great for learning computer infrastructure (and I want to learn basic). I have been looking into getting an original c64 for a short amount of time now but I was discouraged by the amount of work that is needed to ensure these systems keep running, like switching caps and all the model revisions. This has sparked my interest again and might just be my ticket into the c64 scene. Thanks you for doing an in depth review on this product and thank the designers of this product as well!!
No. You don't want to learn BASIC! I'm kinda joking, but kinda not. It was a terrible language that frustrated me out of learning programming. The Jupiter Ace had Forth, but hardly anyone bought those. The boot code of PowerPC Macs was also written in Forth, a lot of embedded stuff, too. Pascal was also better than Basic.
c64 BASIC is legendary bad. LOL. There are much better retro machines to learn BASIC on!
@@ZxSpectrumplus like?
@@MrDirkles MSX computers had a pretty good built in Basic, but you can also find better Basic for the C64 itself in cartridge form, so it actually doesn't matter much
Now THIS is the version I was waiting for ever since the mini one was introduced! I can't wait to be able to get one.
I bought the mini C64 and I can't wait to get the full sized one! I cut my teeth learning computers & programming on the C64 when I was growing up. Gaming on the C64 was simple but so much fun!!! I later upgraded to a C128D, then an Amiga 500+ before being forced onto the PC platform in college, after Commodore went bankrupt. I had my eye on an Amiga 4000 before Commodore shut down. A shame. Oh well, at least the good folks crowdfunding this little piece of nostalgia have our backs!
Ever bought one its availble at amazon for 129.99
I wish they made an full sized Amiga 500 maxi. But then: why do people do anything,
for profit..
@@rcrotorfreak The mini is available on Amazon, but sadly not this full size version.
A C64 with more USB ports than a MacBook... imagine that ;)
Ikr
More space
hahahahahahahaah
I get the joke, but Macbooks have either 2 USB ports, or 4 in the case the 15 inch and 16 inch model
@@NonsensicalSpudz USB C bro
7:46 When you said "the Trees" it matched up with the music!
Review1316USA HAHAHAHA
It sounds autotuned lol
The trereees! 😂
Early C64's had that higher and longer case like the VIC-20.
and for good reason: the first batch actually had re-appropriated VIC-20 casings repainted because the VIC-20 sold below expectations.
@@victor.elkins that is because after the first sales they upped their expectations again and again.. in the end they upped it too much, that is why i said it sold below expectations. but only at the end of it's sales life..
@@victor.elkins The cases were appropriated. The Vic 20 did sell incredibly well, but Commodore predicted more growth. Essp in Europe where Sinclair computers with more memory (or lower cost) dominated the market after mid 1981. That's also the reason the European cases are beige not grey. It was easier to convert to beige apparently
Marcell Szilvásy The VIC-20 rocked.
I miss my VIC-20. My first computer. Wish I still had it.
But I still have two Commodore 128s... I'm afraid to ever turn on again.
I bet if you put some sticky backed rubber mats around inside the "empty" case you'd eliminate some of that hollow key clicking sound.
yeah, I am reasonably sure it sounds hollow because its hollow. Fill the space or put some sort of acoustic dampening material in there.
I added a piece of yoga Matt inside mine today. It helps a bit but it still doesn’t sound very solid. Still better than it was, though.
@@MiscName flashing tape I would have thought would make a difference, stick the stuff to the inside of the plastic this would inhibit the sound vibration of the plastic echoing inside, if you knocked the plastic with your knuckle with the flashing tape (stuff is used to line vans etc) that hollow sound would be almost gone
Or you could try to put a real C64 motherboard inside and while your at it throw away that wannabe fake 64 craputer in the bin.
@@andrewandreas2625 Strange thing to say. Not everybody lives in a country where C64’s are readily available. Others just prefer the affordability, reliability and convenience of the “fake” version which uses almost no power, generates no heat, will probably run for 15+ years with no issues, and let’s you play all the same games with 99% accuracy.
I remember getting one of these on Xmas morning almost 40 years ago. I lived in front of that thing. First couple years I used the cassette tape storage device. Years later I got the disk drive. Anyone else dial up to BBS's with a 300 bps modem?
Ryan Pearson My Xmas morning it was a VIC-20, the rest of my story is the same.
The C64 was my very first computer and i loved it. I was so stupid to give it all away and i had a lot of accessories to it. Damn i miss it. If i got one today how would i connect it to a modern 27" LCD monitor?
@@HeliZero Scavenge a 14/15 CRT, games will look way better there rather than on a big LCD.
Yes, I am a veteran of the BBS and 300bps modem and the very distinct sound you got when you made the connection. But you needed everyone in the house to know you were online so they didn't pickup the phone and lose your connection. But this old dog now has, hsd with phones, tvs, and computers all running at the same time. But mine was not found under the Christmas tree. I had to get a job to pay for it which if I remember right at the time was more than this new one is over $200 on sale I believe. That would have been than two weeks pay at the burger joint where I worked at minimum wage.
I remember phreaking to get onto bbs's in different countries using a vicmodem.
4 USB ports! That's two more than there are on my 2010 Macbook Pro. What the...
Built my main PC myself, it has I think 2 USB 3.2, 6 USB 3.0/3.1 (they just had to make it confusing) and I've been thinking about adding some more or perhaps just getting a powered hub (preferably one I can turn off so I can put my computer to sleep without the lights staying on). PC includes Ryzen 7, RTX 2070, 16GB DDR4 3200, Blue Ray drive, and a 1TB M.2 SSD which cost me around $1,600 total. If I bought a prefab PC with the same specs it would probably cost $3,000 or more at the time and a Mac with similar specs would probably have cost $6,000 if I had to guess and wouldn't have half the USBs because Apple (not that Win10 isn't without issues of it's own but at least I don't have to buy a bunch of overpriced Apple products just to make stuff work). The one advantage Apple does have over Windows (or even Linux most of the time) is that they built their systems for specific hardware and are more optimized but as Moore's law is pretty much dead or at least dying at this point (depending on who you ask) I think PC developers are going to start optimizing more instead of relying on the hardware to do all the work.
Well, that's Apple.
At least yours has more ports than my 2019 MacBook Pro
If you are using a Mac you are handicapped anyway. :-P
Well , I have a Lenovo g570 with four USB ports, HDMI,vga , DVD drive, Ethernet port and sd card reader
Is your t-shirt 4:3? It looks a little stretched.
LOL
its ok buds we love you still
This goes to show that we have all gone too far that we can recognize screen ratio on a shirt...
HAHA
Still, it's better than 16:9 I guess :)
Just wanted you to know that I love your video's and your method of review is superb. Love the way you actually open up the computers and have a look at what's inside. When I was a kid I was always doing that, trying to come up with ways to either fix broken computers or push the limits of what I had and get them to do just that little bit more. You've sold me on this terrific emulation because for all intents and purposes I'd only want to run ol'favourite programs and do a splash of Commodore basic programming. It would probably be fine for word processing and other business applications as well if you didn't mind having your work in a completely superceded format but for the nostalgia benefit and being able to have what now will cost you a lot more than the asking price for an original in good condition with disk drive/converters for a modern screeen/ floppies or tape cassette drives etc it's superb and a nice dedicated machine for simply enjoying all that great software that came out for this computer. The ability to check out all the VIC 20 software is a massive bonus as well. It would have been nice to know if it can save/load for adventure games etc but ultimately it's going to do most of what I want it for. Here's hoping that a long overdue mass produced Amiga 500 computer is released allowing all the great A500 software to be accessed on a unit that will have HDMI and USB as standard. Best of all it can be the full RAM upgraded model but no doubt if these developers put one together it will have all the various hardware options that the Amiga came in and who knows maybe even do the very hard to come by Amiga 1000. Many thanks for the video and I hope you had a terrific Christmas.
Nice review. My kids love retro-gaming so I sent them a link to this, because they would definitely be interested. I especially appreciate seeing the insides and the delay benchmarks.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Take a well deserved holiday with the family. 😎🎅🏼🍾
If anyone deserves a holiday it'd be you
I am looking forward to receive mine tomorrow... for me the mini version was not interesting due to the missing keyboard but this one is for me the best experience without getting a new power brick and revamping my old c128. And personally I think this will make more fun to play with than an emulator.
Agreed... hope you enjoy it.
@Zero Cool Maybe the best thing they could have done is made the mini have a working keyboard.
I mean the normal C64 size is just huuge(hell the whole thing is empty inside, seeing that tiny board that huuge keyboard seems kind of silly) and takes so much space and most will play games anyway so for those that want to do some basic and little basic programming a working small keyboard should still be enough.
It may not be as comfortable but if we can type on smartphone screens we can type on that too.
A mini with a working keyboard and more usb, will have been ideal.
@@SIPEROTH I'll fill the full size new one with foam so it won't sound hollow. ;) Plus I want that full keyboard since I started talking on BBS's back in 1985 on a C46 keyboard and I want to do it again.
I have a C128, a C64, and a VIC-20. My C128 was purchased for me by my grandparents in 1986. Original purchase price was $499...I don't know how much the monitor or disk drive was as the stickers aren't on them, just the original $499 sticker on the box itself. My C64 and VIC-20 I picked up a couple weeks ago from an electronics recycler & second hand shop for $19 each...in unknown condition, I took a chance, and got lucky both of the systems are functional...it was so cool to turn the switch on and see that old familiar BASIC screen. I just wish my mom were still here to see, she passed away last summer, so she never got to see the full size "THEC64", I got the Mini and she was able to see it, but the full size one was too late :(. I got the full size here in the US only because I am one of the original backers for the project.
There isn't anything that would compare to the original, but they did a great job on the full size "THEC64" IMO.
@@SIPEROTH I wouldn't want to try and type on that mini's keyboard. The full size is the same size as the original C64, so no reason to have done it any different...heck the keyboard for your computer if you have a desktop PC is probably larger than the C64's platform LOL.
I do agree though they should have made the mini's keyboard functional at least, it would sure make it more user friendly especially with only having 2 USB ports on it and a huge empty case they certainly could have added another couple of USB ports to LOL.
OK, I'm genuinely shocked. I'm european and this C64 looks exactly like the Commodore 64 I remember from the 80s, specially attending to the color, and I've been quite confused watching previous videos as the Commodore 64s shown had me wondering why there was something that felt wrong. I think it's not a wild guess that this resembles the european version and it might use the mold from the american VIC-20 with a brown-ish plastic back then.
Absolutely. Here in Italy we had the same color as shown in this "new" C64.
it was the same for all early model C64's across the board NTSC/PAL as Commodore was saving those pennies by reusing the VIC-20 case molds, and as time went on, and we got improvements to the C64, and the molds wore out, Commodore switched to slightly smaller molds to again shave those pennies in plastic cost, before the redesigned C64C aka C64 slim models to go along with the look of the C128.
@@CommodoreFan64 what has that to do with color ?
In the Netherlands we also had the brown colored C64's.. I did.
@@Johan-ez5wo Because as time when on Jack Tramiel's penny pinching ways effected the color dyes used in the plastic molds as they changed.
@@CommodoreFan64 ah ok.
March 27, 2021 - I was finally able to order this yesterday on Amazon. Finally showed up as available in the U.S.! I own an original C64, but really wanted to get my hands on the Maxi.
Lucky you! I've been trying to find this in stock for over a year and I finally noticed Amazon has them back in again today so I nabbed one right quick.
It's cheaper to buy a real Commodore 64 than to get this product anymore.
You might even be able to get a C128 for the price.
@AidentheTechBoy-lv9gl Obviously the cheap real breadbin came with a 1541 and a ton of disks....
Not here in Australia
yea
Thanks David for being the only RUclipsr actually giving relevant information about the hardware! I can see myself getting one of these! To be honest. The delay is actually REALLY good. I think it is as fine as it gets through emulation with frame-buffer. Unless you do retroarch witchcraft technique of course, running multiple instances of the same emulation core in order to render the video ahead of the input and audio. Don't ask me how it works, it just does, but it increases CPU usage significantly).
This RUclips review is actually even better than The 8-bit Guy's review:
ruclips.net/video/z2GACGEucTI/видео.html
At 4:30 you were discussing the 4:3 being too skinny. That's actually pixel perfect 4:3. Monitors of the era had non-square pixels and stretched the 4:3 screen wider, giving it a chunkier look than the Maxi has.
Side note: 4:30 is a perfect time to discuss aspect ratio :)
"That's actually pixel perfect 4:3."
No, it isn't. Take a screenshot of it and crop away everything that isn't the C64 raster. The aspect ratio is about 1.24:1 (4:3 = 1.33:1), so he's right, it's too skinny.
"Monitors of the era had non-square pixels and stretched the 4:3 screen wider, giving it a chunkier look than the Maxi has."
No; CRT monitors don't have pixels at all. Only digital displays (e.g., LCDs) have pixels. The picture tubes had an aspect ratio of 4:3 (for example, 16" wide by 12" tall for a 20" monitor [20" being the diagonal measurement]), and then the horizontal and vertical width of the raster were adjusted to fill the screen (which was done with a potentiometer for V-width and a horizontal width coil for H-width; newer ones often had electronic adjustments for both, usually via buttons on the front below the screen), which inherently made the raster 4:3 regardless of what the digital resolution and pixel aspect ratio were before it was converted to an analog video signal in order to drive the electron gun(s) of a CRT monitor.
i had an original 64 in New Zealand i found it at a garage sale for $50 in 1986 and it didn't work so i took it to a repair guy who did repair it and it cost me over $200 to get repaired my Mother was not very happy with my purchase but i loved it and it was a huge part of my upbringing everything from Giana sisters to California games and Bruce Lee anyway i wanted to say my C64 was the same colour as this new full size model thanks for the video 8 Bit Guy !!
Oh yes. That reminds me of a family drama in the 80s. I tried to build a reset switch for the Userport and connected the wrong pins. *Poff* and black screen. Cost about 200 Deutsche Mark to fix; which was quite a sum in these days. My parents were hyper-angry.
@@albinklein7680 haha yup
Got this for Christmas here in New Zealand (it released a few or two ago here). Love it and I never had the original C64 so this is a refreshing experience for me!
@Trantor The Troll Yes it looks and feels great, a little hollow as Ron mentioned but it's not really an issue and I'm not about to stuff it with weights. Operation is great, menu wasn't too intuative at first but is good now. As for the games, well I can't complain because I wasn't expecting much as I never played the originals. Same for the BASIC coding. The joystick is clicky and responsive but I'm going to try to use a gamepad because I just prefer them. Overall I mostly bought this for the aesthetics and to cover this 8 bit era of computer gaming without having to spend a fortune on real hardware and having to fix it etc. I imagine a true C64 fan would like it even more than me.
"Its almost shocking once i open this thing how empty it is inside" I can relate.
i would say the hollow sound you are hearing when you type is the echo inside the case if you added some foam internally it would probably sound more similar to the commodore 64/vic 20
The stalk is metal on the new joystick, so you'll have to put more effort into snap it.
The C64 in the US came in multiple shades of gray anyway (no, I'm not confusing it with the VIC-20, I used to repair both C64 and VIC-20s in the 90s when you could pick them up for cheap).
Michael Jensen no, you’re confusing it with the “C”. The original C64 was brown.,,
@@walterg74 the c64 has several different revisions, the early models has the same exact case as the vic20 and they used different types of plastics over the years before finally settling on the 64C
@@walterg74 if you have a brown c64, it's plastic has probably been browned by UV light and should be treated with volume 40 salon cream (ask David for the specifics) and ironically more UV light.
@@LysiX well... yes, sorta. It's a "stabilized peroxide creme," "Volume 40" is a cheap and widely available source, but you can also do better (searching on the internet, anyways). There is some controversy (outside this channel) because it's not a permanent solution; the "restoration" will fade again. David's a fan, and it makes sense when selling "restored hardware", but do you really want to do it every few years for items you keep?
Glad I discovered your channel this year.
Best wishes for a happy new year.
Oh the endless hours I spent with my Pet, Vic-20 and C64. Pretty much an encapsulation of my Jr. High years. So many great memories. May have to pick one of these up. Thanks for the great video!
Am I the only one having a little buyers remorse from buying the mini? Dave, you had me buying the maxi as soon as you gave it a thumbs up. I mainly ran a BBS on mine back in the day, but I'm sure the maxi won't be C-NET compatible. It bummed me out that they aren't available in the US yet, but I'm patient. :) Thank you Dave for your honest reviews, and for keeping retro computing alive.
Buyer's remorse? Nah, I have a mini and I think they both have their place. The mini is for people who just want a little nostalgia and the maxi for people who want features that require a full size, working keyboard. They'll be some crossover but primarily serve different fans.
So many nights of my life working on C-NET mini games and saving for additional 1581 drives.
It's worth considering that the mini was a necessary stepping stone to the Maxi. If people hadn't bought the Mini, would there be a Maxi?
@@jonglass Good point. If there wasn't any interest in the mini, the maxi may have never made it off the drawing board.
Looking at the example shots @ 4:08 I think you may have wanted the European 4:3. You can see that it isn't as skinny as the North American 4:3. All of these modes are designed to be used on a modern screen and are setup to provide an expected aspect ratio for the games.
Thank you for this comment, two years in the future. Wanted to make my display look authentic but had no point of reference other than various Commodore 64 videos I've watched. Was thinking the EU ratio looked the best (with scanlines!).
This is so popular in the UK most companies selling are saying only one per customer and most are sold out
How much are they ?
Matowix around £110
TAKE MY MONEY G'DAMN IT
Great review. Got mine for Christmas this morning. Having tons of fun with it. The included games are fun and challenging. Great that they included a nice range of genres. Will add some more to a memory stick just as soon as I can find a spare. Also spent a little time programming in VIC20 and C64 BASIC. Can see myself spending a lot of time playing with it in the coming months.
It's funny because I bought the same TV when I ordered my two Commodore 64s; one for fun and one to learn how to repair the Commodore 64. Excellent video on The C64. Btw, I think travelled back in time when I saw the Christmas demo. Thank you!!!
Here how the viewers of Dave think: "I'm not sure if the sun gonna rise, I better spam David about the new C64"
maybe he needs to have a private email.
Isnt there at least 3 types of breadbin c64 cases? The early one being the same as a vic-20 but with a modified bottom half? Adrian Black made a video about it.
Yes
Yes there where, I had an early Bread Bin that matched in height to my Vic-20 as Commodore just reused the Vic-20 plastic molds to save cost, but as the VIC-20 molds wore out, and we got some improvements on the C64 they switched to smaller molds again to save just those few pennies in plastic cost. Gotta remember Jack's motto was "Computers for the masses, not the classes."
I have one with port names moulded into the case, which was something I'd never seen until I got it.
@The Greatest Man That Ever Lived I believe Jan Beta talked about that one(don't quote me though), and said it was sold as an Aldi special buy? like they where pushing the plastic molds to get the last bit out of them.
I guess being a "breadbin" it has to accommodate the different shapes of bread in each country :)
Merry Christmas David!
Your intro and music never fails to make me crack a smile. Reminds me so much of watching 3-2-1 Contact on PBS when I was a kid.
Nice review, love that you took it apart, too! Looks very high quality and I'm looking forward to getting mine here in the US. Happy new year indeed--if only we knew!
Nice... I'm a little bummed about the reboot times, but other than that it looks like a solid device. I have to admit when they initially went with the mini (after crowdfunding the full size model) I figured they were just pulling a bait-and-switch, and that the full size model would never see the light of day. Glad to see I was mistaken.
But the original C64 is instant on. This is a downgrade in comparison.
@@LaneDenson The original C64 didn't run HDMI. You can't have it all.
What you lose on the boot time, you more than gain on the load time.
You also don't have to swap disks, or even have a 1541 attached at all. That will also save time. Plus, you can restore to a given state, rather than having to cold boot to BASIC and load programs.
@@LaneDenson You get that with any emulator box. It'll always take at least a couple seconds for it to boot up, even more if there's a boot screen.
Talk about a blast from the past! In the '80s I wrote a time slice multitask operating system for the C64/C128. It was (obviously) all in assembly code and was written to support "pop up" windows like a calculator, clock, notepad, etc. All the code lived in "shadow" ram whose address ranges are by default used by the Commodore OS and Basic. It was an intense, fun project. I'd probably be writing this from a snooty zip code if Timeworks hadn't beaten us. Grumble. (I still have the source code. LOL)
I wrote a RPG with "3d" character graphics (the diagonal lines, etc) that took about 30 seconds to draw lol. I would give ANYTHING to have my source code.
@@MarvelousLXVII I've never been able to throw mine out. Lol.
That new one looks closer to the case color of the Commodores that my friends and I used in America in the 80s.
Great Review and I look forward to picking one of these up when they're released over here in the U.S.A! I have fond memories of playing on our Commodore 64 back in the mid to late 80s with my Dad! I'm thinking of hooking it up to our still functioning 1702 Monitor to make it more authentic! Cheers!
I'm Good Old Gamer fan boy. Happy to see such a video looking at good old games and the early that computers ran them. Thanks.
I wonder if anyone ever pick up the Amiga licence and make a "The A500" machine like this with proper emulation. That would be awesome!
I would Like to buy atari st modern computer
Dukefazon
Totally agree with that.
Why settle for emulation when you can do the A500++. All new Amiga, how cool is that?
@@aziztcf Well, the problem with that is you need an old A500 to pick the custom chips from. Preferably a Rev 8 with Super Denise and 8375 Fat Agnus. If you don't the A500++ is more or less worthless. Not mentioning that you need to solder everything yourself. If you like to tinker with things then that's fine but if you don't it's not for you.
A Mister setup does both the Amiga and ST very well with hdmi support but not the cool cases.
I just got one for Christmas. I still have my original VIC-20 and when playing VIC games on this I can easily forget that it is emulated hardware. The keyboard may sound a bit different, but still feels right, at least to me. Currently downloading a bunch of VIC ROMs to check all the games I have for the original. The C64 games are good and the inclusion of the VIC OS makes this twice as good for me.
For satisfying answers to the colour and size differences, check out 8bit Show & Tell's channel. The reality is that breadbin C64s came in various colours... and heights!
Thanks for the video. I had a C64, tape drive, floppy drive, monitor (which was really good), the 4 color pen plotter & Star Micronix dot matrix printer. Every engineer and technician I knew had a Commodore. Also, the colors of each piece weren’t quite the same. I wish I’d kept all that stuff and magazines. Compute’s Gazette and others.
Got one for myself today for Xmas 2020!
Thanks for the great review David.
The video settings having a 'European 4:3' setting is a nice touch.
You have to remember PAL (or more accurately the underlying monochrome standard preceding it) Is not just 50 hz, but also a different resolution.
NTSC is 525 lines per frame (262.5 per field), while PAL is 625 lines per frame (312.5 per field)
After accounting for the screen bezels of CRT televisions, and effective blanking lines, this means in effect an NTSC television displays 224 lines, and a PAL one 267 (officially this is 240 and 288, but my own practical experience shows the earlier values to be closer to correct)
OK, so what? Well a large proportion of 80's computers and consoles were designed for NTSC standards, then lazily converted for PAL.
Leading to a variety of aspect ratio distortions and the infamous 'black bars' of some systems.
It also had upsides; PAL systems ended up with an enormous increase in blanking lines per frame. (sometimes 80% more), which, if you understand your 8/16 graphics coding has huge implications for what you can pull off.
(this is a principal cause why ntsc games can always be ported to PAL Machines even if the outcome is often graphically distorted and runs too slow, bur certain complex PAL games will just break on an NTSC system in ways that basically cannot be fixed.)
Anyway, the issue at hand being that for a given resolution (say 320x240) this will have different image and pixel aspect ratios on PAL and NTSC.
Take the snes.
256x224 resolution.
On NTSC this gives a 4:3 image that fills the whole screen and pixels have a 7:6 ratio.
On PAL this gives a different aspect ratio, and you get letterboxing. - even if you push up to 256x240 (technically possible), that still gives letterboxing on a PAL snes. Meanwhile the pixel aspect is now 25:18.
Interesting side note; given how snes works, on paper, for a PAL system a resolution of 256x200 woukd give a 16:9 aspect ratio.
On NTSC you have to drop to 256x168.
Worth remembering if you create retro homebrew stuff.
If you keep everything important to 256x192 then on a PAL system you can generally make stuff usable in 16:9 (using a TV's zoom mode, NOT stretch).
In general, for most 8/16 bit systems, 192 horizontal lines with typical resolutions is technically 16:9 output on a PAL system.
Something I didn't know. Thanks for the information!
Hallo David! Du sprichst deutsch, deshalb auf deutsch: Tolle Präsentationen, man spürt die Leidenschaft für das Thema. Super interessant, sympathisch und informativ! Frohe Weihnachten für dich und deine Familie!
Lol noch mehr Alman geht nicht
The hard clear plastic cover it ships with makes a good dust cover so don't throw it away.
I just got one of these thanks to your review. I'm so glad it's not limited to the games that come with the machine.
Man I really never used my C64 to its potential as a kid
This is the one I’ve been holding out for, hope I don’t have to wait too long for a US release.
you can always try Amazon in the UK or Germany for this
Here we are a month later. Still waiting. :(
@@dwarven_dad i waited 30 years for a good replacement C64
That shirt is amazing. It's even stretched like on a modern monitor
Great review.
Looks way better than the mini.
but who has the space for something so big? keep in mind one will also have other consoles as well... i much prefer the mini retro models of 2018 and 2019
@@sammyfrokin3604 who cares the keyboard works.
Sammy Frokin
The mini is equally big once you add a damn USB keyboard to it.
@@sammyfrokin3604 It’s not all that big one you compare it to the mini with a USB hub and a keyboard connect to it
Merry Christmas David. And thank you for this video that brought back a beautiful memories about me using and playing games on my commodre64.
Vic20, C64, C128, and Amiga....what a lot of fond memories! Learned to program in assembly (hex) on the C64, which started a 30 year love affair. Thanks.
I repaired ALL (of the different kinds) of the original Competition PRO joysticks. The switches are just screwed into the case there, unlike this very nice PCB solution. I wonder if the general newly produced ones with the regular 9-pin output are this well made too? I mean, from the looks of it, you could just put in a DB9 cable and connect it at the neatly prepared solderpads on the board.
They were screwed in for a reason. Sideways force on a solder joint, like happens with this PCB, is asking for trouble.
@@YourMotherSucksCocksInHell Ah, I wondered about that.
This is probably a hopeless request, but does this have the mini-assembler that the C64 had too? Or do i need to get my 6502 assembly itch scratched elsewhere?
Minor nitpick, but writing 6502 assembly programs was my favorite thing to do on my old C64.
The mini-assembler was never a part of the C64. It was a part of the C128.
Edit: You can use a mini-assembler, MONITOR$8000 or MONITOR$C000 (which is the same ML monitor compiled for different memory locations) but you need to load it off of disk first.
@@glenndoiron9317 I always thought you could use the MON command on the c64. I think you're right though, it might have been a cartridge in the back.
Edit: Yeah, I just texted my mom. It was a TIM clone we had on cartridge.
just put turbo assembly on it.
@@awilliams1701 Anything special I need to do to get the machine to read turbo assembler as a disk or cartridge? It looks fairly straight forward.
@@EvilSandwich This video was just released as well and he does it. But no, it's straight forward unless you want a ram expander. Then it's complicated, but he shows that too.
ruclips.net/video/z2GACGEucTI/видео.html
Ahh, I remember that Christmas demo from the C64 I bought either 1984 or 85. I'd just made the step up from the ZX Spectrum after seeing a comparison of the Ghostbusters game.
Brilliant 😃😃😃
I did the exact same thing after seeing Ghostbusters in a computer shop playing on a C64...
I sold my BBC Micro B & promptly bought a C64 which I still have today boxed in my loft AND funnily enough I've JUST acquired another copy of Ghostbusters in a clam shell from eBay. The guy included it free of charge with a copy of Raid Over Moscow I bought from him for 3.10 UK Pounds.
What a result 😃😃🎮🎮😂😂
I ordered a C64 mini last week for $25 from GameStop (sitting at UPS waiting for pickup) and just decided to order the Maxi from Italian Amazon (about $137 shipped).
I've had mine sice Noc 2019 and absolutely love the simplicity of it. Love your channel and reviews / projects.
I know something about c64 you don't! I watched another review before this. Turns out commodore made several cases, that were slightly different. That case matches nearly perfect, in color and size to one of the original cases.
Cool
Suppose the same version looks different in America and Europe, even in different European countries. Commodore had several plants in the US and at least one in Germany and the UK in Europe. Thus the same revision for Germans and British customers might differ in size and color.
The colour does match the version I remember in the UK, Which was a slightly brown grey (even pre-discolouration) rather than a cold grey.
Very true I did a review on THEC64 a week ago and measured a couple of BreadBox C64 with THEC64 some were different and some the exact same dimensions. Also one of the C64 I compared it with was almost exactly the same colour. Great effort by Retro Games Ltd.
@@CommodoreComputerMuseum I have 6 c64 Commodores, and drives. I also have a Raspberry pi, which I haven't done much with, other then image the card, and test it out. But I recently got a card reader for the commodore, and having fun copieing files off my floppy, and making d64 roms using a program called DirMaster. I been doing videos on programming basic programs on vice. I also started a code resource site, where people can download software I developed in the 80s. I have links to my web site under my videos. Check them out!
Hey, put this back under the tree. Its not Christmas yet.
Good joke.
(DUMB BOY(?), FULL OF JOY!!!)
It was the first day of Hanukkah. So, I guess it's Kosher. lol
12:37 I liked how the message was hidden in plain site.. Truth be told, I haven't seen'em all either so you're not alone buddy.
@Harry Crabb focus on the screen during the timestamp.. The message is there.
I just ordered one from Amazon UK. Shipping was not terribly expensive. It should be here in less than 2 weeks. Can’t wait!
Thanks for your review. I’ve had one of these for a week now and can say if you want this for the many games onboard the carousel, it is brilliant. If you (like me) want to get back to programming and coding, it does have a few bugs, even after installing the upgrade. It often doesn’t recognise the usb drive and goes into shift mode after loading programmes. The cursor can have a mind of its own if you move it up several lines of basic at a time - shoots down the lines again and scrolls the listing off the screen if you are not quick to stop it. One last thing, sprite data can get corrupted. I do love this device though.
R.I.P. Chuck Peddle, designer of 650x microprocessors.
What! Noooooo!
I’m not sure if you’ve done a video on this but,
I think it would be cool to show the benefits of composite video!
Sonic 1 and Earthworm Jim are great examples!
4:57 I love how the music is in sync with the timer
Now I must have one. ;)
This holds a world of prospects for those who have an interest in amateur radio. There were many programs for RTTY and some other digital modes. While a vintage C64 might be the first option, I'd be very happy to have this one!
Yes THIS is the version I was waiting for ever since the mini one was introduced! I can't wait to be able to get one.
The fusion of old and new technology is so fascinating.
Yes, when you remember, that the bread case was in 1982 the smallest they could make the computer... and now you have an ARM computer that only takes 5% of the space.
By the way, that means, in the end Jim Curry has won. Sinclair is dead, Commodore is dead, even Amstrad is dead - but everyone up to this day is using Acorn technology :D
Me: watching this video
Me after watching this video: runs to the store to buy one
I feel very bad that I never bothered to repair my original C64 and sold my C128. How would I know back then what treasures they would be considered today? So sad.
Just ordered mine... looking forward to getting it this coming Friday.
The main attraction for someone noob like me with C64 is how easy it is to turn it on. Its just plug and play, I don't need to look forward to specific ports I will never have or crazy adapters.
I expected you to show us how the SID sound performs. Interested if things like mssiah 64, or other chip music stuff does okay.
@Polite Society The C64 is a Raspberry Pi based unit and as such does NOT have a real SID Chip inside as you may have seen in the tear down scene. I too, as a musician, was interested and only let down. No C64 for me... Basically, this is a custom OS with emulation in software for all sound, video and so on. I expected at least the swinSID new fake SID chips but nope, not even that.. Em, I was in Office Max one day, in the merry merry month of May, and I happen across a system that had a ton of classic computer games in a modern mini console.. THIS seems to be a slightly more advanced and interactive version of THAT, since it does allow running your own C64 software and games,err em without the possibility to run any MIDI or SYNTH related music software or Voice synth software of course.. :-(
@@pianokeyjoe I would not have expected a real SID chip. But yeah, was hopeful for some kind of low level FPGA style modelling, or at least some solidly written emulation. Also a lot of music software tends to exploit glitches in the SID, so sometimes don't work on all emulations.
I bet you could get midi to work with it, considering it has usb ports. Would just require something to handle class compliant midi in a way that the c64 emulation understands.
joysticks and joypads never lasting too long back in the day. I remember sooner or later being forced to open them up and try to fix them (of which was pretty easy to do most times)
Or discovering that your sega pads worked in it (:
Welp one of these just appeared on eBay for $400 excluding shipping. That is nearly Mega65 levels.
Now I want one. Merry Christmas. Thank you for all of the great videos.
I actually use a membrane keyboard for gaming, and I've spilled so much on it and had to take it apart immediately afterwards to clean it off and the membrane is just fine and the keyboard works just as good as if it was brand new.
I'm going to start collecting old cardboard models of obsolete computers.
I would guess that the relatively hollow sound when typing on TheC64 likely comes about because the case actually is less densely populated than the original was. Assuming the components don't run too awfully hot, you may be able to mitigate this by adding polyfill (the material inside stuffed animals). This is often used to provide richer sound in cheaper loudspeaker enclosures, for example. (The sound was night and day different in my 23 year-old pair.) It might help in this scenario as well. If the components do run too hot for this, you could add boundaries to keep the polyfill away from the circuitry.
Or a large block of an appropriately static/fire friendly foam ... easier to manage and can usually be ordered cut to size.
the moment he said how empty it sounded i immediately thought "well yeah because it probably is" and seeing it open just confirmed what i expected.
I was thinking along the same lines right away too. There should be many viable ways to muffle the hollow sound of the case.
Same thoughts here - first thing I did after the video was look for a comment suggesting how to improve that hollow sound.
Frohes Fest und einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr!
Is that German?
Ebenso!
Kevin Mattern sorry I don’t speak Italian
nachdem david gesagt hat, dass er deutch kann, sie schreiben ihn auf deutch 😁
I bet that USB port on the back is there to mimic where the CBM/IEC port was on the original, since it was right next to the monitor port (same here: a USB port next to an HDMI port).
I have an idea for a video where you trick the c64 mini into updating to the c64 maxi software so you get all the extra options for free!
I would love to to see this!
Love the video
Hmm, is the joystick fully configurable in the menues?
Could you swap the joystick for a completely different joystick and configure the button to get the fire button and the menu buttons etc where you want them?
Can you do this separately for P1 and P2?
(microswitches or not, Im not sure I trust that bundled joystick)
These are terrific questions that need answers.
Yes it is, and it handles really well.
you can actually switch it out for any type of usb-controller/gamepad made by well-known and some not-so-well-known manufacturers.. including controllers made for the megadrive mini , or the playstation mini.. or even use a playstation-to-usb converter to hook up the original playstation controllers i was told
But will the button layout make sense then? (or is it fully configurable)
@@rogerwennstrom6677 you only need the d-pad and one of the action buttons as the fire buttons.. i believe they might be configurable.. not sure since i have not tried it myself, but i have seen videos that claimed it was possible
The C64 Maxi is faster then a MacBook!
Finnaly the take I needed!
David, I would be very interested in knowing two things about the C64 keyboard:
Will it physically fit into a real Commodore 64 case? I realize it would require some adaptive mounting hardware, but is it a dimensional match? I know it’s a USB keyboard, but there are adapters for the electrical. Secondly, can you tell us if the keycaps will fit an original Commodore keyboard? Thanks!
I had the same question, are these key caps interchangeable at all? 8 bit guy, how did you not think of this!
Also if you can harvest 6581 and 6526 chips out of the Maxi. Just kidding. Actually - not kidding, I really wish you could harvest those chips.
@@Grunchy005 Those chips aren't in the Maxi.
The C64 Maxi is just a ARM computer, that is it. Much like the Raspberry Pi.
RIP 2019... you were a good year
Great review!! Thanks 8-Bit Guy!!
I have to get one of these C64 Maxi!
Love the attention to detail (weights, solid metal plates, etc...)
One thing I wish they did was provide two original joystick ports so we could use original joysticks or other controllers - perhaps for v2 of the Maxi?
would be good to know how well it emulates the SID chip
Sadly not very good
i agree - i'd love to see an in depth comparison for this. the quality of the SID emulation is a make or break feature imo.
Hey guys! Make sure to not spoil Star Wars for the 8-Bit Guy!
You don't need an affiliate link to buy one.
@@limpfishyes buy what?
Kylo Ren stays a virgin.
It sucks!!!! whoops... my bad. ;)
Dobby dies! Oh, wait a minute...
I miss those days when you got a fat ring binded manual with your new machine. Did you know some of those Commadore 64s (later production models I think) Are the exact dimensions of this 'The C64'? Another youtuber compared them and they were the same height.
I like that they added weighted plates to the controller and console. That shows a real attention to detail, as does adding the PETSCII characters to the keys. I didn't even know weighted plates were added to things until I tore down an old landline phone a few months back and it was full of them.
"I didn't even know weighted plates were added to things until I tore down an old landline phone a few months back and it was full of them."
If it had added weights then it wasn't very old. The Western Electric phones that nearly everyone had prior to 1984 (because The Bell System leased them to customers) didn't have nor need any added weights because they weighed about 4 pounds as-is. If you look inside one you'll see lots of steel and very little empty space. Modern landline phones are mostly just an empty plastic shell with some small PCBs, so without added weights they would only weigh a few/several ounces.
@@MaximRecoil If it was made before the turn of the century, it's old enough. Old is a subjective term anyways. So, to assume I know what your subjective definition of old is and that me and everyone else should abide by that esoteric definition (and somehow know what it is) is ridiculous. Given the date code on the chips, it's old enough. It's not that difficult to determine the age of most electronics, you know.
I'm well aware of the progress of transistor technology and how it miniaturized all electronics, including landline phones. And I'm well aware of the fact that they put the plates in it because it's only a few ounces otherwise. That was the whole point of my comment, after all. But thank you for explaining it all to me again.
@@VoidHalo "I'm well aware of the progress of transistor technology and how it miniaturized all electronics, including landline phones."
Old phones weren't electronic to begin with. They were electromechanical. Not even the early touch-tone phones (e.g., Western Electric Model 1500 and the early versions of the 2500) were electronic. Later versions of the 2500 used an electronic method of generating DTMF tones (such as a TCM5087N chip), but they still didn't need any added weights, because they still had a traditional potted network, metal-framed ringer with brass gongs, steel base plate, steel mounting brackets for the keypad and hookswitch assembly, and a steel lever for activating the hookswitch assembly. A 2500 with an electronic keypad wasn't significantly lighter than an older one.
Hollow phones that need weights mostly came along in the mid 1980s (there wasn't much of a consumer market for phones before that due to the way the Bell System and other phone companies worked back then).
The old method of making phones was pretty much the same for many decades, and then a new way of making them became prominent in the mid 1980s, which applies to how nearly all landline phones are still made today. The phone you took apart uses the current, and therefore, still new, method of making phones.
Those videos would have been so helpful and fun if they were posted back in the day more than now , but even now it is cool to know how they work so that you can understand the modern high-end chips and things