Awhile back, Commoodore announced the C64 Ultimate, an FPGA reboot of the Commodore 64, now with USB and HDMI and ethernet ports. The C64 has a long history of reboots and implementations, mostly geared towards the retrogaming crowd. More recently there's been an appetite for a full system version. Various projects have eaten around the edges, which have all culminated in an officially-branded Commodore release.
Good on them, and I hope they're successful.
When I first saw the announcement, my lizard brain shouted "WANT SHINY" as it usually does when presented with new tech. It also poked the part of my frontal lobe that's suspiciously susceptible to nostalgia, which a great many industries and a few political movements also like to do. I thought about the original Commodore 64 that is currently sitting on my workbench, in need of a few minor repairs, but otherwise a better avatar of nostalgia. Pretty sure I got it for the same reasons at the time. Then I wondered to myself: why am I not just fixing the unit I have, and salivating for something I don't have with features I don't really want?
Of course, the answer is that advertising is a hell of a drug, but that's not the bullshit I'm on at the moment. Today, I'm about appreciating what I have instead of chasing what I don't. I'm thinking about getting back to basics and counting my blessings, which is another way to say I'm thinking about degrowth.
It started with seeing the 64 Ultimate and realizing I'd need to buy a display for it, preferably a 4:3 one with an HDMI to maintain that classic aspect ratio. That effectively doubled the cost. Then I was looking at the MSSIAH cartridge, which is a really cool project, and wondering if it was compatible with the C64U. The FAQ says it works on the 64 Ultimate motherboard, but that's a different project using a different FPGA, so it should work, but the folks didn't explicitly confirm that it would. And once I saw that I was talking myself into another batch of purchases, I pulled myself out.
Instead, I priced out just the peripherals I'd need to repair and upgrade my C64. A fellow retrotech acquaintance offered to trade a 13" CRT from the late 80's (complete with faux woodgrain) for a gadget I bought awhile back and no longer had any use for. Priced a replacement keyboard because a couple of my keys are broken at the stem, a joystick, a replacement power supply, and an SD reader to emulate a disk/tape drive. All told, the total cost ends up being less than a third of going with the new gear.
Suddenly, the new features on the C64U didn't matter to me. I stopped caring about the USB ports because I could just get aftermarket peripherals that work with the original hardware. Don't care about the HDMI port if I'm using a CRT TV. And I don't care about the network port because I'm rapidly losing interest with putting everything on the internet. I don't even think I want the MSSIAH cartridge, because I have a different project on my bench using SID chips that will integrate better with my music setup.
I basically talked myself out of spending a bunch of money on more Stuff. Now it's just spending a little money on Stuff to finish a thing I wanted to do in the first place. And I'm happier with these decisions. I'm offloading tech I don't use and using tech I already have. I feel like I dodged a bullet by not buying the hotness, and reconnected with the part of me that likes to build and fix things instead of just throwing them away and buying new.
It's a reflex that I'm trying to redevelop, trying to go back through the piles of things forgotten and discarded and bring new life to them. There's a lot. I'm a bit of a tech hoarder. But I think it's time to either love it or leave it.
1/100DTO
