This is the last entry for the year 1992 (I promise!)
I hope you so far enjoyed my letters from an other dimension.
But we can not travel on to the next year before we answered one more question:
6. What happened to the C64?
1992 is not only a big year for Amiga with a whole line of new products it is also the 10th anniversary of the best sold home-computer in the world.
And while we try to sell more Amigas to hand over the crown - until now it belongs to the C64.
Now the sales figures are only a shadow of its own past. The time of 8-bit-computers is over. So let it die after exactly 10 years?
No - if we go out, we go out with a bang! One last firework!
In the last couple of years we purchased more and more software titles for the C64. One reason was, that only extensive software-bundles could push the sales a litte bit.
the other reason was our secret plan.
We own now GEOS and most titles written for it, quite some games and other all time favorites.
At the same time we shrank the Amiga ECS to one single chip, we did the same for the C64. Or to be precise for the 128 without the Z80 part.
And this time the CPU, the 6510, is as well integrated into our single-chip design. and the CPU can clock much faster (10 times more speed)!
basically it does everything the
Chameleon64 does now.
We included the functionality of popular modules, added C128 ram expansions, Geos-ram and a large ROM with all the software we bought.
It "boots" directly into GEOS, from where you can go back to the console, or start C64 und C128 programs and games. You can freeze this programs anytime and switch back to GEOS. Multitasking the C64 way.
The controller for a modern 3_1/2 inch floppy drive is also included.
the board offers no old-style expansion port anymore but we included the module-controller of the Lynx.
Programmes from ROM start almost immediately as the CPU is now up to 10 times faster.
And there is only one place such a board belongs: a laptop!
the C128 highres mode offers up to 640×400 pixels and that is the resolution of our grayscale LCD.
Yes there is no colour.
We put mainly productivity-software in the ROM and some games that are adjusted to look quite good on that screen. We also added a calendar/address-book/PIM software.
The small power-adapter is built into the laptop - but it has no battery!
So you can use it everywhere you find a power plug - or you buy a additional battery-pack.
We sold 20 million units of the C64 alone und quite some C128. There are a lot of fans out there and we hope we can sell up 1 to million of these portable C64
It has next to no boot-time and you can start to work or play faster than on any other device out there.
And it is the first laptop under $1000
Price: $666 or £444 (number of the beast or tree times death in china)
And it has a great retro-style look. Is 1992 to early for retro? we don't care...
