It's a bit of a Frankenstein, but here it is.
The new Commodore Amiga Mini badges an Intel PC in a small case with the iconic branding of Amiga. Under the hood options vary, starting with an Intel Core i3-2130, moving up to the Core i7-2700K. For obvious reasons, it's a Mini-ITX board and there's 1TB HDD or an SSD for storage.
The thing isn't exactly slim, but the shape lends itself to a media box. There's a few things to consider here. Display ports are 2 x Dual-link DVI, 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI, and there's an Nvidia GeForce GT 430 1GB DDR3. Cooling is taken care of by 2 x 40x40x10mm fans. And there's a Blu-Ray drive.
It was the Commodore 64's 30th anniversary earlier this year - the fact that was even noticed by anyone is testament to the fond regard people have for the brand and that machine. The company who owns the rights to the Commodore name has also built new C64 hardware.
The Commodore of 2012 isn't holding back on the hubris, previously telling the world via their web site they are "appalled by Apple revisionism".
Here is their vision: "We call upon all those with fond memories of the Commodore and AMIGA brands, that are sick of the status quo in the current computing landscape, to join us in rekindling the magic that was Commodore and recreating a legend. With your help in spreading the word, your evangelism, your suggestions and your support, we hope to take the fight back to Apple, and to take on the ubiquitous PC vendors of the world, like Dell."
Odd, given what brand this new Amiga evokes, but we applaud their efforts.
The most Commodore-like thing about this is the OS. The machine is running Comodore OS Vision, a GNU/Linux system with some C64 and Amiga inspired touches. The company says it bundles "remakes of classic Commodore software" and features include launching "classic 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit era software via emulation".
The Commodore site lists a barebones case for US$345 and US$1495 for the entry level model.
Specifications [Source: Commodore USA Web site]:
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MODEL:
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Commodore AMIGA mini
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CPU SUPPORT:
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Intel i7-2700k 3.5 Ghz Quad-Core (3.9Ghz Turboboost).
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MOTHERBOARD CORE LOGIC:
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Intel Z68 Express.
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MEMORY:
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16Gb RAM DDR3 1333MHz.
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HDD SUPPORT:
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1 Tb SATA Hard Disk Drive. (or optional 300 or 600 Gig SSD).
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VIDEO & GRAPHICS:
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NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 430 GPU with 1GB DDR3.
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NETWORKING:
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10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet port.
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WIRELESS:
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802.11n (300 Mb/s) WiFi. 2 Antennae
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