You’ll soon be able to buy a Commodore computer, but don’t get too excited: it will simply be a high-specification games PC with a Commodore badge on the front. For those that don’t know, and you’d need to be Generation X or older to know, Commodore was a major computer company back in the 1980s and early 1990s that sold the best selling computer of all time, the 8-bit Commodore 64 computer, and the very cool, but less successful, 16-bit and 32-bit Amiga series of computers – none of which were PC compatible.  Commodore went bust 1994.

The new Commodore PCs will be launched at CeBIT 2007 by a Commodore Gaming, a company set up last year to develop the gaming market using the Commodore brand, which it licenses from Commodore International Corporation (which also happens to own 49% of Commodore Gaming).

Bala Keilman, CEO of Commodore Gaming, has this to say about the new PCs:

“Twenty five years ago, Commodore launched the best selling personal computer of the late 20th Century, the C64, and defined the early computer games experience for millions of people worldwide. We are privileged and excited to bring the Commodore brand back to the gaming community and mark a new chapter in its history with this exceptional machine. We’re sure that it will deliver what gamers need and want.”

It’ll be interesting to see whether the fading Commodore brand helps to sell gaming PCs.

On the plus side, the Commodore PCs will get publicity simply because some computer journalists and bloggers feel nostalgic about the Commodore brand. On the other hand, you do need to be at at least 25 to remember the ordinal Commodore 64, and many people associate the brand with the beige 1980s (not a good association if you’re trying to sell high tech).

Then again, maybe it’s all far enough in the past that “Commodore” might be considered retro chic.

For the record, this is not the first time that PCs have carried the Commodore brand. Commodore itself tried selling Commodore PCs without much success. After Commodore went bankrupt, German PC maker Escom acquired the Commodore brand and launched its own line of Commodore PCs. Escom went bust in 1996. Let’s hope that things turn out differently this time around.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, March 7th, 2007 at 5:28 am under Intel.

Read more entries by John Pospisil.
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