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The Commodore64 Turns Gold

PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2011 3:47 am
by crustyasp46
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Originally Posted by Eurogamer
A collectable gold-coloured Commodore 64 sold on eBay yesterday for an incredible GBP 2650 (around EUR 3340).

Apparently it's one of only a few hundred ever made. They were produced back in 1986 to celebrate the production of the one millionth C64 home computer to be manufactured at the German production plant. Back then, that was a big number.

The lucky seller's parents 'won' the super-rare item at CeBit in Hanover 1987, and promptly locked it in a cabinet and never used it.

But while the item was acknowledged by C64 aficionados to be rare, the amount it fetched has surprised many in the retro community - eclipsing recent auctions for the unreleased and supremely rare C65 machine.




In the U.S. in 1984, and later in Germany in 1986, Commodore celebrated the one millionth Commodore 64 sold in those countries by presenting the C64 with its traditional breadbox case "dipped" in a sparkling golden color.

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As you can see, even the inside of the casing is golden colored.
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Aside from the cosmetic beauty, the computer is otherwise a completely ordinary later model breadbox C64. The Commodore 64 sports 64K of memory, a leading edge video chip capable of producing images at 320 X 200 from a pallette of 16 colors, a text mode that displays 40 characters and 25 rows in upper/lowercase as well as Commodore's PETSCII graphics set, a fully programmable parallel IO port, and a high quality 3-voice, 8-octive additive synthesizer sound chip also capable of 8-bit PCM audio samples.

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As you can see here, the computer came mounted on a decorative plaque.
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One of the only true curiosities in the design is the lack of the normal black protective plate on the side of the machine, as shown here. Reports are that none of the Golden C64s have the missing plate. The reason is a mystery.

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Source: http://www.zimmers.net

Re: The Commodore64 Turns Gold

PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2011 9:53 am
by Hot Trout
I would so love that for the collection. Great post crusty.