Let The Fans Have It

There was a time, about a quarter-century ago, where it felt like Atari, as a going concern, was totally dead and buried, a legendary brand that had seen better days. But in the mid-late 2000s, the company that owns it, the former Infogrames and GT Interactive, decided to make a go for it under the Atari brand, and has more recently rebuilt that brand around the retro vibes it represented. It even acquired some popular fan sites like MobyGames and Atari Age.

Atari, which just reported its best revenue numbers in more than a decade, is probably in the best shape it’s been in since at least the early ’90s, and it’s largely because it leaned into retro game culture. Could Commodore be next?

That’s an intriguing scenario posed by the YouTube channel Retro Recipes, known for its fawning appreciation for all things Commodore, along with ’80s culture in general. Here’s the clip, promised as a “Part 1”:

The pitch: Channel runner Christian “Perifractic” Simpson wants to bring Commodore back to the fans. In the three decades since the legendary computer-maker initially went bankrupt, the brand has swapped owners numerous times in a series of deals and occasionally messy legal battles. These days, it essentially exists in a sort of purgatory as a licensing company, where the brand occasionally shows up places, but doesn’t really do very much.

Despite this, the interest in the Commodore 64 remains strong among hobbyists and the highly nostalgic. Some small-scale makers (particularly the firm My Retro Computer) have even licensed the Commodore brand from this company in the past, but the high costs have limited the viability of this approach.

Perifractic doesn’t think that’s right—and has proposed a company in collaboration the My Retro Computer team. The new company, initially suggested as a licensee of the current Commodore, might make its own new hardware, but would mainly manage the licensing of the Commodore brand to the enthusiast community at a flat 6.4% rate. While there are some limitations to the plan (crowdfunding is apparently off the table due to legal restrictions), the proposal earned blessing from a couple of very notable figures in the Commodore community. Most notably, famed hardware hacker Jeri Ellsworth, known for once building an emulation-based C64 TV console, was happy to give the creator her blessing.

“When I heard what he was doing with Commodore, I got very excited,” she said in the video.

I don’t want to spoil the video, which Retro Recipes is releasing in two parts, other than to say that it offered Commodore fans plenty of reason to be optimistic.

Perifractic’s attempt to return the Commodore brand to viability reflects the increasing ambition of the retro tech community. The U.K.-based Retro Collective has built an ambitious museum, and also sells its own FPGA-based hardware offerings. Meanwhile, David Murray, a.k.a. The 8-Bit Guy, has built a small digital empire for himself: He now co-owns a popular Texas arcade and led the development of the Commander X16, a modern computer inspired by the C64. (Perifractic, who sometimes collaborates with Murray, also worked on the X16 but left the project for personal reasons, according to his website.)

What makes Perifractic a good choice for running a reconstituted Commodore? Simply put, and as a cursory glance through the Retro Recipes archive will tell you, his heart is just as much with the culture of the ’80s as the hardware. Even his mostly behind-the-scenes career in Hollywood has often criss-crossed into ’80s nostalgia: He once worked as a stand-in on some big-name films, particularly in the Star Wars series. (He even had a small role in 1999’s Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace.)

He also has a reputation of making his childhood pop-culture dreams come true, having acquired a replica of KITT, the talking car from Knight Rider, as well as converting a Tesla into one. Consider this another dream for a guy who knows how to make them happen.

When I faxed Perifractic, I referenced this commercial. I had to.

The prospect of Commodore being brought back to life by the retro-computing community feels strangely compelling, and so I plan to write something else about this soon. (I even reached out to Perifractic by fax. Yes, fax.)

These companies meant a lot to people, so seeing them end up in the hands of actual fans—or at least as adjacent to those fans as possible—feels like the absolute best-case scenario. So let’s hope they pull it off.