Pictures of my Commodore 64 Ultimate

In 2025, the Commodore 64 was rebooted, based on the Ultimate 64 and an acquisition of the holding company that held the Commodore trademarks. This was combined into the Commodore 64 Ultimate, an FPGA re-implementation of the original machine, which still supports almost all the peripherals and add-ons from the original, but adding USB and SD card storage, networking, extra memory, turbo mode and other modern facilities.

I hesitated a bit, but did eventually end up ordering one, and I was not disappointed. My machine has serial number 25891 and is the "basic beige" model, i.e., made to resemble the original "bread-box" (and not the modernized look that my machines have).

Interior shot, I have installed a micro SD card in the SD card reader (bottom left) and the SID chip that I extracted from my C128DCR before I scrapped it:

Since I do prefer the Commodore 128-like look, I did buy a used Commodore 64C with the plan to move the motherboard over to it. I thought it was the modern version with a snap case, like my first Commodore 64, but it was not, I got the model where the keyboard is mounted to the bottom of the case. It is possible to mount the Ultimate motherobard, but you have to cut out a bit of the old keyboard holder, and bend the other a bit, but it was doable. I also needed a replacement power LED, as the original cable was too short, so I ordered one from Retroleum just before they stopped shipping outside the United Kingdom.

In the photo we can also see that I have borrowed the SID chip from the machine, so that I have two SID chips, something which is quite unnecessary. The original keyboard is at the top of the photo, and on the right we see the motherboard from the used 64C as well as the cover that was over the side connection ports, in the 64C case they are built-in:

[Open Commodore 64C case with the Ultimate 64 motherboard]

But just before I managed to finish the project, Commodore announced that they will produce a 64C version of the Ultimate. I will be back with a comparison when mine shows up…