THE ANCIENT Commodore 64 design is back with shedloads more stuff under the bonnet than was around when it was first launched in 1982.

In its first life the Commodore 64 sold 30 million units over 12 years until the outfit folded and the beast sank into the deep waters of popular memory.

Now the Commodore 64 Phoenix is coming out of the stable of Commodoreusa.net.

It is basically a "computer in a keyboard" design like the old C64 of yore, with things like a Pentium processor, a DVD drive, wireless Ethernet and USB ports, all of which were not around in the 1980s.

While the original C64 had a hefty 64KB of RAM, the C64 Phoenix has 4GB of RAM along with 2TB of data storage. It can run either Windows 7 or Ubuntu Linux.

Prices start at $475 for a bare-bones model, rising to $1,300 for a top of the line unit. As far as a call to the past is concerned, it does look a little bit like a C64 in the right light, but not really. µ