Commodore Free 19/Commodore_Free_Issue_19_2008_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/t.iv rb 4

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Interview with Robert Bernardo
Commodore enthusiast and C= promoter

Part 4 of 4

CF - People now see $$$$ with anything
Commodore related.  I have been asked
to remove game pictures because of
copyright infringements.  Would you
like to comment on this?

RobertB - Well, I think that is just
silly.  If we are talking about classic
game photos and screen captures, I do
not see the harm in showing these off.
My question is how do other magazines
get past this copyright quagmire, e.g.,
what does RetroGamer magazine do?
RetroGamer is full of photos & screen
caps of classic games.

CF - How do you rate Commodore Free
magazine?

RobertB - Commodore Free is good and
getting better! The variety of articles
is nice to have.  Some detailed proof-
reading is needed.  Run those articles
through a spellchecker or have a real
person (an English teacher?) find the
typos.

CF - I know you are a friend of Allan
from www.commodorescene.org.uk  Allan
had to close the magazine due to lack
of subscribers.  Personally, I miss
the magazine, and it's why I started
Commodore Free.

RobertB - Thank you for publishing
Commodore Free.  An English language
C= magazine is necessary, because the
German language magazines just aren't
enough.

CF - Allan owes users a large amount
of money - taken from users in order
to buy CMD products from Maurice
Randall.  Now 3 years later, these
readers are demanding a refund due to
the time it's taken.  Maurice seems to
have gone quiet and refused to answer
Allan's emails for a refund.  So, Allan
has had to refund from his own pocket.

RobertB -- I was truly sad when I
found out that information.  Not only
did Allan close out Commodore Scene
because of the subscriber situation but
also because of the customer refunds he
has had to make due to Maurice not
sending him any CMD products. I commend
Allan on his diligence in making good
on his customer refunds, especially
since he has a wife and children to
support.

CF - Do you think someone, like Jens
Schoenfeld, should offer to bail out
CMD www.cmdrkey.com -

RobertB -- As I have mentioned to
others in our club, Creative Micro
Designs does not need bailing out.
Maurice has manufacturing/distribution
rights to CMD hardware/software, but
CMD still owns the copyrights/patents.

When Maurice took over the above
rights, he mentioned at a convention
that he had to pay a hefty monthly fee
to CMD for those continuing rights.
When Maurice bought those rights & the
C= inventory of CMD, the price was
$17,000.  Whoever wants to take over
those rights would not only have to
negotiate with Maurice but also with
CMD.

CF - Maurice seems to be a great guy,
keen to help everyone, and I think he
has bitten of more than he can chew.
Would you comment?

RobertB -- When I've met him at
conventions, he was always affable, &
in past years he was helpful on the C=
mailing lists, forums, & newsgroups.
He hasn't made a public appearance
since the Louisville Spring Expo of
2005.  I do not know the exact story on
why Maurice is not distributing CMD
products, and I don't like speculating
on this situation.

CF - Would you like to comment on the
C=One machine and on the DTV?

RobertB - Oh, each one of those would
be a massive story!  I'll limit my
response to the current state of each
system.  The CommodoreOne started life
as a brilliant idea; however, its
execution was damaged by greed and
short-sightedness.  In order to save a
few Euros per board and thus increase
profits, the board was cost-reduced to
being handicapped.  What was eventually
produced was not what Jeri Ellsworth
envisioned.  It is now a board short on
FPGA space, a board patched with
soldered wires to make it work, a board
that cannot contain the super C1 core
that Jeri planned.  In a surprising
statement about what the C1 had become,
Jeri said to me, "The CommodoreOne is
crap."

Finally, in 2006, Jens Schoenfeld
tacitly admitted that the C1 was in
need of a FPGA overhaul so that
development could continue on the
super C1 core and other cores.  He
would produce a FPGA -extender? board,
and it would be sold for 99 Euros.
However, late in 2007, thinking that
such an extender board wouldn't sell,
Jens pulled back on the idea of
producing such a cure for the C1.
Thus, we are back to square one, back
to the year 2002 in which the C1 has
been stuck.

The C64 DTV 30-games-in-one joystick
also started life with much promise;
its eventual execution was damaged by
greed and short-sightedness, too.
Though ostensibly a toy, Jeri
Ellsworth had slyly convinced the
producers that including many Commodore
features would not cost them another
cent.  To those in the know, the C64
DTV could be converted back to a
computer with enhanced features.  It
sold well. However, the partner company
that paid Jeri for the DTV wanted more.
They refused to pay Jeri her royalty
per DTV joystick, citing that the DTV
was losing money!  Though it was
supposedly losing money, they still
wanted Jeri to continue work on the DTV
ASIC chip so they could make a new run
of DTVs, possibly with 100 games in the
joystick.  Without being paid her
royalties from the first production
runs of the C64 DTV and the Hummer DTV
game console, Jeri refused to work on
any more modifications and sued the
partner company.  The lawsuit dragged
on for months, with Jeri spending quite
a bit of money out of her pocket in
order to pay her lawyers to pursue the
case.  In the end, the partner company
conveniently "disappeared"; there was
no company left for Jeri to sue. Jeri
did not receive her royalties; the C64
DTV never would have another production
run.

CF - Do you think Jeri Ellsworth's
creation of the DTV and work on the
C=1 computer has raised awareness of
the Commodore brand again?

RobertB - It has made certain people
aware of the Commodore again.  With
only over 100 C1 boards sold, the
public impact was miniscule.  With
over 700,000 C64 DTVs & Hummer DTVs
sold, general public's consciousness of
the Commodore brand shot to the
forefront for a short while.  When the
C64 DTV started selling on November 26,
2004 at midnight Eastern Time on the
QVC shopping TV network, QVC received
call after call live on-air from
people around the U.S.A. who said they
remembered the original C64 and wanted
to have that same gaming experience
with the DTV.  The network did a
stellar job at promoting it,
advertising it, and selling it quickly.

These days with no new production runs
of the DTV, with no presence on the
store shelves, the general public has
forgotten about it.  Time after time
at shows where we have a club table
and where we display Commodore items
including the DTV, people would come
up to me and ask if they could buy the
display DTV or ask where they can buy
such an item.  Now I have to tell them
that the most common place is eBay.com.

CF - And with this new awareness do
you think people who once owned/loved
Commodore machines are "coming back"
as it were to the C= community?

RobertB - This brief surge in awareness
brought about by the DTV has brought
the hardware hackers into the fray. The
DTV board has been used to replace C64
original motherboards, has been housed
in miniature game consoles, and has
even been turned into a handheld
computer with its own LCD screen. The
ingenuity of such hardware hackers is
quite amazing when you see some of the
products they develop just based on the
DTV board.
 With the hardware hacking has come the
software hacking of the DTV; various
utilities, modded games, and even
demos are available for it. Yet, this
flurry of DTV hardware and software
hacking has quieted down now that the
DTV is no longer readily available.

CF - If you had 1 million pounds, what
would you do?

RobertB - That would be 2 million
dollars or so, based on today's
exchange rates!  Well, if I had such a
large amount of money, I would pay off
my credit card debts, invest some of
the money, spread some of the money to
the family, donate to charities, pick
up a few high-priced Star Trek
souvenirs, get some more storage for
Commodore and Amiga stuff, and fund
some Commodore projects.  In the past,
I've funded some C= companies and
projects, and with that much money, I
could fund more.  For example, long
ago Jeri Ellsworth mentioned a
CommodoreTwo project, a new board that
would be free of the faults of the
CommodoreOne, a board that would be
manufactured here in America, because
she found out it would be more
economical to do it here.  The
Commodore Two would be built the way
Jeri meant the original C-One to be -
no shortcuts, no cost-reduced
components but the best components in
order for Jeri to work her C= magic on
it.  She would be given free reign to
design it and not a limited voice. She
would have the time, the resources,
and the money to accomplish her goal.

CF - Is there any question you would
have liked to have been asked and why?

RobertB - The general state of
Commodore programming and user groups
here in the states.  Why?  Because I
see a slow but steady decline in
activity.  When I review my articles
from the late 1990's and the early
2000's, there was so much more C=
energy to report.  Over the years,
Maurice Randall and Todd Elliott, the
best GEOS/Wheels programmers,  have
disappeared.  Jim Butterfield, fabled
C= programmer, died in 2007.  No new
development on WiNGs, the C64
multi-tasking operating system
requiring a SuperCPU.  Loadstar disk
magazine is published irregularly, and
it will only have a limited run until
its final issue at #255 or #256.
Genie, Delphi, and Compuserve, and
their dedicated C= areas are gone.
Few new demos from the NTSC groups,
though individual demosceners go on.

As reported above, where there used to
be several C= clubs in California; we
are now down to one with another one
trying to get off the ground.  Where
there used to be several in Oregon,
they are now down to one.  The same in
Washington state.  One in Nevada.  One
in Colorado.  None in Arizona.  The
clubs that still survive do so due to
the determination of a few.  If it
weren't for ACUG chancellor, Dave
Mohr, that Astoria, Oregon club would
fold. If it weren't for 5C's president,
Al Jackson, that Las Vegas, Nevada club
would have a hard time staying
together.  Several times, our treasurer
has told me that if I weren't president
of FCUG, our club would have closed
some time ago.  With older members
passing away or moving away, all the
clubs are having or will have a more
difficult time staying together.

CF - Robert, thanks for your time and
commitment.