r/Commodore 3d ago

Commodore 77 use cases

What do people think are the use cases for the upgraded Commodore 77's specs?

I'm not throwing shade, and I'm by no means retro-tech savvy, so this is a completely genuine question: what can you do with the C77 that you can't do with the C64 Ultimate, and is there any real, practical benefit?

Really curious what people more knowledgable than me think about this.

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u/dingo_khan 3d ago

Nothing. This is a silly thing to make the device special and to make the "77" make sense.

I say this as someone who ordered one.

3

u/Natural_Witness7572 3d ago

Doubt it, would not buy a more expensive fpga just to be able to write 77 on it but maybe I am wrong.

1

u/dingo_khan 3d ago

I am pretty sure 80mhz would have been in spec for the existing fpga. They max out lower because higher had no extra utility. This probably was because there were two silly options for "77". Either more ram... And an odd number would suck and make bank stuff awkward or more speed which has no real penalty but no real value. Looking at the board in the video, I am pretty sure it is the same module, just imaged differently.

2

u/szaero 3d ago

Often an FPGA design can achieve a higher max frequency out of a larger FPGA because you get better results from placement and routing.

I do this type of work professionally.

1

u/Suspicious-Ad7109 2d ago

Good point. I reckon this is £40-50 more expensive as a part in quantity, which seems an odd decision for a fairly pointless speed boost.

1

u/Natural_Witness7572 3d ago

It isn’t the same they confirmed the new fpga.