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In 2025, Commodore was bought by retro YouTuber Chris “Peri Fractic” Simpson, who re-assembled some key execs and went into the hardware business. The main result so far has been the Commodore 64 Ultimate, the slimline 64C, and a line of merch including, er, a backpack holster?
Until last month, that is, when Commodore unveiled the Callback, an old-fashioned flip phone that blocks social media at a system level. No email and no browser either, though it does include a batch of retro games including Snake. Unlike some other dumbphones, the Commodore Callback has WhatsApp and a map, though at a cost—when announced, it came with a $500 pricetag.
That price was dropped by $100 before release, however, a move that seems to have paid off. As Commodore said on X, “In just three days, Callback matched the first month’s sales of the Commodore 64 Ultimate. Our biggest launch. Our biggest week. The biggest moment in Commodore’s modern history!”
Not that you could read that post on your Callback, of course. X is one of the apps it blocks, along with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Kick, Twitch, Roblox, and Discord.
As someone who grew up with a Commodore 64 and a shoebox full of games on floppy disk, and who deleted Twitter off my phone back when it was still called Twitter, I should probably be the audience for this. But even I would quite like to keep Discord on my phone, and a mail app too. Being able to open an email with a QR code of a concert ticket is a convenience I’m not going to abandon, even for Snake.
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