MEGA65 in 2026: The Ultimate Commodore Machine?

[00:00:00]So today we're going to have a look at one of the most interesting machines in my collection and something that is quickly becoming one of my favorite retro computers, the Mega 65, which offers a glimpse at an alternative timeline from Commodore. And quickly, this is becoming the ultimate Commodore machine with cores available for the unreleased Commodore 65, the C64, the PET, the Commodore 16 and Plus4, the Commodore 128, and most recently the AmIGGA. So, I thought it might be about time that we had a proper look at the Mega 65.

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[00:01:05]So this is the Mega 65. Now, the first thing you might notice about mine is that it has a Commodore badge on here, which I added on myself. This is actually third party, as my history with this machine goes back around 30 years, back to when I first got on the worldwide web when a few machines that were connected to the internet appeared in my school's library back in summer of 1996.

[00:01:28]Now, one of the first things I did was hop into Yahoo search and check out things related to Commodore and the AmIGGA. And that's when I came across a few fan sites and learned about a machine called the Commodore 65, which I wasn't familiar with before. Now, I distinctly remember this because the hard disk that today is in my Omega 4000 actually has all of the contents of the Omega 1200 that I was using back in the mid '90s, including my old web pictures directory full of old images I downloaded back then, including these pictures of the Commodore 65, which first got me fascinated in the story of this machine.

[00:02:07]And just in case you are unfamiliar with the C65, it's also known as the Commodore 64DX. Now, this was a prototype that was in development secretly at Commodore between 1989 and 1991. And as the name might suggest, it was supposed to be an improved version of the Commodore 64, backwards compatible with it, but offering some more advanced features that actually were a bit closer to the AmIGGA than the C64, including a brand new Vic 3 graphics chip, which could display 256 onscreen colors from a pallet of 4,096.

[00:02:41]dual SID chips in there for the audio, a 3.5 MHz CPU, 128 kilobyt of RAM expandable to a megabyte via an Omega style trapdoor slot, and a much more advanced Commodore basic version 10. And the styling of the machine is very late 80s, early '90s, a nicer keyboard, and a built-in 3 and 1/2 in floppy drive. Now, I actually had the pleasure of meeting Paul Lasser, who was one of the main engineers on this project several years ago. I'll have to try and get Paul on my podcast to get the full story at some point. But even though this machine was quite far along, it got canned before it could go into production by the end of 1991. Now, that stage, Paul told me he still believed this could have been a success. Although the project dragged on for several years, and by the end of ' 91, Commodore's current head of engineering, Bill Sidnis, cancelled the Commodore 65 to instead focus work on the upcoming Amigga 600. And when Commodore went bust in 1994, a bunch of these prototypes were discovered and sold off at auction by a company called Grapevine Group for the price of $130, which when you realize that these prototypes today sell for up to $40,000.

[00:03:52]I wish I bought a couple of those back in the day. There was even talk of turning the Commodore 65 into an NES Killer games console. And a version without a built-in disc drive was prototyped for the education market. And this was revealed on the Commodore International Historical Society Facebook group by former engineer Fred Bowen who worked on the Commodore 65.

[00:04:13]Definitely an interesting look at the plans inside Commodore at the time. Fast forward a couple of decades and in 2014 the Mega 65 was born. Now this is best described as an FPGA based 21st century realization of the Commodore 65, but it is much more than that too. We'll go into that in more detail in a second.

[00:04:34]And it comes in this really impressive massive box, which you can probably tell has been heavily inspired by the Commodore 64 packaging from the 80s. And it comes with a brilliant manual as well. Honestly, this is one of the best computer manuals I've ever seen. We've got the full hardware setup guide in here walking you through all the menus.

[00:04:52]And one thing I love about this is heaps of basic programming examples, type in listings just like we used to get in manuals back in the day. And the machine itself, I mean, looking at it, it looks identical to the Commodore 65 prototype with a highquality injection molded case complete with an upgraded 70key mechanical keyboard. And yes, that is an actual working 3 and 1/2in floppy disc drive in the front of the machine, which is included, too. And taking a closer look at the keyboard, these are Cherry MX switches, so they feel lovely, nice and clicky, and very satisfying to type on. And these are double shot keys with the Commodore PKY graphic symbols and commands on the front of them, just like the old Commodore 8-bit machines. Now, sadly, they don't actually make the locking mechanism that Commodore used on keys like the shift lock on the old 8 bits. So, the Mega 65 gets around that by embedding LEDs in the shift lock and caps lock keys, so you can see when they're enabled. And the keys feel slightly different as well. So, that's about the only visual difference that is obvious between this and the original Commodore 65 prototype. On the left side of the machine, we've got the power switch, two DB9 joystick and NAS connectors, and actually this is compatible with Amigga mice, and a reset button on there as well. And on the back of the machine, we've got some familiar ports and some new ones as well. We have the power connector. Then there's a standard Commodore 64 cartridge slot, which is compatible with your old C64 cards and expansions. There is a Commodore IEC serial port there as well, so you can connect up your old printers or your floppy disc drives or even the upcoming new Mega 1581 disc drive from Bitbinders that is coming out very soon.

[00:06:32]We've got VGA and HDMI video output.

[00:06:35]We've got Ethernet on board as well, micro SD card slot, and an audio out there, too. And looking further along the case, you might notice there are some case cutouts here as well, because right now they're working on an expansion board to add in some more connectivity, including things like the Commodore 65 cassette port, which would be handy as a lot of devices today use that for power, and the Commodore 64's user port and analog video output, which will make this machine a lot easier to connect up to classic CRTs. And on the bottom, just like the Commodore 65 prototype, we have the trapdoor with a couple of expansion connectors in here and a full-sized SD card slot, too. And inside the machine, we can see where the magic happens. Now, the Mega 65 came out of an idea by Paul Gardner Steven. Now, originally, he was working on an accelerator for the original Commodore 64, which would be C65 compatible and do even more. And then he joined the Mega Museum of Electronic Games and Art. And instead they decided to build this into a real 8-bit computer. So this is an open-source system that is based on an Arctic 7100T FPGA with user flashable cores. And this runs around 40 times faster than the Commodore 64 and has things like hardware scaling, sprites, bit planes, 256 color palette on its Vic 4 chip.

[00:07:56]We've got four software SID chips and eight dual 8bit DAXs. And of course that original floppy disc drive in there as well that is actually a repurposed drive from an old PC. So these are not new drives but they do test them all before delivery. And really this is designed to feel like the Commodore 65 finally escaped from the prototype lab but with some extra modern conveniences bolted on. And you can buy these systems right now from the Mega 65 website. I think there's only a couple of days waiting time on them now. Uh, with the rather large elephant in the room being the price of this machine currently selling for over $900. Now, I appreciate that it's probably way too steep for a lot of people. The thing is that's the reality of building low production run highquality machines like this. From what I read as well, the team don't actually make any profit on these. They do cost quite a bit to make. And I'll be honest, I did um over getting one of these for quite a few months. But actually, I do think this is value for money. And hopefully I can show you why in this video. So, let's get the machine fired up. Now, hopefully you'll excuse all of the cables I've got snaking out of everywhere. I've got this connected up to my CRT via an HDMI to composite adapter, then into my capture device as well, so we can get some nice quality video out of this. And actually, the display on it looks really nice, much better than the old Commodore machines.

[00:09:12]And the first thing you're dropped into is Basic 65, which is a much enhanced version of Commodore's Basic version 10.

[00:09:21]Now, it keeps all the classic commands that you know and love from the old machines, but they've added new commands in there for stuff like the Omega 65's graphics, the sound, the storage, and much more as well. And of course, just like on your old Commodore, you can jump straight in and start writing a program.

[00:09:36]And while we're in Mega 65 mode, let me show you a few of the machine features that we can access from here. Now, holding down the restore key for a couple of seconds will launch the freezer menu. And that does exactly what you'd think. freezes a machine state exactly where it is, meaning you can manage and change things from here without losing anything that's running.

[00:09:55]You can actually even save the running machine state as well with over 2,000 empty slots on my machine here. And then you can power off the machine and load and restore this state at a later time, which obviously is particularly handy for games. If you get to a certain point in the game where you keep dying, you just want to try it again, you can just restore from that point. And speaking of games, we've got something really useful in here, a joy swap function. Now, if you used the Commodore 64 back in the day, you'll remember there wasn't really a standard for which joystick port a game should use. So often you'd have to physically unplug the joystick and move it between ports for a game to work. But here, this has a software setting, so you can just swap them from this menu.

[00:10:35]No unplugging needed. You can also change things like the CPU speed, the video modes, enter the machine's machine code monitor here as well. But the feature that you'll use most often is the disc management. Now, the machine does have an internal 3 and 12 in floppy drive, but you can mount disc images from this menu as well, including the machine's native D81 format or the more standard D64 disc format. And mounting them from the SD card is as simple as selecting them from the menu and then just treating them like a normal floppy disc. So, let's have a quick look at some of the software that shows off the native capabilities of the Mega 65. And the best place to really start is the intro disc compilations. Now, these showcase some of the best community work from over the last 12 months. And they've released one of these at the end of each year, over the last four years.

[00:11:24]So, this one is from the most recent fourth disc that came out at the end of 2025. Now, as you can see here, we've got full screen full motion video playing, and this is actually a capture taken from a rather naff80s movie called Together in Electric Dreams. Now, this film was a commercial and critical flop when it came out back in the day. Did have a banging soundtrack from Giorgio Maraua and Philokei. I got to admit, though, this film's always been a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. It's all about a guy who buys a computer called Edgar and then uses it to get some dating advice on going out with a woman who lives in his building and then the computer falls in love with her as well.

[00:12:01]So, there's a bit of a a war going on between them. Kind of ahead of its time, I suppose. Edgar was a bit of a cutting edge AI for the mid80s. But here you can see that we have 512 color full screen video and audio playing at 25 frames pers. Definitely setting the Mega 65 ahead of the old Commodore 8bit machines.

[00:12:21]We've also got a scroll test demo on disc 2 that shows you what a Sonic the Hedgehog style game could look like running on the Mega 65. Very nice.

[00:12:32]And of course, we've got a version of the legendary Bad Apple demo that, to be fair, is on pretty much every platform these days. One thing that I do like about the Mega 65's version is that it changes the machine's LEDs to blue. And as you can see, they dance in time to the music. And uh, as versions of Bad Apple Go, this is a particularly good one.

[00:13:01]And there are a small selection of games available for the machine. Now, by far the most impressive is the awesome Roguecraft DX. Now, this is from Badger Punch Games and published by Phalamus.

[00:13:13]Now, this game actually won the Indie Game of the Year award at the Debug Gaming Awards last year in Nottingham in its original AmIGGA form. And since then, it's been ported to several other platforms, including the Evocade. You can get this on Steam now for PCs. It's even on the Game Boy Color and the Mega 65. And looking at this, you can just see how incredible the graphics and the colors look on here. To be honest, it looks every bit as good as the original Omega version. And speaking of rivaling the Omega, this is the Mega Juggler demo, and you can see how well the Mega 65 can copy one of the Amigga's most famous demos.

[00:13:50]and it can even copy the AmIGGA's most famous applications with this a demo port of Deluxe Paint to the Mega 65 by XLR 54. Now, this is definitely a work in progress at the moment, and he'll be adding much more features to it in coming months. But already, as you can see, this is very impressive, and I'm controlling this just by plugging in an Omega mouse into one of the joystick ports. Now, getting software onto the Mega 65 is actually quite straightforward. Now, theoretically, the easiest way is by using the M65 Connect software, which you can get for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. And this is designed to allow you to do lots of operations on the machine, including copying files and disk images from your usual computer over your network to your Mega 65. Now, once the Mega 65 is connected via Ethernet to your network, you can then hold down the shift and tap the pound symbol, and the power LED will flash green and yellow. And this lets you know that the system is now discoverable to copy files over the network. Now, I did say theoretically, as unfortunately I haven't had much success with M65 Connect on Mac OS, Windows or Linux. It connects for a few seconds, looks like everything's fine, and then it disconnects and reconnects again a few seconds later, and this keeps going over and over again. Meaning obviously that file transfers fail mid-copy. Now, I recently upgraded my mesh system and my Ethernet switches, so it's probably just something that this software doesn't like about my particular network setup.

[00:15:13]But for now, I'm just manually copying files onto the SD card and swapping that between my Mac and the Mega 65. And as I've mentioned several times in this video, the Mega 65 is based on the unreleased Commodore 65 prototype. And you can actually boot this machine into Commodore 65 mode if you have the ROMs.

[00:15:32]Now, you can actually extract these from the Commodore 64 Forever package if you've got that. And then once they're on the SD card, you can hold down one of the number keys while you're booting the machine to boot into the relevant version of the ROM. Now, I've got a few versions on here. So, if I hold down number one, you can see this is an early ROM when it was still under the Commodore 64DX name. And then, if I hold down number two, it then boots into a later version just before the Commodore 65 was scrapped. And amazingly for a machine that was never released, there is actually some software available for it on the net, including a Commodore 65 to sec with quite a few files and disc images on here. Now, a lot of the files look like they're just source code and they need building, which to be honest is probably a bit beyond the scope of this video, but there could be some interesting things in there. Now, I was reading the brilliant book Commodore: The Final Years by Brian Bagnel that I highly recommend. There's lots about the Commodore 65 in there. It does mention in one paragraph that Commodore engineer Dave Haney had created an Amigga workbench style demo for it and there was even a port of Deluxe Paint. Now, I thought that would be interesting to look for on these discs. And then I did find a demo that is titled Commodore Demo 1991. And on here are a bunch of IFF files that appeared just to be screenshots from the AmIgga. And if you look at these, I don't think it's any coincidence that the first one is a screenshot of workbench from the AmIGGA running Dave Haney's discal software.

[00:16:56]And the next one is a screenshot of Deluxe Paint from the Amigga. So I imagine that is where that confusion is coming from. I don't think they're actually working demos of Workbench or Daint. I think it was more than likely just these screenshots, but these were really there just to show off the Commodore 65's color palette.

[00:17:11]Interesting to look at all the same. So, what about running some software from machines that were actually released?

[00:17:18]Well, the Commodore 65 and the Mega 65 actually has emulation of the Commodore 64 built-in using the good old Go 64 command that Commodore 128 owners will be more than familiar with. And I don't think there's a full list anywhere of software that works flawlessly in here and what doesn't. I've heard rough estimates online of around 80% of Commodore 64 software should work perfectly in here. Although more demanding games and demos or software that is timing sensitive might fail or have some glitches. But of course, this is a user programmable FPGA system and there is a very complete Commodore 64 core available for it. So to access the alternative course, really straightforward. All you got to do is hold down the no scroll key and then power on the machine.

[00:18:07]And in here you'll see there are seven userdefinable core slots. Now there are cores available for arcade machines. I think there's even a Game Boy one. I know that someone is working on an Apple 2 core currently. And there is a project called MR to Mega 65, a framework that's been a big help in creating a lot of the recent cores for this machine. And basically that allows easier porting of course from the MR FPGA system to this machine. But it is the Commodore that interests me the most. And as you can see, I've got the Commodore 64 core loaded into position two. So I press two on the keyboard and then that will boot into the Commodore 64. And then tapping on the help key will bring up the menu.

[00:18:48]Now from here we can change a load of this core settings. Stuff like the display mode, swap joystick ports, access the expansion port, so you can use cartridges and other Commodore 64 add-ons. We can enable the IEC port, so you can use a traditional Commodore 50 and41 floppy disc drive. And we can mount disc images or PRG files from in here as well. And during my testing, this works flawlessly. Everything I've tried on here so far works just as well as it does on something like the Commodore 64 Ultimate. And I should just point out, you'll have to excuse any weird borders or alignment issues that you're seeing on my monitor here. I don't normally see those. The reason I am when I'm recording this is the machine's HDMI output is currently going into my capture card. So, I'm viewing the monitor using a VGA to HDMI to composite adapter chain. So, that is introducing a little bit of weirdness that I don't see when I'm just going straight into the monitor. And of course, the core that most people have been hyped for is the Amigga core. Now, this is very much a work in progress.

[00:19:50]It's only been released to beta testers in the last couple of days, actually.

[00:19:54]And you can get this from the Mega 65 Discord server if you want to try it out for yourself. Now, this comes from a user called Kiwi Phoenix, and it is a core for the Omega 500 OCS with a single floppy disc drive and 1 MGB of RAM.

[00:20:09]Basically, it's the most memorable config of the Amigga, the one most of us had from the Batman pack back in the day. Now, he does have plans to enhance this, and he will be introducing features like a second virtual floppy disc drive and WHD load support down the line, but for now, we can load in ADFs, which load with authentic floppy drive speeds, as in very slowly. But you can see it is all working. We've got the AmIGGA workbench version 1.3 uh booted up here. I can control it using the attach mouse, and we can test out the classic say utility.

[00:20:49]smell.

[00:20:51]>> Very nice. And uh let's try out a game as well. Here it is running one of my all-time favorite Amigga racers, the legendary Lotus Turbo Challenge 2. And uh I'm very familiar with this game. And I can tell you it plays really well. To be honest, it feels just like playing this on an actual Omega 500.

[00:21:15]And this new core is a big one for me as well, the Commodore 16 and Plus4. Now, the Plus4 was my first ever computer, so I've been having a real blast reliving some of the games of my youth on here over the weekend. And again, they all sound and play just as I remember.

[00:21:32]Really cool.

[00:21:37]And there is a Commodore Pet Core. Now, this really interests me despite never actually owning a Commodore PET, and I haven't really got much experience with them. So, it is quite fun for me to try out some really early software on here.

[00:21:50]Now, as I mentioned, I've got no real experience with the system, so I couldn't tell you just how authentic the experience is, but this is something that I really appreciate having on here and something I will be delving more into in coming weeks. And finally, on my machine, we have the newest core. This is actually a pre-alpha version that just got released 2 days ago at the time of recording this video for the brand new Commodore 128 core. Now, um this is obviously the first release of it. He just put it out to Discord members a few days ago. This is Stefan Ellias who's behind this. So, it is that new that a lot of the features on the menu aren't actually working yet. You can't even mount disc images, but you can load software from a physical disc drive plugged into the machine serial port.

[00:22:34]So, I'm going to load on up from my 1541 here. And a few minutes later, we can see the legendary C128 version of Elite running very nicely on here. Now, there weren't a lot of specific Commodore 128 games released, but it is a very cool system and again one that I'm really pleased to see on here.

[00:22:53]So, I remember the Mega 65 did get quite a lot of coverage on YouTube about four or five years ago when the system started shipping. But where does that leave me with the computer in 2026? Now really my hope for this machine is that it becomes the ultimate Commodore computer as in my office I'm quite limited for desk space here. So I can really only have one retro machine set up on my desk at a time. Now most of the time that would be my Commodore 64 Ultimate. But if I suddenly fancy a plus4 gaming session, that means I've got to go into the cupboard, dig everything out, disconnect the 64, set up the plus4, sort the cables around, then I've got to do the whole thing again if I want to use my Commodore 128.

[00:23:30]So the idea of having all of that in one machine is massively appealing. And this is where the Mega 65 gets really exciting for me. not just the native Mega 65 modes, which are cool enough, or the Commodore 64 compatibility, or even getting to test out the Commodore 65 kind of dream machine side of it. I think the potential for this machine to become a proper all-in-one Commodore FPGA system is really, really interesting. So, to complete that, I would love to see a Vic 20 core on here and maybe some of the more obscure Commodore machines, even stuff like the Commodore 2 series. And you can just imagine having this beautiful Commodore style machine on your desk with the correct keyboard layout, the right feel, and being able to jump between different corners of Commodore history without having to constantly swap hardware around.

[00:24:17]And it does feel like the machine is getting close to being the ultimate Commodore machine. With all the new cores we've been seeing lately, it really does feel like it's more than just a Commodore 65 recreation. Now, of course, you could do all of this cheaper elsewhere. You could get yourself a Mister setup, for example, um for roughly half the price of the Mega 65, depending on how you build it. And if all you care about is FPGA accuracy and flexibility, that might make a bit more sense. But for me, the Mega 65 is just the complete package, you know, the case, the keyboard, the built-in floppy drive, and the fact that this is something that Commodore genuinely designed in the early '90s kind of gives it that a lost machine from another timeline feeling to me. And on a more personal level, as I mentioned at the start of the video, I've kind of lusted over the idea of owning a Commodore 65 for about 30 years now. So, still looking over and seeing this sitting on my desk gives me a bit of a buzz. Now, obviously, the machine isn't perfect. It is very expensive, but it is still evolving. And a lot of the ecosystem is enthusiast. That means things are a little bit rough around the edges, but right now, I'm just loving my time with the Mega 65. And I really think the community is turning this machine into something genuinely special. And if you want to find out more about the Mega 65, a couple of quick resources just to round off this video that you should absolutely be checking out. Now, the first one is Dan's Mega65 Digest. Now, this is a pretty regular roundup from Dan Sanderson, who compiles all the latest news, the new releases, and gives you a great overview of the latest activity for the Mega 65 in a very well-ritten and easy to read email format. And you can subscribe to that on the official Mega 65 website. And here on YouTube, I can highly recommend the fantastic Retro Combmes channel. Now, he's been a huge help in helping me learn the Mega 65 with his superb tutorials. He also does live streams about the system, showing off new software and cores. And beyond just the Mega 65, he's a massive Commodore fan, so you'll find lots of really interesting videos. And if you like my channel, you'll love his. And uh his production values are just incredible.

[00:26:19]Really put me to shame. So definitely check out Retro Combmes. I'll link his channel in the video description. And finally, there is the Discord server where you'll find people chatting in there all day, every day, and generally the place where you'll hear about new and indevelopment cores and software first. So, that is absolutely worth joining. And if the Mega 65 computer isn't something you're quite ready to jump into just yet, there's actually a very fully featured emulator called Xenu, I believe that's how you pronounce it, which emulates the Mega 65 and the Commodore 65. And it's available for Windows, Mac OS, Linux. It can even turn a Raspberry Pi into a Mega 65 with their pre-made image. So, I hope you enjoyed this look at a very cool machine and one that I look forward to exploring more and we'll definitely be revisiting the Mega 65 on the channel at some point in the future. So, I hope you enjoyed this video. If you've made it to the end, I thought I'd recommend a couple of my other videos I think you might like.

[00:27:14]Thank you for watching and I'll see you next time.