A Commodore 64 Laptop

The Commodore computer that the 1980s could never deliver to us has finally arrived. Hardware hacker Kevin Noki has built the Commodore 64 laptop that you have always wanted, but could never own, until now. As an industrial designer, Noki had what it takes to make this laptop look like it just arrived in 2025 via a DeLorean that topped 88 miles per hour, but on the inside it is all modern hardware and emulation.

Called the Portable 64, Noki’s DIY laptop case was meticulously designed before being 3D printed in about 30 different parts. These were assembled with superglue and metal pins before being sanded, primed, and spray-painted in just the right colors to give it an authentic Commodore 64 look.

You might just believe that the Portable 64 is a long-lost Commodore prototype as long as you don’t look inside the case. There you will find a Raspberry Pi 5 single-board computer running the popular VICE emulator. There is also a 10-inch LCD display with an era-appropriate 4:3 aspect ratio.

However, everything about the computer isn’t modern. Thanks to custom adapters and some existing libraries, the machine can interface with original Commodore 1541 disk drives and Datasette cassette tape storage devices. It took a little bit of hacking to get this working, but there is nothing like loading Racing Destruction Set from a floppy.

It may not be authentic Commodore hardware, but if you want authenticity, you’ll have to lug around a 22-pound Commodore SX64. I’ll take the Portable 64 for retro computing on the go any day, thank you very much!