Granted, not everyone has thirty thousand dollars spare; and you might need more.

The Commodore 65 is a rare machine. A prototype of it has surfaced. The C65, also known as the C64DX, was developed in the late 80s and early 90s under the hands of Commodore Electronics. This machine was supposed to be the successor to the C64. However, in 1991, the whole project was cut off because of internal disputes, so the time and money invested were wasted, and the computer never reached the customers…

The NES and the Apple II partially lowered the success of the Commodore 64. That’s why Commodore decided to develop the C65. Its processor was almost three times faster than the C64’s (3.54 MHz), it had 128 KB of RAM (which could be increased up to 1 MB, i.e. eight times the default), and the graphics chip could handle 256 colours at a maximum resolution of 1280×400.

In 1994, during the bankruptcy of Commodore International, a prototype of the Commodore 65 reached a few people, even if only between 50 and 2000 copies were sold. One of them put his item on eBay and even made a video. It’s running The Last Ninja 2, and according to the poster, “This particular unit is even much rare. The plastic molds are not roughened, so the case still has a high-glossy look, and the POWER and DRIVE text is missing. The plastic molded cases of these ALPHA Units are totally rare; only a hand full are known to exist. This C65 has a ‘#27’ written on the PCB.”

If the Commodore 65 had been on the market, it would have been asking $300-350 at the time, which is understandably a fraction of the current bid price. There are only a few scratches on the machine, and it also comes with a Commodore 1084S monitor and a European (220/230 volt) power supply. In North America, it would require another adapter…

Source: PCGamer