The end of December is a time when it's acceptable to splash around happily in nostalgia. It also contains the period between Christmas and New Year's Eve, where it's fine to talk to anyone you meet. So, you'll stop dead in the newsagent and pick up a bag of Monster Munch, and everything you know about this popular snack will come pouring out.

"Of course, you won't remember this," you'll shout wisely into a pram. "But you ask your older brother – there were a couple of years when national availability was patchy, and I ... think the flavours were different."

It's the perfect, out-of-focus time to launch the Commodore 64x – a remodelled, re-specced version of 1982's Commodore 64. Looking at the pictures, the first thing I feel is … well, recognition, obviously. I see the picture, and I think: "Oh, look, there's that computer I used to have – that's from the past."

If it stopped there, I'd be a healthier man. But then I see the ridged bonnet, and I remember pressing on it to create a wavy ridge on my fingertips. I remember writing a little program to keep track of my brother's 15 CDs. The taste of Red Thunderbird fills my mouth. I'm young again – I'm dancing.

I'm clearly the target market. I spent years building the connections in my brain that this is trying to abuse. So why aren't my salivary glands jetting uncontrollable arcs of flob on to these jpegs? Is it the alien modern ports, and the DVD drive? Is it the suspicion that I'm being played? Perhaps it's the fact that my front room is knee-high in modern electronic junk – plastic guitars, pretend DJ turntables and bongos. This could be the camel's backbreaker. If I get this, am I making a pact with myself to spend 50 years in an Inception dream?

But look at it, all brown, ugly and lovely. It taught me so much. The Commodore 64 taught me about zealotry. After upgrading from the inferior ZX Spectrum, I would try to convince the Sinclair loyalists to follow me. I would invite them to my house, and let them see that with just eight colours and a monophonic sound chip, their lives lacked true depth. My evangelism quickly faded into impatience. So, I can now see why American Baptists get so miffy about atheists – it's horrible dealing with people who don't realise how much better you are.

It taught me about greed. And how the tipping point comes when accumulation becomes something that goes beyond numbers. The second I learned that you could copy games, my eyeballs turned to face each other. Privately, inside my head, they agreed with my brain that I needed every game that there was. Overestimating my dedication, I started off a 90-minute cassette for every letter of the alphabet. I would collect games I had no intention of playing. How can I resent Philip Green's tax avoidance, when he reminds me of my hungry younger self, collecting all those pounds?

I should repeat: this new computer Commodore 64x isn't actually a Commodore 64. That would ruin nostalgia in the same way as having a white dog poo flung into your face. It's modern PC tech, rearranged into a retro case. It's most like a high-end, screenless Linux netbook, with a DVD drive and a flash card reader. It's not powerful enough to run modern games, but that's like complaining that, erm, a Mary Whitehouse sex doll doesn't have Bluetooth.

There's no justification for this. It fills no gap. Many Commodore 64 emulators already exist on the PC, and most of the games are freely – if not legally – available. But with zealotry, greed and nostalgia, your gut makes the decisions and your brain's forced to justify it, or go mental. Me? I'm going to play Bruce Lee for 20 minutes, unplug it, then spend weeks cultivating a tiny blind spot that means I never have to consider the reasons for my actions.