Sad news: Apple has rejected a Commodore 64 emulator for the iPhone. It’s not surprising, and arguably not an utter outrage given that the iPhone developer agreement expressly forbids emulators, and the C64 app’s creator knew that when he began work on his brainchild. I’m still unclear on how a Commodore 64 emulator–one fully licensed by the relevant copyright holders–hurts the iPhone, iPhone owners, or Apple, though. Especially since other iPhone apps that use emulation techniques and which sound less delightful have apparently snuck their way into the App Store. Thinking about all this got me to thinking about the fact that the Commodore 64 was considered to have a lot of RAM (64KB) at a surprisingly low price ($595) back in 1982. The iPhone 3G S has 4,000 times the RAM (256MB) for one-third the price (with an AT&T contract), and that’s not even taking into consideration the fact that it also has an additional 250,000 times as much memory (or 500,000, if you spring for the 32GB model) as the C64 in the form of its flash storage. Or that the starting price of $199 for an iPhone 3G S is really more like $90 in 1982 dollars. Did I mention that that the 3G S fits in your pocket? After the jump, what is almost certainly the most comprehensive comparison of the Commodore 64 and the iPhone 3G S that anyone has done to date. I’ll let you decide which one comes out on top.

Any additions, corrections, or questions? Stop me before I compare the TRS-80 Model I to the Palm Pre–hey, Radio Shack has sold both of ’em…

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