broken 64:( / peripherals question

[NathanAllan]

As it turns out my C64 will not power up even with the new power supply. I was thinking about getting a Plus/4, will the peripherals connect? I have the C2N datassette, printer and two 1541 disk drives, will they connect to a Plus/4?

Also, can I use the StarCommander prog to make disks for it? And does the Plus/4 have the same expansion ports? Any help appreciated!

Nathan

 

[vic user]

Hi Nathan;

I know very little about the plaus 4, but I did a bit of searching and I found some stuff that might be usefull to you.

At the bottom I popped in a couple of links, with one being a photo of the back end of the plus 4:

Plus/4

COMMODORE PLUS 4.

This 1984 COMMODORE 8 bit machine is a mixture of problems and progress. Problems because of the lack of compatibility with everything else COMMODORE has made, so, own busses, own joysticks, own datasets. Problems because of the incompatibility with the C16 or C64 software! The Plus 4 had a bit of software of its own in ROM, such as a word processor, a kind of spreadsheet program and some "graphics" utility, which could be reached by pressing F1 or entering SYS 1525.

But also something better: BASIC 3.5 in stead of BASIC 2.0, which was quite an improvement!

CPU: MOS 7501 at 1.76 Mhz. RAM: 64 kB., ROM: 32 kB. for BASIC 3.5 and another 32 kB. for the software mentioned above. OS: own. Text mode: 40x25. Graphical: 320x200 monochrome or 160x200 in 4 colors. No internal drive. 1541, 1570, 1571 and 1581 could be used. I/O: 1x IEC (serial), 1 module, 1x audio/video, 1x HF, 1x datasette, 2x joystick.


ROM 22 KB built-in Wordprocessor, Database and Spreadsheet
RAM 64 KB
CPU MOS 6510
Frequency 1 MHz
OS Basic v3.5

http://obsoletecomputermuseum.org/plus4/
http://obsoletecomputermuseum.org/plus4/plus4_2.jpg

 

[NathanAllan]

Guess I'll be sticking to the original C64, heh heh. No problem, I wanted to do that, really, anyway. Thanks for the info, I should have looked it up before I posted anyway. I looked it up after (didn't occur to me before) and found pretty much the same thing. Heck, I know so little that I might have a totally upgraded machine and not know it. So now it's parts for the one that I get next!

Nathan

 

[carlsson]

I guess it should be added that C16 and Plus/4 will require all sorts of adapters to use many of the C64 peripherals. The IEC connector probably is the same, but Commodore preferred you to use the (faster?) 1551 rather than 1541 - this was before the double-sided 1571 drive.

The 1531 tape drive is essentially the same as the 1530, except for they used a mini-DIN instead of the six pin edge connector. There are adapters in both ways. The joystick connector is also different, so if you want to plug in any Atari-type (de-facto standard from ~1981 to 1993) joystick, you need .. an adapter.

The palette is extended to 128 colours, but no hardware sprites, and the sound is reduced to two channels of which one is shared between square wave and noise. I still wonder what C= technicians and management were thinking when they developed the TED chip (which of course was delayed before it went into production). Surely it was not a C64 upgrade, but a VIC-20 replacement two years after a VIC-20 replacement already had been relased (if you see the C64 as the replacement).

 

[vic user]

I remember hearing about the plus 4 coming out, and I thought it was going to be a vic 20 with 9k ')

Chris


carlsson wrote:

I still wonder what C= technicians and management were thinking