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C65 in eBay...OMG!

Most Wapros of the 90s using 8 bit MPUs could run their own applications. For example, I have a Brother word processor that looks and functions just like a typewriter, but has a disk drive and can hook to a standard MDA monitor. I believe the CPU is a Z80 or perhaps a 64180 (I don't recall). But it has disks with spreadsheet and other applications.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Most Wapros of the 90s using 8 bit MPUs could run their own applications. For example, I have a Brother word processor that looks and functions just like a typewriter, but has a disk drive and can hook to a standard MDA monitor. I believe the CPU is a Z80 or perhaps a 64180 (I don't recall). But it has disks with spreadsheet and other applications.
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This one is sophisticated enough to have a 32-bit CPU:

 
...and probably is uttery incapable of reading Brother 240K 3.5" floppies. At least the Smith-Corona Wapro with the 2.8" floppies had a comms port and could do Xmodem transfers...
 
I wonder when the last C64 was made, companies continue to sell stock even if they don't make any more.
 
Unknown_K said:
I wonder when the last C64 was made, companies continue to sell stock even if they don't make any more.
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Twenty years ago I spoke with someone who worked there for a long time when they shut down. He said no one was really sure that they had stopped production at the end. No one was really keeping track of how many plants were making them nor how many units, for several years.

But at this point does anyone even know if that's true? I worked at a sizeable place with a long, large history, that shut down almost fifteen years ago. Few people remain who care enough to remember anything with any accuracy about that place.
 
Well, Wikipedia links to that Amiga Format article as the source, is that wrong as well?
Anyway, if the last C64 was made in 1992, it would only support the theory that C65 would be doomed to fail.
The 90s were a period of very rapid progress in computer technology, like never before and never after.
The room for 8-bit general purpose computers was shrinking really quickly.
 
Xacalite said:
Well, Wikipedia links to that Amiga Format article as the source, is that wrong as well?
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Heh, that depends on the article writer doing the correct research for Amiga Format. Obviously, he had the wrong research. I'd rather trust the information from the Brian Bagnall's books and from CBM engineers, like Dave Haynie and even C65 engineer, Paul Lassa (who was at the Amiwest Show 2017 and showed us his fully-working C65 serial #1.)

Photos of Paul's machine to come later,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
 
The article writer quoted a Commodore representative at a trade show; not much research needed. Given Commodore's famously poor internal tracking systems, I doubt anyone will ever be able to give an exact date or number on anything Commodore related.
 
krebizfan said:
The article writer quoted a Commodore representative at a trade show; not much research needed. Given Commodore's famously poor internal tracking systems, I doubt anyone will ever be able to give an exact date or number on anything Commodore related.
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And Commodore UK/Europe ≠ Commodore USA. Production of the C64 for North America ended a lot sooner than it did for the rest of the world. For example the cost-reduced 1989 "Aldi" motherboard was PAL-only.

Same thing with Atari. Production of the 8-bit XE series computers for North America officially ended as of January 1st, 1992, while it continued through at least 1993 for markets like Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
 
If not for the Vlasouki and all the power outages, the Molvanîans would still be making them.
 
KC9UDX said:
But is it necessary? What does it give besides rounding error that an extra 48 bits of fractional resolution couldn't accomplish? If you want clipping-less, you need fine resolution, not expanded range. Or go analogue..
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With floating-point audio there is effectively no clip point at the fixed-point 0dB full-scale (0dBFS). You scale the exponent, and go on processing. Most DSP is multiplicative in nature, and with a 24-bit mantissa and 8-bit exponent you have huge dynamic range that a fixed-point representation can't match. It's going to get normalized to some peak level a bit below the fixed-point (exponent=0) 0dBFS (a good standard is -0.1dBFS peak normalization for typical peak-limited and compressed export audio), gain-adjusted to be within the output export format's parameters (I run 24-bit 44.1kilosamples per second stereo for most export; it's a better source for MP3, AAC, or AC3 compressors than 16/44.1k is), dithered, and then sample-rate/depth-converted to meet the dynamic range capabilities of the output format anyway.

Would the CPU in a machine like the C65 need it for that? Or wouldn't you add a 56000 if you needed DSP? There weren't competing machines doing floating point DSP at that time.
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AMD's 9511 and 9512 chips were available in the late 70's, and while a bit slow for this kind of work they were the state of the art at the time. I have a small book, 'The Microcomputer Builder's Bible,' that has schematics for an S-100 AM9511/12 interface. Much clunkier than what Intel did with the 8087 (still late 70's), or what Zilog had designed for the Z280 in Z-BUS mode, but still workable.

For a long time, the high-end ProTools DAW used 48-bit fixed-point summing ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_Tools ) but even ProTools is now using floating-point summing (64-bit) since modern DSP chips can do it natively (ProTools in its full config includes dedicated hardware DSP resources and doesn't do the DSP on the main CPU).

So a C65 could have a 'floating-point cartridge' with something like the AM9511 in it (by 1990 there were much faster choices, but the AM9511 is vintage-correct for early Commodore). The cartridge could even have a professional audio interface with 24-bit converters and XLR or 1/4 TRS phone jack balanced +4dBu line level I/O. For CD-quality 16-bit 44.1 kilosample per second stereo audio you need to sustain 176.4 kB per second transfer rates, and this is where most 8-bit machines would have fallen flat.
 
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BLOWS MY MIND. Looking at the bidding history, I wonder if the actors actually expected to get that deep in the mud...
 
Wow.

Could have been a museum or something I suppose. Definitely won't be me.. if I spent that much on a computer I'd need about as much for a divorce lawyer after!
 
i wonder if an Apple "Mark Twain" prototype would command similar money?
 
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