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Commodore Plus 4 Found in Thrift Store

Another thing I can't understand is how a rubber membrane keyboard would be cheaper to manufacture than the full sized keyboards Commodore already were using in the millions. I understand those were manufactured by Mitsumi (?) so perhaps there were similar OEM manufacturers of rubber membrane keyboards where Tramiel could negotiate a good quote. Yet the rubber keyboard was mainly meant for the C116, cost cutting in an attempt to beat Sinclair at their home market.

We should not forget the UltiMAX Machine, in the western world for a short while marketed as VIC-10 but pretty much never got sold. It has the same custom chips as a C64 but with touch keyboard and only 1 or 2K RAM. While the C64 still was in development, rumours had it would come both as a 32K and a 64K machine. In the spring of 1982, it still was too early to spell the success of the ZX Spectrum, but if Commodore had been even better at smelling where the wind blows, they could in January 1983 have released a "Commodore 32" with rubber keyboard, perhaps eliminating the user port or at least position it on the other short edge to make a smaller case.

This computer could've been an European exclusive release to begin with, assuming the US market are not much for cost-reduced rubber key computers. Given what I've read that by the summer of 1983, a C64 was cheaper to produce than a VIC-20, I'm absolutely certain this imagined Commodore 32 would have given the 48K ZX Spectrum and others a run for their money. In particular as most games in the early years didn't use more than half the C64 memory so games could've been compatible. Perhaps it would have stolen a few C64 sales but better that customers buy the cheaper alternative (yes, I remember the VIC-20 still was on the market) than a competitor's machine.
 
One thing that the Plus/4 did have that the C-64 didn't... more colors. But, that's about it.

I love the case on it personally. The keyboard is a little bit of a toss up.

Fun fact... you can remove the 3+1 software by popping the ROM and leave the machine usable, and it will not prompt you about it at startup.
 
Since we're talking about mistakes Commodore made, how about the C-128? Yeah, I know it was a reasonably popular machine (what did it sell, 4-5 million units?) and a nice one, but it was a schizophrenic machine with no direct backward compatibility, and that hampered its adoption and especially the development of software that took advantage of the 128's additional capability. The C-64 compatibility mode left none of the additional hardware of the system accessible.

It seems like Commodore should have learned from the TED mistake and gone straight to the C-64DX/C-65 since its intent (more or less) was as the direct descendant of the C-64 design (in much the same way the IIgs is a enhanced IIe and the IIe was an enhance II/II+). Something that was more directly backward compatible than the C-128 was.
 
Oh yeah, and timing of the 128 was also very bad considering it was released the same year that the Amiga 1000 was released.
 
Keep in mind the 128 was intended as a stopgap, to give them something besides the 64 to sell until the Amiga was ready, and to empty out Commodore's warehouse of surplus chips. Bil Herd said the machine was intended to last two years, maybe three years on the market, tops. I can't remember if it was 1989 or 1990 when they discontinued it. They stopped making it when it stopped being profitable. I think Herd said they recouped their development costs and turned a profit on it the first year, in 1985.

I don't think anyone knows exactly how many units it sold, but 4-5 million is a number I hear a lot.
 
Keep in mind the 128 was intended as a stopgap, to give them something besides the 64 to sell until the Amiga was ready, and to empty out Commodore's warehouse of surplus chips. Bil Herd said the machine was intended to last two years, maybe three years on the market, tops. I can't remember if it was 1989 or 1990 when they discontinued it. They stopped making it when it stopped being profitable. I think Herd said they recouped their development costs and turned a profit on it the first year, in 1985.

I don't think anyone knows exactly how many units it sold, but 4-5 million is a number I hear a lot.

That doesn't seem to make much sense to me, since it doesn't really share any chips with the C-64 (all of them are 85xx sseries where the C-64 uses 65xx). If it was intended as a stopgap, its timing was terrible. The Amiga 1000 debuted the same year. I think it ceased production in '89, which is funny when you stop to think that the C-64 was discontinued in '94.
 
That doesn't seem to make much sense to me, since it doesn't really share any chips with the C-64 (

Nope, it has 6526 Cias, 6851 sid, 4164 ram, same joystick connectors, same cartridge port, shares quite a few of the same generic ttl chips....


(Love my 128s....Currently I have 3 working and 1 non working.)

Later,
dabone
 
Nope, it has 6526 Cias, 6851 sid, 4164 ram, same joystick connectors, same cartridge port, shares quite a few of the same generic ttl chips....


(Love my 128s....Currently I have 3 working and 1 non working.)

Later,
dabone

Kind of. All of those custom chips except the CIAs are 85xx series equivalents of the 65xx stuff in the C-64. The VIC is definitely a 8564, the SID is an 8580 and the processor is an 8502...then there's an MMU chip as well. I'm talkin' the custom chips, not the off the shelf stuff. :p With the exception of the SID the chipsets are not directly compatible.

I'm not saying I don't like the C-128...I do. But, I just don't understand why they pursued it when it wasn't directly compatible with the C-64 and the more powerful Amiga was available the same year.
 
The C128 ran CP/M and was the next logical step for GEOS users with 80 columns video needs. There were people who wanted a faster C64 or a more professional machine but could not afford an Amiga so the C128 was for them.
 
That doesn't seem to make much sense to me, since it doesn't really share any chips with the C-64 (all of them are 85xx sseries where the C-64 uses 65xx). If it was intended as a stopgap, its timing was terrible. The Amiga 1000 debuted the same year. I think it ceased production in '89, which is funny when you stop to think that the C-64 was discontinued in '94.

The 128 was designed to burn through a glut of 74xx series chips Commodore had an oversupply of in its warehouses. The revisions to the major chips were necessary to get some of the improvements they wanted, like the 2 MHz speed. I forget exactly what the VIC-II revision did, maybe the keyboard? The 8580 SID in the 128D and 64C was a cost-reduction measure.

Maybe the 128 doesn't make sense today, but it was profitable, unlike a lot of Commodore's mistakes. If the 128 had been Commodore's biggest mistake, they would have lasted longer than 1994.

By the time the 128 stopped production in 1989, it cost more to make than an Amiga 500. So it was time. They kept selling the 64 up until nearly the end because it was still selling, and still profitable.
 
Well, granted it was profitable so from a business perspective it was successful. Most of the 128 owners I knew back in the day were disappointed in the lack of software available specifically for the 128 mode and as a result most of them felt like they overbought and should have just gotten the C-64 instead.

All that said, it is a neat computer in its own right.
 
I worked in the electronics department at Child World in the 80's, and I remember when the Plus 4's showed up. They wanted us to push them to people that didn't want to worry about buying a lot of extra software. The wise consumers would see the vast C-64 software options on the wall, and would quickly gravitate toward that model. We weren't on any kind of commission, so I would always steer people away from the Plus 4. As noted well in this thread, it was a flawed machine, but it does occupy a special place in my personal collection because of its unique appearance and built-in software.
 
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