
The Commodore 65 - kmooney
http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/c65.html
======
soylentcola
Neat! It looks kinda like an updated version of the old C=128 that was my
first personal computer as a kid. My dad picked that one up used from a guy at
work along with a pile of floppies. I wasn't allowed to hook up the modem that
completed the "package" so I didn't quite understand what a lot of the
programs were for or why so many of the games had weird (but awesome) intro
screens with flashy graphics and music better than anything in the actual
games. That was my unknowing introduction to the world of BBSes and crack
demos. Either way, that was a really fun computer to learn with. Came with a
couple of massive manuals and booted straight into Commodore BASIC so I was
making my own flashy screens and bleeps and bloops soon enough (god I loved
that SID chip). Never did get the Amiga I wanted later on and by the time I
could afford my own used computer, it was a beige box Intel machine running
DOS.

------
jameshart
Reminds me of Miles Gordon Technologies' _SAM Coupe_ \-
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAM_Coup%C3%A9](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAM_Coup%C3%A9).
The SAM was also a 1989 'second gen' 8-bit machine, offering backward
compatibility to a classic 8-bit machine - in the SAM's case, the ZX Spectrum
- in a package more reminiscent of the 16 bit Atari ST or Amiga 500.

~~~
Marazan
Very much so, I had a Sam Coupe and it was a lovely machine but it came our
about a year or two too late and had some firmware bugs. If it had come out in
88 or 87 it might have gained some serious traction and had spectrum users
switch to it.

~~~
fit2rule
Its a bit like my Oric Telestrat, which was an upgrade to the Oric-1 -> Atmos
machines, in that it gave a full 64k and had expansion options.

Sure was a wild and woolly period of computing - so many wonderful machines,
too many different ways to develop things. Just like today, only cuter ..

~~~
jameshart
The Telestrat seems to fit more in the second wave of the original 8 bit era -
with the Spectrum +2, the C=128, and so on. The SAM and the C65 which this
piece talks about were later (late eighties, not mid eighties) and seem to
have been much more capable machines: the SAM, for example, had 256K of RAM,
expandable to 4.5M, 6 channel stereo sound, and a 6MHz processor (compare to
the Atari ST or Amiga 500's 68K running at 7.1-8MHz - vs. the Spectrum's Z80
at 3.5MHz and the C=64's 6502 at 1MHz). This was really about trying to create
8-bit machines which could survive in the 16-bit era, easing the transition
for users and developers.

Then the whole lot got eaten by the PC.

~~~
reidrac
I agree with your comment, mostly.

Just mention that comparing MHz is not quite right in that era. For example
Speccy's 3.5MHz were not that much of an advantage compared with the 1MHz of
the C64 if you take into account that it didn't have hardware sprites and all
had to be implemented by software, 48K models didn't have dedicated audio
chip, etc.

~~~
Marazan
The lack of hardware sprites was easily overcome by the raw speed of the
spectrums CPU. Also at anything other than sprite focused games, ie vector
graphics or the like the Spectrum smoked the C64. And even with sprites the
C64 hardware was limited to 8 before you had to do strange multiplexing.

Sound wise the C64 was better but in terms of speed the Spectrum dominated.

~~~
jameshart
I am just delighted to have sparked a Speccy/C=64 'which is best' fight, on
hacker news, in 2015. Keep that flame alive!

Of course, it goes without saying that the spectrum was best.

~~~
reidrac
I didn't say what was best, I said that comparing "only" MHz is missing part
of the picture. Today machines are easier to compare because they have similar
functionality, but back in the day it was different.

I had a ZX Spectrum +2A back in the day and I've programmed several games for
the speccy, and the attribute clash was a pain :)

------
rasz_pl
my HAD comment:

'design started in 1989? Commodore was so mismanaged its not even funny :(
Another pointless pet project like C128 (I had one, what a piece of shit,
there was pretty much no c128 soft so you ran it in c64 mode all the time, at
twice the price). They were already selling Amiga 500 in 89, and you could go
out and buy 386DX 40MHz or first 486s. What were they smoking to come up with
3MHz 8bit computer when market moved on to 16/32 bit? Commodore didnt know
what they had when they took over Amiga :( and kept wasting money and R&D on
pos like this.'

Just to reiterate, post Jack Tramiel Commodore hired new CEO with industrial
construction background who knew F-all about computers or business. This new
CEO canned completed and almost ready for production Commodore laptop project
because Tandy CEO told him there is no money to be made in laptops (while
selling HUGELY popular TRS-80 Model 100) ... This is like GM calling Musk, and
convincing him to cancel Model 3 because there is no money to be made in ~30K
electric cars, while selling Volt and planning Bolt.

~~~
kw71
> What were they smoking to come up with 3MHz 8bit computer when market moved
> on to 16/32 bit?

I think the A500 cost more than 8-bit money, and back then a barebones 386
from a computer shopper ad cost about the same. Add VGA, monitor, sound card,
hard disk and you far exceeded the A500 cost and there still weren't many good
arcade type games for the PC.

They probably wanted to sell to gamer-pirates. I remember thinking NES users
were getting shafted buying $40 rom chips, when 100 floppies cost $25 and some
of my friends had huge libraries to copy and trade.

Edit: I liked the C128. I used CP/M on it at times. Ultima V was cooler to
play in 128 mode. 80 columns, wow, I used that all the time with a 128-mode
terminal (was it "desterm?"), some word processor I can't remember now, and
GEOS was better except that it did not know how to handle the display aspect.

------
bwldrbst
Here's the blog of a guy who's building a machine based on it:
[http://c65gs.blogspot.com.au/](http://c65gs.blogspot.com.au/)

------
loadzero
I remember reading about the c65 in zzap!64 back in the day.

This (old) page has a bit more info.

[http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/65.html](http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/65.html)

~~~
drtse4
The complete issue on the Internet Archive:
[https://archive.org/details/zzap64-magazine-079](https://archive.org/details/zzap64-magazine-079)

------
orionblastar
It is just a prototype they only made 50 or 200 of them.

It is backwards compatible with the Commodore 64 but runs a different CPU that
runs a 3.4Mhz that can go into 6510 mode. Then a Vic-III chip that has
graphics like the Amiga but backward compatible with the Vic-II chip in the
C-64.

Had they made the Commodore 65 instead of the Commodore 16 and Plus 4 it would
have done well. But by 1990 the 8-bit market was bottoming out as the PC
Clones took over.

------
imglorp
Here's one for sale.
[http://www.ebay.com/itm/Commodore-65-64DX-C65-Engineering-
Pr...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/Commodore-65-64DX-C65-Engineering-
Prototype-/111595140820?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19fb96b6d4)

~~~
salgernon
And here's a more complete one that just sold on eBay - for $22,000...

[http://www.ebay.com/itm//171673209321](http://www.ebay.com/itm//171673209321)

------
alex_hitchins
Amazing! I wish I had seen one at the Commodore tent during the 2010 TNMoC
event. I guess they are very rare indeed. Would be good to get one in the The
National Museum of Computing in the UK.

Also, slightly strange timing - this came up in last weeks B3ta newsletter.

------
djengineerllc
Nice, lol

