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Overview of Commodore Computers

Posted July 30, 2001 06:15 | Category: Commodore | #

In the late 1970's and early-mid 1980's, one of the dominant players in the world of home computing was Commodore Business Machines. The most famous and widely used was the Commodore 64, which is to this day the record holder for number of units sold of a single computer model. But there were many others which are not as widely known. Here is a brief run-down of the Commodore 8-bit product line:

KIM-1. The KIM-1 was one of the first 6502-based computers available. Consisting of a circuitboard with a little hexadecimal display and keypad (power supply extra), it was made by a company called MOS, which Commodore bought, and based the rest of their 8-bit product line on it.
PET. The original PET computer had a "chicklet" keyboard, resembling a telephone's keypad more than a typewriter's, and a built-in cassette drive. Later models moved to a more typeable keyboard and an external cassette drive. The PET had a built-in green-on-black monitor, and came in versions from 8KB to 32KB.
VIC-20. Commodore's first home computer. Designed to work with a TV set, it had 8 colors and a 22 (yes, 22) by 23 character display, and a whopping 5KB of RAM. While a disk drive was available, it was too expensive for most users, who opted for a tape drive and/or game cartridges instead. Called the VC-20 in Germany, because "vic" sounds like the German equivalent of the "F-word".
64. The breakaway success that put Commodore on the map, and gave the Apple ][e a run for its money. 64KB of RAM was enough to get some serious applications and games written. The disk drive came down a little in price and became pretty ubiquitous. Tons of games were available, and widely pirated. Its display could do 40x25 characters, or 320x200 pixels, in 16 colors, and it had pretty good sound for the day.
SX-64. A Commodore 64, floppy drive, and tiny color monitor in a "luggable" case. Very cute, but not very practical.
128. This was the follow-up to the 64, but Commodore's marketing department really flubbed it. The 128 doubled the available RAM, though you have to do some fancy tricks to get the processor to be able to access it. It also doubled the speed (to 2 MHz) and the screen resolution (640x200), but those modes are incompatible with 64 software, so were rarely used. It did however have a 64 compatibility mode, so it could run 99% of 64 software. It also came with a second processor: a Z80 chip, and through some very strange hardware and firmware tricks, enabled you to run CP/M software. The trouble is, CP/M was obsolete by the time the 128 came out, so it was a case of too little too late for Commodore's attempt at getting into the business arena.
128-D. A desktop box with detached keyboard and built-in floppy drive, containing a 128. Part of Commodore's weak attempt at the business market.
Plus/4 and 16. These were supposed to be a second generation replacement for the 64, but were crippled by the fact that they were incompatible with it. They had 128 colors, but lacked some of the features of the 64 which made it such a great game machine. The Plus/4 came with some productivity software in ROM, and the 16 only had 16KB of RAM, and had rather different shaped cases, but otherwise they were very similar to each other.

Check out My Commodore History - a memoir describing my childhood exposure to these great machines.

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Last updated: 09/19/2007 William R. Ward, bill@wards.net