Commodore 264 series
The 264 series was a line of home computers that Commodore had intended to be the successor to the C64 , but was never realized in the planned form. Instead, the C16 , C116 and Plus / 4 computers came onto the market. Since these were based on the original models, they were grouped under the name 264 .
history
In the early 1980s, there was a price war in the home computer industry. Firms like Texas Instruments and Timex undercut the price of the Commodore PET line . The C64, the first computer to have 64 KiB of RAM but cost less than US $ 600, was complex to manufacture due to its many specialized chips. Commodore's managing director Jack Tramiel therefore began developing a line of computers that would get by with far fewer chips and at the same time encourage C64 and VC-20 owners to switch.
Three models were originally planned: 232 , 264 and 364 . The 264 was the basic model. It should have 64 KiB RAM and 32 KiB ROM . As a special feature it was planned to equip the computers with software built into the ROM. The customer should be able to choose from four different packages. The “3 plus 1” package of the Plus / 4 remained . The 364 was supposed to be the “big brother” of the 264 . In addition to a keyboard with a numeric keypad and a larger ROM (48 instead of 32 KiB), it should above all have a built-in speech synthesizer with 250 words (more can be loaded). The 232 would eventually as an economy version of the 264 have only 32 KiB of RAM and no additional software. A few prototypes were made of both computers.
After Jack Tramiel left, the original models were abandoned. Instead, the C16 , C116 and Plus / 4 models were launched in 1984 . They were technically similar, but without the special features such as speech output. In addition, the variants C16 and C116 only had 16 KiB of RAM. All three computers used a MOS-7501- CPU and a MOS 7360 "TED" . The "TED" was an all-in-one chip with video, sound and I / O capabilities. The design of the computers was more like the VC20 than the C64; However, the number of chips and the complexity of the circuit board were, as planned, far lower than in the two previous models.
During the development of the C16, it was experimentally planned to equip it with a large "low-cost" main board, only laminated on one side, for cost reasons, since the large "bread box" housing adopted from the VC-20 or C64 has enough space for such a board bot. Due to technical problems, this plan was discarded and an ordinary double-sided board was used. That was the first and only (failed) attempt on the part of Commodore to develop a one-sided circuit board for the purpose of cost savings, and only one single copy, built into a C16 prototype, is currently known or has been preserved.
In 1984 the trend in the computer market was away from cheap to more powerful computers; and 16-bit computers were already on the rise. In addition, the entire line was completely incompatible with the C64. Commodore hadn't considered that a problem, as the C64 was completely different from the VC20. However, it had been overlooked that in 1984 there was already a large range of software for the C64 and the C64 was much more powerful than the VC20. In contrast, even the Plus / 4 was partially inferior to the C64. Therefore, the entire line was a flop due to the modest hardware equipment, the incompatibility and the lack of software.
technical features
The TED represented an impressive palette of 121 colors at the time. The resolution of 320 × 200 pixels corresponded to the C64 and was suitable for connection to a television. In contrast to the VIC II of the C64, it could not display any sprites . The quality of the tone generator corresponded more to the VIC of the VC-20 than the SID of the C64. For these and other reasons, software for the C64 could only be converted with great difficulty or not at all. In addition, the TED was notorious for destroying itself by overheating.
The connections were incompatible with the C64. Mini-DIN sockets were used for the datasette and joysticks . The old peripheral devices could still be used by means of adapters, but data stored on the cassette could not be exchanged with the C64 due to different formats. The assignment of the user port and the expansion port also differed. Only the serial IEC bus ( CBM bus ) remained the same.
The memory management enabled better use of the RAM than with the C64. The Commodore BASIC 3.5 was greatly improved and offered commands for structuring (loop commands), for sound output and graphics. The VC1551 floppy disk drive was about four times as fast as a VC1541 , but only partially compatible with it.
