Commodore PC-10 to PC-70
The Commodore PC-10 to PC-70 are a series of IBM -compatible PCs from Commodore that were sold from 1984 to the mid-1990s. They were designed in the Braunschweig development department and in some cases also assembled in the local finishing plant.
With this family of computers, Commodore fought head-to-head with IBM for market leadership in the PC sector in Germany for a few years, with leadership typically changing from month to month. The climax was that after the fall of the Wall, all offices of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in East Germany were equipped with Commodore PCs.
PC-10 and PC-20
These computers were cheap alternatives to the IBM PC and were produced from 1984. The PC-10 was offered in mid-1984 at a price of DM 4,950 excluding VAT. They were characterized by good equipment, robustness, compatibility and expandability. They were equipped with an Intel 8088 processor, which, like most early PCs, was clocked at 4.77 MHz and could be expanded with an Intel 8087 math coprocessor ; in addition there was 256 kB RAM (expandable to 640 kB ), a 5¼ ″ floppy disk drive with 360 kB capacity and without clock module, only in the PC-20 a 10-MB hard disk was installed. The computer could also be easily expanded due to the five existing XT bus slots. The so-called AGA graphics of the Commodore PCs could display CGA as well as MDA and Hercules graphics modes, which covered the vast majority of PC programs at that time ( EGA graphics cards were still very expensive in 1985 and were therefore rarely required). These models sold particularly well in Europe .
Since the Braunschweig developers were supposed to develop a portable PC first, the motherboard was divided into two stacked boards, a CPU board with the RAM main memory and the I / O board with all interfaces for the Peripherals. In the spring of 1984 this decision was revised. A desktop PC should now be developed. The reason for this was that Commodore USA had concluded a sales license with the Canadian manufacturer Dynalogic for their finished portable PC.
While in most PCs of that time, including the IBM models, the keyboard controller was the only interface component directly on the main board (“ motherboard ”), the board of the Commodore PCs also housed the controller for two floppy drives, a Centronics interface and an RS232 interface. This saved two slots, as almost all PCs required these components anyway.
PC-30
The PC-30 III was equipped with an 80286 CPU that clocked at 12 MHz.
It also had 1 MB of RAM (soldered to the motherboard).
The 14 "EGA monitor supplied by Commodore had an amber (grayscale) display and was operated on an ATI EGA Wonder graphics card (8 bit ISA with a maximum of 16 colors that can be displayed simultaneously).
A 20 MB IDE hard disk and a 3.5-inch floppy disk drive with a capacity of 1.44 MB served as data storage.
PC-10 II, PC-20 II
Practically the same devices, only with a revised, integrated main board ( Combined Board ) and the PC-20 II with a 20 MB hard disk, no longer a PC-30.
PC-1
The PC-1 was Commodore's answer to the PC1 from Atari : A PC-10 (-III) in an ultra-compact case with a floppy disk drive, for a hard disk and / or two ISA slots you needed a second case of the same size with an external one Cable connection. Not very successful and will be hired again soon.
PC-10 III, PC-20 III
The same architecture, only built much more compactly. In addition to the components that were common at the time and were already mentioned above, the motherboard also housed a controller for two XT bus plates, the graphics card (switchable between Hercules and CGA ) and an (Amiga) mouse interface. The clock rate could be doubled to 9.54 MHz via a key combination or via a program; an increase to 7.16 MHz was also possible. The computers came with a built-in real-time clock and 640 kB of RAM, the PC-10 III had two 5.25 "disk drives with 360 kB each. The PC-20 III was delivered with a 360 kB disk drive and a 20 MB hard disk drive.
PC-40 to PC-70
These are IBM-compatible PCs with 286 , 386 and 486 , from PC-60 in a tower case and with a purchased motherboard that have no special features.
Even later, only complete third-party products, mostly from Taiwan, were sold as Commodore PCs. In view of the narrowing market and growing competition from discounters such as Vobis and Escom, their earnings were no longer as high as before.
In Germany u. a. Models of the Commodore PC with a 3½ "and a 5¼" floppy disk drive are also sold.
