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Commodore Plus 4 and Commodore 16

Dave Farquhar — Sun, 29 Jul 2018 11:00:03 +0000

Dan Bowman kindly pointed me to former Commodore engineer Bil Herd’s discussion of the ill-fated Commodore TED machines on Hackaday. Here in the States, few remember the TED specifically, but some people may remember that oddball Commodore Plus 4 that closeout

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Commodore 64 operating system

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 11:00:40 +0000

The Commodore 64 didn’t have an operating system in the traditional sense that we now think of one. It most certainly did have a method of interacting with the user and handling I/O, including disk files. But the way it

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Commodore 64 Z80 cartridge

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 11:00:32 +0000

One of the most popular add-ons for an Apple II added CP/M compatibility. So I guess it should be no surprise that Commodore tried the same thing. But the Commodore 64 CP/M operating system and the associate Commodore 64 Z80

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Commodore 64 models

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 11:00:43 +0000

Over the course of its 12 years on the market, Commodore released a number of Commodore 64 models. The computer’s capability changed very little over time, but the technology did. The world changed a lot between 1982 and 1994, and

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IBM PS/2 vs PC

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 11:00:06 +0000

The IBM PS/2 line was a fairly radical departure from the older IBM PC line. This was deliberate, as IBM wanted to disrupt the clone industry, which it saw as a threat to its business. Here’s a look back at

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The Atari 2600 CPU: The MOS 6507

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 29 May 2017 11:00:40 +0000

The Atari 2600 CPU was a nondescript MOS 6507 chip. Neither Intel nor Motorola had a CPU chip in the early 1970s that could meet Atari’s price point. MOS Technology didn’t have one either, but they asked Atari what they

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Radio Shack computers

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 25 May 2017 11:00:13 +0000

Radio Shack released one of the first home computers, the TRS-80 Model I, in 1977. Between 1977 and 1979, it sold 100,000 units. Radio Shack sold them just as quickly as Tandy could make them. You can count Radio Shack and

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The first successful home computer: Commodore VIC-20

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 11:00:00 +0000

What was the first successful home computer? Some people would argue it was the Apple II, the TRS-80 Model I, or perhaps even the Apple I. But I argue it was Commodore’s VIC-20. Maybe I’m biased. I was a Commodore

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Commodore 64 vs 128

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 19 May 2016 11:00:56 +0000

Commodore introduced the Commodore 128 in 1985 as an upgrade path from the Commodore 64, the most popular model of computer of all time. The 128 addressed the 64’s biggest shortcomings while remaining mostly compatible with its hardware and software.

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C64 vs Apple II

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 05 May 2016 11:00:58 +0000

The C64 vs Apple II was perhaps the most epic battle of the 8-bit era. Both companies sold millions of machines, yet both nearly went out of business in the process. Comparing the two machines with the largest software libraries of

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