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Commodore Plus 4 and Commodore 16

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing July 29, 2018July 5, 20251980s, amiga, apple, apple ii, atari, Bil Herd, commodore, commodore 128, Commodore 16, commodore 64, commodore vic 20, Dave Haynie, IBM, jack tramiel, loyalists, motorola

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 companies sold for $79 in 1985 and 1986. The Commodore Plus 4 was one of those TED machines. So was the Commodore 16.

What went wrong with those machines? Commodore miscalculated what the home computer market was doing. The TED was a solution to too many problems, and ended up not solving any of them all that well. Arguably it’s more popular with vintage computer enthusiasts today than it was in the 1980s. Read more

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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How to use a Commodore 64

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing September 20, 2017January 29, 20191980s, apple, atari, commodore, commodore 64

The Commodore 64 is rather unlike modern computers. It has a CPU and memory like a modern computer does, but the operating system and overall user experience is alien to someone used to computers that run Windows or Mac OS. So to modern eyes, it’s not completely obvious how to use a Commodore 64.

Commodore had a dominance of the market in the 1980s that would have made Apple jealous at any point in its history, but ultimately Commodore lost, so the Commodore 64’s bloodline is extinct.

Dave Farquhar

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Commodore 64 operating system

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing September 14, 2017September 12, 20171980s, apple, apple ii, commodore, commodore 64, unix

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 all worked seems strange today. Here’s what made the native Commodore 64 operating system different, and the alternatives that surfaced during the 64’s long life.

Dave Farquhar

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Commodore 64 Z80 cartridge

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing August 9, 2017April 3, 20231541, 1980s, 6502, apple, apple ii, commodore, commodore 64, intel, MOS, spartan

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 cartridge was a flop. Why?

Dave Farquhar

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Disadvantages of the 8086 microprocessor

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Retro Computing July 11, 2017August 11, 20176502, amd, apple, Apple Lisa, DEC, IBM, intel, MOS, motorola, x86

An 8086-series microprocessor, the 8088, powered the original IBM PC. Its direct descendants power PCs to this day. Not only that, they power modern Macs too. This was always controversial, especially running Mac OS on Intel chips. Why? What are the disadvantages of the 8086 microprocessor?

Dave Farquhar

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Why did IBM fail at PCs?

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing July 3, 2017October 4, 20211980s, 1990s, acer, AIX, apple, compaq, datacenter, dell, hp, IBM, intel, lenovo, mainframe, Packard Bell, Personal Computer, proprietary unix, thinkpad, unix, VHS, XT

If you ask why did IBM fail, I assume you mean why did IBM ultimately fail in the personal computer market. IBM is still in business, after all. But its exit from the PC market after 24 years, including a period of dominance in the 1980s, does seem curious. And it raises another question: What does IBM do now?

I experienced IBM’s fall in this market firsthand. I sold computers at retail in 1994 and 1995. IBM’s computers at that time were no worse than anyone else’s, but I had an extremely difficult time selling them. Many consumers didn’t trust IBM and didn’t want to get somehow locked in. There was nothing wrong with those machines, but it sure was a lot easier to just sell them a Compaq.

Dave Farquhar

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The IBM PS/1 (or IBM PS1)

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing June 27, 2017March 22, 20241990s, acer, amiga, apple, best buy, compaq, dell, IBM, Packard Bell, Personal Computer, playstation, sony, sony playstation, Tandy, tandy 1000, thinkpad, video game

The IBM PS/1, sometimes called the IBM PS1, was a line of 1990s personal computer systems, not to be confused with the Sony Playstation video game console that’s also often called the PS1. The PS/1 was IBM’s second attempt at a mass market consumer PC, after the ill-fated PCjr.

You can neatly divide the PS/1 into two generations. While they ran the same software, they had major philosophical differences. Perhaps more than any other computer line, they represent IBM’s change of heart in the early 1990s as it tried to survive in an extremely competitive and crowded market.

Dave Farquhar

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Commodore 64 models

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing June 12, 2017September 15, 20251541, 1980s, Aldi, amiga, apple, apple ii, atari, Australia, CES, commodore, commodore 64, compaq, IBM, infoworld, intel, Japan, MOS, nintendo, Personal Computer, public domain

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 that gave Commodore some opportunities to lower costs, chase other market segments, or both.

Here’s an overview of the various Commodore 64 models that hit the market over the machine’s long life.

Dave Farquhar

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IBM PS/2 vs PC

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing June 9, 2017May 7, 20241980s, 1990s, apple, apple ii, asus, compaq, IBM, intel, VGA, x86, XT

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 the IBM PS/2 vs PC, the line it replaced.

IBM succeeded with the PC because it created an ecosystem, not just a PC. IBM’s misstep was creating an open architecture and then trying to close it back up after the fact with the PS/2. In IBM’s defense, it’s not clear whether they knew this at the time. If nothing else, in the case of the IBM PS/2 vs PC, IBM created a classic case study of open architecture vs closed.

Dave Farquhar

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The Atari 2600 CPU: The MOS 6507

Dave Farquhar Retro Gaming May 29, 2017January 19, 20251980s, 6502, amiga, apple, apple ii, atari, atari 2600, Chuck Peddle, commodore, commodore 64, intel, jack tramiel, macintosh, MOS, motorola, NES, nintendo, nintendo nes, radio shack

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 could afford. Then they made one.

The 6507 is so nondescript, some of them don’t even have the number “6507” anywhere on them.

Dave Farquhar

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