The Amiga Lounge's C16 Page


MODELS CV 364 C264 Plus /4 C232 C116 Portable 116? My Collection TECHNICAL DATA Hardware Software FACES The People Behind TED Disclaimer: All the information presented here, was taken from the following sources: Brain Bagnal's Book On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore. Available at Amazon.ca The new edition had been delayed at Amazon until Feb.2010 Also, a lot of information has come from Video interviews with Bil Herd and Dave Haynie. Dave has a lot of videos on You-Tube. Search them out.. I wish I could post them here, but I don't have permission. Lastly, more sites on the net have information. There are even a few dedicated sites to the C16. Do a Goggle search, because Bing is just a flash in the pan.:) Please help keep the lounge alive and donate Today.Your donation helps keep an Computer from ending up in a Landfill, and keeping the history Alive for future generations!	Last Update : Sept 24,2009 The C16 was Commodore's answer to the low end home market. The aging Vic-20 had been pulled of the market for some time and Commodore Marketing thought this would be the perfect replacement. The actual unit is no more than the C116 inside a Vic case and keyboard. Why Commodore chose on this model to stick with the TED Joystick connectors instead of putting back the regular DIN is anybody's Guess, but it was probably done to save (literally) a dollar. Click for bigger picture Wikkipedia states: "Outwardly the C16 resembled the VIC-20 and the C64, but with a black case and white/light gray keys. Performance-wise located between the VIC and 64, it had 16 kilobytes of RAM with 12 KB available to its built-in BASIC interpreter, and a new sound and video chipset offering a palette of 128 colors (in reality 121, since the system had a 16 base colors and 8 shades but black always remained black, with all 8 shades), the TED (better than the VIC used in the VIC-20, but lacking the sprite capability of the VIC-II and advanced sound capabilities of the SID, both used in the C64). The ROM resident BASIC 3.5, however, was more powerful than the VIC-20's and C64's BASIC 2.0, in that it had commands for sound and bitmapped graphics (320×200 pixels), as well as simple program tracing/debugging. From a practical user's point of view, three tangible features the C16 lacked were a modem port and VIC/C64-compatible Datassette and game ports. Commodore sold a C16 family-specific cassette player (the Commodore 1531) and joysticks, but third-party converters to allow the use of the abundant, and hence much less expensive, VIC/C64-type units soon appeared. The official reason for changing the joystick ports was to reduce RF interference. The C16's serial port (Commodore's proprietary "serial IEEE-488 bus", no relation to RS-232 and the like) was the same as that of the VIC and C64, which meant that printers and disk drives, at least, were interchangeable with the older machines. A relatively simple internal ram expansion could make the C16 almost equivalent to the Plus/4, allowing it to run the same software, with the exception of comm programs requiring a modem and the very poor built-in office software of the Plus/4. For games however, this expansion created full compatibility. Market performance Since the problem the C16 was designed to solve disappeared before its release, and given the lack of commercial software for the machine, the C16 sold poorly in the United States, where it was quickly discontinued. The C64's price was cut to $150 and it was repositioned as the entry-level machine and the Commodore 128 was introduced to take over the high-end slot. The C-16 enjoyed some popularity in Europe, however, as a cheap games machine with an array of games released in 1531 cassette format. In a few Eastern Bloc countries such as Hungary, lacking a home computer industry of their own and with many people too poor to buy Eastern German or Soviet models, that additionally were in very short supply for private buyers, remaining C16, C116 and Plus/4 inventories were dumped on the market very cheaply in the late 1980s. This created a fan base of its own for the computer that contributed, among others, several unofficial ports of popular Commodore 64 programs to the line." Bil Herd was, shall we say "displeased" with the C16 and called it an "abomination". If you look at the C16 as a replacement for the Vic-20, it was a far superior machine, but it needed work. As typical with Commodore, there was just no time, to actually make it a "true" Vic-20 replacement. Of course, Backwards Compatibilities with original Vic software, would have been next to impossible, it needed a modem port (which could have been added) and then the joystick ports needed. All of that would have been a waist of time though, as Commodore quickly dropped the C64's price to that which would have killed it anyway. E-Bay You can find boxed units on E-bay for Under $40 USD. Most of the C16's come with a "tutorial cartridge" Probably one of the very few cartridges ever made for the TED line. Boxes: North America Germany

MODELS

My Collection

TECHNICAL DATA

Hardware

Software

FACES

The People Behind TED

Disclaimer:
All the information presented here, was taken from the following sources:
Brain Bagnal's Book
On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore.

Available at Amazon.ca
The new edition had been delayed at Amazon until Feb.2010

Also, a lot of information has come from Video interviews with Bil Herd and Dave Haynie. Dave has a lot of videos on You-Tube. Search them out.. I wish I could post them here, but I don't have permission.

Lastly, more sites on the net have information. There are even a few dedicated sites to the C16. Do a Goggle search, because Bing is just a flash in the pan.:)

Please help keep the lounge alive and donate Today.Your donation helps keep an Computer from ending up in a Landfill, and keeping the history Alive for future generations!

Last Update : Sept 24,2009

The C16 was Commodore's answer to the low end home market. The aging Vic-20 had been pulled of the market for some time and Commodore Marketing thought this would be the perfect replacement.
The actual unit is no more than the C116 inside a Vic case and keyboard. Why Commodore chose on this model to stick with the TED Joystick connectors instead of putting back the regular DIN is anybody's Guess, but it was probably done to save (literally) a dollar.

Click for bigger picture

Wikkipedia states:
"Outwardly the C16 resembled the VIC-20 and the C64, but with a black case and white/light gray keys. Performance-wise located between the VIC and 64, it had 16 kilobytes of RAM with 12 KB available to its built-in BASIC interpreter, and a new sound and video chipset offering a palette of 128 colors (in reality 121, since the system had a 16 base colors and 8 shades but black always remained black, with all 8 shades), the TED (better than the VIC used in the VIC-20, but lacking the sprite capability of the VIC-II and advanced sound capabilities of the SID, both used in the C64). The ROM resident BASIC 3.5, however, was more powerful than the VIC-20's and C64's BASIC 2.0, in that it had commands for sound and bitmapped graphics (320×200 pixels), as well as simple program tracing/debugging.

From a practical user's point of view, three tangible features the C16 lacked were a modem port and VIC/C64-compatible Datassette and game ports. Commodore sold a C16 family-specific cassette player (the Commodore 1531) and joysticks, but third-party converters to allow the use of the abundant, and hence much less expensive, VIC/C64-type units soon appeared. The official reason for changing the joystick ports was to reduce RF interference. The C16's serial port (Commodore's proprietary "serial IEEE-488 bus", no relation to RS-232 and the like) was the same as that of the VIC and C64, which meant that printers and disk drives, at least, were interchangeable with the older machines. A relatively simple internal ram expansion could make the C16 almost equivalent to the Plus/4, allowing it to run the same software, with the exception of comm programs requiring a modem and the very poor built-in office software of the Plus/4. For games however, this expansion created full compatibility.

Market performance

Since the problem the C16 was designed to solve disappeared before its release, and given the lack of commercial software for the machine, the C16 sold poorly in the United States, where it was quickly discontinued. The C64's price was cut to $150 and it was repositioned as the entry-level machine and the Commodore 128 was introduced to take over the high-end slot. The C-16 enjoyed some popularity in Europe, however, as a cheap games machine with an array of games released in 1531 cassette format. In a few Eastern Bloc countries such as Hungary, lacking a home computer industry of their own and with many people too poor to buy Eastern German or Soviet models, that additionally were in very short supply for private buyers, remaining C16, C116 and Plus/4 inventories were dumped on the market very cheaply in the late 1980s. This created a fan base of its own for the computer that contributed, among others, several unofficial ports of popular Commodore 64 programs to the line."

Bil Herd was, shall we say "displeased" with the C16 and called it an "abomination". If you look at the C16 as a replacement for the Vic-20, it was a far superior machine, but it needed work. As typical with Commodore, there was just no time, to actually make it a "true" Vic-20 replacement. Of course, Backwards Compatibilities with original Vic software, would have been next to impossible, it needed a modem port (which could have been added) and then the joystick ports needed.
All of that would have been a waist of time though, as Commodore quickly dropped the C64's price to that which would have killed it anyway.

E-Bay

You can find boxed units on E-bay for Under $40 USD. Most of the C16's come with a "tutorial cartridge" Probably one of the very few cartridges ever made for the TED line.

Boxes:

North America

Germany