Commodore TED Hardware page brought to you by the Amiga Lounge.


MODELS CV 364 C264 PLUS /4 C232 C116 C16 LCD LAPTOP My Collection (Coming Soon) TECHNICAL DATA 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: September 30, 2009 The Chips The 264 line is now frequently referred to as the TED series because it used MOS's interesting new 7360 "Text EDitor" or "TED" chip. Designed in 1983 by MOS Technologies Dave Diorio, the 7501 / 8501 CPU was a modified and much faster version of the MOS 6502 from 1976. It ran at 1.76Mhz while earlier MOS 6502 derivatives used the PET, VIC-20 and C64 ran at just less than 1Mhz. The difference between the 7501 and 8501 was they way they were produced but there is no performance or functionality changes.Like the VIC-I chip used in the VIC-20, TED was both a graphics and sound chip: While the TED could genuinely produce more colours the Commodore 64, importantly, it did not support Sprite graphics which was one of the things that made the C64 so wonderful to work with. It was capable of displaying 40x25 characters of text, 320x200 pixels of graphics, in 128 colours (including 8 shades of gray) by displaying 16 colors each with 8 luminance settings. On the audio side, it had two tone oscillators which produced two voices. The 7360 gave you the option to hear "two tones", or "one tone + one noise" Hard- and Firmware (or should that be HERDWARE?) The 264 family had seemingly needless hardware complexities. On the plus side, Commodore 64 drives and printers were compatible because 264's also used Commodores IEC Serial Bus. Monitor and RF Modulator TV connectors were also the same on both products. Further, Commodore 1531 'datasets' originally designed for the VIC-20 and common to the C64 would connect to these new machines with the aid of an adaptor. 264's could be even upgraded to a substantial 80K of RAM, although it is undocumented if anyone has ever attemped to upgrade to this amount. Commodore completed design and started a small production run of 1551 floppy drives which transmitted data four times as fast as a notoriously slow Commodore 1541 floppy. Its speed came from being connected to the Expansion Port rather than the more traditional Serial Port. It is stated that all of the 1551 drives were sold in Europe, but collectors have slowly been bringing then back to North America, additonaly, it is reported that the plasic casing is "cheaper" on these drives than a regular 1541, so many drives that have been shipped back to North America Have cracks in the case. On the negative side, Commodore produced only one joystick that would function on a 264. The cartridge slot was brand new so C64 cartridges could not be inserted and because of the series very low sales volumes of 264's,it is stated on www.comodore.ca there were only four cartridges ever produced for the 264 series. All machines have the same hardware with some minor differences (6551 missing in C116/C16, different memory size and use of different memory chips, two additional ROMs in the Plus/4). Kernal and BASIC roms were identical, which means that an external ACIA chip added to the C16/C116 is supported by the kernal. The 264 series had a 7501 CPU (8501 on later models) that was software compatible to the NMOS 6502 . The CPU had a clock frequency of 1.78 MHz, so it is faster than the C64 or the old PETs, even if the CPU is stopped here and then by the TED. Memory map The memory map of the 264 series is similar to the C64 but somewhat more elaborated, and the BASIC intepreter does support bank switching, so most of the RAM is available for BASIC. On a machine with 64K RAM (a Plus/4 or an extended C16 or C116) the lower 32K were always RAM. The high 32K could be switched between RAM or ROM. When ROM is switched in, the range is subdivided into two 16K blocks, and in each of these blocks one out of four ROMs could be banked in. Unfortunately it is not possible to select a ROM in one of both 16K blocks and RAM in the other, a configuration that would give 48K of RAM plus one ROM (the kernal for example). This makes it somewhat difficult to write larger programs without banking. The additional software of the Plus/4 was built into two ROMs that are banked in when the software is started. Specifications (from Wikipedia) CPU: MOS Technology 7501, 1.77 MHz (PAL) / 1.79 MHz (NTSC) RAM: 64 KB, of which nearly 60 KB were available to BASIC users ROM: 64 KB including Commodore BASIC 3.5, a machine code monitor, and TRI-Micro's "3 Plus 1" (word processor, spreadsheet, database, graphing) Text mode: 40×25 characters (PETSCII) Graphics modes: 160x200 (lores) / 320×200 (hires), 121 colors I/O ports: Tape connector (for Commodore 1531 Datassette; incompatible with C64) Cartridge slot (incompatible with C64) Two game controller ports (incompatible with C64) Commodore serial bus User port (for modems and nonstandard devices) Composite video connector incl. mono audio signal RF modulator to TV antenna connector More information on the hardware is coming in all the time, I will update when I can. Information taken from Wikipedia, www.commodore.ca and other sites.

MODELS

CV 364

C264

PLUS /4

C232

C116

C16

LCD LAPTOP

My Collection
(Coming Soon)

TECHNICAL DATA

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: September 30, 2009

The Chips
The 264 line is now frequently referred to as the TED series because it used MOS's interesting new 7360 "Text EDitor" or "TED" chip. Designed in 1983 by MOS Technologies Dave Diorio, the 7501 / 8501 CPU was a modified and much faster version of the MOS 6502 from 1976. It ran at 1.76Mhz while earlier MOS 6502 derivatives used the PET, VIC-20 and C64 ran at just less than 1Mhz. The difference between the 7501 and 8501 was they way they were produced but there is no performance or functionality changes.Like the VIC-I chip used in the VIC-20, TED was both a graphics and sound chip: While the TED could genuinely produce more colours the Commodore 64, importantly, it did not support Sprite graphics which was one of the things that made the C64 so wonderful to work with. It was capable of displaying 40x25 characters of text, 320x200 pixels of graphics, in 128 colours (including 8 shades of gray) by displaying 16 colors each with 8 luminance settings. On the audio side, it had two tone oscillators which produced two voices. The 7360 gave you the option to hear "two tones", or "one tone + one noise"

Hard- and Firmware
(or should that be HERDWARE?)

The 264 family had seemingly needless hardware complexities. On the plus side, Commodore 64 drives and printers were compatible because 264's also used Commodores IEC Serial Bus. Monitor and RF Modulator TV connectors were also the same on both products. Further, Commodore 1531 'datasets' originally designed for the VIC-20 and common to the C64 would connect to these new machines with the aid of an adaptor.

264's could be even upgraded to a substantial 80K of RAM, although it is undocumented if anyone has ever attemped to upgrade to this amount.

Commodore completed design and started a small production run of 1551 floppy drives which transmitted data four times as fast as a notoriously slow Commodore 1541 floppy. Its speed came from being connected to the Expansion Port rather than the more traditional Serial Port. It is stated that all of the 1551 drives were sold in Europe, but collectors have slowly been bringing then back to North America, additonaly, it is reported that the plasic casing is "cheaper" on these drives than a regular 1541, so many drives that have been shipped back to North America Have cracks in the case.

On the negative side, Commodore produced only one joystick that would function on a 264. The cartridge slot was brand new so C64 cartridges could not be inserted and because of the series very low sales volumes of 264's,it is stated on www.comodore.ca there were only four cartridges ever produced for the 264 series.

All machines have the same hardware with some minor differences (6551 missing in C116/C16, different memory size and use of different memory chips, two additional ROMs in the Plus/4). Kernal and BASIC roms were identical, which means that an external ACIA chip added to the C16/C116 is supported by the kernal.

The 264 series had a 7501 CPU (8501 on later models) that was software compatible to the NMOS 6502 . The CPU had a clock frequency of 1.78 MHz, so it is faster than the C64 or the old PETs, even if the CPU is stopped here and then by the TED.

Memory map
The memory map of the 264 series is similar to the C64 but somewhat more elaborated, and the BASIC intepreter does support bank switching, so most of the RAM is available for BASIC.

On a machine with 64K RAM (a Plus/4 or an extended C16 or C116) the lower 32K were always RAM. The high 32K could be switched between RAM or ROM. When ROM is switched in, the range is subdivided into two 16K blocks, and in each of these blocks one out of four ROMs could be banked in. Unfortunately it is not possible to select a ROM in one of both 16K blocks and RAM in the other, a configuration that would give 48K of RAM plus one ROM (the kernal for example). This makes it somewhat difficult to write larger programs without banking.

The additional software of the Plus/4 was built into two ROMs that are banked in when the software is started.

Specifications (from Wikipedia)

CPU: MOS Technology 7501, 1.77 MHz (PAL) / 1.79 MHz (NTSC)
RAM: 64 KB, of which nearly 60 KB were available to BASIC users
Text mode: 40×25 characters (PETSCII)
Graphics modes: 160x200 (lores) / 320×200 (hires), 121 colors
I/O ports:
- Tape connector (for Commodore 1531 Datassette; incompatible with C64)
- Cartridge slot (incompatible with C64)
- Two game controller ports (incompatible with C64)
- Commodore serial bus
- User port (for modems and nonstandard devices)
- Composite video connector incl. mono audio signal
- RF modulator to TV antenna connector

More information on the hardware is coming in all the time, I will update when I can. Information taken from Wikipedia, www.commodore.ca and other sites.