TED Software 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 Hardware 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 Graphics and sound was done by a highly integrated chip named "TED". Some of the software was called after this chip, for example the builtin machine language monitor was named "TEDMON". The TED supports text mode with 25 rows and 40 columns plus colors. Text mode is similar to that of the C64 but has additional 3 luminance bits for each color cell allowing 121 colors total (the odd number results from the fact that the eight luminances for black do not differ). Graphics mode was comparable to that of the C64 (320200 high res and 160200 multicolor mode) with the difference that the luminance bits do also work in this modes giving more total colors. The TED does not support sprites and the sound capabilities are far inferior to that of the C64. The 264 series had BASIC version 3.5 which is somewhat confusing, since it has more commands than the BASIC version of the old PETs (BASIC 4.0). BASIC 3.5 had all the disk commands of BASIC 4.0, but also support for graphic and sound. It is comparable to the BASIC 7.0 of the C128 but lacks the extensions for structured programming. BASIC 3.5 has support for high resolution graphics (320200 pixel), but switching into graphics mode meaned that the available memory was decreased by 10K (8K for the bitmap and 2K for the video matrix), leaving just 2K for BASIC on the C16/C116. This made these models pretty useless without a memory extension. But as said above, the kernal is identical, so added memory (for example by replacing the memory chips and soldering some additional lines or by an expansion card) is supported by the kernal and by BASIC. The Software* Commodore / Microsoft Basic 3.5 was a much improved version over its Basic 2.0 predecessor used in Commodore 64's. Basic 3.5 came with 50 extra commands including such features as disk instructions like DSAVE, DLOAD. A user could actually gain peripheral access using common sense syntax rather than what was required on a 64. Graphics commands like, CIRCLE and BOX made it much easier for developers to create on screen images without extensive use of memory PEEKs and POKEs. Basic 3.5 was truly a major improvement.None of the 264 line (116, 232, 264, 364) actually shipped with the custom software option that Commodore had promised. Instead the Plus/4 was born when the 264 design was married to a ROM containing TRI-Micro's "3 Plus 1" integrated software. The original 232, 264 and 364 prototypes were abandoned in landfills like so many other Commodore development machines. "3 Plus 1" meant: a Word Processor a Spread Sheet a Data-Base, and a Graphing program all in one easy to access package. This software was installed on a ROM chip and the programs could be started by simply pressing one of four buttons located just above the main keyboard. Integrated software allowed for "Windowing", in which you could basically Copy and Paste (very limited) amounts of data between programs. Commodore had to remove some of the original 3+1 features to make the program fit into a 32K ROM but Tri-Micro offered diskette-based upgrade called "Plus/Extra" which re-added features like double / triple-line spacing and print preview. The idea was fantastic: putting what is today considered to be core software onto a ROM was almost revolutionary in 1984. The ability to load frequently used programs almost instantly at the simple touch of a button must have seemed very attractive on paper. The problem was quality.The word processor would only handle an embarrassingly small 99 lines of text! The Graphing program was quite limited and really only useful as an extension of the Spread Sheet. The database or "File Manager" as Commodore promoted it, was slow and not useful for much more than recipes. But most problematic was the overall quality of the software code; it was terribly unstable and just not 'ready for prime time'. More information on the software 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

Hardware

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

Graphics and sound was done by a highly integrated chip named "TED". Some of the software was called after this chip, for example the builtin machine language monitor was named "TEDMON". The TED supports text mode with 25 rows and 40 columns plus colors. Text mode is similar to that of the C64 but has additional 3 luminance bits for each color cell allowing 121 colors total (the odd number results from the fact that the eight luminances for black do not differ). Graphics mode was comparable to that of the C64 (320*200 high res and 160*200 multicolor mode) with the difference that the luminance bits do also work in this modes giving more total colors. The TED does not support sprites and the sound capabilities are far inferior to that of the C64.

The 264 series had BASIC version 3.5 which is somewhat confusing, since it has more commands than the BASIC version of the old PETs (BASIC 4.0). BASIC 3.5 had all the disk commands of BASIC 4.0, but also support for graphic and sound. It is comparable to the BASIC 7.0 of the C128 but lacks the extensions for structured programming.
BASIC 3.5 has support for high resolution graphics (320*200 pixel), but switching into graphics mode meaned that the available memory was decreased by 10K (8K for the bitmap and 2K for the video matrix), leaving just 2K for BASIC on the C16/C116. This made these models pretty useless without a memory extension. But as said above, the kernal is identical, so added memory (for example by replacing the memory chips and soldering some additional lines or by an expansion card) is supported by the kernal and by BASIC.

The Software
Commodore / Microsoft Basic 3.5 was a much improved version over its Basic 2.0 predecessor used in Commodore 64's. Basic 3.5 came with 50 extra commands including such features as disk instructions like DSAVE, DLOAD. A user could actually gain peripheral access using common sense syntax rather than what was required on a 64. Graphics commands like, CIRCLE and BOX made it much easier for developers to create on screen images without extensive use of memory PEEKs and POKEs. Basic 3.5 was truly a major improvement.None of the 264 line (116, 232, 264, 364) actually shipped with the custom software option that Commodore had promised. Instead the Plus/4 was born when the 264 design was married to a ROM containing TRI-Micro's "3 Plus 1" integrated software. The original 232, 264 and 364 prototypes were abandoned in landfills like so many other Commodore development machines. "3 Plus 1" meant:

a Word Processor
a Spread Sheet
a Data-Base, and
a Graphing program

all in one easy to access package. This software was installed on a ROM chip and the programs could be started by simply pressing one of four buttons located just above the main keyboard. Integrated software allowed for "Windowing", in which you could basically Copy and Paste (very limited) amounts of data between programs. Commodore had to remove some of the original 3+1 features to make the program fit into a 32K ROM but Tri-Micro offered diskette-based upgrade called "Plus/Extra" which re-added features like double / triple-line spacing and print preview.

The idea was fantastic: putting what is today considered to be core software onto a ROM was almost revolutionary in 1984. The ability to load frequently used programs almost instantly at the simple touch of a button must have seemed very attractive on paper. The problem was quality.The word processor would only handle an embarrassingly small 99 lines of text! The Graphing program was quite limited and really only useful as an extension of the Spread Sheet. The database or "File Manager" as Commodore promoted it, was slow and not useful for much more than recipes. But most problematic was the overall quality of the software code; it was terribly unstable and just not 'ready for prime time'.

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