THE MACHINES: The C= 264 series...
(RAM for BASIC / TOTAL RAM)
The C= 364: It was a 264 with a "Magic Voice" Speech
systhesizer and numeric keypad. (60K/64K)
(Also called V364,CV364,364V)
prototype only? was it even produced?
The C= 264: The machine that became the Plus/4. (60K/64K)
I would assume without the 4-in-1 package
The C= 232: Basically a 264 with 32K ram and no RS-232 (28K/32K)???
The C= Plus/4 = 264 w/TRI-Micro 4-in-1 software (60K/64K)
The C= 116: A C= 16 w/ chicklet style KBD in a +4 case (12K/16K)
The C= 16: 16K RAM, looks like a black VIC= 20. (12K/16K)
I have the CMD Issue #9, Vol 2 Number 4 on the series...
this is my condensed version of their article:
The series was originally to be the 264 and 364. They had 60K to
basic, and 64K RAM total. This was a very good ratio, and was obviously
done by having bank switching between ROM and RAM. They ran on a 7501 or
8501 CPU, which was 6502/6510 compatable. The heart of this line was
the TED, or Text Eding Device. It comprised 320 x 200 Pixels, and text
of 40 x 25. It had 128 color settings; 121 colors actually (8 blacks).
It was made of 16 colors each with 8 liminance settings. The sound, as with
the VIC-1 used on the VIC= 20, was integrated into the graphics chip, and
consisted of 3 voices; 2 sound & one noise. Basic was upgraded quite a
bit, and new easier to use disk commands were integrated into the new
BASIC 3.5, as well as windows, and the graphics commands the C= 64 so
desperately needed. Also they included TEDmon, a machine language
monitor in ROM to write and debug programs.
The plan changed and the 264 became the plus/4, integrating the 4-in-1
software by TRI-Micro including a word processor, spreadsheet, graphing tool,
data manager. These applications were not much more than barely usable.
The 364 project was scrapped and the lower-end C= 16 and C= 116 were
produced. The C= 16 looked like a black ViC= 20, and the 116 was a
C= 16 with a chicklet keyboard in a plus/4 case. They had a shameful 16K of
RAM, with only 12K usable by basic. This was, however, a better ratio
than the ViC= 20, with only 3K to basic. The C= 16 and 116 had no user port;
thus no communications or parallel devices. These machines were to target
business use, since the C= 64 and VIC= 20 had strayed from the original
Commodore Business Machines goal of business computers.
THE C= PLUS4:
--- Extract from somewhere ---
Failed Commodore experiment. Actually, a very nice 8-bit. 64K RAM.
Nice graphics ability. Pixels could be any of 128 colors (16 colors at
8 intensity levels). Four software programs included on the ROMs. None
of them were worth much. (The word processor could only handle 99
lines of text.) This computer was sold as a successor to the C64.