The Commodore 65 - A Rare Prototype

Just to share some of the back-story on the c65-support vs MEGA65-support of the MEGA65 rom. Firstly, I was happy to see Bit Shifter's name on the rom chip 🙂 I take it as a good sign that c65 owners got some benefit from Bit Shifter's efforts 😄

I remember a time in the past, a few years back, when the MEGA65 discord community was discussing whether to focus on maintaining c65 support or focusing more on making use of the mega65's own capabilities.

I think I remember Bit Shifter being very keen to make use of the mega65's hardware capabilities so that the rom could benefit from them, in both the saving of rom space (make the rom code smaller) and performance. (Up until that point, he had preserved a sense of c65-backward compatibility).

He had held back from adding MEGA65-specific logic for quite a while, until things built up towards that discord conversation. I think by that point, at least batch1 of the MEGA65 was out in the wild, so it meant a larger community could benefit from those mega65-specific enhancements.

On our discord, there were opinions moving in both directions, my gut feeling is that c65 owners would have preferred we keep assuring c65-compatibility, though many of the mega65 development team didn't own c65's, and a larger community of mega65 owners was taking shape, and so the decision was made to support the larger community that was growing.

That being said, the mega65-project and Bit Shifter, did push forward the state of the c65 rom further, and that is still a good thing for c65 owners, as the label on Bo's rom chip shows.

Could things be improved for c65-users? Potentially, though I feel like c65 owners would be the ones putting on their developer hats, cherry-picking parts of the latest rom they can benefit from, while omitting MEGA65-specific logic.

Should MEGA65-developers of software consider c65 backwards compatibility? I guess it'll be up to each individual developer. I sense most will cater for the bigger MEGA65 audience. On the other hand, if a C65 developer wants to build a program and share it with the MEGA65 community, there's a good chance their work can be enjoyed by the MEGA65 community.

I wish I had a C65. Not sure if I would have sold it even if I had one though. I would have treasured it as if it was my first born... I like my souped up A1200 which I won't sell unless I get a decent offer.

Definitely the price of the C65 prototype is way beyond my price range. Maybe I could own one someday, but quite unlikely. Thanks for demoing it, too bad Commodore was a little too late to release this.

If they had preempted the Amiga with this like you said and instead set the default drive to 9 or higher or made it possible to disable the internal drive, then it would have been more C64 compatible since an external drive could be set to drive 8 which a large portion of the C64 diskette software expects.

It really wouldn't have made sense to release that late, as you point out Commodore were all in on the Amiga at the time and the 500 was their home computer. C64 was sold because the damn thing continued to sell but Commodore had clearly lost all enthusiasm for it.

I wonder if the NTSC jumper would have solved your video problem.

BASIC 10.0 in C65 is about twice as slower per 1 MHz, because is much more expanded than relatively simpler C64's BASIC 2.0. Add to that it has to manage more than 64 KB of RAM and bigger screen area to service. For example C128 BASIC 7.0 in 1 MHz 40-column mode is twice as slower because it has more commands (is 4 times bigger than BASIC 2.0). Add to that bankswitching (in one bank resides BASIC program in other variables) and it is twice slower.

wow you let yourseleve trick they promise a lot many people pay money but they only stay in promise mode

I thought it was extremely interesting as a piece of computer history, but as a computer, I wasn't that impressed by it.

The C65 would have been a huge failure if it came out in 1991. Nearly no software company would have developed games specifically designed for it and it was not 100% C64 compatible. Additionally, the market was already moving to 32 bit computers at this time, 1991 was just two years before DOOM came out and changed everything.

Keep up the great work! 😀

You never heard of the 1571-II ? I owned one! The 1571-II was released in 1986 or 1987, manufactured in Germany, mainly targeted at Commodore's very important German and UK markets.
It was a European model and the best 5-1/4 disk drive available for the C64/128.

I remember when Commodore went bankrupt and they were selling these in the liquidation sale. I was too broke as a college student to buy one--I think they may have auctioned them or something? But they were only like $200 or so--but in 1995 my broke college budget didn't allow it.

That extra 1K of RAM would have made all the difference.

I yelled it's in PAL right before you said it's in PAL.😁

I missed this one.

One of the amiga engineers said that the C65 project was put to a guy that no one wanted to work with..

There is one on sale in the UK try FAST RAM in the expansion port under the unit where is your common sense with all that big brain of yours lad lmao joking happy new year "NEW LISTING Rare Vintage Commodore 64 DX Commodore 65 Prototype Computer - Estate SOLD AS IS"

this is a test

I skipped through the video. It's insane. There was a clear strategy that commodore could have pursued, that lined up with goals.

The Commodore 64 only needed an upgrade to 16 sprites multiplexed, 256 colours and 80 column mode in a model the next year or two, instead of the plus4 and Commodore 128. This would have kept it fresh enough against the consoles playing the common type of sprite tile based games of the 1980's extending sales by years, and made it good at basic business machine use and GUI (Note, blitter is not so necessary, as we see in the low end consoles). As the cheap alternative for both game computer and shop business computer markets, and kept it's sales up years more (the plus 4 needed better architecture and sprites and 80 columns. Eventually, management of integration and cost reduction allows for it to move into a 2600 like competing console computer).

The second part is integration of chipset to one or two chips, with higher speed, for lower cost and reduced form factor.

Another optional part would be increase in graphics/sprite mode colour depth, and memory every second year, and clock increases as they came in. Maybe sprite numbers. If the section of the design for the graphics bitmap and sprites is too one side of the chip design, that can be redesigned independently to the rest of the chip.

A business version could merely be a version with more memory for better colour depth in 80 columns and a 80 column bit mapped mode (also setting the basis for expansion of the home machine version) with disk drive and other interfaces in built, and eventual integration into a monitor/TV to compete with MAC/Amstrad etc, in compact firm factor for shop space with register till attachment, and home, and school.

The Vic20 is tweaked to become the Vic Color cheap console. The tweaks are in colour palettes and resolution colour depth, to compete with 2600, and maybe as an alternative to the commodore 16. The best developers for the Vic are invited to convert their games by a configuration file for remapping controls to joy pads. Touch pad maybe for mouse like functionality and basic peck keyboard inputs (like inputting your name). A high speed cassette console with license protection, for cheap games in the $2-10+ range, is not out of the question. Eventually , this is joined by the Commodore 64 revision version, and latter Amiga revision version in the 1990's, where a disk then CD based console with license protection is added, as it's cost go down.

The Commodore Amiga and PC was years away from being cheap, leaving the lower end market. CPM was not needed with its development base. The cost involved in the 128/D and plus4/16 could have gone to a 1984 revision, which would have kept it more competitive over 10 years, making it suitable as a handheld by the 1990's.

These are practical things, which could have been instead, making only two lines of hardware, except the Vic-Soul Console. Reducing cost and development costs on the 64 line (they needed money to upgrading Mos). I e thing is certain, keeping within the curve and ahead at the start, rather than forever falling behind. The 64 was supported by its fan base, and nice cheap software, which is why it slipped behind until new fans were going elsewhere. You will also note how it sounds like a version of the Amstrad CPC+ machines, except those were years too late (if the original CPC had been like that, it would be a different story) and the sprites multiplexing were too limited, when swapping sprites, and they needed better 320/640 mode colour depth eventually. The issue wasn't to be as good as Genesis and Amiga, but to look good enough to still be a low cost alternative buy. If you put a heavy processing game, or 3D game, the Amiga would be obviously ahead, as the more serious machine in all gaming and computing aspects. But, we know what happened at commodore, Chuck Peddle and others walked, then Jack, who held the purse a bit tight, walked and took talent with him (then didn't release the superior 7800, or the computer version, or use the graphics technology in the ST, and didn't get the Amiga, and who knows what raw talent walked at Atari when it was taken over, and took years and an alignment with Flare, to get back again. We see here that Flare came out of the Sinclair Super Spectrum, which would have set Amstrad up at the take over for years with a cheap Amiga alternative). Thus, the plus 4 range lost its rudder, Jack, and the 64 upgrade didn't steer well. There was a problem with the way graphics memory was on the plus 4 and 128 range (I might add, this sort of memory bottleneck issues with graphics also came up with the Acorn Electron, curiously enough). The 128 used another 128 mode chip then the one intended, producing an issue, and no extended pallet, when extending the vic-2 to 80 column would have slowed the sprite engine to be involved. The questions go back further. The Vic really needed 16 sprites, or a way built in to multiplex them across the screen, a larger pure rgb pallet and at least a 80 column colour text mode for business owners, where reprogramming character patterns could provide basic graphics. I know there are memory bandwidth constraints, but a text only 80 column mode from Rom character sets, should be possible, or higher memory bandwidth. Another, was use of bytes instead of nibbles in colour attribute memory, would have helped. Just an extended pallet would have made Sonic for the 64 look a lot better.

An Amiga monitor will display both PAL/NTSC

Hi! I cracked Gianna Sisters back in the day : ) --TDT-

Lol, the demo picture :)

Don’t use a paperclip on it

Her name is Regina and the picture is just a partial image of the February 1988 Hustler centerfold. You're welcome.

Are you going to continue uploading to your awesomeairsoftguns channel? Some stuff is interesting there

looks like a mega65

We loved our 8bit home computers here in the PAL region

Nice find. Didnt know that existed. GO 64

I did find one demo that did show off the 256 color graphics capabilities 😂😂😂

Developing a new 8 bit computer in the 90s is like building a two-stroke engine.

This is interesting, thanks for sharing... sadly, too little and too late from Commodore, who rode the C64 gravy train for too long.
This would have failed the same way the IIgs failed.

A rare prototype you say???
Quickly! Fetch the Dremel!!!

💦 'Promo sm'

alright so it's real.

Now there are now C64 PCBs and it's possible so make a new C64 from scratch ( some ICs excluded like the SID ), maybe some brave soul can take good shots of the PCB so we can figure out the schematics and make this a somewhat broader release for daredevils. Even the case is printable or can be ordered on PCBway. There is no real reason this has to stay in prototype state.

Nice computer. Not great like the ts 1000 w the 16k rampack and the included pieve of cardboard that keeps the rampackmin place. Yet also doubles as an 8 track piece ofmcwrdboard. Yet still cool😊

I love the "most replayed" spike on the 256 color demo part 😂

I'd like to have seen Commodore release this as a low cost replacement for the C64. Perhaps instead of the C16 and Plus 4 (these always seemed like a step down from the C64). If emulation tech had been a thing, I'd like to have seen a C64 emulator bundled with the Amiga, which would have persuaded a lot of c64 owners to upgrade. Having to junk potentially a lot of software because you had to sell your computer to get a new one stops a lot of people upgrading. Some sort of backward compatibilty on the Amiga would have helped, even if Commodore had to do a C64 on a card in much the same way Apple did with their PC and Apple II cards..

Uh... That picture was insufficiently censored for me watching this while eating lunch at my desk at the office. I suspect I'm gonna have some explaining to do to HR. :(

Yeah, other than Amiga, people just wanted systems to use their C64 libraries. X86 did their upgrade path right. Faster CPUs that just ran older software faster. Even if it was too fast. Commodore, I think, just got strangled by their own massive software library. Even today, X86 uses the same strategy. Not to say that Commodore didn't try with Amiga. Maybe if they had made an even lower end Amiga that could have been slowly upgraded to match the 500 - at least - and abandoned the C64 stuff. Or, yeah, keep increasing the speed of the 6502. The Commander X16 is, just, a better example of what might have been done.

Even the 128 was nice, but people rarely used it in 128 mode. It was, just, a fancy C64 - with the same capabilities, in the end.

Must be nice to put up one 12 minute video a month! You go! I am so dropping my Patreon

Commodore had the most brilliant engineers, and the most clueless executives. They drove that company into the ground. Fun watching this prototype, but this product should never have existed. The money used to develop it should have been used to advance the Amiga. They already had a gussied up 64 in the form of the 128 and that went nowhere in the marketplace. The incompetence of the CEO and his product planners knows no bounds.

Plot twist: The 65 was never returned, but 8-Bit Guy's credit card debt was mysterious paid off in full😮🤔

I have never owned a C64 and I don't know a ton about this stuff.
Yet I have been watching this channel for years.
I find it interesting and entertaining.
☮