Posted By
JamesC
on 2006-08-15
07:59:09
|  Re: Missed opportunities with the Plus 4
Did you watch the Bil Herd/Dave Haynie video?
I should hope so, I hosted the download a year ago!
The 264 was supposed to retail for $79 with no built in software.
The "TED Computer" was supposed to be a sub-$100 machine, yes. But the "TED Computer" morphed into three machines: the 16K sub-$100 machine, the 264 (with a variety of built-in software available), and the 364 (with numeric keypad and speech).
At the first public viewing of the 264 (January 1984 Comsumer Electronics Show), the machine was shown as a mock-up. Specifications were for several different 264 machines, each having a different built-in software: word processing, spreadsheet, LOGO, etc. The machine was stripped down to a single built-in software (3+1) when it was renamed the Plus/4.
And it was at this very show that Tramiel quit Commodore. His sons remained at Commodore long enough to get the TED machines into production, then they quit too. By January 1985's CES, the Tramiels were firmly in control at Atari.
|
