| Posted By
JimmyCoupe
on 2021-02-09
09:01:33
 |  Come and meet the new Commdore Plus/4c
Following on from my BMPlus4Emu thread I thought I would show the forum what is possible in todays world.
Meet the all new Commodore Plus/4c. This has been one of my lockdown projects. I will be creating a How To Build a Plus/4c thread in the coming days. The badge is still concept and once finalised it will go to a print shop for a proper sticker to be made.
Money can not buy you this on the shelf and it is unlikely any company will ever make a new Plus4 so here is your chance to make your own, and yes the end result is much better than THEC64 you can buy.
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Posted By
Chronos
on 2021-02-09
10:24:43
 | Re: Come and meet the new Commdore Plus/4c
Nothing beats the original Plus4 cursor keys!
C16 - 4 keys in a row -> sux
C116 - 1 keyblock -> sux
C64 - two keys+shift -> megasux
btw what's on the screen? a painted c64c housing with a c16 keyboard and a keyrah+raspi?
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Posted By
Patrick
on 2021-02-09
10:21:36
| Re: Come and meet the new Commdore Plus/4c
looks great!
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Posted By
JimmyCoupe
on 2021-02-09
12:52:03
| Re: Come and meet the new Commdore Plus/4c
C16 keyboard might not have a perfect cursor layout but its a dam sight better than the C64's  .
The project could use a real Plus4 keyboard and case if anyone was wondering but the Plus4 keyboard would need its ribbon removed and a wire setup soldered like the C16 to work with the Keyrah v2. I don't believe there is anything that allows for a plus4 keyboard to be used in these projects. The only time I have seen a plus4 keyboard being used in these projects was when the person rewired and removed the ribbon.
Using the real plus4 case would also bring further complexness to the project as you would need a non destructive 3D fitting kit and I don't know of anyone doing them for a plus4 case. I think you would also need to cut the case for the Keyrah joysticks to fit the case. I do believe there is a 3D fitting kit for the C16 case but I was aiming for a new Plus4 rather than capturing the spirit of the C16.
Some say the C16 was the better keyboard over the plus/4 hehe.
Chrono's, I got the case from Pixelwizard (germany), the pluis4 respects better than a spray can. Yes C16 keyboard, Keyrah V2, Raspberry Pi3, set of panel mounts, 3D printed kit & running BMPlus4Emu on the card. The result is quite special and beats playing plus4 on the PC. I thought this would be a fun project and maybe of interest to people on the forum and an alternative to the PC. I hate turning my real plus4 on, scares me every time and mine is recapped and I am still scared.
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Posted By
Litwr
on 2021-02-11
03:12:07
| Re: Come and meet the new Commdore Plus/4c
Nothing beats the original Plus4 cursor keys!
Maybe It was Jack Tramiel who wanted such nice cursor key disposition.
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Posted By
retroscener
on 2021-02-11
06:32:26
 | Re: Come and meet the new Commdore Plus/4c
Nice improvement. Like a C16/64 hybrid. Really nice job.
I don’t like the plus4’s cursor keys. The low-raised arrow shapes are a little fiddly for me. The whole keyboard feels kind of clacky, my fingers often slipped pressing the wrong keys. The C16 has the second best keyboard in the 8bit Commodore range, just behind the C128 imo anyway 
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Posted By
MMS
on 2021-02-13
15:22:11
 | Re: Come and meet the new Commdore Plus/4c
Well, actually I like the C64C compact and (C128 like) design.
It looks modern, unfortunately they did not add anything useful to that nicer package (except cheaper board and less power hungry ICs- they could add an improved (backwards compatible) BASIC, monitor, reset button (eh), or even a corrected IEC handling or something like JiffyDOS). Just to make it worth to rebuy for the ppl laready had a C64 (I am a marketing genius  )
Yeah, I also did not like so much the C64 cursor buttons...
A little OFF to react to retroscener:
I do not know, which keyboard introduced this shape cursor keys we do have currently on the PC keyboard (I dunno how to call it), but very intuitive. I can say (except the surface and press feeling) the Plus/4 is very close to perfect, while the C16 just clones the Apple II, just put it at an arkward place. (same as Spectrum +2)
http://xahlee.info/kbd/ibm_pc_keyboards.html
As far as I see, this separated cursor keys on Plus/4 (and C116) appeared earlier than on the PC, as the first one was the IBM M keyboard in 1986 (certainly there could be other platforms already had such a good layout). CPC 464 had a separated kcursor block at a same arkward position (with a fire button), appeared in 1984. One with keyboard has the current cursor layout was CPC 6128, appeared at the mid of 1985 8 (with real, big buttons).
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Posted By
GeTE
on 2021-02-16
04:45:31
| Re: Come and meet the new Commdore Plus/4c
Two things I should mention here: First, Ira Velinsky was inspirated for the kind of 232, 264, V364 and later plus/4 and 116 cursor keys by the MSX-Computers that sold well in the far east but not in europe. Second, I love to see the C16-keyboard beeing placed in one of the new mold C64C-housings ("retro black") the Pixelwizard-(shop) has offered for so long, BUT your label is a mess! Unfortunately the man behind Pixelwizard - Thomas Koch - might have designed a so much better one, but he suffers from a bad hear attack. :,(
PS: The C64C-mold will find a new home at Jens Schönfeld (icomp) and therefore everyone who want's to build the same as shown in this thread might get his chance in the near future.
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Posted By
JimmyCoupe
on 2021-02-16
08:56:05
| Re: Come and meet the new Commdore Plus/4c
Thanks for the feedback GeTE. I agree the badge in the picture is not great. It is only printed on my home printer on glossy paper and the colours are all wrong. I am just playing with designs before getting a proper vinyl sticker made for it by a company called Rockstar Arcade who has made me lots of wraps for my arcade machines over the years. Yes you are right sadly Thomas is not very well and is still unable to work so they were unable to help at this point in time. Sadly when I approach C64 badge makers they turn there back in disgust when I talk Plus4 with them which has taken me to design and make my own. Bl**dy C64 fan boys :-) LOL.
Please do forgive my concept badge .
Has anyone on here tried BMPlus4Emu on their Raspberry Pi3? this is a purely pi3 only. If you have a Pi3 and a spare 4gb or more card then take the time to try it, I need someone else to talk to about how good it is. You may forget the PC after you have tried it. A Pi3 can be bought for £20-25, surely its got to be worth a go for that.
BMPlus4Emu for anyone that hasn't heard of it does not run on Linux. This is what is called baremetal emulation and sits somewhere between FPGA and emulation. Basically its a custom Kernel that boots straight into VICE that down clocks the CPU timings (better to watch the youtube videos for better explanations :-)). Boot time for Pi3 turn on to the Plus4 basic screen appearing is around 3 seconds with the result feeling ever so authentic. Compatibility is extremely high and is so much better than VICE. I am yet to find issues with anything that I am interested in running. Also the experience of using BM feels so authentic you may just forget it's emulation.
If anyone is interested in trying do not use the BMPlus4 build on the BMC64 website, this is the Vice build for Pi1,2,3 and is as good as Vice. Forget this exists and load BMPlus4Emu, and now your playing with true plus4 power.
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