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| From: RobertB (all posts)
Date: 2002-01-10
Subject: Haynie's auction of a C116 and C V364
|
Dave Haynie, former Commodore Business Machines engineer, is having an eBay auction on some his personal prototypes, a C116 and a C V364, (see below). His recollections of the development of these computers is very interesting.
Thanks to Bobbie Sellers of the CWest/AWest club of San Francisco for passing this information on to me.
Sorry for getting this out
so late; work got in the way,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
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Date: 05-Jan-02 05:00:14
From: Dave Haynie
Subject: [TAML] Haynie Garage Sale, again
Hi All-
I put up two additional things, of interest to Commodore 8-bit people, on eBay. Both variations on the "PLUS/4" system, unusual to rare.
If you collect, or know people who collect, this kind of stuff, check it out or pass the word. Thanks.
--
Dave Haynie | dhaynie@jersey.net Chief Toady | Frog Pond Media | Audio/Video/Hardware/Software Consulting
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[the following is edited from the eBay descriptions]
Items for Sale by hazydave (87) star Item Start End Price Title High Bidder / Status
1318361545 Jan-05-02 Jan-12-02 01:43:48 $26.00 HGS: Commodore 116 "TED",
collectable commie (341) star
eBay item 1318361545 (Ends Jan-12-02 01:43:48 PST )
Bid! Currently $26.00 First bid $0.25
Quantity 1 # of bids 5 bid history Time left 2 days, 2 hours +
Location Upper Pittsgrove, NJ Country/Region USA/Philadelphia
This is a fairly obscure computer called the Commodore 116. There's a story behind this one.
When I first started at Commodore, I was put on the "TED" project,
under Bil Herd. The "TED" was a new custom chip that did graphics
(better than the C64's in some respects) and sound (not as good as the SID chip), targeted at lower-cost computers. The story was that Jack Tramiel was increasingly worried about competition from the "Timex"
Sinclair and other super-low-end (under $100) computers. The original TED plan would deliver a 16K VIC-20 replacement, and eventually maybe even a 64K system, at under $100.
As you may or may not know, the plans were changed somewhat,
presumably as Jack made plans to leave Commodore, and the project was changed, in West Chester, and made more upscale and expensive. The result of that was the Commodore 264 (later redubbed the PLUS/4) and the Commodore 364, which is a relative rarity. However, before those changes were made, a set of schematics for the work-in-progress reference design were sent to Commodore Japan.
The C116 was one of two systems that Commodore Japan designed,
unfortunately without much feedback from West Chester. For example,
the cartridge slot on this one isn't compatible with the final cartridge slot of the PLUS/4. But regardless, this machine is perhaps the closest anyone came to building the "TED" machine as originally envisioned.
I don't have a power supply for this system, so I can't verify if it's functional or not. I'm selling this as a collectable only, with no warranty on operation.
Please add $7.50 for shipping and handling, more outside of North America.
Pay with Postal Money Order (domestic only) or Pay me securely with your Visa or MasterCard through PayPal!
----------------
Items for Sale by hazydave (87) star Item Start End Price Title High Bidder / Status
1318362090 Jan-05-02 Jan-12-02 01:50:54 $405.25 HGS: Commodore V364,
very rare collectable swap_and_shop (280) star
eBay item 1318362090 (Ends Jan-12-02 01:50:54 PST )
Bid! Currently $405.25 First bid $0.25
Quantity 1 # of bids 19 bid history Time left 2 days, 2 hours +
Location Upper Pittsgrove, NJ Country/Region USA/Philadelphia
This is an extremely rare computer called the Commodore V364. There's a story behind this one.
When I first started at Commodore, I was put on the "TED" project,
under Bil Herd. The "TED" was a new custom chip that did graphics
(better than the C64's in some respects) and sound (not as good as the SID chip), targeted at lower-cost computers. The story was that Jack Tramiel was increasingly worried about competition from the "Timex"
Sinclair and other super-low-end (under $100) computers. The original TED plan would deliver a 16K VIC-20 replacement, and eventually maybe even a 64K system, at under $100.
As you may or may not know, the plans were changed somewhat,
presumably as Jack made plans to leave Commodore, and the project was changed, in West Chester, and made more upscale and expensive. The result of that was the Commodore 264 (later redubbed the PLUS/4) and the Commodore V364, which is a relative rarity. I was put on the V364
project as a project manager, my first one... then the system was cancelled a few weeks later. Oh well.
The V364 is basically just the 264 machine (same as PLUS/4, give or take the accessory slot software) with a larger keyboard and a speech synthesizer, similar to Commodore's "Magic Voice" (better known at Commodore as "Tragic Voice") module for the Commodore 64. There's a command in BASIC that lets you say one of about 260 English words.
This is the ONLY complete unit I know of in existence. As far as I know, there were a couple of mockup cases made (white plastic, hand glued, with grey paint over it), but only two actual molded cases,
such as the one you see here. There were at two complete keyboards,
but most of the systems had a real C264 keyboard and a faked keypad.
So this is a collectors alert. This includes a nicely printed certificate of authenticity.
I haven't found a power supply for this system yet, so I can't verify if it's still functional or not. It was, maybe 15 years ago when last I powered it on :-) I'm selling this as a collectable only, with no warranty on operation. If I track down the power supply, I'll run a test and include that as an additional note here. Unlike the production PLUS/4, this system has the same power supply connector as the Commodore 64, but I'm not certain the voltages were identical.
Hey, this was nearly 20 years ago ....
Please add $10.00 for shipping and handling, more outside of North America.
Pay with Postal Money Order (domestic only) or Pay me securely with your Visa or MasterCard through PayPal!
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