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Posted By
Luca
on 2014-04-10
20:39:22
 |  Re: Acquired this 264 board
Very interesting one. I've passed the picture to Bil Herd in order to ring some bells from him...
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Posted By
JamesC
on 2014-04-10
23:42:48
| Re: Acquired this 264 board
It's a 364 board ... the Toshiba T6721 chip (just to the left of the TED box) is proof. 
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Posted By
crock
on 2014-04-11
03:44:37
 | Re: Acquired this 264 board
@Luca - Bil will certainly recognise it as it was his until Sunday.  I didn't have time to write much last night.
It is exactly a V364 board. It was Bil's development board which Commodore used to demonstrate the 364 to k-Mart years ago, complete with the Toshiba speech synthesizer chip. It will be my plan over the next couple of months to get it cleaned up and (hopefully) working.
Sadly there is no case for this one. If I make it that far, I have a couple of ideas for making one, either from a couple of +4 cases or, more likely, make a bespoke case - possibly from carbon fibre.
It's going to be a long project I think.
Rob
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Posted By
George
on 2014-04-11
04:17:57
 | Re: Acquired this 264 board
This is a great day! Congratulations.
Do now 4 knownd prototypes exist?
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Posted By
crock
on 2014-04-11
05:55:32
| Re: Acquired this 264 board
3 AFAIK, Dan Benson has one, Bo Zimmerman has one and then this one.
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Posted By
George
on 2014-04-11
06:20:40
| Re: Acquired this 264 board
Maybe there is a way to make a Negative-Case Form from the other Prototypes.
Or with 3-D Printer-Technology today, some could make a 3D-Scan, which everyone can print out at home in some years..
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Posted By
Patrick
on 2014-04-11
08:31:16
| Re: Acquired this 264 board
crock, if you need some spare +4 cases for your project. i have a couple soo let me know..
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Posted By
MIK
on 2014-04-11
11:07:45
 | Re: Acquired this V364 board :-)
Wow awesome!! Good luck with it and hope you get running soon.
Maybe an Amiga A500 case might help if you need something temporary for it to be kept in, not 100% the same but the number pad almost is in theory, (almost)...
Nice item though. It would be wasted in my hands if it were mine so most definitely gone to the right person.
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Posted By
MIK
on 2014-04-14
18:33:33
| Re: Acquired this V364 board :-)
Very cool and smart as you like!
Yeah it sounded like Purple to me with the volume up loud. Was mad hearing the music in Icicle Works running about 17.5% faster than it should be on NTSC.
I didn't think the Keyboard was going to work and yeah it all looked crazy but it sure did when you switched it on. Nice!
Fantastic to see it alive and well. Enjoy your new girl friend and your have to give her a nice nick name with that sexy voice. I wonder if she is the sister of Texas Instruments Speak & Spell? V364 sounds way better tho! 
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Posted By
George
on 2014-04-14
23:27:04
| Re: Acquired this V364 board :-)
Hi Rob,
as many of us here, i have special fascination and love for the V364.
Its an oustanding machine, far far ahead of its time in the aspect of business
machines. Commodore could have ruled the market, if the idea of the 264 got
more effort at that time.
The picture of the 364 i posted seems to be a computer generated image and has
an error, which i discovered today. If you watch carefully the pictures in the hardware section.
the one Jack holds an 264 and 364 side by side and Bo's beaten up machine, you will see
the 364 has BLACK (or very dark gray) cursor keys. This makes the machine even more Special.
Another obvious difference in the case design (next to the numeric block) are the function keys.
Today i realized that function keys are not just redisign but also replaced on an additional space above the keyboard.
Makes the 364 case not only bigger in length but also in width.
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Posted By
crock
on 2014-04-15
04:17:48
| Re: Acquired this V364 board :-)
@MIK - thank you for the kind words. I agree that it does sound to fast. I'm interested to see what effect it would have on her voice if I converted it to PAL?
@George, thank you for the info, that's useful.
I would not read too much into the colour of the keys. I have an early C116 keyboard here (the one with only one shift key and the inst/del key in the bottom left corner) and that has black cursor keys as well. There was only 1 production quality V364 case made which Dan has but I have no idea how the keyboard is put together. My suspicion is that both that one and Bo’s soft tooled case were put together from one off engineering samples. It could just be a standard plus/4 keyboard with a hand tooled keypad – the function keys may not even work.
I'm fairly certain that my board pre-dates both Bo's and Dan's as there's no silk screen and, as I discussed in the video, some re-work seems to have been necessary to get it working. The ground plane also stretches out around the board so it’s possible that my board is larger still. As you spotted, it's likely deeper than a plus/4 case so my idea of creating a Frankenstein case is probably a non-starter, not to mention that the ports will not match the cut-outs, but thanks for the offer @Patrick.
I think I’m more likely to go completely home-brew with the case, maybe using acrylic. I’ll maybe use a standard plus/4 keyboard and try to create a numeric keypad using the same keys.
Cheers, Rob
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Posted By
George
on 2014-04-15
08:32:31
| Re: Acquired this V364 board :-)
Hi Rob,
I agree totaly with you. They must have patched the cases together with samples for demonstration purposes.
I spotted the differences and wanted to share, just for common knowledge...
Its nice to know, somebody takes care for the third prototype.
Greetings
George
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Posted By
Retro76
on 2014-04-20
06:28:41
 | Re: Acquired this V364 board :-)
CONGRATULATIONS CROCK On getting your hands on the 3rd Prototype !!!
HOLY MOSES this is TOTALLY AWESOME & a great moment for the PLUS/4 WORLD.
It is great to hear that all 3 prototypes ( I call them Holy Grails) are still around & have been accounted for May they still be around for future generations and perhaps one will be sold to a museum for a cool million or two for everyone to enjoy when the time is right !
I now bow to the HOLY GRAILS OF THE PLUS/4 WORLD: THE ALMIGHTY 364's
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