Commodore 116

Part of the ill-fated (and WTF was Commodore thinking) 264 series, the C116 is another example of Commodore and the way the management thought.

The year is 1984 ... Commodore needs a new machine .. instead of focusing on making it compatible with the wildly successful Commodore 64, the management or some other now-unemployed person got the idea to make an entire NEW standard.

The result is the 264 series, consisting mainly of the Plus/4 and Commodore 16.  Then there's this little number...

Yes, this is the C116 ... a German-only release Commodore machine with a absolutely horrid rubberish keyboard.  Not only was in incompatible with the Commodore 64 on a programming level, it also has incompatible ports for cartridge, joysticks and cassette.  <sarcasm> Great idea!! </sarcasm> .... The 116 (and the C16) were underpowered for their time and up against LOTS of established competition, so they were a failure.

Recently I was lucky enough to be able to purchase the ORIGINAL PROTOTYPE Commodore 116.  Here's the pics.

Notice the big SAMPLE and NTSC labels :-)  Also notice the keyboard is very different.  This 116 seems to be the only one I know of with the 'early' keyboard.  Probably also the only ever NTSC 116. Also of note, the joystick ports are labeled JOY 0 and JOY 1.  Internally, the ROMS are not production but in fact EPROMs with handwriting on them proclaiming TED LOW and TED HIGH.  The other chips are ceramic.  Happily I can report that this machine functions just fine.

TECHNICAL INFO:

CPU:            MOS 7501

MEMORY:  16 kilobytes

OS:               Microsoft (!!!) BASIC

PORTS:       video, RF, serial, expansion port, cassette, 2 joystick ports

GRAPHICS:  256 graphic symbols (PETSCII), color set of 121 colors

SOUND:       "TED" chip

Date Released:      1984