Recently I bid on a very good looking Commodore Plus/4 on eBay. I’ve never had one and have only heard the stories about this little guy: mismanaged marketing, the failed successor of the C64, the computer nobody wanted. A sad story – especially considering that it’s a really good machine that paved the way for the C128.
With almost the same powerful BASIC commands as its successor, the Plus/4 is much smaller than the C128, a little over half its size I’d say. It takes up much less desk space and can use the 1541 floppy drive. Other peripherals were not compatible (joysticks, datasette drive, etc), neither was existing C64 software – which was widespread and popular at the time. The Plus/4 did have more colours but no sprites (which made computer games amazing in those days), and its sound qualities were less sophisticated than those of its predecessor.
The major downfall of the Plus/4 was undoubtedly its marketing and strategic decisions within Commodore: Jack Tramiel wanted a $99 machine that would sell alongside the expensive $500 C64 in 1984/85 and wipe out the fragmented home computer competition. Design of the 264 family began thanks to him – this included the C16/C116 and Plus/4 – even a 364 with speech module (only legends know about, like the CBM Museum).
Before the launch of the new machine however Tramiel left the company in 1984 – and with Commodore’s visionary gone, the rest of the clueless board of directors turned the Plus/4 family into a C64 replacement. Well, it flopped. Badly.
Since it was never meant to be what it became, and because it wasn’t compatible with existing popular software, less than 1 million units were produced worldwide and the Plus/4 was discontinued within a year of its launch.
Nevertheless, learning from their galactic mistakes, Commodore quickly developed the C128 and added everything to it that was missing on the Plus/4.
My Plus/4 Story
I bought mine for $49 including shipping from California, boxed with both manuals and dedicated 1531 Datasette. A complete bargain! Other than being a bit dusty, it was in great condition – some minor ageing issues aside.
One of the tragic things about shipping 30yr old computers several thousand miles, even with the best packaging, is that components can break, old solder joints can snap, and things may not survive the journey. It’s the nature of shipping retrotech.
Then there are those abysmal power supplies Commodore built back in the day: they’re usually potted and can’t be opened and are no repairable. Voltages over time may increase which leads to the death of many a chip in the best working machines. Another tragic story.
I was delighted to see that my new Plus/4 WORKED out of the box! The power supply measured the correct voltages, cursor blinks with a glint in his eye. The packaging was not only adequate, it was fantastic! I was really lucky with this purchase:
The only thing I noticed was that several of the keys did not respond well unless I hammered them or pressed them repeatedly. Time for a thorough examination and a quick fix!
Join me if you will on a journey under the hood of the Commodore Plus/4.
I find it extremely important to document the things I learn on my coding journey. It has saved my (coding) life many times before. I do such documentations in form of websites which allows me to refer to my notes from any device in the world.
A few days ago I was sitting together with my Mum in her hotel room and explained how she can upload all her photo treasures past and present to Flickr. A while ago she bought iPhoto for her iPad as a convenient solution that did not require a laptop (which she doesn’t like).
On Speak Like a Pirate Day 2013, the 18th of September, Apple decided to release their latest and (apparently greatest) operating system for iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch devices: iOS 7.
A few months ago I bought a new Bluetooth headset to replace my trusty old Voyager Pro+. It was still working but people at the other end were complaining that my voice would cut out regularly even though I could hear them fine.
I’ve gotten over the culture shock of the ZBRush Interface. It grows on you after a while. Or so I keep telling myself.
Back in 2013 I was trying out the then-new Photoshop CC for 30 days. I wasn’t sure if the upgrade was for me or if I should stick with my trusty copy of Photoshop CS5 (which by the way I own and can use forever and a day, without a monthly license fee… but that’s another matter).
You can’t buy any of the Adobe Creative Suite products anymore. From now on you can only “license” any of Adobe’s products for a monthly or annual fee. This includes Photoshop, Premiere, Dreamweaver and all the other CS products we know and love. That’s old news.
Confusion, headaches, frustration, anger, hopelessness, sadness, depression and resentment. Those words probably best describe my first two days with this new software.
Don’t panic, this post is not in French, it’s merely an homage to my man Fred Lebain whose collection of Holga images has always inspired me.
We have a total of 6 Kindles in our household, that’s between two people. I know this sounds excessive, but believe me every single one of them has their specific purpose.
Every major software company has a collection of internal tools to help them develop their software. These are either off-the-shelf apps like Photoshop, or they are so specialised that they have to be custom written in-house by a team of specialists, often by a dedicated department.
For the last week and a half I’ve been having fun researching and coding the search function in iOS Table Views.