3 Jan
2012
3 Jan
'12
2:07 a.m.
On 02/01/12 8:17 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
On 3 January 2012 01:06, Gene Buckle<geneb at
deltasoft.com> wrote:
Well, you might ask the same of the BBC Micro Tube (which hooked up a
coprocessor of various families including Z80, 68000, etc).
One assumes it was a "crossover" attempt to appeal to small business
(given that many small businesses used affordable home computers at the
time): A way to get much more capability but relatively low cost
compared to the dedicated business brands.
In the case of the BBC Micro, the educational computer during the middle
years of my high schooling, it meant that schools could have
installations of CP/M business software to familiarise students with
WordStar, Turbo Pascal, and other tools that they'd soon encounter after
finishing high school.
--Toby
On Mon, 2 Jan 2012, Liam Proven wrote:
Ahh, thanks for the clarification. I think I once knew that, 20+y ago,
and had forgotten.
It was a very odd machine, though. I think the unreleased C65 would
have been a much better upgrade. The 80col mode was good, but WTF was
the Z80 and CP/M doing in there? the greatest weaknesses of the Commodore line of
home computers - the
VIC-20, Commodore 64, C128 and so forth - that their BASIC was very
primitive, had no commands for structured programming and, crucially,
no commands for sound, graphics, colour or any of the media facilities
of the underlying hardware.
BASIC 7 in the C128 corrected many of those issues. There were add-on tools
and carts that would add graphics& sound commands to the C-64 - the most
common was Simons Basic. It was completely inappropriate to
the VIC/C64 market segment, added unnecessary cost and did not enhance
the functionality of the CBM side of things at all. A truly bizarre
addition.
Mind you, the C16 and +4 were pretty bizarre aberrations, too. I
really don't know what Commodore management was smoking, but it made
for some epically bad decision-making.