Commodore P-500

????? Well if you collect Commodres, you are a very fortunate person! All I can do is give you the U.S. perspective on this machine, since I haven't heard any stories on the European distribution of P-500s. A few years back I picked up one (P-500) as well, with people telling me it was a B-128, I didn't look at the back and was surely perplexed when I needed to hook it to my 1702 and it came up in 40 column color when I turned it on, so I did some research and asked around a few places (on Q-Link, and a query to the Chicago B-128 users group). I received two or three stories that were pretty much the same. Back in 1982 Commodore re-vamped it's entire product line in order to replace the aging PETs and to eventually phase out the then looking more limited VIC-20. The line consisted of the Commodore 64 and Ulitmax, for games/home/education use and the B-128 and P-500 for education/business and as an upgrade option for people who purchased alot of PET (IEEE-488) equipment. In its rush (given the home computer wars), Commodore sent a bunch of demo units of the B-128 and P-500 to dealers (yeah, I know that sounds strange, it was a different Commodore back then) these units were not to be sold as they still needed to get their FCC certification (for low radio interference). Well some of these dealers were offered quick cash for the demo units (even though they had no manuals or anything) and of course, they jumped at the chance. The FCC heard about these sales of uncertified equipment and told Commodore to immediately cease any sales of them and face stiff penalties. Commodore promptly recalled them (at least the ones they could get). Well they finally certified the B-128 but I guess being that the Commodore 64 was so popular they abandoned the P-500 entirely and it is said they destroyed all reamining P-500s. At the time I talked to the CB128UG (1990?) they said I was the third person in the world ever to report having one, and their estimation was that there are ten in existence. (they would have known since they were lent ALL documantation on the B-128 series from Commodore when they gave up that B-series computers). Ok the P-500 has a 6502 type processor (you know, like the 64) and 128k of RAM, it has a SID sound chip (also on the 64 and B-128), a true RS-232 port, cartridge port (I know of no carts avalable for the B series) and IEEE-488 port. But unlike the B-128 it sports a 40 column VIC-II chip, two joystick ports and ROM coding that supports the datasette drive (the B-128 also has a connector but no programming to use it). Both computers could accept an optional 8088 co-processor board and make it capapble of running CP/M 86. The RS-232 port has one pin designated (on both B-128 &P-500) for a high-speed networking system that never went into development (but was put in hardware, just in case) the guy from CB128UG was pretty impressed with the stats on it which I forgot. So to sum it up, the P-500 is essentially the Color PET or P-128 that Commodore had talked about. Kinda a cross between the SuperPET/B-128 (128k, IEEE-488, true RS-232, Co-Processor), and a 64 (SID, VIC-II, Joysticks, color). Jim Butterfield made a memory map for the B-128 and has some programming examples for the B-128 in Transactor issues which might get you some information, but there are differences. My unit has a RAM problem and I haven't been able to explore it too much, also the ROMs are pretty much porototype and it runs like molassas, so I dunno how much good that would do me when I eventually fix it... If you do find out ANYTHING more (or even have a manual on it) I would surely be interested in what you find out! Larry Anderson -- -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- Visit our web page at: http://www.goldrush.com/~foxnhare Call our BBS (Silicon Realms BBS 300-2400 baud) at: (209) 754-1363 -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-