General public machines (Was: Altair 8800 name Was: Re: Altair 680 Expansion Boards?

[Liam Proven]

On 24 December 2016 at 05:02, geneb <geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
>> Commodore's Z80 in the 128 was due to unnecessary fear that they might
>> lose market share to CP/M, when IBM should have been their big worry.
>> I don't know all of the details of the ST/Amiga technology swap, but BOTH
>> were too late, if the primary goal was competing with IBM.
>>
> That might be Commodore marketing - Bil Herd said that he threw the Z-80
> into the design essentially because he could. :)  He's done a few talks on
> how the C-128 came about.  It's pretty interesting.

Seconded. I don't think CBM was scared of CP/M at all. I think it
maybe thought it was a handy extra.

Some of the story is here:

https://hackaday.com/2013/12/09/guest-post-the-real-story-of-hacking-together-the-commodore-c128/

I am somewhat irritated by Bil Herd's claim that it was the last 8-bit computer.

The MSX TurboR was arguably the greatest Z80 home computer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSX#MSX_turboR

It came out in 1990:
https://www.msx.org/wiki/MSX_Turbo_R

But its R800 CPU is arguably 16-bit although MSX-DOS doesn't use that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R800_(CPU)

It is in part based on the Z800:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zilog_Z800

The SAM Coupé was pure Z80 machine, a lovely British design, a
much-enhanced ZX Spectrum 48, and it came out in 1989 and went on sale
in 1990:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAM_Coup%C3%A9

The Acorn BBC Master wasn't all-new but neither was the C128. The
Master was an elegant upgrade to the BBC Micro, and was released in
1986:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Master

I'm sure there are many more.

So no, Herd is definitely wrong. The C128 was _not_ the last new 8-bit
computer. It wasn't even the last new Commodore 8-bit computer -- the
C65 was arguably that (and a more logical successor to the C64, IMHO).


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