The Commodore 65 - Incredibly Rare & Unreleased!

Jason Fitzpatrick talks to Adrian Graham about the incredibly rare and never released Commodore 65 computer.

[@illustriouschin]

I like Bill Herd's take on this. Basically it exists because no one liked working with the designer so they let him preoccupy himself with this abomination just to keep him away.

[@mickserwillo]

I was waiting for Rick Astley to tell me he was never gonna give me up

Thank you for sharing this

[@philp4684]

OK, I looked it up: the 4510 is a 65CE02 (note: not 65EC02) with some built-in peripherals. It's still an 8-bit processor (8-bit A,X,Y & Z registers, and 8-bit data bus), but has a few instruction extensions for working on 16-bit words.

[@bsvenss2]

Thanks

[@mikemiller1208]

It's kind of 25% of the way from a 6502 in the direction of a 6809, with some additional speed optimisations.

[@sundhaug92]

Mike: Don't you mean 65816?

[@kevinloesch7568]

The 65816 was a true 16 bit chip. They 6809 was still an 8 bit chip, but it could operate on 16 bits of data at a time for certain operations.

[@mcwill6368]

I also have a working C65 and I repaired 4x C65 (2x REV 2B and 2x REV5 - similar than REV3 and 4) for different customers. I also developted a 512K RAM expansion for the C65. Just let me know, if you want me to repair it.

[@DS-pk4eh]

Can you make the video of running C65? And walk us through what was new? If possible. Thanks in advance.

[@binarydinosaurs]

Hi McWill, I'm not sure how I missed this first time round. I also can't believe this was 3 years ago! I hope you'll understand that I'll not let the machine out of my sight, but if you could share an overview of the faults you found that would give me a good start. The only plan I have at the minute is to remove the RAM and test it in a C64C since they use the same chips.

[@mcwill6368]

@@binarydinosaurs Hi Adrian, yes, I understand that you won't send the complete C65. But without testing the chips and the board it can't be repaired of course ;-) Perhaps I have a solution for you. Because I have much experience with different C65, we bring life back into the C65! I know it will work, if all chips are OK. In the last years I was developing the chips (at present the CPU4510) in FPGA and is almost finished (plug'n play). I've also designed a new PCB for ALL chip revisions. So you can use different chips from Rev2A and Rev5 for example together with one board. I can send this mainboard to you for testing the chips, if you want. If the chips are ALL OK, your mainboard has to be checked. Please let me know your email. Then I can send more infos and pictures.

[@williamhoodtn]

FWIW: Pulling from my memory, Mike Nines and Terry Fisher were the PCB layout guys. Paul Lassa was the "fresh-out-of-school" EE assigned to work with the chip guys (Victor A. and Bill G.) to make a real machine. The C65 was pretty much Bill Gardei's baby and he seemed to operate as the main HW architect, technical director, prime advocate, etc. Fred Bowen was the SW guru (building on what great work he did for the C128). Technically, a very interesting machine with a lot of cool features. I seem to remember they did have NTSC versions in the lab and could get it to genlock with video, although differently than the way the Amiga did it. Having your own chip fab allows for lots of cool things to happen. I might suggest folks also follow good ESD protection methods when handling/working on these old boards. One errant "zap" and you're toast with no replacements. Much more of an issue on today's electronics but you'd be surprised what damage can ensue from ESD via poor handling.

[@HelloKittyFanMan.]

Better to keep it working than 100% original, especially at a museum, because there it should be shown running with a monitor and a handful of other peripherals!

[@leongt1954]

saw a story that said one of these ultra rare commodore 65 sold for $23.000 on ebay

[@webchimp]

All around the world in cupboards and attics and basements there are things like this that hardly anyone's ever seen or heard of. And every year some end up in a skip because no body thought it was interesting.

[@TubbyCrumbles]

I got mine out of a skip :)

[@SeltsamerAttraktor]

Found a Macintosh IIfx in pristine condition in my uni's dumpster. These things sell for nearly a grand.

[@wisteela]

Nice to know about the TED chip issue. That would explain why they die. I've always wanted a Euro PC.

[@manni1998]

Many ICs are in sockets. I‘d say it‘s very likely that there is a contact problem. Back in the days the older Atari ST developed a contact problem over time. In more than 90% of such problems it helped to lift the ICs in their socket a few millimeter and then push it back. I‘d try this method to bring this C65 back to life.

[@Del-Canada]

I thought "65" was a typo at first. I grew up on the Vic 20 and the Commodore 64. I still have all of my software and even ran a BBS back in 1988 on it.

[@QuazarSamCoupe]

Nice to hear the SAM Coupe mentioned and emphasising it was not just a super spectrum! The SAM is a much more capable machine in it's own right, far superior sound, graphics, memory etc. It's been the machine I've been developing on for over 24 years - designing and releasing a vast range of hardware expansions, software and a dedicated SAM Coupe magazine. I'm still going to this day, with quite a few exciting projects on the go. To see what I do for the SAM please see my site at: www.samcoupe.com

[@PaulRoneClarke]

Soon as the Mega 65 is publicly launched. I'm getting one. Looks very similar to this but I get the wonder of owning an original time dated bit of hardware. Nothing beats that.

[@altebander2767]

Well obviously the big PAL market was Germany, where in 1991 the C-64 was still on sale for 199 DM. If it had been 100% C-64 compatible, there would potentially have been a huge market for it.

[@steve24822]

Actually, the biggest PAL market was the UK with Germany coming a close second.

[@altebander2767]

That's surprising, didn't know that. The rate of computer ownership must have been considerably higher then.

[@steve24822]

Bear in mind it was only West Germany back then.

[@SlavomirG]

In 1991 the C-64 was sold in game-bundles as a budget first computer for kids, it was already very old, totally declassed by Amiga 500 and the market for it was shrinking month by month. The market switched to Amiga 500 and Atari ST already back in 1990

[@altebander2767]

Well it actually found its way into East Germany via various ways.

[@Ichinin]

Great video, not many of those boxes around. Heard from someone that the one sold on eBay recently was subject to fraudulent bids so it went cheaper than €80000. Again, great video - though you really should do something about the lighting.

[@chrischuter1530]

Maybe Ben Heck could get the c65 working?

[@nrg753]

Yeah I was thinking that too. The 8-Bit guy is awesome at fixing old stuff as well.

[@BADC0FFEE]

yeah not really, I love the 8-bit guy but he's not exactly a tech guru

[@nrg753]

0xBADCOFFEE ok he actually recently just fixed a commodore and did a really good job at it. I don't see why you wouldn't think he's a tech guru, he seems like he knows exactly what he's doing to me.

[@HelloKittyFanMan.]

Oh my heck!

[@szabolcsmate5254]

Dave Jones of eevblog? ;)

[@LupoAndy]

I have seen them in 1994 at the Hobbytronic fair in Dortmund, Germany. They sold a bunch of them there.

[@artofwebdesign]

So I think I am 27 years too late.

[@handsolo1209]

A bit late to the party, but the question about why the C16 & Plus 4 even existed. I have read that Jack Tramiel was still in charge at Commodore at the time of those machine's inception and they were supposed to be $49 and $99 machines to go against Sinclair and other super cheap computers at the time. When he left Commodore, the geniuses who replaced him ripped up his concept and marketed his budget computer concept in the way that we saw and ended up screwing themselves big time. They were never supposed to be competitors to their own machines like the C64, but as soon as Tramiel left Commodore, it was a very quick decline with the morons that followed him making one stupid decision after another.

[@8BitNaptime]

That never made sense to me, C= already had a competitor for the cheap computers at the time: the VIC-20.

[@handsolo1209]

@@8BitNaptime No, the VIC 20 was an older machine that was not being produced any longer (nor were many of the chips). Tramiel wanted a new model machine that was very cheap to be an entry level computer at a very low price, thus enticing new consumers in to the market. It would cost more to make "new" Vic 20s with their obsolete chips having to be remade than to make a new machine (plus the C64 had destroyed it's predecessor by this point). The C16 and +4 at those prices would have been very successful (some scientific calculators would have been the same price as the $49 C16 at the time), but the new management at Commodore scrapped his plan and made the two new computers 5 times the price that they were supposed to be (with the same cheap build quality/components) just as the Amiga 500 was coming to the party. They literally killed their own product with their stupidity.

[@CrazyTechReviews]

the 65c02 was a 8-bit processor as it was used in the apple 2e and all the later apple 2s

[@dlarge6502]

Yes, they want to know the word length of the processor in the C65 as it's not clear.

[@HelloKittyFanMan.]

And when they already had the 128, why not build this as the 129D (128 mode with built-in disk drive again, 64 mode, CP/M, and whatever the new features this has) instead of the 65? And why the cartridges from the 16 instead of the 64/128?

[@Technossomy]

I remember reading in ZZap64 the C65 was going to be able to play Amiga games All be it dumbed down version of the game with limited colour which at the time I thought would be amazing but obviously probably to difficult to implement

[@fattomandeibu]

The lack of tape port would've been killer. Everyone I knew had their entire collection on tapes, and only reason we had C64s/Spectrum etc. was the advantage over consoles/higher end computers in being able to buy tape games for £2 a pop. This simply would've drove us to consoles/high end computers sooner. Heck, it wouldn't be that long before we all eventually did move onto the Amiga, between '91-'93, depending the persons' budget. As interesting/cool as it is, it sadly would've failed due to the fact technology and prices just change so fast. Considering what you could get elsewhere, they'd've probably had to sell them at £50 just to move 'em, and that would definitely be well below cost.

[@MrMarianoamigo]

commodore, those crazy guys...

[@MichaelJantzen42]

Ages ago Grapevine Electronics were selling these - there's probably a lot out there, but probably a lot of them have been sent to recyclers or are sitting in storage.

[@8BitNaptime]

Amazing that you have such a machine, sad that Commodore chose to develop it five years too late.

[@HelloKittyFanMan.]

Um... well you have the 1571 and 1541 to go alongside this built-in drive (whatever that one is if it's not a 1581, since you mentioned the 8250 DOS), so that compatibility shouldn't have been a problem. But what if you tried a 1581 disk in this and vice versa? How well would that work?

[@Solder-Flowz]

1571 power supply?? I'm pretty sure it has internal one with only kettle lead sticking out..?

[@sarreqteryx]

What's with the glop on top of Bill?

[@donvito1973]

Given Adrian's T-Shirt, wouldn't the Einstein 256 be a better form factor comparison than the Schneider? :-)

[@Archimedes75009]

At 14:38 yeah you should have changed the Phoebe's battery ...

[@targas1008]

You‘ve possibly heard of the Mega65 project?

[@zombierabbit3593]

Send this to kevtris to get it to work. He might be able to fill in the blanks...

[@garyk3478]

A feather in the cap of any collector. If Commodore was to release another 64ish machine, I think something 65816-based would have done better, but who really knows?

[@KarlHamilton]

C64 had a 6510

[@matthews4159]

Commodore History Part 4 - The Plus4, C16, and C116 kzbin.info/www/bejne/f3TMi5WLrtWAorM

[@MrKurtHaeusler]

Adrian referred to something on the board as "D Magic". I'm not familiar with that, what is it? Google didn't reveal anything useful.

[@wubbalubbadubdub7597]

Kurt Häusler - It was the DMA controller custom chip. There is a overview here: c65gs.blogspot.com/2014/03/fill-command-of-dmagic-dma-controller.html

[@douro20]

Do any loose 4510s exist?

[@1337Shockwav3]

Extremely unlikely. There've been C65 that have been sold which were missing the VIC-III tho, so those could serve as donors. One potentially and likely undocumented issue might be the fact tho that the 4510 had different revisions of the silicon die, so it might be a possibility that it's not an option to swap ICs between machines.

[@rich1051414]

The '64' in Commodore's name makes sense. It is a power of 2. A non-power of 2 makes no sense to me. What the hell would that stand for? As we all know, the '64' in Commodore's name referenced the 64 KB of memory.

[@another3997]

Welcome to the world of marketing. 65 is greater than 64... therefore it MUST be better! 😁

[@jakubkrcma]

21:54 The video gets REALLY hardcore here...

[@neophytealpha]

The Commodore 64 is what worked for Commodore. Any upgrade path that didn't go with compatibility with it was relegated to fail. The 128 would have done better if it went with PC mode instead of CP/M mode.

[@another3997]

The Amiga was a success, but could only emulate the C64 using third party software. The C64 was long past it's sell by date, and spending money on any new hardware design that was backwards compatible was a mistake. Wasted money, looking backwards and not forward. They could have churned out real C64s at low prices for a bit longer, knowing the real 16/32 bit machines were the future. Oh, and forget the C128 and C65 (as well as never even bother trying to market the Plus 4, C16 etc).

[@neophytealpha]

@@another3997 Again, the Commodore 64 was a success and still had decent market share of the home systems when the 128 came out. Had they done a PC mode 128 instead of CP/M, they could have increased that market share, as they could keep their Commodore 64 software and also used their PC software. The hardware could handle it, even their disk drives with the 1571 and 1581 could have done DOS, since it already worked with CP/M and DOS started life as a CP/M clone. All their projects that veered away from the Commodore 64, PC, or Amiga bombed. They already had a card to add PC functionality to the Amiga. Had they added a Commodore 64 card and upgraded the PC card for Amiga, done a Commodore 64 upgrade like the 128 but with PC instead of CP/M it likely would have expanded their market share. Low end with Commodore 64, midrange with a 128/PC hybrid, and Amiga as high end. With PC and Commodore 64 functionality. There was even a device to use Apple stuff on the Commodore 64. Commodore could have situated themselves as the industry leader while they still had their market share, while expanding their offerings. They tried to go in too many different directions away from what worked for them.

[@indiocolifa]

Interesting machine but 8-bit CPU for the 1990s was already TOO LATE. How this thing would compete against growing Intel/MS with VGA chips?. Sidenote: "Victor" chip is named after Victor F Andrade , he went to work to AMD with the K5/K6 chips after CBM.

[@bryansillman3240]

The 65 was a 16 bit machine (with a 64 mode for compatibility). The idea was to the take the best of everything, put it under one case, under the 16 bit spectrum, with capabilities closer to Amiga). This machine actually had 3 names. The internal name was the Commodore 64DX (Drive, Expanded). The name the user community wanted was the "64 GS." The published name was the Commodore 65. Like the GS, hold on to everything, while expanding to 16 bits, with capabilities closer to the Amiga. The reason it was created, was because sales of the 64 was slowing down, as Nintendo was taking big holes in there market. The 65 was a chance to extend the old workhorse, to get the market back.

[@paul_boddie]

@@bryansillman3240 It was not a 16-bit machine. Compare the processor to the 65816 or one of the classic 16-bit CPUs like the Z8000 or 8086.

[@bryansillman3240]

​@@paul_boddie This link specifically starts with: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WDC_65C816 The W65C816S (also 65C816 or 65816) is a 16-bit microprocessor (MPU) developed and sold by the Western Design Center (WDC). The idea was simple. Take the last 10 years of technologies, pull it together under a 16 bit architecture, with capabilities closer to Amiga. It can default to 8 bits for backward compatibility to 64 mode, or use emulation to emulate any other Commodore computer before hand. The 65 was to the Commodore 64 what the Apple II GS was to the Apple II.

[@MarcWeavers]

looks like a predecessor to amiga 600

[@silkwesir1444]

:D

[@valenrn8657]

@@silkwesir1444 C65 has 256 color display from 4096 colors palette without cheats e.g. HAM. AGA has 256 color display from +16 million colors palette without HAM8.

[@silkwesir1444]

@@valenrn8657 I think you were missing the point. What was meant was not a predecessor in the technical sense, but a predecessor in the marketing/business decisions sense.

[@LapisMinecraft]

Before I clicked on the video I thought this was a joke.

[@maxkool0076]

Jim Keller designed the k7....

[@blackcountryme]

Pity you couldn't have lit the space better, and took the camera over the board while it was lying flat and showed us a decent view.... But the 40w bulb.. ugh!

[@GeorgeZ213]

Agreed. The wall between them keeps changing hues from a dull yellow-Grey to a bright lemon yellow.

[@ACanOfBakedBeans]

CP/M on the C128 is laughably slow, so it wasn't that good for a business setting The 128 did get the version of BASIC that should have been on the C64 though. But then again, even the Commodore 16 and Plus/4 had far better BASIC interpreters than the C64

[@SuperHammaren]

Should have been MS-DOS instead.

[@another3997]

At the time, CP/M was still a viable OS, as it had been around for a while and had a range of serious software. MS DOS wasn't really any better in it's early versions, and wasn't guaranteed to be the 'default' OS for the home/small office computer market. CBM should have let it run at full speed, not half speed.

[@TelexToTexel]

These machines are very valuable, a c65 prototype with RAM expansion board were sold for €81450,00 in November 2017 on eBay.

[@jackburton8352]

A fool and their money are soon parted iwould rather have £81,450 in my account than a worthless piece of plastic.

[@HelloKittyFanMan.]

Oops, Telex, I'm thinking you meant "was" (since you said "with" instead of "and"). Right?

[@HelloKittyFanMan.]

Oops, Dave, it's more than just plastic, and isn't 100% worthless.

[@1337Shockwav3]

Friend of mine is still biting his ass for parting ways with his C65 in 1999 for $900

[@69justusjonas]

Ist der c65 die Blaue Mauritius unter den Sammlern?

[@MEGA65retro]

So it's hard to believe but there still might be people wanting a C65 and not having heard of the MEGA65? Please get updated on mega65.org :)

[@another3997]

Owning an FPGA based replica is great... but owning an original and rare CBM computer is better. 😁

[@KarlHamilton]

Doug Haynie? Lol

[@SeltsamerAttraktor]

That thing was on ebay not too long ago. Sold for tens of thousands.

[@TheCentreforComputingHistory]

Not this particular one, but a few have sold on eBay for a small fortune, yes!! :)

[@SeltsamerAttraktor]

Yes, I've been there. Witnessed it live. It was an unbelievable spectacle. I also saw that prototype that sold for over 80 grand. The only question I have is what kind of person are those buyers. Spending 80000€ on something that is essentially a paperweight. Tbh, if I were you, I'd probably part with mine.

[@HelloKittyFanMan.]

Okay, actually, if you've seen a real photo of a real thing (such as what you said about the magazine), then you *have* seen it in real life. Just because you weren't in person with something doesn't mean you didn't see it in real life. "In real life" and "in person" are not the same things!

[@another3997]

Hey everyone, we got ourselves a philosopher!

[@HelloKittyFanMan.]

Oops, wrong, @@another3997! Hey, everyone, we just got a moron who doesn't know the meanings of the phrases "real life" and "in person"!

[@NatureAndTech]

Because the only country that uses PAL is the UK... NOT!

[@ACanOfBakedBeans]

No, but Commodore's biggest market in Europe WAS the UK (followed closely by Germany) and even in Germany Commodore had strong competition from Schnieder (the Importers of the Amstrad CPC)

[@RETRONuts]

The Amiga A600 and A1200/CD32 killed it and by that time the company was spending to much money that why Commodore is now dissolved, they would spend it like it was confetti. If you think about it the Amiga CD32 kill Commodore off, it was a flop, even thought I like all Amiga Machines, I have Amiga A500/ A600/1200 and CD32.

[@another3997]

Commodore wasn't killed by the CD32, it died because of poor management. Research and development teams were starved of money and therefore had to make compromises. CBM also started making IBM compatibles, which was a mistake. The CD32 might even have saved CBM had they not been banned from importing anything in to the USA. All their CD32 stock was in the Philippines. That finished CBM off completely.

[@MarcWeavers]

hey ur voice is too low and ur music jingle too high

[@ACanOfBakedBeans]

Hey, anyone that spells your as ur has a maximum IQ of 3

[@MarcWeavers]

and look at this, we have an asshole! for 'ur' information, im just lazy, KZbin comments are hardly worth the full attention of my average IQ.

[@97channel]

Guy on the left - "I know you've been having an affair with my wife.". Guy on the right - "Play it cool, I think he knows I've been having an affair with his wife.".

[@m1serfreed477]

Give it to Ben Heck, he will soon have it working

[@-Steven-]

I can barely hear you both talking you either need a more sensitive mic / talk louder or move the mic closer because I can't watch this also the sound is making a loud hiss. Fried watching this on my windows pc and Android tablet but sound is the same.

[@PennPal573]

65 likes

[@MrWesleymoon]

If you must have hardware and a old computer get a amiga 500 :-)

[@another3997]

To a collector, the C65 is worth more than an Amiga 500.

[@jerryvr]

Leaving out NTSC was a good move as PAL was used all over the (civilized) world and not just in the UK. Only the US (and south america, but that was not a market for this) used NTSC. Maybe you should do some research instead of accepting arrogant self centeredness as fact.

[@matthews4159]

map - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PAL-NTSC-SECAM.svg NTSC is the U.S. standard that was adopted in 1941 as the first standardised television broadcasting and video format that is still in use.A standardisation for adding Color to the NTSC system was adopted in 1953. NTSC is the official analog video standard in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, some parts of Central and South America, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. www.lifewire.com/pal-ntsc-secam-video-standards-1845714

[@jameswebb5080]

If it was released they would have made a NTSC version - A lot of countries used NTSC.

[@estebanquito545]

Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay use PAL-N

[@slashtiger1]

Yes, they would've probably released an NTSC version. But that wouldn't be because of NTSC being the most widely used video standard out there. Because no, not really... NTSC was the first standard, but certainly not the most widely used one... Lots of countries eventually switched to PAL. PAL was better. It didn't have the shortcomings NTSC was plagued with, and boasted a better picture quality over NTSC. Aside from PAL and NTSC, there's SECAM in France (again, amongst others), so it really is a matter of PAL and NTSC being the most widely used standards. But they were by no means the only ones. SECAM is largely based on PAL and considered to be compatible, but it certainly wasn't 100% the same... And even within the PAL standard, there were variants such as PAL-N, which would've been necessary to make PAL useful in 60hz areas, amongst other things.

[@estebanquito545]

Pal resollution is 625 lines, ntsc is 525 lines, i am from Argentina, over here we have PAL-N since the beginnig of color local broadcasting in the late seventies, i have both commmodore 64's several ntsc and several pal-n, and the difference in resolution is way noticeable, Uruguay and Paraguay use PAL-N as well, Brasil use PAL-M (which s strange as its resolution is 525 lines), so only 4 countries of all america use PAL, aa forgot to add we use 220 volt 50hz

[@retrogenius8397]

The useless 32 colour/4 channel sound/£400 Amiga 500plus gets launched but the six channel sound/256 colour £200 C65 isn't launched. Commodore deserved to go bankrupt with idiotic decisions like that.

[@retr0mak161]

The commodore 65 isn´t incredibly rare - they show up once or twice a year on eBay. Why would you call this "incredibly rare"? Incredibly expensive would fit better. Incredibly rare would be Commodore LCD, TOI, 264 or V364 machines for example. The C65 is pretty overrated. Btw.: last year a Commodore 16 prototype showed up on eBay, wich contains the probably only one existing single sided PCB ever made by Commodore (cheap Japanese style - according to Bil Herd it was indeed made in Japan). THAT is what you should consider as "incredibly rare"!

[@matthews4159]

-- 2,000 Beta machines is quite a small number, compared with 12,000,000 C64's C65,,, When Commodore International was liquidated in 1994, a number of prototypes were sold on the open market, and thus a few people actually own a Commodore 65. Estimates as to the actual number of machines found on the open market range from 50 to 2000 units en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_65 C64,,, It has been widely claimed that between 18 and 22 million C64s were sold worldwide; however, company sales records indicate that the total number was about 12.5 million en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64

[@TheCentreforComputingHistory]

It's relative isn't it. These machine are incredibly rare compared with your average home computer of the era, but yes, there are rarer machines out there. And it's *incredibly* rare not incredible rare! ;)

[@matthews4159]

as you say..... It's relative isn't it. Sales of the machine were never very large; the reported number of Ace’s sold before Jupiter Cantab closed for business was around 5,000 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Ace 2012,,, FORTH www.theregister.co.uk/Print/2012/09/21/jupiter_cantab_jupiter_ace_is_30_years_old

[@matthews4159]

((where it all started)) .. befor the mk14 .. befor the zx80 .... www.vintagecalculators.com/html/president_scientific.html also 2012,, NewBrain 50,000 machines, www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/02/newbury_labs_grundy_business_systems_newbrain_is_30_years_old/?page=4 (Basic - just in time COMPILER & independent device drivers) 1983 Grundy NewBrain used in pharmacys and chemistry shops kzbin.info/www/bejne/mqKpqpRvqtiXiqM

[@retr0mak161]

You´re right, i have corrected this...thanks ;)