I can't believe this machine strayed so far from the original vision and price-point. If I recall correctly, this started as a perfectly reasonable attempt to take Sinclair's market in Europe yet somehow went totally off-course and released years after it would have been a success. One of Commodore's many puzzling missteps of the 80's. :( Thanks for sharing - subscribed!
Yeah, the Ted range of Commodore machines were odd. The C16 made a little sense maybe, but the plus/4 was never going to be a great business machine. On the plus side the Ted chip was incredibly advanced for its time, cramming the video and audio onto single package to save money and yet at the same time proving very capable compared to the Vic 2 for example. The joke at commodore for these machine was ‘at least we’ve made the in black, ready for their funeral.’
I agree. When the "small" version, C16 (which was physically larger), got offered at Aldi Supermarket for a lowered price in Germany, a run on the machine started which even let to a local market of software vendors, a magazine and even forcing Commodore to build more C16s - despite the intent was to discontinue the machine.
nice, if you ever get a spare INS/DEL keycap plus spring and plunger for these, that you dont want , let me know, i have a plus 4 thats missing its one ...
I wonder if they were trying unnecesarily to compete with the Sinclair ZXSpectrum and the impending (not very successful) Dragon 32 and SAMcoupe? Sinclair tried to do the Home Computer=Home Office too with the QL. That didnt work out well either.
Yeah, the presence of the "User Port" made the computer suitable for basic connection and controlling of external industrial hardware. Back in the time I created a software to animate an industrial robot with controlling its pneumatic valves.
