Commodore 65 (C64DX) for sale on ebay

[tokyoracer]

FINALLY! A true 'rare' item on eBay. I have heard about these but never knew it was a concept, what a beautiful machine though although rare it's not worth over £2k to me personally but is looks a very nice computer indeed.

Best of luck and hope he/she makes a bomb from it!

[blakespot]

Deluxe Paint was even written for this unit. I saw a screenshot not long ago, though I can't seem to find it online right now. It seems a similar concept to the Apple IIgs (in relation to the Mac, as this is in relation to the Amiga). Its CPU is a ~4MHz 65C02, while the GS had a more powerful 65C816, but the graphics chip in the C65 is likely far more powerful than that of the IIgs.

An interesting unit. I'd enjoy one.



blakespot

[desantii]

I so wish I had the money...

[danwood]

The '65 ran at around half the A1000/2000/500's CPU speed, but had superior graphics, and was just as expandable in the RAM area.  I'm quite sure 3rd party addons would have given the '65 the same oomph that the 500 had.

Superior graphics to the Amiga?  Are you sure about that?

[skurk]

It never reached a fully developed state. The prototypes sold were all at different stages of development; some were in a semi functional state (but alpha level at best), others didn't even start. So if what you are looking for is a fully functional consumer level product, there wouldn't be much to "clone"...

Yes, I am fully aware of that.  But it would be totally awesome to clone the most stable version, and then continue the work on it.  After all, it was pretty much an "8-bit Amiga".

[beller]

My god people. Knowledge about these systems was pretty common. Where have you been that you never heard of i

For instance. If I look at the prices of new PC hardware here in The Netherlands I can find about 30 webshops here in The Netherlands that are cheaper then EBay.

I think it's where we live, the US.  I don't recall hearing much about the 64 after the Amiga was introduced.  The World of Commodore shows I attended after '86 were strictly focused on the Amiga.

[Dragster]

We'll see if this baby breaks the record set for one sold on ebay around two years ago... US$9,100...
 
Absolutely out of this world the prices these can reach on ebay... I wish I had that money, it's truly rare item.
 
Cheers

[beller]

Hell, apple did the same thing with the 2GS.  Atari was slinging out mini 2600's well into the 1990's.  Nintendo was selling the NES (not SNES) in the US until 1995.  

Fact is, well into the Amiga's life the C64 was still being sold and outselling the former.  It was still looked on fondly, and to be quite brutally honest I think a C64-like with a "desktop" OS running at 640x400x256 (which the C65 was capable of) probably would've kept Commodore around longer.

It's an interesting question as to whether the C65 would have helped CBM hang-on.  

Yes, I'm aware that Apple was pushing the IIGS (the Amiga Killer as I recall) and Nintendo was continuing to sell old products.  My point was that CBM didn't have an abundance of resources, certainly not to the level of Apple even back then.  Apple could throw off a few million pursuing side-projects and Nintendo and Atari didn't spend any resources in continuing to sell their old products.

I don't think anyone wants to argue that CBM spent their resources wisely, do we?

[blakespot]

Superior graphics to the Amiga?  Are you sure about that?

It ran a 3.54MHz 65C02.  That's not 1/2 the Amiga's oomf.  It did have some 8-bit color modes on the low end, which OCS/ECS did not.  I do not believe it was particularly close to the Amiga in overall power.



blakespot

[blakespot]

Youtube video of a C65 proto:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16iq88QZQb4



blakespot

[Crom00]

An propper low cost A600/A1200 (at the c64 price) with AGA & 020 would have been better. This C65 project makes sense as a refresh item to the C-64 would have maintained Commodores prime retail space everyplace from KMart to Toys R Us. Once they got out they were never invited back in.

[Jon Hare]

The real value is well represented by the bids on eBay.  Have you never heard of the free market?  I don't know how you get more real than that.

TRUE!!! I had so much trouble with people who don't understand that fact - whyever! If one guy places a bid of 3000€ and another one a bid of 5000€, what's the worth of the item in the FREE market then?

I think everyone should've learned that in school...

One day I'll buy a C65 for sure....we'll see what it's worth FOR ME then

[Miked]

If only I had the money to bid on this item...  

On a side note, does anyone know how much software was ever written for the C65?  Although I would really want to own a functioning unit, I'm guessing that there wouldn't be much usefulness aside from keeping it boxed and watching it appreciate in value.

[a1200]

Looks like an A1200 trapdoor cover could replace the missing C65 one... if not, I doubt it would take a lot to make it fit

[pwermonger]

The Commodore 65 was developed, true, when the 64 was still selling well despite the Amiga being far superior. Problem with the 128 was it was so expensive having to build 3 computers in one. This would have been a single computer with a Commodore 64 emulation mode rather than completely mimicking the hardware.
 
As for 'superior graphics' it had the ability to display more colors in  native screenmodes then Amiga which at Hi-Res only displayed 16 and Lo-Res, 32. Though Amiga did have HAM to display 4096 it was often difficult to work with because of the limitations of how color changes had to occur between adjacent pixels (ideal use was digitizing images using a camera such as with Digi-View) and you saw few games ever using it (Pioneer Plague).
 
It had been shipped to developers to begin writing software for it and since it even had casework designed and built was probably pretty close to completion. This is why you see Deluxe Paint for it. I got mine from CMD who had a bunch from Commodore for this purpose. I had a Rev 4 motherboard that I sold. Usual one is Rev 2b.
 
It was discontinued, IIRC, because it would be too close competition for the 500.

[KThunder]

I think we've all thought about alternate history before but here's my take:  by '84 commodore/mostec should have had a 12mhz 16bit 6502. the c128 should have had that in '85 with the ocs chipset, and an enhanced geos os. by '90 a 32bit 20mhz 6502 with ecs... etc. etc.
by '85 most of the 8-bit producers wanted to go 16 but mostec had nothing for them so they went to the 68000. the 68000 was a great chip but it was quite a few years old in '85. all us c64, atari 800, and even apple II fans had to "make the switch". the apple IIgs was hardly advertised at all and still managed to outsell the toy mac untill apple ramped up mac ads and bury the gs.
pc people never had to "make the switch" and could get hardware from multiple sources. that's why we have core-blahdeeblah etc today.