64E4 - MOS technology 32 bit 68K competitor?

[Hattig]

The Z80 is still used today and was used in some popular video game machines.  Compare the ability of the 6510 to the Z80 and you have your competition.  If you are selling Commodore computers with a 6510 chip then your competitors know there is a market and anyone wanting to bring the competition can do so with a Z80 because it can do as much or more.  The Z80's clock speed today is up to 50MHZ.  The reason you can't speed up the 6502 is because it has multiple clocks so the Z80 would have won out if there was competition on power.

Both the Z80 and the 6502 (and derivatives like the 6510) were decent designs. The Z80 had higher clocks, but a lower instructions per clock. Overall a 4MHz Z80 and a 1-2MHz 6502 performed the same.

The problem was that for a long time, the 6502 stayed at 2MHz max, and additionally the C64 kept on using a 1MHz 6502. The Z80 got a B revision at 6MHz - not that it was used much.

Overall home computers in most of the 80s were in stasis - not continually improving. MOS could have done a new 6502 running at a higher speed, but they didn't for quite some time - and then they lost it all because companies started sourcing them from other sources who did put the work in to improve the design.

Note the C65 was meant to have an up-to ~8MHz 6502 derivative.

[Hattig]

In any case, psxphill is right; CP/M was pretty nearly dead by 1985, having been supplanted for business use by MS-DOS, and never really catching on with most Z80-based home computers the way it did with the hobbyist micros of the late '70s.

I wouldn't be so sure of that - in the US maybe, but in the UK CP/M was kept alive for a long time because of the Amstrad CPC 6128 and the very popular Amstrad PCW series.  However CP/M was never really advertised as a key feature, it was just a capability the machines came with and that users could use.

[Hattig]

A Raspberry Pi is $35, a C64 + a 1541 would set you back by about $1000. Do you really think people would buy another one because the floppy drive was faster?

The C64 is the best selling personal computer of all time. Commodore did pretty well without you.

Heh, $1000 in 1982 dollars is $2,385.71 today. Puts that $35 RasPi + $5 (SD card) + $10 (case) + $20 (keyboard, mouse) into perspective.

And one of the reasons the C64 did well was because it was cost reduced and kept the same - compatibility, large back catalogue, rapidly dropping price - that means success.

[ChuckT]

A Raspberry Pi is $35, a C64 + a 1541 would set you back by about $1000. Do you really think people would buy another one because the floppy drive was faster?

The C64 is the best selling personal computer of all time. Commodore did pretty well without you.

I think the 1541 would be replaced today by an SD card, thumb drive or the C-64's electronics would be replaced by something that could handle a hard drive today.  I think the C64 could get a 65C812S 16 bit processor which would offer 6502 compatibility.  Of course, those options aren't exactly "Commodore style" but we would have to live with it.

[psxphill]

The Z80's clock speed today is up to 50MHZ.

65c02 is available up to 200mhz.
 
http://www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/
 

I wouldn't be so sure of that - in the US maybe, but in the UK CP/M was kept alive for a long time because of the Amstrad CPC 6128 and the very popular Amstrad PCW series. However CP/M was never really advertised as a key feature, it was just a capability the machines came with and that users could use.

I was writing software for an embedded system that ran CP/M up until the end of the 90's. But there are many historical operating systems that people write software for, it doesn't mean the operating system isn't dead. There doesn't appear to have been a large amount of CP/M software written for either Amstrad's, or if there is then I can't find it.
 

That is a recipe for disaster and it is failure on the part of leadership. You have consumers who have money and who can't travel to the CES show because they work, can't afford a plane ticket and a hotel but they can afford a computer who would buy the product but the computer products aren't made available to them. Tell me something. If Commodore came out with a Commodore 128 Slim without CPM and was half the price, do you think people wouldn't buy it if there weren't any orders at CES?

Commodore didn't sell products to the end users, they sold products to distributors and retailers. It wouldn't matter how many people might want to buy the computer, it was how many people wanted to sell the computer. Removing the Z80 and VDC wouldn't half the price. There was a cost reduced version produced, but it was so late to market that it wasn't launched. Everyone wanted an Amiga by then.
 

If they waited or if they came out with another revision, would you have bought it? Would other people have bought it? And what do you think would have happened to the popularity of Commodore if the 1541 was sped up? Exactly.

My parents bought mine in Christmas 1984. It was recommended to them by the owner of the TV shop that they bought it from, I doubt they can remember why he suggested it. I think I got a floppy drive around 1987/1988. If you wanted faster loading then you bought jiffydos or one of the parallel cable systems.
 
You can actually do a hack to use the CIA shift register as well, but you need a 1571 to make use of it. I was thinking of doing a fast serial hack for the 1541, because there is a workround for the VIA bug. However I've run out of free time to do it.

[commodorejohn]

I think the 1541 would be replaced today by an SD card, thumb drive or the C-64's electronics would be replaced by something that could handle a hard drive today.

Again you're suggesting that you could have improved on the management decisions of the mid-1980s by leveraging technology that didn't exist until much later. You seem to be confused about the direction in which time flows.

[ChuckT]

65c02 is available up to 200mhz.
 
http://www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/
 
They are probably using FPGA.

[ChuckT]

Again you're suggesting that you could have improved on the management decisions of the mid-1980s by leveraging technology that didn't exist until much later. You seem to be confused about the direction in which time flows.

No.  I would have demanded changes for the 1541 back then.

[Hattig]

65c02 is available up to 200mhz.
 
http://www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/
 
They are probably using FPGA.

In addition it looks like the eZ80 hasn't really been updated since 2001, Zilog just have it as a cheap money-making product that tops out at 50MHz - although the IPC is up to 11 times higher than the original Z80.

I guess that it's simply not worth it to improve these products any more, not with ARM Cortex M series hanging around for applications that need more oomph than an eZ80.

[ChuckT]

I guess that it's simply not worth it to improve these products any more, not with ARM Cortex M series hanging around for applications that need more oomph than an eZ80.

One of the companies that sold the Z80 now makes the Arm Cortex.

I have invested in ARM and someone showed me how to do it.  If I wanted to upgrade, I might to an ARM Tegra.  I'm ready to start wiring them up, do some programming and some playing with it.  I would encourage others to get involved and learn it.  The cost is basically $16 or less for an ARM board, $22 for a ST Link or $50 for a JTag to USB connector, a breadboard ($5 or more), some breadboard wires ($5) and some touch TFT screens.  I have a list of other parts like diodes and resistors for different chips but some of the ARM chips are .39 cents and all you need is a $20 FTDI cable or custom made USB cable to program them.  I already bought a PS2 to breadboard adapter and RCA to breadboard adapter plus an LCD that I already soldered to a pin header.  I have friends willing to give me help in electronics and they've been helping me.  Books are extra.


I thought about buying a scale and setting up a UPS account because I would love to make single board computers and products related to that and electronics.

[Hattig]

No.  I would have demanded changes for the 1541 back then.

1541 worked. Slowly, but it worked.

A fix could have taken some time, that's time you're not making money. So you should release the slow, but working system.

The fix should still have been done, resulting in a 1542, and possibly a fixed C64 if that side of things also needed fixing. Not ideal, but technology marches on, and it wasn't long before the slow disc drive was a bit of a laughing stock.

[ChuckT]

1541 worked. Slowly, but it worked.

A fix could have taken some time, that's time you're not making money. So you should release the slow, but working system.

The fix should still have been done, resulting in a 1542, and possibly a fixed C64 if that side of things also needed fixing. Not ideal, but technology marches on, and it wasn't long before the slow disc drive was a bit of a laughing stock.

A fix was put in but someone at Commodore took the leads out of the PCB design according to a video by Bil.  They didn't want to fix it.  If you are in business, you are here to compete and if it is too complicated to compete then get someone who will.