Why C= never made a 65816 based machine?

[LoadWB]

It could start up in compatibility mode, and switch to faster mode if the software desired it. It would have been a solvable issue. Anyway, all this proves is how much C= sat back on the C64 and then lost it all when the 8-bit market died overnight.

There was such a machine; it was called the 128.

[LoadWB]

I'm not sure "faster" == "faster" in this case...

desiv

IIRC, the 65816 is missing some on-chip registers compared to the 6500-series, and pales in comparison to the 68000's 16 registers.  This will drastically affect performance.  (If you really wanna learn some gritty stuff, check out a MIPS emulator.  It's fun!)

But, yeah, the 128 was still 8-bit but backwards compatible with a compatibility mode for (the dying) CP/M.  If Commodore had released the C65 (comparable to the Apple IIgs in terms of "next generation") I think that would have been the end-all-be-all.