Just got a C128

[quarkx]

IF you read the book "On the edge" you will find out that the C128 has a very Very intesting history. Why just to bring it into existance, was almost a epic battle with the designers (Bil Herd and Dave Haynie -YES, Dave did make the 128 and the Plus/4/C16 also). C/PM waas on its very last legs at that time, and the C128 was aimed more at the Business market. It was only suposed to last a few years as a transition between the 8bits and the 16bits, they didn't think it would sell as long as it did.
The Z80 CPU is another story, Bil needed to get the C/PM cartrigde to work and the Magic Voice  (Bil had made it his Personal Mission for 100% backwards compatibility with the C64), and after a bit of reseach, he found out that the C/PM cart had a Z80 in it. There was also the fact that the MMU in the 128 had to boot at address 0000 and the Z80 did. So late one night he broke open his doorstop (a Sinclair 1000- which everyone had as a door stop at Commodore-another story) and by morning he had a working multi-CPU computer. The second multi-cpu computer by Commodore (Super Pet had a 6502 and a 6903).

video of Dave and Bil http://www.commodore.ca/gallery/video/videos/Bil_and_Dave_lg.wmv

[quarkx]

6809, not 6903.

Opps sorry,
I keep getting the 2 mixed up as the Hittachi 6903 is a drop in replacement for the 6809 for the TRS 80- Color Computers.

[quarkx]

IIRC the first 1040's were made with the 128's in mind, thats why some have the Commodore sticker up front and then later the Amiga branding when the Amiga came out.

I get my first C128 sometime in the next week or so, so I can't wait to play with it. The C128 D (CR) is the more desirable. you know they used the same case for the desktop version and recycled it for the Amiga 1000? (same thing with the C900, recycled the case for the Amiga 2000)

The funny thing is, most other 8bits at the time were just adding 128 Ks of ram to thier units, but keeping them generally the same (the CoCo 3 is a good example). Commodore chose to go a different route with the C128.
I have heard if you have the flat unit, one of the first things you will want is a Video Ram upgrade. The flat units only had 16K of Video ram, where the desk top had a full 64K. Upgrade kits are inexpensive (about $25) on Ebay.

A good site is http://www.commodore128.org.
Just joined them last week, have tons of good threads on there