Commodore Curiosity

[scuzzb494]

Hi

May interest someone with a Commodore production history that knows what went on during production at Commodore in the very early 90's. Today I received a Commodore PC which looks a lot like an A4000. I just wondered if there was any link.. Read on..

[ NEW ARRIVAL ]

The Commodore 386SX-20: Looking strangely like an A4000d OK this is freaky. This is an actual 386 PC based Commodore in what was termed slimline design. Thing is the chassis and the front panel look remarkably like the A4000, complete with 3 slot lower section and sloping top bezel. The colour of the unit has the look and feel of the 4000d. I know that the 4000 was made from old cases, and I can`t help thinking that what I have here is the basis of that computer. As I say, kinda creepy.

Just taken the case apart ... Quite clean. The old barrel battery will need removing. The memory is rather like the modules found on the GVP cards. They are in pairs left and right to the side of the case. The hard drive is a Quantum ProDrive.  A small daughter board rises to the centre and there is quite a hefty sized graphics card attached.

I have switched her on and whoo hoo she works. She has lost the boot configuration cus the battery died yonks ago.

Commodore 80386SX BIOS Rev 1.03
Copyright 1985-1990 Commodore Electronics Ltd
Copyright 1985-1990 Pheonix Technologies Ltd

640K Base Memory 04096K Extended

Works fine... I just plugged in my MSDOS 6.22 setup disk and I have the blue screen asking me to back up before continuing with set up... So no problems. Looking good.

Another classic machine to add. Something of a curiosity.

[ END ]

scuzz
http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com

[Crom00]

During the 90's there wre ads for Commodore 486sx pc's that looked like Amiga style cases.

 I remember the very first time I saw the ad in a UK Amiga magazine I though some New Amiga was in the works. After the liquidation of commodore a Canadian Amiga dealer advertised systems called the A3200 (or something like that) They used silimar cases from what I could tell in the ads. Those particular shots were tiny.

Can you post shots?

[maffoo]

@Crom00: Are you thinking about this?

I managed to find a picture on an ebay auction here which does bear a resemblance to the A4000, thought the layout is quite a bit different so they didn't use the same cases.

[scuzzb494]

Hi

That's the computer sitting here. Just removed the barrel battery from inside. The case is slightly shallower but the range of machine looks as though it could have stimulated the A4000 design. This case predates  the 4000 by about two years. I have always been intrigued as to the general view that Commodore used old cases for the 4000, and what machine that would have been. A variation on this machine definitely looks possible.

scuzz

[B00tDisk]

Recycling the 4000's case out of a preexisting PC rig wouldn't be the first time C= did that; remember the C900 desktop UNIX server?  The A2000's case was originally slated for that system.

[downix]

Crom00 wrote:
During the 90's there wre ads for Commodore 486sx pc's that looked like Amiga style cases.

 I remember the very first time I saw the ad in a UK Amiga magazine I though some New Amiga was in the works. After the liquidation of commodore a Canadian Amiga dealer advertised systems called the A3200 (or something like that) They used silimar cases from what I could tell in the ads. Those particular shots were tiny.

Can you post shots?

Commodore shipped the 3200.

Today we call it the Amiga 4000.

I have a 3200-branded CPU card here.