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How were the Plus/4 built-in applications?


OLD CS1

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Terrible. Originally they were going to be pretty good but then the system resources allocated to them was cut and you ended up with what you got. I actually ended up getting a plug in word processor cart for mine back in the day because it was streets ahead of the built in one. And even that was not as good as Mini Office on the C64.

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I haven't used them, but the common comments I've read are that the applications were rushed, buggy, limited capability, etc...
But then I've seen people say they used the word processor all through high school or whatever.
Better than nothing might be the best way to put it I guess.

 

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My parents came home with a +4 when I was about 10. I can only presume they were pursuaded by the sales man that it was a far better purchase over a C64 due to these built in programs which may have been useful for educational purposes!

 

I still had great times with the games on it though despite how limited they were and when at University ~8 years after that they did pay most of an accelerator+ram for my 1200 as I said it would help me do my Uni work. To be fair that was actually true but it also helped games etc ;)

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Popular Computing wrote that the word processor supports 99 lines times 77 characters, of which only 37 characters were visible on screen at a time. The data manager might be useful for address books etc to be used with the word processor. The spreadsheet supports 50 rows times 17 columns, but usually only half of that capacity is available. The addressing of individual cells was slow and outdated already back then. Finally the graphics package was best described as "very limited", a visual representation of the spreadsheet data which then could be included in the word processor? The graphs on purpose are not high resolution due to character based graphics were easier to print.

 

InfoWorld were even harsher, stating that the word processor was the worst one they had seen. They didn't even bother to comment on the other three programs. The editor of The Transactor wrote that the word processor barely is that, the database defiles the name and the spreadsheet has little spread, but admitted that the programs seem well written considering the limitations.

 

The 3-Plus-1 was based on Trilogy by Pacific Tri-Micro, licensed to Commodore. Supposedly the original suite was bigger, but condensed to fit into 32K ROM. I understand that enthusiasts in the 21th century have sourced the original software and ported it to Plus/4, probably loading one program at a time instead of squeezing all in at the same time. Possibly the original suite had less limitations and a better flow, and Commodore would have been better off only including the word processor + data manager which probably was what most home users initially would need. In particular as they already planned to sell better productivity software for the Plus/4 for those who needed it.

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There's a line in the LoTR film trilogy (In the Two Towers installment) at Osgiliath where Samwise states "By rights we shouldn't even be here".  The line plays two roles.  It's the start of Sam's speech that carrying the ring was not designed to be their task but fell to them to do so.  But, it's also a nuanced nod to the fact that the characters never visited Osgiliath in the books. 

 

The same thing is true of the +4 and the 3+1 productivity package included. The SW package should never have been integrated into the +4, but most holistically, the +4 should never have existed.

 

Jack's original idea was the C116.  While Commodore had a program where you could send in a TS1000/ZX81 (and maybe other home systems) and get a rebate for a C64.  Jack felt there was a market below the C64 that the ZX catered to and he wanted.  The C64 could not be made cheap enough, so he tasked the engineering team to build a ZX "killer".  The goal was a similar device (cheap KB, small footprint, limited RAM, etc.) that bested the ZX platform and sold for the same money.

 

And, everyone agrees that would have been a good product strategy.

 

But, then Gould ticked Jack off, and Jack left.

 

Those coming in after him re-imagined the C116 into an entire new product roadmap.  The VC364 (maybe it was CV364, too lazy to check the Canonical List), the 264, the C16, and the C116.  They asked Jim Butterfield, and he uttered thoughts that significantly soured Commodore's relationship with him (they loved him prior to that, as he was a great brand ambassador).  Jim told them the +4 was fine if it was priced more cheaply than the 64, and they replied they were going to price it higher so as not to compete with the 64. He thought (prophetically) that was a worthless idea.  I think he told them in nicer words, but the damage was done.

 

I'm not dissing on the +4.  It's a much loved, if underappreciated and orphaned CBM system.  But, it's almost completely unfair to discuss the capability of the 3+1 package as it the end result of marketing folks going completely off script and creating a mess, and then creating more mess to try to justify the mess.

 

Jim

 

 

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9 minutes ago, brain said:

But, it's almost completely unfair to discuss the capability of the 3+1 package as it the end result of marketing folks going completely off script and creating a mess, and then creating more mess to try to justify the mess.

Nah, I think it is perfectly fine to discuss the applications, even in stages of "they sucked" followed by "why did they suck?"

 

On the merits of the Plus 4, at the very least, the applications notwithstanding, is a really neat machine.  The TED's color pallette is envy-invoking compared to the VIC-II with more functionality but only 16 colors.  Plus, BASIC 3.5 on a home computer versus the more simplistic BASIC 2.0 is another great feature, though a plethora of BASIC wedges were made for BASIC 2.0 machines to level them up.

 

I would surely hope the 3+1 application suite would not sully the Plus 4 any more than a late-to-the-game CP/M mode on the 128 would sully it.  IMNSHO, not at all.

 

17 minutes ago, brain said:

Jack felt there was a market below the C64 that the ZX catered to and he wanted.  The C64 could not be made cheap enough, so he tasked the engineering team to build a ZX "killer".

Jack was as brilliant as he was ruthless.  At least he did not try to revive the VIC-20 to compete with the ZX.

 

 

I am going to derail my own thread a bit here and question the C64 Wiki's C116 entry:

Quote

The C116 uses an advanced version of Commodore BASIC (v3.5), meaning the three 264-series models were not software or hardware compatible with the earlier C64.

WTF does BASIC 3.5 have to do with hardware compatibility?  Batteries Included's BI-80 for the C64 included BASIC 4.0, and other cartridge port-based enhancements brought higher-level BASIC to the C64, all without the cost of hardware compatibility.

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13 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

Nah, I think it is perfectly fine to discuss the applications, even in stages of "they sucked" followed by "why did they suck?"

Hehe, I guess my perspective is that the focus is in the wrong place.  The apps sucked because there was no way they could not suck.  Stuffing 4 complete apps into a 32kB ROM in 1983 or so had little chance of success.  It's akin to people complaining about the Atari ET programmer.  Given the constraints and the effort, I actually believe that programmer (others I am sure know the name, I'm not as up on my Atari lore) should be congratulated for even attempting and managing to make a reasonably playable game in the timeframe allotted and with the machine capabilities he had.

13 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

On the merits of the Plus 4, at the very least, the applications notwithstanding, is a really neat machine.  The TED's color pallette is envy-invoking compared to the VIC-II with more functionality but only 16 colors.  Plus, BASIC 3.5 on a home computer versus the more simplistic BASIC 2.0 is another great feature, though a plethora of BASIC wedges were made for BASIC 2.0 machines to level them up.

The 121 shades was a nice addition, and was essentially the continued refinement of the VIC platform, coming from the VIC-I to the prototype 40 column VIC-I ICs, to the VIC-II and then the TED.  Lack of sprites and returning the non SID sound from the VIC-I design was driven almost exclusively by the original platform mandate of low cost and low parts count. 

13 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

 

I would surely hope the 3+1 application suite would not sully the Plus 4 any more than a late-to-the-game CP/M mode on the 128 would sully it.  IMNSHO, not at all.

I get the point, but CP/M on the 128 is a great story that falls squarely in the engineering space.  I will admit that both of these issues stemmed from incompetent Marketing, but at least the C128 CP/M story is less arbitrary and created real value on the platform (not the CP/M part, but the ability to provide more compatibility with the 64 via the Z80, ironically.

13 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

 

Jack was as brilliant as he was ruthless.  At least he did not try to revive the VIC-20 to compete with the ZX.

I appreciate him more as I get older.

13 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

 

I am going to derail my own thread a bit here and question the C64 Wiki's C116 entry:

WTF does BASIC 3.5 have to do with hardware compatibility?  Batteries Included's BI-80 for the C64 included BASIC 4.0, and other cartridge port-based enhancements brought higher-level BASIC to the C64, all without the cost of hardware compatibility.

Interestingly, B3.5 would have been easy to bring to the 64, by using a small daughtercard (CBM made them all the time) with a loose wire to grab the $8000 ROM select line and a 24kB ROM.  Not saying they should have, but all of the pieces in the architecture are there to make a B3.5 for the 64 that's an internal upgrade (and even offer a Basic 2.0 fallback for compatibility.

 

Jim

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54 minutes ago, brain said:

Stuffing 4 complete apps into a 32kB ROM in 1983 or so had little chance of success.  It's akin to people complaining about the Atari ET programmer.  Given the constraints and the effort, I actually believe that programmer (others I am sure know the name, I'm not as up on my Atari lore) should be congratulated for even attempting and managing to make a reasonably playable game in the timeframe allotted and with the machine capabilities he had.

As I understand it, the Pac-Man programmer faced the same problems.  Atari wanted a two-player game in, IIRC, a 4K ROM which caused the programmer some consternation.  I guess everyone loved Atari's Pac-Man, but I was seriously disappointed and much happier when Ms. Pac-Man was released.

 

56 minutes ago, brain said:

I will admit that both of these issues stemmed from incompetent Marketing, but at least the C128 CP/M story is less arbitrary and created real value on the platform (not the CP/M part, but the ability to provide more compatibility with the 64 via the Z80, ironically.

I always saw this as a victory over the defeat staged by the marketers.  Also kind-of set a bad precedence, that engineers can over-come marketing bullshit.  Oh, man, my systems analysis course in college was a huuuuuge eye-opener.

 

1 hour ago, brain said:

I appreciate him more as I get older.

Same.

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We need to get timelines into account whether the TED project as a "ZX killer" was relevant or not. The ZX Spectrum launched in the UK in April 1982. The C64 launched in the US in August 1982. We know that TED developer boards were quality checked in August 1983, meaning the development of the TED and CPU must have happened in the year between the summer of 1982 and 1983. I haven't found an exact date to when development begun, but then again it probably took a little while for the Spectrum to take off by storm, in order for Jack to notice it and compare with sales of the VIC-20 and C64 over in UK and mainland Europe.

 

Since the developer boards were sent out in the fall of 1983, at earliest the C116 could've been ready with some set of software for Christmas 1983, if it was a speedy launch. By that time, the ZX Spectrum would have 1.5 years worth of customers, software, user groups, magazines. Also the C116 isn't particularly backwards compatible with anything else in the Commodore world, so it wasn't a matter for e.g. VIC-20 owners to upgrade and be able to run even a small part of the software.

 

The price war in the summer of 1983 is another interesting factor. Exactly which were the key points of vertical integration for Jack to push the button and slash prices by 1/3 overnight still is not entirely clear to me, but it doesn't seem like something they had planned for already when the C64 launched one year earlier. Case in point: the Max Machine, a.k.a. Ultimax which was showcased simultaneously with the C64 etc, but due to delivery problems doesn't seem to have shown up in Japan until December 1982. It was intended for a worldwide launch, but at some point it must have seemed futile, in particular if the C64 was six months away from a major price reduction.

 

Also I don't think the UK needed a 49 USD computer, or even a 79 USD computer. The ZX Spectrum launched at £125 (220 USD) for 16K or £175 (300 USD) for 48K. Sure, it was half the price compared to the C64 at 599 USD in 1982 but if Commodore wanted, they probably could have made a 16K cut-down version of the C64, perhaps with rubber keyboard if they insisted, for 250 USD (*) for Christmas 1982. The Ultimax was listed at 200 USD per Wikipedia but it was heavily crippled. However I understand all the problems a cut-down C64 would have caused when it comes to stealing sales, and software developers not sure if they should go for the 16K or 64K model. I'm no expert on the ZX Spectrum but over time the 16K model anyway faded away just like most other 16K home computers did.

 

(*) Yes, that is about 12% more than the ZX Spectrum 16K, but anyone with their senses intact can agree that the C64 chipset is much more than 12% better.

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1 hour ago, carlsson said:

We need to get timelines into account whether the TED project as a "ZX killer" was relevant or not. The ZX Spectrum launched in the UK in April 1982. The C64 launched in the US in August 1982. We know that TED developer boards were quality checked in August 1983, meaning the development of the TED and CPU must have happened in the year between the summer of 1982 and 1983. I haven't found an exact date to when development begun, but then again it probably took a little while for the Spectrum to take off by storm, in order for Jack to notice it and compare with sales of the VIC-20 and C64 over in UK and mainland Europe.

I think Jack made his decision earlier, with ZX81.  The spectrum coming along after the decision was made and design was actually underway no doubt firmed up his resolve.

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

Since the developer boards were sent out in the fall of 1983, at earliest the C116 could've been ready with some set of software for Christmas 1983, if it was a speedy launch. By that time, the ZX Spectrum would have 1.5 years worth of customers, software, user groups, magazines. Also the C116 isn't particularly backwards compatible with anything else in the Commodore world, so it wasn't a matter for e.g. VIC-20 owners to upgrade and be able to run even a small part of the software.

I still think the timing works, and you are correct, compatibility wasn't even considered. (except that Basic 2.0 programs should continue to work if they were without pokes or peeks, like the PET->VIC and VIC-64 transition)

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

 

The price war in the summer of 1983 is another interesting factor. Exactly which were the key points of vertical integration for Jack to push the button and slash prices by 1/3 overnight still is not entirely clear to me, but it doesn't seem like something they had planned for already when the C64 launched one year earlier. Case in point: the Max Machine, a.k.a. Ultimax which was showcased simultaneously with the C64 etc, but due to delivery problems doesn't seem to have shown up in Japan until December 1982. It was intended for a worldwide launch, but at some point it must have seemed futile, in particular if the C64 was six months away from a major price reduction.

Dunno, it makes sense to me to have a mid-market 64 and a low end C116 in production at the same time.

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

 

Also I don't think the UK needed a 49 USD computer, or even a 79 USD computer. The ZX Spectrum launched at £125 (220 USD) for 16K or £175 (300 USD) for 48K. Sure, it was half the price compared to the C64 at 599 USD in 1982 but if Commodore wanted, they probably could have made a 16K cut-down version of the C64, perhaps with rubber keyboard if they insisted, for 250 USD (*) for Christmas 1982.

I think the non Commodore made pieces of the 64 created a lower bound for production costs.  case could be amortized via the mold, but KB was not cheap and could not be completely amortized. As well, the VIC/64/16 case costs more just due to size, and that also means bigger shipping box, and the beefier PSU, which also increase mass and size.  The 116 fits in a tiny box, uses a wall wart, and leverages much of the same tech as Commodore calculators (KB, small case, wall wart PSU). 

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

The Ultimax was listed at 200 USD per Wikipedia but it was heavily crippled. However I understand all the problems a cut-down C64 would have caused when it comes to stealing sales, and software developers not sure if they should go for the 16K or 64K model. I'm no expert on the ZX Spectrum but over time the 16K model anyway faded away just like most other 16K home computers did.

 

(*) Yes, that is about 12% more than the ZX Spectrum 16K, but anyone with their senses intact can agree that the C64 chipset is much more than 12% better.

It's also entirely possible that Jack was planning to axe the +4 line, for exactly the reasons you note above, but after he got ticked off, he hid the design decision, allowing Commodore to waste more money and time on a design he would have cut.

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Dave Haynie said the full sized keyboard was $10 more than the little rubber one.  So not a huge difference, but the machine would still cost more to make than the speccy I'd guess.

The Cambridge Z88 had memory card slots.  You could plug in more RAM, or applications on carts.
That might have been a more viable approach to built in software.  Then you could buy it with or without software, and you could change what was available on powerup.

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My understanding was that Tri Micro spent several months getting Trilogy to fit in 64K of ROM and then, with about a month left, had to modify the design to involve a 32K ROM with the remaining code left for a disk release. Halving the size of a program at the last minute seldom results in good software. The change also meant that the Plus/4 couldn't work with larger datafiles since the file still needed to be fit in memory after all the disk extensions are loaded. Instead of selling drives with the Plus/4, Commodore got returns. 

 

Trilogy wasn't the worst cassette based office package out there but the partial ROM for the Plus/4 did the system no favors. 

 

 

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The ZX-81 was launched in March 1981, perhaps a few months before the VIC-20 was available to buy in the US. The '81 of course was preceded by the '80 and a few unlicensed clones including one from California, IIRC. If Jack already by end of that year saw that Sinclair sold more ZX-81 in the UK and Europe than he sold VIC-20, surely he would come up with a solution to that problem which would be place sooner than within another two years from then? Also the fact that people over here had (and perhaps still have) weaker finances and other priorities should not have come as a surprise. Sure, Commodore for the "first" four years (1977-81) had only sold business computers in Europe where the price was less of an importance.

 

But regardless, there were so many aspects both technically, content wise, packaging wise and timing wise, where the TED -> Plus/4 series went wrong. Had Commodore managed to improve the VIC-I chip with a 40 column mode while it still maintained VIC-20 compatibility, it would have been a given upgrade choice without stealing any sales from the C64 platform.

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  • 3 months later...

I think one of the bad parts is that the built-in apps could only save/load from disk.  If the goal is to make your computer cheap and easy for a person to use the built in word processor, but won't let them use the cheap and easy Datasette, nearly anything disk based (if it existed at all) would always be better than that built in software in the first place.  Even SpeedScript (which I loved and used a lot on the 64) was a better word processor than what came with the 3-Plus-1, and it could work tape.

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The odd thing about the Plus/4 was that there wasn't a prototype Plus/4 portable to compete with the Tandy Model 100. One doesn't need a stellar office package for the super lightweight market. Commodore would have had to spend the extra couple of dollars to fit the entire Plus/4 software in ROM. 

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16 minutes ago, Krebizfan said:

The odd thing about the Plus/4 was that there wasn't a prototype Plus/4 portable to compete with the Tandy Model 100. One doesn't need a stellar office package for the super lightweight market. Commodore would have had to spend the extra couple of dollars to fit the entire Plus/4 software in ROM. 

Being that the Tandy Model 100 was OEMed by Kyocera, which also OEMed for a few other similar models, Commodore could have worked a deal to make their own.  Not sure that was the market Commodore wanted, though.

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On 3/9/2023 at 1:36 PM, Casey said:

I think one of the bad parts is that the built-in apps could only save/load from disk.  If the goal is to make your computer cheap and easy for a person to use the built in word processor, but won't let them use the cheap and easy Datasette, nearly anything disk based (if it existed at all) would always be better than that built in software in the first place.  Even SpeedScript (which I loved and used a lot on the 64) was a better word processor than what came with the 3-Plus-1, and it could work tape.

 

Since the machine was supposed to be a "business" machine, disk restrictions make perfect sense to me.

 

Jim

 

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57 minutes ago, Krebizfan said:

The odd thing about the Plus/4 was that there wasn't a prototype Plus/4 portable to compete with the Tandy Model 100. One doesn't need a stellar office package for the super lightweight market. Commodore would have had to spend the extra couple of dollars to fit the entire Plus/4 software in ROM. 

The Commodore LCD.  It had little in common with the +4, different code, different CPU, different GFX, but it did leverage the +4 styling cues and the arrow cursor pad.  Cute machine, and the apocryphal story is that CBM and Tandy were at a show where CBM told Tandy about the design, Tandy chided that such a thing would never sell.  CBM went back and cancelled, Tandy went back and found a source for this great idea and made a pretty penny on sales.  Probably not true, but cute story.

 

Jim

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20 minutes ago, brain said:

But, I don't blame the app makers.  We made fun of the 3+1 apps in the day (no one seriously used them, so I think they were just Marketing), but when CBM dangles money in front of you to make some sub-par apps that fit in small ROMs, you take the money, #ifdef some of the cooler features of your apps, and build and ship.

I have thought many times of a CBM machine with built-in GEOS.  A C128 (or 128D) with a GEOS 128 ROM would probably be what we could have expected.  Or should have expected.

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On 3/10/2023 at 9:58 PM, brain said:

The Commodore LCD.  It had little in common with the +4, different code, different CPU

Doesn't both use 6502 derivative processors? But yeah, based on what I've read, the Commodore LCD might've become a success that Commodore gave up for one reason or another, if it was for lack of belief in the product or short cash flow, I'm not sure.

 

As for another SX-64 style machine, a Plus/4 with built-in 5" monitor and a disk drive probably would have been an even worse idea than using the C64 for the purpose, given how small the third party market was. Perhaps if the CBM-II line would have been better backwards compatible with the PET, a luggable version of the B256/CBM 720 could have made sense, in particular if it was possible to equip with a 8088 co-pro card. That is one type of a computer I never before thought was possible, but now that I think of it, a model with built-in 7-9" B&W monitor that would run both PET and newer, advanced CBM-II software, and optionally could boot MS-DOS, might have been closer to the business market's demands than what even a C64 could offer. On the other hand, the CBM-II was more or less dead by the time of the SX-64.

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