Commodore 65 - Definition and Overview

The Commodore 65 (also known as the C64DX) was a prototype computer created by Fred Bowen and others at Commodore Business Machines in 1990-1991. The project was cancelled by CEO Irving Gould.

The C65 was an improved version of the Commodore 64, and it was meant to be backwards-compatible with the older computer, while still providing a number of advanced features close to that of the Amiga computer. When the company was liquidated in 1994, a number of prototypes were sold on the open market, and thus a few people actually own a Commodore 65. The guesses of the actual number of machines found on the open market range from 50 to 2000 pieces. As the C65 project were cancelled, the final 8-bit offering from CBM remained the triple-mode, 2MHz max., 128KB (expandable), C64-compatible Commodore 128 of 1985.

Main features

• A custom CSG¹65CE02 CPU combined with two 6526 complex interface adapters (CIAs) named CSG¹4510 R3 (codenamed Victor)
• A new VIC-III graphics chip named CSG¹4567 R5 (codenamed Bill), capable of producing 256 colors from a palette of 4096 colors; available modes include 320×200×256,  640×200×256,  640×400×16,  1280×200×16, and 1280×400×4  (X×Y×colordepth i.e. number of colors/bit planes)
• Two SID sound chips producing stereo sound
• 3.54  MHz clock frequency
•   128 KB RAM, expandable to 8 MB
• Heavily improved BASIC: Commodore BASIC 10.0
• One proposed feature not implemented in the final prototype was an internal 3½" floppy disk drive

( ¹ CSG = Commodore Semiconductor Group, Previously known as MOS Technology, Inc. )

External links

• C65 page at 'The Secret Weapons of Commodore' website (http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/65.html) – By Cameron Kaiser and The Commodore Knowledge Base
• FTP directory for the C65 at Funet (ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/cbm/c65)