Commodore 16
Update 30/06/08
After seeing that the Mastertronic vidoes have been watched I've now added videos to the gremlin page as well
This site is about my first and all time favourite 8 Bit computer the Commodore 16. It was the machine that started a very long love of computer games but remains my favourite machine of the ones I have owned.
The
humble Commodore 16 was one of the most under rated 8 Bit computers of its time
according to the press but for those who actually owned one it was a completely
different story to them. On its release software was very sparse you got a
couple of games bundled with it, One being Hunchi which was a version of
Hunchback released on the C64 it was an enjoyable little game to play mind, the
other being a chess game if I remember right and not being into chess never
really loaded it up much. Also bundled with it was a Manuel that had quite a few
types in for you to do that showed the basic’s of what the humble 16k machine
could do. On its release one software house that had produced a few titles for
its release was Tynesoft. Four games that I remember from them was “Shoot It”
which is a version of Space Invaders, “Munch It” was a Pac Man clone,
“Hoppit” which was a frogger type game
and “Climb It” which was Donkey Kong. The graphic’s where chunky but colorful
and sound kept to the minimum but they were quite playable. The one downside was
they took an age to load so patience was a must at this early stage. But at
least you could now play these classic titles on your humble Commodore 16.
Shoot It
Climb It
Hoppit
Munch It
C16
Specifications
Size:
404 x 216 x 75mm
Weight:
1.5kg
CPU:
MOS Technology 7501
Clock Speed:
0.89-1.76MHz
Memory:
A total of 16Kbytes RAM with 12Kbytes available for user programs and 32Kbytes
of ROM includes OS and BASIC interpreter
Video Display:
Text 25 rows with 40 character positions. Graphics 320x160 pixels, 15 colours x
8 brightness levels, plus black = 121 shades
Interfaces:
Joystick port 8pin (2), memory expansion port, TV connector, video interface,
serial interface, Cassette port 8pin
Operating System/s:
Commodore BASIC V3.5 - in ROM
Input devices:
QWERTY keyboard with 66 typewriter-style keys, including 7 programmable function
keys and a help key
