So, why did the C128 fail ?

[Blacklord]

Interestingly, in it's first year of production the 128 sold close on one million units (600,000 alone in the USA).

I doubt any other machine ever managed this!

So why did Commodore drop the ball so badly with this machine ?

Too many eggs in the one basket (ie Amiga & the C64 still in production).

With this amount of units out in the market-place it should have had a better impact than what it did IMHO.

Lance

[Stephane Richard]

I agree, it should have with those kind of numbers, especially back in 1985.  My guess is the amiga was better in features which stole the 128's success streak.  it's really all I can think about. too much Amiga publicity on the amiga helped the failure too.

[Golan Klinger]

Why did Commodore make any of the mistakes they made? Short-term thinking. Corporate greed is good but it has to be tempered with strategic, long-term thinking and that is something that was sorely missing at Commodore.

[xlar54]

I agree with Golan.  Some other reasons I believe:

* - Compatibility with the 64.  Nice feature, but few cared to write for the 128 mode

* - CPM was on its way out already

* - Apple was in schools, IBM was at work.  Commodore was trying to get into the home, but ultimately people would use more of what they work with the most.  I think this is also what killed the Amiga.

[smf]

So why did Commodore drop the ball so badly with this machine ?

The 128 was too expensive. After jack left commodore didn't know what to do anymore.

If jack had stayed then the 128 would have been cheaper, the z80 & 80 column would have not existed.

The real mistake that commodore made was allowing the c64 and a500 to be so successful because they didn't manage to replace them. This left them very vunerable.

[WonderSlug]

There are any number of a possible number of reasons why the C128 didn't sell anywhere near as well as the C64.  I owned all 3 major Commodore computers:  VIC-20, C64, C128.  I still have them, although I don't really "fire them up" anymore, since I've since transferred all my software to .D64 and .D71 files to be run on WinVICE instead.

The years of 1980 to 1988 were the glory years for Commodore.

First, the C64 pretty much owned the 8-bit realm, and millions upon millions of the computers were sold.  When the C128 came out, the target user already had a C64, so the C64 mode wasn't good enough a selling point since they could just use their current C64 for that.

Add in the major disappointment from the previous "new" Commodore, the Plus-4, which left a bad taste in many Commmodore users' mouths.  The Plus-4 was notorious for being incompatible with C64 software, and while having 4 built-in apps, had some other major shortcomings besides the C64 incompatibility.  So, the C128 when announced, was afflicted with the Commodore user skepticism and hesitancy brought on by the Plus-4's lack of usefulness in a C64 user base looking to upgrade.

Second, the lack of software for the native C128 mode, both 40 and 80 column, compared to what was available for the C64.  Even a year after the C128 came out, there were only a few dozen commercial titles that took advantage of the C128's extra features.  Compare that to the hundreds for the C64 a year after it came out and the thousands or so just three years after it came out.  The majority of the C128 software was user-written and not easily available from a central source or even a publisher like Activision, but passed around in user groups and such.  That made it more difficult to obtain for people that were too far away from a Commodore user group, or couldn't afford to drive on a regular basis to one.

Third, the CP/M feature was great when first announced, but the fact that the CP/M disks were too late in arriving (at least for me when I bought my C128), and people often waited months after their C128 purchase to receive their copies of the CP/M operating system from Commodore, made it an afterthought in the great majority of the initial buyers.  That was a shame since the lack of C128 software could have been mitigated for the first year by people using the thousands of "free" CP/M programs available.  However, once again, even if they were inclined to use CP/M they had to search for the software.  Commodore should have put up a central site where people could send away for CP/M software.  Like pay $5 per CP/M disk full of software to be sent to you.  That would have added greatly to the appeal.

Instead, CP/M began to languish in the face of the growing MS-DOS base of software on the IBM PC.  The C-128 could have given CP/M longer life, at least another 5 to 7 years, until Windows 3.1 came out.

The 80-column mode was great for potential business customers, instead of the typical home hobbyist that was the target of previous 8-bit systems. The C-128, with the built-in 80 column mode, could have been a really good "cheap" word processing setup if packaged with a decent word processing program and printer.

C128 + Perfect Write 128 + 1902 Monitor (for 80column mode) + 1571 disk drive + Printer for, say, $900, when people were shelling out quite a bit more than that (sometimes twice as much) for WordPerfect and an IBM PC clone.  Or even package GEOS 128 with it instead of Perfect Write, since GEOS came with a word processor.  This would allow it to compete some with the Apple Macintosh as well.

However, Commodore didn't do this, and the cost of a C-128 plus printer, plus word processing program by 1988 didn't hold much of a price advantage over an IBM PC clone with printer and shareware word processing program.  Even the Macintosh at that point was more desirable as a word processing system.

Instead, Commodore chose the Amiga 500, 1000, and 2000 to compete with the PC and Mac.  That left the C128 to be marketed to the same base as always, who were already satisfied with the C64 and didn't see much added value in the C128.

Thus, the C128 only had 5% the sales that the C64 had.

[airship]

GEOS in ROM would have been an interesting addition, and would have made the C128 visually competitive with the Mac.

As it has been pointed out before, an 8088 instead of a Z80 would have made MS/DOS the third mode instead of CP/M.

And if Atari had succeeded in buying the Amiga instead of Commodore, the C128 and its progeny would have dominated the low-end market for years, especially with the C65 in the wings. CBM's path to 16-bit goodness would almost certainly have been the 65816. and they would have pressed for the development of faster and faster versions to keep up with the competition. Who knows? We might even be using 3GHz quad-core 65864-based Commodore computers to this day.

[hydrophilic]

:lol: 3GHz quad-core 65864-based Commodore :lol:

Because the VDC sucked and their were no real improvements to the VIC or CPU.  If the VDC had raster interrupts and sprites or the CPU ran at 4MHz then it would've been different.

[airship]

CBM management saw the VDC as a text-only chip. They were wrong. Even 80-column BASIC commands would have been an improvement. Sprites would have driven 2MHz game development for sure. And the VIC definitely needed a TED-like expanded color palette.

[wte]

CBM management saw the VDC as a text-only chip. They were wrong.

The VDC was a "remnant" from an other developement. Graphic is not its strength (unfortunately).

And the VIC definitely needed a TED-like expanded color palette.

Yes, that's a pity! There should have been the possibility to use an extended mode 8 for bit colors.

WTE

[Stephane Richard]

Indeed, that would have really been something. I can already imagine the possibilities :-).

[StyleCHM]

Graphic is not its strength (unfortunately).

I dunno about that actually - I have you seen the 'VDC FLI' mode in Risen from Oblivion?

but yes, the VDC sucks due to lack of sprites and interrupt capability.

I think the Commodore 128 'failed' (if you can call it that) because it was a machine in no-man's land. It had 64 compatibility, but the other modes just weren't powerful enough to distinguish it in the market place.

Damn cool machine from a techie point of view, but for the end user it was lacking.

A more powerful VDC, VIC-II improvements (while retaining 64 compatibility), and yes, an 8086 or similar instead of a z80 would have probably made a difference. Also, the 40 column 128 mode needed something extra to distinguish it from the 64 mode.

That said, I love my 128

[Blacklord]

That said, I love my 128

True, my C64's will probably all end up with bit-rot from non use, but the C128's will have to be pried from my cold dead hands

Lance

[xlar54]

So would the C65 have been a more viable replacement instead of the 128 in the marketplace?  Pending the C64 compatibility bugs were fixed... I actually think a 16 bit machine that could emulate a 64 - not actually have a 64 mode - would have been a better choice. But moving away from built in-OS's seemed to be the general direction.  Amiga was a nice jump, but in some ways the Amiga didnt stand a chance either because it WAS too far removed from the 64, and not close enough to the business machines (MS-DOS).

[WonderSlug]

Another thing about the C128 is that one of it's greatest strengths, the Enhanced Basic 7.0 language built into the machine, with the dozens (or even hundreds) of extra commands to do nearly everything one could hope for, ended up little used by C128 owners.

It was probably the best and most powerful version of BASIC out there, in the mid-1980s, and yet, very few knew much about it.

Of all the C128 programs out there, how many of them used this new BASIC language?  Not as many as they should.

[StyleCHM]

Thats probably because BASIC sucks, in all forms.

[xlar54]

Actually, I think it was because by the time BASIC 7 rolled around, people who did serious game programming were already doing ML. Once you know ML, theres not a real point to using BASIC, other than quick apps. The 64 forced people to learn ML in order to do anything with graphics. Added on top of that, the 80 column screen pretty much required ML development to do anything graphics related.  To many, Id say the 128 was a place to do faster ML (2 Mhz), with more storage space. BASIC 7 just wasnt needed anymore.  Dont get me wrong - 7 was a step in the right direction with the evolution of BASIC on Commodore machines, but it's timing was all wrong.

[RobertB]

Dont get me wrong - 7 was a step in the right direction with the evolution of BASIC on Commodore machines, but it's timing was all wrong.

I've never investigated it, but what are the differences between Basic 7.0 in the C128 and Basic 10.0 in the C65?

Happy New Year!
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/

[smf]

So would the C65 have been a more viable replacement instead of the 128 in the marketplace?  Pending the C64 compatibility bugs were fixed...

In 85 something along the lines of the c65 would have been a hit. Although it would probably have been too expensive then.

Personally I'd have taken the c64. Made the VIC support 80 columns and more colours and sprites & add some more voices to the SID chip.

The number of sprites and voices was limited by development time of getting the multiplexing working in hardware, so they copy & pasted as many as would fit.

I'd have more ram and have some way of banking it. The ROM would be extended but because of address limitations you'd have to bank the extra bits in. All of the kernal calls would be the same though, so only things that called directly in would be a problem.

I wouldn't bother with a GO64 mode. Any software that didn't work would end up forgotten or patched.

I would have probably added dma for the serial ports.

[airship]

BASIC? I use it, but it's a love/hate relationship. I much preferred COMAL. It's structured, it catches your errors, it's extensible with user libraries, and it compiles to p-code at runtime.

BTW, I'm still looking for a COMAL-80 cartridge with a SuperChip if anyone's got one to sell.

[wte]

Another thing about the C128 is that one of it's greatest strengths, the Enhanced Basic 7.0 language built into the machine, with the dozens (or even hundreds) of extra commands to do nearly everything one could hope for, ended up little used by C128 owners.

It was probably the best and most powerful version of BASIC out there, in the mid-1980s, and yet, very few knew much about it.

Of all the C128 programs out there, how many of them used this new BASIC language?  Not as many as they should.

I did!
I was used to make all of my software by myself (because I had a CBM 4008 as fist computer and didn't know anybody who had the same machine and also had no idea how to get software).

Compiled BASIC 7.0 is quick enough for text editors, databases and some games also handling the 128k RAM is easy.
ML with the c128 is a little bit tricky as you have to manage bank switching by yourself and cross developement was not known 20 years ago.:förvånad:

WTE

[DigitalQuirk]

Did it fail?  What other 8 bits were released at the time?  If you ask me, I see the Commodore 128 as the "Last man standing" of the 8 bit era.

I mean, how could anyone possibly consider comparing it to the Commodore 64?  When the C64 was born, there were at least dozens of competitors in the 8 bit market.  Every company and his brother had an 8 bit computer to peddle.  By the time the Commodore 128 came out, all those other companies were crushed.  16 bit computers were the next big thing.  And yet, under all this pressure, the Commodore 128 still managed to sell in the millions!

I honestly don't see how it could have done any better than it did.  It had CP/M after the world had moved on to MS DOS.  It offered a 64 mode which offered no genuine advantage over a real 64.  It had a 128 mode which was only compatible with itself.  It was a remarkable computer, no doubt.  However, it was a computer that was built out of hindsight!

It did well because it was one of the few Commodore offerings that actually delivered what Commodore's customers were demanding.  Problem is, they were demanding such capabilities over a year before it was released.  Had Commodore actually listened to its customers, rather than screw around with the Plus/4 and C16, we probably would have had a C128 a full year sooner.

[airship]

I've always heard '2 million' as the top end for C128 sales. What's the highest serial number you've seen?

[airship]

I've always heard '2 million' as the top end for C128 sales. What's the highest serial number you've seen?

[airship]

I've always heard '2 million' as the top end for C128 sales. What's the highest serial number you've seen?