Four decades ago at CES 1985, the Commodore 128 debuted. It sold just a few million units compared to 17 million for the Commodore 64 — the era of 8-bit PCs was ending.
Thanks to the Intel 8086 processor, which appeared back in 1978, the 16-bit market had enough time to develop. For a while, architectures coexisted — the original 8-bit Commodore 64 was released in 1981. But by the time the C128 was released, it no longer stood a chance. It was merely an enhanced C64 with double the RAM (128 KB versus 64 KB) and a processor that could operate at 2 MHz instead of 1 MHz.
Support for the C128 in the form of new software or patches to utilize its higher speed and increased RAM was insignificant compared to the C64D, and it was quickly forgotten. However, games enhanced for the Commodore 128 received improved graphics and new features, including music for the classic RPG Ultima V.
The Commodore 128 had two graphic processors for use with two monitors — an extremely rare feature at that time. Although the chips were quite limited in supporting resolution and color output, such a feature was impressive in the 1980s.
Interestingly, the Commodore 64 is still used as cash registers in one of the American bakeries. Perhaps it could be called a PCakery. Moreover, it even has artificial intelligence running on it.
Source: Tom’s Hardware
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