The Commodore Plus/4, 3-Plus-1 and computer literacy

BASIC on the Plus/4 is actually much better than Commodore BASIC v2.0 on the C64. It has commands for drawing shapes! It has TEDMon for writing machine language/primitive assembly programs!

>While Jack intended the Commodore 16 to replace the VIC-20, and it was much better with its more RAM, higher resolution, larger palette, and more speed, he intended the Plus/4 to be used by small businesses. Unfortunately, the ROM apps were too primitive for business use.

Even had the 3+1 suite been any good, it would not have changed the fact that the Plus/4 is not compatible with the C64's massive library. Tramiel, as ruthlessly brilliant in business as he was, never moved beyond his mindset as a Toronto office furniture/typewriter maker of only being interested in tangible things. In 20 years in the computer business, Tramiel never understood the importance of software. Think about that.

>Of course what Commodore should have done is release a "C64 Plus" as a backward compatible system, like Acorn, Apple, and Atari did with their series, with enhancements such as more banks of RAM, faster CPU, dual SIDs, and an enhanced VIC-II with new modes offering 80 columns and a larger palette, and a better BASIC. They could have added these features without breaking much existing software.

Indeed. As each new Apple II model is compatible with the older one without having to boot into a compatibility mode, this encouraged software developers to gradually support newer models' features. An architecture that began with 4K RAM, cassette storage, 40-column text, and 280x192 8-color graphics in 1977 by 1984 supported 128K, floppies, 80-column text, and 560x192 16-color graphics as the norm.

>Instead they offered the C128 with a C64 mode which resulted in little software being written for the C128 mode.

Correct. If the Apple IIe and IIc required booting into a "II+ mode" to run older software, developers would have continued to focus on the much larger II/II+ installed base. While 80 columns had by 1983 become reasonably commonplace in terms of software support (albeit via a variety of incompatible methods), at least for non-games software, double hi-res would probably never have seen meaningful support.

Of course, Apple then with the IIgs proceeded to make the same mistake as Commodore with the 128, and obtained the same outcome in terms of sales and market acceptance. I believe that this is the result of technology advancing too quickly. By the mid-1980s VLSI had reached the point where it was possible to engineer the entire C64, or Apple II (IWM), on a single chip. This made using a single chip a temptingly easy way to provide 100% backwards compatibility, as opposed to the much harder task of extending the BIOS/KERNAL/BASIC/etc. to support new features while maintaining compatibility with, say, 90% of existing software. While Commodore never had much software talent, Apple has always been as strong in software as in hardware so it has no excuse in retrospect.

That was standard behaviour for most Microsoft-derived BASIC implementations, since it ensured the end of program text was always marked.

On the C64, I entered 6502 opcodes directly using the FastLoad monitor, which lacked an assembler like most other monitor programs including the +4's. To this day I can still do things like a9 00 8d 20 d0 60 from memory (lda #0 sta $d020 rts). When we got a KIM-1 from our high school math teacher, we already knew how to program it.

I had a Vic-20... no one ever told me it did assembly, or perhaps was listed as an option and I didn't understand the term. Maybe I thought it meant with a screwdriver? haha

In retrospect, yes. Times were changing and compatibility was starting to become a thing. On the other hand, compatibility was less of a thing for prior models and it even proved to be detrimental in some cases. The article cited the C128 having little software that utilized it's features, the Apple IIgs was another example. Simply put, a lot of developers would only target machines with a wide user base. Even in the world of the Macintosh, a lot of software would target lower end machines unless they actually needed the capabilities of higher end machines and computers progressed a lot faster in the 16/32-bit eras.

Computers back then were a lot like the consoles of today in that respect. The thing that probably had the largest impact was the IBM compatible market. There was much more diversity to support and a near expectation to support both older and newer hardware.

While it was a non-starter from a commercial standpoint, I still credit having to figure out how to convert C64 programs so they could work on the Plus4 for teaching me debugging and coding skills that have served me well long after the Plus4 was long out of service.