Commodore C16

Like the C116 and Plus4 this was an odd offer from Commodore, with its 16 kb of memory, no hardware sprites and a weak soundchip. It reused the good old bread-box / bullnose case from the VIC20/C64 and was colored black like the whole 264 series. The whole 264 series had a benefit though with 121 unique colors available and the expanded basic language that the C64 so sorely lacked.

Nothing much to say about this computer except that I find it strange that Commodore managed to squeeze out 3 different versions of the 264 series, only the Plus4 having an ounce of space in the market. With the C64 and its 64 kb of ram, sprites and SID music, there was really no place for a computer like this among the masses.

About C16 on Old-Computers.com

My Collection

My C16 was bought on ebay in germany and although it was clear that it had been used in a smokefilled room the whole package is very clean and one of my better pieces in the collection. One thing I did note however was the terrible noise of the PSU - chances are this was a problem on all these and the C116 which both uses the same PSU. The pictures also show the difference between the signal you get from the RF cable compared to the video out (connected to the tv svhs input). Note that LCD monitors are very good (too good really) at showing the exact signal so you will also clearly see the lines in the border that is actually the modulation of two colors to simulate one. This would naturally become one solid color on a typical CRT screen of the time (and it is solid if you look at the RF signal image).

Serial Number: DA4 216086