Commodore 64GS

The Commodore 64 Game System was an idea that they had around for a very long time but was unfortunately realised as a product a bit too late. Commodore had long strived to beat the game console competition and partially did so with their VIC20 and C64 since they were in essence "games consoles that could do more". Its rather interesting that it took Commodore so long to acknowledge that a pure game console could have been a big hit if it had been released alongside the C64. Unfortunately the C64GS was released as late as in 1990 and was basically a pure C64 without a keyboard and leaving out some ports, but most importantly it had a cartridge slot on the top to mimic other game consoles on the market. The introduction promised 100 cartridge releases, although that didnt quite happen (although Ocean had a few re-releases on cartridge).

The C64GS is very rare since it was only released in Europe (mainly UK) and only around 80000 units were made in which only 25% were actually sold. The rest were taken back and recycled to build normal C64c computers which had identical moterboards.

Collection

I came across the C64GS by coincidence while browing at an online UK retro shop and was quite surprised to see it boxed and with almost all things that came with it. I bought it immediately and got the original joystick as well as the 4 in 1 cartridge that was bundled with it (and was later sold separately when the 64GS was pulled from the market). To my big surprise the serial number on the machine I got was 390!!! So this is clearly one of the gems in the collection although the box is very tatty and the 64GS has some scratches on it too.

Serial Number: DA5 000390
Motherboard: PCB NO.252311 REV.B