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The Commodore C64 Games System (often abbreviated to C64GS) was the console version of the popular Commodore 64 home computer. It was released by Commodore in 1990 as a competitor in the booming console market. It was only ever released in Europe and was a considerable commercial failure. Image File history File links C64gs. ...
Image File history File links C64gs. ...
The Commodore 64 (C64, CBM 64) was a popular home computer of the 1980s. ...
Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore International, a West Chester, Pennsylvania based electronics company who was a major player in the 1980s home computer field. ...
1990 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Console may be: An organ term for the area of an organ including the keys, stops, and foot pedals manipulated by the organist. ...
Bundled software The C64GS, during its short shelf life, came bundled with a cartridge with four games: Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O'Fun, International Soccer, Flimbo's Quest and Klax. Flimbos Quest is a 2D platform game published by British publishing house System 3 (later renamed to Studio 3 Interactive) for the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST and Amstrad CPC. A ZX Spectrum version was produced but never released. ...
Klax is a 1989 arcade game by Atari Games, which was inspired at least somewhat by the very similar game called Columns. ...
Third-party support Support from games companies was limited, as many were unconvinced that the C64GS would be a success in the console market. Ocean Software were the most supportive, offering a wide range of titles, some C64GS cartridge-based only, offering features in games that would have been impossible on cassette-based games, others were straight ports of C64 games. Domark and System 3 also released a number of titles for the system, and conversions of some Codemasters and Microprose games also appeared. The familiar Ocean logotype had an often prominent placement on the box art and is recognized by many people. ...
Domark was a games software house based in Britain. ...
A System 3 punch card. ...
Problems The C64GS was plagued with problems from the outset. The first was that, despite the wealth of software already available on cartridge for C64, the lack of a keyboard meant that most could not be used with the console. This meant that people often bought secondhand C64 software on cartridge only to find that the games were not compatible. Incredibly, the C64 version of Terminator 2: Judgment Day was designed for the console, but was included on a cartridge that required the user to press a key to access the game, rendering it unplayable. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (commonly abbreviated T2) is a 1991 movie directed by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, and Robert Patrick. ...
To partially counter the lack of a keyboard, the basic control system for the C64GS was a joystick supplied by Cheetah called the Annihilator. This joystick, while using the standard C64 9-pin plug, offered two independent buttons, with the second button located on the base of the joystick. This 9-pin plug was standard of many systems of the era, and the joysticks were fundamentally compatible with the ZX Spectrum's Kempston Interface and the Sega Master System. However, while the Sega Master System joypads also offered two-button control, the routines that handled the second button were different and the joypad could not be used with the C64GS as a replacement. The Cheetah Annihilator joystick was poorly built and had a short life, and was not widely available, making replacements difficult to come by. The Sinclair ZX Spectrum was a small home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research. ...
The Kempston Interface plugged into a Spectrum Plus The Kempston Interface was the generic name for any interface on Sinclairs ZX Spectrum series of computers that allowed joysticks complying with the de facto Atari 2600 standard to be used with the machine. ...
Sega Master System The Sega Master System (SMS for short) (Japanese: マスターシステム), is an 8-bit cartridge-based gaming console manufactured by Sega. ...
Software produced for the C64GS The software bundled with the C64GS, a four-game cartridge containing Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O'Fun, International Soccer, Flimbo's Quest and Klax, was obviously the most well-known on the system. These games, with the exception of International Soccer, were previously ordinary tape-based games, but their structure and control systems (no keyboard needed) made them well-suited to the new console. International Soccer was previously released in 1983 on cartridge for the original C64 computer, but required no keyboard control. Flimbos Quest is a 2D platform game published by British publishing house System 3 (later renamed to Studio 3 Interactive) for the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST and Amstrad CPC. A ZX Spectrum version was produced but never released. ...
Klax is a 1989 arcade game by Atari Games, which was inspired at least somewhat by the very similar game called Columns. ...
Ocean produced a number of games for the C64GS, among them a remake of Double Dragon (which seemed to be more linked to the NES version than the original C64 cassette version), Navy SEALS, Robocop 2, Robocop 3, Chase HQ 2: Special Criminal Investigation, Pang, Battle Command, Toki and Shadow of the Beast. They also produced Batman The Movie for the console, but this was a direct conversion of the cassette game, evidenced by the screens inciting the player to "press PLAY" that briefly appeared between levels. Double Dragon (spelled in kanji as åŒæˆªé¾) is a classic beat em up series initially developed by Technos Japan Corporation, who also developed the Nekketsu Kouha: Kunio-Kun series. ...
Pang Pang Terrible or simply Pang Online is an MMOFPS made in Cel-shaded animation by South Korean People Soft. ...
Toki (土岐市; -shi) is a city located in the Gifu prefercture in Japan. ...
Screenshot of Shadow of the Beast I (Amiga) Shadow of the Beast is a side-scrolling platform computer game produced by Reflections Interactive and published by Psygnosis in 1989. ...
Batman has been adapted into a video game on several occasions. ...
System 3 also released Last Ninja Remix and Myth: History in the Making, although both were also available on cassette. Domark also offered two titles - Badlands and Cyberball, which were available on cartidge only. Cyberball. ...
Through publisher The Disc Company a number of Codemasters and Microprose titles were also reworked and released for the C64GS. Fun Play featured three Codemasters titles: Fast Food Dizzy, Professional Skateboard Simulator and Professional Tennis Simulator. Power Play featured three Microprose titles: Rick Dangerous, Stunt Car Racer and Microprose Soccer, although Rick Dangerous was produced by Core Design, not Microprose themselves. Stunt Car Racer and Microprose Soccer needed to be heavily modified to enable them to run on the C64GS. Codemasters (earlier known as Code Masters) is one of the oldest British software houses. ...
MicroProse Software, Inc. ...
A poster of Dizzy. ...
Rick Dangerous was the character in two platform games released by Core Design (the makers of Tomb Raider) in the 80s. ...
Geoff Crammond is a computer game designer who specialises in motor racing games. ...
Core Design is a video game developer best known for creating the popular Tomb Raider series. ...
Unusually, Commodore never produced or published a single title for the C64GS beyond the bundled four-game cartridge. International Soccer was the only widely-available game for the C64GS but had actually been written for the C64.
Reasons for failure There were many reasons attributed to the failure of the C64GS: - Poor software support. Most existing software on cartridge did not function well with the C64GS, and enthusiasm from publishers was low. Ocean Software, Codemasters, System 3, Microprose and Domark developed titles for the system, but probably only because the games were compatible with the original C64, providing the titles with a commercial safety net in case the C64GS failed.
- The C64 computer. The C64GS was essentially a cut-back version of the original Commodore 64, and the games developed for it could also be run on the original computer. The C64 was already at an affordable price, and the C64GS was sold for the same. People preferred to keep with the original C64.
- Obsolete technology. The C64 was introduced in 1982; by 1990 the technology was past its prime.
- An already saturated console market. The 8-bit C64GS entered the market in 1990 parallel to newer 16-bit consoles such as the Sega Mega Drive and the Super Nintendo. The Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Master System were already dominating the market and did so until around 1992.
Original Sega Mega Drive (PAL version) Sega Mega Drive (Japanese: メガドライブ Mega Doraibu) is a 16-bit video game console released by Sega in 1988. ...
The European SNES design is identical to the Super Famicom. ...
Internal hardware - Microprocessor CPU:
- Video hardware: MOS Technology VIC-II MOS 6569/8569 (PAL)
- 16 colors
- Text mode: 40×25; user-defined characters; smooth scrolling
- Bitmap modes: 320×200, 160×200 (multicolor)
- 8 hardware sprites, 24×21 pixels
- RAM:
- 64 KB (65,535 bytes).
- 0.5 KB Color RAM (1K nybbles)
- ROM:
- 20 KB , 7 KB KERNAL, 4 KB character generator providing two 2 KB character sets)
The MOS Technology 6510, also known as MOS Technology / Commodore Semiconductor Group (CSG) 8500, is a microprocessor designed by MOS Technology, and is a direct successor of the very successful 6502. ...
The MOS Technology 8500 is an HMOS-II variant of the MOS Technology 6510 CPU used in the Commodore 64 computer. ...
The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by MOS Technology in 1975. ...
For other meanings of PAL see PAL (disambiguation). ...
The VIC-II (Video Interface Chip II), specifically known as the MOS Technology 6567/8562/8564 (NTSC versions), 6569/8565/8566 (PAL), is the integrated circuit chip tasked with generating composite video graphics and DRAM refresh signals in the Commodore 64 and C128 home computers. ...
For other meanings of PAL see PAL (disambiguation). ...
MOS Technology SIDs: The right image shows a 6581 from MOS Technology, at the time they were known as the Commodore Semiconductor Group (CSG) and the left image shows an 8580 from MOS Technology. ...
A classic FM synthesizer, the Yamaha DX7. ...
Ring modulation is an audio effect performed by multiplying two audio signals, where one is typically a sine-wave or another simple waveform. ...
A high-pass filter passes high frequencies fairly well, but attenuates low frequencies. ...
A low-pass filter passes low frequencies fairly well, but attenuates, or blocks, high frequencies. ...
The frequency axis of this symbolic diagram would be logarithmically scaled. ...
A notch filter, also called a band-stop filter, sometimes a narrow band-pass filter, or T-notch filter, is an electronic filter typically used when the high frequency and the low frequency are less than 1 to 2 decades apart (that is, the high frequency is less than 10...
A kilobyte (derived from the SI prefix kilo-) is a unit of information or computer storage equal to either 1024 or 1000 bytes. ...
In computing, a nibble (often spelled nybble) is 4 bits, or half an octet (an 8-bit byte). ...
The KERNAL is Commodores name for the ROM resident operating system core in its 8-bit home computers; from the original PET of 1977, via the extended, but strongly related, versions used in its successors; the VIC-20, C64, Plus/4, C16, and C128. ...
I/O ports and power supply - I/O ports:
- High-quality Y/C (S-Video) (8-pin DIN plug) with chroma/luma out and sound in + out, used with some Commodore video monitors (DIN-to-phono plug converter delivered with monitor).
- Composite video (one-signal video output to monitor included in afore mentioned 8-pin DIN plug, and separate integrated RF modulator antenna output, which also carries sound, to TV on an RCA socket)
- 2 × screwless DE9M game controller ports (Atari 2600 de facto standard, supporting one digital joystick each
- Cartridge slot (slot for edge connector with 6510 CPU address/data bus lines and control signals, as well as GND and voltage pins; used for program modules)
- Power supply: 5V DC and 9V AC from external "monolithic power brick", attached to computer's 7-pin female DIN-connector
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