Commodore Sx - 64 computer review

[Commodore Commercial Plays] Rather than compare personal computers ourselves, we asked the computer which one was better on the basis on price and memory. The Apple II preferred the Commodore 64, then we asked the IBM - and it picked the Commodore 64, then the Radio Shack chose the Commodore 64. Thats what we like about our competition - they are so honest The Commodore 64 - what nobody else can give you at twice the price. In the early eighties, Commodore was riding high on the success of the Vic-20 and the Commodore 64. Business was booming and Commodore engineering were tasked to work on a range of affordable portable computers. Dubbed the "Executive 64" family, the original SX-100 was first unveiled at the Winter CES show in 1983. As a portable version of the Commodore 64, it contained a custom kernel, connected to a 5 inch display with a disk drive crammed into a box. This is the first known picture of the SX-100 prototype. The original SX-100 would retail for $995 USD, and feature a black and white screen and single floppy drive. This prototype was never released with the biggest rumor being that it was simply too heavy and not very practical. However, Commodore were determined to release a portable C64 and the following year at the Winter CES show in 1984 the first ever , portable computer , the "Executive 64" was released. The price was again set at $995 US and featured a single floppy disk drive and this time a 5 inch color composite display. The name - Executive Computer - was also etched onto the case. So lets check out the SX-64 in closer detail. The computer is essentially a portable C64 with the same specifications. The SX-64 weighs 10.5 kgs or 23 lbs. The keyboard is detachable from the computer and is a full 66 key commodore style keyboard including function keys. On the front of the unit there is a 5 inch color CRT display, a single 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive capable of storing up to 170kb. The shielded compartment is used for storage, typically the keyboard cable and power cable are placed there when lugging this thing around. Opening up the hinged flap reveals a volume ***, contrast, brightness, and color adjustments. There is a single button that will reset the disk drive but not the SX-64 itself - which is kind of annoying. There are some screw-holes also for adjusting some other settings on the monitor. The top of the case contains a cartridge slot which will take a standard C64 style cartridge. Just like the C64gs version i have here of Shadow of the Beast. At the rear of the system, contains 2 9 pin joystick ports, Interestingly enough Port 2 is before port 1 and a little confusing. An Analog video port allows the SX-64 to output its display to an external monitor, Such as a Commodore 1701 or 1702. A standard commodore serial port is next and allows for additional external disk drives to be connected, a 24 pin 'user port' is typically utilized for connecting modems. A power connector, a fuse holder and an on/off switch round out the back of the system. The SX-64 ROM or Kernel is almost identical to the C64 with a few slight changes. The first being the boot up color scheme is different. Cyan border on a white back ground with blue text instead of the legendary C64 BASIC color screen. The SX-64 boot screen is actually a throwback to the Commodore VIC-20 which had the same cyan border and white background. The most interesting aspect is the kernel defaults to device 8 - the internal floppy drive, rather than device 1 - which was the tape drive on the Commodore 64. so in other words, pressing Shift and Run/Stop presents the user with a nice shortcut to load the program off disk rather than tape. This is a nice feature for those too lazy to type load commands all the time. "Another Visitor" "Stay a while - Stay Foreveeeeer" Opening up the SX-64 at first appears daunting but its very well put together and easy to get the lid off. Just keep track of your screws. Removing the two long sliding plastic pieces allows us to remove the screws from both the top and bottom panels. Typically you only need to remove the top panel unless you need to do some rewiring underneath. Looking around the insides we can see the following PCBs. the board on the left is the main CPU board that contains the 6510 CPU, SID chip, SX-64 kernel and BASIC ROMS, the VIC-II and 64 KB RAM chips. this ribbon cable from the CPU board connects to the IO board which contains the CIA chips - these chips handle the keyboard, joysticks and serial port interface amongst other things. Finally the larger PCB at the back is used for the floppy disk drive. All these boards are chip for chip compatible with a C64 and 1541 floppy disk drive except for the SX-64 kernal that i mentioned earlier. Which makes repairing these quite easy if you know how to troubleshoot a Commodore 64. Its also worth mentioning that the internal disk drive is essentially a 1541 "ALPS" disk drive with slightly different wiring. And fitting in a refurbished 1541 is fairly trivial, if you are handy with a soldering iron. Now of course this is 2016 and i prefer to use something like a 1541 Ultimate cartridge. I'm happy to report it works just fine for me though i've heard reports that it may not work for some for some other SX-64 motherboard revisions. Mine doesn't seem to have any issues however. This is a great little computer, considering the fact its an all-in-one Commodore 64 solution, its quite handy to use. Especially if you want to quickly play some games without the hassle of wiring up an entire C64 system complete with disk drive. So what happened to the SX-64? Although Commodore was claiming different, the SX-64 did not sell very well. The number is said to be only around 9 thousand worldwide. and although there was a very popular ad campaign at the time. The reality was the SX-64 was hardly portable , the screen with quite small, it was way too heavy, and in the end was dominated by other portables at the time such as the KayPro 2 and the Osbourne 1. The SX-64 was ultimately discontinued in 1986, only 2 years after its initial release. All was not lost however - for Commodore, something was coming their way - something big. [Commercial Plays] Introducing Amiga. The computer that gives you undreamed of creative powers. To work faster and more productively. With built in color graphics no other comes close to Amiga. The first personal computer built to give you a creative edge.