Description

In 1984 Commodore found itself in a price war against its competitors and realized they needed to made a cheaper computer, Commodore was very good at pricing as the C64, while expensive, was the first computer with 64 kilobytes of ram to be sold for under $600 in the United States. The hope was to make one even cheaper and then discontinue the C64. The Plus/4 had more usable ram than the C64, 59 KB as opposed to 38. Despite this the computer was widely disliked right from its announcement with the publication INFO saying “Is this a joke?”, this was because it was not compatible with C64 software and even people who liked the system said the built in apps were low quality. The Plus/4 was released with two other budget computers called the 116 and the C16, the Plus/4 could play games and software from both of them, this meant most developers would make games for the other two which were less powerful, the lack of games made specifically for the Plus/4 meant most people who bought computers from this line went for the cheaper ones. The Plus/4 was discontinued after just one year and the Commodore 64 would remain in production until the company’s bankruptcy in 1994, that being said it did remain in production in Hungary for longer and many Hungarians made unofficial ports of C64 games for the computer.