The Commodore C116 as shown by Bil Herd

Bil Herd the lead hardware engineer on the TED family of Commodore Computers in the 1980's shows of the first, and best, model that was true to the idea of what the TED family should be: the C116

• Category

  Science & Technology

[BilHerd]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I need to make time to do more, you can tell I love talking and especially love talking about some of the old stuff.

[makd1234]

What made you leave Commodore in the end? Were you offered better wages somewhere else or was it because of some other reason?

[BilHerd]

I was stupid and addicted to doing stuff, we had a slow period where I thought they were going to dump the department so I too k a job as Director of engineering at a start-up. They were mortified when they figured out what they got in a young rowdy alcoholic kid who lived and breathed electronics.

[Jörgen Overgaard]

Thanks för sharing a very interresting video! :D Is that a HP141 with a 8552B, etc. to the right under the desk? :D

[BilHerd]

Yes, it is so heavy that I can probably no longer lift it as I get older, I will probably sell it with the house...lol.

[unebonnevie]

Hey Bil, I read "The Specular Rise and Fall of Commodore" Wow! You still look pretty young!

I've heard that RJ Mical now works at Google.

[adric22]

I always liked the Plus/4, despite its shortcomings. Its a pitty they had to screw it up and make it flop. I own a C16 and Plus/4. but I've never seen this 116 before. This would have been a fantastic competitor o the Timex Sinclair.

[justaguythinking]

thank you, mr. bill herd and all the engineers at commodore for making such great and innovative computers! my first computer was a commodore 128. I also owned a 1571 disk drive, a 1750 REU and a commodore 1084s monitor and and i they are a great setup to run GEOS 128 v2, which prepped me for the Mac, WIndows and Linux. I read the book, "on the edge," and the history of commodore and its engineers and staff, and to me, you guys are visionaries ahead of your time. thank you for the commodore 128!

[BoyCcns]

Whoa. First machine I ever owned, I actually still have it on a shelf right next to me :) Got it with a set of c64 game tapes which naturally didn't run on it, so we "made" our own in basic - which got me into programming at age 6 :D

You my friend are a god to me!

[Geir Eivind Mork]

In todays money the c116 would have been just above 100 usd when inflation is accounted for. Still not an huge amount of money compared to todays machines. I was curious when reading about the plus 4 back in the day, so when I got the chance I picked one up. With that wonderful keyboard it would have been a better computer back in the day for my father who used the c64 as an accounting machine, but the games isn't that stellar. But I like to collect them anyway. Cudos to you for making this vid.

[plazafob]

great video, thanks for interesting infos and bringing back good old memories! :)