• CPU: 7501 0.89 MHz or 1.76 MHz
• Co-Processor: None [Plus/4]; TED (video & sound) [C16]; VIC-II (video & sound) [C116]
• RAM: 16 KB (12 KB free for user) [C16-C116]; 64 KB (60 KB free for user, and 48 KB free when used in high resolution) [Plus/4]
• ROM: 32 KB [C16-C116]; 64 KB [Plus/4]
• Text Modes: 40 chars. x 25 lines
• Graphic Modes: 320 x 200 / 320 x 160 (with 5 lines of text) / 160 x 200 / 160 x 160 (with 5 lines of text)
• Colors: 121 (15 colours x 8 luminances + black)
• Sound: two channels; 4 octaves + white noise
• I/O Ports: Tape, Cartridge, Joystick (2), serial, Composite Video, TV [all]; Floppy Disk, Printer, User port, RGB, expansion bus port [Plus/4 only]
• Keyboard: 65 [C116] / 66 [C16] / 67 [Plus/4] keys with 4 function keys and 4 cursor keys
• Built In Media: Cassette unit. Provision for 5.25
• OS: ROM Based
• Built In Language: Commodore BASIC 3.5 - Built-in machine code monitor (12 commands)

MESS emulates the following computers

• c16 [Commodore 16 (PAL)]
• c16c [Commodore 16 (PAL, 1551)] - with 1551 floppy drive
• c16v [Commodore 16 (PAL, 1541)] - with 1541 floppy drive
• c116 [Commodore 116 (PAL)]
• c16hun [Commodore 16 Novotrade (PAL, Hungary)]
• c116c [Commodore 116 (PAL, 1551)] - with 1551 floppy drive
• c116v [Commodore 116 (PAL, 1541)] - with 1541 floppy drive
• plus4 [Commodore +4 (NTSC)]
• plus4c [Commodore +4 (NTSC, 1551)] - with 1551 floppy drive
• plus4v [Commodore +4 (NTSC, 1541)] - with 1541 floppy drive
• c232 [Commodore 232 (Prototype)]
• c232 [Commodore 264 (Prototype)]
• c364 [Commodore 364 (Prototype)]

For each system, MESS supports

1. a datasette, using “cassette” (cass) device, for tapes in .wav and .tap formats
2. a cart slot, “cartridge” (cart), for cart dumps in .bin and .rom formats
3. one / two floppy drives (different kinds, depending on the system), “floppydisk” (flop) or “floppydisk1” (flop1) and “floppydisk2” (flop2), for disk images in .d64 format.

Also notice that a “quickload” (quik) feature is available for .p00 and .prg files.

Cassette images can have the .wav or .tap extensions (formally .t64 images are tapes as well, but we currently load them through -quickload). To run a .tap image you have to launch

mess c16 -cass "C:\pathtogame\gamename.tap"

Once you're at the BASIC prompt you have various options:

• to load a BASIC program from the cassette

LOAD"filename"

• to load the first program from the cassette

LOAD

The message “Press play on tape” will appear, and you will have to enter the MESS internal UI to start the tape (press Tab and choose “Tape Control”, then press “Play”). Once the program is loaded, a “READY” message will be prompted and you can run your program by simply typing

RUN

or the appropriate SYS call.

MESS currently simulates only loading from drive 8, and possibly drive 9 depending on the model you chose, in C16 emulation. These drives correspond to the devices “floppydisk1” (flop1) and “floppydisk2” (flop2) emulated by MESS (“floppydisk” if you are emulating c16c, c16v, plus4c, plus4v etc). To run a .d64 image you have to launch

mess c16 -flop1 "C:\pathtogame\gamename.d64"

Once you're at the BASIC prompt you have various options:

• to list the content of the floppy

LOAD"$",8
LIST

• to load a BASIC program from the disk

LOAD"filename",8

• to load a machine language program at its address

LOAD"filename",8,1

• to load the first program from the disk (useful if you're not sure of which is the correct one to load)

LOAD"*",8

Once the program is loaded, a “READY” message will be prompted and you can run your program by simply typing

RUN

or the appropriate SYS call. If you launched the game on -flop2, you will need to use drive 9 in place of drive 8 in the commands above.

Note that several programs rely on more features not currently emulated (such as loading other file types, writing…) Some games also rely on starting programs in the floppy drive's processor (and therefore CPU level emulation of the 1541 is needed).

Cartridges may have any of the following extensions: .bin, .rom, .lo, .hi,. Files with boot-sign in it are recognized as ROMs. Some cartridges require more than one image to load (e.g., tutor.lo tutor.hi): if you have any of these, please contact us because we would like to fix support for them.

• .bin, .rom, .lo , .hi ROMs are loaded to cs1 low, cs1 high, cs2 low, cs2 high addresses accordingly to their order in the command line.

A quickloader is available via command line and it supports program image files with the .prg and .p00 extensions. This loads the program into memory and sets the program end pointer. It works with most programs. To use the “quickload” (quik) device in MESS: launch

mess c16 -quik "C:\pathtogame\gamename.prg"

and simply type the command

RUN

to start the program.

Some games require the user to plug the Joystick controller in the second Joystick port. In MESS this can be done, either remapping the P2 Joystick inputs, or simply pressing F1 (in partial emulation mode) to swap the Joystick ports and use your P1 Joystick as if it was connected to the second port.

These systems require full keyboard emulation to work correctly. At startup, full keyboard emulation mode is enabled by default. Whilst in full keyboard emulation mode, some key associated functionality may be disabled (like the Esc key for EXIT). The keyboard emulation mode is toggled using the Scrl Lock key (by default).

Remember also the following functions:

• Shift+C= switches between upper-only and normal character set (if wrong characters are on screen this may help).
• Run (which is Shift+Stop) loads the first program from device 8 (dload”*) and starts it.

Original Keyboard: C16

INST
   ESC   1!   2"   3#   4$   5%   6&   7'   8(   9)   0^  LEFT RIGHT  UP  DOWN    DEL           f 1

                                                                                CLEAR
    CTRL   Q    W    E    R    T     Y    U    I    O    P    @    +     -      HOME            f 3

RUN   SHIFT
STOP  LOCK   A    S    D    F     G     H    J    K    L   :[   ;]    *      RETURN             f 5


C=    SHIFT     Z    X    C    V    B     N    M    ,<   .>   /?   SHIFT     £     =           HELP


                               SPACEBAR

Notes: C= is a key with the Commodore logo, Shift+0 produces an arrow pointing up (“^” above).

Originale Keyboard: C116

F1/F4      F2/F5     F3/F6    HELP/F7     HOME/CLEAR   DEL/INST


   ESC   1!   2"   3#   4$   5%   6&   7'   8(   9)   0^   +    -     * 

     
 CONTROL   Q    W    E    R    T     Y    U    I    O    P    @   RETURN

RUN   
STOP    £    A    S    D    F     G     H    J    K    L   :[   ;]    =


C=    SHIFT     Z    X    C    V    B     N    M    ,<   .>   /?   SHIFT
                                                                                  UP  
                                                                           LEFT       RIGHT
                               SPACEBAR                                          DOWN

Original Keyboard: Plus/4 and prototypes (232, 264, 364)

F1/F4      F2/F5     F3/F6    HELP/F7

                                                                          CLEAR   INST        |
   ESC   1!   2"   3#   4$   5%   6&   7'   8(   9)   0^   +    -     =    HOME    DEL        |      @  +  -  =
                                                                                              |
                                                                                              |
 CONTROL   Q    W    E    R    T     Y    U    I    O    P    @    £     *    CONTROL         |      7  8  9  *
                                                                                              |
RUN   SHIFT                                                                                   |
STOP  LOCK   A    S    D    F     G     H    J    K    L   :[   ;]    RETURN                  |      4  5  6  /
                                                                                              |
                                                                                              |               E
C=    SHIFT     Z    X    C    V    B     N    M    ,<   .>   /?   SHIFT                      |      1  2  3  n
                                                                              UP              |               t
                                                                        LEFT       RIGHT      |               e
                               SPACEBAR                                      DOWN             |      0  .  :  r

The 19-keys keypad was present only in the 364 prototype (but probably those keys were simply wired to the lines of regular number keys of the keyboard).

Combining C= and CTRL with number keys, you can change the font color. Below you find the complete list of available colors

Different RAM configurations are possible for c16 systems (not plus4 ones) in MESS. You can switch between them, changing the -ramsize parameter. At command line, you simply have to add -ramsize ram_value, where ram_value can assume one of the following values

16k
32k
64k (default)

Notice that emulation of C16, C116 and Plus/4 with a 1541 floppy drive is still preliminary.

Moreover:

• Memory check by C16 kernel will not recognize more memory without restarting MESS.
• CPU clock switching/changing.
• Imperfect colors; should be enough for 95% of the games and programs.
• Imperfect scrolling support (when 40 columns or 25 lines)
• Lightpen support missing.
• Expansion modules other than the 1551 floppy drive are not supported.
• The rs232/v.24 interface is not supported, nor are printers and other parallel devices.
• The Plus 4's userport is not supported.
• The following features are emulated: rasterline based video system, keyboard, joystick 1 and 2, simple tape support, serial bus, simple disk drives, expansion modules, rom cartridges, simple ieee488 floppy support (c1551 floppy disk drive), quickloader

When the first Commodore 264 prototype unofficially debuted at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January (?) 1984, the developers had obviously not yet agreed about the keyboard layout; some keys are unlabeled, the right shift key was missing, instead having a key which seems to be meant as a line feed key.

It was planned that when buying a C264, you could have chosen between these programs:

• 3 plus 1 (word processor, data base, spread sheet, windowing)
• Superscript (professional word processor)
• Magic Desk (word processor, data base, spread sheet, calculator)
• Logo
• Pilot
• Easycalc 264 (spread sheet)
• COM 264
• Financial Advisor

The C264 should then be delivered with the selected program built in. The remaining programs could only be used with cartridges for the expansion port.

The official presentation of the C264 series took place on the Hannover fair in 1984. Luckily, the developers didn't eliminate the right shift key in the final keyboard layout. The formerly unlabeled keys bear a label now: the key that used to be the left arrow key on the C64 and the VC20 says 'Esc', the key between '@' and '*' bears the English pound sign, and the key that was labeled 'SHIFT LOCK' on all 8-bit computers Commodore ever produced now says - guess what - 'SHIFT LOCK' (must have been a hard decision between SHIFT and CAPS lock).

A word about the C364 : This prototype was a C264 with a bigger keyboard (86 keys incl. a numeric keypad) and with a builtin speech synthesizer with a vocabulary of 250 words (which could be expanded by either diskettes or modules). Commodore dropped this model and decided to sell a separate speech module (Magic Voice) for the C64.

Among the Commodore news from the Summer CES 1984 was the renaming of the C=264 to Plus/4. This renaming came along with a slight change in the builtin software: you could not choose between many different programs anymore, but each Plus/4 was delivered with the 3-plus-1 software.

The built-in software was really limited: a word processing (only with 40 columns and can manage documents with only 99 lines of 77 columns), a very small spreadsheet (only 17 columns and 50 lines), a poor graph generator program (which can display graphically data from the sheets but only in text mode) and a small database (999 record with 17 fields each and only 38 characters by field). Most of these programs can only be used with a floppy disk unit.

The Plus 4 can use peripherals of the C64 or the Vic 20, like the famous MPS-801 dot-matrix printer and the Disk Unit 1541 run well with it but it can't use C64 software (nor the same joysticks & Datasette as the C=64/VIC-20).

This machine wasn't built to be a competitor of the C64 nor to replace it. It has an improved BASIC in relation to the C64, with graphic and sound instructions and a built-in assembler, but has lost lots of interesting C64 features like great soundchip or hardware sprites.

The Commodore Plus/4 was an error in the Commodore marketing policy and had no success.

The Commodore 16/116 belongs to the Commodore 264 series (with the Commodore Plus/4). It was designed to replace the Commodore VIC-20, but was not compatible with it, nor with the C64.

It had the same characteristics as the Commodore Plus/4 : same graphic resolution, same sound system, same CPU and speed, just less memory. It featured a version of the original 6502 CPU named 7501, and a new video chip named TED. With 16 colours, and 16 shades of colour, it had an amazing 128 colours available. But it had no hardware sprites like the ones on the VIC II chip, so animated games and collision detection were very hard to do.

It has a powerful basic language (contrary to the VIC-20 or the C64) which makes graphics and sounds easy to program. The C16, like the Commodore Plus/4 was a commercial failure.

It seems that the first C16s had the two control ports labeled JOY 0 and JOY 1 instead of JOY 1 and JOY 2, just as a hint for collectors

The C116, revealed at the 1984 Summer CES, was a cut down version of the C16 using a cheap case - same but smaller as the +4, and a rubber keyboard. It was the cheapest Commodore computer ever made. It was sold only in Germany, in Austria and a few East European countries.

It came comes with 32 KB of ROM, only 16 KB of RAM and without any built-in software.

Commodore's hatred for shift keys finds expression in the very early C116's keyboard layout. This time, they made it even worse and removed the LEFT shift key and placed an Esc key there! Not to mention the Inst/Del key which resided at the SHIFT LOCK key's place. The versions sold later had the Inst/Del key next to the Home/Clear key in the top row next to the function keys, the Esc key where you would want it, and thank God, a left shift key again.

Note that both the C116 and the C16 lack a user port.

Final assembly was done in Mexico by a company named Sigma.

(info from old-computers.com)

• Commodore16.com
• The C16 - Plus 4 Retro Page
• Commodore Plus/4 World
• Plus/4 at vintage-computer.com
• C16 at old-computers.com

• Minus4
• YAPE
• VICE
• WinEMU