Floodgap Systems and
the Commodore Knowledge Base
proudly present

They were the secret weapons!
The unrealized phantasms of technological wonder!
The ravings of mad geniuses made flesh and locked away in caverns of dust never to see the light of day!
The demons that Tramiel forgot, to come tapping at their door even as the winds of oblivion beckon and spit!

Changes from the our previous edition: here's (15 Sep 2022) What's Newly Discovered.
Please also read this note on using images and information from SWoC and this very important Disclaimer.

What Is This Archive?, or, An Excruciatingly Lengthy History of Commodore
The horrifying tale of the behemoth from its origins in the blackest nethermists of time, to its agonising struggle against the slavering maw of destruction!

Over twenty years of Commodore secrets (1998-2022)!

Would you buy a refurbished typewriter from this man?

And how's this for rarities? Would you believe the Commodore thermostat [40K .gif] (courtesy Marko Mäkelä) -- with an actual photograph of an existing model! [64K .jpg] (courtesy Joe Torre) -- or the Commodore adding machines [260K .jpg] (courtesy Marko, Andreas Boose, George Page)? The walkie-talkies and radio in the picture are, according to Bo Zimmerman, not actually from the Commodore we kn[oe]w. True Commodore office equipment almost always had the "chicken-head" device.

Former Commodore people who directly or otherwise assisted:

Chuck Peddle (shown here on Skype at VCF East 4.0, for the PET 30th anniversary; RIP 2019),

Bob Russell (who put up with a lot of shutterbugging at VCFE4), Bil Herd (who put up with even more), and Dave Haynie (who put up with about as much as Bob, and also let me bug him incessantly earlier on for the 7501 and other things) [left to right, at VCFE4 with the celebratory cake],

Dale Luck (see you at the next VCF in San Jose!), Dr Peter Kittel (the patience of saints!), Peter Jennings ("Mr. Microchess"), Andy Finkel, Dennis Jarvis, Fred Bowen, Terry Ryan,

and last but not least, Jim Butterfield (RIP 2007 -- we will miss you greatly). Click the thumbnail to see one of Jim's classic Pro-Line ads (.jpg, 101K).

The Massive Thank-You Hall of Fame: (in no particular order) Marko Mäkelä's indispensible expertise helped get Secret Weapons started accurately; Jim Brain, various data and trivia; Moise Sunda, for fantastic pictures of the 65, 1551, and Educator 64; Markus Mehring, for tons of scans and lots of tech data on some of the really odd ones in this collection; Nicolas Welte for the 1570 pictures, tons of magazine scans, and technical assistance; Marc Walters deserves a piece of pie for his cool information on the 64GS, among other things; Hidehiko Ogata for the complete Japanese entry, as well as some help on my Tomy Tutor page, and managing to find an Ultimax!; Richard Atkinson for help on the 7501/264 series, the SFX series, and the SFX Sound Expander unit; Bo Zimmerman for numerous pictures and entry assistance (particularly with the 2000K, 1565, 128DLs and VIC-21); Hans Franke, for general assistance and the 500 pictures, plus complete and extraordinary history on the B/P; Dan Benson, for multiple photographs of his unusual units (particularly the 232, VIC-1001 and V364); Steve Gray for irreplaceable pictures of the 900 and CBM-II series, as well as amazing Commodore literature on same; Mike Stein for digging up the Cursor issues that helped to explain TOI, the 6562/3, the Colour PET and the VIC-40; David Vohs, for articles, data and pictures of the HHC-4, the "VIC-TV" and SX-100, finding the really cryptic stuff around here, plus stuff on the Magic Voice; Lee Jones, for the pictures and complete specs on the 3000H; Ric Rainbolt for complete entry and pictures of the CCR/PET Register; Anthony Beckett for lots of news clippings (even more than I could use), especially for the 1572, LCD and 900; Ray Castaldo for pictures of his sizeable collection of rarities (and for the 116!); Marc-Jano Knopp, for endless photographs (and to Peter Schepers for maintaining this mirror); Andre Fachat for help with the PETs and B series; Ullrich von Bassewitz for great pictures and tech data on the B/600 series; Hans Karsten for the 232 pictures (and Arwin Vosselmann for all his helpful information on that unit); Martijn van Buul for various assistance, original Chessmate pics, and the 116 case; Anders Carlsson, Peter Karlsson and Anders Gronberg (get those names straight) for multiple Swedish localized system photographs; Paul Foerster for B-series notes and the original draft of Microchess; Spiro Trikaliotis for notes on the 116 and Japanese 64; Asbjorn Djupdal for the Norwegian remixes; Pablo Trincavelli for the Argentinian remixes; Riccardo Rubini for the TT13 entry and photographs, and contributions to the 65 entry; Lee Rayner for mega-help with the TVG architecture and the gun photograph; Todd Elliott for letting me blow flashbulbs over his 65, as well as submitting a large number of TPUG back issues for review; T.J.T. van Kooten for the MUCTS entry and photographs; John Selck for the Sound Sampler pictures; Joe Torre for that cool thermostat picture; Jan Neuvians for material from the (rip) Commodore Curiosity Page; Doug Cotton for neat anecdotes and the DL pictures; and Cal Samut, who kindly converted many of the .jpgs to .gifs for Commodore viewers.

Other people who are extremely deserving of a cold beverage: (again, in no particular order) Larry Anderson (another rarities collector -- visit his collection of Commodore oddities -- especially for the HHC of my own! :-), Woodrow Hinkleman (HHC-4), Danny O'Day (Magic Voice), Ethan Dicks and Simon Laule (9090/9060 hard drives), Per Olofsson (MagerValp), Claus Schoenleber (Commodore 900), Jim Williams (a little extra Lorraine history), Darren Spiteri (for all that typing in the MV entry! phew!), Magnus Eriksson (big thanks for data on the SFX Sound Expander), Ron Slaminko (for the Magic Voice and the 1571-II heads-up), Michael Kurz (original SFX software developer), Antonio Pagliaro (SFS-481), Dave Dunfield, Heinz Wolter, Travis Little, Christian Stich, Randy Winchester, Sascha Hoogen, Stefan Nagel, Raymond Bryan, Iain Black, Tiziano (3008), Oyvind Antonsen, Scott Jones (HHC-4 hunter), Leo LaFlamme, Attila Grosz, Gareth Young, Christian Janoff, Andrew Davie, Don Judy, Ian Moote, Jorge Diaz, Niall Tracey, Brian Ketterling, Oliver Graf, Tony Duell, Holger Karlson, Andre Reid, Eytan Kaziberdov, Stephen Jones^W^WReDmArTiAn (how does he fit that 3B2 in the car every year?), Benedetto Filippo Diana, Nick Coplin, Gareth Knight and his Amiga site, Steve Croucher, Andreas Boose, George Page, Glenn Holmer, Jorge Pedriera, Kroc Camen, Dave Gardner.

Several resources are frequently referenced and may appear abbreviated. Gazette = COMPUTE! Gazette; COMPUTE! = regular COMPUTE!; On the Edge (Brian Bagnall, in print), The Home Computer Wars (Michael Tomczyk, out of print). All citations and scans appear under what are believed to be fair use guidelines. If you have concerns over the copyright of a particular item, please send me an enquiry.

Information on these systems has been obtained through much research, but this is all I could come up with. Send updates, changes, corrections and insertions to me, Cameron Kaiser, at ckaiser@floodgap.com. Again, if you intend to use images or information from this archive, please read this important notice, and be sure to read this disclaimer on the accuracy of information in this virtual repository.

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