Commodore Advert - December 1984

This advert was part of a lavish four-page spread in the December 1984 edition of Personal Computer World. It's obviously Christmas as there's a Santa under the entry for "X" for "xmas".

It's interesting as it's one of the few adverts that actually seems to show Commodore's 16 micro. The C16 was intended as a cheaper replacement for the VIC-20 - which was now three years old.

The Commodore 16 was loosely related to the Plus/4, although it had less memory and no user port. It used the same TED chip as the Plus/4 for sound and graphics, but this meant that it didn't have the sprites that the Commodore 64's VIC-II chip provided, even though it did support more colours.

The C16 had an even-cheaper sibling - the smaller and chiclet-keyed 116 - which was a result of Jack Tramiel's desire for a computer that could sell for under $100 which could go against a feared Japanese invasion. The invasion never really happened, and neither the 116 or the C16 were particularly successful, although the C16 did better in Europe.