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120605-N-AI329-062 WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 5, 2012) MUC Luis Hernandez solos on tenor saxophone during a Commodores concert at the Navy Memorial in downtown Washington, D.C. The Commodores are the Navy's premier jazz ensemble.(U.S. Navy Photo by MU1 Jeremy Buckler/Released)
The VN series was released on 17 August 1988 and it was a rengineered hybrid of the European Opel Omega and Opel Senator. This donor body was paired to a Buick V6 engine or the Holden V8 engine. The project cost some A$200 million.
As well as being highly based on the Opel Senator, the VN also was similarly based on the Opel Omega, but this time, the previous VL Commodore floor plan was widened and stretched. The Commodore could now match the rival Ford Falcon for size. The VN Commodore was available in Executive, S, SS, Berlina and Calais specification levels.
Changes in the relative values of the Australian dollar, the Japanese yen, and the US dollar made it impractical to continue with the well-regarded Nissan engine of the VL. Instead, Holden adopted and domestically manufactured their own variant of the Buick LN3 V6 which was adopted from US market GM vehicles, although initially it was imported.
The 5.0-litre V8 remained optional and received a power boost to 165 kW (221 hp).
Under the Hawke government's Button car plan, which saw a reduction in the number of models manufactured locally, and the introduction of model sharing, the VN Commodore was rebadged as the Toyota Lexcen, launched in September 1989, named after the late America's Cup yacht designer, Ben Lexcen and replaced the previous similar-sized Toyota Crown S120 offered in Australia.
Fabian Coulthard/david Besnard Holden Commodore finished 23rd at the 2012 Supercheap Autos Bathurst 1000.
The village womanizer, with his brand new Commodore and a matching shirt, picks up his latest girlfriend at the railway station.
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Welcome to the fifth of the ongoing series of exclusive photos here at Armchair Arcade from my private collection, the Commodore SX-64 Executive Computer from 1984.
The photo's main page.
The full-size image.
Without further ado, here are some neat facts about this week's photo (feedback welcome!):
With the Commodore 64 (C-64) beginning to gain momentum after its release in 1982 due to agressive pricing, highly capable graphics and sound, and mass market appeal, Commodore began looking for ways to expand the platform. One of these was the Commodore 128 series of backwards compatible systems that increased the power of the original 8-bit platform, while another was a late life game-centric system called the Commodore 64GS that never saw release in the US. Besides the classic breadbox design of the original C-64, Commodore also released a repackaging with a sleeker case called the C-64c. Perhaps the most conceptually intriguing of these original C-64 offshoots though was the transportable system shown in the photo, the SX-64 Executive Computer, released in early 1984 less than two years after the original breadbox design. While this transportable system could not run on batteries, it was otherwise self-contained, requiring just a power cord and AC outlet. As seen in the photo, and truly important to a system such as the C-64, the built-in monitor is color, making this one of the first ever transportables with a color screen.
With its built-in 5.25" disk drive and cartridge port, the SX-64 was able to run all but cassette-based software. While the system had most of the C-64's standard ports, including a display output, it lacked a cassette interface. Unlike in Europe, the US quickly moved away from the cassette format so this was not a serious omission here, but the fact that the SX-64 was marketed as a business system was. While the C-64 platform had a huge range of productivity software, it was hardly an ideal business system, particularly with its slow disk drives. Nevertheless, taken out of its original marketing plan and into today's world of collectibles, the system is highly sought after as an easily transportable complete C-64. Add a standard Atari joystick or two as shown in the photo, and you're pretty much good to go with the vast majority of software.
While the system is highly collectible and often sells for well north of $100, a latch or two is often broken and sometimes the keyboard cable is missing. My particular system shown here is fairly pristine, save for some minor scratching on the plexiglass outer covering of the monitor and the fact that some keyboard keys require a bit of effort to press and suffer "bounce", i.e., a single press will often generate a few extra characters. I have another SX-64 that I'll need to test to see if I can cobble together a 100% perfect system, but again, if you're going to collect this system, keep in mind the keyboard can be an issue and finding a replacement is very difficult. Actually, what you will often see are the keyboards without the cable, so strike when you can in the various scenarios.
The screen itself is very sharp and the C-64's fine graphics pop when shrunk on that screen. Sound is nice and clear and just like the various monitor settings is fully adjustable with dials to the right of the disk drive. Unlike stand-alone 1541 disk drives, the way the drive is packed in, noise is greatly reduced. All-in-all, it's a very quiet, very efficient system.
END
Commodore's classic systems and many others are mentioned in my upcoming book, along with exhaustive looks at many other systems. Be sure to keep visiting Armchair Arcade for ongoing coverage as well. See you next time!
Still working on photos from our trip to Colorado. This is a big view of the Commodore Mine that is on the Bachelor Historical Loop Tour in Creede, Colorado.
...with my RS-232 interface on user port (left) and uIEC SD card interface (right) from Retro Innovations - really cool device - all your D64 images on one solid state mass storage device. Together with JiffyDos takes your old C64 to the 21st century :-)
An ancient, but functional, Commodore CBM 8032. The first computer I had ever used was one of these back in 1981. Learned Waterloo Basic (a structured Basic) on it. Picked this one up locally many years ago but it just sat around collecting dust and taking up space. Gave it away to a "collector" who's now trying to sell it for $2400, good luck with that, but at least maybe if someone thinks it has that kind of value, it won't end up in a land fill or recycled. Picture was taken the morning I gave it away. The keyboard wasn't fully working so I was trying to type something timely - Canada had just won it's first home gold medal in the men's moguls.
Creede, Colorado is a small community that, as of the 2010 US Census, had a population of 290. This a far cry from the 1890s, when the town's population peaked at over 10,000. Creede used to be a major mining center, and while some mining is still done in the area, it exists today as much as a tourist destination as anything else. The Commodore Mine was one of many mines just north of Creede, and the Commodore Ore House, seen here, has been maintained to this day, as a relic of a bygone era.