Prototype Commodore 232 and 264 Computers

Here are some hi-res photos of the Commodore 232 and Commodore 264 prototypes. The C-232 and C-264 were two¹ of the planned models of the TED series, but neither shipped. The C-264 became the Plus/4, with productivity software preinstalled in ROM, and the low-lost C-232 was replaced by the even lower-cost C16 and C116 models.

The Photos

Here is what they look like:

The sticker on the bottom of this C-232 carries a serial number of “AA5 00006”.

And this C-264 has a sticker that says “SAMPLE”:

The C-232 is missing the user port:

But the C-264 connectors on the back are the same as the Plus/4’s:

The C-232 board (ASSY NO 250439, PCB NO 251728REV3) is missing the ACIA for the RS232 port (like the C16/C116), but has two sockets for the optional function ROM chips (16 KB each). On the Plus/4, the function ROM contained the “3-plus-1” productivity software. Note the heatsink on the TED chip, which Commodore should have installed on all TED-series machines.

The board of the C-264 is basically a Plus/4 board. It carries the same ASSY NO 310163. It too is missing the function ROM chips.

This animation compares the C-232 and the C-264 boards:

The ROM Contents

The ROM chips contain the same data on both machines:

• The BASIC ROM (C-232: “318006-01”, C-264: “Ted LO”) is identical with the ROM shipped with every C16, C116 and Plus/4.
• The KERNAL ROM (C-232: “318004-01”, C-264: “TED HI PAL 3/16”) is a prerelease version of the PAL kernal. The shipping versions were -03, -04 and -05.

Identifying the differences between the prerelease and the release KERNAL images is an exercise left for the reader.