Commodore 128

The Commodore 128 is a home computer, also known as the C128. It was Commodore Business Machines' last commercially released 8-bit machine. The C128 was introduced in January of 1985 at the Consumer Electronics Show[?].

The C128 was an expanded version of the earlier Commodore 64, with 128 kilobytes of RAM and RGB monitor output. Instead of the 6510 CPUs of the C64, the C128 incorporated a two-CPU design. The primary CPU, the 8502, was a slightly improved version of the 6510 used in the C64; its main addition was the ability to run at a 2 MHz clock rate. The second CPU was the Zilog Z80, which allowed the C128 to run CP/M.

The C128 had three modes of operation: native mode, which ran at 1 or 2 MHz under the 8502 and had both 40- and 80-column text modes available; CP/M mode, which utilized the Z-80 and either 40- or 80-column text mode; and C64 mode, which was very nearly 100% compatible with the earlier computer.

Because the C128 would run virtually all C64 software, very little software for the C128's native mode ever appeared.

The C128 shipped with an Operating System called CP/M as well as the built-in Commodore BASIC 7.0.