Quote from: adric22I wonder how much more successfull it would have been had Commodore decided not to include the Z80 CPU (hence, not bother with CP/M) and not to have included the seperate 80-column chip.  Instead, had they spent that money towards a new VIC-III chip that could have done 80-columns and had a composite output and an analog RGB similar to the Amiga.  Then, dispense with the "64 mode" and have it run all C64 programs in native mode.

I have often thought about stuff like this and I could not agree with you more. I think the 128 would have been far more successful, a true successor to the 64, had Commodore not tried to make it be all things to all people. As Commodore felt CP/M was so important they could have come up with some kind of external peripheral that included a Z80 along with the necessary software. Sort of like the Amiga Sidecar provided MS-DOS compatibility for the Amiga 1000. Those who needed it would have paid a premium and the money saved on the base machine could have resulted in a less expensive 128 (one more likely to appeal to cost conscious 64 users). Of course, the Sidecar, much like CP/M mode, was largely ignored. Come to think of it, CP/M's death was already a forgone conclusion so Commodore would have been far better off to have developed DOS compatibility.

A new and compatible VIC with high resolution and a greater pallette, dual SID chips (stereo) and double the RAM was all that was necessary to guarantee a huge hit. Commodore could have pushed the 1571 and 1581 drives, offered a higher quality monitor and developed a state-of-the-art 2400 baud modem in the same form factor as the 1670. Such a system would have been a perfect bridge to the Amiga and probably kept the 64 users in the Commodore family. Having millions of 64 owners 'upgrade' to the PC compatibles and Macs was the beginning of the end for Commodore.

Hindsight is always 20/20.