Although the Commodore 16 and Plus/4 computers were nice as budget machines, and made a good replacement for the VIC-20 (unless you were an avid VIC-20 fan), the platform lacked one thing. Well, two things: a decent sound chip and the big name games... mostly.

Thinking about it, the C16 in particular also lacked memory, especially as it was launched as late as 1984. Well, all that could be changing thanks to the hard work of some quiet Commodore Plus/4 enthusiasts. I've heard on the grapevine that there's going to be a super expander to plug into the back of it that will allow the addition of not one but two SID chips (you will have to get hold of your own SID chips most likely). It's also going to give the machine some more random access memory - 256KB to be exact. Let's hope that there'll be some software to support it, but the Plus/4 version of GEOS seems to be the candidate to utilise any extra power available.

In related Commodore 16 and Plus/4 news, Maurice Randall of CMDRKey.com fame is working on a version of JiffyDOS for the platform, and so far it's working with all drives including the 1551 (though the 1551 doesn't actually benefit speed-wise like a JiffyDOS installed 1541 does). The VIC-20 version of this nice addition to your system is apparently now available to buy from the CMDRKey online store, with the C16 and Plus/4 version following real soon.

More news should follow shortly about these developments, but if you want to get wired into the Commodore 16 and Plus/4 scene, see the website of the week box on this very page.

Yes, this week's retro website is www.commodore16.com which unsurprisingly covers all subject matters regarding the Commodore 16 and Plus/4. The Webmaster and founder of this particular site is Chris Snowden, an enthusiast who has stuck with the platform for many years, though it is now more of a team effort as Chris has a couple of helpers now who are actively obtaining and archiving information and software at pace. So, if you want to find out more about Commodore's lesser-known 8-bit machines, this should be your first port of call, especially the forums where you can share your memories or find out what's happening here and now in the C16 scene.

There's a role-playing game in development for Atari's famous video game system, the 2600. The game is under the mysterious code name of 'CiE' and is a turn-based affair using menu combat and stuff. Its most unique feature is perhaps that it uses compiled scripts to drive non-player character interactions and other game events, which apparently means that it allows "the game's designer to write high-level instructions for game events which are then interpreted at runtime", whatever that means.

That's all very impressive, I'm sure, along with the fact that it's going to be a 64k game that should be available this Autumn, which is quite a while off, but as soon as any sort of demo is playable enough to formulate an opinion about it, you'll read it here first... honest! So watch this space.