Commodore Colt PC XT clone
Commodore Colt PC XT clone photo gallery
This post is primary intended to be a photo gallery of a Commodore Colt PC XT clone, but I’ll include a small amount of historical information so these pictures can be placed in the overall timeline.
Commodore began development of their PC clones in 1984. They were originally released to the market in April of 1985 as the Commodore PC10 and Commodore PC20. These machines were primarily sold in the European market and only through Commodore dealers. They were produced at Commodore’s Braunschweig, West Germany plant.
At the time of their release, Commodore did not take the PC clone market seriously, and in fact called their entry into the market an “opportunistic marketing ploy” in their 1985 strategic plan.
Excerpt from CIL 1985 strategic plan
Despite this, by 1986 Commodore was the second most popular PC brand in Germany and by 1988, PC sales accounted for 20% of Commodore’s overall revenue and covered the full line from 8088 to 80386. The Commodore Colt featured in this post was released in 1988. The Colt was a re-branded Commodore PC10-III intended to be sold through mass-market retailers instead of computer dealers.
Commodore Colt Specifications
- CPU: Intel 8088-1 running at 4.77MHz
- Optional 8087 math co-processor
- RAM: 640KB
- Floppy Drive: One or Two 360K 5.25-inch
- Hard Drive: Not included, but could be optionally installed
Photos
Photos of the cleanup and repair work on this Colt
This was the first PC I remember my family owning. My grandfather purchased it for around $1200 in 1989 with the optional 20MB hard disk drive and a Magnavox EGA monitor. The specs do not match what are shown on this page and this has always confused me. It did have 640KB base RAM, and a built in “Speech Thingy” sound device (we had a game called “First Letter Words” that used it), but I am 100% sure of the fact the system came with a 80286 @ 10Mhz Turbo. There was a software turbo discussed in the manual for the PC where you used a key combination to turbo and de-turbo the PC. I do not remember the non-turbo frequency, but it may have been 7Mhz. I remember the one time I disassembled it to clean it, it had ATI graphics and an AMD CPU, both of which shocked me to learn.
I wish I still had the PC. I wonder if I was mistaken about it’s specs because of my very young age of 5 when we purchased it. I do remember the CPU being shaped more like an 8086, but I remember having clear reasons for thinking it was a 80286… hmmm, I wish I could go back and figure this mystery out.