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The unreleased Commodore HHC-4's identity
Once upon a time (and that time was Winter CES 1983), Commodore announced what was to be their one and only handheld computer, the Commodore...
It did reasonably well due to its relatively low price point and few competitors — indeed, its release stalled other Japanese electronic companies by nearly a full year, even Toshiba — but that wasn't the case by 1982 when Commodore first started demonstrating the MAX Machine. At CES 1983, in addition to the three-computer Executive 64 line and the HHC-4, Commodore introduced an add-on music keyboard chassis with up to three extra SID sound chips, a digital drum pad, and an early version of what would become the Magic Voice speech synthesizer (using its own T-chip, the Toshiba T6721A). It did not make it a true portable — at best it was a luggable, as it still had to be plugged into the wall for power — but it sold for just $295 [about $930 in 2024 dollars] or in a package deal with a hard carrying case, battery-backed RAM pack, 300 baud acoustic coupler modem, cables and main T100 unit for $1600 [about $5070].
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