The Commodore SX-64 made a Commodore 64 transportable by bringing its display and disk drive into the same case. Open the front, detach the keyboard and raise the carrying handle into a stand, and a five-inch colour screen was ready beside the built-in disk drive. It still needed mains power. This was a computer to carry between places with sockets.
Commodore’s guide bears a 1983 copyright; the Centre for Computing History dates commercial release to 1984. Those dates describe different events. The guide explains the machine’s operation, while the museum’s catalogued UK unit provides separate evidence of the model and release year.
A familiar machine, ready for disks
The SX-64 retained the C64’s BASIC environment, colour graphics and SID sound. Its disk drive put the storage normally supplied by an external 1541 inside the cabinet. An owner could load a disk program without adding that separate box and its power connection.
The keyboard and screen remained small parts of a complete working system. A five-inch display made the case practical to carry, but also constrained how much space each character occupied physically. An external display was still an option through the video connection. (Commodore’s user guide.)
Similar BASIC, different defaults
Jim Butterfield’s July 1984 COMPUTE! column records differences that matter when following C64 instructions. On the SX-64, Shift–Run/Stop loads from disk and runs the program; the desktop C64 shortcut expects tape. The SX-64 also changes the default screen colours.
There was no cassette connection. Butterfield describes cassette requests producing an illegal-device-number error. A listing’s assumption that the default device was tape could therefore be wrong even though its BASIC language looked familiar. That is a more useful compatibility distinction than treating every machine with a C64 program environment as identical. (Butterfield’s contemporary column.)
The Commodore 128 later offered a different answer to the same installed software library: a new native computer with a selectable C64 mode. The SX-64 instead reorganised the existing machine around carrying it, displaying it and loading disks.
Sources
- Commodore, SX-64 User’s Guide (1983). Copyright date precedes commercial availability; installation, BASIC, disk and connections. Read source.
- Jim Butterfield, Commodore 64 ROM Generations, COMPUTE! (1984-07). Issue 50; contemporary explanation of SX-64 loading and cassette differences. Read source.
- Centre for Computing History, Commodore SX-64 (240V UK). Museum-held unit; distinguishes 1983 announcement from 1984 release. Read source.