Word Processing like it's 1984 : Commodore Plus 4 Restoration

I'm typing this blog post on the Plus/4 itself.

I'll have to transfer to something more up-to-date before posting because Commodore didn't include a web browser alongside the word-processing, spreadsheet, graphics and database packages that they built into this machine.

The first word-processor and spreadsheet I used were on the Amiga. When I saw that the Plus/4 had even earlier examples of such packages on-board, I was curious. There was a non-working one in my collection, bought sometime in the 90s at a car boot sale.

The 1984 Plus/4 has a lot in common with the Commodore 16. In fact they share the same key chips.

The Plus/4 just has additional RAM and the office software on ROM. On opening up a 'spare' working C16 and the Plus/4, I found the important chips socketed and identical, down to revision numbers. Chip-puller came into play and chips were exchanged one at a time, starting with the most likely suspects until the Plus/4 worked. In this case the TED and PLA chips were fine, the machine only began working properly once the 8501 CPU was swopped, which was a surprise because it had been showing a startup screen with a blinking cursor, albeit with some garbled text.

I hadn't intended to go beyond getting it working and trying the '3 plus 1' software but when things are apart it's hard not to start digging deeper.

This one was filthy inside and out. Its keys were very yellowed. We've had some bright sunshine, perfect conditions to try 'lightbrighting'. It worked a treat. The worst of the yellow seemed to disappear quickly (as witnessed by the fact that the T key somehow hid itself and missed the first half a day).

T caught up quickly but the process generally seemed to slow down. After two days they hadn't quite returned to the white they once were. They're now a not unattractive off-white.

I did have a disaster when pulling the keys; two left parts of their posts in the key plungers. After discussing this with friends, it seems that this is common. My repair (involving the superglue and baking powder trick, reinforced with thick copper wire) worked really well.

I don't ever want to pull the keys again but it did give me the opportunity to dismantle the switches, clean the contacts on the pcb and rub a pencil on the rubber contacts.

Before that, the keys needed striking hard or just didn't work at all. That's normal for a keyboard that hasn't been used for 30 years and can get better with some use. But after the cleaning and graphite, it's working very well indeed, it feels really nice and allows for fast typing.

Shots of the reassembled computer follow:

What of the software that gives the Plus/4 its name (referred to as '3-plus-1')?

Having used the word processor with reference to its manual for a couple of days, I think that a couple of reviews I've seen were a little unfair. It has a rudimentary cut and paste, tabbing, centre/justify text, find and replace and more. It's very easy to  load and save documents; with an SD2IEC you just have to make sure that the correct d64 file is selected before entering the software. You can of course print assuming you have a printer set up. The thing that I do miss is a general 'undo', one of the most useful computing concepts!

The size limit of a document (99 lines of 77 characters) has been cited as a serious restriction. But the system allows for linking of documents and printing linked documents one after another. So I think it's probably more appropriate to think of each of these documents as being a single page, possibly pages of a larger work. Not practical for writing a book but it seems that it was intended for writing letters.

Not being able to see the entire width of your page feels odd to start with, but there are keyboard shortcuts for navigating around.

One of the reviews I've watched suggested that you can't enter text into the spreadsheet cells. You can enter text and formulae. Remember that this is all from a different time; there are no menus, you have to check the manual for the keyboard commands.

Similarly, other than the keyboard-only interface, the database (aka 'File Manager') feels familiar with its tables, fields, records and reporting. It felt appropriate to use the 1984 computer to create a database of my vinyl albums.                            

In conclusion, I think it looks extremely attractive. The built-in software is usable and fun to use, although I probably won't be using it for all of my spreadsheet and wordprocessing needs!