Back from the Grave: Commodore Plus/4 (kitchen sink)

Following on from the success of the C64, Commodore set about creating a system to replace the ageing VIC-20 - itself still in production - and potentially replacing the C64 itself with something cheaper. The 264 series was born, split into three variants: the largely-unknown-outside-Europe 116, the 16, and the Plus/4. While the former two featured just 16KB of RAM, the latter boasted a full 64KB; plus a 4-programme office suite in ROM (from which it derived its name).

Sadly, for all it did right, it did far too much wrong to make a name for itself. While it had twice the clock speed, more colours to choose from, stereo sound, and even more usable RAM (approximately 60KB was free in BASIC), it cost as much as the established C64, couldn't run the majority of existing Commodore software, had a fractured market due to the 16KB variants, lacked sprite and sound modulation capabilities, and inexplicably changed nearly every external interface to one that was physically incompatible with existing peripherals.

The entire 264 line was discontinued in 1985 - the year after its introduction.

Back from the Grave: Sega Saturn (losing power, flashing LED)

Sega's Saturn holds the unfortunate fate of being the beginning of the end of Sega as a hardware manufacturer.  Launched in 1994, Sega mistakenly believed their competition would come in the form of the (unsuccessful) Atari Jaguar and designed their console primarily as such, essentially pairing two Mega 32X consoles together for a 2D graphics monster with some 3D capability.

Sadly, between developers being unable to fully utilise a twin-CPU, twin-GPU system, and the extremely successful launch of Sony's fully-3D PlayStation, the Saturn would prove to be a financial disaster from which Sega would never fully recover.  It was discontinued in 1998 with just 9.26 million units sold.

Back from the Grave: Sega Game Gear (dull screen)

The Sega Game Gear.  Released in 1990 to compete with Nintendo's Game Boy, on paper it was a no-contest winner: colour graphics on a backlit display, a more common-place processor, twice the VRAM, compatibility (via an accessory) with the entire existing library of Master System titles (including an adaptor for 2-player games), and even an analogue TV tuner accessory made it seem all but certain Nintendo would have to react or fall by the wayside.

Sadly, something went wrong for Sega.  Nintendo didn't add colour (or a backlight in the global market) until 1998, by which time the Game Gear had already been dead for a year.  While the Game Gear had comparatively short battery life (especially considering it took more batteries) and some questionable titles, it was ultimately Sega's lack of focus on the mobile market which sealed its fate.

Back from the Grave: Atari 2600 (Skewed, garbled screen; buzzing)

The console that effectively created, dominated and then almost destroyed the videogame industry, all on its own: The Atari 2600.  Originally launched in 1977 as the VCS (Video Computer System) before being renamed upon the 1982 release of the Atari 5200, it was originally released to play upon the name and reputation of the Fairchild VES (Video Entertainment System) released a year earlier; itself renamed to the Channel F upon the release of the VCS.

The 2600 itself was, even by the day's standards, an unimpressive machine.  While it featured a 1MHz 6507 (similar to the 6502 found in the Apple II and VIC-20, just with fewer addressing pins), it had just 128 bytes (yes, bytes) of RAM, only allowed for 4 kilobyte cartridges (which was later expanded to 32kB by way of bank switching) and had almost zero graphical capability.  But developers managed to use this meager offering to exceptional effect, resulting in games that weren't Pong and securing its place at the top of the proverbial food chain (right up until ET, anyway).

Back from the Grave: Commodore VIC-20 (Part 3: blank, dark screen)

The Commodore VIC-20 - the "Friendly Computer".  Friendly perhaps to everyone except those who wanted to make it do anything significant.  The default RAM configuration meant it only had enough free RAM to hold a single page of 11-point text, making it perfectly adequate for documents which would fit but utterly dreadful for those that wouldn't.  Its 16 colour palette completely lacked any greys, and only 2 of the 4 colours in multicolour mode could even access the second 8.  Even its sound was limited by virtue of each of the three melody channels only having minor overlap in their range.

Yet, despite all this, it was a hit.  Even to this day people are still forcing it to do things never even dreamed of at the time of its creation.  In 2013, even Doom was ported to it - it didn't have all the levels, all the enemies, all the guns or all the music, and ran in a reduced size while requiring 32KB of RAM (all bar 1 expansion), but it is still there, playable, and relatively faithful to the original.  As yet the same cannot be said of the C64, which currently uses a co-processor to do the same (a 65c816, similar to that of a Super Nintendo/Famicom, running at 20MHz with 16MB of its own RAM) and still isn't nearly as complete (eg It has no sound).

Back from the Grave: Commodore VIC-20 (Part 1: blank, dark screen)

(This is unchanged from the original post, aside from this message.  Blogger simply decided it wanted to revert the post to a draft and change its posting date, and I'm unable to figure out why)

Launched in 1980, the VIC-20 (sold as the VC-20 in Germany and the VIC-1001 in Japan) was the first computer of any kind to sell in excess of one million units.  Pairing the already established MOS 6502 (used in the PET as well as Apple's II), a custom graphics chip (VIC) originally intended for game consoles, and an introductory price of just $299 it effectively created the entry-level computer market and filled it in spite of its shortcomings (such as only 5KB of RAM, though expandable to 32KB).

Eventually it would finally give way to the juggernaut that was the Commodore 64 which, while incompatible with most VIC-20 software and twice the price, was simply too much better to ignore.  Commodore would eventually retire the VIC-20 in 1985 after superseding it with the similarly low-cost (and much less successful) 264 series; specifically the Commodore 16.

Back from the Grave: Commodore 64 (phantom characters, low BASIC RAM, no sound)

The Commodore 64.  Arguably the best known home PC ever made, and certainly the most popular single model ever produced having shipped an estimated 10 to 17 million units in its 12 year lifespan.  As far as completely 8-bit units were concerned, there simply wasn't anything better: 64KB of RAM, 16 colours (up to 4 usable at the same time), 8 hardware sprites, 3-channel fully synthesised sound, a generous 320x200 display (160x200 in multi-colour) and plenty of inputs and outputs.  Other vendors needed to use 16-bit components just to keep up, and it still wasn't enough.

Eventually the C64 would ultimately be defeated by itself.  The vast majority of its software became gaming related and the 8-bit system simply couldn't compete against the emerging 16-bit console market.  With no direct successor to keep its design legacy alive, the rise of the x86 ecosystem, now moving to 32-bit, was simply the final nail in the coffin.