The Commodore 16 belongs to the Commodore 264 series (with the Commodore C116 and Plus/4). It was designed to replace the Commodore VIC 20, but it was not compatible with the VIC-20, nor with the C64.
It had the same characteristics as the Commodore Plus/4 : same graphic resolution, same sound system, same CPU and speed, just less memory.
It featured a version of the original 6502 CPU named 7501, and a new video chip named TED. With 16 colours, and 16 shades of colour, it had an amazing 128 colours available.
But it had no hardware sprites like the ones on the VIC II chip, so animated games and collision detection were very hard to do.
It featured a powerful basic language (contrary to the VIC-20 or the C64) which makes graphics and sounds easy to program.
The C16, like the Commodore Plus/4 was a commercial failure and had little success.
It seems that the first C16s had the two control ports labelled JOY 0 and JOY 1 instead of JOY 1 and JOY 2, just as a hint for collectors :-)
Note that as well as the C116, the C16 lacks a user port.
Final assembly was done in Mexico by a company named Sigma.
