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The Rise and Fall of Commodore
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Nov 15, 2006 03:40 PM
from the those-were-the-days dept.
from the those-were-the-days dept.
Andrew Leigh writes "On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise And Fall Of Commodore by Brian Bagnall is fodder for anyone interested in the buried history of the personal computer. Whether you owned a Commodore computer or want to hear a new angle on the early stages of computer development, you'll find this book easy to pick up and almost impossible to put down. Bagnall has gone to a massive amount of effort in telling this tale, researching and interviewing the real personalities involved. It takes readers on an important and often emotional ride that will many times leave you shaking your head at how painfully it all went wrong." Read the rest of Andrew's review
Before Commodore entered the home computer market, they were primarily a calculator manufacturer. The story begins in the mid 70's with the development of Chuck Peddle's famous 6502 chip, through to the release of the first personal computer, the Commodore PET. It then reveals how the VIC-20 became the first home computer to break the elusive one million barrier. Then comes the Commodore 64, and how the company made it the best selling computer of all time. The Commodore 128 is given plenty of coverage, along with the failed Commodore 16 and Plus/4 computers (which are probably better off forgotten). At this point, Commodore seems like it is losing its way, and the story cuts to the struggling company responsible for the original Amiga computer. You'll learn about the various Amiga models that followed, including the successful Amiga 500 and the pre-DVD CDTV and CD32 units. The hirings, firings, disagreements, discontent, resignations and celebrations that occurred during the company's run are given more than their fair share of coverage. It doesn't always show Commodore in the best light, which is what readers should demand from any history.
It's a sad truth, and the book describes this in an often bitter fashion, that the early history of computers seems to focus on Apple, IBM and Microsoft while Commodore's massive contributions to the industry are routinely ignored. The common misconception that Apple started the home computing industry is simply wrong. Commodore was the first to show a personal computer, the first to deliver low-cost computers to the masses, the first to sell a million computers, and the first to arrive with a true multimedia computer. Fortunately this book sets a lot of the record straight.
On The Edge delves deeply into the business strategies behind the company. Students of any business discipline will be well advised to heed the lessons about how not to run a company. One of the book's main characters and the founder of Commodore, Jack Tramiel, was an incredibly ruthless business man. Whether you love him or hate him, he was ultimately behind the incredible success of the VIC-20 and Commodore 64 computers. The book outlines how he managed to be the first to sell his home computers to the mass market through department stores, driving prices down and annihilating most of the competition. It also amusingly tells how he would regularly lose his temper and have what employees referred to as "Jack Attacks" when things went wrong. Many people referred to him as the scariest man alive and he probably was. Jack Tramiel unfortunately does not publicly talk about the Commodore days, so Bagnall was not able to personally interview him, however family members and those close to him give their personal accounts of events.
The book also explains how Irving Gould, the money-man and venture capitalist behind Commodore, constantly interfered when things were seemingly running smoothly. It is widely recognized that Irving Gould and Medhi Ali (the CEO he instated at the time) ultimately caused the sad demise of Commodore through 1993-94, yet the details of how it happened have always been sketchy until now. Thomas Rattigan, former CEO of Commodore, was interviewed by Bagnall and gives his personal thoughts and experiences during his time with the company. He also talks about his untimely dismissal by Gould. The later sections of the book describe how numerous marketing mishaps and poor business sense led to a dwindling stock price and an eventual filing for liquidation. Bagnall accurately describes the heartbreaking end to a great company that deserved much more success and recognition.
This book certainly does not shy away from getting its metaphorical hands dirty with the technical details and manufacturing processes involved in building the Commodore computers. If anything, more detail would be welcome here, as the personalities interviewed obviously drove their designs by an enormous amount of passion. Bagnall has interviewed all the original key players involved on the technical side, including the humble and personable Chuck Peddle. You'll read how he built the MOS 6502 microprocessor, with the talented layout artist Bill Mensch. The chip was used by not only Commodore but rivals Apple, Atari, and Nintendo. Many other notable and significant technical pioneers have also been interviewed and give their experiences and opinions.
You'll learn why your 1541 floppy disk drive was so unbearably slow. You'll learn how millions of dollars worth of Amigas were scrapped because of a cheeky message placed in the ROM by a disgruntled employee. You'll learn how exhausted coders had to take naps at their desks while code compiled on a mainframe. You'll also learn why those tedious "peek" and "poke" functions weren't built in as BASIC commands for easier usage on your C64.
Interestingly, Steve Wozinak, one of the co-founders of Apple Computers, claims in his new book (titled "iWoz") that he invented the personal computer and provided Chuck Peddle with the idea for the first Commodore PET. When you read On The Edge, you'll find that it tells a different story. Chuck Peddle receives a great deal of coverage, and after reading about his efforts you will feel this is deservedly so. His efforts have gone largely unsung and On The Edge may well be the first step towards him earning the title of being the father of the personal computer.
Commodore Business Machines was a company that produced superior computers for the mass market. Their legacy deserves to be told and more importantly heard. Computing history didn't just involve the big players that still exist today. Commodore, Atari, Radio Shack, and others all shaped the future. On The Edge is an experience that will change the way you view computing history and maybe even entice you to dust off that old Commodore computer that's been sitting in the cupboard. Bagnall tells it like it is and also leaves you thinking "what if?" many times. The great stories are filled with characters that anyone who works in the IT industry will recognize in their own workplace. It truly demonstrates the fragility and ad-hoc nature of not only Commodore itself, but the entire industry back then. It really makes you cringe in disbelief at how some stupid and insignificant decisions shaped the future as we know it now. No one could have known how important these decisions were back then.
At a hefty 557 pages, On The Edge is good value. Bagnall's informative and relaxed writing makes it a breeze to travel through decades at a blistering pace. It sheds some much needed light on a period of history clouded by revisionism.
You can purchase On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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Amiga and Hyperion Settle Ownership of AmigaOS 227 comments
HKcastaway writes "Amiga Inc and Hyperion Entertainment announced a settlement over ownership and licensing over AmigaOS 4.0 and future versions. Since the bankruptcy of Commodore, Amiga's history has been littered with lawsuits that have affected the development of Amiga hardware and software. Having a lawsuit-free OS probably will help a great deal to the continuity and recovery of the Amiga heritage. Hyperion also provides AmigaOS SDKs for developers.'
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The Rise of the Amiga has been postponed.. (Score:2)
Re:The Rise of the Amiga has been postponed.. (Score:4, Funny)
Signed,
Vic20
Parent
Remember the calculators? (Score:4, Interesting)
I had a Commodore calculator, the kind you plugged into the wall. It had a single-line orange flourescent display that had an annoying hum (the more digits that were lit the louder it was). It did though have a single register memory key, which was somewhat novel. Otherwise it was limited mostly to just +, -,
I first played on PETs. I still remember the joy of discovering all the different variants of it that people had. Some had green screens, others amber, and I think I remember seeing one that had purple pixels. But the membrane-style keyboard was the most futuristic looking (and hardest to use).
Then I did all my "serious" programming on the C64 and wore out many 1541 disk drives. In fact my c64 still works, but unfortunately not the drive. Once you learned all those magic PEEK and POKE numbers you could play God, or so it seemed.
Then it was on to the Amiga 1000 and 2000. I had three floppy drives on the thing (thank goodness for the included schematics) before I could finally afford a newfangled hard drive. Eventually I upgraded it all the way to a Toaster Flyer system before the company folded up and I had to move on. Which was horrible, until Linux came along.
I remember seeing a C64 in the Smithsonian a few years back. That sure made me feel old.
Parent
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If it weren't for the chattering 1541, I'd still have my C64. Mine was the "portable" SX-64 [wikipedia.org] with the 5" screen. Weighed at least 100 lbs (45 kg).
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[ducks]
Re:Remember the calculators? (Score:4, Insightful)
This book though is the real deal. It's easy to learn the history of Apple, we all know about Steve and Steve, and any halfway avid nerd knows about the legend of Breakout, the Steve's selling blue boxes to raise money, Atari & HP turning down the Apple, etc.
Commodore's story has been way less well told, and that's why this book is so great. The C64 was really the first PC that was in reach for the average consumer, yet if you just look at the popular press, it's as if it never existed.
Parent
Amiga (Score:2)
We will always miss you.
Why not buy from the author? (Score:3, Insightful)
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I had a Vic20, and later a C-64, and I am personally thrilled to be typing this on a Mac.
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Nowadays, thanks to user-ce
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Wait! Wait! I know this one! (Score:2)
Fall: Jack Tramiel
Re:Wait! Wait! I know this one! (Score:5, Informative)
Well, Peddle was only there for a short time. Jack Tramiel built Commodore up in the beginning, being Commdore's founder and everything.
He did do something in the early eighties which nearly killed Commodore. Tramiel went to war with TI in the so-called video game wars, furious that TI had undermined its calculator business in the eighties. The Commodore 64, which was selling well at $600 (supposedly close to 10x what it actually cost to build, even then) was repeatedly subjected to price cuts and a massive marketing campaign, which ultimately came close to destroying Commodore's cash flow.
At the end of the period, Irving Gould, Commodore's effective owner, fired Tramiel, who left and then went to Atari, which he basically saved from oblivion.
Commodore went bankrupt for the first time shortly afterwards. It recovered. And then went bust again.
Commodore's main problem at the end were a bunch of technical managers with agendas, and some lousy decisions made as a result of it. A case in point, the AGA chipset.
The AGA chipset was supposed to debut in an enhanced A3000 (the 3000 was a very respected, if expensive, 32-bit Amiga system), called the A3000+. Shortly before the A3000+ was supposed to be finished and shown to Commodore's international affiliates, there was a change of management, and the project cancelled. Instead, AGA was to be put first into a lower cost machine, called (IIRC) the A2200. Low cost consumer machines were suddenly considered Commodore's future direction, and they also designed an "A300", a replacement for the Commodore 64 based on old Amiga (ECS) technology, and an "A600", an AGA and standards compliant replacement to the A500.
All of which made some kind of sense, I suppose, but there was no replacement for the A3000.
After that, Commodore's managers decided to rename and reprice everything before announcing these wonderful machines to the public. The A2200 became the A4000. The replacement to the A3000. (This would be like Ford replacing the Lincoln Town Car with a design based upon the Escort.) It, and the A600, were delayed.
Meanwhile, the A300 was renamed (at the last moment) to the A600, and sold at the same price as the Amiga 500, which was abruptly dropped. The A600, as released, had some of the keyboard missing (so it couldn't play some Amiga games), and was no more powerful anywhere else. The machine did have a PCMCIA slot and a laptop hard drive interface, but these didn't really pacify anyone.
A few months afterwards, the AGA machines were released. Despite AGA, the A4000 was considerably less desirable than its "predecessor", and far more expensive than the A2000 it was supposed to replace. The A1200 was a good replacement for the A500, but was sold at a much higher price.
So in 1993 or so, you have Commodore:
If they hadn't had cashflow problems, it's tempting to speculate that all four machines would have been launched, and done so as replacements for the machines they were supposed to replace. As it was, they needed the money. That said, the A3000+ appears to have been killed by a manager of the type who wants to make an impression, rather than out of any technical or marketing awareness.
Tramiel can't really be blamed for all of this. He made one error, and he'd probably argue it wasn't an error to begin with, by the end of the "war" Commodore pretty much owned the home computer market, or was one of a top two (depending on country: ie Sinclair and Commodore in the UK owned the home computer market.) Irving Gould, who appointed a series of replacements for Tramiel and kept firing them until Medhi Ali, who was reponsible for the period where most of Commmodore's death was sealed. The PC fiasco. The numerous incompetent PHB-style heads of engineering. The mismanagement of the AGA transition.
Parent
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AGA GFX chips were made under contract by HP (the Commodore ex-Mostek fab couldn't handle better than 2 micron). This required forecasting so they'd reserve fab time for us.
Some of us pushed hard for dropping all the non-AGA models and selling the A1200, A2400 (aka A4000), and A3000+ for Christmas.
In summer of '93, when told that (because he'd been unwilling to commit to production of enough AGA chipsets earlier) that Commodore could only make somet
Ahhh, those were the days... (Score:2)
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Modern version not that different:
"AMD 64 + external USB drive + 384 kbps modem = endless fun surfing into Slashdot.org until all hours of the night.
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Yeah, I miss those Commodore 64 days, too. I once sat up until 5am trying to block-send an entire disk to a buddy of mine at 300 baud. The very last block failed. Freakin' DRM was alive back then, too.
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All that hardware - computers, monitors, lots and lots of probably-broken floppy drives - is in the closet of our computer room.
Hidden ROM message? (Score:5, Interesting)
You'll learn how millions of dollars worth of Amigas were scrapped because of a cheeky message placed in the ROM by a disgruntled employee.
Some Googling brought me back to Slashdot, and a previous story involving the Amiga [slashdot.org]:
It's a good read (Score:3, Interesting)
The failure of the Amiga comes down to one thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
If Commodore owned KFC they would have marketed it as "a greasy warm dead bird in a cardboard bucket".
At the time take a look at the Amiga vs the IBM PC AT and the Mac as far a cost vs features.
The Amiga was so far ahead it makes your head hurt.
That is the proof that marketing is the most important thing in computers. If having the best product wins then the PC would have died the death that DOS deserved back then.
B/W Composite on the 500??!! (Score:2)
Then the color adaptor came out, and it's like 6 friggin inches long (oh, and the monitor pass thru was also on the end of this), making your machine stick out even further from the wall. What in the hell were they thinking?!
I do not blame the engineers -
Re:The failure of the Amiga comes down to one thin (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The failure of the Amiga comes down to one thin (Score:3, Insightful)
Where was the marketing for the IBM PC, then?
I hazily remember a TV commercial touting the PCjr, and the "How ya gonna do it? / Gonna PS/2 it!" jingle is still a brainworm fifteen years later -- but both of those models were failures.
IBM PC's didn't sell well because of good marketing; they sold well despite a lack of marketing, because
Re:The failure of the Amiga comes down to one thin (Score:3, Interesting)
If Commodore owned KFC they would have marketed it as "a greasy warm dead bird in a cardboard bucket".
At the time take a look at the Amiga vs the IBM PC AT and the Mac as far a cost vs features. The Amiga was so far ahead it makes your head hurt. That is the proof that marketing is the most important thing in computers. If having the best product wins then the PC would have died the death that DOS deserved back then.
There's a great irony here, too. Consider VIC-20's amazing marketing, all the way down to
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Bar: Yeah, I'll also need a side of mashed potatos, slaw and 4 biscuits please.
And an oversized wax-lined cardboard conic section of water, carbon dioxide, artificial flavor, and high-fructose corn syrup, please.
To go.
Marketing, Amiga in Television Broadcasting (Score:3, Interesting)
You really can't market the Amiga 500, with a picture on the box of a kid in open mouth glee playing games, along with the Amiga 2000, with business/multimedia production, at the same time successfully.
Was that the issue, though? I don't think so; it makes perfect sense to view one has a compatible "home" version of your office computer.
I worked in television broadcasting, and as late as the mid 1990s, it was Amiga 2000 in the office and Amiga 500 at home. That was me, that was co-workers, etc. A few w
Of the Amiga (Score:4, Interesting)
*sniff* I miss Amigas.
Commodore also destroyed the Environment (Score:5, Informative)
Commodore's former chip fab facility is on the EPA's superfund site for extreme damage to the environment.
http://www.epa.gov/reg3hwmd/super/sites/PAD093730
I hope Medi Ali and Gould burn in hell for what they did. They ruined a perfectly good computer/OS AND dumped toxic waste!
Big deal.... (Score:4, Informative)
Virtually every manufacturing plant operating prior to 1980 or so is on the Superfund list. Dumping (or "storing") toxic waste was just part of doing business until then. Practically every company making anything at or before that time has at least one Superfund-listed plant somewhere. IBM has at least three. HP has four or so. Sun and Unisys each have one. Intel has two.
These days, companies have wised up. They've learned that China has no such legislation.
Parent
A good value? (Score:5, Funny)
Great story of executive excess (Score:4, Interesting)
Overall good book, but has a few issues (Score:5, Informative)
I personally don't remember any large number of Amigas scrapped for the "they f***ed it up" message; in fact I'd seriously doubt that. And there were easter eggs in every version of the OS, usually far more extensive than that one.
Also, there were no "mainframes" at Commodore; the biggest iron was a Vax 11/780(if I remember right). And none of the software builds were done on that; all the Amiga SW was built on Sun-2's (early on) or on Amigas directly. By 1989ish, only a few libraries were still built on Suns - I think Workbench.lib was the last holdout, or close to. For AmigaOS 2.0, I ported AmigaDOS and all the remaining BCPL filesystems and commands to C and assembler built on Amigas. The "darkest before the dawn" story is likewise close, but not quite correct. (It is legendary, though.) However, while we weren't waiting for compiles, there were interludes in the 2.0-2.04 days when we did sleep in some offices and storage rooms on cots, and had a freezer full of frozen meals, plus lots of delivered pizza, italian, etc.
Admittedly, the employees were upset enough about the (mis)management by Mehdi Ali (much more so than Irving Gould) that at the "Deathbed Vigil" party when bankruptcy was declared, we burnt Mehdi Ali in effigy in my backyard.
The old offices are now QVC Studio Park; you can tour them. A few people at QVC know about this; when selling the C64-in-a-joystik a year or two ago, the host mentioned that the building used to house Commodore. It is truely absolutely huge....
Note: I haven't read the book yet, though others in the group discussing it had, and one was a major interviewee.
Re:Overall good book, but has a few issues (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
I still have mine (Score:2, Interesting)
Commmodore's Legacy is LINUX (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/05.08.97/
He says the simplicity of the design of the Vic-20 enabled him to learn in a way that today is much more difficult. Read the last paragraph below.
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IN 1981, LINUS WAS A toothy, pale-skinned kid with a blond cowlick living in a suburb of Helsinki, where the weather is cold year-round, save for a few 70-degree weeks in the summer. That year, 11-year-old Linus inherited a Commodore Vic-20 from his grandfather, a professor of statistics at the local university.
As the cathode ray tube's blue light cast a glow on his face, he sat in his bedroom, books lining the wall from floor to ceiling. Ivanhoe, Treasure Island, Robin Hood and all the Tarzan books. On a shelf: a plastic model of the Wasa, a Swedish ship that sank on its maiden voyage in 1628. The Wasa, painted in meticulous detail and outfitted with working sails and rigging, took months to finish.
When the first computer arrived, the other projects fell by the wayside. Long past his bedtime, small fingers tapped the dark brown keys of the Vic-20 keyboard. His first achievement on the Vic-20 was the simplest computer program possible: a two-line "GOTO" program in Basic. Once he tried to impress his little sister, Sara, by programming the Commodore to repeat "Sara is the best."
Next he tapped out his first full-fledged video game written in machine code, in which a submarine sails through a moving underwater tunnel, remaining stationary as the operator controls its vertical movement. The craft's captain must stay alive by dodging the "large nasty fish" in the tunnel. As the game progresses, the tunnel constricts. This amused Linus for hours in his bedroom. He stored the program on an audiocassette and took it to school to play with friends.
In hindsight, Linus believes starting on a very simple computer gave him an advantage that today's whiz kids don't have. "Modern PCs are much more complex," he explains. "No kid sitting in front of a Pentium could ever understand all its parts thoroughly."
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Atari 130XE!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Ah, the glory days ... and the new C64 t-shirt. (Score:3, Informative)
I will definitely be getting this book. What wonderful nostalgia! "poke 53280,0" anyone?
One of the T-Shirts at ThinkGeek is of the exact setup that I mentioned above with the phrase "I Adore My 64". My shirt finally came in on Monday after being back-orderd for about a week.
I Adore My 64 [thinkgeek.com] (My apologies if someone already posted this, but I didn't see it.)
AMIGA FOREVER (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't claim I'm posting this from my 1000 or 2000 since I'm at work, but they both still run. In 1987 I was, to my knowledge, the only person on campus with a full-color, stereo, multithreading PC, at a fraction of the cost of the monochrome Macs and the VAX mainframe. When someone else got one, we cabled them together and played full-color, networked jet fighter games and people's heads exploded watching them.
Agree, Commodore's importance is underrated (Score:5, Insightful)
To put it very simply, even though I was a programmer of PDP-12's, -8's, and -11's, and very familiar with Apple ]['s because I was working in a research institution that was in the process of adopting them, my first home computer was a VIC-20. For the simple reason that... I could afford one. The base price was $300. I bought a bunch of add-ons and my total cost was about $600.
At the time, an Apple ][ cost something like $2000 if I recall correctly.
The only thing in the same price neighborhood as the VIC-20 was the Atari 400 with a full QUERTY keyboard--of membrane keys. Ugh. Practically unusable. The VIC-20 had what the time was a very nice keyboard with a very comfortable, responsive "feel" to it.
Commodore's VIC-20 and Commodore 64 were the Model T of the personal computer era. Aficionados scoffed at them as cheap junk, but they were real computers that ordinary families could afford.
Hey, at a time when standalone modems cost $500, the VIC-20 had a crude but usable modem for about $60. If I recall correctly instead of frequency-shift keying between two frequencies, it just used one of the frequencies and turned it on and off. Like the Apple color video output, it was a nonstandard signal which standards-compliant modems could nevertheless tolerate. I did some work from home with it, and it was my gateway into CompuServe.
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I've still got one... sold the other for $15k in 1999.
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Its SID sound chip was certainly well-regarded, and its Sprite capabilities were nifty.
Unfortunately it had a terribley barebones BASIC.
So it wasn't a revolution for home machines, but an evolution.
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The Commodore 64 had better sound than the any computer of that time.
The Amiga first mass market computer
1. with multi-tasking.
2. with stereo sound.
3. that supported sampled sound.
4. hardware accelerated video you could argue that the Atari 400/800 was first thanks to it's missile player graphics but Jay Miner was involved in the both.
5. The ability to sync the computers video with an external vi
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For true pedants, the C64 had a MOS 6510, not a 6502. Same ABI, i think it jsut had interconnects for all the extra chips (video, SID audio chip)
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