if you were born in 1970/in the mid 70's you'll probably remember that one computer called the Commodore 64. commodore 64 is the most iconic computer ever existed. listed number one for the best computer of all time. and yup its history is just as amazing as the computer itself. so buckle up your seatbelt and let me tell you the incredible history of the Commodore 64.
the beginning of commodore
before we begin the history of commodore 64, we should begin on the history of how the company was formed and established in the first place. Commodore was founded by Jack Tramiel the Polish-Jewish immigrant and Auschwitz survivor. Jack Tramiel founded commodore in 1954 as a small business and the first name for Commodore was Commodore Portable Typewriter. for many years he managed his Typewriter repairing business. in 1955 he formally.
incorporated as Commodore Business Machines, Inc. (CBM) in Canada. In 1962, Commodore went public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), under the name of Commodore International Limited. In the late 1960s, history repeated itself when Japanese firms started producing and exporting adding machines. The company's main investor and chairman, Irving Gould, suggested that Tramiel travels to Japan to understand how to compete. Instead, Tramiel returned with the new idea to produce electronic calculators, which were just coming on the market.
Commodore soon had a profitable calculator line and was one of the more popular brands in the early 1970s, producing both consumers as well as scientific/programmable calculators. However, in 1975, Texas Instruments, the main supplier of calculator parts, entered the market directly and put out a line of machines priced at less than Commodore's cost for the parts. Commodore obtained an infusion of cash from Gould, which Tramiel used beginning in 1976 to purchase several second-source chip suppliers, including MOS Technology, Inc., in order to assure his supply. He agreed to buy MOS, which was having troubles of its own, only on the condition that its chip designer Chuck Peddle join Commodore directly as head of engineering.
The reason why commodore just straight up purchased MOS technology was that commodore wanted to avoid another textas instruments (TI) shenanigans. by buying MOS commodore have the upper hand of not only having a chip producer but also being able to produce powerful computers and selling them at a very low price, which we will get into that later.
as time went on commodore begin to change its tactics. instead of producing calculators, commodore decided to produce computers, because computers were starting to gain traction. in the '70s commodore went big with its new creation called the Commodore PET. the thing that makes Commodore PET so attractive for its time was the venerable BASIC programming language already built-in into the computer and acts as an Operating System.
There was a story about the BASIC programming language developed by Bill Gates himself. before Bill Gate's company went big with IBM he needed to make a name for himself and his company so he approached jack Tramiel at commodore. he chooses commodore at that time because Commodore was already a big tech company. Bill Gates negotiates with Jack Tramiel about importing his software to Jack's Commodore PET, but Jack Tramiel never take Bill Gates seriously because Bill Gates is only a kid when he negotiates, Jack Tramiel said this to him: "I'll give you $10.000 for your BASIC programming language and its rights".
basically what Jack Tramiel tries to do here is that he is trying to purchase BASIC from bill gates, after that he changes every single aspect from BASIC. this kind of stuff didn't sit quite well with bill gates, because he worked so hard on BASIC and Jack Tramiel just easily claim his software as his own by buying out the rights form Bill Gates. Jack Tramiel said: "Since then, he never wanted to speak to me", after this Bill Gates agreed because he has no choice, Bill Gates imported his BASIC programming language to Commodore PET, he didn't just import his BASIC though he also hid some easter eggs in his BASIC.
the rise of Commodore
because commodore had already obtained BASIC, they waste no time to create a new computer. after the success of Commodore PET, they built a newer version of their computer called the VIC-20. the VIC-20 is the upgrade of their previous computer but it's somewhat not enough to compete with the lights of Apple. 1981 came along and commodore saw the emergence of a new competitor the mighty IBM. IBM started to produce home computers in 1981 and went successful with its IBM PC. commodore saw this as a threat to their business and launch their newest and most powerful computer, the commodore 64.
in August 1982, Commodore 64 was launched. went commodore 64 was launched it saw a fierce competitor with so many computers like the Apple II, Atari 400 and 800, and most notably the IBM home computer. the original price for the Commodore 64 is $595 and that itself is simply too expensive. Commodore knew about this and made an aggressive price cut from $600 to just $300 ($1500 to $800 in 2019).
after the aggressive price cut, sales for the C64 (Commodore 64) went up higher and this price cut alone is the major contribution of the infamous American Video game crash of 1983. The C64 is selling like hotcakes, beating out competitors to the point where it bankrupted them like the lights of the Texas Instrument. not only that but the commodore 64 is beating the lights of Apple II and IBM home PC. the computer market in America has already been dominated by Commodore, not only the C64 beats every aspect of IBM PC and Apple II but it also dwarfed their sales.
The legendary commodore 64 rule the world
From 1984 to 1987 commodore 64 is growing at a huge rate, sales of the C64 are no longer popular in America, it's also popular around the world. places like Canada, Germany, Swiss, Britain (UK), Europe, China, and Japan. this means that COmmodore 64 dominated almost the entire world. the market share of the Commodore 64 is just incredible, not only they got a hold in America but they sure do get a hold in Europe and East Asia. IBM and Apple are doing currently fine because most of their computer dominated the rest of Asia.
it wasn't long for a software developer to develop and publish their software on the Commodore 64. games are where the C64 is at. Commodore 64 has a custom sound chip known as the SID chip and the superior graphics chip, this makes Commodore 64 is the best platform to publish and sell games. thousands of games and software appearing on the C64 in a wide range, software like productivity software, office software, graphics software, and music software was developed for the C64. and this goes on and on until the year 1990 came along.
the day when commodore 64 fell
in the year 1990 PC compatibles started to emerge making the C64 an obsolete technology but commodore 64 is not done yet. Commodore 64 died a slow death from 1990 to 1994 and funny enough the company goes bankrupt in the year 1994, the same year C64 is truly dead. those long full years aren't about to get wasted because commodore has purchased Atari's old company known as the Amiga. the Amiga was known for developing and publishing the very first multimedia PC. amiga computers went popular from 1987 to 1992 and experienced a slow death from 1993 to 1995, the same year Windows 95 PC came along.
such a beautiful tale of the greatest computer ever made by Polish-Jewish man named Jack Tramiel. Commodore 64 went on to become the legendary 8-Bit computer of all time