A History of Commodore’s 8-bit Computers

I think one could build a business course entirely from the history of CBM. There are so many interesting mistakes and successes.

The C64 is a classic case of a company not falling prey to the innovators' dilemma. They built the C64 when they already had one of the most successful computers on the market in the VIC-20. Tramiel had shown an uncanny knack for spotting evolution in the market on multiple previous occasions and leapt from one profitable business to another, leveraging the success of the earlier to fund the latter.

And, then, the faltering began. Instead of once again shooting for a big hairy audacious goal (64k for $595, in the case of the C64), they cut corners and delivered less power for more money (C16 and Plus/4, both massive market failures, because people aren't idiots). The article doesn't cover it, but the Plus/4 was extremely weak for games, compared to the C64. Despite having support for more colors, it didn't have hardware sprites and sound was a regression to the old bleep bloops of lesser computers, compared to C64's beautiful and powerful (for the time) 3 voice synthesizer chip (designed by the dude who went on to found Ensoniq, a leading sampler/synth company of the 80s).

The SX64 is less clear cut of a mistake...it was a beautiful machine, built well, and competitive with other portables of the time. Not sure why it did so poorly. I guess the business market wasn't into the Commodore brand by that time, and it was the only market that could afford it. I remember seeing "Name Brand Computer!" closeout special ads in the various computer mags at the time, and it was clearly an SX64...I remember wanting one, too, but couldn't afford it even at the drastically reduced prices. I still don't know how to interpret it in the history of CBM. Marketing failure? Poor market fit? Just too expensive?

It took them years to bring out a C64 upgrade in the C128, which was a modest success. I think part of the reason it wasn't a bigger success was its high cost (both for CBM to build and consumers to buy). The Z80 chip was a boondoggle bolted onto the side of the design that nobody used. Again, failure to achieve any meaningful hold in the business world meant there was no C/PM usage on C128 to speak of, and it was wasted effort and cost to try to tackle it.

The dedicated game machines are also a failure blip on the radar, and I think it's clear why: They reduced the utility of the thing, delivering less value, at a slightly lower price point; trying to boost margins at the expense of customers was a mistake they'd make over and over. The cost-cutting instinct at CBM was strong, but not in the direction it needed to go...people want more value for less money. They never want less value for less money. I don't know how to express this truism, and I don't remember where I've read studies about it, but people don't readily accept downgrades like this, and Commodore introduced these kinds of downgrades constantly, and it's an explanation for almost every one of their big failures, and when they went against that grain (and delivered more value for similar money, they had big hits).

Other later examples...the Amiga 500 was effectively an Amiga 1000 for half the price. Sure, smaller case, but it was just as capable of a computer. And, it was the most successful Amiga model, by far. Had CBM always followed this model of delivering more for less, without pursuing all the stupid side projects that were clearly bound for failure, they would still be around today (though Gould may have even been able to kill that successful of a company).

Even as a kid, I could see that the C16 and Plus/4 were bound to fail. They were utter shit for games, and games were the primary reason families were choosing C64 over other low cost options. Likewise, one could see that the C128 was going to struggle because it cost a lot to produce and had features that weren't going to be used (I never saw any C/PM software for C128, and I was using a C128 and then C128D until I got an Amiga in 1991...I was a hardcore user), and yet they kept shipping out that goofy hybrid concept for all those years (that's why the C64 kept going longer than the C128...it was simply cheaper to make and cheaper to buy, and still provided pretty similar value to the 128, because so little software for 128 existed).

Likewise, Amiga got the chopshop treatment on a few occasions, where they tried to make gaming versions and home entertainment versions. Always too little value, given competitors of the time, including compared to the Amiga itself. All trying to goose margins, without delivering more value.

One important thing they left out about the C64C was that it was actually a masterstroke rarely seen from Commodore management after Thomas J. Rattigan took over.

Tramiel had kept Commodore constantly moving at breakneck speed with very little room for error by cutting prices so aggressively there was next to no margin. It was actually one of his price cuts that caused him to get pushed out, as well as savage Comodores retailer network (they had tons of hardware in the pipeline, announced a massive cost cut and refused to reimburse or credit retailers for the difference in recommended retail price, causing lots of retailers to lose lots of money, many of whom subsequently dropped Commodore).

But the C64C went the opposite direction: Despite 8-bit machines being past their prime at the time, the C64C was launched at a higher price point, often obscured by bundled that included GEOS and/or Quantum Link. At the same time it was drastically cost reduced. Some of it is obvious - if you open an early C64 vs a C64C the case seems pretty much empty in the latter; the 8x8KB RAM chips are replaced by one or two; lots and lots of 74xx series chips are replaced by a couple of custom asics etc. Some are not so obvious - fewer different types of screws etc.

The result was that the C64C was a large part of saving Commodore at a very difficult time (when was Commodore not in crisis?) by dramatically increasing Commodores margins. Probably the first and only time that Commodore had margins similar to Apple, though still at a much lower price point.

Of course, shortly after essentially saving the company from one of its worst crises ever, Rattigan was fired by Irving Gould, and Gould personally took over as CEO - allegedly because Gould was annoyed that Rattigan got lots of positive PR. Rattigan later won a $9m lawsuit against Commodore over the firing... The history of Commodore management is that success was as bad for your continued employment as failure.

When I was a kid, I somehow ended up with a copy of the 1989 edition of The Secret Guide to Computers, by Russ Walter. While it was already outdated by the time I got it (this would be around 1995 or 1996), I found it an absolutely fascinating resource for a number of reasons. One, it was my introduction to programming, and the tutorials in the book really opened my eyes. Two, it was filled with a wealth of information about the home computer era, which was something that I never really got to experience firsthand: my family had Macs when I was little (I was born in '84, and my parents got a Mac Plus in '86, starting my love affair with computers), and we eventually switched to PCs in the mid 90s. All I knew firsthand about the era was from the Apple II models at school. Reading this book introduced me to a whole new history featuring companies I knew next to nothing about, such as Commodore, Atari, and Tandy.

Anyway, a few stories about Commodore's history were imprinted on me thanks to this book, and I'm going to repeat them here from memory.

One: The PET's launch was filled with problems. Commodore originally wanted a guaranteed retail channel, so when they first started developing the PET, they approached Tandy about a partnership where Commodore would make the computer and Tandy would sell it. Tandy politely declined Commodore's offer... because Commodore sold them on the idea making of a home computer so well that Tandy decided they should both make and sell their own computer, cutting Commodore out of the loop and resulting in the TRS-80. The PET's development was filled with delays, and by the time it actually launched, the TRS-80 has beaten it to market. It was already obsolete by the time it came out, and then IIRC they had problems introducing the floppy drive as well, with its launch plagued by delays and mechanical problems. When Commodore began work on the VIC-20, they weren't so much following up a successful product with a next generation as they were desperately trying to make up for the PET's problems.

Two: With the VIC, Commodore found out that naming a computer was harder than it looks, especially when you're trying for an international launch. They originally wanted to name it the Vixen to promote it as sleek and sexy, but the name ended up being too sexy for the European market since "Vixen" is pronounced like Wichsen, which is German for "masturbation". So they shortened it to Vic. Unfortunately, they discovered that a German would pronounce it like Fick, which means "fuck". Ultimately, they decided to go with different names for different markets: they named it VIC-20 in the US and VC-20 (short for "VolksComputer") in Europe. On a similar note, the medicine company Vicks had the same problem, so they chose to spell their name as Wicks in Germany.

My first "real" computer was a VIC-20. I used an optical detector hooked up to the joystick's ADC input to observe that my fluorescent lamps were not "steady" but instead flickered at some frequency.

I became an embedded computing guy later on... :)

If you want to know more about other obscure products and prototypes see the secret weapons of Commodore: http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/

trip down the memory lane: i coded apps (programs we called them, like a small joystick drawing tool or a little program that put out a boilerplate BASIC code) and games (rpg, asteroid like mini-shooter, ...) on the C64 (basically via "forking" and combining programms available in printed magazines) - but nobody "grown up" saw value in them. i was told not to waste that much time on the computer - and after the energy-supply-thingie went up into flames, i was sent back to watch TV...

gladly -as i found out in the first dotcom bubble - that not much has changed. ok, everything has changed, but "writing programs" was still "writing programs" and it wasn't that much of a jump from BASIC to "that stupid subset of PERL that the template engine of that long gone agency used".

we should bring back that "printed code" magazines. i mean really just a magazine where there is pure code and only a short discussion about it. not that patronizing how-to shit thats currently available.

If you love Commodore computers, then Brian Bagnall wrote a really good book on the history of Commodore's 8-bit machines.

http://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/d...

I have to imagine that the movie War Games starring Matthew Broderick helped spur sales. After seeing that movie, I had to have a commodore computer ;) That movie, alone, changed me. I was an eletronics geek and after seeing that movie, I knew the future (for me) was computers.

On similar topics, but with even more detail, there is "The Digital Antiquarian" (Ostensibly mostly about the history of adventure games, but with some amazing articles about the home computer revolution thrown in): http://www.filfre.net

While it wasn't hardware I wish they had mentioned GEOS: If you had enough money for a disk drive this would give you a Mac OS feel to your C64: http://toastytech.com/guis/c64g.html

The Digital Antiquarian has a lot of really good posts about that era, extensively covering the hardware and software. Start from http://www.filfre.net/sitemap/

I still have memories of burning out two VIC-20s by POKE-ing where I shouldn't. (I was five; the memory map wouldn't mean much to me until much later.)

A VIC-20 was my first computer. I still have fond memories of writing random-sentence generators in BASIC on that thing.

amyjess, if you read this, your comment is showing as dead, don't know why, sometimes the moderation on HN catches out people that don't deserve it. Thanks for passing on the stories.