The Rise and Fall of Commodore 340
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
| On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore | |
| author | Brian Bagnall |
| pages | 557 |
| publisher | Variant Press |
| rating | 9 |
| reviewer | Andrew Leigh |
| ISBN | 0973864907 |
| summary | Tells the story of Commodore through first-hand accounts by former Commodore engineers and managers |
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.
10$ Cheaper at Amazon (Score:1, Informative)
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!
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:Not many contributions. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The failure of the Amiga comes down to one thin (Score:3, Informative)
I do have many fond memories on my C-64 (and my Amiga). I've still got a mostly working SX-64 in my closet, but I'm not sure the disk drive is in good shape - the last time I tried, I couldn't read most of the floppies I have.
I did learn to program in BASIC and 6502 assembly language on my C-64 and we wore out many joysticks playing Summer Games and M.U.L.E. on it.
My personal personal computer experience went like this:
TRS-80 Model 1, 4K RAM, Level 1 Basic (eventually upgraded to 16K RAM, Level 2 Basic, but I never had a disk drive for it)
C-64 (I skipped the Vic-20) with several 1541 disk drives
SX-64 (bought used from a friend who bought a C-128)
Amiga 1000
(started using Macs at my college job and a few PCs in school, but most schoolwork was done on a Vax and an IBM mainframe)
Packard Bell 486 (my first PC)
I've lost track of how many different PCs I've owned since then.
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.)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Rise of the Amiga has been postponed.. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:6502 also in (Score:3, Informative)
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)
Re:Overall good book, but has a few issues (Score:4, Informative)
Re:B/W Composite on the 500??!! (Score:2, Informative)
The 23pin RGB port carries all the right signals to happily drive a VGA monitor, but at ~15KHz, 50/60Hz.
Re:Not many contributions. (Score:2, Informative)
The Amiga was light years ahead of everything else:
4096 colors
True Multitasking
A proper channel processor (i.e. channel commands were handled by one of the three chips Gary, Agnes, or Denise
A Proper Graphics Processor with built in real time animation in the hardware.
A Proper Sound Processor.
Quadraphonic Sound. Closest competitor. Mono. Atari and Apple.
True Multimedia... fully compatible with NTSC (in US) or PAL (Europe)
Many PCs today actually have inferior graphics and sound to an original Amiga!
The guys who developed Amiga were geniuses. Commodore (their sugar daddy) was, I'll admit completely incompetent in every way.
I knew Commodore and Amiga was going to go down at an Amiga User's group meeting when the 500 was announced... The Commodore marketing guy comes in and states flatly that the 500 will have no hard drive because "our customers have no interest in hard drives". We all jumped him, but he was simply too stupid to get it. The 500's form factor was really clever with the works in the keyboard... Had they put a 20 meg hard drive in that machine, and allowed Toys "R" Us to sell them... Commodore would be Microsoft today.
While Apple was giving Computers to schools (so kids knew and liked them) Commodore their demo machines at full price to their own dealers... Almost all simply had pictures of them! They shouldn't have bothered to even play... they brought no chips to the table.
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.
Re:The failure of the Amiga comes down to one thin (Score:2, Informative)
If Commodore had just let Toys "R" Us sell the damn things, people would have never bought PCs because they would have said
Commodore got stuck in sementics and blew their golden opportunity.
Re:Not many contributions. (Score:2, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)