Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff dot com. Hello, welcome to
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and I am
Speaker 1: an editor at how stuff works dot com. Sitting across
Speaker 1: from me as always senior writer Jonathan Strickland. If you
Speaker 1: really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll
Speaker 1: probably want to know is where I was born and
Speaker 1: what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents
Speaker 1: were occupied and all before they had me and all
Speaker 1: that David Copperfield kind of crap. But I don't feel
Speaker 1: like going into it if you want to know the truth,
Speaker 1: good because we didn't want Oh that was a quote. Yes,
Speaker 1: that that does not that was not mine. That was
Speaker 1: a quote. Um, yeah, it's a quote. And here's a
Speaker 1: hard thing to believe. It's a quote from a book
Speaker 1: I have never read, and it is a classic. But
Speaker 1: I was never it was never part of my curriculum
Speaker 1: growing up, and so one of these days I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to fix that. Anyway, So today we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about an interesting piece of technology that was very
Speaker 1: influential early on in the era of personal computers. That's
Speaker 1: the truth. And UM, of course we've we've talked on
Speaker 1: its sibling later or earlier earlier, earlier in our podcast history,
Speaker 1: UM and Jonathan really wanted to get into a bit
Speaker 1: of the history of the company today. So well, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about the history of this particular machine, but uh
Speaker 1: sort of in a the greater context of the company itself.
Speaker 1: And it starts with a guy who was born in Europe, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Polish immigrant named Jack Tramiel. Uh. He actually had a
Speaker 1: very very traumatic early experience because he was he was
Speaker 1: one of the uh Jews who were rounded up by
Speaker 1: Germany and put into a concentration camp. Um. Now, fortunately
Speaker 1: he survived that ordeal. Eventually moved to North America, originally
Speaker 1: New York City, became part of the U. S. Army,
Speaker 1: and actually began to learn how to repair typewriters. What
Speaker 1: typewriter He was loving that, Okay, kids, back in the day,
Speaker 1: typewriters were these devices that would print directly to paper. UM.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was he was a typewriter repairman and
Speaker 1: uh he started to he found an opportunity to create
Speaker 1: a company h in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. And so he
Speaker 1: moved to Toronto, and in nineteen fifty four he founded
Speaker 1: a company called the Commodore Portable Typewriter Company. And Uh,
Speaker 1: just so you know, I've got some other interesting things
Speaker 1: that happened in nineteen fifty four, just to give context
Speaker 1: to what else is going on in the world. I
Speaker 1: just thought this would be kind of cool. I I
Speaker 1: kind of want to do this from here on out
Speaker 1: to kind of give context to historical events happened. So
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty four, that was also the year the
Speaker 1: first nuclear powered submarine was unveiled. That was the USS Nautilus.
Speaker 1: That the hydrogen bomb was tested at Bikini Atoll, which
Speaker 1: just makes me think of Beanie and Cecil because they
Speaker 1: had the island no Bikini at all. And then, uh,
Speaker 1: there's a According to True Knowledge, which is an artificial
Speaker 1: intelligence program created by William Tunstulpedo. April eleventh, nineteen fifty four,
Speaker 1: was officially the most boring day in the twentieth century
Speaker 1: because nothing of any real consequence happened that day. Uh.
Speaker 1: Brown versus Board of Education happened in nineteen fifty four
Speaker 1: that ended segregation in public schools in the United States.
Speaker 1: The first issue ever of Sports Illustrated Magazine published that
Speaker 1: year Laura the Flies published that year. Actually, now that
Speaker 1: I think about it, I should have used that as
Speaker 1: the quote for the beginning of this podcast. Uh. Texas
Speaker 1: Instruments announced the development of the first transistor radio in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four, and Texas Instruments is going to play
Speaker 1: a part in this discussion as well. And one of
Speaker 1: the most pivotal events in nineteen fifty four, the very
Speaker 1: first gud Zella movie premieres. So Uh. In nineteen fifty five,
Speaker 1: the company officially incorporates and becomes Commodore Business Machines, Incorporated. Uh. Sorry,
Speaker 1: you were going to say, no, I was going to
Speaker 1: add that the the Commodore history that I've pulled up
Speaker 1: UM suggests that part of the reason that that Jack
Speaker 1: Tremille decided to get into business manufacturing his own equipment
Speaker 1: was because, um, the the machines, the typewriters that were
Speaker 1: coming in from overseas were much more inexpensive, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, his his repair business was sort of he
Speaker 1: realized that he wasn't going to have much of a
Speaker 1: future in that, so he decided to get in on
Speaker 1: on his own thing. Yeah, which was a smart deal
Speaker 1: for him. It worked out, Yeah, it worked out. In
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, the company was listed in New York
Speaker 1: Stock Exchange as Commodore International Limited. Uh. And then in
Speaker 1: the nineties seventies, Commodore began the transition to get into
Speaker 1: the business of manufacturing calculators, including scientific calculators. And they
Speaker 1: were I think, like we've talked about some people who
Speaker 1: have manufactured calculators. Yeah, yeah, well they met with early success.
Speaker 1: But then Texas Instruments got into the game. And of
Speaker 1: course their thing was creating affordable calculators for for consumers.
Speaker 1: Plus they had to compete with Hewlett Packard of course
Speaker 1: they were they were looking more at high end business machines.
Speaker 1: So Texas Instruments starts to hone in on this calculator business,
Speaker 1: and that's when the by the mid seventies, mid to
Speaker 1: late seventies, that's when the the concept of the personal
Speaker 1: computer as we consider them today, that's when it's really
Speaker 1: started to take hold. And so Tramuel thought, this is
Speaker 1: really where it's at. We should get into this because
Speaker 1: the calculator business is starting to get a little too crowded,
Speaker 1: and they hired an engineer by the name of Chuck Pedal,
Speaker 1: who actually joined a division of Commodore called MS Technology Incorporated.
Speaker 1: So this is a subsidiary essentially a Commodore and MS
Speaker 1: Technology is the company that created well, they manufactured semiconductors. Yes,
Speaker 1: and he Pedal created a processor chip which was sort
Speaker 1: of similar to a chip that Motorola had made previously,
Speaker 1: but it was called the six five zero X series.
Speaker 1: So six zero two being one of the most famous
Speaker 1: and six five one zero being another. And we'll talk
Speaker 1: about those in a little bit as famous as you
Speaker 1: know chips get yeah, yeah, or at least gotten those days, right,
Speaker 1: So these are processors that were very, very influential early on.
Speaker 1: So nineteen seventies six, Commodore International Limited relocates to west Chester, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: a place I'm actually really familiar with. I've been to
Speaker 1: Westchester many many times. In nineteen seventy seven, Commodore then
Speaker 1: unveiled the Personal Electronic Transactor or PET, the Commodore PET. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Commodore PET was one of the well, that was
Speaker 1: the first computer the Commodore created, and they unveiled it
Speaker 1: at in nineteen seventy seven at CS in Chicago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you listen, to our CES podcast. You remember we
Speaker 1: talked about how you know, they experiment with different cities,
Speaker 1: including Chicago for a while. Well, the PET was really
Speaker 1: popular in education in schools, but it wasn't a It
Speaker 1: wasn't a success in the home market at all. Had
Speaker 1: a very industrial looks made out of metal, and it
Speaker 1: was pretty expensive, but it did feature the MS six
Speaker 1: five zero two processor. Now, in nineteen eighty, Commodore announced
Speaker 1: the VIC twenty and I remember the VIC twenty very well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it actually went on saye in one and originally the
Speaker 1: sales price was two dollars, which was incredible. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was undercutting all the other personal computers that were
Speaker 1: on the market at the time. By the way, in
Speaker 1: today's dollars, that's about seven hundred and eight bucks. So
Speaker 1: this was the first PC to sell over a million units.
Speaker 1: It was the first really popular home PC. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: the the VIC twenty was sort of unusual in another
Speaker 1: way to UM because you know, by today's standards, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be as unusual UM, but at this point it's
Speaker 1: a machine that didn't have its own monitor, UM, and
Speaker 1: it really didn't have a monitor that you got with it.
Speaker 1: You were really most people I knew that had VIC
Speaker 1: twenties just took him up to a TV UM. But
Speaker 1: that was part of its appeal was it was for
Speaker 1: people who wanted to mess around with computers. And at
Speaker 1: that point, if you had a home computer, you were
Speaker 1: somebody who wanted to mess around with computers. UM. This
Speaker 1: wasn't something that you did because you wanted to log
Speaker 1: into bulletin boards or because you you know, uh needed
Speaker 1: the Internet for school or something like that. You didn't
Speaker 1: why would you want a computer in your house? You know,
Speaker 1: because I like computers. I want to learn more about computers.
Speaker 1: So you know, this is this is an affordable way
Speaker 1: for people to get on in on the ground floor
Speaker 1: and fool around with computers. UM. Now, it wasn't exactly
Speaker 1: a powerful machine. Five kilobytes of Braham, yeah, and only
Speaker 1: three and a half kilobytes were available once you booted
Speaker 1: it up. The other one and a half that that
Speaker 1: was dedicated to the startup process and running the the
Speaker 1: the back end of the machine, So you only had
Speaker 1: three and a half kilobytes of RAM to work with. UM.
Speaker 1: And it was cartridge based, but it also you could
Speaker 1: also get a cassette tape drive that we could connect
Speaker 1: to it. Um. And one of the advantages of hooking
Speaker 1: it up to your television was that if you have
Speaker 1: a color TV, you have a color monitor, whereas if
Speaker 1: you look at the other computers on the market at
Speaker 1: that time, they were monochromatic monitors. So that was a
Speaker 1: big advantage. Now, these these advantages still if you look
Speaker 1: at the power of the VIC twenty, that was that
Speaker 1: was the biggest criticism as direct at the VIC twenty
Speaker 1: was that it was underpowered. So, uh, Commodore had a
Speaker 1: response to that, which brings us to the real subject
Speaker 1: of this podcast. In nine two, Commodore introduced the Commodore
Speaker 1: sixty four and they introduced it at C E s YEP.
Speaker 1: Now this, uh, both of these machines have essentially the
Speaker 1: same form factor. UM. And if you look at it
Speaker 1: now go back and if you've never seen one, and
Speaker 1: you go back and look at photos of this, it
Speaker 1: looks sort of like it's just the keyboard. Um. It
Speaker 1: was sort of an all in one, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: like we think of it today. And in terms of
Speaker 1: you know, some of the machines that that come out
Speaker 1: that are all in one where they have the monitor
Speaker 1: with the computer in it. This was the keyboard with
Speaker 1: the computer in it. Um. And uh, yeah, those keys
Speaker 1: were very clicky, but I mean absolutely solid machines, solid
Speaker 1: to the point of if you if you were to
Speaker 1: drop one on your foot, you might need medical attention. Well,
Speaker 1: Commodore believed in making these machines tough. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's not exactly a glamour queen of
Speaker 1: a machine, but you know, but how do it work?
Speaker 1: And very versatile. Uh. It originally cost five hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: which in today's dollars one three d twenty six bucks.
Speaker 1: And still at five that's still very affordable compared to
Speaker 1: the other personal computers, especially the Apple. To the two
Speaker 1: main competitors against Commodore at this time, we're really a
Speaker 1: tari An Apple Texas Instruments to a slightly lesser degree
Speaker 1: and Tandy to a much lesser degree. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: the five price point was very attractive. And the reason
Speaker 1: why it's called the sixty four is that had sixty
Speaker 1: four kilobytes of RAM. Commodore was always looking for those
Speaker 1: fancy names. Yeah. Uh. The The design team included Robert Russell,
Speaker 1: Bob Jannis, and David ZIMBECKI. Um, they were the ones
Speaker 1: who kind of were the brains behind the original development,
Speaker 1: although there were other people who were also very heavily
Speaker 1: involved in creating this this computer. And I have the
Speaker 1: first paragraph of the user manual if you would like
Speaker 1: to hear it. Absolutely, let's go with that. Your new
Speaker 1: Commodore sixty four is the best home computer available today.
Speaker 1: You can use your Commodore sixty four for everything from
Speaker 1: business applications to household paperwork to exciting games. The sixty
Speaker 1: four offers you lots of memory six yes, lots of
Speaker 1: color sixteen different colors, lots of sound, music and zund effects,
Speaker 1: and lots of fun and practical uses. You can use
Speaker 1: prepackaged software or you can write your own programs and
Speaker 1: easy to learn Basic. Well, their version of easy to
Speaker 1: learned Basic apparently wasn't easy to learn for everyone, because
Speaker 1: I've seen some criticism leveled at it. However, UM, what
Speaker 1: what's funny is that this machine was It's not funny
Speaker 1: that this machine took off. UM. People had many many
Speaker 1: people owned a VIC twenty, a Commodore sixty four or both.
Speaker 1: UM and the power of this machine was not in
Speaker 1: its processing power or its speed, but it was in
Speaker 1: its ability to reach people with the idea of having
Speaker 1: a computer at home. And it did have some other
Speaker 1: features that made it very attractive. Um, it had eight
Speaker 1: bit graphics, which put it on par with the the
Speaker 1: home video game systems that were coming out, so there
Speaker 1: was a an appeal to video game enthusiasts, and there
Speaker 1: were a lot of games that came out for the
Speaker 1: Common War sixty four that were that ended up being
Speaker 1: incredibly popular. Uh. And then there was the fact that
Speaker 1: it also allowed you to program in languages like Pascal, Logo,
Speaker 1: fourth and Fortran. One of the big things about the
Speaker 1: Comparse sixty four. One of the things that was most
Speaker 1: attractive to a lot of users was the fact that
Speaker 1: it had a sound interface device sound chip or SID chip. Yes. Now,
Speaker 1: the SID chip was developed by Bob Yannis, who he
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, and he actually would later on go on
Speaker 1: to found a synthesizer company, so he knew a thing
Speaker 1: or two. He actually knew a lot about about sound
Speaker 1: design music, and he wanted to be able to create
Speaker 1: a device that could represent some a pretty broad array
Speaker 1: of sounds, and the Converse sixty four had a much
Speaker 1: more sophisticated sound system than almost any other device on
Speaker 1: the market at that time. So you still have people
Speaker 1: who are very much fans of the old Common War
Speaker 1: sixty four when it comes to creating music today. And
Speaker 1: you can still find lots of sixty four out there. Um.
Speaker 1: There's a site that's dedicated to the C sixty four
Speaker 1: uh C sixty four dot com, which is pretty interesting
Speaker 1: if you like to play around with that. But UM,
Speaker 1: one of the I remember back when I was a
Speaker 1: kid and people had the Vick twenties and sixty four.
Speaker 1: A lot of the magazines out there, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: the computing magazines liked to offer a program um in
Speaker 1: the back of the magazine, so you'd read about you know,
Speaker 1: it was sort of like the PC worlds of the day,
Speaker 1: but it was you know, magazines like Compute um had
Speaker 1: uh you read about peripherals and and cool things you
Speaker 1: could do with your computer, and then the back of
Speaker 1: the the thing it would tell you about how to program,
Speaker 1: and it would have a program in there that you
Speaker 1: could enter in yourself. UM. And I think that was
Speaker 1: that was sort of a beautiful thing. A friend of
Speaker 1: mine and I uh sort of dabbled in that. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, working on trying to to come up with
Speaker 1: uh or try to play some of the games that
Speaker 1: they had written in there. And it was really kind
Speaker 1: of cool because it gave you this perception that programming
Speaker 1: something yourself it wasn't really all that hard. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of daunting in a way to to
Speaker 1: pop in um DVD now or you know, download something
Speaker 1: from the internet and you play these games with these
Speaker 1: amazing graphics today and and sound you know, uh, surround
Speaker 1: sound and and uh you know, millions of colors, but
Speaker 1: you know, you have to get down to the hood,
Speaker 1: you to actually look at the code that that seems
Speaker 1: kind of and and you know, for some people it
Speaker 1: can be really daunting, I think for most people, because
Speaker 1: I didn't want to make it sound like you know
Speaker 1: everyone that way. But back and back when the Cover
Speaker 1: sixty four launched, it was completely feasible for a single
Speaker 1: person to create a game from start to finish. Everything
Speaker 1: from the graphics to the sound, to the gameplay itself,
Speaker 1: the story, whatever you want to call it, all of
Speaker 1: that was completely feasible for one or maybe maybe a
Speaker 1: mall team of people like two or three to put
Speaker 1: it all together. And of course today to create games
Speaker 1: that compete at at the standard level. It's entire divisions
Speaker 1: of companies that build games. Now, that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: there aren't still people out there who take it upon
Speaker 1: themselves to create a game all by themselves. And there's
Speaker 1: some really popular and compelling games out there. They're made
Speaker 1: by a single person. But that's the exception, not the rule,
Speaker 1: as opposed to the other way around. Back in the
Speaker 1: Commodore sixty four premiered, and it was sort of a
Speaker 1: basic platform. That's kind of a pun but unintended, but
Speaker 1: it was. It was a platform for people to learn
Speaker 1: the foundations for computer programming, and so it was a
Speaker 1: very popular device, especially I mean, if you talk to
Speaker 1: people who are a well established computer scientists today, a
Speaker 1: lot of them have fond memories of the Commodore sixty
Speaker 1: four because that was the machine that got them into
Speaker 1: computer science. And I had read too that one of
Speaker 1: the benefits, one of the detriments of the sixty four
Speaker 1: led to one of the uh real strengths of the
Speaker 1: sixty four, which was, um, it really didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of uh didn't have a lot of memory. You
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of room to play with code.
Speaker 1: So the people who learned a program learned to do
Speaker 1: that very efficiently because they didn't have a lot of
Speaker 1: room for error um, and a lot of room for
Speaker 1: extraneous stuff in their code. Now. UM, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you knew this or not, but they they may.
Speaker 1: For a while, Commodore actually considered the possibility of doing
Speaker 1: something else before they released the sixty four. In fact,
Speaker 1: they heard an overture from some people at a budding
Speaker 1: brand new computer company. Um, but they turned him down.
Speaker 1: A couple of guys named Steve who had approached who
Speaker 1: had approached Commodore with the idea of, hey, wouldn't you
Speaker 1: like to buy this computer design we have in mind? Um.
Speaker 1: And as it turns out, Commodore passed on the idea
Speaker 1: for the Apple too. Um what what is now? Apple
Speaker 1: could have been Commodore in a way. But in in
Speaker 1: doing so, we actually ended up with two great machines
Speaker 1: because we ended up with the sixty four and the
Speaker 1: Apple two, which ended up being competitors. Um. But it's
Speaker 1: kind of funny. I I had no idea. Now I
Speaker 1: knew about the ties with them with Atari, of course, um,
Speaker 1: since they were at engineers. But yeah, and that's gonna
Speaker 1: get even more complicated in a minute to Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the and the sixty four used cartridges just like
Speaker 1: the VIC twenty did. Also could use cassettes, but it
Speaker 1: also had an optional floppy drive five and a quarter
Speaker 1: inch floppy drive five and a quarter inch discs still
Speaker 1: have some and yeah, I think I do too, but
Speaker 1: they're all for the Apple to ye two. But they
Speaker 1: but the floppy disk. I think the drive cost a
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, so it was actually more expensive than the
Speaker 1: compute or itself. Uh. And it was an add on
Speaker 1: that you could get and plug into your Commodore sixty
Speaker 1: four to give it additional functionality. Yeah, and the cartridges
Speaker 1: could allow you to get better performance out of your
Speaker 1: Commodore sixty four. It wasn't just like a video game
Speaker 1: console where a cartridge game is on the cartridge itself.
Speaker 1: In fact, the the addition of the floppy drive was
Speaker 1: kind of interesting because that introduced a new concept in computers,
Speaker 1: which was piracy, because you know, with cartridges, you had
Speaker 1: them hard coded on you know, the programs were hard
Speaker 1: coded on the cartridge itself. Yeah, you had a rom
Speaker 1: on this chip. There's no way that you could really
Speaker 1: manufacture one of your own. You could, but you'd have
Speaker 1: to know how to burn the chips, and it's it's
Speaker 1: not something that people have the hardware for. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: couldn't really do it at home. Whereas whereas with disks,
Speaker 1: it was it suddenly became feasible to be able to
Speaker 1: copy programs from one disk to another, and that's when
Speaker 1: you started seeing things like copy protection being added on
Speaker 1: into disks, and then you started seeing things like people
Speaker 1: figuring out how to get around copy protection. Well, that
Speaker 1: all kind of started with the Commodore sixty four, also
Speaker 1: in nineteen eight six, so a few years after it
Speaker 1: had debuted, you started to see a new operating system
Speaker 1: appear on Commodore sixty four called GEOS, which is Graphic
Speaker 1: Environment Operating System, so it was a graphic user interface.
Speaker 1: Now keep in mind that the the mac OS, which
Speaker 1: was the first operating system to popular popularize the g
Speaker 1: U I in n four, it had been out for
Speaker 1: a couple of years, so it wasn't like Commodore sixty
Speaker 1: four was breaking new ground. They were kind of going
Speaker 1: the same direction that that Apple was going in at
Speaker 1: that time. And of course, before anyone writes in yes,
Speaker 1: We're aware Xerox Park had developed the the g U
Speaker 1: I years before. That's why he said popularize and home computers.
Speaker 1: Those are two important parts of that discussion. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: you were using an Apple two or a Commodore sixty
Speaker 1: four VIC twenty UM, the Atari four eight hundred UM,
Speaker 1: the early IBM PCs, you know, we're we're talking a
Speaker 1: text based operating system primarily UM to get started with,
Speaker 1: and then you know things things changed in the mid eighties.
Speaker 1: But uh yeah, yeah, so we're not talking keyboard and mouse,
Speaker 1: we're talking keyboard and keyboard keyboard. Yeah, the and and
Speaker 1: common Wood chose a pretty interesting way to market the
Speaker 1: sixty four. Not only was it a cheaper computer than
Speaker 1: all of its competitors, they decided to try and get
Speaker 1: the sixty four into retail stores, not just electronics stores. Yes,
Speaker 1: so you can actually find a Commodore sixty four at
Speaker 1: like a toy store, yeah, or a major retailer, And
Speaker 1: so they were you know, the idea was try and
Speaker 1: get this device in front of as many average consumers
Speaker 1: as possible as opposed to throwing them in an elector
Speaker 1: ronic store where you really had more of a hobbyist
Speaker 1: kind of mentality, right, I mean, you don't. The average
Speaker 1: consumer just wasn't necessarily walking into an electronics store on
Speaker 1: a fairly regular basis. So that helped really push the
Speaker 1: popularity of the common Wore sixty four. And in fact,
Speaker 1: according to almost every source I could find, Uh, there
Speaker 1: was a point in some part of the discussion of
Speaker 1: the Commover sixty four about it being the most popular
Speaker 1: personal computer model ever. Yeah, that's kind of hard to
Speaker 1: quantify realistically, right, but but when you but if you
Speaker 1: do limit it to saying one computer model, then it
Speaker 1: makes it a little easier because then you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: all right, so you know, even though even though Max
Speaker 1: might be or or Windows based PCs are really incredibly popular,
Speaker 1: if you narrow it down to a single model, then
Speaker 1: then the game changes because there's so many different models
Speaker 1: out there. But according to the Center for Computing History,
Speaker 1: between Commodore sold around seventeen million units. That's quite a few.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of a lot of computers, especially in
Speaker 1: an age when computers weren't on everybody's list of things
Speaker 1: to buy, right, and Commodore also took the approach of
Speaker 1: developing the components for its computers itself, which helped keep
Speaker 1: the price down. In fact, that's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why the devices were priced where they were because they
Speaker 1: had this we call it vertical integration. They had their
Speaker 1: own We've mentioned the semiconductor manufacturing plant. Well, that was
Speaker 1: the thing about Commodore was that it was developing these
Speaker 1: pieces itself, so it could keep the cost of manufacturing down,
Speaker 1: as opposed to purchasing chip sets from other companies, which
Speaker 1: would end up increasing the price of the units. Yeah.
Speaker 1: For example, um, you talk about today's computers, somebody like
Speaker 1: ACER or HP or Apple, they buy processors from Intel
Speaker 1: or maybe a m D in some cases, but Commodore
Speaker 1: was building there's themselves, right, So I think I think
Speaker 1: the price for producing a Commodore sixty four was around
Speaker 1: a hundred thirty five dollars and then they were selling them,
Speaker 1: so it was a good profit margin for Commodore sixty
Speaker 1: four once they once they started to really get popular
Speaker 1: in the market and the It's interesting what happened shortly
Speaker 1: after the premiere of the Commodore sixty four, because there
Speaker 1: was a lot of upheaval in the Commodore company itself.
Speaker 1: In nineteen three, practically the entire team that developed the
Speaker 1: Commodore sixty four, left Commodore and they started a new
Speaker 1: company called Peripheral Visions, and then that was renamed into
Speaker 1: in Sonic, which later on in the nineties was purchased
Speaker 1: by Creative Labs, which makes sound cards, and they're very
Speaker 1: popular sound card manufacturers, and so they're still around. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, Bob Yannis was one of those people. Um,
Speaker 1: David's Zembecki was one of them. So yeah, there was
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of people who were instrumental in the
Speaker 1: development of the Commodore sixty four who by night three
Speaker 1: had decided they wanted to try and do their own thing.
Speaker 1: And in nineteen eighty four, the founder of the company, Tramiel,
Speaker 1: he quits Commodore. So this is thirty years after he's
Speaker 1: founded this company originally, he quits and he founds a
Speaker 1: company called Trammel Technology. Um that same year, the Commodore
Speaker 1: company purchases another company called the Amiga Corporation. So the
Speaker 1: Mega Corporation was a startup company that was existing primarily
Speaker 1: unventure capital and was running out of cash. So Amiga
Speaker 1: Corporation was in some serious trouble. When Commodore comes around,
Speaker 1: and says, all right, we're gonna purchase this company and
Speaker 1: incorporate their technology into our business. Meanwhile, Trammel Technology purchases
Speaker 1: another company called Atari. Now technically they only purchased one
Speaker 1: part of Atari, because at this point Atari was in
Speaker 1: serious trouble. Keep in mind, this is so this is
Speaker 1: after the video game Crash, which which decimated Atari. Actually
Speaker 1: shouldn't use the word decimated. That has the whole one
Speaker 1: tenth thing. It really undermined ataries and so Travel Technology
Speaker 1: purchased Atari's consumer division. So now you've got Trammel Technology,
Speaker 1: headed by Jack Tramiel, who is the founder of Commodore,
Speaker 1: competing directly against Commodore, which is now purchased Amiga. By
Speaker 1: the way, the whole Amiga and Atari stories do not
Speaker 1: have happy endings. Um. And we've talked about the fact
Speaker 1: that Atari's story in particular did not have a happy
Speaker 1: ending because that company was broken up into so many
Speaker 1: different pieces, all of which kind of met with If
Speaker 1: they met with success, it was very limited success. Now
Speaker 1: they they both were sort of in a position to
Speaker 1: do some pretty good things. I mean, the sixty four left, uh,
Speaker 1: Commodore was in a pretty good spot in the marketplace. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they even talked to this this guy named Bill about
Speaker 1: incorporating his version of Basic on their machines. Yeah, Gates,
Speaker 1: I feel like whatever happened to that guy? Well, he
Speaker 1: started marketing a kind of shoe called the Conquistador that
Speaker 1: they run pretty tight. Right, So, how many people out
Speaker 1: there remember those ads the Bill Gates Jerry Seinfeld ads
Speaker 1: raising my hand, Yeah, listeners, if you were not familiar
Speaker 1: with them, you should go check them out. They were
Speaker 1: only on television for like a month and a half,
Speaker 1: and they were the strangest ads, and they weren't really
Speaker 1: advertising anything in particular. It was it was very Seinfeld
Speaker 1: ask It was the advertisement about nothing other than conquistadors,
Speaker 1: and they run pretty tight. Yep. But but yeah, Commodore
Speaker 1: was in a in a good spot, and uh this
Speaker 1: the purchase of Amiga looked like it was going to
Speaker 1: be a good deal because UM Amiga was next generation
Speaker 1: technology and four thousand, ninety six colors um you know
Speaker 1: that a processor that could run it, you know, like
Speaker 1: hurts Omega hurts. I mean the introduced and they introduced
Speaker 1: the Amiga computer in nineteen eight five, so just the
Speaker 1: year after they had purchased the company. The first Amiga
Speaker 1: computer hits store shelves. Yeah, the uh the mac what
Speaker 1: is now the Mac Classic, The original Macintosh hit hit
Speaker 1: store shelves in four actually, um and uh Atari and
Speaker 1: Commodore right on their heels. Commodore with the the Amiga
Speaker 1: and the ATR ST series, which was also running those
Speaker 1: Motorola processors. Now, again this is a departure because the
Speaker 1: the Amiga used the Motorola processor is its main processor,
Speaker 1: so this is not an MS chip. And um, you
Speaker 1: know this is this is where people who are still
Speaker 1: Amiga fans these day, Um, you go, how did Commodore
Speaker 1: managed to mess this up? Well, we've talked about that
Speaker 1: in a podcast from long ago too. But this was
Speaker 1: sort of the beginning of the end for for Commodore
Speaker 1: because right off the success of the sixty four UM
Speaker 1: they introduced the Amiga series and they sort of went
Speaker 1: along for a while, but they also introduced the Commodore one.
Speaker 1: Ah yes, they won twenty was a little larger than
Speaker 1: sixty four UM at least in and and it was
Speaker 1: probably uh, I guess probably a lot of people would
Speaker 1: consider it more attractive and had you know, it had
Speaker 1: a slightly more streamline design. Um and it used an
Speaker 1: MS chip, so it was that's going back to commodore
Speaker 1: z own chip set. Uh So, but the just didn't
Speaker 1: didn't really, it's moderately successful. Moderately successful. Yeah, it's no
Speaker 1: one really remembers that. Compared to the sixty four. When
Speaker 1: you say Commodore, most people think, oh, Commodore sixty four.
Speaker 1: They don't think Commodore or the Amiga. Frankly, yeah, well yeah,
Speaker 1: Amiga fans love it sure like you. Um. But yeah.
Speaker 1: So the at that point they started meeting with more
Speaker 1: limited success and they started running into other issues and uh.
Speaker 1: Over the course of the next few years, what really
Speaker 1: happened was IBM computers IBM either IBM clones. Eventually what
Speaker 1: we just called Windows based PCs started to really take over,
Speaker 1: and Commodore just could not compete because at this point
Speaker 1: you had instead of instead of having a single company
Speaker 1: you're competing against or like a major competitor, So Commodore
Speaker 1: and Apple, or even Commodore Apple and Atari, now you
Speaker 1: had dozens of competitors because the these the approach that
Speaker 1: everyone made with the IBM based PCs was that it
Speaker 1: could be any manufacturer using those processors, and so you
Speaker 1: had all these different companies spring up that We're developing
Speaker 1: various kinds of computers, many of which were at a
Speaker 1: similar price level to Commdoors, and some of them had
Speaker 1: richer feature sets. So now you had Commodore competing against uh, well,
Speaker 1: like I said, dozens of companies, and it ultimately just
Speaker 1: could not keep up. And in fact, in nineteen Commodore
Speaker 1: declared bankruptcy. We went to Chapter eleven and filed for
Speaker 1: bankruptcy protection. A company called s Com bought Commodore in
Speaker 1: n but that did not go so well. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: s Com had to declare bankruptcy in nineteen and was
Speaker 1: actually liquidated. Nine seven, a Dutch company called Tulip Computers
Speaker 1: in v bought the Commodore brand name, and since then
Speaker 1: the Commodore brand name has continued in limited use. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The the Amiga properties intellectual properties also, they got divested
Speaker 1: in the course of these feelings, and so UM Amiga
Speaker 1: became a separate brand. UM. Actually Gateway purchased Amiga UM
Speaker 1: and it's sort of bounced around UM. Both of them,
Speaker 1: the brand names bounced around UM. The recent acquisition of
Speaker 1: both has reunited the Commodore and Amiga brand names. The
Speaker 1: machines they're making now are are basically windows machines, harkened
Speaker 1: back to the old form factors. Yeah, they they have
Speaker 1: one that that actually looks very much like the sixty four.
Speaker 1: It's got a chassis that looks like the sixty four,
Speaker 1: but when you get down into the guts of it,
Speaker 1: it's not a sixty four. No, no, not not technically.
Speaker 1: But um, but it's kind of funny to see it happen. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's it's amazing they're looking back at it. How
Speaker 1: many programmers can say they got their start fiddling around
Speaker 1: with the sixty four, that that their parents got them. Um.
Speaker 1: And some credit the success of the video game industry
Speaker 1: to the Commodore sixty four simply because so many programmers
Speaker 1: were born from the sixty four's ease of use as
Speaker 1: a as a programming machine and or or at least
Speaker 1: it's availability at a reasonable price. Um, you know, and
Speaker 1: and it really sort of spawned the interest in programming
Speaker 1: and programming games specifically, um, you know, for so many people,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, it's it's it's an amazing success
Speaker 1: story and sort of a not really a one hit wonder,
Speaker 1: but kind of almost because it was such a star
Speaker 1: for Commodore amid a very troubled future at that point
Speaker 1: for the company, So pretty amazing. Yeah, it was definitely
Speaker 1: an interesting story. Uh. And and again, like I think
Speaker 1: back when Commodore sixty four was at the height of
Speaker 1: its pop pularity, it would have been really difficult to
Speaker 1: imagine Commodore ending up the way it did, right, Like,
Speaker 1: you just wouldn't imagine that company going away. But it's
Speaker 1: a good reminder to all of us that companies that
Speaker 1: seem to be really successful and unstoppable, that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: always going to be the case. So it's a I
Speaker 1: think anyone getting into the computer industry or those who
Speaker 1: are already in it should keep these kind of stories
Speaker 1: in mind to try and avoid the pitfalls that other
Speaker 1: companies have stumbled into. So even companies like Apple, where
Speaker 1: you look at Apple and you think, wow, they've really
Speaker 1: got it together. They've got a great aesthetic, they've really
Speaker 1: identified their market. They dominate in the market that they've identified. Um,
Speaker 1: you've got to keep in mind the stories from companies
Speaker 1: like Commodore to make sure that you know, you don't
Speaker 1: just take that for granted. And then next thing, you know,
Speaker 1: two or three years down the road, things start looking
Speaker 1: pretty grim or or vice versa in Apple's case. UM,
Speaker 1: but well, even IBM has gotten out of making personal computers,
Speaker 1: even though they know Commodore sixty four helped popularize the
Speaker 1: idea of home computing, but IBM's decision to allow clones
Speaker 1: UM basically forced it out of the home computer business.
Speaker 1: They got rid of their their home computer line and
Speaker 1: let Lenovo take that UM and now they focus on
Speaker 1: business computing. But it's it's amazing how these things change.
Speaker 1: And they would never have thought that the controversy in
Speaker 1: when it looked like HP was going to get on
Speaker 1: personal computers and then they reverse their decision. And then yeah,
Speaker 1: if you listen Cutthroat Business, Yeah, if you listen to
Speaker 1: our our multi part episode about HP, you know all
Speaker 1: about that. But yeah, that's one of those things you
Speaker 1: just cannot take it for granted. But I think that's
Speaker 1: a good discussion about the Commodore sixty four, a beloved
Speaker 1: dinosaur in the personal computer history. And if you guys
Speaker 1: have never had a chance to to play with one, UM,
Speaker 1: I do recommend you you look it up. You know,
Speaker 1: look at some photos of it and get an idea
Speaker 1: of what we used to think of as a really
Speaker 1: sophisticated machine back in the day, because folks like Chris
Speaker 1: and myself were that's that's kind of what we we
Speaker 1: identified as a personal computer back when we were kids. Um,
Speaker 1: so take a look at that and then just um
Speaker 1: go and hug your computer. All right. Well, that wraps
Speaker 1: up this discussion. So if you guys want to get
Speaker 1: in touch with us, you can drop us a line
Speaker 1: on Facebook or Twitter. Our handle there is tech Stuff
Speaker 1: h s W. Or you can write an email at
Speaker 1: our brand new email address, tech Stuff at Discovery dot
Speaker 1: com and Chris and I will talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,
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