WEBVTT - The Fall of Commodore 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.520 Welcome to Business on the Brink, a production from I 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:14.360 Heart Radio and How Stuff Works. Commodore had the most 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:18.600 popular computer of all time, yes, even against Apple and Microsoft, 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:22.320 and later would upgrade to merge with another computer system, 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:26.040 making them a double powerhouse. But the same strategy that 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:29.200 made the brand sell so well was the same glitch 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:32.599 in the system that would eventually lead to its crash. 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.760 It's a calculated story full of crazy drama that sometimes 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:39.680 might make you go, does not compute. So join us 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:42.640 as we take a bite that's b y t e 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:56.240 into the story of Commodore as a business on the brink. Hey, 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:58.840 everybody on Jonathan's trick Wine and I'm arial casting and 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:02.520 this is a sea guestion by a listener, Crystal vander Least. 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.600 Thank you, Crystal, Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it because 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:09.160 it's right in my wheelhouse. Well, it may not be 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:12.520 in my wheelhouse, but I owned both Commodore's and Amigos, 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:15.240 which is the other commuter we're gonna be talking about. Yeah, 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:17.840 you're ahead of me. I never had an Amiga. I 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:20.600 never had a Commodore either. I had a Texas Instrument 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:23.720 trash e D. But I never had a Commodore. I'm sorry. 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:26.199 The Commodore sixty four for it today was a really 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:28.800 good computer. Yeah, we're gonna talk a lot about that 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:32.640 because obviously it's a big important part of this story, 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:35.280 and one of the things we really wanted to focus 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:41.040 on was the way this company actually had its fall 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:45.200 from grace, which means we're gonna go real light on 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:47.440 the history part so that we can get to the 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:50.160 juicy bits. But it is important to know where the 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:54.040 company came from in order for us to understand what happened. Yeah, So, 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:57.160 to begin with, Commodore International was founded by Jack Trammel 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:02.160 in Eno as Commodore Business Machines Incorporated. He was an immigrant. 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:05.800 He had actually survived Auschwitz and then after trying a 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:07.760 few jobs in New York, whence he moved to New York, 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:11.440 he moved to Canada and started manufacturing typewriters. Yeah, he 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:14.960 actually got some money from a g I bill in 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:18.040 order to fund that. And some other things we should 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:20.920 know about Trammel that will become very important throughout this 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:27.079 episode is that he was I wrote the line fiercely competitive, 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:30.799 but I don't feel that truly captures the spirit. Do 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:34.160 you think it's too mild description. I mean, he he 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:37.840 literally was one of the entrepreneurs who said business is war. 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:41.520 That's like a direct quote from Trammel. He said that 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:44.000 when you go to business, you're not You're not just 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:47.800 there to make money. You are there to declare war 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:50.760 against all your competitors, and your goal has to be 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:54.200 to win. I mean, a little bit of that attitude 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:57.800 can maybe be healthy, but not entirely. You're you're missing 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:00.680 out on key components of what made people like Pany. Yeah, 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:04.760 and there's going to be some discussion about his leadership style, 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:08.799 which obviously rubbed some people the wrong way. But at 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:13.079 the same time he was considered truly a visionary in 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:17.240 that he really believed strongly in innovation and trying to 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:21.520 take the lead in the industry. So it's kind of 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:24.400 a double edged sword. Trammel. Yeah, but we're not there 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:28.840 yet because as markets changed and the typewriter business got 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:31.480 too competitive and two fears and not that he was 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:34.960 scared from it, but he moved from typewriters to adding machines. Yeah. 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.120 So what was going on was that the Japanese markets 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:41.600 were starting to create typewriters. This was right around the 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:46.200 time where Japan was starting to evolve into a technology 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:50.920 and manufacturing powerhouse. So this is you know, the immediate 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:54.840 post World War two was about Japan kind of re 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:59.200 establishing itself and then it sort of went full on 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:03.000 into this manufacturing phase. And the problem was they were 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:06.200 able to make the same stuff that Commodore was making, 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:09.720 but make it less expensive, so it was very hard 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:12.160 to compete. And by that we mean typewriters, not computers. Yes, 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:14.360 so we're not there yet. After adding machines, he moved 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:17.640 to calculators and during that time he incorporated which was 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:20.200 in and he went public on the New York Stock 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:25.360 Exchange in nineteen sixty two under the name Commodore International Limited. Yes, 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:28.720 and shortly after that the company wasn't a bit of 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:32.160 a rough patch. It was finding itself short of cash. 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:36.080 And so one thing that Commodore ended up doing was 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:39.880 selling a significant number of shares to a Canadian businessman 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.920 named Irving Gould, and Gould would actually do that again. 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:47.200 He would ultimately invest about three and a half million 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:50.240 dollars into the company and then as a result he 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:54.680 became a major shareholder in Commodore and decision maker. Yes, 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:57.839 he would actually end up becoming the chairman of the board. Yes, 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:01.200 but before then, when Commodore was working in calculators, they 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:05.200 were actually known for being a calculator manufacturer. They lost 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:08.280 their supplier for the chips that go in the calculator 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:13.279 and uh, Texas Instruments, and they actually Texas Instruments actually 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:17.800 decided to sell calculators directly. Right, So now Texas instrument 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:22.600 is making the competing product and it's taken away the 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:26.240 source of chips that were powering the Commodore calculators. Yeah, 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:29.599 so Commodore found other resources for chips and eventually bought 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:33.560 MS Technology, which was a chip manufacturer, and assimilated their 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:36.160 chip designer, Chuck Pedal. And this is important because it's 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:39.880 Chuck who convinced Trammel and Commodore to start looking towards 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:43.400 computers instead of calculators, and specifically home computers, because at 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.960 this point in time, computers are mainly for business. Yeah. 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:50.560 In fact, up to the mid nineteen seventies, you were 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:52.720 not likely to find a computer unless you were either 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.560 in like a scientific or research laboratory, or if you 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:58.240 were working in a really big business something like a 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:01.880 bank or you know, some other fine ancial institution something 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:06.000 that had to crunch a lot of numbers, because up 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:08.200 to that point computers were pretty big. They were like 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:10.440 the size of a desk, and we're just getting to 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:13.960 the phase where computers could be miniaturized enough to be 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:18.920 a desktop computer. And even then you had hobbyists who 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.400 were interested in building their own computers, and you had 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:25.760 computer kits that were coming out, but there weren't very 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:30.560 many PCs that were being built and sold as a 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:34.960 full product. Right, this is the very dawn of that age. 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:38.800 So this is where we see pet Old say to Trammel, like, 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:41.919 this is a market that's going to explode, and we 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:44.560 can get in on the ground floor, and they did so. 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:48.839 In nine Commodore International Limiteds moved their headquarters to Pennsylvania, 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:51.000 and then a year later they came out with our 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:55.400 first computer, which was the Commodore PET Personal Electronic Transactor, 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:58.320 the PET, the PET, and by the turn of the 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:00.520 decade it was one of the top three computer companies. 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.560 Commodore was at least among micro computers or home computers. 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.320 Yeah yeah, yeah, Because I mean again, this was like 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:10.240 the early days. You did see a lot of companies 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:12.880 attempt to get into this market. The ones we tend 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:16.480 to remember really from this era would be Apple because 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:18.640 the IBM PC would come a little bit later, and 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.320 kind of radio Shock, Yeah, and Texas instruments to a 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:24.760 to an extent. If you if you were around back then, 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.720 you might remember them. But if you were, say, born 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:33.760 after I don't know, five, then maybe you don't remember 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:40.200 these other computers. Um. So let's let's talk about what 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:42.600 was going on with this. Because they launched the PET. 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:49.480 The PET was not a runaway success for Commodore. No, no, Um, 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:51.800 they were. They were one of the top three computer companies, 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.200 but they didn't have a good marketing plan or good 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:56.640 tech support. And you know, computer home computers are a 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:59.280 new thing that are going to be bugs. Yeah, and 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:03.960 if another company is known for being more responsive, uh 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:08.520 and providing better support than they're going to start looking favorable. Yeah. 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:12.480 So a year and a half later, Commodore dropped in 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:15.960 the ranks of computers pretty hard. Um. They did course 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:18.720 correct and we got the VIC twenty Yes, which was 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:21.640 incredibly successful. Yeah, one of the first personal computers to 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.480 hit one million units sold. Yeah, they they hold the 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:27.480 record for that, Like Commodore hit that benchmark before any 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.160 the Apple too did not sell a million units before 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:33.440 the and then we got, more importantly to me, the 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:38.120 Commodore sixty four. That was my first computer that I remember. Um. 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:39.880 I came out in eighty two when I was born. 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:44.400 That written knows my age now, but you know, I 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:47.160 remember owning it. I remember playing Sticky Bear and Space 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:50.640 Taxi and Kuala Pad and whole position. And I'm going 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:54.839 to stop now. Um. Yeah. And one of the things 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:58.320 that really set the Commodore sixty for apart was that 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:02.480 not just that it was a very good personal computer, 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:07.520 at least according to Arial's memory. I never got to 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:11.840 use one, so I'm just basing this upon her ardent 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:16.040 support in the notes, and yeah, I put down hashtag 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:18.559 bias not bias. Yes, the fact that you drew little 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:23.319 hearts and puppy dogs people. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Anyway, 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:26.520 they were both the VIC twenty and the the Commodore 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:32.400 sixty four. We're both priced incredibly competitively. So the VIC 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.120 twenty came out, it was priced or initially at three 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:37.840 hundred dollars, actually less than three hundred dollars. That's Incredible's 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:41.240 like then you had the Commodore sixty four. It started 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:45.800 at five dollars, and then they got into kind of 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.240 a price war with the other computers that were on 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:51.640 the market. So before long the Commodore sixty four is 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:55.200 price dropped and dropped and dropped until it hit about 0:09:55.400 --> 0:10:00.920 one dollars for new Commodore sixty which is ridiculous for computer. Yeah, 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:06.559 it also probably meant that they were barely making any profit, 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:09.880 if any at all, because the profit margins are pretty 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.760 thin when you get down to that level. But this 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:17.400 was Trammel's philosophy of business is war, and it meant that, yeah, 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:19.880 we might not be making as much per sale, but 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:24.320 we are totally the sales. Yeah, we're getting the sales. 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:27.600 We're given the screw to all those other companies out there, 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:30.000 take that apple. Yeah, they did beat out the t 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:33.199 S from Radio, checking price, the t I from Texas Instruments, 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.040 and Atari, who was one of their fiercest competitors, and 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:37.640 weren't going to get into that. And just a little 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:40.800 bit Yeah that this story gets so juicy, It gets 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:46.359 so so fun is the wrong word. It's interesting? Interesting, Yes, fascinating. 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:50.280 So Trammel, like I said, was said to be difficult 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:53.640 to work for. There were stories about him firing entire 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.520 management teams if things weren't going well, if you felt 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:59.680 that they weren't weren't doing their job. And he was 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:04.720 also known to really kind of leverage different suppliers against 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:07.120 each other and try to make them dependent upon Commodore 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:09.640 so that they wouldn't work with anybody else. He was 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:14.079 also litigious. He would bring lawsuits against other companies, sometimes 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:17.360 not even with the intent of winning a lawsuit, but 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:23.560 rather just to slow down his his his competition so 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:28.400 that they couldn't beat him to market um. He was 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:32.000 also known to occasionally pull a fast one on retailers. 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:34.880 One of the stories I read was that he signed 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:37.319 a deal with Kmart to sell the VIC twenty at 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:39.840 a price that was actually lower than the wholesale price 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:44.560 he was offering to a computer retailer called computer Land. So, 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:47.199 in other words, computer Land was having to spend more 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.360 to purchase a computer from Commodore sixty four in order 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.720 to sell it off at a markup than Kmart was 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:56.800 even selling the Commodore sixty four in the first place. 0:11:57.280 --> 0:11:59.760 And so of course you can't keep that up for 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:04.360 very along the computer Land said CIA. It seems like 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:07.360 he was shooting himself in the foot, not building goodwill 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.480 with the people who would sell his product, especially as 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.520 you're getting all of these competitors. That being said, they 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:18.199 did sell one billion dollars worth of computers by and 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:20.160 the Commodo sixty four, as we said in the intro, 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:24.040 is the most popular computer system ever sold. Yeah, so 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:27.360 you might think, well, how the heck could accompany that's 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:31.560 dominating the personal computer industry, one that has has got 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:34.319 all of the firsts, like the first to hit a 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:38.280 million units, sold a billion dollars in sales. How could 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:42.600 this company end up faltering? How isn't it too big 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:47.360 to fail? I mean no, but we'll talk about that 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:55.000 right after this break. Al Right, So, like you said, 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:58.480 Commodore was selling really well, out selling all of the competitors, 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:01.920 but all of the price cutting that Trammel is doing. 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:05.719 The suits were not happy with it, Yeah, because it 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:08.679 meant that you had very low profits. I mean, yes, 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:13.040 you had incredible revenue, but very low profits because that 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:18.119 margin was so razor thin. And Irving Gould particularly objected 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.000 to this. He had been the guy who had, at 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:24.880 least in his own eyes, rescued Commodore from certain disaster. 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:29.040 By investing so much money. And so there was this 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:33.599 fundamental disagreement between Trammel, who was saying, let's take no 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:37.720 prisoners in march into war and defeat our enemies, and Gould, 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:42.920 who was saying, let's not, you know, end up making 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:47.400 being number one at the expense of profit. And eventually 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:51.400 you get to this fundamental disagreement where Gould felt that 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:54.000 Trammel had led the company to a billion dollars in 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:56.960 sales but would not be able to grow it. They're 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:59.559 up to ten billion in sales, in other words, not 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:02.160 if he kept cutting prices, yeah, it wasn't Or or 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:04.600 if you did ten billion in sales, it wouldn't matter 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:06.400 because you were selling it for less than what it 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:08.600 costs to make it and you're just losing money anyway. 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:12.480 It's reckless thinking. Yeah. So there have been a lot 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:15.400 of arguments on both sides about the fact that one 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:17.120 side is wrong or the other side's wrong. A lot 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:19.440 of people have said both sides were kind of wrong 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:24.280 and that there were there were legitimate points on either 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:28.120 point of view, but they were also legitimate shortcomings on 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:34.240 both sides. The bottom line here is that you have 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:38.320 these spoort of directors who have decided that Trammel can't 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:40.440 stay in charge, he's got to go. And of course 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:43.960 he was the founder of the company, and so there's 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:47.800 a story about the board meaning making their decision and 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:51.800 giving Trammel the boot, and the way the story goes 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:59.640 is that it happened pretty darn publicly. So there are 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:02.160 other rumors about how Trammel was bringing his sons on. 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:04.280 That wasn't a rumor that actually did happen. He had 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:06.360 three sons and they had joined the company. But whether 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:10.040 he was doing it to gain more political footing over Gold, 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:13.480 that's that's another question. Yeah, whether or not that was 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:17.440 an actual concern or if that was just a perception 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:19.960 on the part of Gould. But by the end of 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:22.480 nineteen eighty three or the beginning of nineteen eighty four, 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:25.200 right around there is when the board of directors decided 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:27.600 that Trammel had to go. He had to he had 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:30.920 to be forced out of the role of CEO of 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:34.360 the company. And uh, there's a whole story about him 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:37.240 being at c e S nineteen eighty four, which happens 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:41.280 in January every year, and that while he was there, 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:43.880 he gave a presentation and you know, he had all 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:46.120 these great things to say about Commodore in the sense 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:48.400 that they had a billion dollars in sales, that's a 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:53.360 huge thing, but that he was visibly unhappy while giving 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:55.440 the presentation, And so the story goes that he had 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.120 already he knew he was on his way out, but 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:00.680 then had to still go forward and give this presentation 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:03.560 in front of the public, and then essentially a week later, 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:08.000 the actual announcement of his departure became public news. Yeah, 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.400 Commodore hired a steel guy named Marshall F. Smith to 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:14.440 run the company, and Trammel took his ball if ball 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:19.000 equals a bunch of engineers and started another company, Trammel Technologies, 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:24.120 and then he bought Atari's consumer division, creating Atari Corp. Uh, 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.200 the parent company of Atari. Warner Communications only wanted the 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:29.920 video game side of Atari, which is what most people 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:32.680 are familiar with. Right. We will have to do a 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:35.200 full episode on Atari at some point. That's a very 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:37.880 complicated story because, as you see right here, the company 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:40.720 of Atari had been split into two. You had the 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:44.320 video game side of it that remained with Warner, and 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:46.840 then you had the personal computer side, which went to 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:52.360 Trammel uh. And it's also interesting that we see how Trammel, 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:57.400 who had built Commodore up, was now determined to take 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:01.160 it down because of this betrayal. He was ready to 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:04.880 go to war against the very company that he had founded. Well, 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:10.160 Commodore it was kind of on the same track because 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:15.359 they bought a small computer company named Amiga million dollars 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:18.560 and this gets so juice. Yes, all right, so Amiga 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:21.800 had been trying to launch a personal computer, uh for 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:24.360 a bit. It had multiple failed attempts over the few 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.640 years leading up to their acquisition, mainly from the revenue 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:29.920 side of thinks, some from the development side, but a 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:32.080 lot of it was revenue based, and we're about to 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:36.679 get into that. And the merge companies became Commodore Amiga. 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:41.040 But the problem is is that Amiga an Atari, before 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:46.000 being bought by Arrivals, were working together. Yeah, so you 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:48.800 had Amiga and Atari working on a project because the 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:52.680 initial idea was to build a personal computer. But then 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:56.480 the guy who really was the driving force behind the 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:01.240 Amiga found a lot of resistance to the idea of 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:04.040 building a personal computer, but there was a lot of 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:08.639 reception to build a video game system. So then he 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:12.359 switches gears, and he's he's still really building a personal computer, 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:14.879 but building a personal computer that's being marketed as a 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:16.840 video game. But he's getting a lot of pushback for 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:19.200 all of the personal computer type things he wants to 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:22.280 add to it. Yes, and then you had the infamous 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:26.320 video game crash of nineteen eighty three Slash four, And 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:30.720 now suddenly the there's no market to sell video game 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:34.520 consoles anymore in North America. So now Atari is totally 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:36.120 flipping out and like, oh no, no, no, we should 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:38.600 turn this into a personal computer, which was what the 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:42.120 plan was from the first place. Yes, but now their 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:47.280 revenue was gone, and you had this complicated rivalry that 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:51.520 was really messing things up because you had this agreement 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:55.520 between Atari and Amiga. Then Atari gets taken over by 0:18:55.560 --> 0:19:01.160 a former Commodore UH founder and leader, and then Amiga 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:06.400 gets taken over by Commodore, so it became a very 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:11.720 um let's say, awkward business relationship. Well, Commodore tried to 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:14.399 sue some of the engineers that left for Atari Corps 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:17.959 from Commodore to keep them from releasing Amiga's ideas once 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:24.520 they were working together. Tram Trammel counter suit because of 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.920 Atari's contract with Amiga, there was a a loan that 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:32.200 if it wasn't paid back, Atari would get Amiga's I 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:36.720 p Yeah, So that was all coming to a head, 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:39.119 right like, it looks like Amiga was not going to 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:40.760 be able to pay back this loan. It looked like 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:43.400 Amiga was going to completely get wrapped up into Atari. 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:47.440 And then in swoops Commodore the essentially said hey, we'll 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:52.920 pay that loan off for you. Trammel, who has to 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:57.880 accept the payment for the loan, suddenly sees this prize 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:01.240 that was going to be his swept away by the 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:05.720 company that had spurned him. I told you against Juicy. 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:08.720 Yeah yeah. But all this time, while these two companies 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:12.560 are fighting it out, Apple, IBM and Microsoft start grabbing 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.520 the market. Yes, so you have these two giants that 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:22.040 are in a battle over Amiga, and meanwhile there's not 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:24.280 a whole lot of progress being made on the product 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:27.000 side of Amiga because all this all this corporate stuff 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.840 has to get worked out, and so that gave plenty 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:32.520 of opportunities for the other companies. This is the same 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:36.400 time when Apple released its first Macintosh computer, the IBM 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:39.280 personal computer was hitting the market. So now IBM was 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:42.720 actually entering into the home market. Microsoft was playing every 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:46.040 side against every other side and getting it software on 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:50.639 anything and everything that was remotely a computer. And so 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:56.000 this was this was a bad time for Amiga because 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:59.920 that that design had a lot of merit. Yes, yes, 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:02.680 did I owned it an Amiga two thousand, which is 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:04.800 later on they were working on the Amiga one thousand 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:07.560 at this point. But yeah, it was a computer way 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:10.080 ahead of its time. And so not only were they 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:13.280 suing each other to try to keep their competing products 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:15.840 from going out before the other one, which you said 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:19.600 Trammell did it was known for doing. Uh. Commodore at 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:21.720 the same time, to try to get some money back 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:25.720 from spending all of the money they did to buy Amiga, 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:29.879 was releasing weird models of computers they were kind of 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:33.720 competing with themselves, like the C sixteen. Yeah, they started 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:38.280 releasing a bunch of Commodore branded computers that were very 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:42.320 confusing to the market because even Commodore was not really 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:45.240 good at explaining what the differences were between the different 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:49.720 systems apart from their different price tags, and uh, some 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:52.760 of them were kind of underpowered compared to a lot 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:56.280 of the other stuff on the market, and because it 0:21:56.359 --> 0:22:00.119 seemed rather directionless, or at least in part because as 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:03.400 it was rather directionless, there wasn't a lot of adoption, 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:05.359 so there weren't a lot of people going on buying 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:07.600 these systems. If you want to look into this stuff, 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:09.000 we're not going to go into it because it gets 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:13.639 really technical. But the Computer History Museum online has a 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:16.280 ton of stuff about the different Commodore computers that came out, 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:20.160 and you'll see that there was a lot of there's 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:22.000 a lot of stuff out there that could confuse the 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:25.040 average consumer who just wants to have a working personal computer. 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:29.159 Yeah yeah, Um. By the time the Amigo one thousand 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:31.520 was ready to hit the market, they didn't have the resources. 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:35.080 During that time the st which was the Atari Computer 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:38.639 came out, UM and Commodore Amigo once they finally did 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:42.399 get the Amigo one thousand out, didn't really do a 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:45.960 good job at marketing, and they were also late to 0:22:46.040 --> 0:22:49.000 the market, so they kind of missed the opening window 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:52.840 for the holiday season that year. And then they decided 0:22:52.880 --> 0:22:55.600 not to put themselves on the same in the same 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:59.280 stores like Sears. I think it was as as the 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:02.800 Atari Computer it or and then they also had bugs. Yeah, 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:06.960 the Amiga one thousand was known for having some shortcomings 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:10.680 as far as that's concerned, Like where it shown, it 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:15.880 outperformed all the other personal computers of that era. Yeah, 0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:18.800 and that was largely in the graphics and sound departments. 0:23:18.920 --> 0:23:22.560 Like I mean, not a big surprise. The Amiga had 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:25.359 for a while been laser focused into being a video 0:23:25.520 --> 0:23:30.280 game machine, and now it no longer was quote unquote 0:23:30.359 --> 0:23:33.080 just a video game machine. But the things that a 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:36.200 video game machine needs to do well, largely graphics and sound, 0:23:36.480 --> 0:23:39.119 the Amiga did better than any other personal computer. And 0:23:39.200 --> 0:23:42.960 I think that's a pretty solid statement you could make. 0:23:43.200 --> 0:23:46.879 I remember when I first saw an Amiga in action. 0:23:47.240 --> 0:23:50.280 I was because it was at the time when it 0:23:50.400 --> 0:23:52.920