WEBVTT - The Amiga 500 and Amiga 2000 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.880 Stuff Works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:17.239 I am your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:19.400 over at How Stuff Works and a lot of all 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:24.560 things tech. And we are continuing our discussion about Amiga. 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.120 We have this episode and one more to go, because 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:31.960 that story is crazy complicated, not from a technology standpoint 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:35.839 so much as from a business standpoint, because Amiga was 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:41.199 so involved in the political maneuverings of other companies like 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:44.480 Atari and Commodore. But in the last episode, I left 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:48.680 off with the debut of the Amiga one thousand, the 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:54.000 initial original Amiga computer. Commodore, the electronics and computer company, 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:57.760 had purchased Amiga in four and had saved it from 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:01.400 being gutted by Atari and hold out all the stops 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.000 to show off this new computer in a lavish presentation 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:06.399 at the Lincoln Center in New York City. And I 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:08.440 talked all about that in the last episode, and the 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:13.240 computer was heading towards store shelves eventually, And because it's 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:15.399 going to come back in this episode a lot, here's 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:19.680 a quick reminder. Jack Tramiel was the founder of Commodore, 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:22.640 but he was forced to resign by the board of 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:28.200 directors UH, led by investor Irving Gould, after Tramuel had 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:32.160 led Commodore to push Texas Instruments out of the computer 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:37.600 business using drastic competition and price cutting. But Tramuel then 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:41.559 went on to go to Warner Communications, which owned Atari, 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:44.479 and in the wake of the video game crash in Nree, 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.880 that company seemed to be worth very little. So Tramuel 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.160 bought the video game console and computer divisions of Attari 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.960 from Warner Communications for no down payment, and he was 0:01:56.040 --> 0:02:00.720 the one who would really go after Amiga, using a 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:03.840 five thousand dollar loan to Amiga, and if Amiga was 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:06.920 not able to pay that loan back, Atari was going 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:12.079 to get control of Amiga's chip set design. But then 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:16.120 Commodore got into the picture and ended up buying Amiga 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:17.920 for twenty four million dollars. And all of that is 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:20.640 important to remember when we talk about the things that 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:25.160 happened in the next couple of years. So while the 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.919 folks at Amiga continued to work to get their Amiga 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.240 one thousand ready to ship, they had shown it off 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:33.880 at a big press event, but it still wasn't ready 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:37.799 to buy in stores. Commodore was going through a bit 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:40.560 of a cash crisis. The Commodore sixty four was the 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.560 best selling computer of all time, but one of the 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:46.520 reasons it sold so well was that Tramuel had been 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:50.600 so aggressive pricing the Commodore sixty four at a low 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:54.280 fee in order to fight off Texas instruments that the 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:58.000 computers really popular, but the profit margin was pretty low, 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:00.400 so they weren't making a lot of money per sale. 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:04.480 Commodore had launched several eight bit computers to follow up 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:07.400 on the Commodore sixty four. Commodore sixty four was also 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:13.120 an eight bit computer. These computers were technically competing against 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.480 the Commodore sixty four, which was a bit strange, and 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:18.880 some of them were a little interesting. There was the 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.040 Commodore s X sixty four. That one was a semi 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:25.400 portable PC. I called semi portable because it weighed more 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:28.480 than twenty pounds and you had to plug it into 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:32.360 a an a c uh wall outlet. There there was 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:35.720 no onboard battery that would let you work with it 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:38.640 without it being plugged in. It was interesting but didn't 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:42.600 sell very well. Commodore would discontinue it in nineteen eighties six, 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:47.839 but they also launched the Commodore Plus Slash four four. 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:51.640 This was built on an earlier computer architecture called the 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:57.280 Commodore sixteen. Commodore sixteen was a holy incompatible architecture with 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:00.840 the Commodore sixty four. You could not run software written 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.200 for the Commodore sixty four on the Commodore sixteen. The 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:06.080 same was true for the Commodore Plus Slash four You 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:09.080 could not run Commodore sixty four software on it. And 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:11.080 so there really was no place in the market for 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:13.760 this odd computer, and so it didn't sell well either. 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:16.800 The question came up, why would I buy this other 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:20.760 eight bit based computer if it's not compatible with this 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:25.000 really popular one, And no one really had the answer 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:28.720 to that. And then there was the Commodore one. This 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:31.320 was still an eight bit computer, and you might wonder, 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:33.160 why are you we calling them eight bit computers if 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:37.080 you have Commodore sixty four a Commodore. Well, that actually 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.800 referred to the amount of RAM or read access memory 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:45.159 in the machine, not not the the processor, but the 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:48.440 actual amount of memory. So the Commodore had a D 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:52.120 twenty eight kilobytes of memory. It actually had two processors, 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:56.160 one of those was meant to handle processes or applications 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.360 that were associated with Commodore sixty four, and the other 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:02.719 was meant to handle Commodore one eight software, so we 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:06.480 could work on both. Unlike many of Commodore's other computers, 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:10.960 this one was actually backwards compatible. It sold modestly well. 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:14.680 But the one came out just at the end of 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:19.000 the eight bit computer era, so it was kind of 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:23.599 a and also ran because there were more advanced computers 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:27.240 coming out immediately following that. So Commodore was a company 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:32.360 that was not making much from its products. In five 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:35.960 and it purchased Amiga for twenty four million dollars, but 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:40.080 Amiga did not yet have a computer available on the market. 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.720 There You couldn't buy an Amiga yet, not until late night. 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:48.400 And meanwhile, Jack Tramuel was suing the heck out of 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:51.520 Commodore for forcing amount of the company. All of that 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:55.200 meant Commodore wasn't able to dedicate the resources that the 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:59.039 Amiga team needed to get the Amiga one thousand out earlier. 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:01.920 They were able to develop it, but they weren't able 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:05.520 to produce it as fast as they wanted to. Amigo 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.960 was finally ready to take orders for the Amigo one 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:13.440 thousand in August nineteen five, but Commodore was strapped and 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:17.400 couldn't actually move into high capacity production yet, so in 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:22.200 October they had only managed to produce fifty of the 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:27.479 Amigo one thousand computers. Five zero, just that many. That's it. Now. 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:30.320 None of those were actually in customer hands. They were 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:33.599 all internal computers. They were either being used to develop 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.359 software or they were used to give demonstrations to potential 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:41.240 customers and to make matters worse over at Atari, Jack 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:43.760 Tremuel had been busy in nineteen eighty five. He had 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:47.080 pushed his engineers and programmers, a lot of whom had 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:50.760 left Commodore to follow Tramuel after he had been ousted 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.200 from the company, even pushing them really hard to rush 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.839 a new computer system to market and get ahead of 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:01.240 the Amigo one thousand. Jack trying Meal was always one 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:04.920 of those people who took these things very personally, and 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:07.240 so he thought, well, if you're gonna force me out 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:09.720 of my company, I'm going to come back and launch 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.280 a computer that's going to completely take the wind out 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:15.160 of your sales. So in the spring of nineteen five, 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:19.640 months before the Amiga would come to market. Atari introduced 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:24.920 the Atari ST computer and the ST stood for sixteen 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:28.280 thirty two. That meant it was a PC with a 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:32.960 CPU that had sixteen and thirty two bit components or 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:37.560 or busses, that's the facilitators for a communication between different 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:41.280 components within a computer. This would be the Motorola sixty 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:44.480 eight thousand CPU. That's the same chip that served as 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:47.880 the CPU for the Amiga one thousand. And the Atar 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:50.440 E ST also had a graphical user interface or g 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.160 u I or gooey. It also had a mouse, and 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:56.040 it had a color monitor option, although the base model 0:07:56.080 --> 0:08:00.200 was monochromatic and it was relatively inexpensive, so it is 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:05.960 a true shot across the bow of Commodore. Now. Atari 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.680 had a head start, but Commodore got more units moving 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:14.280 and by November it was actually finally possible for your 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:17.280 average customer to go and buy an Amigo one thousand 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:20.480 at a computer store. But that late entry was still 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.680 a disadvantage. It was not able to take the full 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.160 advantage of the holiday shopping season because it came out 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:30.760 so late. And also Commodore made another very odd decision, 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:34.760 and I honestly don't know what the logic was behind it. 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:39.240 They decided to only sell the Amigo one thousand in 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:42.440 computer stores. And the reason why I say that's weird 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:45.439 is because back in the eighties you could find computers 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:49.480 in lots of different places, including big department stores, and 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:54.880 Commodore had previously used big department stores to sell their computers. 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:57.920 The department store Sears had even offered to carry the 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:03.320 Amigo one thousand in its store, and Commodore declined the offer. 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:05.520 So if you went into a Sears and you went 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:07.959 to their computer section, you could find the Attar e 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:12.320 st but not an Amigo one thousand. And Commodore also 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:14.560 did not do a really good job on the marketing 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:17.520 front for this computer either. For one thing, the ads 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:20.600 they debuted all seemed to be a pale imitation of 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:23.320 other ads that were on the market. Specifically, there was 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:28.160 one that was obviously a copy of Apple's famous Night 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:30.520 four ad. And just in case you don't know what 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.280 I'm referring to, I'll give a quick rundown. But if 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:35.240 you've never seen this ad, you need to go to 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:40.600 YouTube search Apple commercial. It'll pop right up. It is 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:45.960 one of the most famous commercials ever made in Apple 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:49.880 released a commercial. It was directed by Ridley freaking Scott, 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:53.920 the film director directed this commercial, and it showed a 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:58.280 bunch of people walking down a hallway that had monitors 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:01.319 all over it and their lit in these very kind 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:05.360 of bluish lights. So it's got this very drab gray scene. 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:10.600 Everyone's kind of dressed in uh and very uh dull 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:14.360 clothing and they're all kind of staring lifelessly ahead of themselves. 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:17.080 And then they file into what is essentially like an 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:19.880 amphitheater and they sit down there looking at an enormous 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:24.160 screen with a huge face on it, and it's essentially 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:28.920 a character who's like big Brother in George or And 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:32.280 that is inter cut with shots of a woman who's 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:34.800 wearing like a white tank top and red shorts and 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:38.840 she's running down the hallway and she's carrying an enormous hammer. 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:42.480 She eventually runs into the room with the giant screen 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:44.560 on it and hurls the hammer at the screen and 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:47.720 that shatters the screen. It shocks the lulled people who 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:50.200 had been watching it. And the message was that Apple 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:53.439 was going to break the model of the dull lockdown 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:57.400 in utilitarian PC that had been introduced by IBM. So 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.720 IBM was the big brother. Apple was the woman throwing 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.440 a hammer through the screen. It made a big impact, 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:07.840 and that was in early so late, we're talking nearly 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:11.200 two years later. Commodore releases an ad during the Christmas 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:14.880 season and it shows a group of emotionless, drone like 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:17.880 people shuffling slowly up some stairs. At the end of 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:20.679 the stairs was a pedestal upon which sat the Amiga 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:24.000 one thousand, and the monitor is just got this blinding 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:26.640 white light coming out of it. So this was clearly 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:29.800 an imitation of the earlier Apple commercial, but not nearly 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:34.200 as impactful. And because it's an imitation, you don't you 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:36.800 don't admire it the way you would with the Apple commercial. 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:39.080 You'd say, oh, they're just copying what's already been done. 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.320 They had another commercial that showed an older man walking 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:46.440 through an mc escher light collection of weird staircases. You 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:48.640 get a real Labyrinth vibe from it, although to be fair, 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:51.720 Labyrinth would come out after this ad did. He eventually 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.360 gets to a similar pedestal as a computer on it, 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:57.760 also emanating a blinding white light they lost at the screen, 0:11:57.760 --> 0:11:59.720 and he smiles, and then the screen cuts to black, 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:04.360 and you then see an illuminated fetus fill the screen. Yep, 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:09.480 little baby fills the screen glowing. It's weird, and it's 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:13.120 obviously an homage to Stanley Kubrick's film two thousand one. 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:15.640 I do not think it made many people want to 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:18.040 buy a computer. I did see one ad from that 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:20.040 era that made me chuckle. There was a man walking 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:22.840 his dog in a suburban neighborhood and inside one of 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:25.480 the houses is a boy who's working on his computer, 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:28.400 and he's created a replica of his own house on 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:32.560 his Amiga one thousand and then he clicks his mouse 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:36.120 and he makes the the image of his house rise 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:40.080 up off the bottom of the the image he's working on. 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:43.480 So he's lifting his house up, and meanwhile his actual 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:46.720 house starts to lift up out into the sky. And 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:48.719 none of that really got me chuckling. But what did 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:50.840 get a reaction out of me as the music that 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:53.840 was playing in the background of the commercial, because I 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:57.000 recognized it and I realized eventually that it was from 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:00.640 the movie score to the film The Goonies, and then 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:03.360 I went and listened to the Goony soundtrack. The ads 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:05.560 were not doing Amiga any favors. By the end of 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:10.719 n Commodore had sold fewer than fifty thousand Amiga one 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:14.760 thousand computers. Now here's hoping this ad break is more effective. 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:17.320 We're going to take our quick break to thank our sponsor. 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:28.440 In addition to the sales and marketing woes, the initial 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:31.559 batch of Amiga one thousand computers had some stability issues. 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:35.280 You might remember from an earlier episode that I talked 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:39.120 about how they had programmed the system crash error to 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:42.560 read Guru Meditation error. It was sort of a tongue 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:46.679 in cheek message. Unfortunately, this particular error was popping up 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:51.400 with frequency, and Amigo one thousand was quickly associated with 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:55.800 not just being unreliable, but this whole Guru Meditation error message. 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:59.439 And the team was able to patch the problem and 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:03.880 address it in future shipments, but the reputation of the 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:07.520 computer was already damaged. People associated the Amiga one thousand 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:11.600 with being unreliable. One product that worked in Amiga's favor 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:15.280 came from Electronic Arts. It was actually some software, so 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:18.920 Trip Hawkins, the founder of Electronic Arts, was impressed by 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:21.760 the Amiga. He had received an Amiga as sort of 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:25.560 a developer kit and was working within playing with it 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:27.160 to figure out what he might be able to make 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:29.480 with it. Over an electronic arts he led his team 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.720 to rewrite a program called Prism for the IBM PC 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:36.080 that in turn was already an evolution of an earlier 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:39.760 piece of software called Doodle for the Xerox computer. And 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:43.320 this new product for the Amiga was called Deluxe Paint. 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:48.120 EA produced what was then a truly incredible image of 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:52.960 King Tutin commons golden death mask, and chances are if 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:56.760 you've ever looked at art from earlier computer eras, you've 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:01.360 seen this picture. It was icon It would become a 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:04.840 very important piece of art that Amiga would use in 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:08.000 a lot of its advertising moving forward, and it was 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:11.640 a go to for Amiga for marketing. And Amiga was 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:15.040 in desperate need of good software, because without good software, 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:17.520 your computer doesn't really do any good. You have to 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:21.480 have people develop stuff for it. Developers were less keen 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:24.920 to create software for the Atar e ST largely due 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:28.480 to Jack Tramuel's reputation for being difficult to work with. 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:33.440 So there were developers who were shy about working for 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:35.840 Atar E s T because they didn't want to have 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:38.760 to deal with Tramuel. And there were people who are 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:42.160 getting more and more excited about Amiga. So while the 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.520 Autar E S T was priced lower than the Amiga, 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:49.560 it had more trouble getting good software investor. Irving Gould again, 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:51.800 he was the guy who led the effort to force 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:54.880 Jack Tramuel out of Commodore had put a man named 0:15:54.960 --> 0:16:00.000 Marshall F. Smith in charge of the company of Commodore. 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.800 Smith had previously worked in the steel industry, which, as 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:07.600 you might imagine, is not very much like the computer industry. 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:11.240 In the computer industry, tech changes very quickly and the 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:15.240 business has to adapt to that. Steel does not tend 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:18.040 to change very quickly, and Smith just didn't seem to 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:21.840 quite have the mindset to head up a computer company. 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:24.600 He also made some decisions that some critics would point 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:27.720 out later as being very questionable. So, for example, back 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:32.800 in early at C E S, he got into a 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:37.000 conversation with somebody else, and that someone convinced him that 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:40.320 Commodore's line of portable computers with l C D screens, 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:42.560 which they were showing off at C E S was 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:45.040 going to be terribly unprofitable. They were just going to 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:48.400 end up languishing in the market, and the company was 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:51.240 going to lose money as a result for really backing 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:54.040 a portable computer with an l c D screen, and 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.080 Smith took at the heart and he canceled the line 0:16:57.280 --> 0:16:59.920 of computers. So while they showed one off like a 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.600 prototype over at c E S, it would never become 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:08.000 an actual Commodore product. Here's where people got really upset. 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:10.720 The person who told him that it wasn't going to 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:15.879 be profitable was the CEO of Tandy Tandy Slash radio shack. 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:19.399 That was the company that was making its own line 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:23.200 of pordable computers. So essentially Tandy was able to talk 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:26.480 a competitor out of launching a product that would have 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.320 gone toe to toe with their own products, and a 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:34.560 lot of people said that Smith let a competitor sabotage 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:38.199 his own business. Marshall Smith began to cut costs at 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:40.680 the end of nineteen eight five because Commodore was not 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:44.040 going to be profitable unless they were able to trim 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:47.720 a whole lot of the expenses. That included cutting payroll 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:51.600 by forty five per cent. Commodore had suffered losses in 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:54.920 all but the final quarter of five and night at 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:57.959 the last quarter it posted a one million dollar profit. 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.000 That was not enough to set off the losses from 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:02.800 the rest of the year, and it had a lot 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:05.720 of debt to pay off as well. So over the 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:09.000 course of the fiscal year of nineteen eighty five, Commodore 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:14.200 lost two hundred thirty seven million dollars. Clearly that was 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:17.480 going to affect Amiga as well as a division of 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:23.080 the company, and commodore struggles in spilled over into nine six. 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:26.680 The company made the decision to skip both c e 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:30.600 S shows that year. Remember the Consumer Electronics Show, which 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:34.359 these days has one show a year. It's in January. 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.000 It's in Las Vegas in the United States. There are 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:39.280 some international shows too, but that's the one big one 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:43.760 in the US. Back in these days, it had two shows, 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:47.480 one in the winter one this summer. Well, Commodore skipped 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:50.159 both of them and also skipped Comdex, which was a 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:54.479 huge computer trade show at that time, and it had 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:57.919 always maintained a very large presence during these shows, so 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:01.879 it's absence was notable On the executive side. Over in 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:06.480 the corporate section of Commodore, Chief operating Officer Thomas Radigan 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:09.720 was preparing to move into the role of CEO with 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:13.280 Marshall Smith stepping down. This had been the plan all along. 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:15.560 This was not a sudden decision. It was a long 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:19.280 term strategy, and so rat Agan had been groomed to 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.840 become the CEO of Commodore, and he was given a 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:26.679 five year contract that would expire in nineteen and he 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:31.280 assumed the role of Commodore CEO in March nine, and 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:34.439 it was down to him to turn Commodore into a 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:37.600 truly profitable company, which was going to require some really 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:41.200 tough decisions. Rat Agan had previously served as the CEO 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:44.680 of Pepsi co International, which was a pretty interesting move 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:50.160 because Apple had previously hired away Pepsi CEO John Scully 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:53.520 in nineteen eight three, So now you had two former 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:57.520 leaders of Pepsi leading personal computer companies that were in 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:02.639 competition with each other. Ratigan would lead three rounds of layoffs, 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:06.719 and the first round targeted people who were described as layabouts. 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:09.560 So I'm guessing these were folks who are either were 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:12.919 not particularly productive at their jobs or they held jobs 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:15.560 that did not seem to contribute to the bottom line 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:18.080 of Commodore in any real way. So that was the 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:21.040 easiest cut to make and probably was the one that 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:24.800 was making the most sense. From a business standpoint, The 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:28.680 second round of layoffs involved cutting the people who were 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:33.280 working on what were now irrelevant or underperforming projects, so 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:37.560 rad again would discontinue things like the pet or PET 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:41.480 computer line, which had been introduced way back in ninety seven. 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:44.560 He also discontinued the VIC twenty, which came out in 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:48.120 the Commodore sixty four was still selling, so he kept 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:52.400 that going. The Plus Slash four and the Commodore sixteen 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:55.879 models also were cut, and a few other projects that 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:59.120 were for systems that had not yet debuted but were 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:03.399 in development. Those were eventually acted as well, and a 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:05.719 lot of those people, most of them were let go. 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:09.720 The third round of layoffs was the hardest to make 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:12.840 because they're still needed to be cuts in order to 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:15.960 get Commodore back to profitability, but now they were cutting 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:20.360 into people who were contributing directly to Commodore's business. So 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:22.359 a lot of people referred to this as cutting into 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:27.160 the bone because it was It was beyond the the 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:30.080 the folks that you could more easily say goodbye to 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:34.480 because they were not contributing to Commodore's business. So here 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.480 was where pro programmers and engineers found themselves out of 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:42.199 a job both at Commodore headquarters in Pennsylvania in Westchester 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:47.240 and the folks over in Las Gatos in California. The 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:51.719 Amiga folks, they all of them, saw cutbacks, but another 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:54.119 big change was coming, and that was that the Amiga 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:56.640 team was told that their operations were going to move 0:21:56.680 --> 0:21:59.600 across country and that the team was going to join 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:04.520 the Amadore headquarters in Pennsylvania. People working for Amiga had 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:07.320 to make a decision. They could continue to work for 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:09.600 the company, but that would mean they'd have to move 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:12.639 across country or they were going to have to quit. 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:16.280 J Minor, the guy who had led the design for 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:19.880 the Amiga chip set, the co founder of Amiga, the 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:23.199 one guy who had been a consistent presence at the 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:27.680 company from its start, decided he was done. He resigned 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:31.160 from Commodore as a full time employee. He would continue 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:33.440 to act as a consultant for the company for several 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:39.000 more years, and ultimately J. Minor passed away in due 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:43.920 to kidney failure. One other reason Commodore wanted the Amiga 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:47.720 folks to move closer to their headquarters had to do 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:51.640 with an embarrassing prank that went a little too far, 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:55.959 So the Amiga had a graphical desktop environment that was 0:22:56.040 --> 0:23:00.199 called Workbench, and there was a software developer who was 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:03.919 working on an upgrade to work Bench. The you know, 0:23:04.560 --> 0:23:07.320 a later version like one point two, and as far 0:23:07.359 --> 0:23:10.440 as I can tell, this person's identity has never been revealed. 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:14.199 But this software developer hid a message in the code. 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:16.959 And the only way you would unlock the messages if 0:23:17.000 --> 0:23:21.840 you pressed a certain key combination simultaneously. And it wasn't 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:24.880 a common one, so it would require you to know 0:23:25.280 --> 0:23:27.040 about it or to have heard about it in order 0:23:27.080 --> 0:23:29.679 to do it. And if you did do it, a 0:23:29.760 --> 0:23:32.679 message popped up on screen. That message read, and I'm 0:23:32.720 --> 0:23:36.440 going to paraphrase a little bit we made the Amiga. 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:41.320 They left it up. The message did not obvious skate 0:23:41.440 --> 0:23:45.000 the curse word. They they actually said it in the message. 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:50.160 The head of software over at Amiga was perhaps amused, 0:23:50.200 --> 0:23:53.960 but told this developer that the this easter egg was 0:23:54.000 --> 0:23:55.960 going to have to go. It could not stay in 0:23:55.960 --> 0:23:58.480