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A Brief History of Commodore

Commodore is a very special company in the history of gaming, particularly in the UK and Europe. It’s significance as a rival to both Sinclair and Atari is testament to the quality of the machines the company produced. It all started in the mid-seventies, when CBM, or Commodore Business machines was set up to sell an advanced range of calculators. It didn’t take long until these machines were developed into advanced scientific machines. At around the same time, the huge TV game business was really starting to kick off, with basic Pong machines from Radofin and Binatone being sold in electrical shops. Commodore decided to invest in their own small range of TV games, but in the wake of Atari’s VCS console, the new machines met with little success.

The calculator market grew over crowed, and Commodore decided to raise it’s sights, developing and releasing the Commodore Pet in 1979, a professional business machine. Meanwhile, Apple stirred up the US market with the release of their first computer, a move which really saw the dawn of the first wave of home computers. Commodore’s first home machine, the Vic 20, had only 1k of memory, but did offer games on cartridge or cassette, as well as applications software, like database programs and accounts packages. At over £200 the machine was expensive, and underpowered. In 1981, Sinclair’s ZX81 offered a relative amount of power, at almost a quarter of the price, an offer the UK public refused to ignore, buying it in it’s thousands. Atari also continued to develop their range of home machines, with the release of the Atari 400 and 800. Thankfully Commodore didn’t rest on their laurels, their second home computer may have cost just under £400, but offered 64k of memory, four channels of music and effects, and hi-res colour. The Commodore 64 may have arrived early, but with it’s steep price, and an overcrowded market, the UK warmed to Sinclair’s first colour machine, the ZX Spectrum, with far more enthusiasm.

Even the most hardenned Spectrum fan would have difficulty arguing the C64 wasn’t more powerful, but it wasn’t until 1984, when the price fell to under £200, that Commodore’s “Breeze Block” C64 really started to gather a following. British programmers also took the machine to their hearts, developing some of the greatest arcade games of the time. Unfortunately, despite taking almost half of the European market share, the US didn’t take to Commodore’s machines with the same zeal. Tape formats found little favour in the US, allowing Nintendo to move in and take hold of their games market with the NES. By the mid-eighties, Commodore sat at the top of the UK games industry, an estimated five thousand titles either available or in development for their flagship machine. Unfortunately the profits from their success were not invested as wisely.

The Commodore 16 was released as a kind of first level machine, aimed at school pupils as a stepping stone to more complicated computing. While it may have looked the same as a C64, it’s pathetic 16k and new operating system left it decidedly unrelated to it’s older brother, while it’s £100 price tag provided the final nail in the coffin.

This brings us to Commodore’s next machine, the Commodore +4, a revamped C64, with 64k, an operating system compatible with the C16, and a new keyboard. However, in their wisdom, Commodore also made this machine completely incompatible with the established C64. The obvious intention was to replace the C64 with a new, easier to program machine, and provide the C16 as an intermediary for new users. In hindsight, to try and replace their own established machine with one deemed by software developers as inferior, must rate as a huge mistake.

Thankfully, any wounds these mistakes left on the company’s image were quickly irradicated with the 1989 release of the Amiga. Commodore’s first 16-bit machine offered built in 3.5” disk storage, 512k memory, a decent keyboard, a mouse, a menu-driven operating system, and for the first time on any machine, multitasking. There were also countless graphic effects available, and early demos and games were delivered with draw-dropping ability built in. While Sinclair had released their first 16-bit machine, the QL, some four years earlier, a bungled marketing campain, citing the computer as a business machine, coupled with rushed and bugged hardware led to the company’s demise for this next wave of video game wars. This time, old hand Atari were back on the scene, dumping their range of consoles for their own 16-bit machine, the Atari ST, which thanks to a release almost a year earlier, and a cheaper price, had already taken a foothold in the next generation games market.

What happened next was a very rare event in the history of our games industry. The Amiga, while later and more expensive, started to gain followers, partly thanks to it’s marginally higher specification, but largely thanks to the millions of C64 fans prepared to upgrade. In Europe, the UK and Scandinavia inparticularly, the Amiga revived the entire games industry, companies such as Psygnosis and Cinemaware provided a new age of gaming delights, and more than enough to stave off the Sega Megadrive in the early nineties. That’s not to say that Commodore weren’t to make yet more mistakes. In direct response to the rising popularity of Sega’s Megadrive, the Commodore GS console was released, a stripped down, cartridge-only version of the aging C64. Believe it or not, such was the popularity of Commodore at the time, that British magazines hailed the Commodore GS as a new saviour of the console market.

Next came the CDTV, a multi-media CD based version of the Amiga, released in competition to Philips dreadful CDi. A few awkwardly converted Amiga titles and some poorly cobbled together encyclopedia and “edutainment” programs did little to sell the machine, which must rate as Commodore’s most short-lived format. By 1992 the Amiga had hit its peak, the new 1200 version offered 32-bit risc technology, but the leap between the two models was incomparable to the leap between C64 and the original machine. The ever decreasing price of Sega’s megadrive began to threaten Commodore, resulting in the rushed release of the CD-32, yet another CD based console, this time incorperating their new Amiga chip-set. Once again, it met with a luke warm reception. By the time Nintendo launched their Super Nintendo, Commodore were fighting to keep their place in the market, and dwindling sales finally led to the companies demise.

There was talk of an all new super Amiga right up until a couple of years ago, though invariably these rumours circulated thanks to passion for Commodore’s machines rather than substantial fact. Today, there is still great support for the Commodore formats, with countless C64 fansites, and new Amiga and C64 demos and games occasionally surfacing

Indeed, there are even a couple of glossy, and expensive, magazines available for the format, though aimed at serious users, usually in the sphere of graphics. Recently the name has been resurrected as a brand for gaming PCs. In the end, its a sad end for a once legendary company, but who knows, perhaps one day someone will bring out that PC beating Amiga we always dreamed of.

JackTramiel02

Jack Tramiel founded the company in 1955, and managed to keep it on the straight and narrow till 1984, when he swapped ships and bought up Atari. You have to wonder how Commodore would have competed had Jack (and his sons) stayed in charge of Commodore. It does seem sad that such a well founded compny should die because of the demise of the Amiga. There are always rumours that Commodore will return, though these usually seep out of Germany where the popularity of Commodore continues to rise

Commodore_Digital_Watch

Super rare Commodore Digital watches are now not only valuable, but a pretty cool fashion statement

Calculator_1

Commodore originally aimed it’s products at shop retailers, who needed something electronic to add their receipts with.

pet

The 1970s equivalent of your desktop PC, the Commodore Pet.

C64educator02

It looks like a Pet, but is actually the C64 Educator, an educational version of the C64 squeezed into the case of the pet. Released in 1984 for use in schools, and now very rare.

Commodore_TV_game

Commodore’s first TV game, the TV3000H, was nothing more than a Pong variant, but of good quality none the less

Calculator_scientific_com

1975 calculators range.

C64_GS_Pic

Of course it’s always easy to see bad business decisions in hindsight, but to sight the 1983 C64 technology (within the C64GS Console) against the SNES is ridiculous!

 
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