COMPUTER INDUSTRY
NOVEMBER 16, 2021
The Commodore Computer Company Story
Commodore International was an American home computer manufacturer founded by a Polish immigrant, Jack Tramiel in 1954 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It started as the Commodore Portable Typewriter Company. In 1955 the company incorporated as Commodore Business Machine. Other names include Commodore International Limited. The headquarters were in West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States. Let’s have a look to the Commodore Computer Company story.
According to Merriam-Webster dictionary the word Commodore means : 1a : a captain in the navy in command of a squadron. b : a commissioned officer in the navy formerly ranking above captain and below rear admiral and having an insignia of one star. 2 : the ranking officer commanding a body of merchant ships.
They were key player in the development of the home personal computer industry from 1970’s, 1980’s and early 1990’s. In 1977, Commodore produced their first home computer, the Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor). It was a single board computer in a metal case with a full QWERTY keyboard, monochrome monitor and tape recorder for program and data storage. From that year Commodore turned into a computer company.
By 1980, the company was one of the three largest microcomputer companies and the largest in the market. With quarterly sales ending 1983 of $49 million, Commodore was one of the world’s largest personal computer manufacturers at the time.
In January, 1982 Commodore launched their best selling home computer, the Commodore 64. Also known as the C64 or CBM 64, it is an 8 bit computer that first shown at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES), January 7-10, 1982 in Las Vegas.
The computer became so popular after the introduction. The Guinness Book of World Records writes that Commodore 64 is the best selling single computer model of all time with sales around 30 million units between 1982 and 1993. Until today the brand is still widely remembered.
According to history-computer.com, part of the Commodore 64 success was because it was sold in retail stores instead of electronics or computer stores. Also the computer is very easy to use, just plug it directly into an existing home television and you can start use it instantly. And remember that Commodore produced many of its components in-house, to control supplies and cost.
Besides PET and Commodore 64, Commodore manufactured VIC-20 computer in 1980. It was introduced at a cost of US$ 299 and sold in retail stores. It became the first computer to ship more than one million units, with some part of the success was the advertisement featuring William Shatner asking “Why buy just a video games ?”. The machine recorded a total of of 2.5 million units sold.
In 1983, Tramiel decided to focus on market share an cut the price of VIC-20 and C64 and started the “home computer war”. The an all-out price war involving Commodore, Texas Instrument, Atari and every other vendor. Commodore sold the VIC-20 and C64 through mass-market retailer like K-Mart and by doing this they had shipped about 22 million C64’s and making it the best selling computer of all time.
In January 1984, Tramiel resigned due to intense disagreement with the chairman of the board, Irving Gould. The replacement of Tramiel was Marshall F. Smith, a steel executive with no experience in computer industry. Tramiel founded a new company, Tramel Technology and hired some Commodore’s engineers to create a next generation computer design.
Commodore bought a startup company called Amiga Corporation in August 1984 and launched a new 32-bit computer design dubbed the Amiga 1000.
Tramiel moved quickly too, he had talks in May and June 1984 to buy the Atari Consumer Division from Warner Communications. In July 1984 he bought the consumer side of Atari Inc and formed Atari Corp. Later on he released the Atari ST computer earlier in 1985.
In 1994, Commodore went bankrupt and the brand changed several ownership over the years. One of the problems they faced was after Tramiel left there was no one in the company had any knowledge of the computer business. Also the the PC revolution took off in the late 1980’s causing many non-PC manufacturers sales dropped drastically. The former headquarter of Commodore in Pennsylvania is now the headquarters of QVC, a free-to-air television network.
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