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138-591: It contains: The SN76489 was originally designed to be used in the TI-99/4 computer, where it was first called the TMS9919 and later SN94624, and had a 500 kHz max clock input rate. Later, when it was sold outside of TI, it was renamed the SN76489, and a divide-by-8 was added to its clock input, increasing the max clock input rate to 4 MHz , to facilitate sharing a crystal for both NTSC colorburst and clocking

276-543: A $ 8.2 million quarterly loss in the US, hopes were expressed that European divisions might be able to continue trading and even survive the demise of the parent company, with a management buyout considered a possibility. Other possibilities included the sale of profitable parts of the company to other parties, with Philips and Samsung considered "likely choices". However, no sale was ever completed. Commodore's former assets went separate ways following liquidation , with none of

414-563: A Czechoslovakian company into Canada. On October 10, 1958, Tramiel and Kapp incorporated Commodore Portable Typewriter, Ltd. in Toronto to sell the imported typewriters. Commodore funded its operations through factoring over its first two years but faced a continual cash crunch. To bolster the company's financial condition, Tramiel and Kapp sold a portion of the company to Atlantic Acceptance Corporation , one of Canada's largest financing companies, and Atlantic President C. Powell Morgan became

552-503: A Hong Kong -based company called Asiarim. Reunite Investments then sold the brand to Commodore Licensing B.V., a subsidiary of Asiarim, later in 2010. It was sold again on November 7, 2011. This transaction became the basis of a legal dispute between Asiarim — which, even after that date, made commercial use of the Commodore trademark, among others by advertising for sale Commodore-branded computers, and dealing licensing agreements for

690-711: A Transputer -driven system based on the Amiga 2000 in response to the Atari Transputer Workstation . Similarly, a Unix workstation based on the Amiga 2000, featuring the 68020 CPU, was detailed as Atari announced developer shipments of its own 68030-based Unix workstation within a claimed "to or three months". Atari's workstation, the TT030 , eventually arrived in 1990 without a version of Unix available, this only eventually becoming available to developers in late 1991. Commodore's workstation arrived in 1990 in

828-504: A composite video signal. This put the introductory price at US$ 1,150 (equivalent to $ 4,253 in 2023). The 99/4 sold poorly. Very little software was available, as few developers ported their products to its 16-bit CPU. The machine was met with almost universal disdain when it was released. Every review complained about the keyboard, the lack of lower case characters, any sort of expansion, and lack of software. In July 1980, Adam Osborne reported that, despite poor sales, TI had raised

966-458: A hard drive . The first two groups were both working at TI's consumer products division in Lubbock, Texas , and continually competed. According to Wally Rhines , the 99/4's "ultracheap keyboard" (with calculator-style keys), RF modulator , and ROM cartridges came from the console design. Eventually, the two teams were merged and directed towards the home computer market. Meanwhile, the third team

1104-510: A "complete and utter screw-up". In the same year, Commodore released the Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000 computers, which featured an improved graphics chipset, the AGA . The advent of PC games using 3D graphics such as Doom and Wolfenstein 3D spelled the end of Amiga as a gaming platform. In 1993, Commodore launched a 32-bit CD-ROM -based game console called the Amiga CD32 , described as

1242-490: A 'make or break' system, according to Pleasance. The Amiga CD32 was not sufficiently profitable to return Commodore to solvency, however this was not a universal opinion at Commodore, with Commodore Germany hardware expert Rainer Benda stating "The CD32 was a year late for Commodore. In other words, here, too, it might have been better to focus on the core business than jump on a console and hope to sell 300,000 or more units quickly to avoid bankruptcy." "Commodore's high point

1380-470: A 28% share of this market segment in 1990, second only to IBM . Things were less rosy in the United States, where Commodore had a 6% share in the market segment as of 1989, down from 26% in 1984. Forbes 's Evan McGlinn wrote regarding the firm's decline, citing management as the source cause: "the absentee-landlord management style of globe-trotting chairman and chief executive Irving Gould." With

1518-568: A better computer at twice the price", with Australian adverts in the mid-1980s using the slogan "Are you keeping up with the Commodore? Because the Commodore is keeping up with you." In 1983, Tramiel decided to focus on market share and cut the price of the VIC-20 and C64 dramatically, starting the home computer war . TI responded by cutting prices on its 1981 TI-99/4A , leading to a price war involving most vendors other than Apple Computer , including Commodore, TI and Atari . Commodore began selling

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1656-496: A complete 16-bit system, TI would have had to redesign many of their existing 8-bit support chips. Instead, TI decided to use existing devices for the majority of the system. The result is that only a small portion of the system is 16-bit and uses a second 8-bit computer bus for the rest. One of the key features of the TMS9900 from the minicomputer design that spawned it is the inclusion of several sets of processor registers . In

1794-453: A cost-reduced design. Designed as the Amiga 300, a non-expandable model to sell for less than the Amiga 500 , the 600 became a replacement for the 500 due to the unexpectedly higher cost of manufacture. Productivity developers increasingly moved to PC and Macintosh, while the console wars took over the gaming market. David Pleasance, managing director of Commodore UK, described the Amiga 600 as

1932-531: A dedicated port, using a custom data format . Composite video and audio are output through another port on NTSC -based machines, and combine through an external RF modulator for use with a television. PAL -based machines output a more complex YUV signal which is also modulated to UHF externally. Two digital joysticks can be connected through a single DE-9 port. It is identical to the Atari joystick port , but with incompatible pins. Aftermarket adapters allow

2070-413: A financier named Irving Gould to extricate himself, who brokered a deal to sell Wilson Stationers to an American company. Commodore now owed Gould money and still did not have sufficient capital to meet its payments, so Tramiel sold 17.9% of the company to Gould in 1966 for $ 500,000 (equivalent to $ 3.59 million in 2023). As part of the deal, Gould became the company's new chairman. Tramiel saw some of

2208-439: A full 16-bit processor, only the system ROM and 256 bytes of scratchpad RAM are available on the 16-bit bus. Peripherals include a 5¼" floppy disk drive and controller, an RS-232 card with two serial ports and one parallel port, a P-code card for Pascal support, a thermal printer , a 300- baud acoustic coupler , a tape drive using standard audio cassettes as media, and a 32 KB memory expansion card . Graphics in

2346-608: A full-height 5¼" floppy bay. Encased in silver plastic, but made from sheet steel , this is labeled as the Peripheral Expansion System by TI, but usually called the Peripheral Expansion Box or PEB. Each card has an LED that blinks or flickers when being accessed by software. The section of the power supply that powers the card slots is unregulated. Each card has on-board regulators for its own requirements, which reduces power consumption on

2484-527: A lack of software for the system. The TI-99/4A was released in June 1981 to address some of these issues with a simplified internal design, full-travel keyboard, improved graphics, and a unique expansion system. At half the price of the original model, sales picked up significantly and TI supported the 4A with peripherals, including a speech synthesizer and a "Peripheral Expansion System" box to contain hardware add-ons. TI released developer information and tools, but

2622-646: A maximum of 4 can be displayed per scan line . Each sprite is either 8×8 or 16×16 pixels and can be scaled 2× to 16×16 or 32×32. 16 KB of RAM is provided for the Video Display Processor. VDP RAM is the largest block of writeable memory in the unexpanded TI-99/4A architecture, and is used for storing disk I/O buffers and TI BASIC user programs. Access to this memory has to use the VDP as an intermediary. TI-99 peripherals contain device drivers in ROMs in

2760-494: A metal case, initially with a keyboard using calculator keys, later with a full-travel QWERTY keyboard, monochrome monitor , and tape recorder for program and data storage, to produce the Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor). From PET's 1977 debut, Commodore was primarily a computer company. Commodore had been reorganized the year before into Commodore International, Ltd., moving its financial headquarters to

2898-522: A minicomputer setting, the system was typically running a time-sharing or multitasking operating system , or being used for real-time computing , both of which benefit from being able to quickly switch among programs. To do this, the TMS9900 stores several sets of registers in main memory and can switch between the sets of sixteen 16-bit registers by changing the single workspace pointer register, thereby allowing very rapid context switching . The new design put 256 bytes of random-access memory (RAM) on

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3036-401: A number of Wintel computers under subsidiary Commodore International B.V., although it did not find much success. In July 2004, Tulip announced a new series of products using the Commodore name: fPET, a flash memory-based USB flash drive ; mPET, a flash-based MP3 Player and digital recorder; eVIC, a 20 GB music player. Tulip also licensed the Commodore trademark and logo to the producers of

3174-566: A number of other employees. Commodore in 1985 launched the Amiga 1000 personal computer — running on AmigaOS featuring a full color graphical interface and preemptive multitasking — which would initially become a popular platform for computer games and creative software. The company did particularly well in European markets; in West Germany , Commodore machines were ubiquitous as of 1989. The company's position started declining in

3312-541: A partially-loaded PEB, allowing for cards with unusual voltage requirements. The PEB carries an analog sound input on the expansion bus, allowing the Speech Synthesizer's audio to be carried through the console to the monitor. The audio is also carried through the ribbon cable to the PEB, both allowing the relocation of the Speech Synthesizer to the PEB and the possibility of audio cards offering more features than

3450-510: A result, many have become disenchanted with Commodore and dropped the product line". Software developers also disliked the company, with one stating that "Dealing with Commodore was like dealing with Attila the Hun ." At the 1987 Comdex , an informal InfoWorld survey found that none of the developers present planned to write for Commodore platforms. Commodore's software had a poor reputation; InfoWorld in 1984, for example, stated that "so far,

3588-493: A routine payment. A subsequent investigation by a royal commission revealed a massive fraud scheme in which the company falsified financial records to acquire loans funneled into a web of subsidiaries where C. Powell Morgan held a personal stake. Morgan then pocketed the money or invested it in several unsuccessful ventures. Commodore was one of the Atlantic subsidiaries directly implicated in this scheme. Despite heavy suspicion,

3726-624: A sister company of Cloanto, owns the Amiga properties since 2019. Hyperion Entertainment of Belgium has continued development of AmigaOS ( version 4 ) to this day under license, and have released AmigaOne computers based on PowerPC . Jack Tramiel and Manfred Kapp met in the early 1950s while both employed by the Ace Typewriter Repair Company in New York City . In 1954, they partnered to sell used and reconditioned typewriters and used their profits to purchase

3864-417: A steel executive without a computer or consumer marketing experience. Tramiel's departure at the moment of Commodore's greatest financial success surprised the industry. In May 1984, Tramiel founded a new company, Tramel Technology, and hired several Commodore engineers to begin work on a next-generation computer design. That same year, Tramiel discovered Warner Communications wanted to sell Atari, which

4002-600: A stocking stuffer" in a Times article. A total of 2.8 million units were shipped before the TI-99/4A was discontinued in March 1984, perhaps the largest installed base among all personal computers. The 99/4A became the first in a series of home computers to be orphaned by their manufacturer over the next few years, along with the Coleco Adam , Mattel Aquarius , Timex Sinclair 1000 , and IBM PCjr . In order to build

4140-549: A video game?" The strategy worked, and the VIC-20 became the first computer to ship more than one million units, with 2.5 million units sold over the machine's lifetime, which helped Commodore's sales in Canadian schools. In promotions aimed at schools and to reduce unsold inventory, PET models labeled 'Teacher's PET' were given away as part of a "buy 2 get 1 free" promotion. As of calendar year 1980, Commodore sales were $ 40 million, behind Apple Computer and Tandy Corporation in

4278-465: A year earlier. Although Creative Computing compared the company to "a well-armed battleship [which] rules the micro waves" and threatened to destroy rivals like Atari and Coleco , Commodore's board of directors, affected by the price spiral, decided to exit the company. In January 1984, an internal power struggle resulted after Tramiel resigned due to disagreements with the board chairman, Irving Gould . Gould replaced Tramiel with Marshall F. Smith,

Texas Instruments SN76489 - Misplaced Pages Continue

4416-497: Is a compact 8-bit language interpreted by the CPU which dynamically translates the GPL instructions into one or more TMS9900 instructions. GPL includes utility routines that appear as single instructions in GPL code, such as clearing a block of memory. All software originally distributed on ROM cartridges were written using GPL, and are sometimes referred to as GROMs. At the time of launch,

4554-405: Is a practical limitation to this, because each module increases the width of the system. The price was initially US$ 525 , less than half that of the 99/4. TI continued lowering the price through 1981, first to $ 449.95 , and then to $ 399.95 in early 1982, in competition with Commodore's $ 300 VIC-20 . This turned into a price war with Commodore. TI responded by cutting the wholesale price of

4692-636: Is a single-chip implementation of TI's 16-bit TI-990 mini design, and is the CPU in low-end models of that platform. Feature-limited single-chip versions of popular minicomputer designs from the 1960s were popular in the mid-1970s and newly designed 16-bit and 32-bit CPUs like the Intel 8088 and Motorola 68000 , respectively, quickly rendered these earlier designs obsolete. Many of the TMS9900's quirky features, like processor registers in main memory , came from its minicomputer roots where such concepts were more common. Meanwhile, another home computer product

4830-429: Is built-in and includes support for graphics, sound, and file system access. Later versions of the 99/4A, identified by (C)1983 TEXAS INSTRUMENTS V2.2 on the title page, prevent the use of unlicensed ROM cartridges from third-party manufacturers such as Atarisoft . Both TI-99/4 models use the 16-bit TMS9900 CPU running at 3 MHz . The TMS9900 is a single-chip implementation of a TI-990 minicomputer. Although

4968-527: Is generated from an XNOR of bits 12 and 13 for feedback, with bit 13 being the noise output. The pseudorandom generator is cleared to 0s (with the feedback bit set to 1) on writes to chip register 6, the noise mode register. There are two versions of the SN76489: the SN76489 ( Narrow DIP version labeled SN76489N) and the SN76489A (Narrow DIP version labeled SN76489AN). The former was made around 1980–1982 and

5106-402: Is no longer funny", and that "future options are slim". The low price affected the 99/4A's reputation; "When they went to $ 99 , people started asking 'What's wrong with it?'", one retail executive said. An L.F. Rothschild sell-side analyst estimated that TI had prepared to manufacture three million computers in 1983, but would only be able to sell two million. Some observers predicted after

5244-418: Is similar to Pac-Man , but the title character fills the maze with a pattern rather than emptying it of dots. Tigervision offered a solution to the memory limitation of the standard cartridge slot in the form of a 24 KB memory expansion cartridge that attached to the side expansion interface, emulating an expansion device. This allowed the company to implement a larger game completely in machine code, which

5382-582: The $ 200 price in December 1982. TI celebrated the 99/4A's market success at the January 1983 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where Cosby joked how easy it was to sell a computer by paying people $ 100 to buy one. Sales peaked at 30,000 a week that month, but on 10 January 1983 Commodore lowered the price of its computers. In February TI responded with a 99/4A retail price of $ 150 . In April,

5520-687: The Bahamas and its operational base to West Chester, Pennsylvania , near the MOS Technology site. The operational headquarters, where research and development of new products occurred, retained the name Commodore Business Machines, Inc. In 1980, Commodore launched production for the European market in Braunschweig , Germany . This site once employed up to 2000 employees, and in February 2017 an exhibition room for about 200 Commodore products

5658-612: The C64 DTV , a single- chip implementation of the Commodore 64 computer with 30 built-in games. In late 2004, Tulip sold Commodore International B.V. to Yeahronimo Media Ventures (YMV), a digital music software startup providing legal music downloads in the Netherlands, for €22 million, to be paid in instalments over several years until 2010. The sale was completed in March 2005 after months of negotiations; YMV would not become

Texas Instruments SN76489 - Misplaced Pages Continue

5796-458: The SN76489 used in many other systems Roughly 100 games were published for the TI-99/4A, with most published by Texas Instruments. Some of the games released only for the 99/4A are Parsec , Alpiner , Tombstone City: 21st Century , Tunnels of Doom , and The Attack . TI Invaders and Car Wars are TI's renditions of Space Invaders and Head On respectively. Munch Man

5934-678: The United States Environmental Protection Agency shut the plant down, and GMT ceased operations and was liquidated . AmigaOS (as well as spin-offs MorphOS and AROS ) is still maintained and updated by Hyperion Entertainment . Enthusiasts continue to make software and games for both AmigaOS and the Commodore 64 computer. The brand was acquired under license in 2010 by two young entrepreneurs to become Commodore USA in Florida, until 2013. On December 26, 2014, two Italian entrepreneurs licensed

6072-401: The 16-bit bus to store up to eight sets of registers. This area of RAM is known as the " scratchpad memory ". As the processor's instructions are all 16-bit as well, the 8 KB internal system read-only memory (ROM) was also on the 16-bit side. Only the program counter , status register, and workspace pointer registers are actually implemented on the chip itself. Included on the 8-bit side of

6210-400: The 99 by $ 100 , while also offering a $ 100 rebate directly to consumers, lowering the street price to about $ 200 . Bill Cosby in advertising for TI marketed the refund. By mid-1982, Jerry Pournelle wrote that TI was "practically giving away the TI-99/4A". An industry joke stated that the company was losing money on each computer, but was making up for it in volume. Commodore matched

6348-440: The 99/4 as "vastly overpriced, particularly considering its strange keyboard, non-standard Basic, and lack of software". The Times called it an "embarrassing failure". Two years after the 99/4's debut, TI released the 99/4A. It adds a typewriter-style keyboard—keeping the non-standard layout—and more expansion options. The expansion system extends from the right side of the chassis, with modules that can be daisy-chained . There

6486-616: The 99/4A are generated by a TMS9918A Video Display Processor (VDP), with a variant for PAL territories. The VDP was developed by Texas Instruments and also sold independently, allowing it to be used in other systems. It serves as the video processor for the ColecoVision and SG-1000 consoles, and an earlier model is part of the MSX computer standard. The TMS9918A supports character-based and bitmap display modes as well as hardware sprites . There are 32 single-color sprites total, but only

6624-484: The 99/4A, while continuing to sell the TI Professional MS-DOS -compatible computer. (TI stock rose by 25% after the announcement, because the company's other businesses were strong.) With another TI price cut, retailers sold remaining inventory of the former $ 1,150 computer during Christmas for $ 49. The 90 Child World stores quickly sold over 40,000 computers at a price referred to as "nearly

6762-547: The Amiga and Commodore 64 product lines. By 1994, only Commodore's operations in Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom were still profitable. Commodore announced voluntary bankruptcy and liquidation on April 29, 1994, causing the board of directors to "authorize the transfer of its assets to trustees for the benefit of its creditors", according to an official statement. With Commodore International having reported

6900-483: The Amiga only representing less that 20% of the company's sales in the 1987 fiscal year, product lines such as PC-compatibles and Commodore's 8-bit computers remained important to the company's finances even as the Amiga's share of total sales increased. In 1989, with the Amiga accounting for 45% of total sales, the PC business showed modest growth to 24% of total sales, and the Commodore 64 and 128 products still generated 31% of

7038-478: The Amiga to keep pace as the PC platform advanced. CBM continued selling the Amiga 2000 with 7.14 MHz 68000 CPUs, even though the Amiga 3000 with its 25 MHz 68030 was on the market. Apple, by this time, was using the 68040 and had relegated the 68000 to its lowest-end model, the black and white Macintosh Classic . The 68000 was used in the Sega Genesis , one of the leading game consoles of

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7176-571: The Belgian software company that continues development of AmigaOS . The Commodore Semiconductor Group (formerly MOS Technology, Inc. ), the silicon wafer foundry and integrated circuit manufacturing unit of Commodore International, was bought by its former management in January 1995 and resumed operations under the name GMT Microelectronics, utilizing a troubled facility in Norristown, Pennsylvania that Commodore had closed in 1992. In 2001,

7314-552: The CES in 1984. An Atari-Commodore rivalry continued throughout the life of the ST and Amiga platforms. While the rivalry was a holdover from the competition between the C64 and Atari 800, the events leading to the launch of the ST and Amiga served to further alienate fans of each computer, who disagreed as to which platform was superior. This was reflected in sales numbers for the two platforms until

7452-540: The Commodore and Amiga operations into separate divisions, the latter becoming Amiga Technologies GmbH , and quickly started using the Commodore brand name on a line of PCs sold in Europe while concepting and developing new Amiga computers. They also debuted a brand new logo for Amiga. However, it soon started losing money due to over-expansion, declared bankruptcy on July 15, 1996, and was liquidated . Escom's Dutch arm, Escom B.V., survived bankruptcy and went on to purchase

7590-440: The Commodore brand from its bankrupt parent. The company then renamed itself to Commodore B.V. Meanwhile, a deal for Chicago -based VisCorp to purchase Amiga Technologies GmbH fell through, and instead it was acquired by Gateway 2000 in March 1997, taking both the Amiga properties and the Commodore patents. In September 1997, Dutch computer maker Tulip Computers acquired the Commodore brand name from Commodore B.V. and made

7728-423: The Commodore brand name was eventually passed to Tulip Computers of the Netherlands, and remains under ownership of a Dutch company today. Gateway 2000 attempted but failed to market a modern Amiga, and eventually sold the copyrights, Amiga trademark and other intellectual properties to Amiga, Inc. , while retaining the Commodore patents , which are now under Acer since its acquisition of Gateway. Amiga Corp.,

7866-715: The Gravel in Home, hoping the Commodore brand would help them take off, introduced at CeBIT 2007 with a media "entertainment platform" called CommodoreWorld, and also launched gaming PCs running Windows Vista 64-bit. However the company did not find success with these products. On June 24, 2009, CIC in the United States renamed itself to Reunite Investments, Inc., with the Commodore brand retaining under ownership by its subsidiary CIC Europe Holding B.V. (which would later be renamed into C= Holdings B.V. ), trading as Commodore Consumer Electronics (CCE). CIC's founder, Ben van Wijhe, bought

8004-492: The PEB for free with the purchase of three peripherals. In August the company reduced prices of peripherals by 50% and offered $ 100 of free software; in September, it reduced software prices by up to 43%. The president of Spectravideo later said that "TI got suckered by" Jack Tramiel , head of Commodore. The company could not make a profit on the TI-99/4A at a price of $ 99 —it was much more expensive to manufacture than

8142-641: The Singer Typewriter Company. After acquiring a local dealership selling Everest adding machines , Tramiel convinced Everest to give him and Kapp exclusive Canadian rights to its products and established Everest Office Machines in Toronto in 1955. By 1958, the adding machine business was slowing. Tramiel made a connection with an Everest agent in England who alerted him to a business opportunity to import portable typewriters manufactured by

8280-623: The TI-99/4 was the first 16-bit home computer. The associated TMS9918 video display controller provides color graphics and sprite support which were only comparable with those of the Atari 400 and 800 released a month later. The TI-99 series also initially competed with the Apple II and TRS-80 . The calculator-style keyboard of the TI-99/4 was cited as a weak point, and TI's reliance on ROM cartridges and their practice of limiting developer information to select third parties resulted in

8418-496: The VIC-20 and C64 through mass-market retailers such as K-Mart , in addition to traditional computer stores. By the end of this conflict, Commodore had shipped around 22 million C64s, making the C64 the best-selling computer, until the Raspberry Pi overtook it in 2019. At the June 1983 Consumer Electronics Show , Commodore lowered the retail price of the C64 to $ 300 , and stores sold it for as little as $ 199 . At one point,

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8556-478: The VIC-20 —but hoped that selling many inexpensive computers would increase sales of more profitable software and peripherals. Because such a razor and blades business model requires that such products be its own , TI strictly controlled development for the computer, discouraging hobbyists and third-party developers. It wanted unsophisticated consumers to buy its computers like an appliance, and not technical users who might want to write their own software, despite

8694-405: The VIC-20's bundled retail price reached $ 100 and the 99/4A followed suit. In the spring of 1983, TI attempted to reduce the parts count to maintain a competitive edge by combining multiple chips into a single custom chip, renaming the 4A PCB as a "QI" (Quality Improved) board and began production of plastic beige cases without the former aluminum trim of the black console. In May, it began offering

8832-552: The Warner-owned Atari , who paid Amiga to continue development work. In return, Atari received the exclusive use of the design as a video game console for one year, after which Atari would have the right to add a keyboard and market it as a complete Amiga computer. The Atari-Amiga contract and engineering logs identify the Atari-Amiga product was designated as the 1850XLD. As Atari was heavily involved with Disney at

8970-443: The basis of this interpretation, and sought damages and an injunction to bar Amiga and effectively Commodore from producing any resembling technology, to render Commodore's new acquisition and the source for its next generation of computers useless. The resulting court case lasted several years. Commodore introduced a new 32-bit computer design to market in the fall of 1985 named the Amiga 1000 for US$ 1,295 , first demonstrated at

9108-718: The calculator business. Observers expected TI would do the same to the microcomputer market if it released a competitive system. The New York Times suggested that the entry of TI and Hewlett-Packard would reshape the entire industry. Through the development period, several companies attempting to enter the home computer market were faced with significant pushback from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FCC had developed new rules for consumer devices that connected directly to televisions in an effort to control ongoing complaints about interference by poorly shielded devices. Televisions of

9246-538: The chairman of Commodore. In 1962, the company went public on the Montreal Stock Exchange , under the name of Commodore Business Machines (Canada), Ltd. With the financial backing of Atlantic Acceptance, Commodore expanded rapidly in the early 1960s. It purchased a factory in West Germany to manufacture its typewriters, began distributing office furniture for a Canadian manufacturer, and sold Pearlsound radio and stereo equipment. In 1965, it purchased

9384-455: The commission could not find evidence of wrongdoing by Tramiel or Kapp. The scandal left Commodore in a worse financial position as it had borrowed heavily from Atlantic to purchase Wilson, and the loan was called in. Due to the financial scandal, Tramiel could only secure a bridge loan by paying interest well above the prime rate and putting the German factory up as collateral. Tramiel worked with

9522-648: The company that made cheap computers like the C64 and VIC. The C64 remained the company's cash cow but its technology was aging. By the late 1980s, the personal computer market had become dominated by the IBM PC and Apple Macintosh platforms. Commodore's marketing efforts for the Amiga were less successful in breaking the new computer into an established market compared to the success of its 8-bit line. The company put effort into developing and promoting consumer products that would not be in demand for years, such as an Amiga 500 -based HTPC called CDTV . As early as 1986,

9660-442: The company was selling as many computers as the rest of the industry combined. Prices for the VIC-20 and C64 were $ 50 lower than Atari's prices for the 600XL and 800XL. Commodore's strategy was to, according to a spokesman, devote 50% of its efforts to the under- $ 500 market, 30% on the $ 500–1000 market, and 20% on the over- $ 1,000 market. Its vertical integration and Tramiel's focus on cost control helped Commodore do well during

9798-489: The company's fortunes and plan for the future, and did so by buying a small startup company called Amiga Corporation in August 1984 for $ 25 million ( $ 12.8 million in cash and $ 550,000 in common shares). Amiga became a subsidiary of Commodore, called Commodore-Amiga, Inc. During development in 1981, Amiga had exhausted venture capital and needed more financing. Jay Miner and his company had approached their former employer,

9936-557: The company's revenues. Commodore attempted to develop new chipsets during the early 1990s, first the Advanced Amiga Architecture and later the Hombre . Funding problems meant that they did not materialize as ultimately the company would go bust. In 1992, the Amiga 600 replaced the Amiga 500, which removed the numeric keypad, Zorro expansion slot, and other functionality, but added IDE , PCMCIA , and intended as

10074-406: The computer. Pournelle stated that "TI's message is loud and clear: 'Drop dead, hobbyists! ' ", and added that the company "worked very hard at keeping you outside the machine". Citing Money , publisher of Kilobaud Microcomputing Wayne Green reported in August 1980 that TI planned to have only 100 applications available by the end of 1981, stating that "This tiny figure has to put a chill on

10212-510: The condition that its chip designer Chuck Peddle join Commodore directly as head of engineering. In 1976, Commodore Business Machines (Canada) Ltd. was dissolved and replaced by the newly formed Bahamanian corporation Commodore International, which became the new parent of the Commodore group of companies. Chuck Peddle convinced Jack Tramiel that calculators were a dead end business and that they should turn their attention to home computers . Peddle packaged his single-board computer design in

10350-427: The console's built-in sound. No official cards from TI do this. Official cards from TI that were released and could be placed inside the PEB include Peripherals designed to be used without the PEB existed too. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, TI was a pioneer in speech synthesis because of its Texas Instruments LPC Speech Chips which were used in its Speak & Spell toys. A plug-in speech synthesizer module

10488-592: The consumer side of Atari Inc. from Warner Communications and released the Atari ST earlier in 1985 for about $ 800 . As more executives and researchers left Commodore after the announcement to join Tramiel's new company Atari Corp. , Commodore followed by filing lawsuits against four former engineers for theft of trade secrets in late July. This was intended, in effect, to bar Tramiel from releasing his new computer. One of Tramiel's first acts after forming Atari Corp.

10626-477: The copyrights and patents, and the Amiga trademarks, passed from bankrupt Escom to Gateway 2000 in 1997. Jim Collas became director of Amiga Technologies and he assembled a new team to work on a new generation of Amiga computers and other products on a new platform, prototyping one called the Amiga MCC and planning a potential tablet computer . However when Jeffrey Weitzen was chosen to become CEO of Gateway, who

10764-719: The descendant companies repeating Commodore's early success. Subsidiaries Commodore UK and Commodore B.V. (Netherlands) survived bankruptcy. The UK division filed a buyout proposal to the Supreme Court in the Bahamas and was considered the front runner in the bid due to press exposure at the time; the other initial bidders were Samsung, Philips and Amstrad in mid-1994. Commodore UK and Commodore BV stayed in business by selling old inventory and making computer speakers and other types of computer peripherals, however Commodore BV dissolved in early 1995. Commodore UK withdrew its bid at

10902-566: The encouragement and development of good software, has hurt its credibility, especially in comparison to the other systems on the market". Writing for Programming the PET/CBM , Raeto Collin West wrote "CBM's product manuals are widely recognized to be unhelpful; this is one of the reasons for the existence of this book." Commodore re-emphasized the US market with the VIC-20 . The PET computer line

11040-453: The era generally had only a single antenna input, and thus connecting to them required the internal video signal of the device to be converted to radio frequency using an RF modulator . The resulting signals were often poorly shielded and signal leakage could be picked up in the antennas of nearby televisions. The new rules were extremely difficult to meet. TI continued battling the FCC both in

11178-531: The era, Computers fitted with high-color VGA graphics cards and SoundBlaster (or compatible) sound cards had also caught up with the Amiga's performance, and Commodore began to fade from the consumer market. Although the Amiga was originally conceived as a gaming machine, Commodore had always emphasized the Amiga's potential for professional applications, but the Amiga's high-performance sound and graphics were irrelevant to MS-DOS -based routine business word-processing and data-processing requirements, and

11316-483: The first electronic calculators through his Japanese contacts in the late 1960s. He pivoted from adding machines to marketing calculators produced by companies like Casio under the Commodore brand name. In 1969, Commodore began manufacturing its electronic calculators. Commodore soon had a profitable calculator line and was one of the more popular brands in the early 1970s, producing both consumer and scientific/programmable calculators. However, in 1975, Texas Instruments ,

11454-453: The form of the Amiga 3000UX . Commodore suffered a poor reputation with its dealers and customers, and upon the 1987 introduction of the Amiga 2000, Commodore retreated from its earlier strategy of selling its computers to discount outlets and toy stores and favored authorized dealers. Adam Osborne stated in April 1981 that "the microcomputer industry abounds with horror stories describing

11592-502: The furniture company for which it served as the distributor and moved its headquarters to its facilities on Warden Avenue in the Scarborough district of Toronto. That same year, the company made a deal with a Japanese manufacturer to produce adding machines for Commodore, and purchased the office supply retailer Wilson Stationers to serve as an outlet for its typewriters. In 1965, Atlantic Acceptance collapsed when it failed to make

11730-410: The hardware. When a new peripheral is attached, it is immediately available for any software that wants to use it. All device access uses a generic file-based I/O mechanism, allowing new devices to be added without updating software. The Peripheral Expansion System can hold two RS-232 cards, for a total of four RS-232 ports and two parallel printer ports. The computer supports two cassette drives through

11868-539: The hobbyists to drop dead". No official technical documentation from TI was released until the "Editor/Assembler" development suite was released in 1981, and no system schematics were ever released to the public until after TI had discontinued the computer. After TI in mid-1983 unexpectedly announced a $ 100 million loss in the second calendar quarter—implying a pretax loss from home computers of $ 200–250 million —its stock dropped by one third in two days. The Times stated in June 1983 that Cosby's $ 100 refund "joke

12006-610: The industry. The company released its first home computer, the Commodore PET , in 1977; it was followed by the VIC-20 , the first ever computer to reach one million units of sales. In 1982, the company developed and marketed the world's best selling computer, the Commodore 64 ; its success made Commodore one of the world's largest personal computer manufacturers, with sales peaking in the last quarter of 1983 at $ 49 million (equivalent to $ 126 million in 2023). However an internal struggle led to co-founder Tramiel quitting, then rivalling Commodore under Atari Corporation joined by

12144-409: The insistence on remaining sole publisher continued to starve the platform of software. Architectural quirks of both models reduced the performance benefits of the 16-bit CPU. The 1981 US launch of the TI-99/4A followed Commodore 's VIC-20 by several months. Commodore CEO Jack Tramiel began a price war by repeatedly lowering the price of the VIC-20 and forcing TI to do the same. In late 1982, TI

12282-623: The lab and in Congress, where it had considerable power due to its position within Texas's high-tech industry. It failed to meet the FCC requirements as the release date approached. The company eventually gave up and bundled a modified Zenith Electronics television as a computer monitor , eliminating the need for the RF modulator that generates the interference by connecting directly to the TV's circuitry using

12420-448: The late 1980s amid internal conflicts and mismanagement, and while the Amiga line was popular, newer models failed to keep pace against competing IBM PC-compatibles and Apple Macintosh . By 1992, MS-DOS and 16-bit video game consoles offered by Nintendo and Sega had eroded Amiga's status as a solid gaming platform. Under co-founding chairman Irving Gould and president Mehdi Ali, Commodore filed for bankruptcy on April 29, 1994 and

12558-492: The latter being what Pournelle described as "a large unpaid R&D department" for computer companies. The company advertised its calculators in almost every issue of BYTE starting in 1980, but deliberately excluded its home computer from the ads except briefly in late 1982. TI also used its preexisting calculator sales channel of mass-market retailers, and not specialized computer stores. TI did not provide an editor, assembler, or hardware technical information when it released

12696-618: The latter from 1983 onward. They differ in that the output of the SN76489 is the inverse of the expected waveform (the waveform "grows" towards 0 V from 2.5 V), while the SN76489A waveform is not inverted. The SN76496 seems to be totally identical to the SN76489A in terms of the outputs produced, but features an "AUDIO IN" pin (on pin 9) for integrated audio mixing. Sega used real SN76489AN chips in their SG-1000 game console and SC-3000 computer, but used SN76489A clones in their Master System , Game Gear , and Sega Genesis game consoles. These modified sound chips were incorporated into

12834-410: The leading supplier of calculator parts, entered the market directly and put out a line of machines priced at less than Commodore's cost for the parts. Commodore obtained an infusion of cash from Gould, which Tramiel used beginning in 1976 to purchase several second-source chip suppliers, including MOS Technology, Inc. , to assure his supply. He agreed to buy MOS, which was having troubles of its own, on

12972-481: The lower end of the market, Commodore's computers were also sold in upmarket department stores such as Harrods . The company also attracted several high-profile customers. In 1984, the company's British branch became the first manufacturer to receive a royal warrant for computer business systems. NASA 's Kennedy Space Center was another noted customer, with over 60 Commodore systems processing documentation, tracking equipment and employees, costing jobs, and ensuring

13110-495: The machine could not successfully compete with computers in a business market that was rapidly undergoing commoditization . Commodore introduced a range of PC compatible systems designed by its German division, and while the Commodore name was better known in the US than some of its competition, the systems' price and specifications were only average. Sales of the PC range were strong in Germany, however, seeing Commodore acquire

13248-537: The mainstream press was predicting Commodore's demise, and in 1990 Computer Gaming World wrote of its "abysmal record of customer and technical support in the past". Nevertheless, as profits and the stock price began to slide, The Philadelphia Inquirer's Top 100 Businesses Annual continued to list several Commodore executives among the highest-paid in the region and the paper documented the company's questionable hiring practices and large bonuses paid to executives amid shareholder discontent. Commodore failed to update

13386-471: The market. In 1982, Commodore introduced the Commodore 64 (C64) as the successor to the VIC-20. Due to its chips designed by MOS Technology, the C64 possessed advanced sound and graphics for its time, and is often credited with starting the computer demo scene . Its US$ 595 (equivalent to $ 1,590 in 2023) price was high compared to that of the VIC-20 but was much less expensive than any other 64K computer. Early C64 advertisements boasted that "You can't buy

13524-547: The middle of a planned range of TI-99 computers, none of which were released, but prototypes and documentation have been found after the TI-99/4A was discontinued. The TI-99/4A is a self-contained console with the motherboard , ROM cartridge slot, and full-travel keyboard in the same case. The power supply is external. An RF modulator allows the use of a television as a monitor. Lowercase letters are displayed as small caps , rather than separate glyphs. TI BASIC , an ANSI -compliant BASIC interpreter based on Dartmouth BASIC ,

13662-406: The normal standard for Commodore software is mediocrity". Tramiel's successor, Marshall F. Smith, left the company in 1986, as did his successor Thomas Rattigan in 1987 after a failed boardroom coup . The head of Blue Chip Electronics , a former Commodore employee, described the company as "a well-known revolving door". Commodore faced the problem when marketing the Amiga of still being seen as

13800-482: The patents. Gateway itself was acquired by Taiwanese Acer in 2007. On March 15, 2004, Amiga, Inc. announced that on April 23, 2003, it had transferred its rights over past and future versions of the AmigaOS (but not yet over other intellectual property) to Itec, LLC, later acquired by KMOS, Inc., a Delaware -based company. Shortly afterwards, based on loans and security agreements between Amiga, Inc. and Itec, LLC,

13938-456: The performance advantage of a 16-bit processor. The TMS9900's machine language instructions must be word-aligned, so at least 16-bits are needed for every instruction. At the time, memory was expensive, so the size of this format was a concern. Additionally, programming the 8-bit side of the system from 16-bit code is somewhat complex. To address this, TI developed a pseudo- assembly language known as "Graphic Programming Language", or GPL. This

14076-541: The price of a complete system to $ 1,400 , higher than the popular Apple II, which started at $ 950 . Osborne said, "Some dealers, who have offered the complete system (including the monitor) for less than the price of the Apple, have still been unable to sell it". TI sold fewer than 20,000 computers by summer 1981, less than one tenth Apple or Radio Shack 's volume. Atari, Inc. had an installed base of Atari 8-bit computers more than twice as large. David H. Ahl described

14214-449: The price war, with $ 1 billion in 1983 sales. Although the company and Tramiel's focus on cost cutting over product testing caused hardware defects in the initial C64, some resolved in later iterations. By early 1984, Synapse Software , the largest provider of third-party Atari 8-bit software, received 65% of sales from the Commodore market, and Commodore sold almost three times as many computers as Atari that year. Despite its focus on

14352-517: The release of the Amiga 500 in 1987, which led the Amiga sales to exceed the ST by about 1.5 to 1, despite reaching the market later. However, neither platform captured a significant share of the world computer market, with only the Apple Macintosh surviving the industry-wide shift to Intel -based x86 computers using Microsoft Windows . Commodore and Atari both sought to compete in the workstation market, with Commodore announcing in 1988

14490-502: The remaining intellectual property assets were transferred from Amiga, Inc. to KMOS, Inc. On March 16, 2005, KMOS, Inc. announced that it had completed all registrations with the State of Delaware to change its corporate name to Amiga, Inc. The Commodore/Amiga copyrights, including all their works up to 1993, were later sold to Cloanto in 2015. A number of legal challenges and lawsuits have involved these companies and Hyperion Entertainment ,

14628-424: The result by N. Thus the overall divider range is from 4 to 4096 (or 32 to 32768). At maximum clock input rate, this gives a frequency range of 122 Hz to 125 kHz. Or typically 108 Hz to 111.6 kHz, with an NTSC colorburst (~3.58 MHz) clock input – a range from roughly A2 (two octaves below middle A) to 5–6 times the generally accepted limits of human audio perception. The pseudorandom noise feedback

14766-431: The safety of hazardous waste. By early 1984, Commodore was the most successful home computer company, with more than $ 1 billion (equivalent to $ 2.48 billion in 2023) in annual revenue and $ 100 million (equivalent to $ 248 million in 2023) in net income, whilst competitors had large losses. The company's revenue of $ 425 million in the fourth calendar quarter of 1983 more than doubled its revenue of $ 176 million

14904-438: The second quarter's loss that the 99/4A would not be able to recover; even if the company did not plan to discontinue the computer, the fear that it would become orphaned technology might cause retailers to avoid ordering inventory. Others thought that TI could sell excess inventory and continue producing the computer. After losing $ 111 million after taxes in the third calendar quarter of 1983, TI announced plans to discontinue

15042-629: The sole owner until 2010 after buying the remaining shares from Tulip (by then renamed to Nedfield Holding B.V.) which had gone bankrupt. YMV soon renamed itself to Commodore International Corporation (CIC) — its operational office was in the Netherlands but had headquarters in California — and started an operation intended to relaunch the Commodore brand in the video gaming field. The company then launched its Gravel line of products: Gravel in Pocket personal multimedia players equipped with Wi-Fi and

15180-548: The sole publisher for the system, however, which many developers refused to agree to. After third-party developers ' games for the Atari 2600 became very successful, the company at the June 1983 Consumer Electronics Show announced that only cartridges with a TI-licensed lockout chip would work in the 99/4A. The Boston Phoenix predicted that "most [software developers] just won't bother making TI-compatible versions of their programs", and Pournelle wrote that "TI once again tells

15318-459: The sound chip. A version of the chip without the divide-by-8 input was also sold outside of TI as the SN76494, which has a 500 kHz max clock input rate. The frequency of the square waves produced by the tone generators on each channel is derived from two factors: Each channel's frequency is arrived at by dividing the external clock by 4 (or 32 depending on the chip variant), and then dividing

15456-513: The start of the auction process after several larger companies, including Gateway Computers and Dell Inc. , became interested, primarily for Commodore's patents relating to the Amiga. The only companies who entered bids at the end were Dell and Escom; the successful bidder was German PC maker Escom AG on April 22, 1995, beating Dell's bid by $ 6.6 million. Escom paid US$ 14 million for the assets of Commodore International. Commodore UK went into liquidation on August 30, 1995. Escom separated

15594-677: The system included only a single user-accessible programming language : TI's built-in BASIC interpreter, written in GPL. On the Creative Computing Benchmark , it runs at roughly half the speed of the Apple II . TMS9900 @ 3 MHz , 16-bit , 64-pin DIP   TMS9918A video display processor, 40 pin DIP . The earlier 99/4 uses the TMS9918. PAL systems use the "9929" versions of each. TMS9919, later SN94624 , identical to

15732-553: The system is the majority of the RAM and almost all of the support chips, especially the video display controller (VDP). All accesses to the VDP system are executed eight bits at a time. The system's RAM is managed by the VDP, which provides access to the CPU only when the VDP is not using the memory. This means that user programs and data are read over two machine cycles , reducing speed by half. According to TI's former manager for microprocessors who oversaw TMS9900 development, this negates

15870-852: The systems' video display processor (VDP). Although basic functionality is almost identical to that of the original SN76489A, a few small differences exist: Another clone is the NCR 8496, used in some models of the Tandy 1000 computer. Later Tandy 1000 machines (notably the SL, TL and RL series) integrated the SN76496's functionality into the PSSJ ASIC . TI-99 The TI-99/4 and TI-99/4A are home computers released by Texas Instruments in 1979 and 1981, respectively. Based on Texas Instruments's own TMS9900 microprocessor originally used in minicomputers ,

16008-545: The time, it was later code-named "Mickey", and the 256K memory expansion board was codenamed "Minnie". Still suffering serious financial problems, Amiga sought more monetary support from investors that entire spring. At around the same time that Tramiel was negotiating with Atari, Amiga entered into discussions with Commodore. The discussions ultimately led to Commodore's intentions to purchase Amiga outright, which Commodore viewed would cancel any outstanding contracts – including Atari Inc.'s. Tramiel counter-sued on

16146-553: The trademarks — and the new owners, that was resolved by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on December 16, 2013, in favor of the new owners. Since then the company holding the brand name turned into Polabe Holding N.V. , then Net B.V., and is currently named Commodore Corporation B.V. Ownership of the remaining assets of Commodore International, including

16284-540: The use of Atari compatible joysticks . TI sold an official 32 KB RAM expansion. The memory is not available to all uses. For example, an Extended Basic program is restricted to using 24 KB with the remaining 8 KB available for machine code routines. The Mini Memory plug-in module contains 4 KB of battery-backed RAM that can be used as a persistent RAM disk or to load a machine-code program. The TI-99/4A can be upgraded via expansion cards added to an eight-slot, external chassis containing its own linear power supply and

16422-818: The way Commodore treats its dealers and its customers." Commodore under Tramiel had a reputation for cannibalizing its own products with newer ones; Doug Carlston and others in the industry believed rumors in late 1983 that Commodore would discontinue the C64 despite its success because they disliked the company's business practices, including its poor treatment of dealers and introducing new computers incompatible with existing ones. A Boston reseller said, "It's too unsettling to be one of their dealers and not know where you stand with them." After Tramiel's departure, another journalist wrote that he "had never been able to establish excellent relations with computer dealers ... computer retailers have accused Commodore of treating them as harshly as if they were suppliers or competitors, and as

16560-786: The whole industry". Green's company, Instant Software , was a prolific publisher for the TRS-80 but could not find anyone to port software to the TI. He wrote, "We understand the problems with the system and the efforts Texas Instruments made to make translation difficult". A Spinnaker Software executive said that the 99/4A had "the worst software in the business", and Ahl noted that unlike other computers, it did not have " Microsoft BASIC , VisiCalc , WordStar , or any popular games". Peripherals cost about twice as much as for other computers. TI joysticks were of poor quality and difficult to find, for example; one reseller reported that its best-selling product

16698-467: Was a home computer and electronics manufacturer incorporated in The Bahamas with executive offices in the United States founded in 1976 by Jack Tramiel and Irving Gould . Commodore International (CI), along with its subsidiary Commodore Business Machines (CBM), was a significant participant in the development of the home computer industry, and at one point in the 1980s was the world's largest in

16836-416: Was available for the TI-99/4 and 4A. Speech synthesizers were offered free with the purchase of a number of cartridges and were used by video games such as Alpiner and Parsec . Alpiner ' s speech includes male and female voices and can be sarcastic when the player makes a bad move. The synthesizer uses a variant of linear predictive coding and has a small in-built vocabulary. The original intent

16974-467: Was emerging from TI's European headquarters, where a third party consulting firm was contracted to produce a prototype codenamed "Mojo". This was based on TI's version of the 8-bit Intel 8080 supported by an all-TI chip set. After a series of discussions, Mojo was abandoned and the Consumer Products concept moved forward. In 1979, TI was a successful manufacturer of large computers and

17112-522: Was merged into TI's Data Systems Division, which had a line of minicomputer products and various computer terminals ; they viewed the all-in-one machine as a threat and the project was eventually killed. Others within the company persuaded the Lubbock group to use TI's TMS9900 CPU. This was in keeping with TI's "one company, one computer architecture" concept, where a single processor model would scale from consoles to its high-end minicomputers. The TMS9900

17250-416: Was not convinced of Collas's plans, he informed that Amiga Technologies division will be sold. On the final day of 1999, Gateway sold the copyrights and trademarks of Amiga to Amino, a Washington-based company founded, among others, by former Gateway subcontractors Bill McEwen and Fleecy Moss; Amino immediately renamed itself to Amiga, Inc. Gateway retained the patents but gave a license to Amiga, Inc. to use

17388-514: Was opened here to commemorate its past. By 1980, Commodore was one of the three largest microcomputer companies and the largest in the Common Market . The company had lost its early domestic-market sales leadership, however by mid-1981 its US market share was less than 5% and US computer magazines rarely discussed Commodore products. BYTE stated "the lack of a marketing strategy by Commodore, as well as its past nonchalant attitude toward

17526-639: Was public than for TI's proprietary components. IBM learned from TI's mistake, Pournelle said. The company released software and hardware technical information when the IBM PC was announced in 1981, stating that "the definition of a personal computer is third-party hardware and software". TI had also learned from its mistake and no longer ignored hobbyists, Pournelle said in 1982. The company advertised in BYTE its program for publishing others' software, and job openings for software developers. TI insisted on being

17664-607: Was replaced by ICL after failing to meet repair demand during the Christmas rush in 1992. Commodore International's Canadian subsidiary authorized 3D Microcomputers of Ontario to manufacture IBM PC clones with the Commodore brand in late 1993. Commodore exited the IBM PC clone market entirely during the 1993 fiscal year, citing the low profitability of this market. PC sales had remained relatively stable and, accounting for 37% of revenue from sales in 1993, had grown modestly as declines in both unit sales and revenues were recorded for

17802-508: Was rumored to be losing about $ 10,000 a day. Interested in Atari's overseas manufacturing and worldwide distribution network for a new computer, he approached Atari and entered negotiations. After several talks with Atari in May and June 1984, Tramiel had secured funding and bought Atari's Consumer Division (which included the console and home computer departments) in July. In July 1984 Tramiel bought

17940-462: Was shipping 5,000 computers a day from their factory in Lubbock, Texas . By 1983, the 99/4A was selling at a loss for under US$ 100 . Even with the increased user base created by the heavy discounts, Texas Instruments lost US$ 330 million in the third quarter of 1983 and announced the discontinuation of the TI-99/4A in October 1983. Production ended in March 1984. The TI-99/4 was intended to fit in

18078-470: Was soon liquidated , with its assets purchased by German company Escom . The Amiga line was revitalized and continued to be developed by Escom until it too went bankrupt, in July 1996. Commodore's computer systems, mainly the C64 and Amiga series, retain a cult following decades after its demise. Commodore's assets have been passed through various companies since then. After Escom 's demise and liquidation, its core assets were sold to Gateway 2000 while

18216-711: Was the Atari CX40 joystick adapter cable. Pournelle added, "TI had rightly concluded that the hobbyists and hackers were a tiny part of the market and wrongly concluded that they were therefore unimportant". Rivals were more open with information. Kilobaud Microcomputing reported that a Commodore executive promised the VIC-20 would have "enough additional documentation to enable an experienced programmer/hobbyist to get inside and let his imagination work". Even when competitors did not disclose technical information, because their computers used commercial off-the-shelf parts like MOS 6502 and Zilog Z80 , much more information

18354-609: Was the Amiga 1000 (1985). The Amiga was so far ahead of its time that almost nobody--including Commodore's marketing department--could fully articulate what it was all about. Today, it's obvious the Amiga was the first multimedia computer. Still, in those days, it was derided as a game machine because few people grasped the importance of advanced graphics, sound, and video. Nine years later, vendors are still struggling to make systems that work like 1985 Amigas." —  Byte Magazine , August 1994 In 1992, all UK servicing and warranty repairs were outsourced to Wang Laboratories , which

18492-440: Was the largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world. Its catalog included a huge variety of analog and digital integrated circuits already widely used in microcomputers , giving it a single-source advantage no other company could meet. It used this position to take over markets, as it did in the mid-1970s introducing its first scientific calculators . These underpriced its former customers like Commodore and drove them out of

18630-413: Was to fire most of Atari's remaining staff and to cancel almost all ongoing projects to review their continued viability. In late July to early August, Tramiel representatives discovered the original Amiga contract from the previous fall. Seeing a chance to gain some leverage, Tramiel immediately used the agreement to counter-sue Commodore on August 13. The remaining Commodore management sought to salvage

18768-608: Was to release small cartridges that plugged directly into the synthesizer unit to increase the device's vocabulary. However, the success of software text-to-speech in the Terminal Emulator II cartridge cancelled that plan. In 1977, groups within Texas Instruments were designing a video game console , a home computer to compete against the TRS-80 and Apple II, and a high-end business personal computer with

18906-425: Was used for Espial and Miner 2049er . Exceltec also released two similar side cartridges: Arcturus and Killer Caterpillar . The media criticized the computer's game library as mediocre. TI not only discouraged third-party development, including games, but it also failed to license popular arcade games like Zaxxon and Frogger . Commodore International Commodore International Corporation

19044-505: Was used primarily in schools, where its tough all-metal construction and ability to share printers and disk drives on a simple local area network were advantages, but PETs did not compete well in the home setting where graphics and sound were important. This was addressed with the VIC-20 in 1981, which was introduced at a cost of US$ 299 (equivalent to $ 848.00 in 2023) and sold in retail stores. Commodore bought aggressive advertisements featuring William Shatner asking consumers, "Why buy just

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