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126-512: The TIPC is very similar to the IBM PC both architecturally and from a user-experience perspective, with some technically superior aspects. It is based on the Intel 8088 CPU and an optional Intel 8087 floating point coprocessor . It supports MS-DOS -compatible operating systems , but is not a fully IBM PC compatible computer. Alternative operating systems are CP/M-86 , Concurrent CP/M-86 , and

252-543: 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

378-563: 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

504-503: 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

630-711: 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

756-526: 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

882-510: 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

1008-490: 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

1134-421: A 12-inch green-phosphor monochrome ( CRT ) monitor or a 12-inch color monitor with a color graphics resolution of 720x300 pixels. For text, the display shows 25 lines of 80 columns each. The device has a 5¼-inch floppy disk drive and can support a second floppy drive or a "Winchester" hard drive without requiring the use of an expansion slot or separate chassis, and typically features one of each. Byte said

1260-407: 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

1386-568: 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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1512-468: A computer through retail channels rather than directly to customers. Because IBM did not have retail experience, they partnered with the retail chains ComputerLand and Sears , who provided important knowledge of the marketplace and became the main outlets for the PC. More than 190 ComputerLand stores already existed, while Sears was in the process of creating a handful of in-store computer centers for sale of

1638-453: 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

1764-442: A dedicated power supply and included a hard drive. Although official hard drive support did not exist, the third party market did provide early hard drives that connected to the floppy disk controller , but required a patched version of PC DOS to support the larger disk sizes. The only option for human interface provided in the base PC was the built-in keyboard port, meant to connect to the included Model F keyboard. The Model F

1890-413: 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

2016-583: A hard drive, the motherboard did not support BIOS expansion ROMs which was needed to support a hard drive controller, and both PC DOS and the BIOS had no support for hard disks. After the XT was released, IBM altered the design of the 5150 to add most of these capabilities, except for the upgraded power supply. At this point adding a hard drive was possible, but required the purchase of the IBM 5161 Expansion Unit, which contained

2142-567: A library of common functions that all software can use for many purposes, such as video output, keyboard input, disk access, interrupt handling, testing memory, and other functions. IBM shipped three versions of the BIOS throughout the PC's lifespan. While most home computers had built-in video output hardware, IBM took the unusual approach of offering two different graphics options, the MDA and CGA cards. The former provided high-resolution monochrome text, but could not display anything except text, while

2268-401: A maximum of 64 KB onboard, and the more common 64 KB revision to a maximum of 256 KB on the motherboard. RAM cards could upgrade either variant further, for a total of 640 KB conventional memory , and possibly several megabytes of expanded memory beyond that, though on PC/XT-class machines, the latter was a very expensive third-party hardware option only available later in

2394-494: 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

2520-657: A mouse.) Connectivity to other computers and peripherals was initially provided through serial and parallel ports. IBM provided a serial card based on an 8250 UART . The BIOS supports up to two serial ports. IBM provided two different options for connecting Centronics-compatible parallel printers. One was the IBM Printer Adapter, and the other was integrated into the MDA as the IBM Monochrome Display and Printer Adapter. The expansion capability of

2646-401: 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

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2772-566: 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

2898-467: A personal computer, possibly a miniaturized version of the IBM System/370 , and Matsushita acknowledged publicly that it had discussed with IBM the possibility of manufacturing a personal computer in partnership, although this project was abandoned. The public responded to these rumors with skepticism, owing to IBM's tendency towards slow-moving, bureaucratic business practices tailored towards

3024-505: A policy of strict secrecy, with all other IBM divisions kept in the dark about the project. Several CPUs were considered, including the Texas Instruments TMS9900 , Motorola 68000 and Intel 8088 . The 68000 was considered the best choice, but was not production-ready like the others. The IBM 801 RISC processor was also considered, since it was considerably more powerful than the other options, but rejected due to

3150-657: A rapidly changing market. The idea of acquiring Atari was considered but rejected in favor of a proposal by Lowe that by forming an independent internal working group and abandoning all traditional IBM methods, a design could be delivered within a year and a prototype within 30 days. The prototype worked poorly but was presented with a detailed business plan which proposed that the new computer have an open architecture , use non-proprietary components and software, and be sold through retail stores, all contrary to IBM practice. It also estimated sales of 220,000 computers over three years, more than IBM's entire installed base . This swayed

3276-510: 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,

3402-493: 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,

3528-595: A separate monochrome monitor for text menus. Third parties went on to provide an enormous variety of aftermarket graphics adapters, such as the Hercules Graphics Card . The software and hardware of the PC, at release, was designed around a single 8-bit adaptation of the ASCII character set, now known as code page 437 . The two bays in the front of the machine could be populated with one or two 5.25″ floppy disk drives, storing 160 KB per disk side for

3654-624: 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

3780-417: 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

3906-520: A substantial influence on the personal computer market ; the specifications of the IBM PC became one of the most popular computer design standards in the world. The only significant competition it faced from a non-compatible platform throughout the 1980s was from Apple 's Macintosh product line, as well as consumer-grade platforms created by companies like Commodore and Atari . Most present-day personal computers share architectural features in common with

Texas Instruments Professional Computer - Misplaced Pages Continue

4032-459: A total of 320 KB of storage on one disk. The floppy drives require a controller card inserted in an expansion slot, and connect with a single ribbon cable with two edge connectors. The IBM floppy controller card provides an external 37-pin D-sub connector for attachment of an external disk drive, although IBM did not offer one for purchase until 1986. As was common for home computers of the era,

4158-549: 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

4284-465: 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,

4410-403: A year. By 1984, IBM's revenue from the PC market was $ 4 billion, more than twice that of Apple. A 1983 study of corporate customers found that two thirds of large customers standardizing on one computer chose the PC, while only 9% chose Apple. A 1985 Fortune survey found that 56% of American companies with personal computers used PCs while 16% used Apple. Almost as soon as the PC reached

4536-411: Is housed in a wide, short steel chassis intended to support the weight of a CRT monitor. The front panel is made of plastic, with an opening where one or two disk drives can be installed. The back panel houses a power inlet and switch, a keyboard connector, a cassette connector and a series of tall vertical slots with blank metal panels which can be removed in order to install expansion cards. Internally,

4662-687: 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

4788-664: 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

4914-573: The IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard . Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team of engineers and designers at International Business Machines (IBM), directed by William C. Lowe and Philip Don Estridge in Boca Raton, Florida . Powered by an x86 -architecture Intel 8088 processor, the machine was based on open architecture and third-party peripherals. Over time, expansion cards and software technology increased to support it. The PC had

5040-640: The IBM System/23 Datamaster . The 62-pin expansion bus slots were also designed to be similar to the Datamaster slots, and its keyboard design and layout became the Model F keyboard shipped with the PC, but otherwise the PC design differed in many ways. The 8088 motherboard was designed in 40 days, with a working prototype created in four months, demonstrated in January 1981. The design

5166-577: The UCSD p-System . The TIPC was reviewed in Byte magazine in its December 1983 issue. The CPU clocked at 5 MHz (a bit faster than the 4.77 MHz of the IBM PC) and has 64 KB of RAM pre-installed. A RAM board can be installed in an expansion slot providing an additional 192 KB or RAM, for a maximum of 256 KB. A later version supports up to 768 KB of total memory. The computer featured 5 expansion slots and has either

Texas Instruments Professional Computer - Misplaced Pages Continue

5292-678: 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

5418-506: The 5100 had a price tag as high as $ 20,000. Their entry into the home computer market needed to be competitively priced. In 1980, IBM president John Opel, recognizing the value of entering this growing market, assigned William C. Lowe and Philip Don Estridge as heads of the new Entry Level Systems unit in Boca Raton, Florida. Market research found that computer dealers were very interested in selling an IBM product, but they insisted

5544-547: 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

5670-435: 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

5796-478: 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

5922-571: 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,

6048-552: 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

6174-496: The CPU's I/O lines. IBM referred to these as "I/O slots", but after the expansion of the PC clone industry they became retroactively known as the ISA bus . At the back of the machine is a metal panel, integrated into the steel chassis of the system unit, with a series of vertical slots lined up with each card slot. Commodore International Commodore International Corporation was

6300-540: 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

6426-440: 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

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6552-423: 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.,

6678-491: The Corporate Management Committee, which converted the group into a business unit named "Project Chess", and provided the necessary funding and authority to do whatever was needed to develop the computer in the given timeframe. The team received permission to expand to 150 people by the end of 1980, and in one day more than 500 IBM employees called in asking to join. The design process was kept under

6804-715: 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

6930-510: The IBM 5150's lifecycle and only usable with dedicated software support (i.e. only accessible via a RAM window in the Upper Memory Area ); this was relatively rarely equipped and utilized on the original IBM PC, much less fully so, thus the machine's maximum RAM configuration as commonly understood was 640 KB. The BIOS is the firmware of the IBM PC, occupying one 8 KB chip on the motherboard. It provides bootstrap code and

7056-435: The IBM PC offered a port for connecting a cassette data recorder . Unlike the typical home computer however, this was never a major avenue for software distribution, probably because very few PCs were sold without floppy drives. The port was removed on the very next PC model, the XT. At release, IBM did not offer any hard disk drive option and adding one was difficult - the PC's stock power supply had inadequate power to run

7182-399: The IBM PC was very significant to its success in the market. Some publications highlighted IBM's uncharacteristic decision to publish complete, thorough specifications of the system bus and memory map immediately on release, with the intention of fostering a market of compatible third-party hardware and software. The motherboard includes five 62-pin card edge connectors which are connected to

7308-462: The PC, covering such features as the bytecoding for color monitors, DMA access operation, and the keyboard interface. They were never enforced. Many of the designers were computer hobbyists who owned their own computers, including many Apple II owners, which influenced the decisions to design the computer with an open architecture and publish technical information so others could create compatible software and expansion slot peripherals. During

7434-641: 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

7560-547: 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,

7686-552: 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

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7812-443: 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

7938-414: The capability to map the keyboard keys to characters to support arbitrary user customization of the keyboard layout. The keyboard ordinarily supports 256 distinct characters to enable international use, and the character set can be expanded to 512 characters for special-purpose applications. A light is provided to indicate uppercase mode selection. Speech synthesis and speech recognition were added after

8064-538: 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

8190-520: The chassis is dominated by a motherboard which houses the CPU, built-in RAM, expansion RAM sockets, and slots for expansion cards. The IBM PC was highly expandable and upgradeable, but the base factory configuration included: The PC is built around a single large circuit board called a motherboard which carries the processor, built-in RAM, expansion slots, keyboard and cassette ports, and the various peripheral integrated circuits that connected and controlled

8316-455: 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

8442-595: 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,

8568-467: The company use a design based on standard parts, not IBM-designed ones so that stores could perform their own repairs rather than requiring customers to send machines back to IBM for service. Another source cites time pressure as the reason for the decision to use third-party components. Atari proposed to IBM in 1980 that it act as original equipment manufacturer for an IBM microcomputer, a potential solution to IBM's known inability to move quickly to meet

8694-442: 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

8820-489: 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,

8946-557: 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

9072-567: The components of the machine. The peripheral chips included an Intel 8259 PIC , an Intel 8237 DMA controller, and an Intel 8253 PIT . The PIT provides 18.2 Hz clock "ticks" and dynamic memory refresh timing. The CPU is an Intel 8088 , a cost-reduced form of the Intel 8086 which largely retains the 8086's internal 16-bit logic, but exposes only an 8-bit bus. The CPU is clocked at 4.77 MHz, which would eventually become an issue when clones and later PC models offered higher CPU speeds that broke compatibility with software developed for

9198-510: 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

9324-592: 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.

9450-477: 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

9576-719: 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

9702-469: The design constraint to use off-the-shelf parts . The TMS9900 was rejected as it was inferior to the Intel 8088. IBM chose the 8088 over the similar but superior 8086 because Intel offered a better price for the former and could provide more units, and the 8088's 8-bit bus reduced the cost of the rest of the computer. The 8088 had the advantage that IBM already had familiarity with the 8085 from designing

9828-534: The design process IBM avoided vertical integration as much as possible, for example choosing to license Microsoft BASIC rather than utilizing the in-house version of BASIC used for mainframes due to the better existing public familiarity with the Microsoft version. The IBM PC debuted on August 12, 1981, after a twelve-month development. Pricing started at $ 1,565 for a configuration with 16 KB RAM, Color Graphics Adapter , keyboard, and no disk drives. The price

9954-566: 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

10080-531: 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

10206-483: 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 ,

10332-453: 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

10458-502: 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

10584-610: 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

10710-435: The initial release, including support of natural-language queries with a relational database . TI was the first company to release videotape training videos for their computers. This microcomputer - or microprocessor -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC ) is the first microcomputer released in

10836-450: The keyboard was extremely positive, with some sources describing it as a major selling point of the PC and even as "the best keyboard available on any microcomputer." At release, IBM provided a Game Control Adapter which offered a 15-pin port intended for the connection of up to two joysticks, each having two analog axes and two buttons. (The early PCs predated the advent of the " Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointer" concept and so did not have

10962-479: The keyboard, which has a different layout for the arrow keys and is quieter than the IBM PC, was "well, wonderful". The keyboard has 57 typewriter keys, 5 cursor control keys, 12 function keys and a separate 18-key numeric keypad area. The keyboard has "infinite height adjustment from 5 to 15 degrees slope and connects to the system unit with a telephone-type coiled cord so you can position the key board for greatest comfort (even use it in your lap)". The computer also has

11088-448: 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

11214-411: The latter provided medium- and low-resolution color graphics and text. CGA used the same scan rate as NTSC television , allowing it to provide a composite video output which could be used with any compatible television or composite monitor , as well as a direct-drive TTL output suitable for use with any RGBI monitor using an NTSC scan rate. IBM also sold the 5153 color monitor for this purpose, but it

11340-410: 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

11466-481: 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

11592-495: 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

11718-537: 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

11844-503: The market, rumors of clones began, and the first legal PC-compatible clone—the MPC 1600 by Columbia Data Products —was released in June 1982, less than a year after the PC's debut. Eventually, IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo in 2004 . For low cost and a quick design turnaround time, the hardware design of the IBM PC used entirely "off-the-shelf" parts from third party manufacturers, rather than unique hardware designed by IBM. The PC

11970-515: The market, sold only 69,000. Software support from the industry grew rapidly, with the IBM nearly instantly becoming the primary target for most microcomputer software development. One publication counted 753 software packages available a year after the PC's release, four times as many as were available for the Macintosh a year after its launch. Hardware support also grew rapidly, with 30–40 companies competing to sell memory expansion cards within

12096-471: 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

12222-567: The most obvious use was the addition of an Intel 8087 math coprocessor, which improved floating-point math performance. PC mainboards were manufactured with the first memory bank of initially Mostek 4116-compatible, or later 4164-compatible DIP DRAMs soldered to the board, for a minimum configuration of first just 16 KB, or later 64 KB of RAM. Memory upgrades were provided by IBM and third parties both for socketed installation in three further onboard banks, and as ISA expansion cards. The early 16 KB mainboards could be upgraded to

12348-415: The new product. Reception was overwhelmingly positive, with analysts estimating sales volume in the billions of dollars in the first few years after release. After release, IBM's PC immediately became the talk of the entire computing industry. Dealers were overwhelmed with orders, including customers offering pre-payment for machines with no guaranteed delivery date. By the time the machine began shipping,

12474-406: 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

12600-430: The original IBM PC, including the Intel -based Mac computers manufactured from 2006 to 2022 . Prior to the 1980s, IBM had largely been known as a provider of business computer systems. As the 1980s opened, their market share in the growing minicomputer market failed to keep up with competitors, while other manufacturers were beginning to see impressive profits in the microcomputer space. The market for personal computers

12726-503: The original PC. The single base clock frequency for the system was 14.31818 MHz, which when divided by 3, yielded the 4.77 MHz for the CPU (which was considered close enough to the then 5 MHz limit of the 8088), and when divided by 4, yielded the required 3.579545 MHz for the NTSC color carrier frequency. The PC motherboard included a second, empty socket, described by IBM simply as an "auxiliary processor socket", although

12852-482: 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,

12978-449: 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

13104-449: The production of large, sophisticated and expensive business systems. As with other large computer companies, its new products typically required about four to five years for development, and a well publicized quote from an industry analyst was, "IBM bringing out a personal computer would be like teaching an elephant to tap dance." IBM had previously produced microcomputers, such as 1975's IBM 5100 , but targeted them towards businesses;

13230-517: 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

13356-502: 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 ,

13482-431: 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

13608-629: 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

13734-513: 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

13860-407: The term "PC" was becoming a household name. Sales exceeded IBM's expectations by as much as 800% (9x), with the company at one point shipping as many as 40,000 PCs per month. IBM estimated that home users made up 50 to 70% of purchases from retail stores. In 1983, IBM sold more than 750,000 machines, while Digital Equipment Corporation , one of the companies whose success had spurred IBM to enter

13986-545: 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

14112-553: 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

14238-818: 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

14364-402: Was designed to compete with comparable machines in the market. For comparison, the Datamaster, announced two weeks earlier as IBM's least expensive computer, cost $ 10,000. IBM's marketing campaign licensed the likeness of Charlie Chaplin 's character " The Little Tramp " for a series of advertisements based on Chaplin's movies, played by Billy Scudder. The PC was IBM's first attempt to sell

14490-538: Was dominated at the time by Tandy , Commodore , and Apple , whose machines sold for several hundred dollars each and had become very popular. The microcomputer market was large enough for IBM's attention, with $ 15 billion in sales by 1979 and projected annual growth of more than 40% during the early 1980s. Other large technology companies had entered it, such as Hewlett-Packard , Texas Instruments and Data General , and some large IBM customers were buying Apples. As early as 1980 there were rumors of IBM developing

14616-406: Was essentially complete by April 1981, when it was handed off to the manufacturing team. PCs were assembled in an IBM plant in Boca Raton, with components made at various IBM and third party factories. The monitor was an existing design from IBM Japan ; the printer was manufactured by Epson . Because none of the functional components were designed by IBM, they obtained only a handful of patents on

14742-540: Was initially developed for the IBM Datamaster , and was substantially better than the keyboards provided with virtually all home computers on the market at that time in many regards - number of keys, reliability and ergonomics. While some home computers of the time utilized chiclet keyboards or inexpensive mechanical designs, the IBM keyboard provided good ergonomics, reliable and positive tactile key mechanisms and flip-up feet to adjust its angle. Public reception of

14868-453: Was not available at release and was not released until March 1983. MDA scanned at a higher frequency and required a proprietary monitor, the IBM 5151 . The card also included a built-in printer port. Both cards could also be installed simultaneously for mixed graphics and text applications. For instance, AutoCAD , Lotus 1-2-3 and other software allowed use of a CGA Monitor for graphics and

14994-416: 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

15120-514: 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

15246-607: 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

15372-560: 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

15498-470: 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

15624-609: 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

15750-413: 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

15876-505: 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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