The (Unbelievable) Collapse of Commodore | Fumbling at the Top | History in the Dark

[@HistoryintheDark]

Go to surfshark.com/inthedark for 4 extra months of Surfshark at unbeatable price!

[@kc0lif]

🤫🤫🤫🤫

[@Hex_Dex]

Okay, you called me out. I'm not watching the video. You're actually in my pocket while I'm doing yard work.....

[@hrtvfan2870]

@@Hex_Dex Hey, I often listen to KZbin videos while working outside.

[@nopamineLevel100]

I often go back and actually watch the videos because I've only heard them whilst doing housework lol

[@JenniferinIllinois]

Commodore (my first computer was a C64) and K-Mart (where my parents bought my C64) are both no longer around. That makes me so sad. 😢

[@breakznenta]

@@JenniferinIllinois Kmart is coming back

[@scary.body.horror]

Both my folks are passed away too., sadly.

[@jaspal666]

My parents bought my Vic from Kmart. Yes. I’m that old. Later had the 128. One thing the Commodores allowed with a modem was BBS access. The BBS era was a glorious time. Talk about that History Boy!

[@ManoOne-Music-Production]

Including a programming tutorial with home computers was brilliant… my Amstrad CPC 6128 came with one, and this changed my life (interests and career). Times have changed. Even though KZbin has a ton more info than the 1 book you got back then, you also did not have any distractions. As a kid you stared at your new computer and its manual, and chances are that you learned to program. Special times

[@alexhajnal107]

Learned programming with _Getting Started With Color BASIC_ and _Getting Started With Extended Color BASIC_ for the CoCo. Those books were really well done (and a lot of fun!).

[@oscartango2348]

Commodore and Atari were hampered by Tramiel's pissing off retailers, and his habit of holding payments way past deadlines meant that parts suppliers didn't want to work with them either. Commodore of course could have fixed this with a good leadership team, but that was definitely not what they had. Only Rattigan was actually competent, so obviously Gould got rid of him. Ali was an absolute joke, and he was just going to fleece what he could, and Gould's reputation meant that no good CEO would ever take that job. Commodore still had a great brand recognition at the end, yet even the bankruptcy was such a disaster that it just became a trashy yard sale.

[@TomRedlion]

I remember playing on a Commodore computer in school. Wow. Suddenly I feel old.

[@obelic71]

Yup i also feel old now its 40 years ago! Playing Raid over Moscow after 15 minutes loading using the tape recorder. I saved my pocket and birthday money to buy an additional 1451 diskdrive. Using a diskette punch device you could use your 5 1/4" floppy disk on both sides. Later i even bought the 1451 Mk2 (square one) so you could copy floppy disks even faster.

[@alexhajnal107]

@@obelic71 Re: _Raid over Moscow_ That was the one with the space planes (shown as dots/sprites over the arc of the Earth) as one phase of the game, right? Also, was that the same game as _Rush 'n Attack_ ?

[@obelic71]

@@alexhajnal107 yes at first you had to get your aircraft out of the hangar out of the space station, then fly to the launch site of the ICBM's to destroy the site, then you went to Moscow to get into the kremlin to destroy the robot who did feed the reactor core. If you destroyed the robot the ICBM's were destroyed.

[@danielreynolds4716]

I came up with the master system and nes but we did have a commodore 64 hooked up to general electric tv with a crackling volume knob, stand outs were Pipe dream, Last ninja 1 and 2

[@SteveMorgan-qc1dv]

Don't feel bad. TRS-80 model 2 in the first computer class my High school ever offered. I feel older than dirt.

[@BillyMartin4Life]

Of all the Presidents Commodore had post Jack, Thomas Rattigan was actually the best, because under his direction, that Amigas ACTUALLY started selling in numbers, with the decision to spilt the Amiga into one model for the home market, and one for the higher end (Amiga 500 and Amiga 2000). But was pushed out of company because of a possible power play Rattigan attempted to gain control of the company (Mehdi Ali had a hand on his removal, as he was hired as a consultant). To be fair to the Amiga CD32, the hardware is pretty god for the game console, because it's really just a console version Amiga 1200 with a CD player. The CD32 was actually selling pretty ok in Europe, but because of supply issues (mainly because of lack of money), they could never make and sell the amount needed to help keep the company afloat. Doesn't help that Commodore was being extremely cheap, and didn't pay for patent royalties for some patents used the CD32, leading to Commodore being banned banned from bringing the CD32 into the US. Additionally, I just want to point out that the Amigas has the ability to run Mac OS at speed, or faster then the Macs of the day, while still running it's own OS, kzbin.info/www/bejne/bqeXc5SNrNSsd5Isi=htmtT98V4HY2iZRt kzbin.info/www/bejne/gKHLYZqur7Fmi6ssi=3bOfd_qd2H8O1L3s

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

*Additionally, I just want to point out that the Amigas has the ability to run Mac OS at speed, or faster then the Macs of the day* no, this is a popular myth of Amiga fans trying to brag. The reality was that Amiga was faster at emulating just the MC68000 based Macintosh, which ATARI ST was even faster and closer to. But in the time Amiga had the first Macintosh emulator, apple was selling Macintosh II, which was one and a half generation ahead of any Amiga and way way faster.

[@Tornado1994]

Regarding CD32. Not Really. Even FOR 1993, CD32 was very underpowered. In 1993, Atari Jaguar AND 3DO were Introduced and those were FAR more advanced. Even the SEGA 32X was WELL ahead of CD32.

[@joefish6091]

@@Tornado1994 They wanted to retain compatibility with the A1200 and not suppress its sales. The Amiga should have had bitmapped graphics modes as well as bitplane modes, it could have been done in the GPU if they had wanted to.

[@JanuszKrysztofiak]

@@Tornado1994 Yeah, CD32, was mostly a crippled A1200 + CD. Obsolete tech upon release, OK for 2D side-scrollers (Akiko, being a band-aid, did not change much) that would be soon obliterated by 5th gen consoles. Amiga was a dead-end at that point and would be dead even with survival of Commodore. Major software vendors already abandoned the ship, the thing was too dependent on its aging chipset and dying m68k. Any new next-gen Amiga would have needed a complete redesign, meaning the issue of no software on launch. In the pipeline there was project 'Hombre', a chipset with accelerated graphics that could be a basis for some new console or (that was envisaged) a range of 3D accelerator cards for PCs (BTW, Commodore manufactured PC-comparibles too). So one could imagine, that in an alternative reality, with Commodore getting critical funding and better leadership would re-emerge as a sort of 3Dfx on steroids.

[@Tornado1994]

@@JanuszKrysztofiak That's right Commodore failed to consolidated and Evolve their Technology. After Amiga, they just didn't want to evolve and kept sticking to Low end 32-bit lines like the Motorola 68k that were ALREADY behind the times by the early 90s when MIPS,ARM and RISC had come on to the Scene during the late 80s.

[@randysmith7094]

The massive impact of Commodore dropping their prices in 1983 is always overlooked in every "Video Game Crash of 83" history piece.

[@kevinfisher5492]

Imagine a company run by people who hated their own customers. That was Commodore under Irving Gould and Medhi Ali. There were plenty of good people in Commodore desperately trying to do the right thing, like Dave Haynie. But you couldn't do much with those two IDIOTS at the top.

[@joefish6091]

They wanted to sell business computers at 3K apiece, ala IBM. home computers were toys with a limited price point and low profit, you needed to sell millions ala Sinclair and even they saturated their own market and sank.

[@bobbyrayofthefamilysmith24]

Sounds like some companies today

[@kevinphilip6710]

@@bobbyrayofthefamilysmith24 Disney. That’s what I thought right before reading your comment lol

[@billyoung8118]

Around December 1982 we lived in Grand Forks AFB in ND. A Target store in the nearby town of Grand Forks had a sale on the Vic 20s for $99. My dad went there to buy one. Right next to the pile of Vic 20s was a pile of C64s, and in error the store had marked all those for sale, also for $99. The code on the sale tag was different, so it wasn't like the store accidentally put Vic 20 sales tags on those C64 boxes. We grabbed one, paid for it, and ran. It did ring up at the register for $99. I learned a TON on that machine. Eventually we got 2 disc drives, a printer, and a color monitor for it. I learned all about raster interrupts, bit level logic, assembly language, swapping underlying RAM for the character set ROM or the BASIC ROM chip. That got me interested in earning my BSEE. Good times.

[@solonsaturngaming3727]

Are you gonna die with the Commodore? Cause the Commodore Is gonna die with you! Lmao that ad never aged well now but catchy tune though

[@alexhajnal107]

18:50 _"… plus the affordability of their products …"_ On screen: the 1541 floppy drive, costing ⅔ as much as the C64 itself! [ The 1541 is pretty neat though, being essentially a second, albeit stripped-down and memory-restricted, C64 dedicated solely to disk I/O. IIRC, some enterprising individuals hacked it using software alone into working as a general-purpose coprocessor/second processor. ]

[@Kingofallfunnelheads]

Ok I'm gonna do my best Jack Tramiel here: "We make cumpyudahs for de masses, not de classes."

[@danmarsh5949]

When the C64 was first being shown at trade shows, people said that there wasn't anything in there that was revolutionary, which was true, but they couldn't figure out how they could sell it for $600. Owning your own chip plant helps.

[@rahkuaschount]

This may be the most depressing documentary ever made. Basically the best computer we've never heard of, the Commodore Amiga was completely destroyed and what we're left with are the two worst operating systems, Windows and Mac. Definitely not the best timeline.

[@derekthelehighvalleyfoamer4427]

I keep learning something new about non-railroad companies thanks to your branched out videos. Keep up the good work! If you’re looking for more computer companies, may I suggest looking up Coleco? From what I understand, they used to produce toys, like those Cabbage Patch dolls, but they did in fact also make computers towards their end, like the Colacovision video game console.

[@alexhajnal107]

Ah the Adam. An _interesting_ design. Oddly it was considered highly desirable at the time (and then it was gone).

[@TheEDFLegacy]

Shockingly, I've never used a Commodore 64. My first computer was a 286. I feel like that's what ultimately killed them, was the IBM compatibles.

[@vinceely2906]

My first computer was a Commodore Plus 4. A bit of an in-between machine. Compatible with C16 but before the C64. I’m still playing games 40 years later so it did something right.

[@alexhajnal107]

Ditto for Atari. Went through a series of STs, then a TT030. When Atari tanked I switched to a PC running Linux.

[@NozomuYume]

@@vinceely2906 The Plus/4 and C16 actually came out AFTER the C64. They were supposed to be cost reduced machines to compete with the Sinclair Spectrum, but by the time they came out there was no real cost savings to be had -- just building and distributing the machine was the bulk of the cost vs the chips they saved on.

[@Low760]

​@@NozomuYumeI had a plus 4 and the family computer was a 64, dad had a 128, the games on the plus 4 we had were better.

[@Ulysees31]

My first IBM compatible was a commodore.

[@AKayfabe]

I had a VIC 20 computer when I was a child. I didn’t have 64 ever I loved the games you could get on VIC 20. I miss playing Radar Rat Race to this day

[@samk2266]

The commodore amiga became the goto machine for video-editing in the latter 80's and well into the 90's. every advertising agency as of 1993-4 when i worked at one and many like entities had an amiga hooked up to video tape decks. That's what kept it around so long-otherwise it wouldn't have made it into the 90's, there were more of them being used in industry than at home at that point.

[@trelard]

One of the biggest reasons for Commodores failure was Irving Gould. The C64 Maxi is a good product for what it is, which is an emulated C64 inside a case shaped after the original bread bin with keys that feel very similar to it, as well. I wish they'd do an Amiga maxi.

[@honolulublues5548]

@@trelard they are planning to release an Amiga Maxi in 2025

[@thenebbish7709]

I grew up poor. Always wanted a 64

[@JamesSavik]

I used my Commode-doot up until college. My instructors loved getting dot-matrix printed assignments they could actually read.

[@marcellachine5718]

@@JamesSavik back when bubble jet was a thing?

[@downix]

I used to work with Commodore Canada's VP of sales. The stories he would tell...

[@Tornado1994]

CD32 was destined to FAIL right out the gate. It was going to be a Huge Bomb.

[@Wungolioth]

The Amigas did find a niche market for years as digital video editing workstations, early 3D model rendering in combination with Video Toaster software, and publishing, they were heavily sought after in those industries into the mid to late 90s.

[@jenningsmills5398]

That 1701-1702 monitor was a absolute beast back in the day. Mine was used daily through four console generation's and still works beautifully today.

[@matsv201]

I have a objection that CD32 was auwfull. It launched 1993. same year as 3DO, Sega X32 and jaguar. CD32 have a 14Mhz with a scalarity of 0.5 and 2MB of combined memory (And like 32kB of additional buffer) 3DO a 12.5Mhz processor with a scalarity of 0.67 and 3MB of ram. X32 have a 23Mhz processor with a scalarity of ~1, and 0.5MB of ram Jaguar have a 26Mhz CPU with a scalarity close to 1 and 2MB of ram. its also worth saying that both the 3DO and the X32 was consideraly more expensive than the CD32 (considering you needed both a megadrive and a CD drive to the X32, and the unit it self was quite costly). The Jaguar was quite a bit cheaper, but it also lacked the CD player. The main contender., sega, nintendo and sony was a bit better, but also launched later. Sega was launched 18 month after CD32, and 26 month later in Europe. It had a 28Mhz CPU with a scalability of just under 1 and 4½MB of memory. Sony was launched in the same time frame as the sega but with a 33Mhz CPU scalarity of just under 1 and 3½MB of memory. The nintendo was launched more than 3 years later (basically half a cycle) 94Mhz CPU with a scalarity of just under 1. Worth saying is that X32, Jaguar, saturn, Playstation and N64 all used a Mips processor or a Hitachi clone of the same processor. Nintendo used one with a newer CPU with slightly longer pipline, hence higher core speed, but still only a scalar design. 3DO used a ARM CPU, and CD32 useda a 68k derivative. Worth saying that a lot of 4th gen consoles used 68k CPU, but the one in CD32 was 2 generations newer. This may make it sound like the CD32 was just as fast, or just slightly slower than the competition. And that is sort of true. CD32 had a hardwired very fast Grapics chip that could do sprites in almost arbitrary size and a lot of other effects. This is also true for the 3DO (while the grapics chip was quite a bit slower). All the other systems, including the 32X used a standard programmable DSP, but they was programmed by a secondary CPU. Basically a GPU. in 2D this was not really any better than what CD32 could offer. but when it came to 3D the CPU+DSP mix had a quite significant edge. CD32 had a added DSP that could be used for 3D, but it was powered from the main CPU. The issue here is not really the brute power, but the availability of interrupts.

[@alexhajnal107]

When you say _scalarity_ do you mean instructions dispatched per clock?

[@alexhajnal107]

What tanked the Jaguar (at least in technical terms) was that it used a heavily-multiprocessor design reminiscent of the PS1 (IIRC). Lots of [heterogeneous] custom chips that were really good at accelerating sound, graphics, etc. along with a (pretty slow) 68000 that was meant to be used for housekeeping, coordination, and the like. Most programmers though used the 68k to run pretty much all of their games' code.

[@matsv201]

@@alexhajnal107 Yupp. 68020 could do 1 instruction every second clock, just like a 286 or 386 CPU. IN theory. Some instruction need more clocks. Most RISC CPU can do one instruction per clock. The issue with RISC CPU is that they due to there design typically need more instructions to do the same task, specially if its complex. For just random compiled code, a scalar (1) CISC processor would typically be a bit faster than a RISC, but we talking like 15-20%, so the diffrance is not large. During the mid 90s, RISC CPU Typically had higher core clocks, so they where typically faster. What killed the RISC architecture is that a RISC CPU is more cache heavy. So when Cashing and bandwidth become a problem in late 90s, the CISC architecture just pulled away. For mobile devices where cash and memory is closer to the core, this is less so a problem and RISC still have a power to predominance adavantage.

[@matsv201]

@@alexhajnal107 Almost all the gen 5 consolles worh the same way. They had a MIPS or Hitatchi processor (that is basically a MIPS clone) as a main CPU, than a secondary MIPS or Hitachi processor as a graphic slave CPU. Most of them had basically the same CPU as main CPU and GPU slave. Both the X32 and the Saturn use two SH-2 CPU at 23 and 29Mhz (for respective console). Saturn also used a 3rd SH-1 as additional controller. X32 used the M68k from the megadrive and the Saturn had a additional M68k as well. X32 had a additional DSP and Saturn had 2 clocked at the same core as the main processors. The Jaguar have two "custom" RISC CPU, in reality its just a clone MIPS CPU, just like the SH-2 at 27Mhz, and a additional M68k CPU. The two CPU works the same way as on the saturn and the X32, one main CPU and one Grapical processor feeding a DSP at the same core clock as the other two processors. Effectivly Jaguar, X32 and Saturn all work the exact same way. Saturn just have one more processor and one more DSP. PS1 have a MIPS R3000A CPU, that is basically the CPU the SH-2 is a clone of, running at 33Mhz. PS1 have a costum chip running at 33Mhz with a integrated CPU (probobly a R3000, but its not offical) with a built in DSP. PS1 work exactly like a X32 or Jaguar, part from the lack of M68k and the DSP is now integrated with the secondary CPU. N64 have a NEC VR4300 CPU that is a MIPS 4000 series licences by NEC. If the R3000 series is a 486 33Mhz, the R4000 series is a 486DX4 100MHz. It also have 64 bit register, but its not a true full 64 bit CPU (or rather, the VR4300 is not, the true R4000 series have support for full 64 bit processing). The GPU of the N64 uses the same setup as the PS1. Its not known exactly what it is, but it uses the same instruction as the main processor so its probobly some fork of a R4000 or possibly R3000 series CPU. It may be a R3000 becasue the core clock is only 63Mhz, the only gen 5 console that have a slower GPU than CPU. On the other hand it have a 8 piple vector DSP built in, so it have very high performance, but its very ram and cache starved. So the two processor setup with a conected DSP was very standard for that generation. And this is basically how a GPU works to this day. Jaguar was first with the concept on the console. but the core concept predate Jaguar with like a decade and was used on professional workstations already in the 80s.

[@alexhajnal107]

@@matsv201 _"68020 could do 1 instruction every second clock"_ On the 68000 it was 4 to 6 clocks (16-bit Word or 32-bit Long, respectively) for basic instructions, complex ones and ones hitting memory took longer. _"RISC CPU … typically need more instructions to do the same task"_ Somewhat mitigated by much simpler decode and scheduling circuitry. One big advantage that RISC has is that it can have much larger register sets than CISC due to the smaller number of opcode encodings leaving more room in the instruction words for register numbers. With x86 this was partially worked-around via arbitrarily-sized instructions (which brought multiple penalties); the 68k exclusively had single-word instructions (ignoring the address Long when applicable) but its smaller suite of instructions [citation needed] left more room for register specification within the opcode (4 bits for the 8 D and 8 A registers). Still, CISC chips usually had far fewer registers than the 31+ typical of RISC chips. [Re: 31+ registers not 32+ Having one register, conventionally R0, always read as 0 and discard on write allows many additional instructions to be synthesized, e.g. the pseudo-op BNZ Rn, ADDR could generate CMP Rn, R0; BNE ADDR. Likewise, the CMP instruction itself could be synthesized from SUB A, B, DEST as SUB A, B, R0. Another one I recall encountering (different architecture) is BRA ADDR being encoded as a BEQ R0, R0, ADDR.]. _"During the mid 90s, RISC CPU Typically had higher core clocks"_ Indeed, for a time the fastest platform for running *x86* Windows software was emulated under NT on Alpha (native code was even faster, natch). It was the much simpler circuitry needed to implement RISC instructions that allowed for higher clock speeds (without needing huge pipelines). [Pipelines are their own kettle of worms.] re: Cache constraints killing RISC during the 90s I'd say there's more too it than just that. Intel could devote extensive resources to x86 development due to high revenues from PCs and economies of scale. In contrast, the RISC market was highly fragmented which limited the resources that each vendor could devote to chip development. Realizing that they couldn't compete on their own, most of the vendors bet the farm on a common VLIW architecture [Itanium] rather than cooperate on a common RISC architecture (likely due to avoid not-invented-here roadblocks); when that failed the survivors switched to x86-64 as that was all that was left. It goes without saying though that RISC [ARM and MIPS, now also RISC-V] did find a highly successful niche in the embedded and low power/mobile spaces. Hasn't seen too much success in (relatively) high performance computing although that's been improving recently.

[@Naptime2013]

I had one. Spending all afternoon typing in the piano program and then cursing having to turn it off since I didn’t have any way to save it. My sisters bf had access to bootleg games. Spymaster was awesome… never did get to the end though. Ah memories.

[@TheAmazingManneyEsq-k2r]

It happens in many forms, throughout history. Winning the war, winning an empire, rising to the top, being #1 as hard as it was, turned out to be incredibly easy as compared to holding on to the #1 spot, maintaining the empire and preventing its collapse. Many leaders or people are not prepared for what comes after victory.

[@JoeBruin1999]

Which version of WiFi did it have... for the data cassette?

[@polygonvvitch]

Fun fact: the C64 versions of the original Elite (released in 1985, one year after the original BBC Micro version) was the first one to use the Blue Danube Waltz in homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[@obelic71]

C64 omg i used that system till it fell apart in the late 90's! I vividly remember that a Commodore assembly plant in Europe (UK or Germany) burned to the ground causing a severe supply shortage in Europe. All the major networks reported for weeks daily over it. My and other C64's who were on order couldn't be deliverd for at least 6 months due to the fire! I and other kids who ordered one were totaly devestated. So when after 2 months i was informed that i was one of the lucky ones to get a C64 out of a batch original build for the US/Canadian market i was super happy. That batch of C64's had a total different powersupply as al other C64's because it was converted from US to European specs.

[@ClaireRedfieldKennedy-ld2lx]

Where the commodore got edged out was by very advanced word processing typewriters of the mid 80s. Both the working professional and the average family desperate wanted basic word processing functions. But computers were expensive and worst of all VERY hard to use! Even the easier ones like Commodore were still pretty complex to learn. Word processors are truly forgotten and it's a shame because they were a big part of daily life for so long and bridged the gap between mere typewriters and computers. They likely urged computer companies to make basic systems like Word or Apple's now defunct Word Perfect so easy to use they're almost impossible to screw up.

[@patrickjeffers7864]

@@ClaireRedfieldKennedy-ld2lx my mother had a word processor. Only used commodore in school. Basic was an easy A for me lol. But you're right, the price was too much for poor folks like us(1 bd apt in ny..fam of 4)

[@honolulublues5548]

I'm not exactly sure on that as Commodore sold pretty late in the decade. My mother used my 64 with Speedscript as a word processor. It was public domain and offered many features that other machines could not. All you needed to learn was how to load the program, the rest was pretty intuitive. And you could pick up a non-Commodore printer like an Okidata for a decent price at your nearest Kmart. I used my setup well into 1991 as a daily driver until I actually worked at a computer manufacturer and built my own PC clone out of scrap parts. It wasn't as common back then to build your own computer.

[@candycrushhater5828]

Carolco Pictures video, please?

[@elbiggus]

The only "fewer features" of the A600 vs the A500 was a smaller keyboard and lack of the side expansion bus, but it offered a built in IDE interface (which effectively replaced the expansion slot as that was really only used for hard disk interfaces) and PCMCIA slot, and initially retailed for the same price as the A500+ (a weird half-way between the A500 and A600) but the price was quickly reduced. It was missing some features of the *A1200* so maybe you're getting confused?

[@eupher2]

People like to point out, that the Floppy Drives cost more then the computers. That's because the floppy drives were computers themselves. You open them up, and you'll see a CPU, memory, I/O Controller, all that. But doing it that way made the computers cheaper, because they didn't have to have a drive controller in the computers. Yes the 1541 was very slow, because that's because of a bug in VIC20, and to keep the drive compatible with both the VIC20 and the C64 they never fixed the bug. But if you have the Epyx Fast Load cartridge, then it's 5 times faster.

[@Teleoceras]

25:00 that's funny you mention that, as I was playing Forge of Empires at that moment while listening to you.

[@dmac7128]

i don't think it would have made any difference if Jack Tramiel stayed with Commodore. Atari didn't fare much better Tramiel running that company. He would end up running that one into the ground ironically for the same reasons that Commodore failed. By the late 80s the NES took most of the market that the C64 was targeted towards. And the 16 bit consoles finished both companies off. The problem with both Commodore and Atari is their identities as companies that sold low cost computers marketed toward gamers, not serious power users of productivity applications or media creation. The Atari ST and Commodore Amiga computers had capabilities for doing the same things that the Mac does, but by then Apple owned that part of the market and the perception of Atari and Commodore as makers of gaming machines masquerading as cheap computers hurt them. And by the early 90s the PC clone was more accessible to the public as a serious home computer for productivity and gaming.

[@geebs76]

The Amiga 300T with a Video Toaster was a great video processing platform around Y2K. I wanted one but since I had a Macintosh Plus and a young child I couldn't justify it.

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

around Y2K Amiga was very dead in any area... The Toaster equipped Amiga was a thing in 1990 and even that only in USA, since the Toaster was NTSC only. In year 2000 I had a second gen AMD Athlon powered PC @1GHz with Geforce2 graphics able to Videograbbing @PAL resolution at full speed and SB Live! sound card, the A3000T with Taoster is stone age era looking when compared to.

[@geebs76]

@@madigorfkgoogle9349 You're absolutely right! It would have been 10 years earlier. My Mac Plus had been retired a while by Y2K.

[@davidmylchreest3306]

Fun video. You missed an important bit of the story though. After making 11 different Amigas in under 4 years (I had the A600 - you're right it was crap) Commdore bet everything on the Amiga CD32. They cut the prices of all their inventory to sell their old stock and fund the manufacturing and launch of this new system. Problem was, they owed an American company $10 million for patent infringement and a US judge banned the sale of the CD32 in America until they paid this debt. But Commodore had bet their entire company on selling the console there. They screwed themselves.

[@alexhajnal107]

13:40 _"in Germany it was the VC-20"_ They dropped the *I* since in German the *V* is pronounced like an *F.* If they'd kept the *I* it would have sounded like *FICK-20,* I'll let you guess what that word means in English.

[@skuula]

And VC was backonym'ed to Volks Computer

[@alexdalrymple]

LIttle known fact - the voice over artist in the Australian Commodore 64 ad at the start is Peter Sumner who had a small role in Star Wars: A New Hope saying the immortal line "TK 421, why aren't you at your post?"

[@JorgeRTrevino]

Banger after banger after banger! Thank you, sir!

[@garethfarman9540]

Sinclair was squeezed out by PCs. The only home computer company that survived the IBM/Microsoft take over was Apple. Amstrad, who bought Sinclair, made PCs. They went under as good quality brands reduced in price. There was no market for cheap design. Commodore was seen as more of a gaming machine and was destroyed by the consoles on one side and the PCs on the other. Had they ploughed money into R&D and concentrated on a gaming console they would have survived.

[@alexhajnal107]

And Acorn, who went all-in on their ARM CPU architecture (as a design house/licensor, not as a manufacturer).

[@garethfarman9540]

@@alexhajnal107 the BBC was an incredible computer.

[@Jon867]

@garethfarman9540 Brian Bagnall's books are a fascinating insight into Commodore's history. For much of the late 80s and early 90s Commodore was making most of its money in the low end of the market (C64, Amiga 500) but desperately wanted to be seen as a competitor to Apple and IBM. They rarely took their core consumers seriously enough, did very little market research, and utterly failed to develop the Amiga far or fast enough to match the competition for either business or home users.

[@garethfarman9540]

@@Jon867 I totally agree that was a serious issue. However the first cheap home computers from S Korea and Formosa/Taiwan already proved that market to be dicey. There was no real way through other than keep a home computer as long as they could and make an early attack on the gaming market. Most Western companies now mass produce in China and Taiwan.

[@Tornado1994]

@@garethfarman9540 Also remember that in 1990, Amstrad launched a Very cheap Cut down Console Variation of its CPC called the GX4000. It was an overall DATED, and VERY poor quality System. This Completely sunk Amstrad and Drowned the Whole Company.

[@christinecrawford]

In 1987, my older brother gave me his old C64. I was 19. The only thing I remember doing it with it was using a modem and tape player and playing blackjack with Jack Rabbit's Casino (I'm pretty sure that's what the game was called) I could meet my brother in the game or play with other people online - even though the term online wasn't even used yet! It was awesome! 😁

[@Emancipatriot]

These videos are excellent on the weekend. By the way sir: your music selection in this one is impeccable

[@jbdragon3295]

I had a Commodore Vic-20, a64, a 128, a 128D, an Amiga 500 and Amiga 1200. Had the tape drive to floppy drives both sizes. Ran a BBS for a number of years. My first HDD was on my Amiga 500 with a 5-1/4” full height 40 meg SCSI drive.

[@aldunlop4622]

The first PC I ever saw and used was a C64 at a guy from school's place in 1982. He was the only person I knew that had one, obviously his parents had money. I used to catch 2 trains to his place every Sunday when I was 16 to play games on it. I was so much fun. Then I discovered girls and forgot about it. In 1989 I got my first "real job" in a bank and there were PC everywhere, mostly IBM XTs and ATs, and there was one 386SX which I made sure I got, because no one else knew the difference. 20 MEG hard drive, wow. All the software coming out were for IBMs and clones like Lotus 123, Wordperfect etc, so Commodore was largely forgotten. My first gaming rig was a Pentium 2, and I've been gaming on PCs ever since.

[@GrymsArchive]

No mention of GEOS? Shocking 😧

[@haweater1555]

3:55. Shows a "CBM II" series pc, built for serious business use and as a replacement for the PET in the 1980s. HUGE FLOP.

[@alexhajnal107]

Seems that was the case for pretty much all the 8-bit computer companies who tried that tack. ('cept in Japan, but they were more diversified)

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

@@alexhajnal107 I would disagree, the apple II computers were pretty successful in serious business area. 8bit home computers had two disadvantages over 16bits, the RAM addressing limited to 64KB (roughly 64 pages full of text) and lack of 80 column text mode. Apple had a 80 column card for apple II and many offices back then used it. Also in Europe many successful computer makers sold their Z80 based systems for business use.

[@selfdo]

Aka the B-128. I remember them being sold off at bargain basement prices by third party liquidators.

[@Mandrake42]

Im Aussie and I actually remember that ad you showed at the start from when it was on TV. The 64 was my first computer.

[@AlistairKiwi]

It really was difficult to move your brain from typed instructions over to GUI back then so this was against Amiga. We all wanted the Amiga because their machines were the best consumer level computers. But they lasted such a short time before the company died.

[@nicholaskalogris9985]

I enjoy your look into the successes and failures of many iconic American companies!

[@Addictedtocollecting01]

Hey look at that! A sponsor!! Nice... Movin on up! 👍

[@jrbeeler4626]

The most noticeable change at Commodore after Tramiel left was that they stopped ADVERTISING.

[@nopamineLevel100]

Oh man, I've been holding out for this episode! The Commodore 64 and Amstrad are my childhood 😻 ⌨️💻I have fond memories of my stepdad letting me print dinosaur pictures on dot matrix paper lol

[@anthonykoller4459]

Usually when the company fails, it’s the fault of the senior executives who are not good at their jobs, but take all the bonuses and other perks while the poor workers receive crumbs when the company goes bankrupt

[@JanRademan]

Another part of Commodore's initial success was that they made the MOS6502, the cpu that sparked the microcomputer revolution. Commodore was effectively making money from their competitors (Apple, Radioshack, Atari, BBC and many others) since all those computers needed their CPU to work.

[@dangermartin69]

Most pinball machines used it as well.

[@TheTha411]

I had a portable Commodore which was an early laptop...it had maybe a 3 inch screen, a handle to carry it(which also doubled as a stand for it), and a keyboard that attached to the front of while it was carried. Believe my dad still has it, too

[@jamesmoss3424]

The Commodore 64 is an brilliant computer 🖥. 😀👍🎮

[@peterdoa1]

If you think the cd32 was bad, it had nothing on c64 console that could not play it's pack in title and cdtv

[@alexhajnal107]

_"could not play it's pack in title"_ Wait, what? Did it require keyboard input or somesuch?

[@Tornado1994]

@@alexhajnal107 And Don't forget the Terrible CDi Ripoff Commodore CDTV. I can't believe Commodore thought it would be a good idea to rip of the Philips CDi which was ALREADY a Horrible Product itself.

[@alexhajnal107]

@@Tornado1994 IIRC, CDi was a standard platform with implementations from various vendors. Similar idea to MSX in Japan.

[@alexhajnal107]

@@Tornado1994 The idea behind the CDTV was that it could be upgraded to a real computer after purchase. IOW, it had an added feature that CDi didn't have which was both a selling point and a mechanism to bring customers in to the Amiga platform.

[@brianentwistle145]

The 1st computer I truly learned to use was a Commodore Colt. I believe it was their 1st and only IBM compatible system. Had an 8086 processor, 20 MB hard drive, and 2 5.25" floppy drives.

[@AndrewStonerock]

I had a C64 in the late 90s and early 00's. I played an ass load of space quest, some text only king Arthur game, and Oregon Trail. I mostly played Oregon trail. I remember it was left in a house my dad was renovating and the home owner asked him to junk it.

[@arrow1414]

My very first computer was a Commodore C64 in 1984 as a Christmas gift to myself , about two weeks before Christmas so the 40th anniversary is coming up fast!🤯 I learned BASIC on it. I stayed with it and Commodore until 1991 when I graduated to the Amiga 500.😊 Both are still in my closet in working condition (graduated to a PC in 1996).😊

[@malsimons]

Great video, guys!

[@Audunforgard]

The 64 was a fun little computer, and the Amiga too, I still keep being impressed with seeingboth the demos folks produce, but also there some pretty nifty music also coming out of the scene... I`d be up for checking out the Commodore OS

[@JamesMMcCann]

You'd set the tape to load in the morning, you'd go to school, come home and it might be nearly ready :)

[@ManoOne-Music-Production]

Ohh I suggested this in one of your recent videos! I’ll take credit for the idea 😂 j/k I bet you have a list. Can’t wait to watch this! As always, thank you so much

[@alexhajnal107]

I'd like to think I can be credited for the bit about what tanked the (3rd-party) calculator market.

[@KH990j]

My dad has 2 Commodore 64s with each having different eras of disk drives. These computers were slightly before my time, but I've put plenty of hours on them. I still remember how to load or find and game and it's not as simple as clicking on a program with a mouse. You have to know basic code.

[@AndrewSchott]

Nope. not on facebook, I killed that account over 10 years ago. But am listening to you while playing doom 2. Still got them old floppies for doom 1 and cdrom for doom 2 :D

[@HistoryintheDark]

Ah, I see you are a man of culture as well.

[@richstuart6816]

I had a Commodore VIC-20 complete with tape drive, then a Commodore C-16. I wanted an Amiga but then had my head turned by consoles and ended up buying a Sega Mega-Drive (Genesis) instead.

[@gazac48]

I used all Commodore computers & most of them before they hit the shops as I worked at Commodore Australia, Amiga sold well in Australia, it was fun job getting paid to play with Amiga, I also was President of AAUA & their BBS on a Amiga 2000

[@WesMoast]

Please cover the Texas Instruments PCs at some point?

[@maverickblah]

25:35 What are you talking about? In 1985, there was no Intel computer with Windows. Windows 1.0 was not even released yet, and it flopped anyway. The first successful version of Windows was 3.0 in 1990.

[@kpk33x]

The C64 got me thru middle and high school. Sold it in summer 1993 to a family down the street for $400...had over 500 games, almost 30 of which I bought lol.

[@ch33rfulness]

Those were quick passing times when even a kid could feel and understand the connection with the machine. You could just power it and start typing in some lines of code, then see some nice results right on. Nonetheless, even back then, the machine was advertised as an entertainment device. Nowadays is the smartphone, yet they should rename it as nobody’s using the phone function any longer… Ironically, current machines are also used by the majority for a very small number of applications, compared to their potential (e.g. back then people wanted to run games (i.e. entertainment), nowadays people want social media and maybe some games (i.e. again, entertainment)).

[@markcarr5142]

I see your talking shit about my best childhood friend, The Commodore 64. Prepare to throw hands... Long live ESI...Eagle Soft Inc. (If you know, you KNOW)

[@minimalbstolerance8113]

30:05 You are (mostly) correct. Although the Amiga never got an official version of Doom, Guildhall Leisure Services and Black Magic Software released a game for the Amiga 1200 in 1995 that was essentially Doom for the Amiga in all but name. It was called Gloom. (No, really.)

[@AndyBonesSynthPro]

New to the channel, really entertaining! Wow the Amiga, that thing was a gem. I much appreciate the funny, non-AI commentary. Today KZbin is saturated by robo-voice content that looks like a hungover 1st semester student in 2010 rushed his first Powerpoint assignment. Also I'm singletasking, I actually wanna enjoy what I watch

[@Kobold666]

The "background" music is very distracting, I didn't make it past the 8 minute mark unfortunately.

[@alexhajnal107]

24:58 Third monitor FTW! 25:20 Linux/X11 FTW!

[@alexhajnal107]

Two ideas: Atari Atari oddities (TT030 and Transputer)

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

TT030 wasnt a oddity, the Transputer was.

[@alexhajnal107]

@@madigorfkgoogle9349 The TT was an oddity for Atari. A move into the high-end Unix workstation market was unusual given their past in the home and DTP markets. The TT's architecture is also pretty odd for Atari, with the split memory system, VME bus, etc. A perusal of the schematics/block diagrams is pretty interesting. It was basically an ST with high-performance/workstation bits bolted on. [Yea, it ran TOS from ROM but the intent was always for it to run Unix.]

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

@@alexhajnal107 No its not, actually TT engineering begun before MegaST in 1986 already, every company using MC68k wanted to enter the lucrative UNIX workstation market, be it apple, Commodore or ATARI. Why? Well many UNIX workstations of that time were actually based around MC68k architecture as well, like AT&T PC7300, Sun or SGI workstations. The problem is that at the end of 80s when all 3 companies somewhat finished their development, UNIX world moved on to much more powerful RISC architecture like MIPS, SPARC etc. So the products that resulted from the UNIX race where converted back to standard OS systems. But this does not make TT any oddity at the end, it was TOS based power computer that could and even did run different OS flavors, including the UNIX System V (well in kinda beta state), MagiC or GNU. The intent to primary run as UNIX workstation was lost in 1988 already, so when the TT was released in 1989, its intent was to be a power TOS computer already.

[@Nostaljack]

Go to 3:52 to avoid the ridiculously overlong ad.

[@cruickshankoutdoors7575]

I have a VIC20 that I need to repair. Still works, just some keyboard issues. May replace the capacitors too

[@rwarren58]

I loved my commodore until it caught fire and burned up. Please do the Timex Sinclair next.

[@ph43drus]

Mac, Dual monitor setup, yep just listening to you while I play solitaire.

[@Cooe.]

13:00 The ZX Spectrum came out an entire FIVE YEARS after the Commodore PET. You simply cannot directly compare their price points because of that. 🤷 (Computers and computer parts were DRAMATICALLY CHEAPER in 1982 than they were in 1977.)

[@GSimpsonOAM]

What put me off the C64 at the time was the slow and expensive disc drive.

[@boris1387]

I remember having a vic20, then a C64, then an Amiga. Good times🎉🎉🎉👌

[@whitetailfox1]

I seen that they re-released the Commodores 64 a few years ago. I'm not really too sure about the specs or anything I just remember hearing about it

[@brettmcknight4677]

Thank you for drawing attention to the hacker dolphin menace.

[@IreneSmith]

My first computer was a TI/99-4A but I also had a C= 64 and a Commodore 128. I actually have one of those C= 64 Mini computers but I also have a working Pet computer. Not that I use it or anything but I do have it.

[@rickharold7884]

Fun video. Still have 3 original Commodore 64s!

[@BURRITO44]

Great video !! Please -- next time - no music !!

[@noth606]

0:50 - they were not "considered one of the big players in the home computer market" - they were the biggest player in a lot of the worlds home computer markets. No "considered", there was nothing to consider. They WERE THE BIGGEST PLAYER. Period, full stop. There were markets, if you want to call them that, where they were not, but in most cases that had to do with artificial skewing of those markets by one or more factors, some of which require an asterisk by the word "market" with an explanation added that it includes forms that one is less familiar with if one comes from what you could call a "western style free market". EDIT: about 2:30 Netflix does not decide what gets shown where. Well, to be specific they could show whatever wherever until a judge shuts it down which would happen quite quickly probably. More exact would be to say what they have a right to show where. So using a VPN to get around that is akin to a form of fraud...

[@inhumanmusic1411]

Ah yes. Mehdi Ali. The most hated person in Commodore. I've heard employees say that if they saw a him in the street and a bus was going to run him over, they wouldn't lift a finger to save him.

[@stillbuyvhs]

21:00 Tramiel saved Atari's consumer side, then made a series of bad decisions that destroyed it.

[@MidnightAspec]

I still have my C64 and 1541, in my attic for decades.

[@michaelholycross2633]

I had the C128 Liked it quite a bit!

[@93greenstrat]

Ah....the early days of personal computing. Now, they don't hold a candle to the smartphones of today.