computer software fate bankruptcy founded 1954 ; 62 years ago 1954 toronto ontario canada defunct 1994 headquarters west chester pennsylvania united states key people jack tramiel founder irving gould main investor and chairman products commodore pet commodore vic 20 commodore 64 commodore 128 amiga others website commodoresmart.com commodore international or commodore international limited was a north american home computer and electronics manufacturer . commodore international ci along with its subsidiary commodore business machines cbm participated in the development of the home personal computer industry in the 1970s and 1980s . the company developed and marketed one of the world s best selling desktop computers the commodore 64 1982 and released its amiga computer line in 1984 . contents 1 history 1.1 founding and early years 1.2 computers for the masses not the classes 1.3 tramiel quits ; the amiga vs. st battle 1.4 demise 1.5 post commodore international ltd. 2 product line 2.1 calculators 2.2 computers 2.3 games consoles 2.4 monitors 2.5 software 3 references 4 external links history edit founding and early years edit original commodore logo all lowercase company name 1962 1984 . commodore pr 100 programmable calculator the company that would become commodore business machines inc. was founded in 1954 1 in toronto as the commodore portable typewriter company by polish immigrant and auschwitz survivor jack tramiel . for a few years he had been living in new york driving a taxicab and running a small business repairing typewriters when he managed to sign a deal with a czechoslovakian company to manufacture their designs in canada . he moved to toronto to start production . by the late 1950s a wave of japanese machines forced most north american typewriter companies to cease business but tramiel instead turned to adding machines . in 1955 the company was formally incorporated as commodore business machines inc. cbm in canada . in 1962 commodore went public on the new york stock exchange nyse under the name of commodore international limited . in the late 1960s history repeated itself when japanese firms started producing and exporting adding machines . the company s main investor and chairman irving gould suggested that tramiel travel to japan to understand how to compete . instead he returned with the new idea to produce electronic calculators which were just coming on the market . commodore soon had a profitable calculator line and was one of the more popular brands in the early 1970s producing both consumer as well as scientific programmable calculators . however in 1975 texas instruments the main 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. in order to assure his supply . 2 he agreed to buy mos which was having troubles of its own only on the condition that its chip designer chuck peddle join commodore directly as head of engineering . through the 1970s commodore also produced numerous peripherals and consumer electronic products such as the chessmate a chess computer based around a mos 6504 chip released in 1978 . in december 2007 when tramiel was visiting the computer history museum in mountain view california for the 25th anniversary of the commodore 64 he was asked why he called his company commodore . he said i wanted to call my company general but there s so many generals in the u.s. general electric general motors . then i went to admiral but that was taken . so i wind up in berlin germany with my wife and we were in a cab and the cab made a short stop and in front of us was an opel commodore . 3 tramiel gave this account in many interviews but opel s commodore didn t debut until 1967 years after the company had been named . 4 computers for the masses not the classes edit commodore pet 2001 1977 once chuck peddle had taken over engineering at commodore he convinced jack tramiel that calculators were already a dead end and that they should turn their attention to home computers . peddle packaged his single board computer design in 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 would be a computer company . commodore had been reorganized the year before into commodore international ltd. moving its financial headquarters to the bahamas and its operational headquarters to west chester pennsylvania near to the mos technology site . the operational headquarters where research and development of new products occurred retained the name commodore business machines inc. by 1980 commodore was one of the three largest microcomputer companies and the largest in the common market . 5 byte stated of the business computer market however that the lack of a marketing strategy by commodore as well as its past nonchalant attitude toward the encouragement and development of good software has hurt its credibility especially in comparison to the other systems on the market . 6 the pet computer line 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 introduction of the vic 20 in 1981 which was introduced at a cost of us 299 and sold in retail stores . commodore took out aggressive ads featuring william shatner asking consumers why buy just a video game the strategy worked and the vic 20 became the first computer to ship more than one million units . a total of 2.5 million units were sold over the machine s lifetime 7 and helped commodore s sales to canadian schools . 8 in another promotion aimed at schools and as a way of getting rid of old unsold inventory some pet models labeled teacher s pet were given away as part of a buy 2 get 1 free promotion . commodore 64 1982 in 1982 commodore introduced the commodore 64 as the successor to the vic 20 . thanks to a well designed set of chips designed by mos technology the commodore 64 also referred to as c64 possessed remarkable sound and graphics for its time and is often credited with starting the computer demo scene . its us 595 price was high compared with that of the vic 20 but it was still much less expensive than any other 64k computer on the market . early c64 ads boasted you can t buy a better computer at twice the price . australian adverts in the mid 1980s used a tune speaking the words are you keeping up with the commodore because the commodore is keeping up with you . 9 in 1983 tramiel decided to focus on market share and cut the price of the vic 20 and c64 dramatically starting what would be called the home computer war . ti responded by cutting prices on its ti 99 4a which had been introduced in 1981 . soon there was an all out price war involving commodore ti atari and practically every vendor other than apple computer . commodore began selling 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 somewhere around 22 million c64s making the c64 the best selling computer of all time . at the june 1983 consumer electronics show commodore lowered the retail price of the 64 to 300 and stores sold it for as little as 199 . at one point the company was selling as many computers as the rest of the industry combined . 10 its prices for the vic 20 and 64 were 50 lower than atari s prices for the 600xl and 800xl . 11 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 1000 market . its vertical integration and tramiel s focus on cost control helped commodore do well during the price war with 1 billion in 1983 sales . 12 by early 1984 synapse software the largest provider of third party atari 8 bit software received 65 % of sales from the commodore market 11 and commodore sold almost three times as many computers as atari that year . 13 despite its focus on the lower end of the market commodore s computers were also sold in upmarket department stores such as harrod s. 14 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 . 15 nasa s kennedy space center was another noted customer with over 60 commodore systems processing documentation tracking equipment and employees costing jobs and ensuring the safety of hazardous waste . 16 tramiel quits ; the amiga vs. st battle edit second commodore logo with mixed case company name 1985 1994 . although by early 1984 creative computing compared commodore to a well armed battleship which rules the micro waves and threatened to destroy rivals like atari and coleco 17 commodore s board of directors were as impacted as anyone else by the price spiral and decided they wanted out . an internal power struggle resulted ; in january 1984 tramiel resigned due to intense disagreement with the chairman of the board irving gould . gould replaced tramiel with marshall f. smith a steel executive who had no experience with computers or consumer marketing . 18 19 20 tramiel founded a new company tramel technology spelled differently so people would pronounce it correctly and hired away a number of commodore engineers to begin work on a next generation computer design . now it was left to the remaining commodore management to salvage the company s fortunes and plan for the future . it did so by buying a small startup company called amiga corporation in february 1983 for 25 million 12.8 million in cash and 550 000 in common shares which became a subsidiary of commodore called commodore amiga inc. 21 commodore brought this new 32 bit computer design initially codenamed lorraine from 1979 and had been called high toro from 1980 1981 then later dubbed the amiga under amiga inc.in early 1982 . there were three unsuccessful attempts to release the amiga by jay miner and company . these were 1982 1983 and one more after commodore bought amiga in 1984 after which it was released only to the local public . then in 1985 commodore re released it to the world . cost was 1000 1300 . but tramiel had beaten commodore to the punch . his design was 95 % completed by june which fueled speculation that his engineers had taken technology with them from commodore . citation needed in july 1984 he bought the consumer side of atari inc. from warner communications which allowed him to strike back and release the atari st earlier in 1985 for about 800 . the atari st was technology was almost out however the amiga was out sooner . during development in 1981 amiga had exhausted venture capital and was desperate for more financing . jay miner and company had approached former employer atari and the warner owned atari had paid amiga to continue development work . 22 in return atari was to get one year exclusive use of the design as a video game console . after one year atari would