Commodore International Corporation (CI), also known as Commodore International Limited, was a home computer and electronics manufacturer with its head office in The Bahamas and its executive office in the United States founded in 1976 by Jack Tramiel and Irving Gould. It was the successor company to Commodore Business Machines (Canada) Ltd., established in 1958 by Tramiel and Manfred Kapp. Commodore International, along with its U.S. subsidiary Commodore Business Machines, Inc. (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 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;[1] its success made Commodore one of the world's largest personal computer manufacturers, with sales peaking in the last quarter of 1983 at $ (equivalent to $ in ).[2] However an internal struggle led to co-founder Tramiel quitting, then rivaling Commodore under Atari Corporation joined by 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.[3]
The company's position started declining in 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 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.[4] Commodore's computer systems, mainly the C64 and Amiga series, retain a cult following decades after its demise.[5][6]
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[7] while the Commodore brand name was eventually passed to Tulip Computers of the Netherlands. The brand remained under ownership by a Dutch company until 2025, when a group of investors with a YouTuber named Perifrantic purchased the brand and incorporated a new U.S. company called Commodore International.
Gateway 2000 attempted but failed to market a modern Amiga, and eventually sold the copyrights, Amiga trademark and other intellectual properties to Amiga, Inc.,[8][9] while retaining the Commodore patents, which are now under Acer since its acquisition of Gateway.[10] Amiga Corp., 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.[11]
History
Commodore Business Machines (Canada) Ltd. (1954–1976)
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 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.[12]
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 a Czechoslovak company into Canada. On October 10, 1958, Tramiel and Kapp incorporated Commodore Portable Typewriter, Ltd. in Toronto to sell the imported typewriters.[13] Commodore funded its operations through factoring over its first two years but faced a continual cash crunch.
Post-bankruptcy
Sale to Escom and bankruptcy
Commodore's former assets went separate ways following liquidation, with none of 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;[91] the other initial bidders were Samsung, Philips and Amstrad in mid-1994.[92] 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 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;
Sponsorship
Commodore sponsored the German football club Bayern Munich from 1984 until 1989, the English football club Chelsea from 1987 to 1994. and the French football clubs Auxerre from 1991 to 1992 and Paris Saint-Germain from 1991 to 1994.
Product line
The product line consists of original Commodore products.
Calculators
774D, 776M, 796M, 9R23, C108, C110, F4146R, F4902, MM3, Minuteman 6, P50, PR100, SR1800, SR4120D, SR4120R, SR4148D, SR4148R, SR4190R, SR4212, SR4912, SR4921RPN, SR5120D, SR5120R, SR5148D, SR5148R, SR5190R, SR59, SR7919, SR7949, SR9150R, SR9190R, US*3, US*8 and The Specialist series: M55 (The Mathematician), N60 (The Navigator), S61 (The Statistician).[125]
6502-based computers
(listed chronologically)
- KIM-1 – single-board computer (1976); was produced by MOS Technology, which was bought by Commodore
- Commodore PET/CBM range (1977)
- VIC-20 – a.k.a. VIC-1001 (1980 [VIC-1001] – 1984) (CBM);
External links
- Software Archive
- The Commodore Scene Database
- Lemon64 – Commodore Fanbase
- The Canonical List of Commodore Products – by Jim Brain, maintained by Bo Zimmerman
- Philadelphia Inquirer articles about Irving Gould
- The Commodore Story – documentary crowdfunded on Kickstarter
References
- The Commodore 64, that '80s computer icon, lives again retrieved November 17, 2014^
- Commodore Corp reports earnings for Qtr to Dec 31 The New York Times, February 15, 1984^
- Commodore Falls on Troubled Times Australian Financial Review, 1990-01-26, retrieved 2024-09-22