Commodore International
Commodore International was an American technology company founded in 1958 by Jack Tramiel which was instrumental in the formation of the home computer market. The company got its start working with typewriters, then, in the late 1960s, began rebranding Japanese calculators for sale in the USA. In 1976, Commodore bought MOS Technology in order to compete with the cheaper hardware being put out by Texas Instruments. In 1977, Commodore released the Commodore PET, which was successful enough to push the company toward home computers. They next released the Commodore VIC-20 which was even more successful, then hit pay dirt with the Commodore 64. In 1984, Commodore started producing IBM-compatible PCs and also bought Amiga Corporation to release the technologically advanced Amiga 1000 in 1985. However, a lot of internal politics at Commodore caused the company to mistreat their dealers and fail to keep pace with their hardware which caused the initially groundbreaking Amiga to look like a relic next to its competitors. After years of losing money, Commodore tried for a make-or-break product, the Amiga CD32 released in 1993, but it failed to perform, and Commodore went out of business in 1994.
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My elementary school had a computer lab which consisted entirely of Commodore 64s daisy-chained together, and also had one Commodore 64 in each classroom, so much of my early computer use was on Commodore computers. However, by the time my family bought our first computer in 1991, even Commodore's Amiga wasn't looking too impressive compared to the IBM compatibles being released. The only person I even knew who had an Amiga was one of my teachers in high school, but it was seriously outdated then. I remember people trying to revive the Amiga OS in the 2000s, but nothing really came from it. Using emulators, I went back and tried a variety of Commodore 64 software, but not much of it impressed me. I didn't know much else about the company until I read the book The Future Was Here: The Commodore Amiga which helps put into perspective just how impressive the Amiga was when it came out.
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