Commodore International

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Commodore International Corporation
Company typePublic
IndustryElectronics
Computer hardware
Computer software
Founded1976; 48 years ago (1976)
Nassau, The Bahamas
FoundersJack Tramiel and Irving Gould
DefunctMay 6, 1994; 30 years ago (1994-05-06)
FateChapter 11 bankruptcy and Liquidation; inventory and intellectual property acquired by Escom AG on April 22, 1995
SuccessorEscom AG
Headquarters1200 Wilson Drive,
West Chester, Pennsylvania
,
United States
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
ProductsCommodore PET
VIC-20
Commodore 64
Commodore 16
Commodore 128
Amiga
CD32
SubsidiariesAmiga Corporation
Commodore Semiconductor Group

Commodore International Corporation[a] was 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 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 $49 million (equivalent to $126 million in 2023).[2][3] However an internal struggle led to co-founder Tramiel quitting, then rivalling 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.[4]

The company's stance 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.[5] Commodore's computer systems, mainly the C64 and Amiga series, retain a cult following decades after its demise.[6][7]

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[8] while 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.,[9][10] while retaining the Commodore patents, which are now under Acer since its acquisition of Gateway.[11] 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.[12]


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  1. ^ "The Commodore 64, that '80s computer icon, lives again". Retrieved November 17, 2014.
  2. ^ Johnston, Louis; Williamson, Samuel H. (2023). "What Was the U.S. GDP Then?". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved November 30, 2023. United States Gross Domestic Product deflator figures follow the MeasuringWorth series.
  3. ^ "COMMODORE CORP reports earnings for Qtr to Dec 31". The New York Times. February 15, 1984.
  4. ^ "COMMODORE FALLS ON TROUBLED TIMES". Australian Financial Review. January 26, 1990. Retrieved September 22, 2024.
  5. ^ Slashdot book review - The Rise and Fall of Commodore by Brian Bagnall
  6. ^ "Kidnapper's retro computer offers scant clues". TheGuardian.com. September 5, 2006. Archived from the original on April 16, 2017. The beige-coloured machine was popular in the 1980s but is now considered an antique, though some electronic dance acts still use it. It has a cult following among some fans of retro computers.
  7. ^ "Ced Kurtz's Techman Texts: Andy's Amiga a cult computer favorite". Archived from the original on October 18, 2014.
  8. ^ Smith, Ernie (August 7, 2019). "What Happened to Gateway, the Cow Computer Company?". VICE. Retrieved September 21, 2024.
  9. ^ "UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT SEATTLE - PLAINTIFFS' OPPOSITION TO HYPERION ENTERTAINMENT CVBA'S MOTION TO DISMISS IN PART PLAINTIFFS' SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT". Google Docs. 2019. Retrieved September 21, 2024.
  10. ^ "C-A Acquisition Corp. renamed to Amiga Corporation". Amiga-News.de. July 15, 2020. Retrieved July 15, 2020.
  11. ^ "Amiga 30 and the Unkillable Machine - IEEE Spectrum". spectrum.ieee.org. Retrieved September 21, 2024.
  12. ^ Purdy, Kevin (October 17, 2022). "37-year-old Amiga platform gets updates to Linux kernel, AmigaOS SDK". Ars Technica. Retrieved September 21, 2024.