INTRODUCTION. The Commodore 64, Commodore Business Machines' effort at an economical, powerful home computer, entered the market in August of 1982. At its debut the C-64 was an excellent compromise between budget and performance. In a short time however, Commodore's poor production standards, outdated design, and ineffective business planning overshadowed their early triumphs, and the C-64 left the market as quickly as it appeared.
In January of 1981, the semi-conductor engineering team began by examining the capabilities of the chips currently running game machines. At that time, the Mattel Intellivision, the Texas Instruments 99/4A, the Commodore VIC-20, and the Atari 800 controlled the market and thus became the focus of research. MOS engineers examined these machines in an effort to find effective designs and determine the necessary capabilities of a next generation processor. From this research, the design team developed seve ral techniques such as graphical "sprites," bit mapping, character collision resolution and character mapped graphics. Of these techniques, the sprites were the most significant. Sprites were pre-programmed combinations of shapes that could be magnified and manipulated extremely efficiently. Sprites enabled game designers to make faster and more aesthetically pleasing games. (Perry and Wallich, 49)
Commodore Business Machines' on-site chip fabrication plant gave them the edge over others in the 'home-computer industry.' This plant allowed the designers to test chips independently which in turn empowered the de-bugging process significantly. This f acility, accompanied by a team of capable engineers, allowed the MOS team to produce superior video and audio chips in nine months. (Perry and Wallich, 49)
The graphical and audio capabilities of the chips this team produced far exceeded the capabilities of chips used in other gaming machines. The 6567 video-interface-chip, referred to as the VIC-II chip, supported two high-resolution graphic modes, smooth scrolling and the aforementioned "sprites." The C64 also shipped with a full music synthesizer on board. (Veit, 58)
At this point in time the marketing group decided that the chips would sell most effectively in a personal computer. The marketing group named this machine the Commodore 64. Robert Yannes of the C-64 design team felt that "the Commodore 64 was [his] attempt to build the absolute minimal system that could be built out of the video and sound chips put together." The C-64 team was able to cut costs several different ways. The C-64 inherited several pieces of hardware from the Commodore VIC-20, eliminating the cost incurred by designing or obtaining new hardware. Furthermore, the C-64 utilized many pieces of hardware that were cheap, but accomplished the necessary task. These methods allowed the C-64 to initially retail at $595.00, shocking the industry. For this price CBM sold a complete home computer featuring of a 66 key keyboard, two game ports, the VIC-II chip, the SID chip and an impressive 64,000 bytes of RAM. The C-64 supported cartridges and optional disk drives or cassette drives for data storage. To display data, the C-64 could be connected to a television or an RGB monitor if the consumer needed superior clarity. (Veit, 59,61)
In 1989 Commodore Business Machines sold approximately 80,000 Commodore 64 computers during the Christmas holiday computer buying spree that accounts for nearly 40% of yearly sales. In a few short weeks, dealers reported return rates as high as 80%. The vast majority of the returns were due to hardware failure. Dealers began testing the machines prior to sale to no avail; in some cases 50% of the machines came back within two weeks. Commodore's quality control system of "standard batch testing" resulted in an error correction capability of only 0.05%. (Fisher, 1989)
Many of these errors were a combination of bad design and forced production. For example, traces on the motherboard that connected the disk drive to the CPU ran around the internal power supply. During installation of the power supply, assemblers would often slip and nick the traces, rendering the drive useless. Nevertheless, Commodore was meeting its goal of making an inexepensive computer; Commodore was manufacturing the C64 for $20-$30. (Perry and Wallich, 50)
Extremely poor quality was not the only reason that the Commodore began to fail. Through the middle eighties home computing underwent a transformation from game machines such as the Coleco Adam to home computers that more closely matched those in the work place. The C=64's 40 character display was adequate for games, where the machine's elegant "sprites" made it superior, but it was virtually useless for any form of word-processing or number crunching. Furthermore, business/productivity software for the C=64 was sparse. Even the Atari 800xl had an adequate word processor. The C=64, though inexpensive at $150-$200, did not have the software or hardware to compete in the changing market. (Consumer Reports, 1984, pp 572-3) Nevertheless, Commodore maintained a small but loyal following among some consumers whose needs did not exceed its limited capabilities, but for the most part, the Apple IIe and IBM Pcjr began to dominate the market. (Netsel, G1)
Commodore's stock fell rapidly due to these problems. For the last three quarters of `85 they reported losses of $184 million. Their return to investors was -50%. Commodore needed another quick sell like the 64. Instead, they pushed everything they had into the Amiga and a bridge computer named the Commodore 128. The 128 failed to help the company due to competition from the superior Apple IIc. A larger software library and faster disk drive made the IIc a clear choice for newcomers to home computing. The Amiga was Commodore's dream and this dream didn't come true. The Amiga shared the same processor that the up-and-coming Macintosh used, in addition to three auxiliary processors solely devoted to graphics, sound, and animation. As a result, the computer was visually stunning, and technologically more advanced. The Amiga's multi-tasking capabilities were considerably better than those of the monochrome Macintosh. (Williams, 30) Commodore was not directly responsible for the failure of the Amiga, as it was an undeniably superior machine. Unfortunately for Commodore, software developers paid no mind to this colorful upstart. Very few programs were written outside of those that showed off the Amiga's graphical abilities. A computer without software is a "high-tech doorstop." (Consumer Reports, 1986, p. 117)
"Atari 800XL." Consumer Reports 49 (1984): 572-73.
"Commodore 128 Computer." Consumer Reports 1986:115-117.
Fisher, Paul. "Burgeoning Breakdowns." Guardian 13 Apr. 13 1989: C29.
Needle, David. "The state of computing in America: Milestones." Personal Computing 10.10 (1986): 23-30.
Netsel, Tom. "64/128 View." Compute Jan. 1988: G1.
Photograph from "http://www.funet.fi/pub/cbm/pictures"
Veit, Stan. "The Commodore 64." Computers and Electronics Apr. 1983: 51-61.
Wallich and Tekla Perry. "Design case history: the Commodore 64." IEEE Spectrum Mar 1985:48-58.
Williams, Monci J. "How Commodore Hopes to Survive." Fortune 6 Jan. 1986:30-32
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