On the Edge: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore [Hardcover]

Brian Bagnall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 14, 2005

Between 1976 and 1994, Commodore had astounding success in the nascent personal computer business. Amid the chaos and infighting, Commodore was able to achieve some remarkable industry firsts. They were the first major company to show a personal computer, even before Apple and Radio Shack. They sold a million computers before anyone else. No single computer has sold more than the Commodore 64. The first true multimedia computer, the Amiga, came from Commodore. Yet with all these milestones, Commodore receives almost no credit as a pioneer. Commodore was one of the only companies with the ability to make silicon, and the results were obvious. They had more creativity, more color, and more character than the competition. While Apple and IBM charged exorbitant prices, Commodore was able to reach the masses with affordable computers while remaining profitable. The Commodore 64 cut a path of destruction through the early industry, knocking Tandy, Texas Instruments, Sinclair, and Atari out of the computer business and badly hurting Apple and even IBM. While other companies received more press, Commodore sold more computers. Yet Commodore never reached a comfortable position. They were always on the verge of blinding success or abysmal failure. Commodore’s volatile founder, Jack Tramiel, lived on the edge, and he made sure his employees lived there too. On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore tells the story through over 44 hours of interviews with former engineers and managers: Chuck Peddle, the digital God who created a revolution with the 6502 chip and designed the PET computer. Al Charpentier, the chain smoking architect of Commodore’s revolutionary graphics chips. Bob Yannes, the frustrated musician and synthesizer aficionado who designed the Commodore 64 and the SID sound chip. Bil Herd, the unruly engineer who created the maligned Plus/4 and later sought redemption with the C128. The Amiga engineers, who created the first true multimedia system even before the word multimedia existed. Irving Gould, financier and majority shareholder who rescued Commodore in the sixties, then allowed it to wither.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[F]ascinating and improbably hilarious."  —J. Edward Keyes, Philadelphia City Paper

From the Back Cover

Between 1976 and 1994, Commodore had astounding success in the nascent personal computer business. Amid the chaos and infighting, Commodore was able to achieve some remarkable industry firsts. They were the first major company to show a personal computer, even before Apple and Radio Shack. They sold a million computers before anyone else. No single computer has sold more than the Commodore 64. The first true multimedia computer, the Amiga, came from Commodore. Yet with all these milestones, Commodore receives almost no credit as a pioneer.

Commodore was one of the only companies with the ability to make silicon, and the results were obvious. They had more creativity, more color, and more character than the competition. While Apple and IBM charged exorbitant prices, Commodore was able to reach the masses with affordable computers while remaining profitable. The Commodore 64 cut a path of destruction through the early industry, knocking Tandy, Texas Instruments, Sinclair, and Atari out of the computer business and badly hurting Apple and even IBM. While other companies received more press, Commodore sold more computers.

Yet Commodore never reached a comfortable position. They were always on the verge of blinding success or abysmal failure. Commodore’s volatile founder, Jack Tramiel, lived on the edge, and he made sure his employees lived there too.

On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore tells the story through over 44 hours of interviews with former engineers and managers:
-Chuck Peddle, the digital God who created a revolution with the 6502 chip and designed the PET computer.
-Al Charpentier, the chain smoking architect of Commodore’s revolutionary graphics chips.
-Bob Yannes, the frustrated musician and synthesizer aficionado who designed the Commodore 64 and the SID sound chip.
-Bil Herd, the unruly engineer who created the maligned Plus/4 and later sought redemption with the C128.
-The Amiga engineers, who created the first true multimedia system even before the word multimedia existed.
-Irving Gould, financier and majority shareholder who rescued Commodore in the sixties, then allowed it to wither.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 548 pages
• Publisher: Variant Press (September 14, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0973864907
• ISBN-13: 978-0973864908
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #873,759 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read This Book, NOW!, May 4, 2007

By 

David B. Haynie (Monroeville, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: On the Edge: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore (Hardcover)

Although I was personally involved (and mentioned in the book), even as insider I didn't know the whole story of Commodore. I think Brian did a fantastic job of telling this story, so often left out of the personal computer histories that are, as one might imagine, only told by the winners. It's easy to get the story of Steve Wozniak building the Apple I in a garage, and he did some brilliant things.. but consider, when Chuck Peddle started building a computer, he didn't start with chips, he started with "sand".

Brian's coverage of my era at Commodore (the last 11.5 years) was spot on, and he did a good job of tracking down the people involved. And illustrating that things like this, Engineering, are creative endeavors; as such, the specific people involve matter, and matter big.

While clearly of interest to Commodore and Amiga fans, I think this is essential reading for anyone interested in the whole story of the dawn of the personal computer revolution.

The final few pages get a little poetic; the real end was a rather protracted mess. The "logical" end was essentially when Brian describes it, the layoffs shortly before the "after hours" bankruptcy declaration on April 30, 1994... I made a video about that (Google "Deathbed Vigil", tragically not available through Amazon) which was my attempt to tell the story of why it ended, and maybe who we were in Engineering in those days. 13 years later, I'm glad that's out there, but I think the story of our successes are the ones I'd like to remember... the best reason to look back is to help you look forward with a better eye.

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Untold Story, Told Grandly, February 28, 2006

By 

D. Hodgson (Cupertino, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: On the Edge: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore (Hardcover)

I'm almost in tears reading this book in all its 561 pages of Commodore-Amiga glory. Now if only there was another one like it covering Radio Shack, all would be well! It's truly stunning the way the paths of Amiga, Apple, Atari, Commodore, IBM, Digital Research, Microsoft, MOS Technology, Motorola and yes, Radio Shack, intertwined in this rich stew of opportunism, arrogance, incompetence and employee stealing. Go ahead, read this one along with Andy Hertzfeld's "Revolution in The Valley" and reflect for a moment on the amount of revisionist mythmaking machinery that has grown up around the House that Cringely Built. Unlike many other books, Bagnall doesn't skimp on the technical details here either - the story of MOS Technology and the 6502 is almost deserving of its own book!

-Dallas Hodgson, Deluxe Paint (AGA series) co-developer

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding!, January 26, 2006

By 

A. Wiersch (Lantana, TX USA (near Dallas)) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: On the Edge: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore (Hardcover)

I can't believe how much I enjoyed this book and I don't usually like to read. I grew up on Commodore, had a VIC-20, C64, C128, and a couple of Amigas. It was really hard to put this book down. Great information. It brought back a lot of memories. I forgot about the Commodore 16 and even Amiga 600 and 1200!

Also, read this book to know why the 1541 drive was so slow or why your VIC-20 may have been purposely made defective. And why did they have to stop selling Amigas for months because an engineer put a message in the ROM.

This is also a great business book and would make a good study in a college business class. There's a lot of wisdom in the book when it comes to decisions made right and decisions screwed up. Commodore management could have made some much better decisions, instead there seems to have been a lot of incompetence. They lost a lot of good engineers because of it.

My only criticism is that I wish there were more photos of the people, hardware, and places talked about - especially at the beginning of the book. The end of the book has more photos.