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Brian Bagnall

Commodore: The Final Years Hardcover – April 25, 2019

by Brian Bagnall (Author)

62 ratings

Book 3 of 3: Commodore

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Concluding the Commodore trilogy, this book takes a look at Commodore's resurgence in the late 1980's and then ultimate demise. This was a period of immense creativity from engineers within the company, who began “moonshot” projects using emerging CD-ROM technology. Get to know the people behind Commodore's successes and failures as they battle to stay relevant amidst blistering competition from Nintendo, Apple, and the onslaught of IBM PC clones. Told through interviews with company insiders, this examination of the now defunct company traces the engineering breakthroughs and baffling decisions that led to the demise of Commodore.

Print length

544 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Variant Press
Publication date

April 25, 2019
Dimensions

6 x 1.3 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

0994031033
ISBN-13

978-0994031037
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Variant Press (April 25, 2019)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 544 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0994031033
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0994031037
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.99 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.3 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #310,696 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #123 in Computing Industry History
- #229 in Graphics & Multimedia Programming
- #423 in Computers & Technology Industry

Customer Reviews:
62 ratings

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Top 100 Reviewer

Fun to relive history but disorganized, hard to follow, and opinions are presented as facts...

Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2020

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I love video game history and enjoyed the first book so I bought the sequel. It's fun to learn behind-the-scenes stories about the inner workings of Commodore and the many projects they pursued and, frankly, how random they were. In a nutshell, they had poor leadership and lost sight of what made them great and successful (a low-priced computer for the masses). While you can glean that from the book, the author does a poor job organizing the story. It's meant to be chronological but he jumps from project to project and year-to-year with the 1989-1991 period all jumbled together. The C65 and Amiga 3000 stories are interleaved and very hard to follow; they should have been disparate sections. He also presents his opinions, or those of one of the past employees, as truths. "Had Commodore done x, then they would have been successful." Not true and I disagreed with many of his conclusions. The failings of the C65 clearly point to graphics chip production problems yet that person or team isn't called out, it's glossed over...

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Jeffrey S. Johansen

The FULL Commodore Story: Told here!

Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2019

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Brian has 3 books in the series and each MUST be read! Very entertaining and hard to put down. Well written and informative. What Brian has learned behind the scenes from the people who were there will really help you to better learn about the Commodore computer(s) you loved and the people that made them and the company that invented, marketed and sold them. It is eye opening! Well worth the price of the book or download. I highly recommend it!

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Natalie Bowers

Inside view of the death of Commodore

Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2019

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Despite knowing how this all ended, this story of the death of Commodore was a compelling read. I found the stories and interviews interesting, and this book was better edited than his previous books. I especially liked the technical detail regarding the hardware. Big thanks to Mr. Bagnall for capturing an important and somewhat overlooked piece of computing history. Next step is to find a good book about the inside life of Atari.

One person found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Well written, great stories of the internals of commodore

Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2020

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Well written, great stories of the internals of commodore

One person found this helpful

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G.Kaplan

A great book about a lost piece of computing.

Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2019

It's an extremely well written book, and the nuts and bolts of what went wrong at Commodore are explained in detail. For those that lived through this period as owners of Commodore computers, it's a bitter sweet reminder of the past. We all used to just marvel at how more advanced the Amiga was than the competition, but yet it was always second banana. Commodore was obviously miss-managed, and finally we know how.

It's not like there were just a few mistakes made at Commodore that lead to its demise, there were many, HUGE mistakes. Brian Bagnall goes over all of them and paints a picture of a company that produced amazing things with shoestring budgets, and screwed it all up from some of the worst management in the world. The story should be taught in business school of how NOT to run a company! Lesson 1. Don't screw up Christmas! Lesson 2. Don't screw up Christmas twice in a row. Lesson 3. In the tech world, don't order a huge amount of Product A just before product B comes out that obsoletes Product A, especially after you just told the world about Product B. Mehdi Ali, the incompetent boob who ran Commodore into the ground did all of these things, and more!

8 people found this helpful

Helpful

Bo Zimmerman

A distressingly good book

Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2019

This is not a book about a corporate entity in decline so much as a company of people fighting for its survival, albeit with plenty of neglect by those who should have been paying attention. The last half of the 1980s and into the 1990s, Commodore continued to innovate and reach for new markets. Their failures as well as their few successes reflected more about the changes in how we were using computers than anything else.

For long time Commodore fans: everything you know is wrong. The villains were also occasionally champions, and the heroes were often the most destructive force.

Read the whole trilogy of course, but do NOT leave this one behind.

One person found this helpful

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pbk

The last book of the Commodore saga

Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2019

If you have been following Bagnall's saga researching and documenting the rise and fall of Commodore, or you are just curious of what happened to the company and the people in its final post-Tramiel incarnations, this last book will certainly not disappoint you. Many business lessons to be learned about the lifecycle of a company, how great tech ideas, nimble calls or plain sheer luck can turn into multimillion deals and the creation of completely new markets. And then how seemingly trivial decisions can completely ruin a company and burn it to the ground, failing to profit from their technological advantage in exactly the same markets they helped to build. A company that still holds the record for the most sold computer model in history.

Bagnall took the time and thoroughly interviewed all the parties responsible for projects and products that he could get hold of. Similar to the previous books, the result is a fair portrait and very complete timeline of how things evolved with the Amigas, Commodore game systems and PCs, and the numerous peripherals, many of which were ahead of their time and for different appalling reasons explained in the book never went to market. It is also quite interesting to see how different the American, European and Asian markets were approached, although you can now see hints of consolidation in a more globalized world.

The insights from the engineers and managers is priceless if you want to know more about the initial purpose some of the chips and hardware or software systems were developed. You will recognize the usual suspects (Haynie, Finkel, Nesbitt, Herd, Davis, Cotton, Bucas, Koester, Augenbraun, and so many others), plus key people responsible for deals and joint ventures that I was not aware of.

All in all, a delightful reading if you want to know about computing history or delve into the evolution and demise of a tech company in a remarkable period of the commercial computer market.

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Top reviews from other countries

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mrtizio

Perché Amiga non esiste più

Reviewed in Italy on May 5, 2020

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Incredibilmente avvincente. Commodore e come ha sprecato l'occasione di dominare con la linea Amiga, incorrendo in scelte disastrose, nonostante i talentuosi ingegneri. Se volete sapere i retroscena degli Amiga 500 +, Amiga 600 e altri sistemi, ora avete le risposte alle domande che da decenni vi frullano per la mente.

One person found this helpful

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Enrico Bonazza

L'ultimo capitolo che si riferisce al glorioso marchio

Reviewed in Italy on August 7, 2019

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In pratica analizza nel dettaglio tutta quella serie di eventi che hanno portato Commodore a lanciare la serie Amiga fino al suo declino, raccontata da molti dei personaggi che ci hanno lavorato e da tanti degli ingegneri che l'hanno concepita e sviluppata.

One person found this helpful

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Leonardo Ciocca

Libro FANTASTICO!

Reviewed in Italy on January 26, 2021

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Brian Bagnall si conferma uno storico informatico coi fiocchi!
Anche questo terzo volume dedicato alla storia della Commodore (e poi di Amiga) è un vero capolavoro!

Da leggere tutto d'un fiato!

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Salvador Fandino

El final de Commodore

Reviewed in Spain on April 26, 2020

Verified Purchase

Interesante lectura sobre la etapa final de Commodore.
Algo que me ha gustado mucho es que incluye citas de muchas de las personas implicadas.

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Slats

I could not put it down!

Reviewed in Canada on June 9, 2020

Verified Purchase

If you are or were a fan of Commodore computers and wondered what ever happened to the company, this is an amazing insider tell all of what happened in those final years. 5 stars!