I came back from holidays last week and found the final book in the History of Commodore Business Machines had been delivered while I was away. Commodore The Final Years by Brian Bagnall.
In only a few short days I’ve consumed the stories, thought about what might have been and wondered if there is a parallel universe would Commodore not only survived but been the Apple of today.
Over the past 6 years I’ve been reading about the history of Commodore as told by many to Brian, from the first book called On the Edge, to Commodore the Amiga Years and now the final instalment The Final Years.
For the longest time computer history of the early days never covered much on Commodore, in fact next to nothing which always surprised me as during the 1980’s they were the biggest computer manufacturer in the world, the first to sell a million computers (VIC 20) to the biggest selling single model of all time the C64 and then there was the Amiga which even today still feels cutting edge.
These books tell the stories, about the people and the machines that made Commodore but also about the problems that they faced and in the end the demise of the company which was responsible for putting computers into the hands of the masses not the classes.
If you’re into Commodore computers, want to understand what made this giant of the computing industry tick and eventually die then I highly recommend the complete series.