HN Books @HNBooksMonth

The best books of Hacker News.

Hacker News Comments on
Commodore: A Company on the Edge

Brian Bagnall · 7 HN comments
HN Books has aggregated all Hacker News stories and comments that mention "Commodore: A Company on the Edge" by Brian Bagnall.
View on Amazon [↗]
HN Books may receive an affiliate commission when you make purchases on sites after clicking through links on this page.
Amazon Summary
Filled with first-hand accounts of ambition, greed, and inspired engineering, this history of the personal computer revolution takes readers inside the cutthroat world of Commodore. Before Apple, IBM, or Dell, Commodore was the first computer manufacturer to market its machines to the public, selling an estimated 22 million Commodore 64s. Those halcyon days were tumultuous, however, owing to the expectations and unsparing tactics of founder Jack Tramiel. Engineers and managers with the company between 1976 and 1994 share their memories of the groundbreaking moments, soaring business highs, and stunning employee turnover that came with being on top in the early days of the microcomputer industry. This updated second edition includes additional interviews and first-hand material from major Commodore figures like marketing guru Kit Spencer, chip designer Bill Mensch, and Commodore co-founder Manfred Kapp.
HN Books Rankings

Hacker News Stories and Comments

All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this book.
If you want more context to the story I recommend the following, fascinating book.

https://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/...

vidarh
It's great, and the two follow-ups are also out (less interesting for people mostly interested in the 8-bits, though Commodore kept a staggering amount of 8-bit R&D going way longer than they probably should have spent money on it; a lot of it going nowhere)

Commodore: The Amiga Years

Commodore: The Final Years

(Note that there's also an older edition - "On The Edge, The spectacular rise and fall of Commodore" also by Bagnall. That one covers most of the history of Commodore in a single ~500 page book; the three new ones are ~500 pages each; which one to prefer I think largely depends on how much you care about Commodore and/or whether or not you're only interested in a particular subset of its history - that said I don't regret having bought and read both the original and all three new ones)

Have you read "Commodore: a company on the edge"?

https://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/...

It's not critical of Woz but it does re-seat him as a peripheral figure. I was surprised given the other things I've read. I'm not asserting it as the "truth" but it was a different take.

Gorbzel
Hacker News: where a commenter won't hesitate to take a dump on your hero, but will lack the confidence to assert any truth to their contrarian takes.
michaelbuddy
Sounds like you are offended by hearing something you don't like and projecting something worse upon a commenter. Just short of calling him violent. 2016!!!
branchless
Not at all, I'm pointing out an alternative source, nor am I "taking a dump" on him. I phrased it quite tactfully I thought.

If you want to be a fragile zealot, afraid of alternative sources which I asked if you had read, go ahead.

In fact at the cost of worshiping one person as "the creator/first" of something we have the loss to history of the role the engineers at Commodore played. That's why it's important to question this stuff.

I'm just reading "Commodore: a company on the edge" and the claims in this vs the received wisdom on Apple are very interesting.

https://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/...

Chuck Peddle didn't have the same opinions about Apple II nor Wozniak. It's a very interesting book.

ps I also have a working commodore amiga 500!

rasz_pl
my favorite apple commodore exchange summing up the whole deal happened during computer history museums Commodore 64 25th anniversary panel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBvbsPNBIyk. paraphrasing

Tramiel: Unlike Apple I made computers for the lowest price possible enabling millions to own one.

Wozniak: Unlike you Apple sold their computers at the price point that allowed them to not go bankrupt.

branchless
Thanks, it's great to see Tramiel in the flesh, he is as I imagined him from the book.

I haven't watch all this yet but will do so. It never occurred to me to look this up on youtube as they seem from another age, but of course it's very recent history. Amazing.

If you love Commodore computers, then Brian Bagnall wrote a really good book on the history of Commodore's 8-bit machines.

http://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/d...

pervycreeper
It covers the history of Commodore, including the 16 bit era. Very good book. Many present commentators tend to ignore Commodore's impact in favor of Apple's, this history is an antidote to that.
pinewurst
Actually it doesn't cover the Amiga era. There's been a new book by the same author in the works that does, but it's not yet out.
pervycreeper
Just checked, you're right. Not sure why I had that impression.
vidarh
The first edition did cover everything in one volume, that's probably why.

The second edition is substantially extended and has been split in two and only the first volume has been released yet (the second volume is finaly close to finished, thanks to a Kickstarter).

pervycreeper
Thank god I'm not crazy!
ctstover
I've been waiting on that book for what seems like ages! The first one was so good.
A few books on computer / computing / internet history:

1953, Faster Than Thought, B.V. Bowden (British 1940s & 50s) https://archive.org/details/FasterThanThought

1984, The Home Computer Wars (Commodore, Atari, Apple) https://archive.org/details/The_Home_Computer_Wars http://www.amazon.com/The-Home-Computer-Wars-Commodore/dp/09...

1985, History of Computing Technology, Michael Williams (Abacus to IBM360) http://www.amazon.com/History-Computing-Technology-2nd-Editi...

1985, The Great Telecom Meltdown, Fred Goldstein (USA deregulation) http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/TELECOM_Digest_On...

2001, The Universal History of Computing, Georges Ifrah (Egypt to 1970s) http://www.amazon.com/The-Universal-History-Computing-Comput...

2002, Electronic Brains (UK, US & Ukraine soon after WWII) http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/electronicbrains.shtml http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Brains-Stories-Dawn-Compute...

2008, Geeks Bearing Gifts, Ted Nelson (rants & factoids) http://www.amazon.com/Geeks-Bearing-Gifts-Ted-Nelson/dp/0578...

2010, Commodore, A Company on the Edge, Brian Bagnall (war stories from 6502 through C64, no Amiga) http://retroasylum.com/commodore-a-company-on-the-edge-revie... http://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/d...

2011, The Interface: IBM and the Transformation of Corporate Design, 1945–1976, John Harwood http://www.west86th.bgc.bard.edu/book-reviews/interface-ibm....

hoggle
Thanks for that list - to add to it some lighter, at-the-beach reading as well:

1989, The Cuckoo's Egg (a lot of 80s Unix/Vax anecdotes as well as a great story and lots of good-old hippie culture :)

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18154.The_Cuckoo_s_Egg

1996, Accidental Empires (a little frivolous but an enjoyable read nonetheless, focuses on beginnings of MS and Apple)

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27652.Accidental_Empires

1992, Game Over (Nintendo and video game history mostly 80s)

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/339584.Game_Over_Press_St...

2014, Console Wars (Sega and the video game / computer industry of the 80s and early 90s - somewhat of an answer to "Game Over")

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18505802-console-wars

Less people in this book but it's about computer history, right? Fascinating read, I didn't "finish" it yet - still great to dive into the book now and then:

2010, The Apollo Guidance Computer: Architecture and Operation

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7754526-the-apollo-guidan...

---

~OT: The last book really makes me want to see Notch's 0x10c come to live again as you would have been able to program your own fully emulated ship computer in that game, unfortunately it got canceled. I'm hoping some future No Man's Sky mod will be going in that direction!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0x10c#Gameplay

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Man%27s_Sky

hga
The Home Computer Wars is excellent, great insight into Tramiel, his various experiences prior, and how he made Commodore so successful during that period.

At this level in this subtree, hoggle's recommendations of Accidental Empires is strong endorsed, if for no other reason than the anecdote about how Intel, by then a very big company in revenues, possibly Fortune 500, was almost killed by a single well intentioned low level employee. Emphasizes how much more fragile tech companies are than old fashioned Fortune 500 companies.

The Cuckoo's Egg is a fantastic story in and of itself, about how a starving astrophysics grad student given a temporary sysadmin job went from a less than $1 accounting discrepancy to nailing down a KGB plot. One of the more interesting things is how the always publicity oriented FBI (best known way back when for bank robberies and kidnappings, infamous but easy to solve crimes), under who's remit this sort of counterintelligence was/is, wouldn't give the author the time of day (it didn't meet their $100K lost threshold). His best government contact was a delightfully colorful CIA guy (you'll love his snail mail address), who could only supply advice and connections.

"On the Edge: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore" by Brian Bagnall covers quite a bit of the Amiga development.

http://www.amazon.com/Edge-Spectacular-Rise-Fall-Commodore/d...

However, the rewritten / "second edition", "Commodore: A Company on the Edge" stops with the 8-bit machines, as there were plans to have two volumes - one for the 8-bit systems, and one for the Amiga days:

http://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/d...

The second edition, "Commodore: The Amiga Years" has been unfortunately cancelled, but is still listed on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Amiga-Years-Brian-Bagnall/dp...

How does Maher's book on the Amiga compare to Bagnall's first edition?

vidarh
Maher's book takes a very different approach. It focuses on presenting an outsider view on the technology and its impact on computing, rather than on the company and all the drama surrounding Commodore and its people.

There were times reading Maher's book that I was annoyed that he seemed to me to miss the point, though I'd say probably with the best of intentions (there were no issues that were so egrerious to me that I still remember the specifics), but it is relatively even-handed and worth a read, and presents a very interesting counter-point to Bagnall's book(s).

A good book that has quite a bit of CSG and chuck peddle commentary on the 6502 and commodore more specifically is Commodore: A Company on the Edge http://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/d... It goes into how Chuck was at times doing a roadshow with the 6502 educating and assisting manufacturers on developing applications for the 6502 and related chips.
HN Books is an independent project and is not operated by Y Combinator or Amazon.com.
~ yaj@
;laksdfhjdhksalkfj more things
yahnd.com ~ Privacy Policy ~
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.