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DECEMBER 2019|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE 382
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integrated circuitsforthe productionof
calculators. TI had decidedto increase the
price of its chips, while making its own
calculators cheaper than those madeby
Commodore and other rivals. The move
almost drove Commodore outof business,
but it was rescuedby aCanadian
businessman called Irving Gould.
GOULDSTANDARD
Gould injected $3m intoCommodore,
which was usedto buy the IC design and
semiconductor manufacturer MOS
Technology.Tramiel had figured that it
would be betterforCommodoreto make
its own chips, and it was MOS’s lead
designer,Chuck Peddle,who raised the
potentialof the home computer market.
MOS had developedacheap
microprocessor,the 6502, which
SteveWozniak andSteveJobs had used in
their Apple I.Wozniak had switchedto the
chip after finding it wasaseventh of the price
of aMotorola 6800, and he stuck with itfor
the Apple II. Commodore had beenoffered
Apple’s machine but decided Jobs wantedtoo
high aprice.Instead, Commodore decidedto
place the chip at the heartof its own debut
computer: the CommodorePersonal
ElectronicTransactor,orP ET.This was
announced in 1976 and readiedforthe
Consumer Electronics Showof January 1977.
The PET 2001 wasasuccess, becoming the
first computerto retail forless than $1,000.
As soon as he was ableto,Tramiel lookedfor
amarket outsideof the UnitedStates and,
poignantly,targetedWest Germany.He
travelledto the country himselfto meet
potential buyers,telling them he had survived
the Holocaust.
“I went directlyto the front lines,”he
would later say, adding that his audience was
keen to hear what he hadto say.
Not thateverything went smoothly.In
1980, the wiring onacoffeemaker on board
Commodore’s corporateplane,dubbed the
PetJet, set fire onaflight from Chicagoto
Commodore’s headquarters, which had been
moved to California. It landed safely in Des
Moines, Iowa, with its right side engulfed in
flames and with smoke filling the cabin,
skidding down the runwaytos uch an extent
that it overshot.Luckily,Tramiel and the other
passengers were not harmed. Survival was
seemingly in his blood.
THE PEOPLE’S COMPUTER
Commodorefollowed up the PET with the
Commodore VIC-20, once more making useof
the MOSTechnology 6502 chip.Again, the
computer sold in droves, this time becoming
the firstto to pamillion units, helpedby the
$300 price,which was around half thatof
its competitors. Plugging intoTramiel’s desire
forlow pricing, the cost also graduallyfell as
the years wentby,making the machineeven
more attractive.Tramiel infamouslytold the
press that “business is war”, and it became
somethingof amotto.
The VIC-20 was also sold inWest Germany,
where it was renamed theVC-20. It ensured
the computer didn’t sound like the German
swearword ‘fick’,and it also allowed
Commodoreto make out that the letters
stood forVolksComputer in its marketing.
This so-called ‘people’s computer’led to the
creationof the Commodore 64, which sold
more than 20 million units after going on sale
in January 1982, bringing inawhopping $1bn.
⬅The VIC-20 became the first computerto sell a
million with JackTramiel (left) celebrating alongside
‘VIC Czar’Michael Tomczyk, who developed and
launched the computer
⬆Having noticed that memory prices werefalling,
Jack Tramiel ordered the Commodore 64to have
64KB of RAM
