What would you do if you were the CEO of Commodore Computers?

[xanthrou]

On 11/29/2021 at 9:06 AM, Scott Robison said:

You should compare Attack of the PETSCII Robots for the C64 vs the C128 port. That extra 64K of RAM, dual monitor capability, MMU, and burst mode can all come together to make a great game. 

In the interest of disclosure, I wrote the C128 specific code for that port.



The reason companies didn't make games for the C128 wasn't because they couldn't make a better game. it was because they didn't want to spend more money for the customized version. No more no less.



That's not to say they made the wrong decision. 15M C64 + 5M C128 means you can potentially sell to an audience of 20M with a C64 version. Investing more money in a C128 specific version "only" gives you an audience of about 25% of that size. So I don't necessarily blame them for making that decision, but the technology definitely existed to make better versions of games for those who were so inclined.

Then you ported C128-specific graphics to the C64 via REU expansion. No hate though, as REU retro gaming gave the C64 much needed extra gaming horsepower, as evidenced by Sonic on C64.

[Scott Robison]

On 5/25/2022 at 3:45 AM, xanthrou said:

Then you ported C128-specific graphics to the C64 via REU expansion. No hate though, as REU retro gaming gave the C64 much needed extra gaming horsepower, as evidenced by Sonic on C64.

Right. There are Reasons(TM), largely experimental, for porting the C128 version to C64+REU. But it doesn't invalidate the fact that stock C64 is less powerful than stock C128. And even then, I still can't do a dual screen on a C64. REU only buys you so much.

[BruceMcF]

On 11/29/2021 at 2:06 AM, Scott Robison said:

...  15M C64 + 5M C128 means you can potentially sell to an audience of 20M with a C64 version. Investing more money in a C128 specific version "only" gives you an audience of about 25% of that size. ...

And if the C128 game was successful, the 15m C64 installed base means that you would want to do a C64 port ... and once you have a C64 port, the C128 version ONLY adds the fraction of the C128 audience that are unwilling to buy C64 games ... which would have been effectively 0 people.

Simply focusing on trying to do the most appealing possible C64 game is what they call in Game Theory the "dominant move".

[Scott Robison]

On 5/25/2022 at 5:41 PM, BruceMcF said:

And if the C128 game was successful, the 15m C64 installed base means that you would want to do a C64 port ... and once you have a C64 port, the C128 version ONLY adds the fraction of the C128 audience that are unwilling to buy C64 games ... which would have been effectively 0 people.



Simply focusing on trying to do the most appealing possible C64 game is what they call in Game Theory the "dominant move".

Right. My goal was to create the most appealing C128 game I could with the available intellectual property. The C64+REU version of the game is better by most metrics, but it has one major flaw: It is only of interest to the subset of the C64 audience that has REU technology available and that is not already satisfied with 64 Robots. Still, it was an interesting experiment.



Some people play a game to win. Some try to beat a point spread. Some try to maximize revenue.

[rje]

On 9/12/2021 at 1:39 PM, Scott Robison said:

I read something interesting a couple days ago that had not occurred to me. Another reason why z80 was okay to use and not a 65816 is that they probably had a lot of stock at their disposal after the C=64 CP/M cartridge didn't sell very many units. No new old stock 65816s were lying around.

^^ This sounds like Commodore both pre- and post-Tramiel all right.  They gamed the market by cutting costs and margins. 

Buying Amiga makes sense to a company; supporting a research facility maybe is less well understood and maybe more risky.

It is clear that chip manufacturing became commoditized and off-shored, so at that point you plan to close the shop, taking your profits for a few more years.

 

[BruceMcF]

On 5/26/2022 at 12:56 AM, Scott Robison said:

Right. My goal was to create the most appealing C128 game I could with the available intellectual property. ...



Some people play a game to win. Some try to beat a point spread. Some try to maximize revenue.

Yes ... the dominant move when playing the "let's make a game" game to try to make enough money to stay in business and be able to keep on making games. When the "let's make a game" game is being played to satisfy the instinct of workmanship (in Veblen's phrase), there probably isn't a dominant move.

[martinot]

On 9/6/2021 at 8:34 AM, BruceMcF said:

To be fair, only one of those three exist as a computer maker, and for that company, making computers sometimes seems like it is more of a sideline to making smartphones.



Edit: Oops! "PC maker"



 

Personal Computers, including Mac, have faded in importance. For private persons the shift has been to smart phones that is the "modern" personal computer. For enterprises the shift has been to cloud computing and related professional services. Apple do excellent in the former and IBM to excellent in the later.

So if Commodore would have been good at competing with IBM/PC and Apple Mac, they could still be around today with their of successful business in etiher smart phones (and ipad and smart watches) or in cloud computing and entrprise services. 

Both IBM and Apple are quite OK today with a turn over for IBM around $ 60 bn and for Apple around $ 360 bn.

[martinot]

On 6/23/2021 at 3:50 AM, Kalvan said:

1985 would have been a busy year for me.



Just after Winter CES, I would begin negotiations with NEC, offering to license my patent with Micron for stacked Pseudo-SRAM in exchange for an architectural license for the NEC_µPD7720 DSP.  If I can't get a deal by Taipei COMPUTEX, it's still early enough that I can cut my losses and roll my own design, confident that I can stick it on motherboards by 1987.*



I will also begin R&D on CMOX flash, which, since I'll bring the white paper with me, should allow me to bring it to the market in computer hardware by the time for my next generation of computer hardware in 1987 at the 2 micron node, if not smaller.



in early May, once finals are done at U.C. Berkley, I'll take a drive down there and personally recruit Dr. Leon Chua, bringing him into the corporate sector two years ahead of schedule from when Hewlett-Packard would have poached him.  And since I won't allow any manager or the board to constantly yank funding just prior to a breakthrough in the development of the memristor, forcing his (chronically manpower turnover effected) team to start from scratch each time, I predict a breakthrough sooner than 2009, so process geometries will be much more forgiving to productization.  Also, this way Intel won't be able to steal the work and create an early version of Optane.



Just after the Fourth of July, I plan to begin development on Silicon-on-Interposer fabrication, placing the vias on a layer below the logic elements, so that chip sections can be placed to optimize chip geometry and allow more flexibility in element placement.  I don't plan for this development to find product application before 1992, but once I need, I'll need it bad.  Also that month, I'll begin joint development of TTL's 65832 core with Western Design Center.



Finally, sometime between September and November, I'll put in a tender offer for Dataram, as at this point, it is in financial dire straits, until its breakthrough contracts with HP and Digital Equipment in 1987.  This will allow me to put out my current and future RAM designs at materials and production costs, rather than have to pay cartel prices for it, something for which the period 1987-92 will become infamous for.  In particular, this should substantially reduce the production price of the Sharp X68000, and make the Amiga Ranger Chipset a practical venture for whichever company is TTL's customer for Hi-Toro Labs.  Either that, or when Edwin Meese files an antitrust suit over my memory fab ownership as a consumer OEM, I'll expose every dirty RAM industry secret during discovery if the judge doesn't grant my motion for dismissal.



*The reason I'm not going with the Texas Instruments TMS 32000 series is that Tramiel would try to launch a junk bond fueled re-aquisition (or at least make a spectacular effort) the moment he would have heard of this development, and neither I nor Atari could have afforded the distraction at that moment.

With history in hindsight I think an option for MOS/Commodore, if they there not able to compete with IBM and Apple, would have been to reject the Motorola 68k and instead develop a new processor archicture based on the RISC concept, just like Acorn did so successfully.

 

[martinot]

On 9/7/2021 at 9:25 PM, Scott Robison said:

It is interesting to me that they were willing to buy Z80 for C=128 but not 65816. I realize why: it was probably cheaper and 65816 didn't offer CP/M library access. Still, their hesitancy for so long to avoid using anything but their own chips is sad.

Agree! The 65816 would have been an obvious choice. Very strange that they rejected what both Apple and Nintendo used.

That said they at the same time did a poor job to continue to be innovative and do new stuff on their own. They never developed any thing really successful after the 6502 series and related sound/video chips. Other companies continued to innovate and spend R&D on RISC architectures like Power PC, MIPS and ARM. MOS/Commodore just stangnated. I think the culture changed after Commodore and Jack took over MOS Technologies. Before it was a lot of innovation going on, but later the creators like Chuck Peddle and Bob Yannes fled Commodore/MOS then Jack only focucsed on quick sales and less on innovation. I love Jack as a great person and fantastic sales man, but I think he actually was responsible for killing the innovation culture at the company.

[martinot]

On 9/8/2021 at 10:58 AM, xanthrou said:

Plus to create an arcade machine more advanced than Neo-Geo, as well as Commodore-branded CD players, LaserDisc players and VHS VCRs.

I think your right. If MOS/Commodore had continued to innovate in sound and graphics chip, and understood the need for bringing along software/game developers, they could absolutely had a good chanse to compete with PlayStation and Xbox.