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

kelli217 · Post by **kelli217** » Mon Jul 18, 2022 5:09 pm

And don't forget the Commodore 900. The Z-8000 based machine that ran Coherent.

Travis Bryant moore · Post by **Travis Bryant moore** » Mon Jul 25, 2022 2:30 am

On 7/18/2022 at 1:09 PM, kelli217 said:

And don't forget the Commodore 900. The Z-8000 based machine that ran Coherent.

The z-8000 was pretty neat. It may have been interesting to see the commodore 900 modded not only as a server but as a home system for high end computing maybe.

martinot · Post by **martinot** » Sat Aug 20, 2022 8:10 am

Great site with a lot of good info about it all: history [Amiga Unix Wiki]

xanthrou · Post by **xanthrou** » Wed Aug 24, 2022 4:36 pm

Here's more things I would do as a CEO:

For Amiga, I would make few changes:

Amiga 1000, 2000 and 500 would be released as they did.

I'll axe Amiga 600/300 and 500+ and instead go full-on on Amiga 1200/3000 (with two Paula chips) in 1990 and Amiga 1800/4000T in 1992.

Like I said, I would axe the CDTV, CD32 and C64GS, although if CDTV must exist, then I make Commodore sell it as Amiga CDTV from the get-go based on Amiga 1200 (with the Akiko chip and some improved tech from Amiga 3000/4000, so all "CD32" games would still exist) as an advanced multimedia computer.

How to rub Jack Tramiel in the face? By making Atari ST programs and games run on Amiga perfectly via emulator and add-on card (via clean-room reverse engineering like VTech did with Apple //). (Business is war, Jack.)

Amiga PowerPC would exist under my vision and use something like Amiga OS4 and I'll strike a deal with Silicon Graphics Inc. to licence their 3D RealityEngine tech to the Amiga and Commodore would provide Amiga compatibility for the SGI workstations via an emulator. Amiga would skip x86 or IA-64 and go straight to ARM or RISC-V later on.

Amiga laptops? Of course.

Amiga Walker would exist in 1994, and in 1996, there would be a hybrid of Amiga Multimedia Convergence Computer and A\box.

Of course, I would license the Workbench to Sony for PlayStation 1 in a similar vein to PS2 Linux project.

For additional stuff outside Amiga:

I would extend the Commodore 64's lifespan up until December 2004 (except in Japan, where it would still be produced up until to this day) and Plus/4 in 1994 and make the SID technology open for anyone to build upon (SidStation would be an official Commodore product). And I would licence the TED chip as a microcontroller to compete with Arduino, etc. with enhancements. The C64 DTV would be an an official product and just as hackable. Same goes for the C64 Mini (as C64 Classic) today.

PA-RISC Hombre chipset would be used in the Commodore arcade system alongside the AAA.

C64 would be a success in Japan under my vision, because of built-in add-on ROM to enable kanji characters without sacrificing compatibility with Western C64s, (at least the NTSC ones, although later models would get a PAL/NTSC switch).

Commodore Web.it would still exist, but beige.

In addition for Plus/4 being meant for educational purposes, I would bundle it with GEOS from the get-go via REU GEOS cartridge. And later, the C64 too, with an YM2151.

And provide a capable toy kids' computer (a la VTech Genius IQ 128) as a competitor to VTech's toy computers

Daedalus · Post by **Daedalus** » Sat Dec 03, 2022 3:43 am

I would have given Chuck Peddle a raise. A big one. Perhaps he could have saved them.

Heck, they should still be sending Chuck money.

And yeah, I remember sharing memes on floppy disks and through the fax.

ilikex16 · Post by **ilikex16** » Sat Dec 24, 2022 3:05 pm

I'd continue development to do the glasstop and 65 and make a special department for 64 models and make a dedicated amiga department to improve the ted machines with r&d

ilikex16 · Post by **ilikex16** » Sat Dec 24, 2022 3:06 pm

and discontinue the cdtv stop the cd32 to forth live commodore and cbm pets would still live

neutrino · Post by **neutrino** » Sun Dec 25, 2022 1:17 am

On 8/24/2022 at 6:36 PM, xanthrou said:

to licence their 3D RealityEngine tech to the Amiga

Would MOS Technology have enough transistors to put on a die to make that happen? and at consumer market prices?

On 8/24/2022 at 6:36 PM, xanthrou said:

Amiga would skip x86 or IA-64 and go straight to ARM or RISC-V later on.

Actually the very first ARM1 CPU at 6 MHz was available on 1985-04-26 while the first Amiga ie the A1000 was released on 1985-07-23. So had Commodore known and wanted they could have swapped the CPU and re-compiled the ROMs. It's not like last minute changes were unfamiliar to Commodore.. ?

The rationale is that the ARM2 32-bit was 7x faster than MC68000 7 MHz, 2x Intel 80386, and the same as VAX-11/784 only beaten by Sun SPARC and MIPS R2000. Though it lacked DMA. This combined with the existing ASIC graphics and sound could been a power machine.

Calculon · Post by **Calculon** » Wed Jan 04, 2023 4:33 am

On 12/24/2022 at 5:17 PM, neutrino said:

Would MOS Technology have enough transistors to put on a die to make that happen? and at consumer market prices?

Actually the very first ARM1 CPU at 6 MHz was available on 1985-04-26 while the first Amiga ie the A1000 was released on 1985-07-23. So had Commodore known and wanted they could have swapped the CPU and re-compiled the ROMs. It's not like last minute changes were unfamiliar to Commodore.. ?

The rationale is that the ARM2 32-bit was 7x faster than MC68000 7 MHz, 2x Intel 80386, and the same as VAX-11/784 only beaten by Sun SPARC and MIPS R2000. Though it lacked DMA. This combined with the existing ASIC graphics and sound could been a power machine.

Ignoring that it would be a prohibitively large change that would have delayed the release by years, if they only got their hands on one in 1985 (I mean, it would be waaaay more than just recompilation)… would ARM even be available to them? How much say did Acorn (a direct competitor) have in who could license an Acorn RISC Machine?

xanthrou · Post by **xanthrou** » Wed Jan 04, 2023 10:07 am

On 12/25/2022 at 3:17 AM, neutrino said:

Would MOS Technology have enough transistors to put on a die to make that happen? and at consumer market prices?

Actually the very first ARM1 CPU at 6 MHz was available on 1985-04-26 while the first Amiga ie the A1000 was released on 1985-07-23. So had Commodore known and wanted they could have swapped the CPU and re-compiled the ROMs. It's not like last minute changes were unfamiliar to Commodore.. ?

The rationale is that the ARM2 32-bit was 7x faster than MC68000 7 MHz, 2x Intel 80386, and the same as VAX-11/784 only beaten by Sun SPARC and MIPS R2000. Though it lacked DMA. This combined with the existing ASIC graphics and sound could been a power machine.

Well, Nintendo 64 had SGI tech...