1983 Commodore 64 article in CGW

[high voltage]

October 1983, C64 is just starting to take off in USA, here's what one contributor wrote about it:

 

Harsh words or true?

[Mirage]

Largely true factually, but it ended up being better than the sum of it's parts to many. Surely, it has many imperfections, but over time, people developed workarounds and solutions, and clearly, software support was hardly an issue.

[TMR]

It's an opinion piece with incorrect facts (i can pick through if anyone hasn't spotted them?) and there have been thousands of those over the years... the funniest i remember was a review of the Amstrad CPC where the writer said it had superior sound to the C64 purely because it was easier to program from BASIC!

Edited December 18, 2010 by TMR

[atarian63]

October 1983, C64 is just starting to take off in USA, here's what one contributor wrote about it:

 

Harsh words or true?

Very true, as a dealer and young adult I watched idiots in droves buy this poorly made machine,with zero software due to one thing.. price. Very correct at each point and probably too kind. People recall what they like but the truth is at the time it was junk with a big advertising campaign. (Atari would have benefitted much much more had they done the same) With over 2000+ poeces of software available for atari and at least that much for apple, this thing with nothing for software should have been stillborn.

People are not smart they are cheap and stupid, which explains many things in the market.,

[svenski]

Wow, this makes great reading especially with the benefit of hindsight.

[Mayhem]

Some comparisons were mind bogglingly stupid. For example he mentions the Atari had way more peripherals out compared to the C64. Well, it had been out four times as long at the time of writing here, what would you expect?!

[high voltage]

here's the next issues answer:

[TMR]

Oh look, A8 versus C64 fight... =-)

[atarian63]

Some comparisons were mind bogglingly stupid. For example he mentions the Atari had way more peripherals out compared to the C64. Well, it had been out four times as long at the time of writing here, what would you expect?!

I would expect an educated buyer to decide that with no peripherals and bad ones later and no software that the system was not viable..Most consumers at that time just knew they wanted a computer,they really didn't know why and thought due to tv and advertising they would somehow be left behind. So they bought the cheap one without thinking.

Try that one today, release a console with no software and no real peripherals at launch and see how it does.

[TMR]

Most consumers at that time just knew they wanted a computer,they really didn't know why and thought due to tv and advertising they would somehow be left behind. So they bought the cheap one without thinking.

 

Anyone looking at overall specifications properly (as in not just blindly comparing numbers) could see that the C64 was only "cheap" in the sense it had a low price tag. That was down to Commodore owning the company fabricating the most expensive parts and, whilst it might be easy to forget that Commodore's rivals like Apple and Atari were using some of the same parts, because they were essentially buying from Commodore, they rather unsurprisingly had to pay more for those parts and the cost had to be passed on to consumers.

 

Try that one today, release a console with no software and no real peripherals at launch and see how it does.

 

Well, i've checked Gamebase 64 for Commodore releases dated 1982 or before, filtered out repeats and counted 28 titles (not the entire picture obviously, there were more including utilities but you said "console" so we'll ignore those) and that's more than either the Wii or Xbox 360 had for their initial launches.

 

(Apparently the Atari 2600 launched with just nine titles including Combat and less peripherals than the C64... that didn't exactly fall on it's arse either!)

[atarian63]

Most consumers at that time just knew they wanted a computer,they really didn't know why and thought due to tv and advertising they would somehow be left behind. So they bought the cheap one without thinking.

 

Anyone looking at overall specifications properly (as in not just blindly comparing numbers) could see that the C64 was only "cheap" in the sense it had a low price tag. That was down to Commodore owning the company fabricating the most expensive parts and, whilst it might be easy to forget that Commodore's rivals like Apple and Atari were using some of the same parts, because they were essentially buying from Commodore, they rather unsurprisingly had to pay more for those parts and the cost had to be passed on to consumers.

 

Try that one today, release a console with no software and no real peripherals at launch and see how it does.

 

Well, i've checked Gamebase 64 for Commodore releases dated 1982 or before, filtered out repeats and counted 28 titles (not the entire picture obviously, there were more including utilities but you said "console" so we'll ignore those) and that's more than either the Wii or Xbox 360 had for their initial launches.

 

(Apparently the Atari 2600 launched with just nine titles including Combat and less peripherals than the C64... that didn't exactly fall on it's arse either!)

Atari 2600 was revolutionary and the market was different with little serious competition in comparison, on the other hand at the time c64 was released in the US the market for a home computer was already well established with lots of good titles, they used advertising to create a percieved "need" for a cheap pc. Had consumers done any research at all and not just watched an ad on tv they would have discovered the thing had crap for software and what was released was not useful and of poor quality.

2000+ vs 28 not even close. Had in not been for Ad's and being cheap it would have been (and should have been) DOA.It would have been easier and I would argue much cheaper (based on software)to buy an Apple and Atari,though Apple was lacking in graphics and sound.

As they say, "timing is everything" with the crash tying down Atari and lots of cash being spent on ads,it was right place,right time,nothing more.

Also Atari was much more established and was not buying parts from Commodore.

[potatohead]

Commodore was disruptive.

 

This is why the machines did well.

 

When technology is introduced into the market place there are several different scenarios:

 

1. It's new technology, unavailable to the market it's released in.

 

2. It's disruptive technology, released to a market where similar technology already exists.

 

3. It is required technology, such as enabling technologies, or mandated things.

 

The Apple ][ was basically new technology. The personal computer market started with Apple, and rapidly grew, attracting many players.

 

Atari was one of those players, but was not disruptive. Why does this matter? Bear with me, and I'll explain that, but before I do, it's also worth noting the technology adoption life cycle.

 

Imagine a bell curve, divided into roughly four parts. At the left of the curve are the early adopters. They pay a price premium for new technology, and they seek to gain a significant return for early adoption of that technology. Could be competitive, or simply entertainment. New stuff has a great return for entertainment, more often than not, and in business, having something first, even if it's expensive, can provide considerable advantage on cost, time to market, quality.

 

The next two parts of the curve involve both halves of the tallest part of the curve. Early majority and late majority. These people buy in at the sweet spot, still expecting strong returns, but wanting considerably lower risk and overall cost compared to the early adopters.

 

Finally there are the laggards, who want low risk, mature tech at a low cost for a moderate return at best.

 

Atari differentiated it's products from Apple, appealing to the home consumer, and included graphics and sound capability that would compare favorably with the Apple, and that was demonstrated viable by the VCS. Atari really didn't compete on price. It was cheaper, but not significantly cheaper. Both Atari and Apple were looking at early adopters, and establishing market niches, able to deliver their technology at a significant cost, earning a nice margin, and delivering a nice return for those who bought it.

 

What this means is how the computer was going to be used was a very significant factor. Doing serious computing? Get a Apple. It was built to be a workstation type computer that could also do games, etc... Atari computers were also serious, but in different ways. Gaming graphics were compelling, but would fall short on other things needing 80 column displays, for example. The point here is that the Atari computer was not really disruptive to the Apple. The price differences were not that significant.

 

Basically, Atari and Apple (among others I don't care to incorporate into what is a long post anyway) carved out niches, particularly Apple, who carved out quite a number of them with the expansion slot idea. Atari got gaming, home computing, etc... Again, the differences don't matter much, but to say that Apple had a superior offering, able to remain viable for a very long time, due to being able to serve so many niches. Expansion capabilities make the difference between a platform and a product. Atari sold products. Apple sold platforms that could also be products. Big difference and a discussion for another day.

 

As the technology curve advanced, the majorities started buying in. Commodore was able to produce it's products at a price that would be compelling, and that's generally a more than fractional difference, like half, or a third, or something like that, and release them right as the majorities began adopting the technology "en masse", meaning they were able to profit very significantly from the market development done by their competetors, focusing in on only the most lucrative value propositions.

 

The VIC 20 was disruptive! It offered strong potential, for a significantly lower cost! That's what drives disruptive technology, and one key thing to know about disruptive technology is that people will buy in for some gratification now, and potential later on. Anyway, the Vic 20 had color graphics, sound, could play games, be programmed, and such for a small sum of money. Never mind that it really couldn't compete with the established players. It's a cheap entry into computing, and at that time, computing wasn't a demonstrated technology with a return that could be easily quantified. Many people bought in, wanting to learn, or because other people were buying in. The Vic addressed that perfectly and did well.

 

The C64 was also disruptive in that it was produced in ways that kept cost low, while also delivering competetive features. The actual feature differences are not too significant. As long as the core tasks that people want to use the technology for, it's the price and low barrier to entry that gets them going. The price of the C64, along with it's feature set were spot on good for a disruptive technology play. Having in house production disrupted in terms of cost, having the time to analyze the market growth meant being able to fine tune features for cost / benefit ratios that were very favorable for the majorities, ignoring the often expensive and lucrative niches in favor of volume and thinner margins.

 

Disruptive tech is all about rapidly growing share based on a very high value perception, presented at a low cost, and that's exactly what Commodore did, and did so successfully.

 

This story can be seen over and over and over. The PC did the same thing to UNIX workstations in the 90's, with the release of the Pentium III, and NT 4.0, capable of performing higher end computing tasks at a fifth to even tenth of the cost otherwise associated with those tasks. In my market, CAD, typical software seats were 12K, with a 10-20K workstation. (damn sweet SGI computers in my case) Deals were big, margins huge, but so were the returns for those that adopted early on. They got huge competetive advantages that more than paid for those early 100K+ investments.

 

Along came cheap CAD and the PC. Suddenly a software seat was 3.5K, and a nice "workstation" PC was maybe 5K. In terms of initial features, there was NO comparison. Anybody wanting to be serious paid the higher cost for the established players. However, lots of people decided to just buy into the cheaper deal, hoping to grow as it grows.

 

That's also what happened with Commodore. Growing rapid market share like that grows a business, and where there wasn't much to start, demand from all those computer owners sparked a lot of add on activity, and soon the value of the inexpensive machine was multiplied by all that was there.

 

At one point, people could pay $3K for a very nice Apple. They would do it because it was proven, or because some niche, like serious business computing, made it worth it. They could buy a less expensive Atari machine, or get a less expensive still Commodore machine. TI was also on the higher end of things, though I think their technology was not well differentiated at that time, impacting what should have sold much better than it did.

 

Carry this forward, and the early 16 bit machines were disruptive to higher end workstation machines, just as the PC was to the higher end machines.

 

Today, high end hardware is still sold, but only for very specific niches where it makes sense to pay the cost. Everybody else enjoys economies of scale, and tech trade-offs that are vetted by ongoing tech refinement to keep cost of entry low.

 

My own memory of that time was interesting. I totally wanted a Apple, because I could do serious computing on it. Run CP/M, do 80 Column Text, incorporate lots of storage, do desktop publishing, use a mouse, and specialized add-on cards, etc... Apples cost a lot, but they were the shit, if you really wanted to get stuff done. I got a Atari because games and graphics were important to me, and so was easy use of peripherals. SIO was a great thing, for example.

 

My uncle split the middle. He wanted to do some serious things, but was cost sensitive. He skipped over the Atari and Apple, because the Apple was too much money, and the Atari didn't have the software he needed. He ended up using some cool word processor that could include files from disk, and do so conditionally. Knocked it outta the park, and used that machine into the 90's, writing real-estate contracts and doing build estimates with programs he had somebody write in BASIC for him.

 

Edit: I forgot to explicitly say, it was a C64 with a disk and a nice printer. That whole combo was less money than a Atari machine, a whole lot less than the Apple, and because there were a lot of them, there was a ton of highly differentiated software. He could live with no 80 column display, though the C64 can actually do that because it's video signal quality is good enough to make good use of the 320 pixels it has, and he just needed enough storage to knock up the contracts, write the conditional logic, and run the basic programs. Wasn't sexy, but it was productive, and it was cheap ass.

 

At that time, there was no real solution for the Atari machine. We discussed it, as I was the family enthusiast at the time, and recommended the C64, after considering all the factors. Had price not been at issue, he would have purchased the Apple machine, and had he done that, he could have used it well into the late 90's. Interestingly, the C64 purchase got him to the PC a bit earlier than would have been sweet. Turns out, the higher initial cost of the Apple, suitably equipped, would have paid back huge, carrying him through to the 386 easily! Would have saved money, but the C64 was low risk, and so it goes...

 

A Atari machine was capable of some of those things, but the lower cost of the Commodore machines, along with well positioned features, meant more development over time. One artifact of that was the cool word processor he found, that had no Atari port. Wish I could remember the name of it. Was quite clever and productive as all get out.

 

That story was repeated all over the place, and it had very little to do with the real technical differences between the machines, and a lot to do with how they were positioned, and when they were released, etc...

Edited January 23, 2011 by potatohead

[Mirage]

 

 

Thank you for that. One of the best posts EVER on AA (at least regarding C= and Atari). It's not nearly as simple as the simple "Had consumers done any research at all and not just watched an ad on tv they would have discovered the thing had crap for software and what was released was not useful and of poor quality." I always wonder if people who say things like that were really there ('80s) or were awake through it, if they were there.

[potatohead]

Funny thing is we did the research at the time. (I made a edit to my book length post, only to see yours)

 

IMHO, Atari had positioned itself in very specific ways, and that hurt when the more disruptive solution from Commodore hit. Tech differences were not all that significant. One other thing I didn't put in that post was the Commodore package was positioned across the board as "good enough" to get [x] done. With the low cost and compelling features, that proved to be a very solid pitch.

 

One thing in play at that time was expansion costs and returns. Expanding Apples wasn't cheap, but it was very potent. Having all sorts of good stuff "in the box", and "integrated" was a very high value, and very forward looking design. Apples were sold for a very long time, and even right at the end, were potent computers being used for all sorts of interesting things. The lesson there is the expansion capability means selling good margins all the way into the laggards.

 

Neither Commodore or Atari could do that, ending up on a race to the bottom quickly. Commodore got a lot of share, meaning Atari returns were significantly less, despite being early in the technology cycle. You won't read that many places, but it hurt.

Edited January 23, 2011 by potatohead

[TMR]

Also Atari was much more established and was not buying parts from Commodore.

 

Okay, dug further and my bad... i made an assumption based on what several Atarians have said previously. Ihe CPU driving the Atari 8-bits isn't directly made by MOS Technologies, but it's presumably still a licensed manufacturer they used so a percentage of every unit would've been slipped into Commodore's pocket.

 

That's a bit of an irony to that all things considered, the design of Atari's CPU being Commodore's. =-)

Edited January 24, 2011 by TMR

[carmel_andrews]

You are 'partly' right there potatohead, you must remember though, the first entrant in any tech market isn't usually the leader in that market, after all, the sinclair QL was the first 'upscale' 8-16 bit computer (using a cut down version of the 68k) unfortunately it got wiped out by atari and commodore's entries (st and amiga)

 

Tramiel at commodore played the game of 'wait and see', i.e waits to see what the competition have to offer and see's' if he can offer similar tech but at a lower price

 

The problem with commodore after tramiel quit was that most of the management there was too used to the way things were and how things were done, remembering that tramiel had been there for over 25 years and basically his philosophy/personality was imprinted or ingrained on commodore and tramiel quitting commodore was like having a brain or heart removed...it wasn't commodore anymore it was something else

 

Also tramiel did make a good point to Irving Gould, about commodore during his final years and after he left commodore, the point he made was bringing so called 'professional management' to run a company like commodore is no good if A- they have no prior experience in managing or running a tech company and B- Don't fully embrace the existing setup of that company (i.e management style, philosophy, practices/policies etc etc) essentually commodore made the same mistake after tramiel left, that atari made during the warners period, i.e bringing in professional management that didn't know or understand how to manage or run a tech company and didn't embrace and take onboard the companies style or philosophy, commodore never quite recovered after tramiel quit, in the same way that atari never fully recovered from the videogame crash of the early 80's, you could say that tramiel quitting commodore had the same effect on commodore that the VG crash had on atari

 

The classic Irvin Gould quote being 'Tramiel made commodore into a billion dollar company, Marshall (the man that replaced tramiel) will make it a 10 billion dollar company....

 

I am not saying that commodore would have become a 10 billion dollar company if tramiel hadn't quit, but it would have become more successful then it was (if tramiel had'nt quit)

 

Essentually both commodore and Atari had basically relegrated themsleves to also ran's from about 1985 onwards

 

Also you could say that atari and commodore were 'one hit wonders', commodores only real success was with the vic20/c64 and atari's only real success was the vcs/2600 (everything else just paled into insignificance)I am surprised to hear that commodore lived off the c64's revenue for so long (since the amiga never attained that sort of success, even though eventually it overtook the st/ste etc by sales, apparently)

Edited January 24, 2011 by carmel_andrews

[ANTIQ]

PIA

[TMR]

PIA

 

Oh! So that's two Commodore parts being licensed, right? Does anyone have a good photo of the 800's board at a decent resolution, i'd dismantle my non-working 800XL but it'd take half a day and some mountaineering gear to get to right now. =-)

[atarian63]

PIA

open your 800 and you will find

Common PIAs include the Motorola MC6820 and MC6821

not the mos version

probably licensed from motorola not mos, also Mos was not always parts of Commodore.

[atarian63]

 

 

Thank you for that. One of the best posts EVER on AA (at least regarding C= and Atari). It's not nearly as simple as the simple "Had consumers done any research at all and not just watched an ad on tv they would have discovered the thing had crap for software and what was released was not useful and of poor quality." I always wonder if people who say things like that were really there ('80s) or were awake through it, if they were there.

Considering I was an Atari dealer in those days and made my living from that,I would say that was ground zero on that subject.

[Mirage]

 

 

Thank you for that. One of the best posts EVER on AA (at least regarding C= and Atari). It's not nearly as simple as the simple "Had consumers done any research at all and not just watched an ad on tv they would have discovered the thing had crap for software and what was released was not useful and of poor quality." I always wonder if people who say things like that were really there ('80s) or were awake through it, if they were there.

Considering I was an Atari dealer in those days and made my living from that,I would saw that was ground zero on that subject.

 

My point was that it's not just the technical facts that guarantee success in the marketplace, which was one of potato's points. If you can't see that, then I really question your observations. You may have been there, but that doesn't mean you really understand all the reasons that people make their purchasing decisions.

 

By your logic, everyone in the general public should still be using whatever computer at any point in time, way back then, already had the most software available for it. No one should have ever bought anything else, because anytime a computer is released, of course it won't have as much or as high of quality software as the computer that already exists has. We'd all still be using Atari 8-bit computers (or whatever).

[atarian63]

Funny thing is we did the research at the time. (I made a edit to my book length post, only to see yours)

 

IMHO, Atari had positioned itself in very specific ways, and that hurt when the more disruptive solution from Commodore hit. Tech differences were not all that significant. One other thing I didn't put in that post was the Commodore package was positioned across the board as "good enough" to get [x] done. With the low cost and compelling features, that proved to be a very solid pitch.

 

One thing in play at that time was expansion costs and returns. Expanding Apples wasn't cheap, but it was very potent. Having all sorts of good stuff "in the box", and "integrated" was a very high value, and very forward looking design. Apples were sold for a very long time, and even right at the end, were potent computers being used for all sorts of interesting things. The lesson there is the expansion capability means selling good margins all the way into the laggards.

 

Neither Commodore or Atari could do that, ending up on a race to the bottom quickly. Commodore got a lot of share, meaning Atari returns were significantly less, despite being early in the technology cycle. You won't read that many places, but it hurt.

Though for Apple it really was the school niche that legitimized it. other than expansion it was way underpowered, poor graphics,expensive with expensive peripherals,even a joystick was crazy expensive. Atari fell on their face (Warner ) right when they were making in roads on apple (evene getting into schools) and making a nice margin as well.

Along came commodore with a slick ad campaign (based on guilt if your kid did not have a computer but not really saying why) and a cheap price. Apple continued on with the old (they have them at school thing)(therefore giving a reason to pay a high price) and commodore started the race to the bottom as you say when Atari was entering the video game crash. Timing is everything. right place right time.

Had there been no commodore or crash and with Atari R&D being what it was things would likely have turned out very differently for Apple.

This could be applied to other scenarios in business and products as well.. What is best is often not what makes it. As you mentioned. Good enough seems to be it. along with cheaper at the beginning.

I still cant get over people buying it with such a dearth of software.It really couldnt do (x) at the start as it did not have software to do (X) yet.This was how Atari tried to counter C64. People bought home computers back then without really knowing why they needed one (I am speaking of the average family not you tech heads). Often we would sell a c64 with no drive at all. people just didn't understand what a computer was or how it all worked yet.Many of the people buyinghad never had one or seen one at work. unlike today where it's everywhere and folks grew up on them.

Try selling a home pc to a person who wants one but has no knowlege of one and doesnt know why.. not very easy.

That was pc(errr Home computer)sales in the late 70's early 80's.

[Mirage]

We're going to have to just agree to disagree (actually, I'm not even so sure that we really do disagree per se... I just understand that people (even informed people) sometimes bought computers/products not solely based on their technical merits and amount/quality of software available. Sometimes that made their decision the "wrong" one, but not always. And some people wanted to program themselves, and didn't care about the available software, especially back then!)

 

By the way, right now, I'm playing Bubble Ghost on the C64. When I'm done with that, I'm going to hook up the A8 and play some games on that for the rest of the evening, because now, today, in 2011, since I can have both machines, I enjoy both, and love both of them, and that's the only thing I really care about today.

[Mirage]

 

People bought home computers back then without really knowing why they needed one. Often we would sell a c64 with no drive at all. people just didn't understand what a computer was or how it all worked yet.Many of the people buyinghad never had one or seen one at work. unlike today where it's everywhere and folks grew up on them.

 

 

It's funny how things haven't changed so much. Sure, today a higher percentage of people have exposure to computers, but it's still amazing to me how many people have absolutely no clue whatsoever, even what a hard drive is, or the concept of storage at all! I mean, really really clueless people. I'm the technical guy at work, and I am constantly being bombarded with questions and having to show people how to do the absolutely most simple things. And these are educated people of all ages! Really, people haven't changed that much.

[SoulBlazer]

As I said in another thread, that's why I never buy anything in the first two years of something coming out. Not only does it take time for software and/or games to come out for it, but by waiting you get cheaper prices, better hardware, and more options. Take the C128D that was bought for me in 1985 vs the C64 when it first came out in 1982. Light years of difference. By 1985 Commodore had the best games in the market, a good computer for a cheap price, and tons of options and support. I used that thing for over eight years and it was like a tank.