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

[neutrino]

On 1/4/2023 at 11:07 AM, xanthrou said:

Well, Nintendo 64 had SGI tech...

It was released in 1996 which meant chip had way more transistors available. Getting anything done in 1985 meant way more restrictions.

On 1/4/2023 at 5:33 AM, Calculon said:

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?

The logic of the kernel and libraries would have stayed the same. So I don't think it would been that monumental. They used BCPL after all. For the chips supply I bet Tramiel would have made a contract that would made sure he weren't screwed. Probably along the lines of license the IP and we make them in our own MOS fab.

You don't screw Tramiel, he screws you ?

And besides getting a 7x advantage over the competition would be extremely tempting.

[kelli217]

On 12/24/2022 at 7:17 PM, neutrino said:

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.. ?

Aye, and if my grandmother had wheels, she'd've been a wagon.

[Calculon]

On 1/4/2023 at 2:50 AM, neutrino said:

It was released in 1996 which meant chip had way more transistors available. Getting anything done in 1985 meant way more restrictions.



The logic of the kernel and libraries would have stayed the same. So I don't think it would been that monumental. They used BCPL after all. For the chips supply I bet Tramiel would have made a contract that would made sure he weren't screwed. Probably along the lines of license the IP and we make them in our own MOS fab.



You don't screw Tramiel, he screws you ?



And besides getting a 7x advantage over the competition would be extremely tempting.

Was there a BCPL toolchain available for ARM back then? Were the the Amiga's custom chips compatible with ARMs timings? Even Acorn didn't get an ARM-based computer shipped until 1987, and they designed the chip. I think the only way that they gain access to that chip technology is to beat out Olivetti and buy a controlling interest in Acorn, and even then you don't get anything released in 1985.

[neutrino]

On 1/4/2023 at 7:39 PM, Calculon said:

Was there a BCPL toolchain available for ARM back then? Were the the Amiga's custom chips compatible with ARMs timings?

Don't about BCPL toolchain in 1985. But I'll suppose someone would have to port a compiler for it. It's not rocket science.

The ARM vs Amiga custom chips might required some changes or external glue logic. But probably nothing big. And the gain is 7x performance..

On 1/4/2023 at 7:39 PM, Calculon said:

Even Acorn didn't get an ARM-based computer shipped until 1987, and they designed the chip.

Acorn perhaps had less cash on hand than Commodore Inc. And Irving Gould seemingly would fund things at times. Commodore also had their own fab and perhaps more engineers available. So it might not been that big deal. Also the corporate spirit matters. Just watch the difference between United Launch Alliance vs SpaceX vs NASA.

With deep pockets, in-house fab and a long payroll of good engineers a lot of things can be done in a short time.

[StephenHorn]

Thinking about this a year and a half later, I suppose another plausible route to survival for C= would have been to lean into videogame hardware instead of the PC marketplace. i.e. staying within the industry of "toy computers", as they were comfortable doing in the C64's heyday. There's no reason they couldn't have seen the explosive popularity of the NES, built on a derivative of the 6502, and said, "Yeah, we can do that, too!" In fact, with their existing PC experience they would have been in a great position to design PC-like development kits separate from the dedicated console hardware, and marketed to both developers and gamers alike. The only catch might've been inertia -- you can't do that kind of corporate shift on a dime, and they were probably gearing up for the move to x86 for some while. It's possible that the timing of the NES was just a year or so too late for them to react and reposition themselves in the newly-revived home console market.

Still, I can't help but wonder if C= saw an uptick in 6502 licensing income and pondered the option. Also, while I have no doubt that Nintendo would have continued on to gigantic success with the NES and SNES, I wonder how a duel between C= and Sega would have shaken out for the #2 hardware position. Or if Nintendo would have risked partnering with C= for CPU and other chip development the way they later partnered with Sony for CD-ROM tech. Obviously there are still no promises, but I think it's an interesting "what if" scenario.

[TomXP411]

On 1/4/2023 at 2:20 PM, neutrino said:

Don't about BCPL toolchain in 1985. But I'll suppose someone would have to port a compiler for it. It's not rocket science.



The ARM vs Amiga custom chips might required some changes or external glue logic. But probably nothing big. And the gain is 7x performance..



Acorn perhaps had less cash on hand than Commodore Inc. And Irving Gould seemingly would fund things at times. Commodore also had their own fab and perhaps more engineers available. So it might not been that big deal. Also the corporate spirit matters. Just watch the difference between United Launch Alliance vs SpaceX vs NASA.



With deep pockets, in-house fab and a long payroll of good engineers a lot of things can be done in a short time.

No way was an ARM chip going to happen for the first Amiga. You don't go from "first availability" of a processor to full production, with a re-write of large chunks of the operating system and the compiler needed to compile the operating system, plus the necessary work to re-design the support chips for an ARM bus cycle in 3 months.

The original system took more than 3 years to design and build... you're suggesting that a large part of that effort could be duplicated in a tenth of the time. It's simply not possible. 

 

 

[neutrino]

On 1/5/2023 at 12:18 AM, StephenHorn said:

another plausible route to survival for C= would have been to lean into videogame hardware

So the 64GS but released in the 1980s and hopefully for a lower price or else the C64 would been more attractive?

The core problem for Commodore regardless of technical opportunities was that they had a chairman Irving Gould that would hire managers like Mehdi Ali. But he must been good because his salary was 2 million US$/year in 1989.

More trouble can likely be found in the board room: "The seven-member Commodore board of directors - dominated by company managers and legal counsel - also awarded chairman Irving Gould a $750,000 salary increase - boosting his salary to $1.25 million. Ali, Gould and executive vice president Henri Rubin, in addition to Commodore's Bahamian legal counsel, serve as directors." (src)

My observation is that economists, MBAs, political scientists, managers, humanities educated, lawyers have a too thin grip on technology and a too limited mindset to steer a technology company to success. Also HR departments can wreck a healthy company culture.

[neutrino]

@TomXP411 Another option would been to delay the launch. And the original Amiga team had limited cash, no chipfab nor an army of engineers. Commodore had resources but they didn't own the Amiga technology until ~June 1984. So within one year they turned a pack of circuit boards (Lorraine) into ASIC chips, motherboard, case, consumer power supply, manuals etc that could ship.

Also no need to duplicate the effort. It's a change of CPU, not the central design philosophy. And done with a lot of resources.

 

[Calculon]

On 1/4/2023 at 4:03 PM, neutrino said:

@TomXP411 Another option would been to delay the launch. And the original Amiga team had limited cash, no chipfab nor an army of engineers. Commodore had resources but they didn't own the Amiga technology until ~June 1984. So within one year they turned a pack of circuit boards (Lorraine) into ASIC chips, motherboard, case, consumer power supply, manuals etc that could ship.



Also no need to duplicate the effort. It's a change of CPU, not the central design philosophy. And done with a lot of resources.



 

Should probably also mention that the ARM was designed in collaboration with VLSI, using that company's custom design tools. That means even if they purchased Acorn 1) VLSI would likely demand to be the fabricator and paid as such, and 2) the proprietary nature of the design would be difficult to move away to Commodore's operation.

It's a fun idea, but some things can't be hand-waved.

[StephenHorn]

On 1/4/2023 at 5:47 PM, neutrino said:

So the 64GS but released in the 1980s and hopefully for a lower price or else the C64 would been more attractive?



The core problem for Commodore regardless of technical opportunities was that they had a chairman Irving Gould that would hire managers like Mehdi Ali. But he must been good because his salary was 2 million US$/year in 1989.



More trouble can likely be found in the board room: "The seven-member Commodore board of directors - dominated by company managers and legal counsel - also awarded chairman Irving Gould a $750,000 salary increase - boosting his salary to $1.25 million. Ali, Gould and executive vice president Henri Rubin, in addition to Commodore's Bahamian legal counsel, serve as directors." (src)



My observation is that economists, MBAs, political scientists, managers, humanities educated, lawyers have a too thin grip on technology and a too limited mindset to steer a technology company to success. Also HR departments can wreck a healthy company culture.

Oof, yeah, I hadn't known about the 64GS, but it definitely looks like C= did see the NES and said "But what if we learn nothing from their success and ship something objectively worse in every way?"