Hi everyone. I’m happy to report that my new book, Commodore: a Company on the Edge, is now available from
VariantPress.com. This is a heavily reworked edition with about 40% new material. Before starting this project I made a list of everything that I would have liked to include in the first edition. The main areas I wanted to work on were: more interviews to fill in gaps in the story, reorder the material chronologically and add more period photographs. It was very important to me to put all this material in the right order so readers could read a coherent, chronological retelling of Commodore history. This time you can relive the Commodore experience in real-time.
Originally the goal was to keep the same page count as the first edition. That turned out to be overly optimistic. After 15 new interviews and a lot of new stories, plus numerous pictures, there was no way to make it all fit. As a result, the story has been split in two. The first book ends in 1984 when Jack Tramiel is forced out of the company and the next book will focus on the Amiga years and Commodore’s eventual demise.
There are many new firsthand interviews:
Brian Dougherty – GEOS developer
John Feagans – PET developer
Andy Finkel – Commodore game developer
Bill Gardei – C65 systems engineer
Neil Harris – Commodore game developer and marketing
Manfred Kapp – Commodore cofounder
Dale Luck – Amiga developer
Bill Mensch – 6502 and 65816 designer
Dick Sanford – Chief Financial Officer of Commodore
Bill Seiler – PET, VIC-20 systems engineer/surfer
Kit Spencer – Commodore’s marketing guru
Yash Terakura – Commodore Japan engineer
Michael Tomczyk – VIC product manager and marketing
Plus additional fact-checking interviews with Chuck Peddle, Bil Herd and Bob Yannes. I did get a chance to talk with Jack Tramiel briefly but didn't get any new material from him unfortunately.
I don't want to ruin too many surprises, but I will mention a few things. First, thanks to John Feagans, an avid photographer, the book is populated with outstanding period photographs. One of the biggest surprises for me was finding out that current Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata started his career programming VIC-20 games for Commodore Japan. The book digs deeper into actor William Shatner’s association with Commodore and reveals some interesting tidbits. There is also a firsthand account of the horrifying PET Jet disaster. Lots of new changes like that.
The book will be available in stores in about a month. If you need it for Christmas you can get it immediately from my publisher, Variant Press, which distributes signed copies from its website.
www.variantpress.com
