| Posted By
seff
on 2021-01-01
06:07:16
 |  C264 Series Market Failure in Retrospect
Hello all scene members!
Happy New Year!
What was the reason for the 264 series market failure?
After 36 years, on can understand that the product is not the computer itself (hardware, peripherals), but it is the whole overarching ecosystem. This is described in "Platform Revolution", written by Geoffrey G. Parker, Marshall W. Van Alstyne and Sangeet Paul Choudary. There are many examples today: Uber, Airbnb, Yelp, LinkedIn, Amazon, Facebook, Android, iOS, Snapchat, Instagram, PayPal, etc.
In principle there are two forces revolving the platform:
--> users are attracted to the platform by the number of software programs and hardware peripherals
--> software and hardware developers are attracted to the platform by the number of users
The more users the larger the platform, the larger the platform, the more users…
So what was the ultimate failure that killed the 264 line?
1) Pricing
The Plus/4 was sold for $299. The 116 was sold for DM 199. They were designed cheap to sell for $49 to $79. The all-in-on TED was designed cheap, no sprites, no SID, of course. The data bus was shared between the CPU and the TED. But that was OK. Programmers could do miracles.
2) Memory - the Common Denominator
The C116 and C16 were manufactured with only 16 KB of RAM. This has had a dire effect on software development. At that time, Sinclair ZX Spectrum had 48 KB of RAM, and that was the competitor to C116.
3) Built-in Third Party Software
The Trend Micro software packages were worthless. And you couldn’t even save files to the cassette recorder. To "revolve" the platform, you would need something like GEOS, or C, Pascal, or Turbo Assembler to attract more users and produce more software. GEOS was late to the game in 1986. The C and Pascal interpreters could have been an option. Turbo Assembler would have been a great choice. Remember, it was 1984.
The hardware compatibility with C64 and VIC-20 was not an issue.
Practically one had access to all standard Commodore peripherals:
- Printers
- Floppy Disk Drives (with the serial port)
- Joysticks (with an adapter)
- Cassette recorders (with an adapter)
So what do you think were the main forces and drivers that contributed to the market failure of the 264 series?
I wish you all a happy computing in 2021!
Seff
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Posted By
George
on 2021-01-01
08:00:47
 | Re: C264 Series Market Failure in Retrospect
Hello seff and Happy New Year!
As far as i understod Bill Herd in his videos, the main reason was, that Jack Tramiel at that time left Commodore, his company. I am sure he would have made the 264 a success. After him the original idea to market the TED as lowcost competitor was altered and became the mess you described.
But some other reason might have been:
* The 8-bit alternatives to the plus/4, C16, C116 were cheaper and had more supported hard&software (esp. games) even within Commodore.
* The rise of the 16bit machines in 1985 (Atari, Commodore). Jack Tramiel bought Atari and released the Atari ST line in 1985. Some of the commodore engineers went with him. Ira Valenski designed the plus/4 case and the Atari ST case by the way...The ST feels to me like an "upgraded" commodore plus/4
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Posted By
seff
on 2021-01-01
08:41:09
| Re: C264 Series Market Failure in Retrospect
Agree with you @George
The CBM completely lost its leadership: Jack Tramiel had a vision for the C264 series - the TED to be an educational computer.
It is rightly described in the Commodore Software Presentation donated by Michael Tomczyk here:
Commodore Software Division presentation from February 9, 1984.
https://archive.org/details/commodoresoftwarepresentation/page/n13/mode/2up?q=ted
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Posted By
Litwr
on 2021-01-05
10:41:15
| Re: C264 Series Market Failure in Retrospect
IMHO Jack Tramiel was persuaded to leave Commodore exactly because of the Commodore 264. Those cheap computers could have completely purged the 8-bit computer market. It is also possible that, having the Amiga, Tramiel would not have spent Commodore resources on the poor IBM PC compatible computers. He would rather develop the Amiga superb technology...
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Posted By
seff
on 2021-01-05
11:44:30
| Re: C264 Series Market Failure in Retrospect
According to Jack Tramiel, it was because of Irving Gould, who would constantly "milk the company" and exploit the Commodore's assets (private jet, funds, etc.). Jack Tramiel was supposedly the opposite, he wanted to "to build a company".
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Posted By
Litwr
on 2021-01-05
13:13:34
| Re: C264 Series Market Failure in Retrospect
These were reasons from Jack but it was only Gould who knew his reasons.  IMHO Irving was a manifestation of global market regulators in Commodore, he could spend "his" money only according to the regulators (the global banking system) plans. Further Commodore growth was not in those plans. Money is very crazy thing!
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Posted By
MMS
on 2021-01-05
16:12:20
 | Re: C264 Series Market Failure in Retrospect
AFAIK the main reason of the conflict between Gould and Jack, that the later -after seeing the latest development and news on CES- wanted to develop a 32 bit computer. At that time he was not aware of the Amiga platform (even Commodore was not aware of the team working on that arcade, but expandable platform).
Gould -as told- was just willing to milk the cow (successful 8 bit line), and he found it too risky and costly to develop a 32 bit based platform from zero.
Jack was a visionary person (like Steve Jobs), and always after continuous development.
He understood, that he will not get the money from Gould to develop a new 32bit computer line, so he left.
AAmiga and any other 32 bit platform was not in the plans of C=, it was come into picture after Jack bought Atari. C= management got aware of Amiga project only after Jack left, and started the discussion. They knew, with that quick step (buying Amiga team and the platform) Jack could completely eliminate Commodore from the market, that's why they bough it for a rather high price. Jack made the mistake: he made clear during the discussion he does not need the Amiga team, just the hardware (he had his own engineers left C=), and wanted the project at a very low price. Certainly the Amiga team wanted a different buyer than this, and Commodore promised everything (although within few years C= management changed the project focus, and fired the project members step by step (if they did no leave themselves)).
About the 264 series, my view:
Jack was a visionary person, but not all his visions fulfilled.
He was aware that Microsoft is establishing the MSX series, and he was afraid, that the standarized, cheap Japanese computers will be a huge challange to the Commodore 8 bits. (in fact, a specification miskake made the MSX lines alsmot incompatible with each other, and only with smart (and slow) programming it could be managed (this was that Microsoft did not define the memory bank addresses of the RAM, ROM, etc, so every producer made his own version, almsot killed the compatibility of the MSX machines)
Also, Jack wanted to take over UK, and at the time the 264 project established, the main seller was ZX Spectrum 16K. He did not expect, that 48K version will be that affordable. But situation quickly changed.
The C116 was more competitive in every single point than the 16KB ZX Spectrum. Similar speed with the more efficient 6502 code, two times more sound, much more colors, higher resolutions, built in floppy controller, proper video and sound output. But the weak (and really hard + costy) memory upgrade of the C116/C16 line became a fatal failure when the most of the 16KB ZX Spectrums were quickly upgraded to 48KB by Sinclair themselves. Most of the iconic games on ZX Spectrum were made for 48KB, even the game cartridge of the ZX with Interface 1 was a failure due to 16KB limitation, only the most simple games were fit. You can imagine, how much more complex those iconic C16 games could be with just 32KB RAM.
The built-in SW of +4 could be in real use, if would not be so much limited in some unlogical way (like the maximum 100 lines in a text editor, the free RAM did not explain this) or would better fit to the configuration most of the +4 setups sold (mainly the systems were sold with datasette, but 3+1 could not use it, 1541 was pretty expensive, 1551 was rare and late).
I think the little "Home office" PC concept (after Jack left) could work with the IEEE-488 PET devices could be linked with the +4, with a little less limited built-in SW, and a really working memory upgrade possibility. But saving to datasette could let more ppl use it, at least. All the kernal routines for that are in the machine...
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Posted By
seff
on 2021-01-05
15:56:59
| Re: C264 Series Market Failure in Retrospect
The same mistake was made by Warner Communications Corporation (when they owned Atari).
Warner didn't want to introduce a successor to Atari 2600, they kept on milking the cashcow as long as possible.
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Posted By
Litwr
on 2021-01-08
04:21:14
| Re: C264 Series Market Failure in Retrospect
@MMS Jack wanted the Amiga without its team?! What a crazy world!
IMHO if someone wants to milk the cow he must graze it. But they rather used their cows as meat. Commodore could finish the development of the promising Commodore LCD and then just drop it. They also dropped almost finished the C65. They spent resources for the development of the Commodore PC compatibles... No, it is definitely not just milking.
IMHO the regulators wanted Commodore for three things:
1) stop too advancing technologies from the rapid development (the 6502, Amiga);
2) do not bother other American computer companies (Texas Instruments was an exception);
3) prevent European computer companies from rapid development of their technologies.
@MMS the C116 was generally better than the ZX Spectrum. It had much better graphics, Basic and peripherals. It could be expanded to 64 KB quite naturally when the ZX was limited to 48 KB.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2021-01-06
05:56:37
| Re: C264 Series Market Failure in Retrospect
Someone told (who was close to C= back in the early 90s) that the C65 project was never took really seriously, just made busy those (older) engineers, who were too expereinced to let them to go, but wwere useless in the Amiga projects.
Commodore PC compatibles were interesting ones.
AFAIK the Commodore LCD was again C= Management's failure :-).
It was showed on the next 1985 CES, and someone from an Tandy company convienced Commodore’s CEO, Marshall Smith , that the portables has no future
So this visionary computer was completely cancelled (was 3 years before Sinclair's Cambridge z88!), and the LCD business of Commodore sold.
(Tandy few years later they offered a wide range of laptops, and the offered the very first real PC compatible laptop in 1988 ).
Worth to compare them:
Tandy 1400 1988:
http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2017/03/a-modern-practical-guide-to-tandy-1400.html
Commodore LCD 1985:
https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Commodore_LCD
C116 expandability:
It is a long dispute here. C16 and C116 RAM upgarde was never officially supported by Commodore by any Cartridge, like in case of VIC-20.
Som HW experts say here, that if you connect a RAM upgrade to the "memory expansion"(!!! :-D ) port it goes against the inner RAM chips and it is unhealhty for the computer. So you need to cut a trace on the mobo to do a properly working RAM expansion for the C116. (there was a RAM Enable pin on the memory expansion port, never really linked to TED). So, I can say the C116 and C16 were not really prepeared for easy RAM upgrade.
As I see, the 16KB Spectrums were kind of prepared for the 48K upgrade, like the Rev B motherboard had socketed LS and RAM chips. So the kit you can order just require the swapping of few ICs. Back in the time the first REV A versions could be sent back to Sinclair to do the upgrade (C= never offered such a thing for the machines).
It is a five minutes job.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc4K6CihMEY
The upgrade of the 48KB Spectrums to 128KB has similar complexity as the Plus/4 RAM upgrade.
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Posted By
seff
on 2021-01-06
14:24:26
| Re: C264 Series Market Failure in Retrospect
Commodore LCD is shown in the video at 16:42 here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMD2nF7meDI
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Posted By
Litwr
on 2021-01-10
05:27:48
| Re: C264 Series Market Failure in Retrospect
@MMS excuse me but there is no logic in actions to keep older C64 engineers while firing expert Amiga engineers. And what those "too experienced" engineers did since 1982? Even the C128 was made by Bil Herd without them.
The C65 was a long awaited upgrade to the old C64, it could have some success like the Commodore Joystick in the late 90s.
I know that anecdote about a Tandy man and a stupid Commodore man around the Commodore LCD but it is just an anecdote. Commodore just was not allowed to bother IBM, Tandy or Apple... Indeed only Irving Gould knew all the picture.
Commodore didn't support memory upgrades for the C16/C116 exactly for the same reason, their management didn't allow such things. They wanted just to meat one little cow. You know any man who knows a bit about soldering can easily upgrade C16/116 to 64 KB.
- - - - - - an addition - - - -
IMHO Jack Tramiel would never start the Commodore PC. The Amiga was much better than the IBM PC XT and could compete with the first IBM AT. He didn't make the IBM PC compatible computers in Atari, he was quite a personality like Apple top managers.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2021-01-10
13:14:09
| Re: C264 Series Market Failure in Retrospect
Well, as I know, a several key engineers left with Jack from Commodore. (ATARI ST housing was designed by Ira Velinsky, who designed the Plus/4 too)
The Amiga team originally wanted to create an arcade machine, so there was a kind of tension between the C= management and the original Amiga team. The Amiga later developments (including A2000 oe 1200, 3000) by Dave Haynie, whose first task at Commodore was related to Plus/4 (maybe the kernal? I am not sure), so he was not the member of the original Amiga core team.
The closest things related to the idea of arcade "upgradeable machine" (of the original Amiga team) was CDTV and CD32.
C65: Interesting, that our machine also mentioned
"The Gazette added, "Our sources also report that there is a great deal of infighting at Commodore as to whether the machine should be released. The sales staff wants to get the machine out the door, while the naysaying engineers have dubbed it 'son of Plus/4.'"While the next issue reported that "the latest rumor is that such a machine will never see the light of day", Fred Bowen and others at Commodore in 1990–1991 developed the Commodore 65 (C65) as a successor to the C64. In the end of 1990 the decision to create the C65 was taken. The project was cancelled later on."
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Posted By
Stinaris
on 2021-01-11
08:29:25
 | Re: C264 Series Market Failure in Retrospect
The C65 is a bit of an oddity. Considering they, Commodore, didn't want to invest in future products it was an extremely odd move. The Amiga had already been around for 6 years and the C65 was a similar machine albeit 8 bit. Similar in philosophy to the SAM Coupe.
I can't imagine it would ever have sold in any quantities in 1991.
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Posted By
Litwr
on 2021-01-18
03:38:00
| Re: C264 Series Market Failure in Retrospect
@Stinaris Why was the C65 an oddity? Indeed it was rather late but not too late. Ppl bought the C64 even in 1993. I mentioned afore that the Commodore Joystick (DTV) was sold well even in the end of the 90s...
IMHO the real oddity was the C128 which Basic was two times slower than the C64 Basic and its the Z80 was slower than the Z80 in the first Tandy computer from 1977.
Don't also forget about the Commodore PC which undermined both the C64 and Amiga... They were developing their IBM PC cloned while stopped developing the C64 and slowed down developing the Amiga.
@MMS "The Amiga team originally wanted to create an arcade machine" - it sounds crazy for me - why did they develop so advanced OS for it then?
It is interesting that the Amiga could have used the 16-bit 6502 - http://www.commodore.ca/commodore-history/the-rise-of-mos-technology-the-6502/
I've just found an interesting page about the TED-computers - http://www.commodore.ca/commodore-products/commodore-264-plus4-ted-series-the-beginning-of-the-end/
It is interesting that a video about the Archimedes and Amiga - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1osEX6eYHE - starts with the Plus/4...
EDIT.
@MMS I've just found a very good set of stories about the Amiga - here - so the Amiga was definitely not planned as just a game console.
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