Atari vs. Commodore: The Home Computer War (PCGH-Retro, July 2)

…1984: Jack Tramiel, an American entrepreneur with Polish roots, became known through his company Commodore: The company was already producing computers for the masses in the late 1970s and finally made itself immortal with the C64 model, the best-selling home computer in history. But despite all the success, Tramiel had to leave his own company in 1984 – and shortly thereafter, on July 2nd, found a new field of employment: he took over the ailing home computer and video game producer Atari from Warner.

Tramiel is not interested in the video game market that has just collapsed. He stops working on new consoles and instead pushes the development of new home computers to replace the aging XL series. Tramiel strengthens Atari’s development department with former Commodore engineers around the C64 father Shiraz Shivji, who bring about the Atari ST in just five months: a powerful home computer that, thanks to its low price and good equipment including a graphical user interface, has become a bestseller. But the ST series soon faced competition: Tramiel’s former company, Commodore, took over the young hardware developer Amiga and launched its new home computer as the Commodore Amiga, which caused difficulties for the ST, especially with the Amiga 500 model. This computer was originally intended as a commissioned work for Atari – after all, Amiga had only been founded shortly before: by former Atari employees.

In the home computer war of the 1980s, Atari and Commodore were fighting with swapped weapons, so to speak. Incidentally, there is no winner in this duel: Both manufacturers are subject to IBM’s PC standard and disappear into insignificance.