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           The Commodore 64
                 from
             On The Edge:
       The Spectacular Rise and
          Fall of Commodore
           by Brian Bagnall

               Part III

Winter CES

    The Winter CES rolled around on
the first weekend of January. "When
you worked for Commodore, you always
had to have something for the Winter
CES," says Yannes.

    The night before departing for Las
Vegas, the engineers prepared to
transport their delicate prototypes.
"We were putting the things together
and packing them up to ship them,"
recalls Yannes.

    Once in Las Vegas, the engineers
hauled their prototypes to Jack
Tramiel's suite. He would determine
whether it was worth showing to the
crowds. The tired engineers took up a
corner and readied their prototypes.
"We were pretty burned out just from
getting this stuff ready for the
show," says Yannes.

    Robert Russell remembers
overhearing Jack and his inner circle
discussing their plans while he
worked. "I was in Jack's hotel suite
preparing a demonstration," recalls
Russell. "There was some strange stuff
I saw. He would be going over things
with the European and Asian cronies
about them getting things in and out
of countries. I don't know how legal a
lot of it was. I didn't want to know
some of that stuff because it sounded
like you might end up in a barrel
someplace."

    It was clear to Russell that Jack
and his inner circle were prepared to
do almost anything in the name of
business. "They were so bad," says
Russell, laughing so hard he can
barely speak. "There were times they
were pissed off at certain people.
Customs and duties were a lot more
complicated in those days than they
are these days. Every country in
Europe was different. They made
certain threats because they were
having problems with some of the
European countries as far as how they
were handling product and dealing with
all the issues."

    Although the young engineers
worked hard on the VIC-40, there was
no plan to display the computer. "It
wasn't even planned to be on the floor
or anything," says Russell. No one
except for Jack and his small group of
engineers were aware of the project.
"We actually took it and showed it to
him and some of his cronies in his
suite in the hotel. Those guys didn't
know about it at all until we showed
it."

    The nervous engineers displayed
the result of over a month of
compressed labor. "We told him what it
was, how simple it was, and what it
could cost," recalls Russell. "He
said, 'Put it on the floor.'"

    As Winterble predicted, marketing
was not happy to hear about the
secretive project. "When these guys
found out about it, and found out that
they were not involved in it, then
right away you can imagine: it hit the
fan," says Winterble. "It was
turmoil."

    With no advanced warning of the
product, Kit Spencer had to work
non-stop to prepare print material for
the prototype. "The marketing guys
ended up claiming it was going to do
everything under the sun on the
charts," says Russell. For the most
part, the engineers dictated the
content of the advertisements. "We
told the marketing guys what to write
down and made up signs."

    The VIC-40 name lasted through
most of the production design.
However, marketing wanted to change
the name to match the other computers
in the Commodore lineup. They already
had the P128, which was a personal
computer with 128 kilobytes. They also
had the B256, which was a business
computer with 256 kilobytes. Now they
had a consumer computer with 64
kilobytes, so naturally it became the
C64. Most people just called it the
Commodore 64.

    Compared to most prototype
demonstrations, the Commodore 64 was
remarkably complete. "Almost all the
stuff that was put together quickly
for the show was not anything that was
real," says Yannes. "They were smoke
and mirrors. Part of it was just to
get some press at the show and to
gauge people's reaction to things. The
Commodore 64 was probably one of the
most real things that showed at a
show."

    Yannes was too inexperienced, too
quiet, and too much of an engineer to
become involved with demonstrating his
prototype. "The only reason I was
there was in case it broke and needed
to be fixed," he explains. "I was
pretty much off to the side, but I
think there were a few times when I
was called upon to explain some of the
features and capabilities,
particularly when it came to the
sound."

    There was not much competition at
the 1982 Winter CES. Commodore's main
rival, Atari, was still showing their
Atari 400 and 800 computers. Mattel
introduced the Aquarius computer, and
a company called Spectravideo
introduced the SV 318. Both of these
machines were similar to the VIC-20 in
specifications, but both were doomed
largely because of their calculator-
style keyboards.

    Yannes also spied on potential
competitors. "One of the things I was
supposed to do at that show was to
case the competition and check what
was going on at the other places.
Charlie or Al asked me to do it," he
recalls. The competition was weak.
"There wasn't really anything out
there. It really was a coup because
Apple and Atari and everybody else
were just pretty much showing what
they already had with a few little
additions here and there."

    The Commodore 64 was also able to
demonstrate a full line of peri-
pherals, including the disk drive. "It
used the VIC-20 disk drive and the
VIC-20 printer and all the peripherals
that had been designed for the
VIC-20," says Yannes. "We didn't have
time to design new peripherals."

        [Continued in Part IV]