COMMODORE Commodore is the computer company that's called ``the house that Jack built'', because it was started by Jack Tramiel. How Commodore began Jack began his career by being in the wrong place at the wrong time: he was a Jew in Poland during World War 2. He was thrown into the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he learned to view life as a war to survive. When he finally escaped from the camp, he moved to Canada and started an aggressive, ruthless business whose motto for survival was, ``Business is war!'' He called his company Commodore. At first, it just repaired typewriters; but it grew rapidly. Then Commodore built its own pocket calculators and sold them. War of the chips In Commodore's calculators, the CPU was a microprocessor chip manufactured by a company called MOS Technology. But MOS Technology was in trouble because of how that company had begun. . . . In 1974, the most popular microprocessors had been the Intel 8080 and the Motorola 6800. Chuck Peddle, who helped invent the 6800, quit Motorola in 1975 and founded MOS Technology with his friends. MOS Technology manufactured the 6501 microprocessor, which was so similar to Motorola's 6800 that Motorola threatened to sue. To placate Motorola, MOS Technology stopped manufacturing the 6501 and switched to the 6502, invented by Chuck Peddle and different enough from Motorola's 6800 to avoid a lawsuit. The 6502 chip became very popular; many companies paid MOS Technology to manufacture it. One of MOS Technology's biggest customers was Commodore. Although the 6502 was legal, Motorola sued MOS Technology for its illegal predecessor, the 6501. The suit dragged through the courts for two years and cost MOS Technology many thousands of dollars in lawyers' fees. Finally, in 1977, Motorola won $200,000. That put MOS Technology into financial trouble, so it announced a desire to be bought by some company having lots of cash. Commodore, rich by then, bought it. Just before that sale, Canada's tax laws changed. To duck taxes, Commodore moved its headquarters (in theory) to the Bahamas. That's how MOS Technology became part of ``Commodore Limited'', a Bahamanian company, and how Commodore found itself running a company that made chips. Commodore had entered the computer business. Dealing with competitors At MOS Technology, Chuck Peddle had sold a 6502 chip to Steve Wozniak for $25. Steve used the chip to create the Apple computer. When Commodore saw Apple computers becoming popular in California, Commodore offered to buy the Apple Computer Company ___ and almost succeeded. Apple wanted $15,000 more than Commodore offered, so the deal never came off. Commodore's regretted it ever since. Then Commodore hired Chuck Peddle to design a ``Commodore computer''. Commodore hoped to sell the Commodore computer to Radio Shack and let Radio Shack distribute it through Radio Shack's stores. Radio Shack said, ``Great idea! Finish designing your computer, and tell us more about it.'' Commodore finished designing it and showed it to Radio Shack. Radio Shack said, ``Your argument for selling low-cost computers was so convincing, we decided to build our own. Thanks for the idea.'' That's how Radio Shack got the idea of manufacturing computers! Pet Rebuffed by Apple and Radio Shack, Jack Tramiel decided to fight back by building a computer better and cheaper than anything Apple and Radio Shack had. Commodore called its new computer the Pet, because Commodore's marketing director was the same guy who invented the Pet Rock. He figured that if people were stupid enough to buy a Pet Rock, they'd really love a Pet computer! He was right: people loved the idea of a Pet Computer. Sales skyrocketed. Commodore told the press that ``Pet'' was an abbreviation for ``Personal Electronic Transactor''. Actually, Commodore invented ``Pet'' first and later made up what it stood for. Commodore announced the Pet in 1977 and said it would cost just $495. That price would include everything: the CPU, RAM, ROM, keyboard, monitor, and tape recorder. The ROM would have a good version of BASIC. The screen would display capital letters, lower-case letters, punctuation, math symbols, and many weirder symbols also (such as hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades, curves, circles, and rectangles). Other microcomputer manufacturers were scared because Commodore's price was far lower than everybody else's, Commodore's computer offered more features, and Commodore was wealthy enough to spend more on ads and marketing than all other manufacturers combined. Many computer magazines called the Pet ``the birth of a new generation'' in personal computers. The Pet's designer, Chuck Peddle, was treated to many interviews. Disappointments Commodore raised its price from $495 to $595 before taking orders. To order the Pet, the customer had to send the $595 in full, plus shipping charges, then wait for Commodore to deliver. Many folks mailed Commodore the money and waited a long time, but Commodore didn't ship. People got impatient. Computer stores that had advertised the Pet got annoyed. Though the stores had received many orders from customers, Commodore wasn't yet shipping. Customers complained to the stores, and the stores couldn't solve the problem. Meanwhile, Radio Shack entered the market with its TRS-80 model 1 priced at $599 ___ about the same price as Commodore's Pet. Radio Shack was kinder than Commodore: Radio Shack asked customers for just a 10% deposit (Commodore required payment in full); Radio Shack didn't charge for shipping (Commodore did); Radio Shack set up repair centers throughout the USA (Commodore's only repair center was in California); and Radio Shack delivered computers quickly (Commodore still wasn't delivering!). Finally, Commodore admitted that the $595 Pet would not be delivered anytime soon! Commodore would deliver instead a $795 version that included 4K of extra RAM. So if you already sent $595 to Commodore and wanted a computer soon, you'd have to send an extra $200. That was a rip-off, since 4K of extra RAM was not worth an extra $200. But customers were so desperate that they sent the $200 anyway. Radio Shack shipped its computers on a first-come, first-served basis. Commodore didn't: Commodore gave preferential treatment to its ``friends''. If you ordered a Radio Shack computer, Radio Shack gave you an accurate estimate of when you'd receive the computer. If you ordered a computer from Commodore, you hadn't the faintest idea of when it would arrive, because you didn't know how many ``friends'' were on Commodore's list. Radio Shack's computer came with a 232-page manual that was cheery and easy. Commodore's computer came with just 10 loose pages that were incomplete and hard to understand. After announcing a low-cost printer, Commodore changed its mind and decided to sell just an expensive printer. After announcing a low-cost disk drive, Commodore changed its mind and decided to sell just an expensive unit containing two disk drives. Those wrong announcements lowered public confidence in Commodore even further. That's how Commodore entered the personal computer market. And that's why the Pet (which at first was the best-selling computer) managed to drop in popularity, below Radio Shack, and even below Apple. Commodore dropped from being the #1 microcomputer company to being #3, after Radio Shack (#1) and Apple (#2). Commodore came out with a souped-up Pet, called the Commodore Business Machine (CBM). But that wasn't enough to let Commodore rise above the number 3 spot. As Commodore's fortunes dipped, Chuck Peddle and his friends quit. Apple hired them but treated them as second-class citizens, so they returned to Commodore. The problem with RAM Commodore came out with several versions of the Pet. Each version contained a different quantity of RAM. If you bought a stripped-down version and later wanted to increase its RAM, Commodore refused to install extra RAM. Instead, Commodore insisted that you buy a whole new Pet. Some Commodore customers, who couldn't afford a new Pet, bought extra RAM chips from chip dealers and installed the chips themselves. To stop those tinkerers, Commodore played dirty: it began cutting a hole in the PC board where the extra RAM chips would go, so the tinkerers couldn't insert the chips. That nasty hole angered customers, who realized that Commodore spent almost as much money to cut the hole as it would have cost to provide the extra RAM chips! The problem with tape Commodore changed the Pet to handle tapes differently. The new Pet tape system was incompatible with the old Pet tape system: tapes created for the old Pet wouldn't work on the new Pet. Commodore didn't notify customers of the change. The new Pet looked just like the old Pet; it didn't contain any kind of label saying ``new''. Customers who wrote programs for old Pets and then bought additional Pets discovered that their programs didn't work on the new Pets. They thought their new Pets were broken. When Commodore secretly changed the tape system, companies selling tapes of Pet computer programs received angry letters from customers who bought the tapes and couldn't make the tapes work on their new Pets. The customers though the companies were crooks; the companies thought the customers were lying; and it took a long time for people to realize that the real culprit was Commodore, who had changed the Pet without telling anybody. When the companies discovered that Commodore had changed the Pet without providing a label to distinguish new Pets from old, the companies realized they'd have to give each customer two copies of each program, so the customer could try both versions. That's when many companies gave up trying to sell Pet tapes. They sold tapes for Apple and Radio Shack computers instead. That's why there's more software for Apple and Radio Shack than for Commodore. Vic Because of World War 2, Jack was scared of Nazis and the Japanese. He feared that the Japanese would suddenly invade the USA by flooding America with cheap Japanese computers to put Commodore and other American companies out of business. And he noticed that Commodore's share of the computer market was already sinking. Paranoid, in April 1980 he called his engineers together and screamed at them, ``The Japanese are coming! The Japanese are coming! So we'll become the Japanese!'' He laid out his bold plan: Commodore would build the world's first under-$300 computer to display colors on an ordinary TV and produce three-part harmony through the TV's speaker. At that time, the only under-$300 computer was Sinclair's ZX-80, which was black-and-white and crummy. Commodore's engineers replied, ``Build a color computer cheaply? Impossible!'' Jack replied, ``Do it!'' Commodore's engineers finally managed to do it. MOS Technology, owned by Commodore, had already invented the amazing Video Interface Chip (Vic), which could handle the entire process of sending computer output to the TV screen. Since that chip was so cheap, Commodore decided to use it in the under-$300 computer. Unfortunately, it put just 22 characters per line on the screen. (By contrast, the Pet had 40 characters per line, and most computers today have 80 characters per line.) So the under-300 computer would display just 22 characters per line. Naming the computer Since the new computer was feminine and foxy, Commodore wanted to call it the ``Vixen''. But Commodore discovered that a ``Vixen'' computer couldn't sell in Germany, because ``Vixen'' sounds like the German word ``Wichsen'', which is obscene. Commodore hastily changed the name to Vic and ran TV ads for the ``Vic'' computer. But that got Commodore into even worse trouble, because ``Vic'' sounds like the German word ``Ficke'', which is even more obscene! Although Commodore still calls it the ``Vic'' in the United States, Commodore calls it the ``VC'' computer in Germany and pretends ``VC'' stands for ``Volks Computer''. Price Commodore began shipping the Vic in 1981. The original price was $299.95. Over the years, the price gradually dropped, so that stores eventually sold the Vic for about $55. Ads To sell the Vic, Commodore tried three kinds of ads. The first featured TV star William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk in Star Trek. The ad emphasized how the Vic was wonderful, amazing, out of this world, fun, exciting. But then people started thinking of the Vic as just a sci-fi toy. To combat the ``toy'' image, Commodore changed to a second kind of ad, which said the Vic was as cheap as a video-game machine but more educational for your kids. When Texas Instruments began making similar claims, Commodore changed to a third kind of ad, which revealed that Commodore's disk drives, printers, and phone hookups cost much less than Texas Instruments'. Popularity The Vic's low price, fun colors, and effective ads made it become popular fast in the USA, England, Germany, and Japan. Commodore quickly sold over a million Vics! The Vic became the world's best-selling computer! Commodore 64 In 1982, Commodore began selling an improved Vic, called the Commodore 64 because it included 64K of RAM. (The original Vic had just 5K.) The Commodore 64 also improved on the Vic by displaying 40 characters per line (instead of just 22) and including 20K of ROM (instead of just 16K). Price The Commodore 64's price went through 4 phases. In phase 1, the recommended list price was $599.95, and Commodore tried to force all its dealers to charge that price in full. If a dealer advertised a discount, Commodore refused to send that dealer any more computers. (Commodore's policy was an example of price fixing, which is illegal.) In phase 2, Commodore allowed discounts. Dealers charged just $350. Moreover, Commodore mailed a $100 rebate to anybody trading in another computer or a video-game machine, even if that computer or game was worth less than $100. Bargain-hunters bought the cheap Timex Sinclair 1000 computer just to trade in for a Commodore 64. A New York dealer, ``Crazy Eddy'', sold junky video-game machines for $10 just so his customers could mail them to Commodore for the $100 rebate. Commodore donated most of the traded-in computers and games to charities for a tax write-off but kept some Timex Sinclair 1000's for use as doorstops. In phase 3, Commodore stopped the $100 cash rebate but offered a lower over-the-counter price. Discount dealers sold the Commodore 64 for just $148. In phase 4, the Commodore sold an improved version called the Commodore 64C, whose keyboard contained extra keys. Discount dealers sold the Commodore 64C for just $119. The Commodore 64C came with a free copy of the Geos operating system, which made the computer resemble a Mac. Why so cheap? Here's why the Commodore 64 cost so much less than an Apple 2c or IBM PC. The Commodore 64's advertised price did not include a disk drive or monitor. Moreover, Commodore's disk drives and monitors were terrible. Commodore's original disk drive, the Model 1541, needed repairs frequently (because its head went out of alignment). It ran ridiculously slowly (because its cable to the computer contained just one wire to transmit data, instead of several wires in parallel). It put very little info on the disk (just single-sided single-density). Commodore's original color monitor, the Model 1702, produced a blurry image (because the monitor was composite instead of RGB). The image was not sharp enough to display 80 characters per line clearly, though it was adequate for displaying 40; so most Commodore 64 software displayed just 40 characters per line. IBM PC software displayed 80 instead. Another problem with Commodore's video was that the M looked too much like N, and the B looked like 8. Eventually, Commodore developed an improved monitor (the 1802) and improved disk drives (the 1541C and 1541-2). The Commodore 64's version of BASIC wasn't as fancy as the IBM PC's. In fact, it was even worse than the Apple 2's. For example, it didn't even include a command to let you draw a diagonal line across the screen. The Commodore 64's printer port was non-standard: it worked only with the strange printers manufactured by Commodore, unless you bought a special adapter. The Commodore 64's keyboard included just 66 keys, and its layout was archaic. The Commodore 64's CPU, the 6502, was slower than the 65C02 CPU in the current Apple 2e & 2c and much slower than the CPU in the IBM PC. Popularity The Commodore 64 became popular because it was cheap. Commodore sold over a million of them. Because of that popularity, many programmers who wrote programs for Apple computers rewrote their programs to also work on the Commodore 64. Soon the Commodore 64 ran nearly as many popular programs as the Apple 2c but cost less. Even after adding on the price of a disk drive and a monitor, Commodore 64 still totalled less than the price of an Apple 2e, Apple 2c, IBM PC, or IBM PC Junior. The Commodore 64 contained a fancy music synthesizer chip that produced a wide variety of musical tone qualities. When the Commodore 64 played music, it sounded much better than an Apple 2e or 2c or IBM. Jack jumps ship After the Commodore 64 became successful, Jack Tramiel wanted to hire his sons to help run Commodore; but Commodore's other major shareholders refused to deal with Jack's sons. So Jack quit. He sold his 2 million shares of Commodore stock, at $40 per share, netting himself 80 million dollars in cash. After Jack quit, Commodore tried selling two new computers ___ the Commodore 16 and Commodore Plus 4 ___ but they had serious flaws. Then Commodore invented two great computers: the Commodore 128 and Amiga. Commodore 128 The Commodore 128 ran all the Commodore 64 software and also included a better version of BASIC, a better keyboard, and better video. To go with it, Commodore invented a superior RGB monitor (the Model 1902) and a superior disk drive (the Model 1571). Later, Commodore invented the Commodore 128D computer, which included a built-in disk drive. Amiga The Amiga is Commodore's newest and fanciest computer. It contains three special chips that produce fast animated graphics in beautiful shades of color. Like the Mac, it uses a mouse and pull-down menus. The Amiga's first version was called the Amiga 1000. Later, Commodore replaced it by newer versions: the Amiga 500, Amiga 600, Amiga 1200, Amiga 2000, Amiga 3000, and Amiga 4000. Amigas are used mainly by video professionals and by others interested in animated graphics. Aside from graphics, not enough good software is available for Amigas. The Amigas are not compatible with the Commodore 64 or Mac. The Amiga 2000 can be made to imitate an IBM PC but costs more than most IBM PC clones. Bankruptcy In 1994, Commodore filed for bankruptcy because it had trouble paying its bills. Commodore's future is murky. TANDY Tandy, which owns Radio Shack, has been around for many years. Thanks to Tandy Radio Shack helped the computer industry in many ways. Radio Shack was the first big chain of stores to sell computers nationally. It was the first chain to reach rural areas. Radio Shack invented the first low-cost assembled computer. That was the TRS-80 model 1, which cost $599, including the monitor. Radio Shack was the first company to keep computer prices low without skimping on quality. Radio Shack sold the first notebook computer (the Tandy 100, invented by Tandy with help from Microsoft and a Japanese manufacturer, Kyocera). Radio Shack sold the first pocket computers, which were manufactured for Tandy by Sharp and Casio. Radio Shack invented the first cheap computer having fancy graphics commands. That was the Color Computer, whose BASIC was designed by Microsoft as a ``rough draft'' for the fancier BASIC in the IBM PC. But once the IBM PC came out and became the standard American computer, Tandy had difficulty figuring out how to be profitably innovative, since Americans want to buy just tradiitonal IBM PC's and clones. Tandy's given up trying to be wildly innovative. Now Radio Shack sells just IBM clones. Tandy tried some experiments in building IBM clones innovatively, but Tandy's never built anything as radical as Apple's Mac or Commodore's Amiga. Though Tandy's IBM clones cost less than the computers by IBM and Compaq, they cost much more than the clones offered by mail-order dealers. Mail-order dealers thank Tandy for charging high prices that are easy to beat! Nicknames Tandy's computers are often called ``TRS'' computers. The ``TRS'' stands for ``Tandy's Radio Shack''. People who dislike TRS computers add the letters A and H, and call them ``TRASH'' computers. Tandy's customers are therefore called ``trash collectors''. On the other hand, Apple lovers are called ``worms'', ``pie people'', ``fruits'', and ``suffering from Appleplexy''; Commodore lovers are called ``boat people'', ``swabbies'', and ``deck ducks''; IBM lovers are called ``blue bloods'' (because old IBM computers were blue); and kids who play with Atari computers are called ``Atari-eyed dreamers & screamers''. How Tandy began The Tandy Leather Company was begun by Charles Tandy. Later, he acquired Radio Shack, which had been a Boston-based chain of discount electronics stores. Under his leadership from his Fort Worth headquarters, Tandy/Radio Shack succeeded and grew 30% per year, helped by the CB radio craze that was sweeping the country. When the market for CB radios declined, he began looking for a new product to sell, to continue his 30% growth. Commodore was inventing a computer and tried to convince Tandy's staff to sell it. Don French, a Tandy salesman whose hobby was building computers, recommended to Charles Tandy that Radio Shack start selling computers. Instead of buying computers from Commodore, Radio Shack hired Steve Leininger to design a Radio Shack computer and keep the cost as low as possible. Steve wanted his computer to handle lower-case letters instead of just capitals. But since interfacing the lower-case chip would have added 10› to the cost, management rejected lower case: Radio Shack's computer handled just capitals. (In those days, lower-case letters weren't considered important. Later, when customers began demanding lower-case letters, Radio Shack regretted not spending the extra dime. Customers were spending $50 to rip open the Radio Shack and rearrange the chips to get lower-case.) The monitor was a modified black-and-white TV built for Radio Shack by RCA. RCA told Radio Shack that the standard color for the TV's case was ``Mercedes silver''; any other color would cost extra. Radio Shack accepted Mercedes silver and painted the rest of the computer to match the TV. When you get your hands on a Radio Shack computer, you're supposed to feel as if you're driving a Mercedes. But since Mercedes silver looked like gray, Radio Shack became nicknamed ``the great gray monster''. Californians preferred Apples, whose beige matched their living-room decors. (Later, in 1982, Radio Shack wised up and switched from ``Mercedes silver'' to white.) Radio Shack's original computer listed for just $599 and consisted of four devices: a keyboard (in which hid the CPU, ROM, & RAM), a monitor (built for Radio Shack by RCA), a cheap Radio Shack tape recorder, and an AC/DC transformer. Wires ran between those devices, so that the whole system looked like an octopus. Radio Shack wanted to put the AC/DC transformer inside the keyboard, so that the computer system would consist of three boxes instead of four. But if the AC/DC transformer had been inside the keyboard, Underwriters Laboratories would have delayed approval for 6 months, and Radio Shack didn't want to wait that long. Radio Shack named its computer the TRS-80 because it was by Tandy's Radio Shack and contained a Z-80 CPU. To officially announce its new computer, Radio Shack called a press meeting, to take place on a Monday morning in August 1977, on the front steps of the New York Stock Exchange. But when Radio Shack's management stood on those steps and were surrounded by reporters, a guy ran up to the group and yelled that a bomb had gone off two blocks away. The reporters all ran away to cover the story, and Radio Shack wasn't able to announce its new computer! Radio Shack rushed to find a new place to announce its computer. Radio Shack heard that the Boston Computer Society was going to run a computer show that week ___ Wednesday through Friday. So Radio Shack's management drove up to Boston, got a booth at the show, and announced its computer there. Radio Shack was shocked when it discovered that the entire show and entire Boston Computer Society were run by Jonathan Rotenberg, a 14-year-old kid! That intro was successful: people liked and bought Radio Shack's new computer. The base price was $599. For a complete business system (including two disk drives and a printer), Radio Shack charged $2600, while Radio Shack's competitors charged over $4500. Problems with DOS Radio Shack hired Randy Cook to write the DOS. My friend Dick Miller was one of the first people to try it. He noticed that DOS version 1.0 didn't work; it didn't even boot! He told Radio Shack, which told Randy Cook, who fixed the problem and wrote version 1.1. Dick noticed it worked better but still had a big flaw: it didn't tell you how much disk space was left and ___ even worse ___ as soon as the disk was filled it would self-destruct! Then came version 1.2. It worked better but not perfectly. Since Radio Shack's DOS was still buggy, Visicalc's inventors put Visicalc onto the Apple instead of the TRS-80. Apple became known as the ``Visicalc machine'', and many accountants began buying Apples instead of TRS-80's. Meanwhile, a Colorado company named Apparat invented its own improvements to Radio Shack's DOS. Apparat showed its improvements to Dick, who liked them and recommended calling them ``NEWDOS''. Many folks bought NEWDOS and formed NEWDOS colonies. Dealing with the public In 1977, when Radio Shack began selling the TRS-80, customers didn't understand what computers were. For example, at a Radio Shack show, I saw a police chief buy a TRS-80. While carrying it out of the room, he called back over his shoulder, ``By the way, how do you program it?'' He expected a one-sentence answer. Radio Shack provided a toll-free 800 number for customers to call in case they had any questions. Many customers called because they were confused. For example, many customers had this gripe: ``I put my mouth next to the tape recorder and yelled TWO PLUS TWO, but it didn't say FOUR!'' Radio Shack's first version of BASIC provided just three error messages: WHAT (which means ``I don't know what you're talking about''), HOW (which means ``I don't know how to handle a number that big'') and SORRY (which means ``I'm sorry I can't do that ___ you didn't buy enough RAM yet''). Those error messages confused beginners. For example, this conversation occurred between a Radio Shack customer and a Radio Shack technician who answered the 800 number (Chris Daly). . . . Chris:``What's your problem?'' Customer:``I plugged in the video, then the tape recorder, then . . . '' Chris:``Yes, sir, but what's the problem?'' Customer:``It doesn't work.'' Chris:``How do you know it doesn't work?'' Customer:``It says READY.'' Chris:``What's wrong with that? It's supposed to say READY.'' Customer:``It isn't ready.'' Chris:``How do you know it isn't ready?'' Customer:``I asked it `Where's my wife Martha?', and it just said WHAT.'' Other Z-80 computers After the TRS-80, Tandy invented improved versions: the TRS-80 Models 2, 3, 4, 4D, 4P, 12, 16, & 16B, and the Tandy 6000. Like the Model 1, they contained a Z-80 CPU and included a monochrome monitor. Coco To compete against the Commodore 64, Tandy invented the Color Computer, nicknamed the Coco. Folks who loved it started Hot Coco Magazine. Cynics thought the Coco was just a useless toy ___ a parody of a computer ___ and call it Coco the Clown. Like the Commodore 64, the Coco could attach to either a monitor or an ordinary TV, and it could store programs on either a disk or an ordinary cassette tape (the same kind of tape that you listen to music on). Tandy began selling the Coco in 1980 ___ the year before IBM began selling the PC. Microsoft, which invented the Coco's BASIC ROM, also invented the IBM PC's. The Coco's BASIC ROM was Microsoft's ``rough draft'' of the ROM that went into the IBM PC. The Coco could be described as ``an IBM PC that wasn't quite right yet''. In the Coco's BASIC, the commands for handling graphics and music were similar to the IBM PC's but slightly more awkward. People who couldn't afford an IBM PC but wanted to practice writing programs for the IBM PC bought the Coco. The original Coco was called the Coco 1. Then came improved versions: the Coco 2 and Coco 3. Tandy also invented a cheap, tiny version called the Micro Coco. Pocket computers Tandy sold 8 different pocket computers, numbered PC-1 through PC-8. They fit in your pocket, ran on batteries, and included LCD screens. Notebook computers In 1983, Tandy, Epson, and NEC all tried to sell cheap notebook computers. Just Tandy's became popular, because it was the cheapest ($499) and the easiest to learn how to use. It was called the Model 100. Later Tandy sold an improved version, the Model 102. It included more RAM, weighed less, and listed for $599. It included a nice keyboard, LCD screen (displaying eight 40-character lines), 32K RAM, 32K ROM (containing BASIC, a word-processing program, some filing programs, and a telecommunications program), and 300-baud modem (for attaching to a phone, after you bought a $19.95 cable). It was 8« inches by 12 inches, and just 1« inches thick! It weighed just 3 pounds. Reporters used it to take notes that could be easily phoned to the newspaper. Tandy's stopped selling it, since IBM-compatible notebooks are much more powerful. Why Tandy is popular Tandy has 7000 Radio Shack stores. Besides infiltrating every major city, they're also in remote rural areas, where few other computer stores compete. The phrase that best describes Tandy is ``solid value''. Tandy keeps its quality high and its prices below IBM's and Apple's (though not as low as generic clones). Tandy's computers and prices are aimed at middle-America consumers, not business executives (who buy from IBM) or bargain-hunting hobbyists (who buy mail-order). Tandy's computers are built reliably. Tandy's assembly line checks them thoroughly before shipping to Tandy's stores. If your Tandy computer does need repair, just bring it to your neighborhood Radio Shack store. If the computer's still under warranty, the store will fix it free even if you bought it from a different store. If the warranty has expired, Radio Shack charges very little for the labor of fixing it. Bad attitude Tandy's headquarters used to provide toll-free numbers that customers could call for technical help. Tandy switched to numbers that were not toll-free. To make matters worse, Tandy recently decided to refuse answering any questions unless the customer buys a support contract. Tandy's claim to offer better support than mail-order companies is Texas bull. During the 1980's, Tandy established a dress code for its computer centers: employees who met the public had to don blue or gray suits, blue or white shirts, no beards, and no moustaches. Tandy fired a center manager for refusing to shave his beard. Wasn't the personal-computing revolution supposed to give us tools to express our individuality? The computer revolution's founders did their creative work while wearing jeans. Tandy's dress code offended some Jewish and other religious groups whose members wore beards. Recently, Tandy shut down all its computer centers. At regular Radio Shack stores, beards are permitted. Sellout In 1993, Tandy stopped manufacturing computers. Tandy sold all its factories to another computer company, AST. So now Tandy buys its computers from AST. ATARI Of all the major computer manufacturers, Atari is the strangest ___ and most creative! Video games The world's first popular video game was Pong, invented in 1972 by a California company named Atari, which is a Japanese war cry that means ``beware!'' After Pong, Atari invented a game called Asteroids, then dozens of other games. Atari's games were placed in arcades and in your neighborhood bar. To play the games, you had to insert quarters. In 1975, Atari invented a machine that played Pong on your home's TV. In 1976, Warner Communications Inc. bought Atari; and so Atari became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Warner. Warner was a gigantic company: it owned Warner Brothers movies & cartoons, Warner Cable TV, DC Comics, and many other subsidiaries. In 1977, Atari invented the Video Computer System (VCS), which is a machine that plays a wide variety of games on your home TV. Each game comes as a ROM cartridge. Later, companies such as Mattel and Coleco invented machines that were similar but fancier. Early personal computers In 1979, Atari began selling complete personal computers. Atari's first two computers were the Atari 400 (which was cheap) and the Atari 800 (which had a nicer keyboard). They were far ahead of their time. Of all the microcomputers being sold, Atari's had the best graphics, the best music, and the best way of editing programs. Compared to the Atari, the Apple looked pitiful! And yet Atari charged less than Apple! But Atari made two mistakes. . . . The first mistake was that Atari didn't hire Bill Gates to write its version of BASIC; instead, it hired the same jerk who invented Apple's DOS. Like Apple's DOS, Atari's BASIC looks simple but can't handle serious business problems. The second mistake was Atari's belief that personal computers would be used mainly for games. Atari didn't realize that personal computers would be used mainly for business. As a result, Atari sank lots of effort into developing spectacular games, but didn't sink enough effort into developing software and hardware for word processing, accounting, and filing. Even after developing some slightly improved computers (the 600 XL, the 800 XL, and the 1200 XL), Atari lost lots of money. Jack attack Much to Atari's surprise, Atari wound up getting bought by Jack Tramiel, who had been the head of Commodore. Here's how that happened. . . . When Jack quit being the head of Commodore, he sold his Commodore stock for 80 million dollars. He used some of that cash to take his wife on a trip around the world. When they reached Japan, the heads of Japanese computer companies said, ``Jack, we're so glad you quit Commodore, because now we can enter the American computer marketplace without having to fight you.'' That comment scared Jack. He didn't want to let the Japanese invade the U.S. computer market. So he started a second computer company, called ``Tramiel Associates'', whose sole purpose was to stop the Japanese invasion. Tramiel Associates bought Atari from Warner. Since Jack was rich and Atari was nearly worthless (having accumulated lots of debt), Jack managed to buy all of Atari at 4PM one afternoon by using his Visa card. Now Jack and his sons run Atari. He competes against the company he founded: Commodore. Jack turned Atari around so that Atari became successful again. XE When Jack took over Atari, he replaced Atari's computers by two new computers: the 65 XE and the 130 XE. They run the same software as Atari's earlier computers but are cheaper to manufacture, since Jack is an expert at redesigning computers to cut costs. Jack passed the savings on to consumers. Discount dealers sold the 65 XE for $84 and the 130 XE for $119 ___ prices so low that the Japanese couldn't compete! The 65 XE includes ``about 65,000 bytes of RAM'' (actually, 64K). The 130 XE includes ``about 130,000 bytes of RAM'' (actually, 128K). Later, Atari sold a modified 65 XE, called the XE Game System. It cost $150 and included games instead of BASIC. Jackintosh In 1985, Jack began selling a low-cost imitation of Apple's Macintosh computer. Jack's low-cost imitation is nicknamed the ``Jackintosh''. It's also called the Atari 520 ST. It uses the Gem operating system, which was invented by Digital Research for the Atari and the IBM PC. Although Gem makes the 520 ST look like a Mac, the ST will not run Mac software: you must buy software specially modified to work on the 520 ST. When the 520 ST first came out, its prices were about half as much as the Mac and Amiga so that, by comparison, the Mac and Amiga looked overpriced. To fight back, Apple lowered the Mac's price, and Commodore lowered the Amiga's. But the 520 ST is still the cheapest of the bunch. The ST's BASIC is not by Microsoft but is similar. Programmers have created a reasonable quantity of software for the ST, but the Amiga has more and the Mac has even more. When Apple announced the Mac Plus, which contains 1 megabyte of RAM, Atari responded by announcing the 1040 ST, which contains 1 megabyte also. Then Atari announced a 2-megabyte version (the Mega-2) and 4-megabyte version (the Mega-4). Is Atari popular? But Atari's had difficulty competing in the USA ever since the prices of the Amiga and IBM clones dropped, but Atari computers remain popular in Europe.