Commodore Free 5/Commodore_Free_Issue_05_2007_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/t.iv bagnall

Text File | 2023-02-26 | 8KB | 244 lines

uInterview with Brian Bagnall

Interview Printed with permission from
? Brian Bagnall may be a name that the
Commodore-community will remember: He
is the author of a book named "The
Spectacular Rise and Fall of
Commodore", which seems pretty much
the thing all "Commodorians" have
waited for so long: a history of
Commodore.

Question 1) Brian, this is not the
first book on computers you wrote.
Your last one is about "Lego
Mindstorms programming". Well, that's
quite a difference: from a programming
book to a historic view of a company.
Can you tell us when (and why) did you
get the idea to write this book?

Brian I first had the idea in 2002,
near the end of my last book. I
started noticing there was far more
Commodore nostalgia on the web than
Apple, which seemed to conflict with
the popular perception that Apple was
the big dog back then. In the
seventies, when the personal computer
market kicked off, the TRS-80 (and
even the Commodore PET) far outsold
the Apple II, so Apple did not
establish the personal computer market
as Apple revisionists want you to
believe. The thing that really got me
into it was realizing that Commodore
sold about 20 million C64s, yet for
some reason Apple receives all the
credit even though they only sold 5
million Apple IIs. That just didn't
make sense to me. Why was Commodore
being ignored? It wasn't until late
2003 that I really got into the
research and writing. Once I got into
it, I knew there was an exciting
story.

Question 2) It was essential for you
to interview people who were involved
in those days - that's why the
subtitle is "The Inside Story". What
can the reader expect as a result of
this and how close is the result to
Michael Tomczyk's book (referring to
the time he covered in his book)?

Brian People who have read through the
chapters say the interviews give a
deeper picture of what was going on in
the company. For me, the interviews
really personalize the story. You get
to know these people and what they
went through to deliver some of these
wonderful old machines.

There were a lot of struggles.With due
respect to Michael Tomczyk, this book
will present a larger overview of
Commodore than "The Home Computer
Wars", which I have read.

His book ends in early 1984 and mostly
dealt with things at a managerial
level. In my mind, the engineering
story is at least as important as the
marketing and business people. Also,
he didn't use interviews or firsthand
quotes very much, if at all. It was
kind of Commodore as seen by Michael
Tomczyk.

Question 3) When does the book start,
as your homepage lets us know that
several chapters (that come to the
readers mind first, like the Commodore
typewriters and the calculators) were
"Bonus Materials" not yet to be read?

The book starts with MOS Technology,
before Commodore purchased them. MOS
Technology developed the 6502
microprocessor, which revolutionized
the personal computer industry and led
to the Atari 2600 VCS, the Apple II,
the Atari 400 and 800, and of course
Commodore's computers. The typewriter
and calculator chapters are complete
but I didn't get any real interviews
for those chapters. Maybe after the
book is out, some of these people will
approach me and I can land some
interviews before I make them
available.

Question 4) The people you interviewed
are mainly from Commodore US, so would
you say that this is more or less the
story of this part of "Commodore
World"?

Brian Yes. The story is told mainly
from the real corporate headquarters'
view of Commodore Business Machines.
Really there was a thing called
Commodore International Limited with
"headquarters" in the Bahamas (a small
rented office space with some desks),
but that was set up for tax purposes.
Jack Tramiel worked at Commodore
Business Machines in the US, and that
was really where the action took place
as far as engineering the machines and
making decisions.

Europe, Australia, and Japan are
mentioned a lot throughout the book,
since they were always central to the
survival of Commodore, but the
international side of Commodore is
probably a whole other story. You'll
read about Bob Gleadow, the GM of
Commodore UK, Harold Speyer of
Commodore Germany, Kit Spencer, the
marketing director of Commodore UK who
later came to the US, Nigel Shepherd
of Commodore Australia, and Tony Tokai
of Commodore Japan, plus a few
Japanese engineers.

Question 5) How would you, with having
an overview of Commodore now, evaluate
the AMIGA-Computer? Premature baby,
far beyond its time, a waste of money
or something else?

Brian Waste of money. Just kidding! It
was definitely far ahead of its time.
I don't think it was a perfect
computer but it was revolutionary. It
was the first truly multimedia
personal computer and I don't think
anyone would argue with that today.
Unfortunately Commodore did not know
how to communicate that to their
potential customers and the machine
did not survive as the (then) inferior
Macintosh did.

Question 6) Tramiel denied to get
interviewed on Commodore - on the
webpage commodorebook.com we can read
"Jack has a strict no-Commodore
interview policy." Could you dig out
why so?

Brian Chuck Peddle, one of the early
Commodore engineers, says he got
burned by a Baron's article that was
very harsh on him. I think he
cooperated with the article and they
turned around and demolished him. He
has given interviews about Commodore
to German magazines from time to time,
though, so maybe he just doesn't trust
the North American media.

He left on bad terms in 1984 and
Commodore is probably not a happy
memory for him or Sam Tramiel, his
son. Leonard Tramiel seems a little
more objective and he sounded
frustrated that his father would not
come out and set the record straight.

Question 7) Co-Editors of your book
are well-known Commodore experts like
Jim Butterfield or Robert Bernardo.
But had the interviewed people like
Leonard Tramiel no interest in reading
it before it gets released?

Brian That's an excellent question. I
thought long and hard about showing
the finished chapters to Commodore
people but decided against it. There
is personal information about them in
this book, and not all of it is
flattering. I think it would take away
from the objectiveness of the story to
have those people involved in the
editing process. For example, if I
showed it to Leonard, he would do
everything in his power to protect his
father, even though Leonard seems like
an honest person. I would have this
pressure to remove the best parts and
it would end up dulling the Commodore
story rather than enhancing it.

Instead, I decided to pull people who
know a lot about the Commodore period.
Guys like Martin Goldberg from Classic
gaming, Gareth Knight from the Amiga
History Guide, Ian from Commdore.ca,
and Jim Butterfield (who was there
when a lot of this stuff happened).
These guys all have a love of the
Commodore story as you can see from
their web sites, and they have the
knowledge to make sure the story is
told accurately.

Question 8) Finally, is there a chance
that this book will be translated into
German language, for example?

Brian I think there is a very good
chance. I've been contacted by at
least three German publishers so far
and the book isn't even out yet, so
I'm going to try to pick the best one
(which could be difficult considering
I know nothing of the German
publishing industry) and make a deal
for the translation rights. Thanks for
the interview!

Brian Pleasure. Great questions!

Book available from
http://www.commodorebook.com/

...end...