Commodore, the commonly used name for Commodore International, was a US electronics company based in West Chester, Pennsylvania which played a vital role in the development of the home–personal computer industry in the 1980s. The company is also known under the name of its R&D operation, Commodore Business Machines (CBM). Commodore developed and marketed the world's best-selling desktop computer, the Commodore 64 (1982). The company declared bankruptcy in 1994, but since then, there have been several attempts to revive its Amiga systems. The company revived in 2005 after a few mergers with Yeahronimo Media Ventures Inc., SATXS Communications BV, and Tulip Computers.

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Commodore, the commonly used name for Commodore International, was a US electronics company based in West Chester, Pennsylvania which played a vital role in the development of the home–personal computer industry in the 1980s. The company is also known under the name of its R&D operation, Commodore Business Machines (CBM). Commodore developed and marketed the world's best-selling desktop computer, the Commodore 64 (1982). The company declared bankruptcy in 1994, but since then, there have been several attempts to revive its Amiga systems. The company revived in 2005 after a few mergers with Yeahronimo Media Ventures Inc., SATXS Communications BV, and Tulip Computers.

Founding and early years

In 1955 the company was formally incorporated as Commodore Business Machines in Canada (CBM). In 1962 Commodore went public at New York stock exchange under the name of Commodore International Limited. In the late 1960s history repeated itself when Japanese firms started producing and exporting adding machines. The company's main investor and chairman, Irving Gould, suggested that Tramiel travel to Japan to understand how to compete. Instead, he returned with the new idea to produce electronic calculators, which were just coming on the market.

Commodore soon had a profitable calculator line and was one of the more popular brands in the early 1970s, producing both consumer as well as scientific/programmable calculators. However, in 1975, Texas Instruments, the main supplier of calculator parts, entered the market directly and put out a line of machines priced at less than Commodore's cost of the parts. Commodore had to be rescued once again by an infusion of cash from Gould, which Tramiel used beginning in 1976 to purchase several second-source chip suppliers, including MOS Technology, Inc., in order to assure his supply. He agreed to buy MOS, which was having troubles of its own, only on the condition that its chip designer Chuck Peddle join Commodore directly as head of engineering.

In December 2007 when Tramiel was visiting the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, for the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64, he was asked why he called his company Commodore, he had this to say: "I wanted to call my company General, but there's so many Generals in the U.S.: General Electric, General Motors. Then I went to Admiral, but that was taken. So I wind up in Berlin, Germany, with my wife, and we were in a cab, and the cab made a short stop, and in front of us was an Opel Commodore." Tramiel said that in many interviews, but Opel's Commodore didn't debut until 1968, years after the company had been named.