#Is Commodore Dead?
14 messages in this thread
O.K., I don't have any way of confirming this — I haven't even
checked out any Amiga forums here on CIS. What I've heard is
Commodore is no more, and, I presume, so is the Amiga.
What gives? Even for us 3DS users this has serious implications —
What machines will Toaster buyers put their new cards in? The
desktop 3D animation revolution was pretty much built on the Toaster
(I'm a loyal 3DS user, no hate mail please!). While this certainly
suggest more opportunities for the 3DS market, Toaster-based machines
have gotten so much press lately, with their contributions to so many
prime-time FX shows.
They're chapter 11. It remains to be seen whether the Amiga is
aquired by anyone who will resurrect it.
>> It remains to be seen whether the Amiga is aquired by anyone who will
>> resurrect it…
Hey, how about Osborne, or maybe DEC Rainbow, even Altair…
Better look over your shoulder… the demise of Atari drove the Yost Group to
create 3D Studio, what will the demise of Commodore cause? At the next
Siggraph, it'll be the battle between LightWave NT, 3DS/NT, Softimage NT, Alias
NT, Vertigo NT, Wavefront NT, etc.
And really, Commodore's been dead for a long time. When this news hit, a
reporter called me for quotes, and I said, "the only thing about this that
shocked me was that there were people out there who were shocked by this." All
the other Amiga-related successes happened in spite of CBM, not because of
them.
I had one guy call me the same day, asking where he could dump five Toasters
and where to go to buy 3D Studio. The other quote I delivered was along the
lines that there will be more Amiga developers that ever… after all,
Amigoids are notorious champions of lost causes, and now that the cause may be
truly lost, they'll be more inspired than ever. 🙂
The hot rumor says that Samsung is rushing in to buy the Amiga.
What's this about "the demise of Atari drove the Yost Group to create 3D
Studio"? This is history I don't know.
Mathew B.
One door closes, the other opens… Yost, Jack, Tom Hudson, Hayes, they were
all working for Atari ST-related companies a few years ago. Tom's 3D
experience with a product called CAD-3D no doubt lead to 3D Studio. Dan Silva
and Jim Kent were doing Atari and Amiga software as well as PC software in that
time frame, too. Of course, the large installed base and potentially higher
profits in the PC market might've had something to do with it.
We actually left the Atari world in late 1987, which was a few years before
Atari went belly-up (computer-wise). Our biggest frustration with the AtariST
was that it was a closed architecture system, not allowing for display
expansion, etc. Being limited to 320x200x4-bits was pretty sickening, and
until that time the VGA didn't exist on the PC. As soon as the VGA was
announced, we were OUT OF THERE.
– G
You left Antic in late 1987? And Atari is still around, right?
I finished developing software at Antic in Dec '87 and actually left the
company 2 months later.
I've got no idea about Atari. I occasionally see ads for their Jaguar game
machine on TV though.
– G
Atari is still trying — they now have Falcon, a multimedia PC-like
device which has the virtue of having Super VGA and a built-in scan
converter. It's been around for a year or so. I guess it has its
followers.
Atari has also made some bids to design the TV-top box to manage the
NII when it comes to homes.
Trivia question (sorry, I don't know the answer) : What package was
used to design & render the Atari Falcon's 3-D logo? Certainly not
an Atari!
I'm amazed that the computer division still exists. Tenacity.
Mathew:
Commodore International has indeed filed for voluntary
liquidation, however the various subsidiaries are still in operation
making and selling Amigas. The current rumor being spread by the
marketing dept of the German subsidiary is that the Amiga portion of
Commodore is being purchased by an unnamed asian company, and that an
official announcement is supposed to be coming out on Friday. The
Amiga, though stumbling, limping and bloodied is not quite dead yet.
No, the Amiga isn't dead. It's too good a machine, and sold in spite
of the company who manufactured it. It seems to me no one really
ever wondered *if* Commodore would die, but rather *when*.
Actually, Commodores demise may be the best thing to happen to
the Amiga in a long time. Depends on who picks it up and if they run
with it or just sit and sustain it. I like my Amiga 3000/040, but it
shares desktop space with my 486/50, so I guess I can't be called a
fanatic. <grin>