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From floodgap.com: > The Commodore 900 (…) was intended as a mainframe-class machine with multitasking, timesharing, virtual memory, multi-user capabilities —

From floodgap.com: > The Commodore 900 (…) was intended as a mainframe-class machine with multitasking, timesharing, virtual memory, multi-user capabilities — what you would expect from a Typical Un#x Mainframe. System adminstration was accomplished through an X-Windows-like GUI on the workstation version of the 900; the text-only server flavour could be used as a workstation but was intended to be a standalone host. > project officially discontinued in favour of the newly-acquired Lorraine, later becoming the Amiga. When Commodore refrained from becoming an actual computer manufacturer…

protomyth 7y ago
They acquired a machine that quite a few people consider an actual computer http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/lorraine.html http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/lorraine.html
- masswerk 7y ago
  But, again, Commodore refused to market it is a "serious" computer (while the platform may have arguably been superior to the IBM PC.) Edit: The sad story being that Commodore marketing apparently was happy with merely selling in the home computer market, where Commodore machines sold seemingly by them selves, and didn't bother to bare the hassles of the competition of the business market. – Which eventually resulted in the end of the company.
  - protomyth 7y ago
    It found a niche in a serious industry (video). Commodore simply got ran over by WinTel. They forgot one big part of their success was low cost and being available in a large number of outlets. They didn’t have a cost successor to the C64. The 900 was not that either.
  - cmrdporcupine 7y ago
    Even when Commodore and Atari attempted to market their 68000 machines as serious machines they were given no respect by the press. Both made a concerted effort in the late 80s early 90s to make workstation class machines and sell them into the expanding Unix workstation market, and had no success. I distinctly remember picking up a copy of UnixWorld in about 1990 or so and seeing an Atari TT030 in it, with the caption "up from toyland" and a couple paragraphs describing the specs of the machine as being workstation class and it shipping with AT&T Unix and it being cost effective but how could anyone take it seriously coming from a home computer and games maker? That was the start of the last couple years for Atari and Commodore, they were both done soon after. Apple barely survived.
    - reaperducer 7y ago
      This is correct. The problem wasn't that the Atari and Commodore 68000 machines weren't "serious" computers. It's that they had the wrong pedigree. CBM and Atari made powerful machines that came "up" from the home computer market. IBM made underpowered machines that came "down" from a mainframe manufacturer. It was an easy choice for PHB's to go with Big Blue. As they used to say: "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." How Apple survived was something of a miracle. My impression is that it was because it gained early traction in certain industries with the first mass-market WIMP machine, and retained some air of "seriousness" because pre-IBM PC, 8-bit Apples were the "serious" business machine for the vast majority of companies. (Think 90,000 accountants all banging out VisiCalc* sheets.) *The fact that iOS just auto-corrected my spelling of VisiCalc in 2019 makes my inner nerd smile.)
      - epc 7y ago
        Apple survived into the 90s on the back of the education market, primarily with Apple 2 and 2gs systems, secondarily with Macs. IIRC it was hard to find CBM or Atari systems to play with (you could go into a BusinessLand or ComputerLand and play with Apple 2gs or Macs or IBM PCs or Compaqs, vaguely recall Atari had some sort of distribution deal with Sears).
        vidarh 7y ago
        Commodore was always weak in the US, and strong in Europe, while Apple was the reverse. Growing up in Norway,the first Apple product I ever saw in person was the single Mac classic my local computer store put in a corner and neglected, while Commodore 64s, 128s and Amigas,Atari STs , Spectrums and Amstrads were all over the place. The precise set of brands that did well varied a lot by country, but Apple did poorly in most of Europe until the Mac started getting traction, and Commodore did well in most of Western Europe. Part of it was that Tramiels US price war stunt figuratively burned Commodores US dealer network to the ground, but when before that done European markets, particularly Germany did far better. Commodore was at one point one of the best known consumer brands in Germany, irrespective of category. Somewhat less so in Europe as a whole, but still a name mentioned alongside IBM etc by people who had no idea who Apple were.
  - phkamp 7y ago
    That is very far from the truth, and the truth was nowhere as simple as that either. Commodore was a very serious and successful supplier of small business computers with the 8xxx and 82xx series. The main problem was that in this segment Commodore came out of a typewriter/calculator mindset, so there were absolutely nobody who ever thought "lets connect computers together", and that set a hard upper ceiling how how large companies they could sell to. Once a business grew, the CBM computers were replaced, not because they were unhappy with them, but because they were not big enough. Heck, even at Commodore we used IBM S/34 internally.
    - masswerk 7y ago
      See my earlier comment on this below. In Europe, the PET had been pretty much what the Apple II had been in the US. It is heart shattering how Commodore/CBM was unable to exploit this position (e.g., by providing an upgrade path to the next level) – whatever the internal dynamics behind this.
cmrdporcupine 7y ago
They didn't learn the lessons from the C64 which was a runaway success. No effort to make a product line with forward compatibility. Minimal effort on software. Bizarre pricing strategies. At least with Tramiel at the helm they had a strategy of going for the long tail of the market by selling at rock bottom prices. Once he was gone they floundered around, and almost got beaten by Tramiel's Atari. It's only once they release the Amiga 500 -- which looked an awful like the 520ST case and strategy wise -- and dropped the price that they caught the lead. When I bought my ST the 500 wasn't out yet, and the Amiga 1000 was priced way beyond my budget. The 520STfm I bought with monitor was around the same price as the Commodore 128, which I was considering before I discovered the ST.
- phkamp 7y ago
  By and large, Commodore invented the "double-burger" tax-shelter, and discovered to their dismay that it was very hard to funnel the "liberated" money back into the company for investments. The lack of a vision going forward also caused local projects to suck up too many resources, Germanys PCs, the C16/+4 disaster and so on.
- rasz 7y ago
  Tramiel had a habit of firing good engineers 3 months after product release. Either directly, or by screwing them by moving to useless positions or taking bonuses away until people 'got the message'. Those who didnt get what was going on or didnt care about money/dignity were the ones who stayed as long term employees. Jack had an eye for suckers and people putting passion before common sense and self respect. Whole C64 design team was effed out of promised bonuses and fired/left. People like Bruce Crockett (manufacturing), Al Charpentier (VIC) and Robert Yannes (SID) went to start Ensoniq (later sold to Creative), Chuck Peddle went to Apple, Bill Mensch hung around for two years of abuse. Same with Amiga team (Jay,RJ,Needle). Those two videos touch on the Commodore culture of curb stomping until only the weak and dumb survive: Oral History of Chuck Peddle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enHF9lMseP8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enHF9lMseP8 Oral History of William David "Bill" Mensch Jr. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne1ApyqSvm0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne1ApyqSvm0
phkamp 7y ago
The reason the C900 were cancelled was that Commodore simply didn't have the resources (money, facilities) to do both that and the Amiga.
- the-rc 7y ago
  Yeah, George Robbins stopped working on the C900 and went on to design the A500, A600 and A1200, sticking references to songs by the B52's on their motherboards. A lot of people don't realize that Commodore had about 200 engineers at peak.

protomyth 7y ago

They acquired a machine that quite a few people consider an actual computer http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/lorraine.html http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/lorraine.html

masswerk 7y ago
But, again, Commodore refused to market it is a "serious" computer (while the platform may have arguably been superior to the IBM PC.) Edit: The sad story being that Commodore marketing apparently was happy with merely selling in the home computer market, where Commodore machines sold seemingly by them selves, and didn't bother to bare the hassles of the competition of the business market. – Which eventually resulted in the end of the company.
- protomyth 7y ago
  It found a niche in a serious industry (video). Commodore simply got ran over by WinTel. They forgot one big part of their success was low cost and being available in a large number of outlets. They didn’t have a cost successor to the C64. The 900 was not that either.
- cmrdporcupine 7y ago
  Even when Commodore and Atari attempted to market their 68000 machines as serious machines they were given no respect by the press. Both made a concerted effort in the late 80s early 90s to make workstation class machines and sell them into the expanding Unix workstation market, and had no success. I distinctly remember picking up a copy of UnixWorld in about 1990 or so and seeing an Atari TT030 in it, with the caption "up from toyland" and a couple paragraphs describing the specs of the machine as being workstation class and it shipping with AT&T Unix and it being cost effective but how could anyone take it seriously coming from a home computer and games maker? That was the start of the last couple years for Atari and Commodore, they were both done soon after. Apple barely survived.
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    This is correct. The problem wasn't that the Atari and Commodore 68000 machines weren't "serious" computers. It's that they had the wrong pedigree. CBM and Atari made powerful machines that came "up" from the home computer market. IBM made underpowered machines that came "down" from a mainframe manufacturer. It was an easy choice for PHB's to go with Big Blue. As they used to say: "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." How Apple survived was something of a miracle. My impression is that it was because it gained early traction in certain industries with the first mass-market WIMP machine, and retained some air of "seriousness" because pre-IBM PC, 8-bit Apples were the "serious" business machine for the vast majority of companies. (Think 90,000 accountants all banging out VisiCalc* sheets.) *The fact that iOS just auto-corrected my spelling of VisiCalc in 2019 makes my inner nerd smile.)
    - epc 7y ago
      Apple survived into the 90s on the back of the education market, primarily with Apple 2 and 2gs systems, secondarily with Macs. IIRC it was hard to find CBM or Atari systems to play with (you could go into a BusinessLand or ComputerLand and play with Apple 2gs or Macs or IBM PCs or Compaqs, vaguely recall Atari had some sort of distribution deal with Sears).
      - vidarh 7y ago
        Commodore was always weak in the US, and strong in Europe, while Apple was the reverse. Growing up in Norway,the first Apple product I ever saw in person was the single Mac classic my local computer store put in a corner and neglected, while Commodore 64s, 128s and Amigas,Atari STs , Spectrums and Amstrads were all over the place. The precise set of brands that did well varied a lot by country, but Apple did poorly in most of Europe until the Mac started getting traction, and Commodore did well in most of Western Europe. Part of it was that Tramiels US price war stunt figuratively burned Commodores US dealer network to the ground, but when before that done European markets, particularly Germany did far better. Commodore was at one point one of the best known consumer brands in Germany, irrespective of category. Somewhat less so in Europe as a whole, but still a name mentioned alongside IBM etc by people who had no idea who Apple were.
- phkamp 7y ago
  That is very far from the truth, and the truth was nowhere as simple as that either. Commodore was a very serious and successful supplier of small business computers with the 8xxx and 82xx series. The main problem was that in this segment Commodore came out of a typewriter/calculator mindset, so there were absolutely nobody who ever thought "lets connect computers together", and that set a hard upper ceiling how how large companies they could sell to. Once a business grew, the CBM computers were replaced, not because they were unhappy with them, but because they were not big enough. Heck, even at Commodore we used IBM S/34 internally.
  - masswerk 7y ago
    See my earlier comment on this below. In Europe, the PET had been pretty much what the Apple II had been in the US. It is heart shattering how Commodore/CBM was unable to exploit this position (e.g., by providing an upgrade path to the next level) – whatever the internal dynamics behind this.

cmrdporcupine 7y ago

They didn't learn the lessons from the C64 which was a runaway success. No effort to make a product line with forward compatibility. Minimal effort on software. Bizarre pricing strategies. At least with Tramiel at the helm they had a strategy of going for the long tail of the market by selling at rock bottom prices. Once he was gone they floundered around, and almost got beaten by Tramiel's Atari. It's only once they release the Amiga 500 -- which looked an awful like the 520ST case and strategy wise -- and dropped the price that they caught the lead. When I bought my ST the 500 wasn't out yet, and the Amiga 1000 was priced way beyond my budget. The 520STfm I bought with monitor was around the same price as the Commodore 128, which I was considering before I discovered the ST.

phkamp 7y ago
By and large, Commodore invented the "double-burger" tax-shelter, and discovered to their dismay that it was very hard to funnel the "liberated" money back into the company for investments. The lack of a vision going forward also caused local projects to suck up too many resources, Germanys PCs, the C16/+4 disaster and so on.
rasz 7y ago
Tramiel had a habit of firing good engineers 3 months after product release. Either directly, or by screwing them by moving to useless positions or taking bonuses away until people 'got the message'. Those who didnt get what was going on or didnt care about money/dignity were the ones who stayed as long term employees. Jack had an eye for suckers and people putting passion before common sense and self respect. Whole C64 design team was effed out of promised bonuses and fired/left. People like Bruce Crockett (manufacturing), Al Charpentier (VIC) and Robert Yannes (SID) went to start Ensoniq (later sold to Creative), Chuck Peddle went to Apple, Bill Mensch hung around for two years of abuse. Same with Amiga team (Jay,RJ,Needle). Those two videos touch on the Commodore culture of curb stomping until only the weak and dumb survive: Oral History of Chuck Peddle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enHF9lMseP8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enHF9lMseP8 Oral History of William David "Bill" Mensch Jr. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne1ApyqSvm0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne1ApyqSvm0

phkamp 7y ago

The reason the C900 were cancelled was that Commodore simply didn't have the resources (money, facilities) to do both that and the Amiga.

the-rc 7y ago
Yeah, George Robbins stopped working on the C900 and went on to design the A500, A600 and A1200, sticking references to songs by the B52's on their motherboards. A lot of people don't realize that Commodore had about 200 engineers at peak.