Remembering West Chester-Based Commodore Years After It Pulled the Plug

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Commodore, the most influential tech company of its time, pulled the plug on its business 25 years ago, writes Brian Benchoff for Hackaday.

Headquartered in West Chester, the company began as a typewriter repair shop by Jack Tramiel in 1954. Over time, it started assembling typewriters and calculators and became Commodore Business Machines.

In 1977, Commodore released the Personal Electronic Transactor or PET, which was considered by some to be the first publicly available personal computer. Then, after releasing the Commodore 64 several years later, it was selling more units than the rest of the industry combined.

However, by the late 1980s, the company’s latest release, the Amiga, was primarily seen as a toy as IBM-compatible PCs took over the market.

This led to the shutdown of Commodore on April 29, 1994.

Read more about Commodore at Hackaday here.

Click here to read a VISTA Today feature on Commodore from 2016.

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