Hello! I’m Brian Bagnall and I want to tell you the story of Commodore during the Amiga years. Commodore produced my favorite computers in the eighties and for years I waited for someone to write a book about those incredible times. Strangely, it seemed like publishers were only interested in talking about Apple, Microsoft and IBM. It’s time to give the Commodore Amiga some credit as the first commercially successful multimedia computer.
Take a journey from Amiga's beginnings in 1982 to when Commodore filed for bankruptcy in 1994. Dozens of brilliant and motivated engineers produced a computer with graphics, sound and multitasking capabilities years ahead of Apple and IBM. A lot happened in that decade, and this book will describe to you the most relevant parts in a definitive history of the Amiga story and Commodore’s final descent.
Prior to undertaking this project, Commodore’s trajectory as a company was a huge mystery. Writing this book will allow me to sleuth out what happened, relive those times alongside those who were there, and share the results with fellow travelers like you. That prospect alone is incredibly exciting.
This will be the second book in a two part series on Commodore. The first book, Commodore: A Company on the Edge was released in 2010 to positive reviews. That book ended in 1984 with the departure of company founder Jack Tramiel. When read together, these two books provide a complete account of the rise and fall of the Commodore computer company.
This book will tell the story from an insider’s perspective, which requires interviews with dozens of former Commodore employees totaling over a hundred hours. So far approximately two-thirds of the Amiga Years book has been written, and have received cooperation and extraordinary support from RJ Mical (Amiga GUI), Dale Luck (Amiga graphics), Bil Herd (C128), Thomas Rattigan (Commodore CEO), Bill Gardei (C65 prototype), Dave Haynie (Amiga 2000 and 3000), Brian Dougherty (GEOS) along with many more engineers, employees, managers and marketing people.