On the Edge
by Brian Bagnall · first published 2005
85% recommend15% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Detailed history of Commodore from the 6502 through the PET, VIC-20 and C64, drawing on accounts from staff; recommended to readers curious about the company's rise, management and products.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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"On the Edge: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore" by Brian Bagnall covers quite a bit of the Amiga development. http://www.amazon.com/Edge-Spectacular-Rise-Fall-Commodore/d... However, the rewritten / "second…
on “Google employee ports Amiga emulator to Chrome” ↗If you want Commodore, there's On the Edge by Brian Bagnall http://www.amazon.com/On-Edge-Spectacular-Rise-Commodore/dp/... and its half-a-second-edition Commodore: A Company on the Edge .
on “Silicon Valley History” ↗Must recommend this book again... On the Edge: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore http://www.amazon.com/Edge-Spectacular-Rise-Fall-Commodore/d... As I recall the responsibility of getting the 1541 working with the C64 was the responsibility…
on “LOAD"$",8” ↗For those interested, On The Edge by Brian Bagnall (http://www.amazon.com/On-Edge-Spectacular-Rise-Commodore/dp/...) does a good job recounting the life and death of Commodore. The management of that company was definitively rocky.
on “The shocking toll of hardware and software fragmentation on Android development” ↗…WWII) http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/electronicbrains.shtml http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Brains-Stories-Dawn-Compute... 2008, Geeks Bearing Gifts, Ted Nelson (rants & factoids) http://www.amazon.com/Geeks-Bearing-Gifts-Ted-Nelson/dp/0578... 2010, Commodore, A Company on the Edge, Brian Bagnall (war stories from 6502 through C64, no Amiga) http://retroasylum.com/commodore-a-company-on-the-edge-revie... http://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/d... 2011, The…
on “Thoughts on the culture that gave birth to the personal computer (2013)” ↗…Some Classic Computing Non-Fiction (circa 80s and earlier): * Soul of a New Machine - Tracy Kidder * Fire in the Valley - Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine * Hackers - Steve Levy * Commodore: A Company on the Edge - Brian Bagnall (get the second edition) * The Psychology of Computer Programming by Gerald M. Weinberg - for being written in 1971 (with an updated edition in 98) it is very interesting and still relevant. *…
on “Ask HN: My Birthday's Tomorrow, I Need Book Recommendations” ↗Almost 38 years, even... If you're interested in the story around MOS and the 6502, the early parts of "Commodore: A Company on the Edge" by Brian Bagnall covers it quite a bit including parts about the manual layout work that Bill Mensch did. Here's an article about it too: http://research.swtch.com/6502 Not only did they route / layout…
on “The 6502 CPU's overflow flag explained at the silicon level” ↗Anyone who want more background on Bill Mensch and the 6502 and the other people around it should pick up Brian Bagnall's "Commodore: A Company on the Edge". Note that this is the first of two volumes of the second edition; the second covers the "Amiga years" and is not yet published (in progress thanks to a Kickstarter[1]) (The first edition was published…
on “Interview with Bill Mensch, 6502 Chip Co-Designer [audio]” ↗A good book that has quite a bit of CSG and chuck peddle commentary on the 6502 and commodore more specifically is Commodore: A Company on the Edge http://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/d... It goes into how Chuck was at times doing a roadshow with the 6502 educating and assisting manufacturers on developing applications for…
on “Excavating the microprocessor responsible for the home computing revolution” ↗…honor of producing the most of a single model computer with the Commodore 64, no solid number but its above 12 million up to 17 million. An interesting read is Brian Bagnall's book Commodore: A Company on the Edge, which has many accounts from Commodore's staff. One interesting tidbit, is Apples marketing at the time though they were third in sales (behind Radio Shack and Commodore) their ads touted "We are Number…
on “The Commodore 64 (C64) is 30 years old today” ↗+1. Interested readers should check out the very good book "Commodore: A Company on the Edge" by Brian Bagnall for this and other fascinating stories from how the PET, VIC-20, and C64 came to be. (And parallels to Internet-age companies are a fun exercise for the reader)
on “A Minimal C64 Datasette Program Loader” ↗Hackers by Steven Levy Valley of Genius: The Unrecorded History of Silicon Valley On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore (Brian Bagnall) Commodore: A Company on the Edge (Brian Bagnall) Commodore: The Amiga Years (Brian Bagnall) Commodore: The Final Years (Brian Bagnall) Commodore:…
on “The Joy of Computer History Books” ↗Commodore: A Company on the Edge by Brian Bagnall is highly recommended.
on “The Birth of Unix with Brian Kernighan” ↗Author Brian Bagnall wrote a book about Commodore, from MOS Technology and the 6502 through the departure of Jack Tramiel and the Amiga years: "On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore" (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/412006.On_the_Edge). This was published in 2006. The book was then later split into two halves. The first half, very…
on “A history of the Amiga, part 1: Genesis” ↗Commodore - A Company on the Edge by Brian Bagnall covers the Commodore side of the "Troika of 77" (Tandy / Radio-Shack, Apple and Commodore" who made up the bulk of the volume sales in the early home computer market). Commodore's ongoing…
on “1983 Radio Shack Catalog” ↗