“As the 1990s began, Commodore should have been flying high. The long-awaited new Amiga models with better graphics, the A1200 and A4000, were finally released in 1992,” Jeremy Reimer writes for Ars Technica. “Sales responded by increasing 17 percent over the previous year. The Video Toaster had established a niche in desktop video editing that no other computer platform could match, and the new Toaster 4000 promised to be even better than before. After a rocky start, the Amiga seemed to be hitting its stride.”
“Unfortunately, this success wouldn’t last. In 1993, sales fell by 20 percent, and Commodore lost $366 million,” Reimer writes. “In the first quarter of 1994, the company announced a loss of $8.2 million—much better than the previous four quarters, but still not enough to turn a profit. Commodore had run into financial difficulties before, particularly in the mid-’80s, but this time the wounds were too deep.”
“Sales of the venerable Commodore 64 had finally collapsed, and the Amiga wasn’t able to fill the gap quickly enough,” Reimer writes. “The company issued a statement warning investors of its problems, and the stock plunged. On April 29, 1994, Commodore International Limited announced that it was starting the initial phase of voluntary liquidation of all of its assets and filing for bankruptcy protection. Commodore, once the savior of the Amiga, had failed to save itself.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: In addition to our Macs, we owned Commodore-64 units with which, among other things, we attempted to wear holes through our Jumpman and Star League Baseball floppy disks and later used Commodore Amigas for broadcast television character generation (CG).
SEE ALSO:
Commodore founder Jack Tramiel dead at 83 – April 9, 2012
Apple pulls Commodore 64 emulator for iPhone from App Store – September 8, 2009
Apple co-founder Woz helps celebrate Commodore 64’s 25th anniversary – December 12, 2007
