The Rise and Fall of the Commodore 64, the Best-Selling Computer That Destroyed Its Maker

In 1982 a Holocaust survivor named Jack Tramiel put a real computer in toy stores for under six hundred dollars and swore to build "computers for the masses, not the classes." Then he started a price war so brutal it drove Texas Instruments out of the market and helped crash an industry. The Commodore 64 became the best-selling computer of all time, somewhere between twelve and seventeen million machines. And barely a decade later, the company that made it was bankrupt. The machine never failed. Everything around it did. Chapters below. Sources pinned in the comments. GEAR FROM THIS EPISODE (affiliate links) As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. It helps keep the Chronicles going. THEC64 (the official mini re-release of the Commodore 64): https://amzn.to/XXXX "On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore" by Brian Bagnall: https://amzn.to/XXXX Retro USB joystick (Competition Pro style) for emulators: https://amzn.to/XXXX "The Home Computer Wars" by Michael Tomczyk (inside Commodore): https://amzn.to/XXXX Chapters: 0:00 The man from Auschwitz who sold computers in toy stores 1:10 Jack Tramiel and "computers for the masses" 2:10 Inside the machine: the VIC-II and the SID 3:20 The secret weapon: owning the chip factory 4:10 The price war that scorched the earth 5:40 The best-selling computer in history 6:40 The founder walks out at the peak 7:50 The Amiga, mishandled, and the slow collapse 9:00 The machine never failed. The company did.