Brian Bagnall may be a name that the Commodore-community will remember: He is the author of a book named "The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore", which seems pretty much the thing all "Commodorians" have waited for so long: a history of Commodore.
Brian, this is not the first book on computers you wrote. Your last one
is about "Lego Mindstorms programming". Well, that's quite a difference:
from a programming book to a historic view of a company. Can you tell us
when (and why) did you get the idea to write this book?
I first had the idea in 2002, near the end of my last book. I started noticing there was far more Commodore nostalgia on the web than Apple, which seemed to conflict with the popular perception that Apple was the big dog back then. In the seventies, when the personal computer market kicked off, the TRS-80 (and even the Commodore PET) far outsold the Apple II, so Apple did not establish the personal computer market as Apple revisionists want you to believe. The thing that really got me into it was realizing that Commodore sold about 20 million C64s, yet for some reason Apple receives all the credit even though they only sold 5 million Apple IIs. That just didn't make sense to me. Why was Commodore being ignored? It wasn't until late 2003 that I really got into the research and writing. Once I got into it, I knew there was an exciting story.
It was essential for you to interview
people who were involved in those
days - that's why the subtitle is "The Inside Story". What can the reader
expect as a result of this and how close is the result to Michael Tomczyk's
book (referring to the time he covered in his book)?
People who have read through the chapters say the interviews give a deeper picture of what was going on in the company. For me, the interviews really personalize the story. You get to know these people and what they went through to deliver some of these wonderful old machines. There were a lot of struggles.
With due respect to Michael Tomczyk, this book will present a larger overview of Commodore than "The Home Computer Wars", which I have read. His book ends in early 1984 and mostly dealt with things at a managerial level. In my mind, the engineering story is at least as important as the marketing and business people. Also, he didn't use interviews or firsthand quotes very much, if at all. It was kind of Commodore as seen by Michael Tomczyk.
When does the book start, as your homepage lets us know that several
chapters (that come to the readers mind first, like the Commodore
typewriters and the calculators) were "Bonus Materials" not yet to be read?
The book starts with MOS Technology, before Commodore purchased them. MOS Technology developed the 6502 microprocessor, which revolutionized the personal computer industry and led to the Atari 2600 VCS, the Apple II, the Atari 400 and 800, and of course Commodore's computers. The typewriter and calculator chapters are complete but I didn't get any real interviews for those chapters. Maybe after the book is out, some of these people will approach me and I can land some interviews before I make them available.
The people you interviewed are mainly from Commodore US, so would you say
that this is more or less the story of this part of "Commodore World"?
Yes. The story is told mainly from the real corporate headquarters’ view of Commodore Business Machines. Really there was a thing called Commodore International Limited with "headquarters" in the Bahamas (a small rented office space with some desks), but that was set up for tax purposes. Jack Tramiel worked at Commodore Business Machines in the US, and that was really where the action took place as far as engineering the machines and making decisions. Europe, Australia, and Japan are mentioned a lot throughout the book, since they were always central to the survival of Commodore, but the international side of Commodore is probably a whole other story.
You'll read about Bob Gleadow, the GM of Commodore UK, Harold Speyer of Commodore Germany, Kit Spencer, the marketing director of Commodore UK who later came to the US, Nigel Shepherd of Commodore Australia, and Tony Tokai of Commodore Japan, plus a few Japanese engineers.
How would you, with having an overview of Commodore now, evaluate the
AMIGA-Computer? Premature baby, far beyond its time, a waste of money or
something else?
Waste of money. Just kidding! It was definitely far ahead of its time. I don't think it was a perfect computer but it was revolutionary. It was the first truly multimedia personal computer and I don't think anyone would argue with that today. Unfortunately Commodore did not know how to communicate that to their potential customers and the machine did not survive as the (then) inferior Macintosh did.
Tramiel denied to get interviewed on Commodore - on the webpage
commodorebook.com we can read "Jack has a strict no-Commodore interview
policy." Could you dig out why so?
Chuck Peddle, one of the early Commodore engineers, says he got burned by a Baron's article that was very harsh on him. I think he cooperated with the article and they turned around and demolished him. He has given interviews about Commodore to German magazines from time to time, though, so maybe he just doesn't trust the North American media. He left on bad terms in 1984 and Commodore is probably not a happy memory for him or Sam Tramiel, his son. Leonard Tramiel seems a little more objective and he sounded frustrated that his father would not come out and set the record straight.
Co-Editors of your book are well-known Commodore experts like Jim
Butterfield or Robert Bernardo. But had the interviewed people like Leonard
Tramiel no interest in reading it before it gets released?
That's an excellent question. I thought long and hard about showing the finished chapters to Commodore people but decided against it. There is personal information about them in this book, and not all of it is flattering. I think it would take away from the objectiveness of the story to have those people involved in the editing process. For example, if I showed it to Leonard, he would do everything in his power to protect his father, even though Leonard seems like an honest person. I would have this pressure to remove the best parts and it would end up dulling the Commodore story rather than enhancing it.
Instead, I decided to pull people who know a lot about the Commodore period. Guys like Martin Goldberg from Classic gaming, Gareth Knight from the Amiga History Guide, Ian from Commdore.ca, and Jim Butterfield (who was there when a lot of this stuff happened). These guys all have a love of the Commodore story as you can see from their web sites, and they have the knowledge to make sure the story is told accurately.
Finally, is there a chance that this book will be translated into German
language, for example?
I think there is a very good chance. I've been contacted by at least three German publishers so far and the book isn't even out yet, so I'm going to try to pick the best one (which could be difficult considering I know nothing of the German publishing industry) and make a deal for the translation rights.
Thanks for the interview!
Pleasure. Great questions!