Editing Commodore International (section)

===Departure of Tramiel, acquisition of Amiga and competition with Atari (1984–1987)===
[[File:Commodore C= logo.svg|thumb|upright=0.5|Commodore's logo, dubbed the "Chicken Lips"]]

By early 1984, Commodore was the most successful home computer company, with more than {{US$|long=no|1 billion}} (equivalent to ${{Format price|{{Inflation|US-GDP|1000000000|1984}}}} in {{Inflation/year|US-GDP}}) in annual revenue and {{US$|long=no|100 million}} (equivalent to ${{Format price|{{Inflation|US-GDP|100000000|1984}}}} in {{Inflation/year|US-GDP}}) in net income, whilst competitors had large losses. The company's revenue of $425 million in the fourth calendar quarter of 1983 more than doubled its revenue of {{US$|long=no|176 million}} a year earlier.<ref name=pollack19840114>{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/14/business/founder-of-commodore-resigns-unexpectedly.html |title= Founder of Commodore Resigns Unexpectedly |first=Andrew |last=Pollack |date=14 January 1984 | page=27}}</ref> Although ''[[Creative Computing]]'' compared the company to "a well-armed battleship [which] rules the micro waves" and threatened to destroy rivals like [[Atari, Inc.|Atari]] and [[Coleco]],<ref name="anderson198403">{{cite news|url=https://archive.org/stream/creativecomputing-1984-03/Creative_Computing_v10_n03_1984_Mar#page/n57/mode/2up |title=Commodore |work=Creative Computing |date=March 1984 |access-date=February 6, 2015 |author=Anderson, John J. |page=56 |author-link=John J. Anderson |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150405172428/https://archive.org/stream/creativecomputing-1984-03/Creative_Computing_v10_n03_1984_Mar |archive-date=April 5, 2015 }}</ref> Commodore's board of directors, affected by the price spiral, decided to exit the company. In January 1984, an internal power struggle resulted after Tramiel resigned due to disagreements with the board chairman, [[Irving Gould]]. Gould replaced Tramiel with Marshall F. Smith, a steel executive without a computer or consumer marketing experience.<ref name="maher20130728">{{cite web|url=http://www.filfre.net/2013/07/a-computer-for-every-home/ |title=A Computer for Every Home? |work=The Digital Antiquarian |date=July 28, 2013 |access-date=July 10, 2014 |author=Maher, Jimmy |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140711193125/http://www.filfre.net/2013/07/a-computer-for-every-home/ |archive-date=July 11, 2014 }}</ref><ref name="DAK54">{{cite news | first = Marty | last = Herzog | date = January 1988 | title = Neil Harris | work = [[Comics Interview]] | issue = 54 | pages = 41–51 | publisher = [[Fictioneer Books]]}}</ref><ref>(1985). {{YouTube|id=NImJFV3wH88#t=9m25s|title=Jack Tramiel Interview}}</ref> Tramiel's departure at the moment of Commodore's greatest financial success surprised the industry.{{r|pollack19840114}}

[[File:Sx-64 build crop.jpg|thumb|[[Commodore SX-64]] (1984)]]
In May 1984, Tramiel founded a new company, Tramel Technology, and hired several Commodore engineers to begin work on a next-generation computer design.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Current |first1=Michael D. |title=A History of Tramel Technology / Atari |url=https://mcurrent.name/atarihistory/tramel_technology.html |website=mcurrent.name |access-date=February 2, 2024}}</ref> That same year, Tramiel discovered [[Warner Communications]] wanted to sell Atari, which was rumored to be losing about {{US$|long=no|10000}} a day. Interested in Atari's overseas manufacturing and worldwide distribution network for a new computer, he approached Atari and entered negotiations. After several talks with Atari in May and June 1984, Tramiel had secured funding and bought Atari's Consumer Division (which included the console and home computer departments) in July.<ref>{{cite web|title =Time Warner Companies Inc, et al. · SC 13D/A|publisher =secinfo.com|date= March 29, 1994|url =http://www.secinfo.com/dMESy.bd.htm|access-date = February 2, 2024 }}</ref> In July 1984 Tramiel bought the consumer side of Atari Inc. from [[Time Warner|Warner Communications]] and released the [[Atari ST]] earlier in 1985 for about {{US$|long=no|800}}. As more executives and researchers left Commodore after the announcement to join Tramiel's new company [[Atari Corporation|Atari Corp.]], Commodore followed by filing lawsuits against four former engineers for theft of trade secrets in late July.{{Year needed|date=August 2023}} This was intended, in effect, to bar Tramiel from releasing his new computer. One of Tramiel's first acts after forming Atari Corp. was to fire most of Atari's remaining staff and to cancel almost all ongoing projects to review their continued viability. In late July to early August,{{Year needed|date=August 2023}} Tramiel representatives discovered the original Amiga contract from the previous fall. Seeing a chance to gain some leverage, Tramiel immediately used the agreement to counter-sue Commodore on August 13.{{Year needed|date=August 2023}}

The remaining Commodore management sought to salvage the company's fortunes and plan for the future, and did so by buying a small [[startup company]] called [[Amiga Corporation]] in August 1984 for {{US$|long=no|25 million}} ({{US$|long=no|12.8 million}} in cash and $550,000 in common shares). Amiga became a subsidiary of Commodore, called Commodore-Amiga, Inc.<ref>David Needle. "Special Report" p.90 Personal Computing, (August 1985)</ref> During development in 1981, Amiga had exhausted venture capital and needed more financing. Jay Miner and his company had approached their former employer, the Warner-owned [[Atari]], who paid Amiga to continue development work.<ref>{{cite web|title=TOP SECRET: Confidential Atari-Amiga Agreement |url=http://www.atarimuseum.com/articles/mickey.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120723091215/http://www.atarimuseum.com/articles/mickey.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2012-07-23 |date=November 1981 |work=Atari Historical Society |access-date=2006-07-23 }}</ref> In return, Atari received the exclusive use of the design as a video game console for one year, after which Atari would have the right to add a keyboard and market it as a complete Amiga computer. The Atari-Amiga contract and engineering logs identify the Atari-Amiga product was designated as the 1850XLD. As Atari was heavily involved with Disney at the time, it was later code-named "Mickey", and the 256K memory expansion board was codenamed "Minnie".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archives.atarimuseum.com/archives/archives.html |title="Confidential Atari-Amiga Agreement" and "Afterthoughts: The Atari 1600XL Rumor" |publisher=Archives.atarimuseum.com |access-date=2009-08-10 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090415111352/http://archives.atarimuseum.com/archives/archives.html |archive-date=April 15, 2009 }}</ref>

Still suffering serious financial problems, Amiga sought more monetary support from investors that entire spring. At around the same time that Tramiel was negotiating with Atari, Amiga entered into discussions with Commodore. The discussions ultimately led to Commodore's intentions to purchase Amiga outright, which Commodore viewed would cancel any outstanding contracts{{snd}} including Atari Inc.'s. Tramiel counter-sued on the basis of this interpretation, and sought damages and an injunction to bar Amiga and effectively Commodore from producing any resembling technology, to render Commodore's new acquisition and the source for its next generation of computers useless. The resulting court case lasted several years.<ref name="Jay Miner">Jay Miner</ref>

[[File:Amiga500 system.jpg|thumb|Amiga 500 (1987)]]
Commodore introduced a new [[32-bit]] computer design to market in the fall of 1985 named the [[Amiga 1000]] for {{US$|1295}}, first demonstrated at the CES in 1984. An Atari-Commodore rivalry continued throughout the life of the ST and Amiga platforms. While the rivalry was a holdover from the competition between the C64 and Atari 800, the events leading to the launch of the ST and Amiga served to further alienate fans of each computer, who disagreed as to which platform was superior.{{Additional citation needed|date=August 2023}} This was reflected in sales numbers for the two platforms until the release of the [[Amiga 500]] in 1987, which led the Amiga sales to exceed the ST by about 1.5 to 1,{{Citation needed|date=June 2008}} despite reaching the market later. However, neither platform captured a significant share of the world computer market, with only the Apple Macintosh surviving the industry-wide shift to [[Intel]]-based [[x86]] computers using [[Microsoft Windows]].

Commodore and Atari both sought to compete in the workstation market, with Commodore announcing in 1988 a [[Transputer]]-driven system based on the Amiga 2000 in response to the [[Atari Transputer Workstation]]. Similarly, a Unix workstation based on the Amiga 2000, featuring the 68020 CPU, was detailed as Atari announced developer shipments of its own 68030-based Unix workstation within a claimed "to or three months".<ref name="byte198806_workstations">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/BYTE-1988-06/page/n17/mode/1up | title=U.S. Firms Show Workstations Overseas | magazine=Byte | date=June 1988 | access-date=20 February 2024 | pages=14 }}</ref> Atari's workstation, the [[TT030]], eventually arrived in 1990 without a version of Unix available,<ref name="start199102_tterrific">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/STart-Magazine-Issue-41/page/n21/mode/2up | title=TTerrific! | magazine=STart | last1=Small | first1=Dave | date=February 1991 | access-date=21 February 2024 | pages=22–30, 64–65 }}</ref> this only eventually becoming available to developers in late 1991.<ref name="streport19911101_lee">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/st-report-743/page/n7/mode/2up | title=A Little of This, A Little of That | magazine=ST Report | last1=Lee | first1=Michael | date=1 November 1991 | access-date=21 February 2024 | pages=8–14 }}</ref> Commodore's workstation arrived in 1990 in the form of the [[Amiga 3000UX]].