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A little note to all Commodore (Amiga/c64) users. COMMODORE IS NOW DEAD! Quoted below is an article from the Melbourne AGE newspaper dated 15th feb 1994. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Commodore sell-off is a sad footnote (GARETH POWELL [author] reports on the demise of one of the innovators of the personal computer industry.) THE LATEST chapter in the Commodore saga comes as no great surprise. Last week, the company Ferrier Hodgson was appointer administrator of the Australian company after Commodore directors considered their position and the company's financial problems. According to Max Donnellt of Ferrier Hodgson, Commodore was unable to service a bank bill due to roll over at the end of this week. The company is to be sold. Commodore, founded by Mr Jack Trameil in the '50s, was initally invovled with typewriters. Operations were financed largely from Canada, mainbly by the chairman C. Morgan Powell. In 1965, three years after the group's public listing, Mr powell was criticised by a Canadian royal commission for acts of "rapacious and unprincipled management". He died before the commission finished it's report. While Commodore got a clean bill of health from the commission, Mr Trameil subsequently found it difficult to get finance. To the rescue came Canadian financier Irving Gould, who bought in heavily. In the early days, the calculator boom supported Commodore, but in the downturn of 1975 the company suffered a loss of $US55 million on sales of $US50 million. It switched to computers and profits soared. In 1985, Mr Trameil left Commodore amid much bitterness and recrimination. Since then, the company's fortunes have been, to say the least, erratic, although in the Amiga it had a personal computer that was several years ahead of it's time. Amiga was not originally designed by Commodore. It came froma California company of longhairs who wanted to make the ultimate computer. And that was what they did. When it was launched, the Amiga had graphics superior to any other computer on the market, a super-fast Motorolla 68000 and wondrous sound. It was also the first true multi-tasking personal computer. It is a great sadness that it has all come to this.