Beloved Commodore May Rise From The Ashes As Retro Community Takes Over
Buying Commodore itself wasn’t originally in the cards, but Perifractic, along with some others from the retro computing community, thought it would be possible with the right support, and they took a shot. The team put together a business plan, recruited a veritable who’s who of Commodore enthusiasts including many former execs and engineers, and pitched a myriad of investors. At this point, although a seven-figure financial deal hasn’t fully closed yet, the team has signed a share purchase agreement and seemingly taken over Commodore. See for yourself…
At this moment, things are obviously still in flux and there are a multitude of potential roadblocks, but team leaders are in place and include everyone from Bill Herd of Commodore fame to Thomas Middleditch, star of the HBO series Silicon Valley. There are surely others involved, including some that don’t want to be mentioned, but Perifractic did disclose these team members:
- Christian "Perifractic" Simpson – New acting CEO of Commodore
- Bill Herd – Technical Advisor and Shareholder. Bill was involved in the design of the C128, Plus 4, C16 and multiple concept designs and is currently an author at Hackaday.com.
- Albert Charpentier – Will be helping with new, as yet unannounced projects. Albert is the former Vice President of Engineering at Commodore.
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Michael Tomczyk – Senior Advisor. Michael is the former Assistant To Commodore President Jack Tramiel.
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James Harrison – Teach Support Manager. James was the former head of Commodore Tech Support.
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David Pleasance – Heritage and Legacy Advisor. David has authored books about Commodore and is the former VP and Joint Managing Director of the company. He’s also the inventor of the movie tie-in bundle for the Amiga.
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Hans Olsen – Convention Facilitator. Hans is a former Demo Technician at Commodore.
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Tim Morgan – PR Officer
- Jeri Ellsworth – Technical Advisor and Hardware Partner. Jeri is from TiltFive.com and sold a million units of the Commodore Direct-To-TV retro console.
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Cem Tezcan – Visual Artist. Cen is the designer of the Commodore handheld computer concept device.
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Dan Tootill – Visual Artist. Dan is a self described Linux guy, retro-computing and electronics enthusiast, artist and musician that’s restored and built numerous Commodore systems.
- Marvin Droogsma – Title unclear. Marvin is well known in the retro community, has a massive Commodore collection, and is the founder of Arcadia.
- Matt Grandis – Webmaster
- Thomas Middleditch – Chief Creative Officer (CCO). From HBO series Silicon Valley.
Gideon Zweijtzer, the inventor of the Ultimate-II cartridge, Jim Drew, inventor of the Emplant Mac Emulation Card, Jake Young from Retrofuzion, and Euan Wilcox from mini-itx.com will also be involved as well, but specific titles weren’t mentioned.
Also mentioned, is that Compute!’s Gazette – the popular tech and compute magazine from back in the day is coming back. And the full story of this Commodore acquisition will be featured cover story for the magazine’s re-launch.
As a long-time Commodore enthusiast, I would like to be optimistic about this development. However, the fact is others have tried to resurrect Commodore since the company’s bankruptcy in 1994 – and failed. This endeavor is coming from a different place, though. It’s not just folks looking to profit from Commodore’s brand recognition with lackluster devices, but rather an array of Commodore lovers and enthusiasts hoping to revive Commodore’s original vision. It should also allow many currently unofficial retro-inspired products to be brought under the Commodore branding umbrella and allow future products to use the Commodore brand.
At this moment, we’ll remain cautiously optimistic and wish the team nothing but the best.
