Thanks to Jack Tramiel's relentless pursuit of value for money, and the visionary development efforts of Chuck Peddle, Bill Mensch and the teams at MOS and Commodore, Commodore computers were one of the top 3 selling home computers through the 1970s and early 1980s, along with Tandy and Atari. To this day, the Commodore 64 remains the best selling computer of all time, with over 17 million units sold. Here are some New Zealand newspaper advertisements for these amazing computers.
I was saddened to read this morning that Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore Business Machines and one time owner of Atari, passed away yesterday at the age of 83. I believe it is fair to say that few, if any, companies drove more innovation in personal computing through the 1970s and 80s than Commodore lead by Jack Tramiel.
"We need computers for the masses, not the classes." - Jack Tramiel
David Reid Electronics was a large chain of electronics hobby shops around New Zealand. They stocked a wide range of computers, including Commodore and Sinclair. Here is a brochure they printed for the ZX Spectrum.
Price for computer, mouse, word processor, 5 games, workbench, graphics, extras disk, modulator and Joystick:
$1,495 without monitor
$2,015 with monitor
