[2][3] However an internal struggle led to co-founder Tramiel quitting, then rivalling Commodore under Atari Corporation joined by a number of other employees.

[4] The company's position started declining in the late 1980s amid internal conflicts and mismanagement, and while the Amiga line was popular, newer models failed to keep pace against competing IBM PC-compatibles and Apple Macintosh.

Under co-founding chairman Irving Gould and president Mehdi Ali, Commodore filed for bankruptcy on April 29, 1994 and was soon liquidated, with its assets purchased by German company Escom.

After Escom's demise and liquidation, its core assets were sold to Gateway 2000[8] while the Commodore brand name was eventually passed to Tulip Computers of the Netherlands, and remains under ownership of a Dutch company today.

Hyperion Entertainment of Belgium has continued development of AmigaOS (version 4) to this day under license, and have released AmigaOne computers based on PowerPC.

[12] Jack Tramiel and Manfred Kapp met in the early 1950s while both employed by the Ace Typewriter Repair Company in New York City.

Tramiel made a connection with an Everest agent in England who alerted him to a business opportunity to import portable typewriters manufactured by a Czechoslovakian company into Canada.

In 1965, it purchased the furniture company for which it served as the distributor and moved its headquarters to its facilities on Warden Avenue in the Scarborough district of Toronto.

[16] That same year, the company made a deal with a Japanese manufacturer to produce adding machines for Commodore, and purchased the office supply retailer Wilson Stationers to serve as an outlet for its typewriters.

A subsequent investigation by a royal commission revealed a massive fraud scheme in which the company falsified financial records to acquire loans funneled into a web of subsidiaries where C. Powell Morgan held a personal stake.

Due to the financial scandal, Tramiel could only secure a bridge loan by paying interest well above the prime rate and putting the German factory up as collateral.

Tramiel worked with a financier named Irving Gould to extricate himself, who brokered a deal to sell Wilson Stationers to an American company.

Commodore obtained an infusion of cash from Gould, which Tramiel used beginning in 1976 to purchase several second-source chip suppliers, including MOS Technology, Inc., to assure his supply.

[17] He agreed to buy MOS, which was having troubles of its own, on the condition that its chip designer Chuck Peddle join Commodore directly as head of engineering.

[21] The company had lost its early domestic-market sales leadership, however by mid-1981 its US market share was less than 5% and US computer magazines rarely discussed Commodore products.

[23] Writing for Programming the PET/CBM, Raeto Collin West wrote "CBM's product manuals are widely recognized to be unhelpful; this is one of the reasons for the existence of this book.

Due to its chips designed by MOS Technology, the C64 possessed advanced sound and graphics for its time, and is often credited with starting the computer demo scene.

Early C64 advertisements boasted that "You can't buy a better computer at twice the price", with Australian adverts in the mid-1980s using the slogan "Are you keeping up with the Commodore?

[32] Although the company and Tramiel's focus on cost cutting over product testing caused hardware defects in the initial C64, some resolved in later iterations.

[36] NASA's Kennedy Space Center was another noted customer, with over 60 Commodore systems processing documentation, tracking equipment and employees, costing jobs, and ensuring the safety of hazardous waste.

In late July to early August,[year needed] Tramiel representatives discovered the original Amiga contract from the previous fall.

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.

[52][53][54] Adam Osborne stated in April 1981 that "the microcomputer industry abounds with horror stories describing the way Commodore treats its dealers and its customers.

The company put effort into developing and promoting consumer products that would not be in demand for years, such as an Amiga 500-based HTPC called CDTV.

As early as 1986, the mainstream press was predicting Commodore's demise,[63] and in 1990 Computer Gaming World wrote of its "abysmal record of customer and technical support in the past".

[citation needed] Commodore announced voluntary bankruptcy and liquidation on April 29, 1994,[87][88] causing the board of directors to "authorize the transfer of its assets to trustees for the benefit of its creditors", according to an official statement.

[89] With Commodore International having reported a $8.2 million quarterly loss in the US, hopes were expressed that European divisions might be able to continue trading and even survive the demise of the parent company, with a management buyout considered a possibility.

The UK division filed a buyout proposal to the Supreme Court in the Bahamas and was considered the front runner in the bid due to press exposure at the time;[91] the other initial bidders were Samsung, Philips and Amstrad in mid-1994.

[97] The sale was completed in March 2005 after months of negotiations; YMV would not become the sole owner until 2010 after buying the remaining shares from Tulip (by then renamed to Nedfield Holding B.V.) which had gone bankrupt.

[115] On March 15, 2004, Amiga, Inc. announced that on April 23, 2003, it had transferred its rights over past and future versions of the AmigaOS (but not yet over other intellectual property) to Itec, LLC, later acquired by KMOS, Inc., a Delaware-based company.