Commodore Book

[cicobuff]

One of my presents my wife got me at Christmas was the Commodore book "On the Edge : The spectacular rise and fall of Commodore"

Only just started reading it but its a great read for us computer geeks lol....anyone else here read it? It definitely is a recommended read for sure.

[Harrison]

I read a review for it just before Christmas but haven't purchased a copy. It's set in my Amazon wishlist so I should get it quite soon. :)

[Teho]

Yeah, I read it a couple of months ago. I've been meaning to do an article on it, but never got around to it.

It is most definitely a recommended read if you have even a slight interest in Commodore. It details the company's entire history, and doesn't just focus on the C64 and Amiga years. Put it like this, the book is over 600 pages long, and the C64 doesn't enter the picture till after page 200. The Amiga arrives up in the 400s. And those 600 pages are filled with text too, there are hardly any illustrations in the book at all.

It isn't a simple boring list of facts either, but is the story told directly from the mouths of the people who worked there, such as the project leaders and the main engineers. The people who really knew what was going on. Mostly, the book quotes these people directly while telling the story and the author usually only interrupts to provide some more detail on some subjects, or simply comment on what's being said.

I certainly learned a lot I had no idea about from before. Definitely a great read.

[Demon Cleaner]

I have the book, but in german.

[rayzorblue]

That sounds like something my Dad would love to read, then i could borrow it off him after he has finished ;) . My Dad loved commodore computers i think he started wit a Vic 20 moving up through the years, he also loved the amiga OS and still curses the americans for the downfall of Commodore lol, i think ill have to get him a copy thanks for bringing this to my attention.:thumbs:

[StuKeith]

Maybe we could all write a book?

Teho/DC/JT/PG could do the section on the demo scene, H could do the hardware/professional side of things, I could do the PD, SW scene and mags

we can also do bits of everything!

Ive been meaning to write a book for years, was going to do one on my life! (its intresting you know! :blink: )

[AlexJ]

Maybe we could all write a book?

Teho/DC/JT/PG could do the section on the demo scene, H could do the hardware/professional side of things, I could do the PD, SW scene and mags

we can also do bits of everything!

Ive been meaning to write a book for years, was going to do one on my life! (its intresting you know! :blink: )

Strange - I was planning on writing an Amiga book as well! Kinda like an encylopedia for all (well maybe not quite all) games on Amiga. I even went as far as assessing the financial costs with regard to printers etc. - figured I will probably make a loss but still would quite like to do it. Be quite cool to be able to say I've written a book.

[Harrison]

That is quite a cool idea, to all write a book together. I would definitely be in on doing the design and layout of the pages. It would be a lot of work to produce, and the volume of content would make it pretty big with demo, game and hardware included. Would be really cool though. An encyclopaedia of the Amiga.

The thing is, as we do more and more work on the main site we will slowly be building up all of the information we would need for such a book. So it is one of those projects that would take shape once the areas of the site become complete. Maybe a book to consider at the end of the year? ;)

[Puni/Void]

I'm very interested in the idea of writing a book about the various aspects of the Amiga. I would like to help out every way I can, especially with the parts concerning the Amiga Demo Scene. Would of course like to help out with information about other areas as well. I guess Teho and I could do a translation of all the stuff to Norwegian, so that such a book could be published in Norway along with the UK.

There are of course obstacles; If such a project such be initialized, would we go for a professional publisher to help us or should we do it alone? There are plenty of people that actually publish books themselves. If we have a bit of money, we could manage that I presume. But then we would have to do a bit of marketing of course, but the main site and other Amiga webpages would help us with that.

It is truly a good idea, StuKeith. Cheers! Let's do this guys! (Before some other site gets the same idea ;))

[Demon Cleaner]

I also like the idea, unfortunately I have no idea on how doing this, I mean for publishing, and what it would cost. But the idea is truly great, I will have to refresh my english though.

Translations would be no problem, I can translate into french and german (and luxembourgish :lol:) , but I don't see the point in doing this. Anyway, first there has to be something done, then after there will be fine-tuning.

[Harrison]

Having members who speak so many common languages, it would be great to be able to do translations. French, German, English and Norwegian versions would be great.

I know quite a bit about the printing process and how to layout pages ready for being sent to the printers, as well as pantone colour selections and other related things, so that's not a problem. If we did seriously all consider trying to do a book then I could find out some more realistic costings for publishing a book.

Of course there is an alternative. We could create a book, but publish it in PDF format and charge for it to be downloaded. If that proved popular then it could go into physical print. You can also protect PDFs via copyright, as well as verification keys to confirm the person viewing the PDF is the legal owner.

But, equally I don't think we should even consider a book until the site content is more complete. Otherwise we will end up with a split between the projects which would be hard to manage.

Although having a topic we can all post ideas for the book in would still be a great place to make initial plans and ideas.

[Demon Cleaner]

But, equally I don't think we should even consider a book until the site content is more complete. Otherwise we will end up with a split between the projects which would be hard to manage.That was my first thought. I think we should concentrate on completing most of the main site, then look for other things.

[Demon Cleaner]

The guys at Golden Years (http://c64goldenyears.com/) are already releasing their second book. The idea is as follows:


IMPORTANT! Before you click on the link, please be aware that this is a PRE-ORDER. The idea being that - in a very similar way to the ZX Spectrum book - we will use the pre-orders to fund the printing. The book itself will not be ready for several months, and in fact may not ever get printed if not enough pre-orders are received!
However, in the event that not enough preorders are received to cover the bulk of the printing costs, anyone who did support us with a pre-order will have their money refunded (MINUS PAYPAL FEES!) and be sent an electronic copy of the book as a thanks for their support!
Note that this system worked very well for the ZX Spectrum book, which was printed in December of 2006.

ALSO IMPORTANT! There will be a limited number of copies of the book printed. First come, first served!

Is a good idea IMO, if it worked fine with the previous one.

[Submeg]

So crazy....but if you have everything done on the site...theres this option called Ctrl + A, Ctrl + C.....Ctrl + V....

[AlexJ]

Chances are the prose will be terrible with a copy/paste method. It'll just be facts and figures + reviews with no flowing through each section.

[Harrison]

Exactly. The site can be used for the reference and the facts, but to create a book we would all need to write articles that explored the history of the Amiga, Amiga gaming and the Amiga demo scene. Basically what made the Amiga so loved by everyone. If we were to just stick to the main site content we would end up creating a very big encyclopaedia of the Amiga, something the site will end up being anyway.

[Submeg]

Yea I guess that would be right, it would have to be more of a flowing piece. Sounds interesting....

[Tiago]

I never saw this topic before, i just read it now!

the Commodore book "On the Edge : The spectacular rise and fall of Commodore",
it was also in other topic.

The book is on Amigakit:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=368

So do you think it will be easy for me to read it in english? I dont have it here in Portugal.
In the past i read about 4 or 5 books in English, but they where adventure or novels, with no difficult language with no difficult terms. Does this book have difficult tecnical terms in english?

[toomanymikes]

I think we should do this! I have really good writings skills and stuff and I can talk 'word' with the kids of today.
In all seriousness tho, I think its a good idea - maybe I could contribute a cover image or two as thats all I'm really good at!

[Zetr0]

I keep meaning to treat myself to a copy of "On The Edge"

[Llamaman]

Got my copy today, along with another storming book "Digital Retro" (Another awsome book detailing almost every home computer of the golden era, Oric, Aquarius, Cpc464.. anyone?)

Only just started reading them but already its proving to be amazing. what it must have been like to be thoes guys developing all that technology.. And then have it all be nigh-on forgotten about and to get virtually written out of the history books...

Well, Mr Jobs , Mr Gates , etc....

We wont forget and we know what really happend.

[Harrison]

Glad you are enjoying the books.

It is so true. Apple and M$ are living off of the ideas of others who got swallowed up and forgotten along the way.

[v85rawdeal]

You could say, although I expect most of you wouldn't... :lol:

A spoonful of Sugar helps the Microsoft go down...

[Tiago]

Hi guys,

i will make the same question again, nobody answer last time: :cry:

So do you think it will be easy for me to read it in english? I dont have it here in Portugal.
In the past i read about 4 or 5 books in English, but they where adventure or novels, with no difficult language with no difficult terms. Does this book have difficult tecnical terms in english?

[Teho]

Well, there are technical terms in it of course since a large part of it is dealing with computer production and specifications. I am norwegian and personally I had no trouble reading it. But I have been reading books in english on a regular basis for over ten years, so it may be that it was easier for me than it is for you. I don't know. I can't really say if the technincal terms are difficult to understand or not. A technical term is a technical term, either you understand it or you don't. But many technical terms are pretty universal across the languages, ie the words are either the same or very similar. At least it's that way with a lot of technical terms in norwegian. So basically, I think if you allready know most of the technical terms in your own language, you should for the most part be fine with reading it in english. :)

[Tiago]

Thanks Teho,
yes i think a lot of technical terms are universal, many of them inPortuguese manuals are written in the same way.

Lets see if i can read it correctly.

In amigakit.com it cost 22.32 plus +/- 7shipping to PT (pounds)
in ebay i found it at 13.13 plus 4.80 shipping (punds) at "buy it now"

in amazon it has similar price. Amigakit sometimes is a bit expensive...
13 to 22... more 9 pounds ...

[Harrison]

Amazon normally have good prices and I know others here order books from the UK Amazon store. Teho definitely does.

[Cortona]

I read 'On The Edge' earlier this year, then picked it up again recently to just dip into it, but ended up reading the whole book again! It really is worth reading if you ever had a Commodore computer or got interested more recently via emulation.

Perversely, I discovered it from a (very positive) review on an Apple blog, which just goes to show that not all Apple fanatics are history re-writing vacuous wannabies.

Even more perversly, if you relished the lurid business shennanigans exposed in 'On The Edge', you might well enjoy 'iCon'* - a similar book on Steve Jobs. It's been a couple of years since I read it but I think there are a few similarities between the way Jobs and Tramiel did business.

* 'iCon, The Second Biggest Comeback in Business History', to give it it's full title. (It's something like that anyway!) See what they did with iCon? Now that's clever...

[StuKeith]

Just finished reading the book! AMAZING!!! I read the whole 596 (Or so) pages in under a week! :unsure:

I did have a couple of issues though.

1)I somethings found it hard to know who was talking, or who was being talked about.

2)Repeting. Sometimes things were said a few times throughout the book.

Other than that it was great. I was astonished to read how 1 person brought down 2 companies with little help from others. and how after JT left it all went pair shapped!

I also found it Ironic that commodore invented such good ideas, chucked them aside, and they went on to make money they missed out on.

(C= started up AOL! ("QLink"))

[mcostanza]

I was going to order this on Amazon the other day but i noticed that a new edition is going to be available and is expected to ship Feb 2010. Anyone have any idea's on what is gong to be added to the new edition? The book description on Amazon did not say.

Regards,
MC




One of my presents my wife got me at Christmas was the Commodore book "On the Edge : The spectacular rise and fall of Commodore"

Only just started reading it but its a great read for us computer geeks lol....anyone else here read it? It definitely is a recommended read for sure.

[Harrison]

I'm not sure. A second edition was already released some time ago that had some updated information.