Iconic PET, C64, And Amiga Glory Days Relived In Upcoming Commodore Story Documentary

An upcoming documentary – The Commodore Story – is poised to hit long-time computer geeks that witnessed the birth of the 8-bit personal computing revolution right in the feels. 

At one point in time, Commodore was a billion dollar company and trailblazer in the fledgling personal computer market. Commodore’s accomplishments included the creation of the single, best-selling PC of all the time, the Commodore 64, and the introduction of the Amiga, which was the most advanced personal computer money could buy at the time. The Amiga offered multimedia features that were unmatched for many years, it was affordably priced (relatively speaking), and was the first personal computer with true multi-tasking capabilities. Commodore had introduced other iconic machines throughout its existence as well, like the early VIC 20 and PET, and also had numerous forward-looking prototypes in the works that may have been highly successful.

But the company imploded.

The pervasiveness of Commodore’s early machines spurred an entire generation of rabid fans (myself included) that are still fascinated by the company’s technologies, engineers, and back-story. Commodore’s ultimate failure, due to a series of poor business decisions in combination with a changing computing market dynamic, has been covered many times in the past. But the upcoming “The Commodore Story” documentary aims to tell the tale from a different angle.

The producers of “The Commodore Story” set out to tell the story from the users’ and game developers’ points of view. Wavem Studios describes the documentary thusly, “The Commodore Story is a cram packed, 2-hour documentary film that takes us through Commodore's evolution from the 70's to the 90's, from the PET, VIC 20, C64, to the Amiga and beyond, including the very rare C65 and the retro-wave of nostalgic events and Commodore / Amiga related products hitting the market today.”

The cast of “The Commodore Story” includes many of the legends associated with the company. Commodore engineers and execs appearing in the documentary include David Haynie, R.J. Michael, Bil Herd, Jeff Porter and many others. Current personalities working to keep the legacy of Commodore alive, like A-EON’s Trevor Dickinson and even David “The 8-bit Guy” Murray, also appear in the documentary.

The Commodore Story is due to hit Netflix, Amazon Video, and iTunes on February 23. Blu-Rays and other goodies reserved for backers of the Kickstarter, however, also still appear to be available via the documentary’s website.