Not supporting the original Amiga team (by adding additional human resources) and being aggressive with new models was probably their biggest mistake. By 1990, they could've had a chipset that would be already better than AGA, and by 1992 they could've had 3D accelerated graphics. They were simply "too cheap" and very short-sighted without a true vision. I can only imagine what Steve jobs would've done with all the technology Commodore had (both hardware and software as AmigaOS was also ahead of its time). So, as an answer to you, the Ranger line of Amiga's are the ones I am the most sad that they didn't saw the day.

In my opinion, the C65 would have been the ideal computer to change over to. You could have continued to use all the software and hardware of the C64. Also, the price was exactly on the level of a Commodore 64 with 1541. So it was not expensive. Commodore's nail in the coffin was not the C65, as so often claimed, but the Amiga 500, which made good hardware available to a destructive group of buyers. We have to thank the Amiga 500 for the first big virus floods. It wholly ruined the reputation of the Amiga series in the professional environment, which had severe financial consequences. The C65 would have been the ideal solution to this problem, but the A500 had simply already been thrown on the market far too cheaply. When I still set up my C65 at some exhibitions and let everyone play around with it, I could also hear from some visitors that I should not do that, but just display the unit in a showcase. But it was built to be used! And if it gets broken in the process, so be it. Whether it stands in a showcase and is not used, or whether it is not used because it is defective, it comes down to the same thing for me. When we were loading my van after a show, the C65 fell out of the box right onto the asphalt for a buddy of mine. You should have seen the look on his face. I thought he was going to pee his pants. I was not angry with him at all! Yes, now it has a tiny quirk on one corner. So what? That's patina, evidence that it's been used and loved. Unfortunately, the buddy died of cancer this year. Rest in peace, Mugg! 😒 And let's be honest with ourselves: Only Generation X is still interested in such old hardware and is willing to pay absurd sums for it. BTW: I had paid only 375 DM for my C65 in the original packaging in 1999.

My father bought the c +4 from that tv commercial back in the days… min 5

Beth Richard posted a video showing her unit; about 30 or 50 were built; a few survive. One was sold on EBay back around 2018

Good Commodore history lesson. I had never heard of the Amiga Ranger before. Thanks.

For what it's worth, the CPU in the C65 was in fact the 4502, not the 65CE02 - it is virtually identical, except that they were able to re-engineer it in such a way as to reduce the production cost.

I developed some unreleased games on the CD32, not a bad machine but we could tell then that Commodore wasn't in great shape. For instance, the first pre-release version of the CD32 came without a case, with the motherboard and CD attached to an offcut of wood. To run anything on the CD you had to place the CD on a turntable, then place a securing weight on top which had to be manually spun to make sure it didn't wobble. The CDs at this time were single-sided, I can't remember if the final version used double-sided.

The CDTV-CR (aka CDTV-2 in your video) did exist, and was ready to start production; it only didn't because Mehdi Ali didn't want to do that while they had CDTVs in the warehouse. It had a fastram + IDE disk interface SIMM expansion board; swappable video output boards (so most of the design was PAL/NTSC agnostic). The CD as a tray-based design instead of using caddies like the CDTV. It was dramatically cheaper to produce than the CDTV and so could have been sold far cheaper, which would have given the system a chance.

Video eccezzionale,bellissimo ,si sente proprio il sapore della storia,una storia leggendaria,firmata COMMODORE !!

Great video, thank you! Luckily we can at least enjoy the C65 in the form of the MEGA65!

the old commercials are cool

Commodore's worse mistake was losing Jack Tramiel. By losing their founder, they also lost their focus. They had so many projects going on, it was sucking up capital & time, with only a few of those projects ever getting greenlit. One project that did get some early hype but also did not make it was their 900 Unix system. I have to wonder if that unit could have helped them for a little while as an affordable workstation for home & business, especially for small engineering/science companies. Hindsight is 20/20 & I wished they should have also tossed aside that whole line of 264/364 computers & just focused on the C-64, their biggest money maker for years. It would have been nice if Commodore were the first to have started making upgradable computers, in where a new CPU (for higher speed) or more memory or changing sound & video would have been possible, but that concept still wasn't viable in the mid 1980's, other than Intel moving over from 8088 to 80186 & 286. Of course Commodore was able to do that somewhat by moving over to the C128. But again, no focus (except maybe Amiga) & too many projects.

Regardless of whether its competing A1000 successor might have been better, the A2000 wasn't "poorly received". It got very good reviews at the time and was a staple of the "serious" Amiga scene for a long time. The main problem with it was Commodore sat on it and the A500 for far too long and didn't upgrade either, the A3000 being designed by Haynie et al as the A2000 replacement but instead being marketed and priced as a cheap workstation. The CDTV was based on the A500, not the A1000 (which would have been horrible!) Otherwise good video! I would have added a few like the A3000+, the AGA machine Amiga users actually wanted to be the successor to the A2000. Instead we got the A4000, which is what happens when the development arm of your company is run by the only person who could make IBM's attempted entry into the home computing market a disaster.

Big book of amiga hardware, have pictures of CDTV-II

The C=65 I think could have done just as well as Amiga

There is way more than 50 c65s in existance. at least 5 friends of mine have an original c65 (okay, I am part of the C= scene, but still! ;-) I'd guess about 200-300...

Pittstop2 on that C64 commercial

68010 was a nearly pointless upgrade since it's still 16-bit bus like 68000.

Great topic, and well made video with a good script, and well delivered narration. So, thanks! However, I don't think the Raspberry PI is any more a "home computer" than the Apple I, KIM-1, ESP 8266, ESP32, Arduino, or other similar products. Also, "Raspberry PI" is a family of boards, not a *single model*, whereas "Commodore 64" is a single model, with identical specs that didn't change from 1982. (Check wikipedia for the list of PI models). Either of those two facts is sufficient to disqualify the comparison IMHO.

Haynie !

Didn't know that my country helped to build one of the best computer companies, now I'm proud!

C65's 256 colors display with a 4096 color palette chipset was a waste of resources. The focus should have been on releasing the Amiga with an updated chipset beyond ECS in 1990. Amiga 3000's 32-bit Chip RAM was wasted on 16-bit ECS.

I remember this one video game, they would sing this weird song "are you there space station amigos oh" (Can anyone help me with finding it.)

So Commodore didn't want to make the Ranger because it would have been too expensive, but then turn around and repackage the same garbage 1985 chipset in a 1000$ box. I see.