Reverse Engineering?
Did Commodore Reverse Engineers Atari 8-bit Hardware?
By Carmel Andrews & Charles F. GrayApril 8, 2005This article came about by an interesting email I received from Carmel
Andrews on the subject of my Jack Tramiel interview and later on the topic of
Commodore and Atari 8 bit designs and who copied whom. I had always believed
that Commodore had their own computer designs and expressed this to Carmel.
Carmel sent me a very quick email back stating his views on Commodore’s reverse
engineering of Atari designs and technology. Expressed below is Carmel Andrews
email to me, cleaned up, formatted and edited by me into the article you see
below. - Charles F. Gray
At
the time Atari had launched the original 400/800 (1978/79), all Commodore had to
offer was the Pet series, which like the Apple 8-bit and similar products, were
based on a previous age of computer technology compared to what Atari was
offering. In fact, Commodore had nothing to ‘out-technology’ Atari with.
One of the directors/principles behind one of the better-known Atari related
websites had, during the Tramiel years, a contact at Commodore named Bob Yannes,
who provided much information regarding Commodore’s business and technological
tactics. According to Bob Yannes, one of the main hardware engineers on the
VIC-20/C=64 hardware design team, the directive given to him by Commodore’s
management at the time was to 'out technology' Atari. The only way they could do
that was to find out how Atari designed its graphics/sound chip set. Getting the
engineers responsible was out of the question as most of them had jumped ship at
Atari and joined Jay Miner and Dave Morse at Hi-Toro (soon to become Amiga and
become the first non-Atari company to be funded and financed by Atari) and
similar hardware or software companies (Activision and Imagic being two of the
better known ones) or were tied into long term contracts in one of many
disparate Atari R&D companies (apparently Atari even forced engineers to sign
Non-Disclosure Agreements.)
The only way that Commodore could compete with Atari hardware was to come out
with a very similar product with similar technologies. And the only way they
could do that ‘legally’ and without patent infringements was to ‘reverse
engineer’ or clone Atari’s hardware (or to use the Yannes’ quote, “tear into”).
Instead
of using Atari names for the various hardware tricks like PMG’s (MOB’s) or
Playfields (Bit map modes), Display Lists & DLI’s (Horizontal kernels etc.),
they essentially came out with their own. Their first attempt was the VIC-20
hardware it borrowed from both the Atari 8-bit hardware (pre GTIA) and also the
VCS chip design, in that, like the VCS, the VIC-20’s sound and graphics hardware
was hardwired into a single chip like the VCS TIA. Unlike the VCS TIA Chip, the
VIC-20 sound/graphic hardware technology was borrowed from the Atari 8-bit. The
C=64 hardware carried on in very much the same vein except that the Commodore 64
went away from combined sound/graphics hardware like the VIC-20/VCS TIA design
and instead followed the Atari 8-bit mantra of separate sound/graphics chip
hardware, albeit with slight improvements (as far as sound hardware was
concerned.)
Essentially the VIC-20 was basically Commodore’s VCS with a keyboard (as it
borrowed more from the VCS and less from the 8-bit), and the C=64 was Commodore’s
Atari 800 (as the C=64 borrowed more from the Atari 8-bit then the VCS.)
To stay in the computer race, Commodore reverse-engineered Atari hardware
and rebuilt it and improved it as the Commodore VIC-20 and the Commodore 64. No
doubt, there were improvements made by Commodore on the Atari hardware, but the
basic design itself is an Atari design. So the next time you pop open your
Commodore Vic-20 or Commodore 64, take a look at reverse engineering at its
best. This was one way the Jack Tramiel could cut down on Research and
Development costs and bring computers to the masses and not to the classes.
Read Commodore Bob Yannes rebuttal to this article.
