Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Commodore |
CommodoreNoun1. A commissioned naval officer who ranks above a captain and below a rear admiral; the lowest grade of admiral. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "commodore" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1838. (references) |
Etymology: Commodore \Com"mo*dore`\, noun. [Probably corruption of commander, or Spanish comendador knight of military order who holds commandery; also superior of monastery, from Late Latin expression commendare to command. Compare to Commend, Command, Commander.]. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Commodore A corruption of "commander" (French, commandeur; Spanish, comendador). A naval officer in temporary command of a squadron or division of a fleet. He has the pay of a rear-admiral. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Public Administration | General Officer, category OF-6, Royal Navy, UK. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore International, an electronics company who was a major player in the 1980s home computer field. The company formally went bankrupt in 1994, but there have since been several attempts to revive their Amiga systems.
The company that would become Commodore International was started in Toronto by Auschwitz survivor Jack Tramiel in 1954. He had already run a small business fixing typewriters for a few years while living in New York (a job he supported by driving a cab), but managed to sign a deal with a Czechoslovakian company to manufacture their designs in Canada and moved to Toronto to start production. By the late 1950s a wave of Japanese machines forced most typewriter companies out of business, but Tramiel instead turned to adding machines.
In 1962 the company was formally incorporated as Commodore Business Machines (CBM), and in the late 1960s history repeated itself again when the Japanese firms started producing adding machines. The company's main investor and chairman, Irving Gould, suggested that Tramiel travel to Japan to understand how they could compete. Instead he returned with a new idea, to produce electronic calculators, which were just coming on the market.
Commodore soon had a profitable calculator line, and were one of the more common brands in the early 1970s, producing both ordinary as well as scientific/programmable calculators. However in 1975 Texas Instruments, the main supplier of calculator parts, decided to enter the market directly and put out a line of machines priced at less than they charged Commodore for the parts. Commodore had to be rescued once again by an infusion of cash from Gould, which Tramiel used in 1976 onwards to purchase several second-source chip suppliers, including MOS Technologies, in order to guarantee supply. He agreed to buy MOS, who were having troubles of their own, only on the condition that chip designer Chuck Peddle join Commodore directly as head of engineering.
Once Chuck Peddle had taken over engineering at Commodore, he convinced Jack Tramiel that calculators were already a dead-end, and that they should turn their attention to home computers. Peddle packaged his existing KIM-1 design in a metal case, along with a keyboard, monochrome monitor, and tape recorder (for program and data storage), to produce the Commodore PET. From that date forward (1977), Commodore would be a computer company.
Commodore had been reorganized the year before into Commodore International, Ltd., moving its financial headquarters to the Bahamas and its operational headquarters to Pennsylvania, close to MOS. The operational headquarters, where research and development of new products were taking place, retained the name Commodore Business Machines, Inc.
The PET computer line was used primarily in schoolss, due to its tough all-metal construction (some models were labelled "Teacher's PET"), but didn't compete well in the home setting where graphics and sound were important. This was addressed with the introduction of the VIC-20 in 1981, which was introduced at a cost of $299 and sold in retail stores. Commodore took out aggressive ads featuring William Shatner asking, "Why buy just a video game?". The strategy worked and the VIC-20 became the first computer to ship more than one million units. A total of 2.5 million units were sold over the machine's lifetime.
Looking to take over the higher-end portion of the market as well, CBM introduced the Commodore 64 in 1982. Thanks to a well-integrated series of chips designed by MOS, the C64 was a very capable sound and graphics machine for its time, often credited with starting the computer demo scene. Its $595 price was high compared to the VIC-20, but it was still much less expensive than any other 64K computer on the market. Early C64 ads touted this, boasting "You can't buy a better computer at twice the price".
Once again Texas Instruments decided to take over a market, cutting prices on its TI-99/4A, which had been introduced in 1981. But this time Tramiel decided to fight rather than switch, and cut the price of the C64 dramatically. TI responded, and soon there was an all-out price war involving Commodore, TI, Atari and practically everyone other than Apple Computer. By the end of the process Commodore had shipped somewhere around 22 million C64's – making the C64 the best selling computer of all time – and in the process killed the TI-99, destroyed Atari, bankrupted most smaller companies, and wiped out their own savings. Tramiel's motto, "Business is war," showed.
The board of directors was as trapped as anyone else by the price spiral, and eventually decided they wanted out. A power struggle started inside the company, and in January 1984, Tramiel quit. A few months later he bought Atari from Warner Communications for almost nothing.
Now it was up to the remaining Commodore management to salvage something of their company. They did so by buying a promising new 16-bit computer design known as the Amiga from a group of ex-Atari designers. The new machine, dubbed the Amiga 1000, was brought to market in the fall of 1985 for US $1395.
But Tramiel had beaten them to the punch. Throwing together a number of off-the-shelf parts, he had already released the Atari ST earlier in 1985, for about $800. Tramiel also claimed that Jay Miner did the chip design for the Amiga computer while still under contract with Atari, which led to a lawsuit between the two companies. A ferocious Atari/Amiga war ensued, and was ended only when 1987 saw the release of the Amiga 500, which took over the market from the ST. Ultimately, the Amiga outsold the ST about 1.5 to 1 in spite of being later to market.
By the late 1980s the computer market was rapidly latching onto the IBM PC and Apple Macintosh worlds, with everyone else pushed off to the side. In the 1970s and early 80s, the computer press, desperate for news, had always come to Commodore looking for information. The VIC-20 and C64, although aggressively marketed, arguably were successful more because of their price than because of their marketing. After Tramiel's departure, Commodore executives shied away from mass-market advertising and other marketing ploys, fearful of duplicating the past. Commodore also retreated from its earlier strategy of selling its computers at discount houses, now favoring its authorized dealers.
Once forced to market the Amiga line, Commodore's efforts proved ineffective and even seemed half-hearted (one common joke was "If CBM got the contract to advertise Kentucky Fried Chicken, they'd call it 'Warm Dead Bird'"). They also failed to expand the technological edge they had, instead trying to bring technologies to market that would not see demand for another couple of years – like digital TV (CDTV) and a 32-bit CD-ROM based game console (CD32).
A massive divide existed between the engineers and the management, with the technical staff resorting to getting their work done behind the backs of management. For example, CPU samples from Motorola were delivered to the home addresses of the engineers and, for interest, Motorola gave them priority over Apple, who also used the same CPUs.
The engineers gave up trying to get their technology into production, and Commodore seemed content with selling the same old machine. In spite of its technical strengths, the Amiga lost ground to the PC clone ecosystem. When introduced in 1985, the Amiga was competing against Intel 80286-based systems with EGA graphics and rudimentary sound capabilities that frequently cost 2–3 times as much. But CBM was still selling Amigas with 25MHz 68000-family CPUs well into the 1990s, when PCs with 33–100MHz 486's, high-color graphics cards and SoundBlaster (or compatible) sound cards offered higher performance at very competitive prices. Software developers by and large started to favor the PC market.
The Amiga hardware did not begin to reach feature parity with the PCs until release of the A4000 and A1200 computers in late 1992, but because the custom AGA chipset in the third-generation Amigas was much more expensive to produce than the commodity chips used in PCs, the Amigas were not priced attractively. Although welcomed by Amiga enthusiasts, the machines did little to improve Commodore's fortunes.
With market share eroding, Commodore embarked on a series of decisions that were heavily questioned by shareholders and the press, who sometimes accused management of only being interested in removing as much value from the company as possible before it finally disappeared.
Commodore declared bankruptcy on April 29, 1994 and its assets were liquidated, although the company's many computers retained a cult following for years after its demise.
In September 1997, the Commodore brand name was acquired by Dutch computer maker Tulip Computers NV. It was little more than the answer to a trivia question until July 11, 2003, when Tulip announced it would re-launch the Commodore name, including new Commodore 64-related products, and threatened legal action against commercial web sites that used the computer's name without a license.
Computers:
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)History
Foundation and early years
"Computers for the masses, not the classes"
The beginning of the end
The sun sets on Commodore
Product line
Other hardware:
External links
Commodore, Pennsylvania
Geography
Commodore is located at 40°42'38" North, 78°56'45" West (40.710694, -78.945857)1.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 2.0 km² (0.8 mi²). 2.0 km² (0.8 mi²) of it is land and none of the area is covered with water.
Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there are 337 people, 126 households, and 102 families residing in the town. The population density is 169.0/km² (438.7/mi²). There are 147 housing units at an average density of 73.7/km² (191.3/mi²). The racial makeup of the town is 98.22% White, 0.00% African American, 0.00% Native American, 0.00% Asian, 0.00% Pacific Islander, 0.59% from other races, and 1.19% from two or more races. 1.19% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There are 126 households out of which 42.9% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.8% are married couples living together, 23.8% have a female householder with no husband present, and 18.3% are non-families. 16.7% of all households are made up of individuals and 11.9% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.67 and the average family size is 2.96.
In the town the population is spread out with 30.0% under the age of 18, 8.9% from 18 to 24, 26.1% from 25 to 44, 20.8% from 45 to 64, and 14.2% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 33 years. For every 100 females there are 80.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 74.8 males.
The median income for a household in the town is $29,063, and the median income for a family is $31,000. Males have a median income of $23,281 versus $17,500 for females. The per capita income for the town is $9,502. 18.8% of the population and 13.0% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 10.6% are under the age of 18 and 19.6% are 65 or older.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Commodore."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Master | Admiral, admiralty; rear admiral, vice admiral, port admiral; commodore, captain, commander, lieutenant, ensign, skipper, mate, master, officer of the day, OD; navarch. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Commodore |
| English words defined with "commodore": Commodore Perry ♦ flag officer ♦ Oliver Hazard Perry ♦ Perry ♦ rear admiral. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "commodore": 1541, 1581 ♦ 4510 ♦ 6502, 6510 ♦ administrative escort, Amiga ♦ Berkeley Softworks, blitter ♦ C64, Commodore 1010, Commodore 128, Commodore 1541, Commodore 1570, Commodore 1571, Commodore 1581, Commodore 64, Commodore 64DX, Commodore 65, Commodore Business Machines, Commodore SX64 ♦ Flag-officer, Foul-weather Jack ♦ g-file, Gilpin, gronk ♦ LAND ♦ MOS Technologies ♦ Oil on Troubled Waters ♦ PETSCII, Portable Commodore 64, PROgrammer's Microapplication Language ♦ rotary debugger ♦ Sinclair Research, slap on the side ♦ TK-90X ♦ VIC-20. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "commodore": Commander. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Commodore" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Dutch (commodore), German (commodore). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Don't keep calling me commodore inside this here harbor (Popeye; writing credit: Jules Feiffer; E.C. Segar) Enterprise to Kirk, Commodore Decker speaking (Star Trek; writing credit: Walter Black; William Hamilton) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Commodore (1935) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
References | |
Books | |
Music |
|
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Lithograph after a drawing by T.F. Laycock, published by Endicott & Co., New York, 1865, depicting the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron bombarding Fort Fisher, North Carolina, in preparation for its capture. The print is dedicated to Commodore S.W. Godon, USN. Ships present, as named on the original print, are identified in Photo Number LC-USZ62-144 (Complete Caption). Credit: NAVY. |  | Drawing made circa 1865. The incomplete Nashville was surrendered to Union forces on 10 May 1865. The original drawing is in color. Written in pencil in its lower left is "Hon. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, with respectful regards, His Obdt. Servant, Thornton A. Jenkins, Commodore, U.S. Navy.". Credit: NAVY. |
 | Commodore Vanderbilt] / F. Graetz. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | New York City--the death of Commodore Vanderbilt. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Miss Beatrice Hudson in jousting boot, worn by King Henry IV of France, holding two shoes at the annual convention of the National Boot and Shoe Manufacturing Association at the Hotel Commodore, New York City. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Portrait of Commodore Franklin Buchanan, C.S.N., officer of the Confederate Navy. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | U.S.S. San Francisco, Commodore Fife coming on board. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Yacht Commodore Gardner. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Hoffritz for Cutlery, business in New York City. Commodore concourse. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Bombardment and capture of Fort Henry, Tenn.: By the federal gunboats under command of commodore Andrew H. Foote-Feby. 6th 1862. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Walden | Thoreau, Henry David | They passed over the pond toward Fair Haven, seemingly deterred from settling by my light, their commodore honking all the while with a regular beat |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | Ford has the second most new registrations with 8,234 (14.5%), followed by General Motors (known locally as Holden) with 8,135 (14.1%). Toyota also held market share leadership for new commercial vehicle registrations with 3,930 (24%) followed by Ford with 3,874 (23.7%). The most popular new car registered in 2000 was the Holden Commodore, with 4,941 registrations processed. (references) | |
Economic History | Japan | This isolation lasted for 200 years, until Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. Navy forced the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. (references) |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | LAND, n. A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure. Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some have the right to prevent others from living; for the right to own implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespass are enacted wherever property in land is recognized. It follows that if the whole area of terra firma is owned by A, B and C, there will be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to exist. A life on the ocean wave, A home on the rolling deep, For the spark the nature gave I have there the right to keep. They give me the cat-o'-nine Whenever I go ashore. Then ho! for the flashing brine -- I'm a natural commodore! Dodle |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
James Monroe | 1817-1825 | Commodore Rodgers, with a promptitude which did him honor, cheerfully accepted that trust, and has discharged it in the manner anticipated from his skill and patriotism. |
Andrew Jackson | 1829-1837 | I can not close this communication without bringing to your view the just claim of the representatives of Commodore Decatur, his officers and crew, arising from the recapture of the frigate Philadelphia under the heavy batteries of Tripoli. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Commodore" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 53.01% of the time. "Commodore" is used about 166 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (proper) | 53.01% | 88 | 35,154 |
| Noun (singular) | 46.99% | 78 | 37,656 |
| Total | 100.00% | 166 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following table summarizes the usage of "commodore" based on a population census conducted in the United States. Ranks and frequencies are based on all names reported and classified. |
| Name | Usage/Gender | Usage per 100 million Persons | Rank in USA |
| Commodore | Last name | 300 | 23,927 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits. | |||
| Country | Name |
| USA | Commodore Applied Technologies, Inc. |
| (more examples...) |
Source: compiled by the editor from Icon Group International, Inc.
1. Commodore, PA |
Expressions using "commodore": air commodore ♦ Commodore 1010 ♦ Commodore 128 ♦ Commodore 1541 ♦ Commodore 1570 ♦ Commodore 1571 ♦ Commodore 1581 ♦ Commodore 64 ♦ Commodore 64DX ♦ Commodore 65 ♦ Commodore Business Machines ♦ Commodore John Barry Bridge ♦ Commodore Perry ♦ Commodore SX64 ♦ Commodore VAnderbilt ♦ convoy commodore ♦ portable Commodore 64. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "commodore": rear-commodore, vice-commodore. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "commodore"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | Kryetar Klubi Jahtesh, Komandant Eskadre, Kapiten I Parë. (various references) | |
Arabic | عميد بحري, رئيس ناد لليخوت. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | Председател На яхт Клуб, Комодор, Командир На Ескадра. (various references) | |
Chinese | 代将. (various references) | |
Czech | Komodor. (various references) | |
Dutch | commodore. (various references) | |
Esperanto | komodoro. (various references) | |
Farsi | ناخدا (Captain, Shipmaster), افسرفرمانده دریاءی . (various references) | |
French | contre-amiral. (various references) | |
German | Flottillenadmiral, Commodore. (various references) | |
Greek | Αρχιπλοΰαρχοσ, Ανώτεροσ Αξιωματικόσ Του Ναυτικού. (various references) | |
Hungarian | Vezérhajó (ace, admiral, admiral-ship, leading ship), Sorhajókapitány. (various references) | |
Italian | Commodoro. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 准将 (brigadier general). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | じゅ"しょう (brigadier general), ていとく (admiral, emperor's virtue), いしょう (admiral, boss, brigadier general, compensation, consideration, general, indemnification, reparation, size). (various references) | |
Manx | captan (captain, skipper), ard-chaptan (brigade major, major). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ommodorecay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | comodoro. (various references) | |
Romanian | Comodor. (various references) | |
Russian | Коммодор, Командор яхт-клуба, коммодор. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | komodor. (various references) | |
Spanish | comodoro. (various references) | |
Swedish | Kommendör (captain, commander). (various references) | |
Turkish | Komodor Ýdaresindeki Gemi, Komodor, En Eski Kaptan, Amiral (admiral, flag officer). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | Капітан Першого ангу. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "commodore": commodores. (additional references) | |
| |
"Commodore" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: cammdwr, commodare, commodere, commodo, comodo, compodore, Cymmrodor, pomodoro. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "commodore" (pronounced kÄ"mudô'r) |
| 5 | -m u d ô' r | humidor. |
| 4 | -u d ô' r | labrador, matador, parador, stevedore, troubadour. |
| 3 | -d ô' r | backdoor, indoor, outdoor. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "c-d-e-m-m-o-o-o-r" | |
-2 letters: commode. | |
-3 letters: comedo, moored, roomed. | |
-4 letters: coder, comer, cooed, cooer, cored, credo, decor, modem, mooed, rodeo, romeo. | |
-5 letters: cero, code, coed, come, cord, core, corm, deco, demo, derm, doer, dome, doom, door, dore, dorm, memo, mode, mome, mood, moor, more, odor, omer, ordo, redo, rode, rood, room. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-d-e-m-m-o-o-o-r" | |
+1 letter: commodores. | |
+5 letters: micrometeoroid. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Quotations: Fiction 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Quotations: Speeches 10. Usage Frequency 11. Names: Frequency 12. Names: Company Usage | 13. Cities 14. Expressions 15. Expressions: Internet 16. Translations: Modern | 17. Derivations 18. Rhymes 19. Anagrams 20. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
