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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 JapanJapan (, Nippon/Nihon literally "the origin of the sun") is a country in East Asia situated on a chain of islands east of the Asian continent on the western edge of the Pacific Ocean. The largest of these islands are, from north to south, Hokkaido , Honshese machines forced most typewriter companies out of business, but Tramiel instead turned to adding machineAn adding machine is a type of calculator. Usually this sort of calculator is specialized for bookkeeping calculations. In the United States, very old adding machines were usually (always?) built to read in dollars and cents. They required the user to puls.
In 1962Events January January 1 Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand January 3 Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro January 4 New York City introduces a train that operates without a crew on-board January 8 Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is e the company was formally incorporated as Commodore Business Machines (CBM), and in the late 1960sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s Years: 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 Events and trends The 1960s was a turbulent decade of change around 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 calculatorA calculator is a device for performing numerical calculations. It should not be confused with a calculating machine. Nowadays many people have a calculator with them as part of their mobile phone and/or personal digital assistant. Engineers and accountans, 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 1970sMillennia: 1st millennium 2nd millennium 3rd millennium Centuries: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s Years: 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 Events and trends, producing both ordinary as well as scientific/programmable calculators. However in 1975Events January January 1 Watergate scandal: John N. Mitchell, H. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman are found guilty of the Watergate cover-up and are sentenced to 30 months to 8 years in jail on February 21 January 5 The Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, i Texas InstrumentsTexas Instruments better known in the electronics industry as TI is a company based in Dallas, Texas, renowned for developing and commercializing semiconductor and computer technology. History of Texas Instruments Texas Instruments was founded by Cecil H., 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 Technology, Inc., 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.