Deathbed Vigil extended trailer

[peri2502]

Hmm so I am not sure if I'm getting the a-round to it joke. Was that just to have him round around? :)

[peri2502]

It is pretty sad. The amiga was a great machine with many innovations. Hadn't poor management run the company into the ground, it may still be the dominant home computer system.

[lelezetec]

Mehdi Ali is the worst goddamn son of a bitch that the world ever seen. He killed Commodore for no reason and, believe me, I really wish to meet him face to face. And I am 6.1 footer, 260 pounds. No kidding.

[Tollshock09]

I grew ub with the Amiga 500 and thank you guys for this wonderfull platform!

[wildworms]

Hello Dave, Hey guys,

I am not into all these things about the rise and fall of C=, I must admit. But I know how it feels to work for a company which is obviously facing it's last days. I just wanted to say: I still own an A500 (besides my new Apple stuff). And I just wanted to day "Thank you!" for the Amiga. When I was a teenager, the Amiga gave me the best time of my life. I so much enjoyed playing with it. And, from time to time, I still do. Dave, just thank you from Germany! Guido

[pikewerfer]

@wildworms Same here! I still own my 1200, and use it to do my emails and stuff. I got over 2000 awesome games, and am still adding to the collection, so why go PC? :-) OK, the internet experience is definitely missing - I do hope I can get one of those NEW Amigas with OS 4.1 on it - but they are sooooo expensive :-/

[Borin81]

i hope Mehdi Ali burn in whatever hell is available for him.

and a big THANK YOU for the DVD, Dave. :)

[tiger5455]

hello from ireland,i remember the amiga collapse well when i read it in "amiga format" that time,question for dave,do you think david pleasance *he was the md of commodore uk,and the maker of the A500 batman pack*,would had done a good job if he had to win the buy out of commodore's assets?

[RiffInvader]

R.I.P. Commodore. The A500 was one of my first "Computers" I got in my life. Mostly I played a lot of games. It was fun and I won´t forget these times. Commodore did a wrong management. Whatever, I miss the old commodore times. That times we´ve got today is huge technology(PC,mobile-phones,et­c.) but much more manipulations indeed. Better Computersystems means more less freedom. Nice regards from Germany.

[nerdgefluester]

AMIGAAAAAAAAAAAa

[blitterchip]

That video is truly tragic. Mehdi Ali now works for Stone Ridge Partners, here's what he say's about himself.

"Mehdis background includes more than twenty years of operating experience. His prior experience includes serving as the President of Commodore International, where he accomplished a major operational turnaround."

What a joke.. How is running the company into the ground and robbing it supposed to be a major operational turnaround?

[hazydave]

Well, technically, he did accomplish a major turnaround. Commodore was pulling in a billion a year in sales, before Ali.. after, they were out of business. That's a turnnaround ... just the kind one doesn't usually brag about.

I can't find any mention of him on the SRP website... was it there before? Do you have link? Or did the word get out and force them to take him down? That's the least of the troubles that will hopefully follow that bastard the rest of his life.

[blitterchip]

Dave I sent you a couple of private messages with info, I was unable to provide links here.

[glueckauf1186]

i wood like to thank you 4 this great RETRO - TRAILER

it is a real unhappy deployment what Commodore brought to the Amiga :(

the "Master" of userfriendly handling and the first System that ever made MULTITASKING to an attribute that nobody wants to miss on these days.

poor marketing strategy of commodore... Irving Gould was the real reason 4 the collaps of this dream - Maschine...

hope to see the full movie one time !!!

until this: "AMIGA LIVEZ FOREVER" >>> INTEL OUTSIDE !!!! word!!!

[andrealops]

VIC20 has been my first computer in 1983. Since then i loved techology and it becomed my work for life.

Thanks to Dave and all old Commodore's Team for this exciting vid.

[blade004]

Some people say its all nostalgia and my youth that makes me love the Amiga, but i had MANY systems before the Amiga in the 80's when i was far younger and as such would have had more nostalgia with those systems if that was the case. But in 1990 at the age of 16 i got my first A500 and then sold that for an A1200 in 1992 which i used till late 2000 for "Everything", so that would have made me 27 by the time i bought a PeeCee. So in a nutshell, its not about nostalgia, its about SPIRIT!

[BexChilledOrange]

r.i.p. commodore, u were great :(

[jxhensley]

Commodore is a lesson to everyone about what happens when you don't take risks and just keep selling the same old soap.

[Commodorian]

Commodore took plenty of risks ( A600, CDTV ..etc ). It's hard to say who did the most damage to the company, probably Sydnes.

[jxhensley]

They never took the risk of killing the whole line of obsolete 8-bit systems. They never took the risk of moving into the PC market (except for the Colt, which was just a "me-too" product).

[bphendri]

Move into the PC market (BARF!)

[hazydave]

Move WHAT to the PC market? I have absolutely no interest in who lives or dies in the PC market, so I certainly wouldn't make a similar film about the PC market.

As for using PCs... sure, I have several really good ones: two quad core desktops, one dual core laptop. As described, this film was originally edited (in analog) on an Amiga 3000+, but I mastered the DVD on a PC.

[bphendri]

Dave... I was replying to the comment above me, about Commodore never taking the risk of moving into the PC market.

The meaning behind my comment was barfing at the idea of Commodore become just another PC/Windows clone manufacture.

I still have my 2000 (Needs a new keyboard and mouse), and ran a C-64 BBS for 3 years. I now have a Mac Pro.

I have always said since the resurgence of Apple, that Commodore was too far ahead of it's time, Had there been a consumer version of the Toaster...

[hazydave]

Actually, C= was very good at killing off old stuff... if it didn't sell, it died. This was guaranteed, based on the way C='s sales units worked.. each regional group only ordered the things they felt they could sell. So we didn't see many C= PCs in the USA, but they were available. And all PCs were and are pretty much "me too" products... its inherent in the architecture, then and now.

[JLepping]

@jxhensley: That is not true: PC 10 and PC 20 were IBM compatible PC machines.

[hazydave]

Well, look at the head to figure where the damage originates... Sydnes was a tool hired by Ali. Yeah, he did horrible things... he killed the real AA (AGA) systems, delayed AA by six months for no reason, refused to order enough parts for Christmas '92, etc. But he was Ali's boy, and so Ali gets all that blame, too. The A600 was Sydnes' too... it replaced the A300, which was supposed to coexist with the A500, at a lower price point.

[Commodorian]

I wonder if Mehdi has seen the video.

[ematech]

Amiga will never die.

[PJAriz]

The day that marks the Commodore Amiga bankrupt... was one of the worst days of my life!

[Lumotaku]

When will the whole thing be available?

[hazydave]

Oh, sorry.. there has been a DVD available for years. Seems I neglected to include the link. That's in the "About this Video" section now. Total running time 1:58, and there are extras as well.

[Lumotaku]

Thanks and thanks for being available to your fans. I remember my older brother drooling over the C 128 when it was announced and yeah my dad got him a plus/4 instead of the c-64 he wanted for christmas I inherited the vic.

[adrian1182]

Hi Dave,

great video, I still own 5 or 6 Amigas ;-). Actually what do you think of the newly released AmigaOS4 ? And, btw: Whats the name of that rock-tune one can hear during the "engeneering-scene" ?

Adrian

[hazydave]

That's a song we call "Not Takin' It". Mike Rivers wrote the music, I wrote the lyrics... It plays as an instrumental over the opening credits, and with lyrics over closing on the complete film. Not the best recording in the world, but it was fun.

[maildogrup]

Thanks for vid.

I'd like to see those famous giant speed bumps so important for managment :p

[hanspf23]

It is truly sad to see this. The C= management (Mehdi Ali and Irving Gould) took out ridiculously large salaries at the same time as the company was struggling to pay for chips from suppliers.

There must have been a lot of resentment towards the management, this can be seen when the last employees burn an effigy of Mehdi Ali in the Deathbed Vigil video..

Sometimes I wonder what the computer world could have been like if Jack Tramiel had not left Commodore in 1984..

[k8fan]

The thing I miss most about the Amiga days wasn't the hardware or the OS, but the creativity inspired by them. For instance, even though video input cards for PCs are cheap and plentiful, nobody has anything for manipulating video like Elan's Invision for Live. I used to use that with bands, and just PLAY it like an instrument. Years of searching and there's NOTHING comparable on Windows or Mac.

[beckx3000]

Thanks for all the good time that we spent with your product... the video makes me very sad :-( regards from germany

[Eckythump70]

As a sidenote - CommodoreUK MD of the time David Pleasance was actively involved in the UK scene and frequently commented about his frustrations with CBM USA. Their marketing strategy here was almost a standing joke. The Amiga could, should and I think would have succeeded had CBM moved to Europe late 80s. Also, Apples Motorola bed-in over the 040 was a killer, pricing CBM out when Acorn went RISC based. I think that was missed from the book.

[Eckythump70]

Dont get me wrong I love the book - but "Weird architecture from a television company (BBC) and inferior hardware (Sinclair)" sounds like arrogance worthy of CBM themselves.

[Eckythump70]

"On the Edge" is a great book, but I found it disrespectful of a huge UK scene the author clearly didnt understand. Check out "Amiga Jesus on E's" added by "BetOnJazz" for nostalgia from the Amigas golden era.

[hazydave]

I certainly knew something about the UK scene (and the Germans, etc). and didn't really see "ON the Edge" dissing any of them. This was a book largely about Commodore Engineering.. that didn't take place in the UK, it took place primarily in the USA (some small bits done in Germany and Japan).

[Lumotaku]

I think the author was just commenting on the Uniquness of the uk computer scene. They had a bunch of computers nobody else had even heard of.

[RaymondDay]

I have the none edit DVD of this got from Dave at a Commodore Expo.

I think when commodore got the Amiga that is were they went wrong. They should of stuck with the C64/C128 and the C64 and upgrade from them to like a C1024 or C2048 by that time it be as good as PC's today. If they would of gradually upgrade the C64 like PC's did they would still be here and it could go in C64/128/65 modes. You could see they were doing this with the 65. To bad they stopped.

-Raymond Day

[hazydave]

The C64 style of computer was doomed, not by Amiga, but by the fact computers got sophisticated. They required upgrades and enhancements. Even the C64 ROM was part of the hardware.. we tried to improve the font on the C128, and even that broke some old software. The C65 was interesting, but also didn't run much old software... same old problem. Commodore was right in moving to a modern computer architecture... the Amiga kept them going. But tech wasn't Commodore's problem.

[funnysamuel]

My A3000UX is still a great machine,  thanks Dave.

[telbee]

Found this video by doing a random hunt after reading the book "On The Edge". Recommend this book to anyone who remembers sitting up all nite every nite hacking their amigas ;) move #$00, $Dff180- goodnite ;) Tel

[hazydave]

Yeah, I can recommend "On the Edge". I contributed some of the photos, and Brian was nice enough to meet me for a Guinness in Philly and give me a copy. I learned things I didn't know, at least in detail, about the early days. His ending was a bit more poetic than reality, but all of the "meat" is accurate.

[kenjenningsjr]

It's a shame. Slick marketing always beats cool tech.

I guess it could have been worse. If the Tramiels had still been at Commodore the Amiga have been a cost-reduced, unexpandable piece of junk running a 680x0 version of DOS.

I wish Commodore had pushed Amix more. Stupid Unix Wars.

[stevieu83]

Ya know. This video is haunting...

*shudders*

Well, I shall continue to go through life moaning. The 'failure' of the Amiga is another thing to moan about, along with the crap that goes on in this world.

The whole computer market/it industry is another situation that sums our race up. Blind and devoid! (well, I won't mention names)

Darn.

[hazydave]

I read an interview with Bob Dylan; he had an observation.. was a time when you could travel in the USA, and it was like changing countries in Europe. Today the culture is the same.

That's reflected in computing,.. we have PCs, Windows, all the same. Weirdness is tragically ust at the fringe. You can travel to Key West or New Orleans or Austin and get a slice of "something better" today. There are few using something else... but the differences are dramatically less than back in the 80s.

[stevieu83]

It sure is. Society is one big spoon-fed baby.

There was news yesterday of the discovery of an earth-like planet orbiting a sun, yet it seemed Prince William's ex-girlfriend was more important. Yeh. Right.

It all just makes me sick :)

Billions is spent on nuclear weapons, yet, why? The human condition. Put that technology and money into exploration instead of destroying ourselves.. Simple logic.

*moans*

[stevieu83]

Sorry, just a bit of a rant there, Dave :) but the Amiga situation always gets me going.

[funnysamuel]

It is reflecting in computing because of the way Microsoft conducts business, they bully firms & manufacturers into submission, threaten those who advocate & push Linux with legal action.

Amiga may have had some form of life today had there not been evil forces opposing them.

[hazydave]

You know, as much as I'd like to have blamed Microsoft or IBM or Apple or whatever evil outside force, it wasn't that. I'm not saying it never would have been, but in the day, Commodore's death was a suicide, brought on by the idiots running the company: Ali, Gould, Sydnes, Eggebrecht, etc.

[funnysamuel]

I should have been more specific, Gateway should have never bought the Amiga back in the day when it still had a chance of life, we all know too well what happened there.

[jxhensley]

If Commodore had gotten over its pride and started moving the Amiga's technology into the PC world, it might have survived. I think Gateway was trying to accomplish the same thing with their acquisition, but it was much too late.

[SaganAppreciationSoc]

Well that made no sense.

[jxhensley]

Which part should I explain in more detail?

[dud0r]

omg thats sad! soo sad! i never fall in love with a computer again - amiga rules 4ever. dave, hope you are still feeling fine!

[jaygade]

I still miss my amiga...

[Dirk03]

It is a long time ago, since i saw that Video for the first time.

-Commodore 4ever;).-

[INUID]

Thank you Dave.

[blade004]

Damn ive been looking EVERYWHERE for this since it was first released!. THANKYOU !!.

[madmat28]

Didn´t know Carl Sassenrath was into Aikido ? Or just wearing it ?

;o)

Those were the days, big time THANKS to the whole C-Team - they definitly changed the way computers are today.

Yes - it could and would be much worse.

[hazydave]

Sassenrath!?! I'm the guy in the Aikido T-shirt... I practiced for a little over five years, stopped only because the school I was with went out of business (there was a "parent" school about 2 hours away, but that was impractical).

[madmat28]

Oops...sorry.

Then the picture in the AMIGA Magazine I have is wrong, there´s a picture of you saying: C. Sassenrath, Founder of REBOL.

Sorry for the mistake, I was just curious because after 12 years of shotokan karate i changed for aikido a year ago.

Dave - thank you for your hard work over the years, sad to see whats going on right now under the AMIGA label, a punch in the face of all of you who really engaged all the time.

Luckily my profession allows me to have my 4000T around all day.

[hazydave]

I think Aikido is obscure, unusual, hard, etc. enough that many people find it after trying other martial arts. My Sensei had his black belt in Iadio; a few others had practice Tae Kwon Do or Karate. I had done Judo for a few years back in High School. A friend of mine from the Amiga days (Skipper Smith, a Motorola guy) got into Aikido at least in part on my recommendations, though he was teaching Tai Chi at the time.

[hazydave]

Follow the links above, and you'll get to the Frog Pond Media site (home page or Death Bed Vigil site). This is available as a DVD in PAL or NTSC. Currently, I only take PayPal, but I'm planning to add an address for cash/check/m.o. and possibly other options... and a likely price reduction. Check this link after about 11/15...

[lfcohen]

how to get the full video ? it for sale ? Thanks

[depeche1972]

Amiga 4ever! Thanks!

[Smalltalk80]

Awesome. Thank you.

[tomazkid]

Thanks Dave :-)