VCF SE 4.0 -- Memories from Commodore -- Bil Herd

This is the talk given by Bil Herd at VCF SE 4.0 on April 3, 2016
Bil Herd is a computer engineer who created several designs for 8-bit home computers while working for Commodore Business Machines in the early to mid-1980s. After first acting as the principal engineer on the Commodore Plus/4, C16/116, C264, and C364 machines, Herd designed the significantly more successful Commodore 128, a dual-CPU, triple-OS, compatible successor to the Commodore 64. Prior to the C128, Herd had done the initial architecture of the Commodore LCD computer, which was not released. After leaving Commodore, Mr. Herd continued to design faster and more powerful computers with emphasis on machine vision and is a co-author on a patent involving n-dimensional pattern matching. Herd also designed an ultrasonic backup sensor for vehicles while working for Indian Valley Mfg. in 1986, a feature found on many modern vehicles today. Mr. Herd continues as an entrepreneur doing design and architecture and is also on staff as video producer at Hackaday.com and maintains a hardware based website Herdware.com.

[@sportspriceanalysis416]

Always love hearing Bil speak.

[@bobns509]

When you hear a truth about commodore company, culture, profit driven managers and how did it actually treated consumers with "christmas tree", kind of QA managers they had, security without any sense of reading a written note... What a crap that c company actually was but supported throught Media, "without obvious reason", it looked like a good computer manufacturer!

[@madcommodore]

Commodore with Jack was a chicken with its head chopped off, ironic.

[@Drekkag]

Did you mean to say without Jack? Because after Jack left is when commodore started going down hill. While Jack was there, it was actually a well-oiled business machine.

[@robwebnoid5763]

@@Drekkag ... thats probably what was meant. irving gould first saved the company & then later he destroyed it. sort of like what you would hear a god would do, heh.

[@The_Temple]

Probably was thinking ‘with Jack gone’, but didn’t come out right

[@madcommodore]

@@robwebnoid5763 TI killed C= and this let a financial vampire in the door, downhill slowly to a bled dry company until 1992 when there wasnt enough reserves to make A1200 cheap enough

[@robwebnoid5763]

​@@madcommodore ... Yeah thats true too, in the days of the electronic calculators. Its all a butterfly effect. Expensive proprietary hardware in the form of Amiga, CD32, etc did not help, along with mismanagement & lost vision/foreplanning post-Tramiel. And even though it was Tramiel's idea, I did not like his 264/364/Plus4 stuff, it was going in the wrong direction of trying to do the "Masses, not Classes" way too far & overkill, as it targeted a rival machine that eventually became negligible, impractical & forgetful, which then Commodore lost focus on that line after he left. Hindsight is 20/20. I think we all have to keep in mind that Commodore did not start out as an electronics company in the first place, as it was more like a typewriter repair shop, which it was still a technology company in that regard. But at least they stayed around for 4 decades & made a name for themselves for us nostalgic nerds to fondly remember, although the company name won't be nostalgic & known by currently young & yet-to-born future geeks. I still have all my C-64 stuff. :)
03/17/24