If you are not too young, you will undoubtedly remember the legendary Commodore 64, an upgrade of the very first Commodore Vic 20. Between 1982 and 1993, some 30 million units were sold, which took the product straight into the Guinness Book of Records. Numbers and records that perfectly translated into reality the founder’s thought: ‘Computers for the masses, not the classes’. Jack Tramiel, a Polish computer scientist who had survived Auschwitz, emigrated to America and founded his Commodore Business Machines in 1954, aiming to bring the personal computer into every home in the world.
The glorious history of Commodore Business Machines came to an end in 1994: the company declared bankruptcy because it could not withstand the aggressively developing competition.
The power of mothers and promises
But what does all this have to do with Made in Italy? It does because, among the 30 million Commodore units sold, one ended up in the hands of Luigi Simonetti – born in Rome in 1975 – on the day of his first communion. It was his mother’s idea to give his son a Commodore Vic 20 – he would have preferred a football – but it was practically love at first sight: ‘I felt like a secret agent who could discover anything simply by writing codes,’ Luigi tells StratUp Italia. Thus began his passion for computers, which led him to become a collector and own no less than one hundred and seventy of them over the years!
A difficult time and a rebirth in the name of passion
An accident caused Luigi to lose his eyesight for over two years. However, the moment his situation improved and he at least partially recovered, he promised his mother that he would become president of Commodore. A burst of enthusiasm that Luigi turns into reality: with a very complicated bureaucratic rigmarole, he manages to recover the US brand. In 2015, Commodore Industries Srl was finally born, an innovative Made in Italy SME with a hundred employees and three locations.
Today, Commodore Industries is mainly involved in producing consumer electronics products: wireless headsets, laptops, and workstations designed for gaming and game development. There is also a B2B division—Commodore Engineering—which develops ad hoc solutions for companies, including training tools, CRM, or ERP systems.
Gaming in the DNA
The Commodore brand, however, remains mainly connected to its origins and, thus, to the gaming industry. The gaming division – Commodore Synapsy – comprises fourteen people working to develop new games that meet the high expectations of today’s gamers. Last year, the company launched ‘Let’s Go Grisu’, inspired by the famous cartoon fireman dragon.
Luigi Simonetti, also known as Mr Commodore, has written a book telling his incredible story, and we can only congratulate the man who – after the glorious times of Olivetti – brought Made in Italy computing to the world!
Read more stories of start-ups and innovations Made in Italy.