One important thing they left out about the C64C was that it was actually a masterstroke rarely seen from Commodore management  after Thomas J. Rattigan took over.<p>Tramiel had kept Commodore constantly moving at breakneck speed with very little room for error by cutting prices so aggressively there was next to no margin. It was actually one of his price cuts that caused him to get pushed out, as well as savage Comodores retailer network (they had tons of hardware in the pipeline, announced a massive cost cut and refused to reimburse or credit retailers for the difference in recommended retail price, causing lots of retailers to lose lots of money, many of whom subsequently dropped Commodore).<p>But the C64C went the opposite direction: Despite 8-bit machines being past their prime at the time, the C64C was launched at a <i>higher</i> price point, often obscured by bundled that included GEOS and&#x2F;or Quantum Link. At the same time it was <i>drastically</i> cost reduced. Some of it is obvious - if you open an early C64 vs a C64C the case seems pretty much empty in the latter; the 8x8KB RAM chips are replaced by one or two; lots and lots of 74xx series chips are replaced by a couple of custom asics etc. Some are not so obvious - fewer different types of screws etc.<p>The result was that the C64C was a large part of saving Commodore at a very difficult time (when was Commodore not in crisis?) by dramatically increasing Commodores margins. Probably the first and only time that Commodore had margins similar to Apple, though still at a much lower price point.<p>Of course, shortly after essentially saving the company from one of its worst crises ever, Rattigan was fired by Irving Gould, and Gould personally took over as CEO - allegedly because Gould was annoyed that Rattigan got lots of positive PR. Rattigan later won a $9m lawsuit against Commodore over the firing... The history of Commodore management is that success was as bad for your continued employment as failure.