17

Atari historians have been able to find documents and tapes of chips and hardware developed at Atari. E.g. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/154479-new-gtia-chips/ .

Nothing like this is happening for Commodore and Amiga.

MOS designed tens (hundreds?) chips and this was its core business. It is hard to believe that a corporation owning a chip foundry lost all the tapes and blueprints of its chips (I mean not only the Amiga chipset) AND the companies who acquired the rights of what was Commodore did the same.

Why such artifacts don't resurface? How MOS archived such artifacts and where?

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    Not so hard to believe - pressure to dispose of paper for which there is no apparent legal or business reason to keep is at times rather high in companies: It takes space which means rent and/or upkeep costs. Also, in some cases documentation you're not legally required you're either legally not SUPPOSED to keep, or it can only be to your disadvantage to keep (a subpoena can't ask you for documentation you were allowed to destroy IF you actually destroyed it). While that is unlikely with tech docs, maybe nobody had time to sort old stacks of paper... – rackandboneman Oct 2 '17 at 19:12
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    I'm sure I've heard/watched/read some stories online specifically about Atari stuff that people salvaged from dumpsters etc at the time of offices or other buildings closing down. So some stuff may have been destroyed, some of which may have been saved from the clutches by somebody in the right place at the right time. There may have even been some stuff auctioned off. So maybe destroyed and maybe in a box in an attic somewhere. If nobody's posting stories about finding them they're probably lost permanently or temporarily... – hippietrail Aug 23 at 8:03
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    Since CAD systems for integrated circuits has been around since the late 60s my guess is that there are very few paper blueprints at all. If there are any files left, they are on probably backup tapes together with internal PMs, emails, external correspondence, fiscal reports etc. Even if someone has access to these backups, knowing what is there and then extract something useful is quite a big task. Just finding the equipment to read those tapes might be a problem. – UncleBod Aug 26 at 6:42
  • Bankruptcy liquidations like Commodore's are often carried out with expedience in mind. Creditors want to extract whatever value they can before it depreciates farther. In this Commodore liquidation, the bidders were mainly interested in patents, copyrights, and trademarks they could enforce and expensive factory equipment like the foundry contained. All else would quickly disappear into the black whole "fire sale" lowest bidders basically looking for cheap scrap. It's likely that any commodity office equipment used for archival purposes ended up in the "fire sale" as essentially scrap. – Brian H Aug 26 at 14:08
14

MOS was renamed to Commodore Semiconductor Group (CSG) sometime after Commodore bought them in 1976. After Commodore folded in 1994, the CSG division was bought by its former management and renamed to GMT Microelectronics (Great Mixed-signal Technologies).

They continued with design, manufacture, and marketing of analog and mixed-signal power management integrated circuits and also provided foundry services and low-cost wafers until they where shut down by the EPA in 2001 due to leaking underground hazardous waste storage tanks. At that point they ceased operations, all assets were liquidated, and the plant became a Superfund site. There doesn't seem to be any solid information past that online as to what happened to any remaining assets when GMT was liquidated.

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    This is a good hint but still doesn't answer the question. Leaving it open hoping someone has more info. – Valentino Miazzo Nov 24 '18 at 9:03
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You may ask Jeri Ellsworth. Apparently, she has got, or has access to the internal schematics of some custom chips of the Commodore Amiga.

https://twitter.com/jeriellsworth/status/1228966902694699008

enter image description here

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1

Try somehow going to their old office somehow? I don't know...

However, I do have their address! Try going to Google Maps and search "Audubon, PA" and you should see it as "CSG/MOS/GMT".

I hope this helps you somehow!

Then:

Then

Now:

Now

Also, you should see this: CSG/MOS There, it says that everything was "Liquified"

Also, davidmjc on the 6502 forum, said the he made a SVG blueprint of the 6502 Here.

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  • I think, latest as the company busted, the buyers/owners/creditors got the intellectual ownership, and they took all the important papers (docs). It is questionable, where could they lie now (probably they rot in some store of their followers/partners), but probably not there. But at least you gave a good tip. – peterh - Reinstate Monica Aug 23 at 6:50
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    Reviewers: partial answers are okay on the rules, and it is up to you to consider this answer as a partial one. I voted "Looks OK". – peterh - Reinstate Monica Aug 23 at 6:53

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