Commodore, and began discussions of selling the company. In August 1984, Amiga was purchased by Commodore for $27 million, including paying off the loan from Atari. Commodore 1985–87: the early years When the first Amiga computer was released in July 1985 by Commodore, it was called the Amiga 1000, devoid of references to Commodore. Commodore marketed it both as their successor to the Commodore 64, and as their competitor against the Apple Macintosh. It was later renamed the Commodore Amiga 1000. At a relatively affordable base price of , the Amiga could display up to , produce 8-bit stereo audio, and run several applications concurrently. These qualities were unprecedented in a consumer-oriented computer and gave the Amiga 1000 a significant technical lead on its three main competitors (the Atari ST, the Macintosh, and the IBM PC). The public saw both Commodore and Atari selling, as John C. Dvorak wrote, "cheap disposable" game machines, and observers believed that either the ST or Amiga would survive, but not both. The ST had more software in the beginning, but larger companies like Electronic Arts and Activision promised to make software for the Amiga. Neither had distribution from major chains like ComputerLand or BusinessLand, or support from large business-software companies like Microsoft, Ashton-Tate, or Lotus. The New York Times stated that "it is not clear that the business computer user really cares about colorful graphics". The computers' sophisticated graphics strengthened their perception as "game machines". Poorly marketed, the Amiga 1000 was not a success. An August 1986 Compute! editorial expressed amazement that Commodore, insisting that the Amiga was a business computer, did not show it at the summer CES. The magazine estimated that in their first year of availability, the Atari ST had outsold the Amiga. Stating that the "industry needs the vision and direction that a Commodore can help provide", it urged the company to pursue the consumer market that had been very successful for the Commodore 64. Jerry Pournelle from BYTE praised the Amiga Sidecar as "really impressive", and approved of the "great deal of Amiga software" at Spring COMDEX, but wondered "whether Commdore has enough high-tech people to support the Amiga properly" after large layoffs, while "Atari ST software pours forth like a flood". Bruce Webster reported in January 1987 that Commodore had sold about 150,000 Amigas as of October 1986, but "imagine how many [the company] might have sold if