About Creative Micro Designs

	Photos of the CMD crew and their lab
	Two long CMD interviews with lots of interesting facts
	Other CMD related stuff like the CMD racing car
	The history of CMD

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CMD related photos


Doug Cotton, Mark Fellows, Charles Christianson, Mr. Christianson sr.	Proud Mark Fellows with the SCPU!

CMD's building in winter CMD's building in summer

CMD's building in winter... ... and in summer time.

CMD interviews

Here are two very long and interesting CMD interviews, both with Charles A. Christianson.
Interview by 'Zine64 (1997)
Interview by Commdore Faction (1999)

Interview with Charles A. Christianson ('Zine64)

This very long, detailed and interesting interview was done in the beginning of 1997 and is taken from an issue of 'Zine64, a former magazine from the UK. Thanks to Chris Holgate, ex-editor of 'Zine 64, for providing this! Read on and see how one of CMD's founders unveils facts never known before!

Personal Questions

Z64: Name?

CC: Charles A. Christianson

Z64 : What is your occupation and position?

CC: Founder, Vice President/Treasurer

Z64: How long have you been the vice president of CMD?

CC: Since its inception in 1987.

Business Questions

Z64: When, and how did CMD first start up?

CC: Technically, Creative Micro Designs, Inc. was incorporated on December 1, 1987. However, my involvement began sometime before that while it was doing business under the name of Fellows, Inc.

The history of CMD is actually quite similar to that of many of today's technology companies. To get a full picture of our history, one must begin in the Fall of '86 when my business partner, Mark Fellows began developing version 1.0 of JiffyDOS. He began developing JiffyDOS out of necessity as he was trying to write a sequencer for the C64 which was to be used his band. As he continued his development of the sequencer, it became evident that the C64 was very slow and cumbersome. As a college student with a majoring in computers, Mark thought that he could make Commodore's Kernal and DOS routines more efficient. Over the next 1.5 years, he refined JiffyDOS into a full feature speed enhancement product that not only was many times faster than Commodore's own DOS but remained very compatible and had a full DOS wedge. It was at this time, he basically shelved the sequencer and began to advertise JiffyDOS as a product in the classified sections of Computer Shopper and Electronic Musician. He continued like this for several months at which time, we ran into each other at a family picnic (his wife is my 2nd cousin) on Labor Day (9/87).

It was here that the seeds for CMD were planted. Having just graduated with my degree in Business management and a concentration in Marketing, I was intrigued by the chance to put together a marketing/business plan for a real product. So after a few beers and a lot of persuading by Mark, I agreed to look at his invention. So we went over his basement lab where he loaded "Ghostbusters" on a stock C64/1541 system, I think it took about 2.5 minutes. Then he switched on the JiffyDOS, the same Load took about 20 seconds. Needless to say I was impressed and felt that we had a very viable product. Within a week or so, we were working together every night for several hours refining our strategy and filling orders.

At this time we were both working full time; Mark as a technical writer and myself as a purchasing agent for my father's export company. With a rapidly growing customer base we decided it was time to take it to the next level. By late October, we were in a position to pitch my father, Charles R. Christianson, with the financial opportunity of a life time. Actually, he got sick of me hounding him to come over and check out the JiffyDOS system. Finally he did and it was time to unveil our business strategy for JiffyDOS. After some discussion, he agreed to allow me to install a phone line on my desk at work to take orders and to invest about $10,000. Keep in mind that I was just going to answer a few phone calls and not allow it to take away from my main job as purchasing agent. As for the investment, we had my going back to school for my MBA, however being a believer in the school of hard knocks, he gave me a choice between an MBA or $10,000 investment in CMD. I chose the cash, we all signed on as 1/3 partners and the rest is history.

By March of '88 Mark was working full time at CMD, I was working 3/4 time at CMD and my father was short a purchasing agent, 500 sq. ft of warehouse space and had made a substantial financial commitment to the growth of CMD. During our first four years, we grew at an exponential rate developing products such as JiffyDOS V6.0, CMD HD Series hard disk drives, RAMLink and more. During this period we also became a larger and more recognized force within the Commodore market. We were making a name for ourselves as an innovative hardware manufacturer and continued to only sell the products that we designed and manufactured.

Presently, CMD employees approx. 15 people, has gross revenues in excess of 1 million dollars per year and offers over 300 C64/128 products and services worldwide. Aside from our "CMD Hardware Products", we own the distribution rights to GEOS 2.0, publish Commodore World magazine, feature a full serviced Commodore repair center and refurbishing department, and are continuing the development of many new and innovative hardware and software products for release later in 1997.

Z64: How many people are employed at CMD HQ, developing and selling the hardware, software, magazines etc.?

CC: 15 full and part time direct employees at our physical plant in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts. Although we only have 15 people, they are doing the work of thirty as no one wears just one hat. We all carry responsibilities for many aspects of day to day operations. Mark handles the bulk of product development, both hardware and software; Component purchasing; Technical aspects of Manufacturing. Doug Cotton, is our director of technical services who oversees tech support, product manuals, on-line management, developer support; plus he is also the editor of Commodore World magazine. Charlie, Sr. oversees manufacturing, third party product purchasing, contract management, shipping and receiving among other things. Tony Cote aids in product Engineering as well as a whole host of duties related to repairs and manufacturing. I handle pretty much every aspect of sales and marketing, customer relations, bulk inventory purchasing, CW advertising, contractual negotiations and implementation, some tech support and an occasional repair. The other staff members handle soldering, book keeping, inside sales, shipping and receiving, page layout, disk duplication/manual production. As for any remaining tasks, we work together as a group with each member handling those areas to which they are best suited.

Z64: What upcoming projects can we look forward to hearing about from CMD?

CC: Most notably is the SuperCPU128, the SuperCPU64 RAM Expansion option board (SuperRAM), and a major overhaul of the GEOS operating system. Not to mention several other new products which cannot yet be discussed.

Z64: What has the reaction been to the SuperCPU in the USA, for example can we look forward to hearing about any new software taking advantage of the power of the new CPU?

CC: We have been very pleased with the market's reaction to the new SuperCPU64, we expect continued success with the C64 version especially now that the RAM expansion option will soon be released. The SuperCPU128 remains in development but has already sold over 300 advanced units to CMD faithful. The speed, compatibility and reliability of the units already in the field has exceed even our expectations.

Developers throughout North America, Europe and Australia have expressed much interest in developing new software which takes full advantage of the extended instruction sets, 16 bit registers and 20 MHz speed of the 65C816S processor used in the SuperCPU. The first of these products should make their debut by summer '97 and will most like evolve around the GEOS environment. Other products that are being developed include: text based Web browser, graphics programs, compilers and assemblers, games and productivity software. The future holds much promise for the those individuals who have continued to believe in the capabilities of the C64 and C128 computer.

Z64: A while ago there were rumors of CMD buying the rights of the C65 computer and actually releasing it... We know that these rumors are false for the time-being but is there any chance that CMD might someday release the C65?

CC: Absolutely not. CMD has never considered the release of the C65. In our opinion, it was a poorly designed, ill conceived direction for Commodore to take. In fact the few units that people actually saw being liquidated were Alpha test units that never even made it out to the highest level developers. The DOS remained unfinished as did the prototyped custom chips, the "VIC-3" video chip remained unsupported by software and it had very little C64 compatibility.

To put an end to rumors, I will tell you that CMD has been designing its own computer. For obvious reasons I cannot discuss specifics but what I can tell you is that it would have some C64 compatibility but most importantly, it will reintroduce the concept of a true home computer at a price you would expect to pay for a "Home Computer". Development on this system continues but I do not foresee a marketable unit for some time. In the mean time, let's just say that a C64 with a SuperCPU, RAMLink, JiffyDOS, FD or HD and Turbo 232 will give you a glimpse at some of the functionality of the new designs.

Z64: Do you see yourself, in five years time still overseeing the development of new hardware, software etc. for CMD... In other words, do you think that in five years time the market will still be stable enough for new hardware to be developed for the C64 or do you think that by this time you will have moved on to a new market altogether?

CC: In 5 years I hope that we will be considered the IBM of the home computing market. However, it is our goal to take the Commodore market with us by maintaining a reasonable level of compatibility with our beloved C64's but at the same time giving users the speed, graphics and features expected from a modern computer. As for our existing product line, we will continue to manufacture and market C64/128 products as long as users continue to buy at the levels necessary to support our business.

Z64: Many thanks for your time, Charles... Is there anything you would like to say to the Commodore users in the UK?

CC: Thanks for giving me the opportunity to address your readers. I would also like to encourage your readers to please contact us for a free catalog. I'm sure that if given the chance, we will be able to service those who want to get the most from their computers.

Interview with Charles A. Christianson (Commodore Faction)

This newer interview with Charles A. Christianson is from the last ever edition of Commodore Faction (December 1999). Thanks to David Connolly for providing this!

CF: Why have CMD sold Commodore World to CSW Verlag, are you simply surrendering to the Germans?

CC: We believe that the sale of Commodore World was in the best interest of our readers for many reasons with the most important being the fact that it will get more issues in their hands with new and more unique content.

When CMD embarked on the journey to create Commodore World, we did it for one reason, to support the market which at that time was left without a major domestic magazine for North America. This move was very risky in that we were not a publisher but rather an industry leading hardware and software development company. Our belief was that if a magazine did not appear very soon, there would be no future for the Commdore market and thus decided to start the magazine. Initially the publishing industry was kind and we were able to prosper without any disruption of our then ongoing SuperCPU development.

As time went on, it became necessary to cut staffing to levels that could be supported by the Commodore products alone. This meant that we had to rely exclusively on Doug Cotton to handle virtually all aspects of producing the magazine and with the help of a handful of dedicated writers we kept the magazine going for the next couple of years. Also during this time, Doug remained in charge of Tech Support and a number of other functions that needed to be dealt with on a day to day basis. Needless to say it became increasingly difficult to meet the demand schedule.

As for CSW, they have been publishing the popular German magazine GO64 for a number of years and as such have the necessary infrastructure to support and improve Commodore World. Our decision to sell the magazine to them was based on our belief in their ability to produce and distribute a high quality publication on a regular basis which can only help strengthen the Commodore market.

Our goal now is to concentrate on the production and distribution of our many fine Commodore products and to continue to support our many users worldwide.

CF: How will the magazines be fused together?

CC: As far as I know, CSW has taken over all responsibility for the creative content of the magazine and will fulfill all outstanding CW subscriptions. For more details on how this will proceed, I suggest that you contact Enno Coners at CSW Verlag.

CF: What is your most successful piece of hardware so far? Why do you think this is?

CC: Our most successful product by far is JiffyDOS. We have sold over 50,000 sets and continue to introduce new users to its features every day. Other top sellers would be the HD Series Hard Drives and the RAMLink unit. Both of these products have sold in the many thousands of units and continue to be a popular addition to Commodore systems.

CF: Sorry to drag this up but did you refund the people who ordered CMD products from Russ Michaels?

CC: This is an odd question as Russ Michaels was an independent dealer and as such was responsible for his own financial issues. CMD's only relationship with him was that of manufacturer and dealer and as such bared no responsibility for his liabilities.

CF: Have you any CMD agents anywhere apart from the US?

CC: At present, the only active regional reseller of our products would be CSW Verlag. It seems that the need for a large dealer network has diminished with the increased popularity of the internet. Although the bulk of our European sales seem to be through CSW Verlag, we continue to ship orders throughout the world on a regular basis.

CF: What's the next great product to be produced by CMD?

CC: That remains to be seen. We have discussed a number of options but we have a tendancy to produce items based on need. For example our most recent release was an improved heavy duty power supply for the C64 and C128. This was produced out of necessity because we no longer had a source for such items. Now we produce them.

CF: How do you see the internet in relation to the C64?

CC: The internet is proving to be a very positive influence on the Commodore community. In fact it is responsible for an influx of return users. We frequently speak with people who have high end PC's at work and home but are excited to see the wide support for their old Commodore and as a result buy many of the hot products available to soup up their Commodore. In fact, we just recently had a major article written about our company in the New York Times. This article was spawned as a result of a writer researching an article who stunmbled onto our site. To sum it up, the internet is a very positive influence on the Commodore market.

CF: On your own homepage we can see you are now supporting Windows and the Mac. I trust this is just to get lots of money to fund more C64 projects, right?

CC: I suppose that is one way to look at it. Although we continue to support and improve our line of Commodore products, the bulk of our new sales do come from these areas. This segment of the business is primarily targeted at our local/regional market (Western Massachusetts and Northern Connecticut) although we have many old customers inquiring about the availability of our custom PC's. Without branching out into these markets, we could have never survived on the Commodore sales alone.

CF: If CMD's prices were reduced slightly couldn't you make up the costs with extra sales?

CC: As we have discussed on many occassions, the main reason for the higher cost of our products is the low quantities in which we need to produce them. At present all products are produced in quantities of less than 100 pcs. and most are built to order. Over the past few years, we have watched our margins errode and at this point we simply cannot sell them for less. The idea of increase volume through lower prices simply does not hold water because of the required increase in volume necessary to bring down the costs on key components. For example to get the prices much lower on our metal cases, we would need to produce 1000 cases at a time and on a product that will sell approx. 100 units per year, we are talking about a 10 year supply of cases... not a good business decision. If users watch our ads in GO64/CW and our website, we do offer specials from time to time. These specials are usually the result of a special purchase on some type of major component such as RAM or HD Mechanisms etc. and as such, we pass those savings along to the customer.

CF: You've seen the Web.it 64. a) Why the truck aren't you selling this in America where you would have an exclusive and b) could you do something similar which has more 64 meat to it?

CC: We had looked into the Web.it a couple of years ago and were told that an NTSC 120V version was forthcoming. To my knowledge it has never materialized. There is no market for a PAL product in the North America. Furthermore, the concept has really become outdated in the US as they positioned it to be a cheap internet machine. Now, we are seeing full blown Pentium 400 systems for free if you sign a 3 year agreement with a major ISP. As for CMD's computer, we have a conceptual design for an inexpensive home computer which we have had the opportunity to present to a number of venture capitalists. Unfortunately the finance community has a very difficult time seeing passed a Windows based or MacOS based product line and we have not seen the necessary interest to further pursue the design.

CF: The CF selector, which do you prefer: Mac or PC?

CC: Every machine has its purpose. If you are a graphics professional, I strongly suggest the Mac. If you are in the financial markets or need a machine for business purposes, the PC offers a wide variety of canned solutions. If you are a hobbyist who loves to program and play legacy games, then the Commodore can't be beaten. Me, I am still hoping that we will see someone write an efficient, simple and reliable, multiplatform OS with a graphical interface.... Linux with a new front end?

Other CMD related things

The CMD racing car

In 1993, Maurice Randall, C64 programmer, CMD fan and racing driver, didn't have a sponsor who would put his logo on his car. So he decided to promote CMD and put the CMD logo on the red Chrysler Lebaron Coupe. More to the front, it also has "FD Series" while more to the rear it has "JiffyDOS" on it.

The CMD racing car. In front: Maurice Randall, the driver.

perspective view

The Chrysler Lebaron Coupe in a perspective view.

CMD's office in Austria

In 1992 CMD opened an own office in Austria called CMD Direkt. Its main task was to further promote the CMD products in Europe and to provide lower prices than some European importers were setting (for example, JiffyDOS was available for 150 DM in Germany, through CMD Direkt it was only 75 DM then!). The Austrian office was maintained by Rick Gaudet, who also translated the manuals of CMD products to German language. Because of too high cost, the Austrian office was closed in 1997. Look at the distributor list to find your closest distributor.

Rick Gaudet (CMD Direkt).

The CMD t-shirt

In 1989, CMD promoted their at that time only product, JiffyDOS on the World of Commodore '89 fair by giving out this t-shirt. It has the fair's logo on the front and on the back it reads "Do it faster with JiffyDOS" with the CMD logo below that. Thanks to Geoff Sullivan for providing the pictures!

The CMD t-shirt (back).

CMD-shirt front side

The front side.

Rumours speak of another t-shirt saying: "CMD - working to make things faster", again they meant JiffyDOS with it, not the SuperCPU as one might guess! :-) If you have this t-shirt contact us.

The History of CMD

Creative Micro Designs, Inc. (CMD) was founded in the fall of 1987 on the strength of JiffyDOS, a new DOS speed enhancement system for the C64 and 128. Company President and co-founder Mark Fellows developed JiffyDOS during 1985 and 1986, and began marketing it nationally through his own company, Fellows, Inc., in the fall of 1986 via classified ads in computer magazines. Mr. Fellows continued marketing JiffyDOS alone until fall of 1987, when he was joined by Charles A. Christianson, a relative and recent college graduate majoring in business and marketing.

Mr. Christianson began helping out part-time with the marketing, sales, and business aspects, and helped to formally incorporate CMD at the end of 1987. Sales of JiffyDOS continued to rise steadily, and a partnership was soon formed with Charles R. Christianson, father of Charles A., who operated an export business of his own at that time. The senior Mr. Christianson brought years of business experience to the company and helped to transform it from a basement operation into a full business.

In April of 1988, Creative Micro Designs, Inc. became a full-time business, and tripled its annual sales in dollars each year in the first three years of operation. Work continued on improving JiffyDOS, and CMD rolled out the present version 6 of the product in mid-1989.

Amidst the rise in popularity of JiffyDOS, CMD began work on a SCSI-based hard drive system that featured a highly-compatible DOS coupled with partitioning options that helped it to emulate other Commodore disk drives. CMD began development of this product in 1989. Special attention was paid to assuring compatibility with important software products. The level of compatibility of this new series of hard drives, along with its expandability and versatility, made it an instant hit when the product began shipping in 1990.

With the development of the CMD HD Series hard drive and DOS completed, CMD turned its hardware development capabilities toward developing a RAM-based disk device. This effort resulted in RAMLink, an expandable RAM drive with a capacity of up to 16 Megabytes. RAMLink was also capable of maintaining its contents indefinitely through its own power source, or for several hours of actual power loss through the use of a battery backup system. Many other features were employed into RAMLink, such as a parallel interface to the normally serially-operated CMD HD Series hard drive, a slot for using memory from other third party RAM expanders, and a pass-through port for other types of cartridges. The HD Series hard drive DOS was ported to this new device, along with some changes and improvements, and again compatibility with important software was kept very much in mind.

Two other products joined the CMD family in 1991: SwiftLink and SID Symphony. These products were initially developed and sold by Dr. Evil Labs, a partnership formed by college classmates as an experiment in designing, manufacturing, and marketing products. SID Symphony provided additional sound voices to Commodore computers, and helped lead to the development of hundereds, perhaps thousands of 'stereo' music files. SwiftLink, a high-speed RS-232 interface for the 64 and 128, has grown constantly more popular as faster modems have been developed and dropped in price.

While the list of software releases from CMD grew in 1992, hardware development was still underway creating a replacement for the Commodore 1581 disk drive. CMD's FD-2000 floppy drive maintained backward compatibility with Commodore's 800K 1581, but also had the ability to format and use high density disks storing 1.6 Megabytes. Again, the same high-level DOS that CMD used in the HD and RAMLink product lines was ported to allow users to conveniently partition disks. By the end of 1992, the FD drives were shipping to Commodore users all over the world.

Two more CMD products began shipping in 1993. CMD Utilities offered a selection of disk utilities and copiers useful to CMD device owners as well as other Commodore users. On the hardware front, CMD began shipping a new 3- button mouse at the end of 1993. The "SmartMouse" offered full backwards-compatibility with Commodore's 1351 mouse while adding an extra button and a built-in real-time clock.

In 1994, CMD bought the rights to Skyles Electric Works' 2+1 cartridge port expander, and began offering this product. With the demise of on of the last active print magazines (Compute) at the end of 1993, CMD decided it was time to enter the publishing business. In late April of 1994, CMD shipped the first issue of Commodore World magazine. In August, CMD released "SmartTrack", a trackball with compatibility and features identical to that of their SmartMouse. By year's end CMD had began providing computer and disk drive servicing and started to offer both new and refurbished Commodore computers, drives and monitors.

As 1995 began CMD launched the EX3 cartridge port expander, replacing the 2+1 which had turned out to be too expensive to produce and market effectively. The EX3, however, lacked the horizontal expansion port of the 2+1, so in May CMD released a modified version of the EX3 with this feature - the EX2+1.

In 1996, CMD unveiled the next big step in pushing Commodore computers to the edge of their capabilities - the CMD SuperCPU 20 MHz Accelerator for the Commodore 64. This new product used the 65816 processor, a 16-bit big brother of the 6502 that is at the core of the processor in every Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 computer. The new accelerator offered up to 20 times the speed of stock Commodore computers, and promised the ability of expanding usable RAM to 16 MB at some future date.

When 1997 arrived, so did the future... With the SuperRAM card, Commodore users were now able to add up to 16 MB of RAM to their systems if they had the CMD SuperCPU 64. And few months later, Commodore 128 users were able to get into the act as CMD released the SuperCPU 128 Accelerator. Programs for the C64 and the C128 could now both be accelerated, and some important software titles began to take advantage of the new speed Commodore computers were capable of.

CMD has forged its reputation on creativity, compatibility, and dedication to the Commodore market. In the meantime, they have started to be active in the Macintosh and PC market aswell, to keep the company financially healthy. This guarantees that CMD is able to supply the Commodore market with their products. They promised to do this as long as sufficient demand exists.

This history is © Copyright 1998 by CMD.

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