Skyles Electric Works

Bob Skyles in 1980

Type| Private
Industry| Software industry
Fate| Dissolution
Founded| 1978; 48 years ago (1978) in Cupertino, California, United States
Founder| Bob Skyles
Defunct| 1993 (1993)
Headquarters|

Mountain View

United States

Products| Software

Number of employees

| 13 (1985–1987)

Skyles Electric Works is a company founded in 1978 in California by Bob Skyles, a former Commodore engineer, to produce hardware add-ons for the Commodore PET. Like Apple Computer, it began in a garage in Cupertino, California, but for most of the company's existence it was based in nearby Mountain View.[1] The company employed 13 between 1985 and 1987 and reached annual sales of over $501,000 in those years.[2][3]

The first products from Skyles Electric Works were memory expansions and keyboards (the first PETs had calculator-style keys which were unsuited to touch-typing).[4]

The earliest software products were firmware, including the Command-O and Disk-O-Pro, which enhanced the BASIC language of the PET.[5]

The company also published cassette and disk-based software including Busicalc, the first spreadsheet program for the Commodore 64, and which was licensed from Supersoft in England.[6][7] Busicalc and the follow-up products Busicalc 2 and Busicalc 3 were highly successful in the US market during 1983 and 1984,[8]: 19 and encouraged Skyles Electric Works to source other similar products which were rebranded to form part of the Busi series, notably Busidata .[9] Another C64 title was the game Megapede written by Paul Andrus.[10] Among the company's last offerings were memory expansion boards for the 500, 1000, and 2000 models of the Amiga computer.[11]

Skyles Electric Works dissolved in 1993.[12]

## References

1. ↑ Bagnall, Brian (2010). Commodore: A Company on the Edge. Variant Press. pp. 120, 169, 176. ISBN 9780973864960. https://books.google.com/books?id=xw73MAAACAAJ.
2. ↑ Microcomputer Market Place. Dekotek. 1985. p. 184. ISBN 0835219402. https://books.google.com/books?id=xI3tAAAAMAAJ.
3. ↑ Microcomputer Market Place. Dekotek. 1987. p. 247. ISBN 978-0-8352-1940-2. https://books.google.com/books?id=xI3tAAAAMAAJ.
4. ↑ Bagnall, Brian (2010). Commodore: A Company on the Edge. Variant Press. pp. 175–176. ISBN 9780973864960. https://books.google.com/books?id=xw73MAAACAAJ.
5. ↑ Staff writer (September 1981). "For the PET". Computer Dealer (Gordon Publications) 4 (9): 130. https://books.google.com/books?id=WS5kAAAAIAAJ&q="Skyles+Electric+Works"+"Command-O".
6. ↑ Milewski, Richard A. (1984). InfoWorld's Essential Guide to the Commodore 64. Harper & Row. pp. 61–63. ISBN 9780066690056. https://archive.org/details/infoworlds-essential-guide-to-the-commodore-64/page/n73.
7. ↑ Byers, Eugene (April 1983). "Other Programs". Midnite Software Gazette (12): 35. https://archive.org/details/midnite-software-gazette-12/page/n36/mode/1up.
8. ↑ Silveria, Terry (May 1984). "Spreadsheets for the C-64". Ahoy! (Ion International) 1 (5): 18–21, 34, 93–94. https://archive.org/details/ahoy-magazine-05/page/n19/.
9. ↑ Staff writer (December 1984). "Skyles Electric Works". Run (CW Communications) (12): 133. https://archive.org/details/run-magazine-12/page/n134/.
10. ↑ "Skyles: Megapede". MayhemUK. n.d.. Archived from the original on January 11, 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210111032316/http://www.mayhem64.co.uk/skyles.htm.
11. ↑ AC's Guide to the Commodore Amiga: Spring-Summer '90. PiM Publications. 1990. p. 131. https://archive.org/details/ACs_Guide_To_The_Commodore_Amiga_Spring-Summer_90_1990_PiM_Publications_US/page/n131/.
12. ↑ "Skyles Electric Works". OpenCorporates. n.d.. Archived from the original on November 14, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20221114043312/https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_ca/0900025.

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