Commodore International was an American home computer and electronics manufacturer founded by Jack Tramiel. Commodore International, along with its subsidiary Commodore Business Machines, participated in the development of the home–personal computer industry in the 1970s and 1980s; the company developed and marketed the world's best-selling desktop computer, the Commodore 64, released its Amiga computer line in July 1985. With quarterly sales ending 1983 of $49 million, Commodore was one of the world's largest personal computer manufacturers; the company that would become Commodore Business Machines, Inc. was founded in 1954 in Toronto as the Commodore Portable Typewriter Company by Polish-Jewish immigrant and Auschwitz survivor Jack Tramiel. For a few years he had been living in New York, driving a taxicab, running a small business repairing typewriters, when he managed to sign a deal with a Czechoslovakian company to manufacture their designs in Canada, he moved to Toronto to start production.

By the late 1950s a wave of Japanese machines forced most North American typewriter companies to cease business, but Tramiel instead turned to adding machines. In 1955, the company was formally incorporated as Inc. in Canada. In 1962 Commodore went public on the New York Stock Exchange, under the name of Commodore International Limited. In the late 1960s, history repeated itself when Japanese firms started producing and exporting adding machines; the company's main investor and chairman, Irving Gould, suggested that Tramiel travel to Japan to understand how to compete. Instead, Tramiel returned with the new idea to produce electronic calculators, which were just coming on the market. Commodore soon had a profitable calculator line and was one of the more popular brands in the early 1970s, producing both consumer as well as scientific/programmable calculators. However, in 1975, Texas Instruments, the main supplier of calculator parts, entered the market directly and put out a line of machines priced at less than Commodore's cost for the parts.

Commodore obtained an infusion of cash from Gould, which Tramiel used beginning in 1976 to purchase several second-source chip suppliers, including MOS Technology, Inc. in order to assure his supply. He agreed to buy MOS, having troubles of its own, only on the condition that its chip designer Chuck Peddle join Commodore directly as head of engineering. Through the 1970s Commodore produced numerous peripherals and consumer electronic products such as the Chessmate, a chess computer based around a MOS 6504 chip, released in 1978. In December 2007, when Tramiel was visiting the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, for the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64, he was asked why he called his company Commodore, he said: "I wanted to call my company General, but there's so many Generals in the U. S.: General Electric, General Motors. I went to Admiral, but, taken. So I wind up in Berlin, with my wife, we were in a cab, the cab made a short stop, in front of us was an Opel Commodore." Tramiel gave this account in many interviews, but Opel's Commodore didn't debut until 1967, years after the company had been named.

Once Chuck Peddle had taken over engineering at Commodore, he convinced Jack Tramiel that calculators were a dead end, that they should turn their attention to home computers. Peddle packaged his single-board computer design in a metal case with a keyboard using calculator keys with a full-travel QWERTY keyboard, monochrome monitor, tape recorder for program and data storage, to produce the Commodore PET. From PET's 1977 debut, Commodore would be a computer company. Commodore had been reorganized the year before into Commodore International, Ltd. moving its financial headquarters to the Bahamas and its operational headquarters to West Chester, near the MOS Technology site. The operational headquarters, where research and development of new products occurred, retained the name Commodore Business Machines, Inc. In 1980 Commodore launched production for the European market in Braunschweig. By 1980, Commodore was one of the three largest microcomputer companies, the largest in the Common Market.

The company had lost its early domestic-market sales leadership, however. BYTE stated of the business computer market that "the lack of a marketing strategy by Commodore, as well as its past nonchalant attitude toward the encouragement and development of good software, has hurt its credibility in comparison to the other systems on the market"; the author of Programming the PET/CBM stated in its introduction that "CBM's product manuals are recognized to be unhelpful. Commodore reemphasized the US market with the VIC-20; the PET computer line was used in schools, where its tough all-metal construction and ability to share printers and disk drives on a simple local area network were advantages, but PETs did not compete well in the home setting where graphics and sound were important. This was addressed with the VIC-20 in 1981, introduced at a cost of US$299 and sold in retail stores. Commodore bought aggressive advertisements featuring William Shatner asking consumers "Why buy just a video game?"

The strategy worked and the VIC-20 became the first computer to ship more than one million units. A total of 2.5 million units were sold over the machine's lifetime and helped Commodore's sales to Canadian schools. In another p

May E. Dexter Henshall was an American educator and library professional, she was inducted into the California Library Hall of Fame in 2016. Mary Eliza Dexter was born in Woodland, the youngest of four daughters of Thomas Jefferson Dexter and Elizabeth Hills Dexter, her father moved from Illinois to California as a young man in the Gold Rush of 1849. May E. Dexter taught school in Woodland as a young woman, she was appointed superintendent of schools in Yolo County in 1906 elected to the position in 1906 and re-elected without opposition in 1910. In 1914 she lost her bid for a third elected term; as superintendent, she oversaw building projects, raised teacher salaries, lengthened the school year, worked on expanding library services in Yolo County. In 1915, she brought that experience into her position as school library organizer at the California State Library, she traveled extensively, "from the orange groves of Riverside to the show and below zero weather of Inyo County in one night", visiting schools and libraries throughout rural California, working on building county free libraries.

She taught in the library school at the University of California, Berkeley. She retired in 1937. "A more conscientious official has never held public office in this county," declared Yolo County historian Thomas Jefferson Gregory. Henshall spoke at conferences and published papers in professional journals, active on the national level in the American Library Association, she contributed a detailed chapter on the history of Yolo County schools for the county history published in 1913. She was a charter member and president of Yolo County's chapter of Native Daughters of the Golden West. In 1914 she served on a committee of Yolo women responsible for providing a restroom at the California Building of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Mary Eliza Dexter married John Alfred Henshall, an English-born newspaper editor, in 1910. John Henshall died in 1938. May Dexter Henshall died in 1962, aged 95 years. In 2016, she was inducted into the California Library Hall of Fame. May Dexter Henshall at Find a Grave A photograph of the Madera County Free Library, taken by May Dexter Henshall, in the collection of the California State Library

Louis Sergio "Lou" Antonelli is an American speculative fiction author who writes alternate history, secret history, science fiction, fantasy. He resides in Texas. Antonelli's stories have been published in print publications based in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, as well as e-zines based in India and Portugal. Antonelli grew up in Rockland; as a young man, he lived in New York City. In 1982, at the age of 25, Antonelli ran as a Republican for the United States House of Representatives in a district including most of the West Side of Manhattan Island along with parts of The Bronx, he lost to the Democratic incumbent Ted Weiss by a margin of 85%–15%. In 1985, Antonelli moved to Texas. In 1992, he was elected to a term as a member of the Cedar Hill ISD school board and served until 1995. Antonelli is a professional journalist. In January 2015, he was named managing editor of The Clarksville Times based in Texas. Antonelli got a late start in his fiction writing career, his first professional sale was "A Rocket for the Republic", published in Asimov's Science Fiction in September 2005.

His 2012 short story "Great White Ship" was nominated for the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. As of June October 2017 he had 112 short stories published either in online, his stories have appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, Worlds of Wonder, Jim Baen's Universe, Continuum Science Fiction, Astounding Tales, Bewildering Stories, Andromeda Spaceways In-flight Magazine, Nova Science Fiction, Planetary Stories, Ray Gun Revival, 4 Star Stories, Drink Tank, Nova Science Fiction, Omni Reboot, the Song Stories anthology, the FenCon IV Souvenir Program Book, other publications. Eleven of his stories have received honorable mentions in The Year's Best Science Fiction published by St. Martin's Press for 2011, 2009, 2008, 2006, 2005 and 2004. "A Rocket for the Republic" placed third in the Asimov's Science Fiction Readers Poll for 2005 in the Short Story category. His 2012 short story "Great White Ship" was nominated for the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. "On a Spiritual Plain" was nominated for Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 2015.

His debut novel, "Another Girl, Another Planet", was nominated for the Dragon Award for Best Alternate History novel in 2017. He was an Active Member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, but has since left the organization as of 2017. Another Girl, Another Planet Fantastic Texas Texas & Other Planets Music for Four Hands with Edward Morris The Clock Struck None Letters from Gardner The First Bewildering Stories Anthology Zombified: An Anthology of All Things Zombie Zombie Writing Song Stories: Volume 1 Raygun Chronicles: Space Opera for a New Age In July 2015, in the midst of the "Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies" controversy, Antonelli wrote a letter to the Spokane Police Department telling them to be on the lookout for World science fiction convention Guest of Honor David Gerrold as a person who may incite violence calling him "insane and a public danger and needs to be watched when the convention’s going on."Antonelli apologized, Gerrold accepted the apology, saying "Let's put this one to bed and for all.

Lou Antonelli did something dumb. People were outraged. Someone who cared about him held up a mirror and he recognized he was turning into his own crazy uncle, he apologized. I'm satisfied, and that should be the end of it." He is married to a Dallas native. Antonelli's Blog - This Way to Texas Lou Antonelli at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database