In 1954, Commodore International was founded by Jack Tramiel, an Auschwitz survivor, and Manfred Kapp, as a typewriter-repair service.

Tramiel was born on December 13, 1927 in Lodz in Poland and spent the years from 1940 to 1945 in a German concentration camp. Other sources indicate that his name was originally Kaufmann Idek Tramiel or Tramielski and that he was born on September 13, 1927 or December 13, 1928. He appears to have entered the United States in 1947 and to have been in the United States Army from 1948 to 1950 when he was a cook and for less than a year in 1951-2 when he was a typewriter repair man. Between his tours of duty in the army and for a time after his second tour, he worked for a company called Ace Typewriter Repair Company. Between 1952 and 1954, he drove a taxicab in the New York City. Tramiel first met Manfred Kapp in 1952 or 1953 when they were fellow-employees at the Ace Typewriter Repair Company.