If a few -- and only a few -- things had gone differently, Commodore could be Apple. The Amiga was ahead of its time and was in many ways far better than the Macintosh (at the time, or even a bit later).

Apple succeeded because it found two niches to sustain it -- education, design. Both Commodore and Apple had small but enthusiastic base of fans, but it's been shown time and again that fans alone are not enough to sustain a whole platform or company.