Jack Tramiel, Founder of Commodore Business Machines, Dies At Age 83 301
LoTonah writes "Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore Business Machines and later, the owner of Atari, died Easter Sunday. He was 83. He undoubtedly changed the computing landscape by bringing low cost computers to millions of people, and he started a price war that saw dozens of large companies leave the market. He also took a bankrupt Atari and managed to wring almost another decade out of it. The 6502 microprocessor would have withered on the vine if it weren't for Tramiel's support. Could anyone else have done all of that?"
interview from 1989 (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.commodore.ca/history/people/1989_you_dont_know_jack.htm [commodore.ca]
seems he got around to do quite a lot.
Re:Everyone ignores Commodore (Score:2, Informative)
Did you ever use a Commodore PET computer? It certainly wasn't anywhere near as sexy as an Apple or an Atari.
The C-64 came far later. It's only interesting aspect was the low cost - the technology inside was 5 years out of date. Steve Jobs is off 'inventing' the Macintosh, while Tramiel is pushing a $200 computer in K-Mart. Which story makes the better movie?
And if it's any condolence, the Radio Shack TRASH-80 also always gets the short shrift in these stories. They were at least as big as Apple for a while.
Re:Everyone ignores Commodore (Score:5, Informative)
I bet Jack Tramel's death won't get the kind of coverage that Steve Jobs got. His 6502 CPU (plus variants) were used in Atari 2600/5200/7800 consoles, Atari computers, Apple I/II/IIgs computers, Nintendo ES and Super Nintendo consoles. His Commodore and Atari companies popularized music, video, and preemptive tasking when the Macs/PCs were going "beep" and had about 4 colors.
And yet after today we'll probably never hear about him again. And yes the Commodore 64 was and still is the record-holder for most machines sold (peak years: 1983-86). The runner-ups:
2. Amiga 500 (millions of C64 owners upgraded)
3. Atari 800 (peak year: 1980-82)
4. Tandy/Radio Shack TRS-80 (1977-1979)
Re:Everyone ignores Commodore (Score:5, Informative)
The C-64 was better than anything available at the time. Most amount of RAM (More than the Apple ][), color graphics (Mac was Black & White), the super-advanced SID synthesizer (Still used by a lot of musicians today) which gave it true sound back when the Apple and IBM offerings only offered pathetic beep noises.
Sure, the 6502 (Really the 6510 in a C64) was a few years old then, but there was nothing else out there in the affordable range. The megahertz wars hadn't started. the IBM PC was faster with a 4 Mhz processor, but the PC was such a barebones POS at the time that nobody wanted it.
It's what they did with the 5 year old 65xx line that was the groundbreaking part.
Re:Everyone ignores Commodore (Score:1, Informative)
> And yes the Commodore 64 was and still is the record-holder for most machines sold
Just due market expansion, it wouldn't surprise me if that record was silently broken by some unremarkable Dell Dimension.
C-64 sold between 13 and 30 million (depending who you ask). Apple has sold 300M+ iPads, so if one counts tablets, it's not even close.
Re:Everyone ignores Commodore (Score:3, Informative)
Most of the PCs back then had 'graphical support' hardware. Obviously I'm not talking about the D/A converter for analog video out. What do you think VIC in VIC-20 stood for? Back then the Apple II had swappable video cards. The Atari 8-bit PCs had the ANTIC with the CTIA & GTIA chips. Hell, even the 2600 had the Stella chip for dealing with player/missile graphics.
Back in the day when I started out programming you had to rely on the hardware for functionality because there was no way the CPU could manage it.
I hate the smell of noobs in the morning, It smells like ignorance.
Re:Everyone ignores Commodore (Score:5, Informative)
Also worth mentioning: Jack Tramiel was the only person who ever won a business deal over Bill Gates. When Jack Tramiel was looking for a BASIC for his computers - the Commodore PET specifically - he called in Bill Gates and wrung the worst deal out of him that anyone has ever produced. It's documented in the fantastic "Commodore" book by Brian Bagnall (http://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/dp/0973864966/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1334012789&sr=8-3).
Every Commodore computer used Bill Gates' BASIC code and Bill got a pittance.
Bill Gates has never since let anyone get the best of him. I suspect the experience of getting Tramieled directly led to his success in negotiating the rights to PC-DOS and winning the IBM PC contract.
Here's to you, Jack. You gave Chuck Peddle the chance to be great, and you scared Bill Gates into building modern computers. That's a pretty damn good run.
As a former Apple II and C-64 programmer ... (Score:5, Informative)
It's important to note that the Commodore 64 incorporated graphics support hardware (aka the first "graphics card") which helped make the computer much faster than it's CPU speed would indicate, especially for gaming.
You Sir, must stop talking out of your ass.
Actually, he is correct. The C-64 did have "graphics support hardware" beyond offering a bitmap that programmer could directly manipulate. The GP is only mistaken in that he characterized the hardware as being like a "graphics card". The specialized C64 graphics hardware supported 8 sprites. It was a very handy thing.
You could also consider the reprogrammable character set as such graphics hardware that sped up games. Various VIC-20 and C-64 games used this technique to good effect.
Back then the Apple II had swappable video cards.
Huh? *If* such cards existed they were certainly so rare that hardly anyone had them, a real niche thing. Are you thinking of the 80 column card? It added 64K RAM too but I don't recall this card enhancing graphics. My recollection as a former Apple II, //e, and C-64 programmer is that on the Apple II you had bitmapped graphics and that on the C-64 you also had bitmapped graphics, but it was better, plus specialized hardware support for sprites. The Apple was primitive in comparison.
I hate the smell of noobs in the morning, It smells like ignorance.
You might want to check that attitude if you yourself aren't remembering things quite correctly either.
Re:Everyone ignores Commodore (Score:5, Informative)
The yield of a process, which seems to be the percentages you are quoting, isn't directly related to the ability to rework hand-drawn rubylith masks. In fact, the 6502 worked with the very first tape-out (virtually unheard of).
Jack Tramiel was a typical narcissistic domineering businessman, who had a typewriter and then calculator business that bought it's way into computers with the acquisition of MOS, mainly to ensure their calculator chip supply. The amazing success of the 6502 and the Commodore computers can be attributed to the brilliance of a very small group of genius engineers at MOS, led by Chuck Peddle. There will not likely be a time again where we will know the developers of a CPU by name, a CPU that sold hundreds of millions and who's architecture is still in use.
If the bottom line of the 6502 was affected by mask design, it is that they had the finest designers at MOS. The quote below is from the book ("On the Edge: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore" [variantpress.com]
Pavinen and Holt handed off the completed mask to the MOS technicians, who began fabricating the first run of chips. Bil Herd summarizes the situation. “No chip worked the first time,” he states emphatically. “No chip. It took seven or nine revs [revisions], or if someone was real good they would get it in five or six.” ...
Implausibly, the engineers detected no errors in Mensch’s layout. “He built seven different chips without ever having an error,” says Peddle with disbelief in his voice. “Almost all done by hand. When I tell people that, they don’t believe me, but it’s true. This guy is a unique person. He is the best layout guy in world.”
If you have hours to watch it, here's an informal interview with Chuck Peddle from a year and a half ago, where he goes into depth about the design of the 6502 and the Commodore computers, working Jack and Microsoft, and all sorts of topics, in the kind of interview you never thought you would see from the central figure in all of CBM:
Part 1: http://blip.tv/file/4055830 [blip.tv]
Part 2: http://blip.tv/file/4084084 [blip.tv]
Part 3: http://blip.tv/file/4084124 [blip.tv]