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?"
Re:My First Computer (Score:5, Interesting)
I learned C with the cheap GST C compiler. I did serious text crunching with Signum (superb output). I learned to do MIDI sequencing with Steinberg Pro 12. I used Spectre for Mac emulation and had a hardware 286 emulator fitte on which I ran Turbo Pascal. And then, of course, were the games.
Excellent machine. Tramiel's great hit, the C64, was also responsible for getting me into music in the first place. People like Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway got me hooked, and I still use C64 sounds today via plugins like QuadraSID.
Jack Tramiel's influence is severely understated by many (he schooled both Gates with the Commodore BASIC contract for instace) and I am sad to hear of him going.
Ian
impressive adaptation (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing that's particularly interesting about Jack Tramiel is that, unlike some of the other 70s tech entrepreneurs (Woz, say), he was really from a previous generation, not natively a computer guy. But, he managed to anticipate and succeed over several technological transitions. He immigrated to the U.S. after surviving a concentration camp during WW2, and started a reasonably successful typewriter company in the 50s. That successfully transitioned to mechanical calculators in the early 60s after the typewriter market started getting too competitive and low-margin, and then once transistors started becoming affordable, he digified that line and put out a line of digital calculators in the late 60s. In fact Commodore in effect put out the first Texas Instruments calculator, using commodity circuits sourced from TI, which TI only later realized they could assemble under their own label, resulting in the now-famous TI calculator line.
Then, finally, he anticipated the home-computing trend, with Commodore releasing its first design in 1977, the same year as the Apple II.
It's not very difficult to imagine an alternate history where Commodore was a typewriter company that had a brief adding-machine phase before completely missing the digital-computing wave and going bankrupt by 1980.
Being a supplier to Atari or Commodore sucked.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I can tell you unequivocally that being a supplier to both companies sucked big time. They never paid you. It got so bad that we (when I was a supplier to them) basically made any business with them COD because if you didn't you would never get your money. You may all love Jack but I couldn't stand doing business with them. Major PITA.
The Volkswagen of computing (Score:4, Interesting)
Rest in peace, Jack Tramiel, famed for "The Jack Attack."
The Commodore 64 truly was The People's Computer, like the Volkswagen "bug" was The People's Car.
At a time when an Apple //e cost $2500 for monitor, CPU, extra RAM (necessary), and two disk drives, you could walk out of the store with a full Commodore system for $350 and hook it up to an old TV.
This is why C64 culture was so vital: people took risks with their computers instead of treating them like business machines or expensive curiosities. Back in the BBS days, the Commodore boards were where it was at. Total anarchy zones. If the feds or feebs swooped in to confiscate them, one paycheck later they were up and operating again.
I hope Jack gets the recognition he deserves in the great beyond. With any luck, he's just finished sliding a whoopee cushion onto Steve Jobs' easy chair and is watching from behind a corner with a devilish grin.
Re:Being a supplier to Atari or Commodore sucked.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, this book details Jack purposefully not paying suppliers [amazon.com], nice to hear it repeated from someone first-hand. According to the book they made a point of not paying suppliers, especially if they were interested in acquiring the company. When the company was cash-strapped and desperate, Commodore would buy them out.
It made more money on the short-term, but was bad for the long-run because it burned bridges in the industry. This made it hard for Jack to get now-wary suppliers and dealers to help him grow his business when he saw an opportunity for a new market/device.
Re:Everyone ignores Commodore (Score:4, Interesting)
Another issue that most of the accounts are written by Americans, and the Apple ][ ruled in the USA.
Actually from what I understand, the Commodore 64 was- if anything- most successful in the USA, in part because it was sold so cheaply there (for what was actually a very good computer at the time) due to Tramiel wanting to win the home computer market. AFAIK the Apple II did well in educational and early business markets, but the C64 was *the* home computer in the US.
But you're absolutely right- there's a problem with history being written by the victors, because it gives a misleading picture of the time. Sure, the IBM PC (and MS-DOS), predecessor to today's Wintel PCs, was big in the business market, but in its early days it wasn't a home machine. Who'd want to pay thousands of pounds for a machine with (at best) CGA graphics and *very* primitive sound when you could get a C64 for a fraction of the cost? Kids at home probably didn't give a **** about some horribly expensive green-screen machine that wasn't even that hot at games.
I've heard that part of the problem with the C64- and the reason Tramiel was forced to leave C= - was that Tramiel was *so* aggressive with the price and driving competitors out of the market- that C= weren't actually making that much money on them (even though apparently they'd been exceptionally good at driving down the production cost, in part by becoming vertically integrated).
I have to admit to having mixed feelings about Tramiel, as from what I've heard some of his business practices were very questionable, with- for example- some blaming him for contributing to the downfall of Synapse Software (well-known for developing many well-regarded early Atari 800 games) when he reneged on a supposedly binding agreement after taking over Atari's computer division. YMMV, there appears to be an interesting (archived) discussion here [atariage.com]. (One comment; "Not paying suppliers, forcing them into bankruptcy, and them making them an offer to settle lawsuits for pennies on the dollar was a standard practice for him").
At any rate, I think he at least deserves some credit for his successes- mainly with Commodore (and some level of respect for surviving Auschwitz) even if there were some aspects to him that were questionable.
Rest in peace, Mr. Tramiel (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to work in Silicon Valley. When I first went there, I had visions of rubbing elbows with personal computing luminaries like Jobs, Wozniak, Tramiel, and Bushnell. Let me tell you, working in a startup is not the way to make this happen. Of course, Nolan Bushnell doesn't live in Silicon Valley, and Steve Jobs was busy running Apple, so they got scratched off my list. I did get to meet Steve Wozniak [wordpress.com], simply because I was in the right place at the right time. But Jack Tramiel was... well, someone I wanted to meet badly enough to track down myself.
I had heard he still lived near Silicon Valley, but it was only by sheer luck that I came across a way to contact him (which I won't share here). It was my last week to work before moving back east, and I worked up the courage to initiate contact with him. Immediately, I found out he was someone who valued what privacy he could get, so I had to explain why I wanted to meet him in person. He graciously agreed to meet me for Thursday lunch. That gave me two days to think about what I wanted to say to him, and to ask him.
Not that it mattered. I got there a little bit before he did, got shown to his customary booth, and started tripping over my own tongue as soon as he showed up. Any photos you've seen of him reflect exactly how he looked: somewhat rotund, mostly bald, clearly Jewish, and very contented with life. The ease with which he greeted me showed I wasn't the first 37-year-old Commodore fanboi he'd ever met.
We ordered our meals, and began to chat. I tried to present myself as respectfully as I could, but... really, this was Jack Tramiel, and I was having lunch with him! He explained right away that he had just come from the gym, he always ate there after his workout, and that's how the restaurant host knew where to seat me. He worked out three times a week, as a way to stay somewhat active, but he had a good life, he knew it, and it showed.
We talked about how he had learned what American business was about, and how he had learned about America. When I told him I was from Ohio, he piped up immediately with, "Ah, my favorite city is Toledo, Ohio. Even though I've never been there." I knew he was a Holocaust survivor, but I didn't know that an American from Toledo, Ohio was the first Allied soldier to greet him when the Ahlem labor camp was liberated. This soldier taught him to speak basic English, talking about Toledo, Ohio enough that it essentially became young Jacek's understanding of what city life in the USA was like.
We talked about Commodore Business Machines, and how the design evolved from the early PET, through the VIC-20, C-64, and C-128. He had wanted economical designs from the beginning of his involvement with computers, and his products reflected that. He bore no ill will towards IBM, Apple, or any of the other competitors. It was all business; life is too short for animosity on any level. As the fortunes of CBM varied through time, that philosophy made it easier for him to stand aside and let history take its course. (I've heard that from a few other Holocaust survivors as well.)
We also talked a little politics. I asked him what he thought about the conservative/liberal polemic, and his response was simple: The government governs a nation, but it's a nation of people. When a government prefers the nation over her citizens, they suffer as he suffered. He asserted that no form of government was completely immune to this hazard, but some are less suceptible to it.
I had a website that the time, and said something about what an incredible brag I would have for it. He demurred a little, and asked that I refrain from speaking publicly about having lunch with him, at least while he was alive. So I did.
The hour and a half I spent