R.I.P. Jack

Jack Tramiel died yesterday at the age of 83. Besides Jobs and Gates one of the driving forces of the early eighties homecomputer market. His vision of building a coumputer that was affordable and had enough power brought Commodore the C64, that is the most sold home computer of that time. Known for beeing a real tyran when it came down to giving orders and talking to his engineers – the game Jack Attack shows how some of the Commdore Staff was feeling.
Probably such a harsh manner is needed in order to get almost impossible things done. If I recall it right, the engineers only had half a year to build the C64 and under that pressure they made one of the best computers in the world.
Later Tramiel was basically thrown out of Commodore because he seemed to be unbearable to the board – once again a parallel to Steve Jobs. Tramiel was far from giving up. He took over the than struggeling Atari and setting sail to push Commdore out of market, building low priced Ataris.

More Infos and stories about the Tramiels and Commodore can be found “On the Edge”

A great read and a big picture of all the happenings in the Commouniverse and a great insight what could have been if some right decisions would have been made a the right time.

R.I.P. Commod, R.I.P. Jack…