Jack Tramiel dead at 83

[SubaruBrat]

He did allot of good and certainly some harm in the early days of video games and home computers.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthi...ies-at-age-83/

Get a Commodore history lesson from our C64 Christmas special from 2009.

[Leathco]

Shame to see him go. Had a heck of a history.

[Gordon Bennett]

While he was by all accounts that I have heard a deeply unpleasant man, he was responsible for the Commodore 64 and the Atari ST, both of which gave me countless hours of joy. Godspeed, computer man.

[Gubbins]

Really suprised about how low key his passing has been reported. Only just heard it myself. Blimey I was a bit ignorant about his history, interesting fella indeed

[teknohed]

In the Metro here in montreal there are these huge screens that showcase teh "news of day" and weather and stuff. They have a big blurb accompanied by a terrible picture. At least the french remember Tramiel. Anyone here read this article on Gizmodo? Here's a quote:

Jack Tramiel, the antithesis of Steve Jobs, has died. Tramiel was the founder of Commodore. Unlike Jobs, Tramiel believed that computers should be utilitarian and cheap, disregarding elegant design or attention to detail—like the legendary Commodore 64.

While Jobs' sense of aesthetics and obsessive detail permeated everything Apple did, from hardware to software, Tramiel—born Jacek Trzmiel in Lodz, Poland, 1928—didn't give a damn. His only concern was price and making things useful enough to win the battle in the marketplace.

As a result, Commodore's design was the crude club to Apple's elegant sword. And while time and nostalgia have made his computers charming, they are still slabs of ugly plastic. Charming ugly plastic slabs that I still like—I used the C64 all through my middle school years and remember to love every bit of its craptastic no-frills nature.

It is really pissing me off. calling tramiel the "anti jobs" and basically harping on how shit the c64 was compared to the design genius of apple. give it a read and tell me if I'm off base. I think it's way out of line. I am sorry but at the time the C64 was not an ugly slab of plastic and was could hardly be called craptastic. sure maybe compared to a Mac or something, but that is not a fair comparision. IF you compare early commodore micros with apple II then I certainly don't think they are any less well designed than the apple machines. Gah! I'm really pissed off here.

[meu2]

In the Metro here in montreal there are these huge screens that showcase teh "news of day" and weather and stuff. They have a big blurb accompanied by a terrible picture. At least the french remember Tramiel. Anyone here read this article on Gizmodo? Here's a quote:



It is really pissing me off. calling tramiel the "anti jobs" and basically harping on how shit the c64 was compared to the design genius of apple. give it a read and tell me if I'm off base. I think it's way out of line. I am sorry but at the time the C64 was not an ugly slab of plastic and was could hardly be called craptastic. sure maybe compared to a Mac or something, but that is not a fair comparision. IF you compare early commodore micros with apple II then I certainly don't think they are any less well designed than the apple machines. Gah! I'm really pissed off here.

Your not off base in my opinion; that article seemed needlessly biassed. At least he had a good innings.

[Gordon Bennett]

Terribly. That piece isn't about Jack Tramiel at all, it's simply using his death as a cheap excuse to bang on about Steve Jobs and Apple a bit more. Pathetic. If you absolutely must compare Tramiel to others in the industry at all than Clive Sinclair and Alan Sugar are far better choices, they were at least in direct competition to provide quality affordable computers for the masses.

[indieseoul]

The commodore 64 was my first computer and I still have very fond memories of it. Whatever you want to say about the man himself he helped build an incredible computer company that is still loved today. My favorite quote of his is this: "We need to build computers for the masses, not the classes." He certainly did that with the C64. I can't believe they would use his death to talk about Steve Jobs again. Oh yeah I can the media sucks. Tramiel's life story would make a more interesting film than Steve Job's life. Child that survives the horror of the holocaust to form a computer company that inspires millions. I think if you survive something horrible like that you have the right to be a prick once in a while. RIP Jack.

[chalksalad]

First of all Respect for this amazing man, his significance in the Computer / gaming industry is undeniable.

Secondly this gives me an idea for a Top-10 of people in gaming, businessmen, engineers, developers, visionaries of the 70s and 80s.

[PFL]

Yeah, the man who took the 'elite' out of home computing, allowed the production of the KIM in an untested market, produced the PET, forced Commodore. against conventional wisdom, to produce the VIC 20 instead of the Super PET thus keeping the Japanese at bay, then followed through with the C64 before going on to bring Atari back from the brink of destruction certainly is no Steve 'God-Like' Jobs... F**k off.

To be honest I'd take being called the antithesis of Steve Jobs (revisionist egoist extraordinaire) a compliment.