Amiga/Atari/Commodore/Tramiel Speech at ECCC

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

That he didn't know about the deal with Atari and Amiga Inc before he took over is shambolic.

Well, keep in mind that he was buying Atari Consumer for its manufacturing, distribution, and brand name. The Amiga deal was technically with Warner and simply directed through Atari Inc. Most of the guys on the Mickey team were from the coin-op division rather than consumer. Likewise, the Mickey (Amiga based game console and expandable computer) project was one of many advanced console and computer projects going on at the time, not the only one.

That he met with Amiga Inc, realised the worth of their technology, but still pressed ahead with the ST in its released form is breathtaking stupidity.

I agree he missed an opportunity, but keep it in perspective - he was visiting a lot of companies at the time looking for possible new technologies to use. Amiga was just one of them. In the end he used none of them.

The Atari XL series were in many ways technically superior to the ST, and that Tramiel made no attempt to build upon that series, or even court Amiga Inc properly given that some of Amiga Inc were responsible for the XL series, again demonstrates he didn't have the first clue what he was doing.

I'm not sure what courting Jay regarding an Atari 8-bit product line would have done. Jay had no affiliation any more, and in fact when Jay and Morse first approached Atari in November '83 there was a legal question at the time whether Jay's Amiga designs infringed on any patents from when he was at Atari. Everything Jack actually needed was at Atari Inc., there was already a ton of work done on next generation 8-bit and 16-bit machines, some to the point of being slated for production. Jay was already gone for five years, and R&D had well moved on with other staff. Likewise, remember that when Jack bought Consumer that early July, Commodore was also announcing its intention to by Amiga at the same time - which at the time meant nothing to him until the check was discovered by Leonard at the end of the month.

And that's not true that he made no attempt, that's one of the things I showed in the presentation were internal emails Curt has regarding plans for a full expanded line of XL computers he and Shiraz mapped out. This was in early August of '84. These included expanding the XL models to include models with 3.5" disc drives, the AMY sound chip, and more.

He thought he could trade on the Atari name alone, and neglected the hardware.

Again, there was no neglect in those regards. Where the neglect was in regards to was ignoring all the advanced computer and console work done. Part of that wasn't his fault though, as previously stated, when he took over during the extended July 4th weekend and people came back from work to find out Atari Inc. didn't exist anymore, stuff started walking. People were also deleting their directories on the mainframe systems, etc. He was only able to lock down some of the main buildings, there were others he wasn't even aware of yet that people were bringing up vans to and carting stuff out.

He ignored sound advice from those around him that actually had a clue.

Certainly agree there as well. One of the guys from the Mickey team actually was kept on to run the mainframe, and he asked Jack why he was being kept around for that vs what he was doing before. Though I would call him more adept at business than product design (which was usually delegated to the people around him). He managed to buy Consumer for zero money, take on all the debt Atari Inc. had (which was a ton), erase it, and make things profitable by the time he retired in '87. It was his son Sam who took over then, that managed to turn it in to the mess it became. That includes botching the Lynx, the rest of the ST/Falcon computer lines, the Jaguar (and several previous consoles also in the works).

[lucadip]

Originally Posted by martyg

and not out of some supposed "spite" as you're implying. And frankly I resent that implication.

martyg, re-read my post. As the smileys imply, I was only joking and honestly we are talking about facts which took place 25 years ago and did not have much impact on the present situation. Which makes me even less serious about that. But please go on, it's funny anyway to hear such old stories.

Originally Posted by T_hairy_bootson

@martyg: ignore the light hearted jibes and present your information.

My, oh my...

[cosmicfrog]

Interesting stuff

welcome to EAB martyg & atarimuseum

[lucadip]

Originally Posted by atarimuseum

What you get is RJ Mical who had nothing to do with the situation to be the storyteller so to speak. He even admits on the audio/video interview in the beginning "If I have to choose between the truth and telling a good story - I prefer to tell a good story" So he even admits that what he's telling is not true. Jay Miner essentially regurgitates most of RJ Mical's recollections and the misinformation train moves on its merry way.

What I don't understand is, if RJ Mical and others at Amiga invented this whole story back then, why nobody at Atari ever reacted to it? It would be more than enough to drag somebody into a court.

Funny though that these whole new stories are revealed from two atarians! (please note the sarcasm here, no offence meant)

[Jope]

This is very interesting, thank you for all the investigating you've done so far!

I can't get enough of Amiga and Commodore history, so you have one eager reader right here. :-)

Hi,

Didn't want everyone to think Marty and I were pulling your legs on the Amiga History revealed project we've been working on. Actually several new things have come to light further expanding the overall story of the 3 timelines (Atari/Amiga/Commodore) and we need further time to digest all of the data, plus another 577 pages of court documents have arrived and a lot of it is under oath testimonies of Morse, Smith, Tramiel and others so this is going to take a bit to sort through, fully understand some of the new implications that have come to light to properly and accurately present this history. So while we wade through all of this information, here is another tid-bit to share with one and all...


http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers...07MAR84-wm.jpg


Curt

[cosmicfrog]

exactly which myth is busted?

we all know commodore got amiga from under ataris noses
tramiel or no tramiel

or I`m I missin something ??? would`t be the first time

anyways happy wadding through that paper work and it is nice to see that check, which I thank you for

The myth was the mis-statements that had been made for years that Jack Tramiel was aware of Amiga's financial woes and was trying to buy Amiga for .80 cents a share...

Never happened, the deals between Amiga and Atari started back in late 1983 and were fully into it by spring of 84' where Atari advanced Amiga $500,000 against the initial $3million Amiga would receive from Atari for the license of the Amiga chipset in its game console system which could then have a keyboard upgrade in 1985 added on.

The deal between Amiga and Atari broke down on June 29, 1984, several days before Tramiel bought Atari and he knew nothing about the deal at all until early August when this check was found in the records and a lawsuit was filed against Amiga by then Atari Corp (now Tramiel owned) on August 13, 1984 for breach of contract and fudiciary misconduct as well as other charges added later.

Part of the documents which will be shown are David Morse's own testimony where he admits on the stand that he dealt in bad faith behind Atari (Warner owned) Inc while continuing to use their money to further build and complete the Amiga chipset and computer design. Admitting he willfully stopped negotiating with Atari's license people and when Commodore contacted him in mid-June he negotiated with them and stressed that Commodore would need them to pay him enough to pay back Atari before June 30th so he could remove the Amiga chip tapes and other properties out of Escrow before the deadline...


Curt

[Fred the Fop]

Zei gesund Marty, good to have you aboard bubeleh!