My anger at Amigans in regards to the Tramiels

[Fred the Fop]

There is one particual thing about Amigans that anger me.


Tramiel bashing.
Look, if it were not for Jack, none of us would have had the Vic 20, C 64, and even the Amiga. We would not have had the Atari ST to laugh at (I owned one).

SO get off their case!!

[Zetr0]

thats a bit outa the blue freddylicious

but hey, i know not of the tramiels and obviously care less.

the only loathing i have is for that mindi character and well the whole circus that is A(_._).STinc

[Fred the Fop]

You are a transvestite.

[Fred the Fop]

Anyway, I deep fried you to a crisp and bagged your burnt parts with cheedar cheese flavour, sold you to the crisps people in Wolverhampton, and there you go.

[Zetr0]

Originally Posted by Fred the Duck

Anyway, I deep fried you to a crisp and bagged your burnt parts with cheedar cheese flavour, sold you to the crisps people in Wolverhampton, and there you go.

That will never keep a good Zetr0 down, everyone knows that you pink puffy sausage jockey

[Dizzy]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

That will never keep a good Zetr0 down

[Fred the Fop]

Damn Dizzy, that's one ugly dude. Who is it?

[Dizzy]

....ehm it's.....some....fredmiels dude

[blade002]

Originally Posted by Fred the Duck

There is one particual thing about Amigans that anger me.


Tramiel bashing.
Look, if it were not for Jack, none of us would have had the Vic 20, C 64, and even the Amiga. We would not have had the Atari ST to laugh at (I owned one).

SO get off their case!!

The same could be said about people who still have a fondness for the Amiga in certain area's. There has been a bit of bashing coming from you in regards to others on here from time to time hasn't there fred !?

There is your opinion, and then there is the opinion we have on Tramiel. I honestly couldn't give a shit about the guy, and am neither here nor there with him.

But i understand your point

[Fred the Fop]

It's all in jest, Blade....but I think that in seriousness, the Tramiels have been bashed enough by many gamers.
Their contribution is significant.

[ppill]

Originally Posted by Fred the Duck

Look, if it were not for Jack, none of us would have had the Vic 20, C 64, and even the Amiga. We would not have had the Atari ST to laugh at (I owned one).

SO get off their case!!

...but Jack was already at Atari when Jay Miner and the team were looking for investors. Actually Atari made them a lousy offer knowing they had to accept it (they were running out of cash fast) and if Commodore hadn't bailed them out (paid off the Atari loan) the world would have never heard of the Amiga computer.

[DrF]

Who cares who did what, in the end they all screwed up
Wheres the ST now, wheres the Amigas market dominance now?
Neither of them lasted as we would have wanted.

[dlfrsilver]

urgglll tramiel = atari ST uke: uke: uke:

[oneshotdead]

Maybe there are books on Tramiel, and these cutthroat businessmen, that might shed some light on the situation. Back in the day, when the A1200 and Falcon were failing, I remember going to user groups, and being lectured by oldtimers about "what this fool and that fool did!" and "they're the ones who are responsible!". I can't remember, because their ranting and raving was intimidating, but I got a sinking feeling out of it all, that's for sure.

shrug, I just kept playing games.

Those men are in their late 40s, early 50s now I suppose, I wonder if they have found peace?

[Angus]

Originally Posted by Fred the Duck

There is one particual thing about Amigans that anger me.


Tramiel bashing.
Look, if it were not for Jack, none of us would have had the Vic 20, C 64, and even the Amiga. We would not have had the Atari ST to laugh at (I owned one).

SO get off their case!!

Regarding Jack Tramiel, its seems unlikely we would be having this conversation or the Amiga would ever have existed had he been successful in his negotiations with the original team.

And its difficult to see how even a fan-boy would object to him being described as a very ruthless businessman who regarded his dealings with other businesses as a form of war, and clearly it could be phrased in far stronger terms.

Putting aside the obvious "what goes round comes round" response, his approach was not one designed or likely to make him popular or highly regarded for his services to the community, so I think its just something you'll have to live with.

[Photon]

Originally Posted by Fred the Duck

There is one particual thing about Amigans that anger me.


Tramiel bashing.
Look, if it were not for Jack, none of us would have had the Vic 20, C 64, and even the Amiga. We would not have had the Atari ST to laugh at (I owned one).

SO get off their case!!

Heh. I know you must be joking/baiting/dreaming, but I'll just state the facts.

Tramiel was thrown out of Commodore, went to their competitor. Jay Miner went to Commodore, Commodore produced a beautiful computer, Atari produced crap until the end of time... doesn't take an Einstein to figure out who's responsible for what

Tramiel took over after Bushnell had made Atari legendary. Suddenly, the consoles and computers everyone enjoyed turned into something that sounded bad, looked bad, and played bad. Jay Miner went to Commodore, they produced technology that took the computer manufacturers of the world about 5-6 years to catch up to.

Tramiel has legacy - in CBM's typewriter, adding machine and calculator era. It's after Peddle took over that CBM started to become a legend.


So I've nothing against Atari, even milled an alu Atari logo plaque for my arcade machine the other day But sometimes you can see the effect individuals have on companies, their products, and technohistory.

[pbareges]

i partially agree with fred though... i think tramiels were kind of visionary in the end...
sure they were tough as business men need to be, but the fact that they got interested in amiga team in the first place prooves they understood the potential of this machine..

Don't forget that jack left commodore because the board got affraid of his c64 price war, cutting profits per unit to record lows but making sales explode....this "cheap powerful computer" view is really at the heart of atari st and amiga computers (amiga since the beginning was designed by a tech genius -jay miner- to be priced at the gaming console level because of the very first investors goals)...at the time it was a great achievment compared to high pricing of pc and mac considered as pro-machines (even if not as powerful).

tramiels belong to the ones that shared the vision of "power computers for the masses" and we must respect the fact that they gave the kids at the time (us) the power to have such great machines at our disposal given their cheap prices!!

[Photon]

I don't know the reason for Jack going to the competitor. But I think it's safe to say his vision consisted more of very aggressive business decisions than of great ideas. A team of engineers invented and proposed the C64 design; specifying the amount of RAM, which CPU to use, or buying an OS/BASIC doth not an engineer make.

Without visionary engineers, a cheap powerful computer would simply not have been possible at that time. Jay Miner's vision reached farthest, while Tramiel's vision reached for "Rock Bottom Price".

This is no disrespect for Jack Tramiel's achievements at all - going from nothing to an international business superpower is a trait to be envied, not least by me !

[gary]

I wonder how things would have turned out if the CEOs and upper management shared the passion for the *product* that the programmers and engineers had. I think this is why Apple survived the attack of the clones.

[pbareges]

Originally Posted by gary

I wonder how things would have turned out if the CEOs and upper management shared the passion for the *product* that the programmers and engineers had. I think this is why Apple survived the attack of the clones.

don't forget that without microsoft financing them because of anti-trust laws apple would have gone dead in the mid 90s before their "ipod/imac" revolution.....

what people expect from a CEO is anything but passion : a cold mind aiming at maximising dividends IN THE LONG RUN (for the ones that were going to say this leads to short term vision collapses)