After he left Atari I haven't heard much in the news media. Did he
retire?

Paul

On Thu, 25 Jan 2006 Paul wrote:

> After he left Atari I haven't heard much in the news media. Did he
> retire?

 	Yes.

 					And he won't speak of Commodore
 					ever again,
 					Robert Bernardo
 					Fresno Commodore User Group
 					http://videocam.net.au/fcug

Robert Bernardo wrote:

> On Thu, 25 Jan 2006 Paul wrote:
> 
>> After he left Atari I haven't heard much in the news media. Did he
>> retire?
> 
>  Yes.
> 
>  And he won't speak of Commodore
>  ever again,

Probably pleading the 5th.

"Robert Bernardo" <rbernardo@iglou.com> wrote in message 
news:Pine.GSO.4.61.0601260203330.5802@shell1...
> On Thu, 25 Jan 2006 Paul wrote:
>
>> After he left Atari I haven't heard much in the news media. Did he
>> retire?
>
>  Yes.
>
>  And he won't speak of Commodore
>  ever again,

What ? He was here in Australia about 7 or 8 years ago & appeared as a guest 
speaker at a PC show - naturally, he was asked many questions about 
Commodore, Atari & JTS - he answered them all. Has he changed his tune ?

cheers,

Lance


-- 
// http://landover.no-ip.com
   Classic machines, classic software // 

Have you guys seen the episode of "Computer Chronicles" that had Jack 
and his son Leonard Tramiel talking about the "NEW" Atari ST?  It's 
pretty funny watching Jack say his schtick "Computers for the masses, 
not the classes..." He doesn't look very happy when the Commodore guy 
comes on to talk about the Amiga though...Ha Ha Ha!!

See it here....

http://www.archive.org/details/LowEndCo1985

I wonder if he still uses that "catch phrase" with other things....I 
could see him hawking counterfeit rolex watches...."...get your Rolex 
for the masses, not the classes..."

:)

In article <Pine.GSO.4.61.0601260203330.5802@shell1>,
Robert Bernardo  <rbernardo@iglou.com> wrote:
>On Thu, 25 Jan 2006 Paul wrote:
>
>> After he left Atari I haven't heard much in the news media. Did he
>> retire?
>
> 	Yes.
>
> And he won't speak of Commodore
> ever again,

Actually, a few years ago, a friend of mine was at a sushi bar in
the Bay Area and struck up a conversation with this nice older guy
sitting next to him.  Turned out to be Jack Tramiel.  They had a nice
conversation about his early days of Commodore and going on to Atari.
My friend was never a C= or Atari guy, so he wasn't familiar with Jack
and his story at all.  Mostly, he's just enjoying his retirement now.

My friend called me afterwards, knowing I was a C= fan, and asked me if
I knew who he was and then told me he'd just had sushi with him.

-- 
Michael Parson
mparson@bl.org

That's awesome. I wonder if those sweaty nerds in the user club segment
finally lost their virginity?

In article <1138255189.527777.138570@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
 dunric@yahoo.com wrote:

> After he left Atari I haven't heard much in the news media. Did he
> retire?
> 
> Paul

God i hope so.. He ruined Atari by letting his idiot sons take it over..

Personally i dislike Jack more then Steve Jobs ( for all that Steve has 
done good for Apple, hes done 2x bad to it )

And yes, im a di-hard Atari fan.. ( and CM, and Apple, and most anything 
else that is 8-bit.. )

ziggy <ziggy@fakedaddress.com> writes:

> Personally i dislike Jack more then Steve Jobs ( for all that
> Steve has done good for Apple, hes done 2x bad to it )

Is there a single person in the computer industry who has had a
leading position in their company without people hating or at least
disregarding him/her?

I suppose Steve Wozniak may qualify, but I don't think he ever had
a such company decisive impact on Apple. Sir Clive Sinclair might
have a good reputation if it wasn't for his impossible side projects,
wasting any profit ever made on the computers.

-- 
Anders Carlsson

"Anders Carlsson" <anders.carlsson@sfks.se> wrote in message 
news:wk3bjao7b8.fsf@sfks.se...
> ziggy <ziggy@fakedaddress.com> writes:
>
>> Personally i dislike Jack more then Steve Jobs ( for all that
>> Steve has done good for Apple, hes done 2x bad to it )
>
> Is there a single person in the computer industry who has had a
> leading position in their company without people hating or at least
> disregarding him/her?
>
> I suppose Steve Wozniak may qualify, but I don't think he ever had
> a such company decisive impact on Apple. Sir Clive Sinclair might
> have a good reputation if it wasn't for his impossible side projects,
> wasting any profit ever made on the computers.
>

He got lucky with the ZX I suspect since virtually everything else he 
designed was utter rubbish.

Clockmeister wrote:
> "Anders Carlsson" <anders.carlsson@sfks.se> wrote in message 
> news:wk3bjao7b8.fsf@sfks.se...
>> ziggy <ziggy@fakedaddress.com> writes:
>>
>>> Personally i dislike Jack more then Steve Jobs ( for all that
>>> Steve has done good for Apple, hes done 2x bad to it )
>> Is there a single person in the computer industry who has had a
>> leading position in their company without people hating or at least
>> disregarding him/her?
>>
>> I suppose Steve Wozniak may qualify, but I don't think he ever had
>> a such company decisive impact on Apple. Sir Clive Sinclair might
>> have a good reputation if it wasn't for his impossible side projects,
>> wasting any profit ever made on the computers.
>>
> 
> He got lucky with the ZX I suspect since virtually everything else he 
> designed was utter rubbish.
> 
> 
> 
The ZX isn't utter rubbish?

"Payton Byrd" <plbyrd@bellsouth.net> wrote in message 
news:IgqCf.49$s9.8@bignews8.bellsouth.net...
> Clockmeister wrote:
>> "Anders Carlsson" <anders.carlsson@sfks.se> wrote in message 
>> news:wk3bjao7b8.fsf@sfks.se...
>>> ziggy <ziggy@fakedaddress.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> Personally i dislike Jack more then Steve Jobs ( for all that
>>>> Steve has done good for Apple, hes done 2x bad to it )
>>> Is there a single person in the computer industry who has had a
>>> leading position in their company without people hating or at least
>>> disregarding him/her?
>>>
>>> I suppose Steve Wozniak may qualify, but I don't think he ever had
>>> a such company decisive impact on Apple. Sir Clive Sinclair might
>>> have a good reputation if it wasn't for his impossible side projects,
>>> wasting any profit ever made on the computers.
>>>
>>
>> He got lucky with the ZX I suspect since virtually everything else he 
>> designed was utter rubbish.
>>
>>
>>
> The ZX isn't utter rubbish?

Well, yes it is actually but I was being nice.

  The design engineers of course get much of the credit for the vic-20
and commodore 64.  But if you study the history of commodore, I think
you will realize that a good amount of the credit should also go to
Jack.  He kept the obstructionist and self-serving middle managers out
of the way and gave the engineers their mandate so that they could
develop a truly revolutionary approach to personal computer design,
affordable pricing, and vertically integrated manufacturing.  An
approach that broke all previous price-performance barriers.

Certainly he missed opportunities and understanding of some key issues
(software vs. hardware- value of backward compatibility- value of
continuing to technically "push of the envelope"), but no one else came
close to accomplishing what commodore did under his watch.

His catchphrase/philosophy of "Computers for the masses, not for the
classes" is what I'm most appreciative of.

It meant that people like me with meager income as a kid could afford to buy
a decent computer with paper route money.

"Leif Bloomquist" wrote ...
>
> His catchphrase/philosophy of "Computers for the masses, not for the
> classes" is what I'm most appreciative of.
>
> It meant that people like me with meager income as a kid could afford to
> buy a decent computer with paper route money.

Paper routes must have paid better by the time you started working one.  I
only made about $15 a week on my paper route (in 1957).  Oh well, there were
no home computers then anyway.    ;-)
-- 
Best regards,

Sam Gillett

Change is inevitable,
except from vending machines!

"Payton Byrd" wrote ...

> Clockmeister wrote:
>>
>> He got lucky with the ZX I suspect since virtually everything else he
>> designed was utter rubbish.
>>
> The ZX isn't utter rubbish?

No!  It is not!  It makes a very good doorstop.  Sir Clive invented a better
doorstop and the world beat a path to his door.    ;-)
-- 
Best regards,

Sam Gillett

Change is inevitable,
except from vending machines!

Clockmeister wrote:
> He got lucky with the ZX I suspect since virtually everything else he 
> designed was utter rubbish.

Nah, they weren't utter rubbish; some like the QL were too far ahead of the 
pack to catch on (a 68000 variant in a machine when we were all using 6502 
and Z80 variants?) and the Z88 was a nice machine but a little too large 
considering the competition. The "problem" with Sinclair is that he's an 
inventor, but rather than have an R&D department and then a seperate 
marketing department he could pretty much release whatever he came up with; 
usually the conversations start with R&D going "hey, we got this great idea 
for an electric banana!" and marketing come back with "and what hook does 
that have for us to sell it?".

That "process" filters a lot of the ideas that just won't sell (as well as a 
few that will, but that's sadly the case everywhere) and Sir Clive didn't 
have that, he just said "ooh, electric trike!" and put the adverts out. 
With the Spectrum it worked because it was aimed at bringing home computing 
to the masses, pretty much echoing what Woz wanted to do with the Apple (and 
the comments about the harm he did to Apple prove the "don't let R&D run a 
company" argument, i feel) and Tramiel's plans with the Commodore machines 
and, considering how impoverished the U.K. market was, a lot of people over 
here wouldn't have had computers without Uncle Clive's work.

In the case of the QL, he "starred" in the advert and looked *very* silly, 
that's another reason the CEO or R&D departments shouldn't do marketing...
-- 
     ______________________________  _________________________________
    /                             /\/  ___/     /  ___/  /     /  ___/\
   / Website:  www.cosine.org.uk / /  /\_/  /  /__   /  /  /  /  __/\\/
  / ICQ: 44373717 IRC: TMR{C0S} / /  /__/  /  /  /  /  /  /  /  /  /\
/_____________________________/ /_____/_____/_____/__/__/__/_____/ /
\_____________________________\/\_____\_____\_____\__\__\__\_____\/TMR

"Jason" <tmr@i.cosine.hate.org.spam.uk> wrote in message 
news:EyHCf.10649$343.4359@newsfe2-win.ntli.net...
> Clockmeister wrote:
>> He got lucky with the ZX I suspect since virtually everything else he 
>> designed was utter rubbish.
>
> Nah, they weren't utter rubbish; some like the QL were too far ahead of 
> the pack to catch on (a 68000 variant in a machine when we were all using 
> 6502 and Z80 variants?) and the Z88 was a nice machine but a little too 
> large considering the competition. The "problem" with Sinclair is that 
> he's an inventor, but rather than have an R&D department and then a 
> seperate marketing department he could pretty much release whatever he 
> came up with; usually the conversations start with R&D going "hey, we got 
> this great idea for an electric banana!" and marketing come back with "and 
> what hook does that have for us to sell it?".
>
> That "process" filters a lot of the ideas that just won't sell (as well as 
> a few that will, but that's sadly the case everywhere) and Sir Clive 
> didn't have that, he just said "ooh, electric trike!" and put the adverts 
> out. With the Spectrum it worked because it was aimed at bringing home 
> computing to the masses, pretty much echoing what Woz wanted to do with 
> the Apple (and the comments about the harm he did to Apple prove the 
> "don't let R&D run a company" argument, i feel) and Tramiel's plans with 
> the Commodore machines and, considering how impoverished the U.K. market 
> was, a lot of people over here wouldn't have had computers without Uncle 
> Clive's work.
>
> In the case of the QL, he "starred" in the advert and looked *very* silly, 
> that's another reason the CEO or R&D departments shouldn't do marketing...

Is that ad available for viewing online somewhere? 

On 2006-01-28 10:19:16 +0000, Jason <tmr@i.cosine.hate.org.spam.uk> said:

> ...some like the QL were too far ahead of the pack to catch on (a 68000 
> variant in a machine when we were all using 6502 and Z80 variants?)

Err...no. The QL was massively delayed and very buggy. There was a 
compaign at the time, I remember, for each person who had the machine 
to send a brick to Sinclair...err...yes, here's a link 
<http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jg27paw4/yr07/yr07_05.htm>. And it 
was still using those microdrive bits of nonsense too. And it cost a 
fortune.


Cheers,
Ian

"Sam Gillett" <samgillettnospam@diespammermsn.com> wrote in message
news:q2DCf.8680$M94.962@trnddc01...

> Paper routes must have paid better by the time you started working one.  I
> only made about $15 a week on my paper route (in 1957).  Oh well, there
were
> no home computers then anyway.    ;-)

That's about what I made.  But at the time the VIC-20 only cost $80
(Canadian) new so I was able to save up for it rather quickly.  My parents
chipped in to buy me a Datasette (another $40) the same time I bought the
VIC.

In August of 2004 Jack and family visited Lodz, Poland. There are quite
a few pictures at -


 http://atariarea.histeria.pl/parties.php?akcja=pokaz_relke&id=40

Seems an Atari fan was there and recognized Jack.

Ernie

Amigoat schrieb:

> http://atariarea.histeria.pl/parties.php?akcja=3Dpokaz_relke&id=3D40
>
>Seems an Atari fan was there and recognized Jack.

Seems this guy was a stalker. ;-)