Atari/Commodore/Amiga Speech at ECCC

[Retro Rogue]

Just a heads up for anyone that might be interested, I'll be giving a speech at the Emergency Chicagoland Commodore Convention on Sept. 26th. The material is based on the latest research by myself and Curt regarding the previously muddled claims and relationship between between Atari Inc. and Amiga, Amiga and Commodore, and Commodore/Amiga and Atari Corp/Tramiel. I'll be giving a glimpse in to our research and setting the record straight on a lot of the issues, as well as covering some material related to the split and sale of Atari Inc. itself.

 

Visit the ECCC site for more info on the show, I believe my talk starts around 3:30pm.

[Rybags]

You gonna 'tube it for those of us who probably won't make it there ?

[carmel_andrews]

Just a heads up for anyone that might be interested, I'll be giving a speech at the Emergency Chicagoland Commodore Convention on Sept. 26th. The material is based on the latest research by myself and Curt regarding the previously muddled claims and relationship between between Atari Inc. and Amiga, Amiga and Commodore, and Commodore/Amiga and Atari Corp/Tramiel. I'll be giving a glimpse in to our research and setting the record straight on a lot of the issues, as well as covering some material related to the split and sale of Atari Inc. itself.

 

Visit the ECCC site for more info on the show, I believe my talk starts around 3:30pm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is it not possible that you could 'transcribe' your 'chat' and post it on AA or atarimuseum as text

[Christos]

Yes please. A recording for us in the other side of the Atlantic (actually not even close to the Atlantic) would be most appreciated.

[Dan Iacovelli]

I'm planning on attending but I might stay long just to hear you speak

I had the same problem last year, they don't put out a schedule of events

and I had no idea when the guitar hero guy for C=64 demo did his or anything else.

so if there's no schedule of events again this year,don't expect me to wait to hear

your speech. so I'm basically with everybody else even though I'm not overseas

have somebody record your speech to you tube this way every one will get a chance to see

it.

(also I usually come right after I get off work around noon)

[andym00]

Just a heads up for anyone that might be interested, I'll be giving a speech at the Emergency Chicagoland Commodore Convention on Sept. 26th. The material is based on the latest research by myself and Curt regarding the previously muddled claims and relationship between between Atari Inc. and Amiga, Amiga and Commodore, and Commodore/Amiga and Atari Corp/Tramiel. I'll be giving a glimpse in to our research and setting the record straight on a lot of the issues, as well as covering some material related to the split and sale of Atari Inc. itself.

 

Visit the ECCC site for more info on the show, I believe my talk starts around 3:30pm.

 

Bump

 

Just wondering if there was ever a recording or transcription made available of the proceedings regarding this.. I'm a very curious bunny about this particular subject

[dragos]

I'm planning on attending but I might stay long just to hear you speak

I had the same problem last year, they don't put out a schedule of events

and I had no idea when the guitar hero guy for C=64 demo did his or anything else.

so if there's no schedule of events again this year,don't expect me to wait to hear

your speech. so I'm basically with everybody else even though I'm not overseas

have somebody record your speech to you tube this way every one will get a chance to see

it.

(also I usually come right after I get off work around noon)

 

WOW! The schedule gets posted in the expo hall around 9 am. This expo is FREE to attend, Jason pays for the room out of his pocket. We commodore guys tend to be a little more free flowing as more cool things happen when there is not some rigid schedule. Our clubs expo has an event list, its a blacnk sheet of paper with the times written on it and whoever wants to talk can add their name to the list. or if they just popped in, grab the Mic.

 

We also tend to have a pretty big after party, I think we crashed around 4am (thought the cops and fire trucks had a little to do with that)

 

Not attending or staying because of a schedule is your choice, but it GUARANTEES you will always miss something cool!

 

BTW, we are thinking of opening the Cincy expo up to all classic computers/games. Cincy begins 8am on a saturday and stops at 4 pm sunday. We also usually have a pre-expo setup friday until about 10 pm.

[Retro Rogue]

The video will be up on RetroThing.com sometime in the coming weeks, Bohus has been busy. Since people have been asking, here's a summary of some of the ponits covered:

 

Some points of past missinformation I specifcally addressed:

 

1) The deal between Amiga and Atari was with Warner Atari Inc., not with Jack's later Atari Corp. Jack never lent money as is often claimed, or offered a 98 cent stock purchase. Amiga began talks with Warner Communications during the fall of '83, agreed to a partnership at the January '84 CES, and had entered in to contract with Atari Inc. in early March of '84 with a $500,000 bridge loan, another million to be delivered at the signing of the licensing agreement that June, and an agreement for Atari Inc. to purchase 1 million shares at $3 a share, as well as payments for chip and later royalties on licensing. Development went across the entire spring on the project (named Mickey) all the way up to the pcb's being ordered and the team just waiting for the chips to be delivered.

 

2) There was no "pay back the loan or Atari gets the company" or pay back within a month, etc. The bridge loan was simply that - an initial payment as a signing bonus to help them with sorely needed seed money. It was given in early March. The reality is Amiga found they simply needed more money, didn't feel they were going to get enough through the Atari deal, so they actively began looking for more investors and a way out of the contract towards the end of Spring. Along came Commodore, they began meetings in early June, agreed to invest around $75 million, and on June 28th gave them the $500,000 plus 20% interest (120%) to pay back the bridge loan. David Morse hand delivered a check to Atari Inc.,lying and stating they couldn't get the chips to work and signed with Commodore the very same day.

 

3) The ST was never going to be based around Amiga techology, nor was it rushed to the market because of a lost deal. Jack knew nothing about the previous Wartner/Atari Inc./Amiga deal when he bought Atari Consumer on July 3rd., simply for it's manufacturing, distribution, and brand recognition. In fact there was a whole slew of 68000 and other advanced systems in development at Atari Inc. (which I also covered) that he was not interested in. Some of the Mickey team that wound up surviving the cuts and stayed on in other capacities even tried to broach the subject of the advanced projects with him and he wasn't interested. He already had the ST planned out and using the NS32032. In the mean time Commodore filed theft of property and trade secrets suits against Shiraz and the other engineers that had left for Jack in May, almost immediately after Jack announced the purchase of Atari Consumer. This included a temporary injunction against them doing any work for Jack on a new computer, which Commodore renewed several times over July. Towards the end of July while doing evaluations, Jack's son Leonard discovered the cashed $500,000 check (which I also showed), they investigated and found out about the previous deal. Like a gift horse they had Warner sign over the deal to him (it was not part of the original purchase) on Aug. 8th, and used it to hit Commodore back on Aug. 10th by going after Amiga for breach of contract (which they did). It was eventually settled out of court, and the suits against Shiraz et. al. were settled the following year. They switched to the 68000 in the interim because of supply issues with National, and wire wrapping for the ST (actually called RBP) began in early August and was completed by the beginning of Sept., with OS development starting then. The reason development was fast was because Commodore's initial suit had merit - Shiraz had mapped out a lot of it while still at Commodore that March and April and completed it that May and June (along with a line of new 8-bits being planned).

[HARMIK]

Is there a link to the video would be very interesting.

[kool kitty89]

In fact there was a whole slew of 68000 and other advanced systems in development at Atari Inc. (which I also covered) that he was not interested in. Some of the Mickey team that wound up surviving the cuts and stayed on in other capacities even tried to broach the subject of the advanced projects with him and he wasn't interested. He already had the ST planned out and using the NS32032.

I wonder if he was un-interested due to plain "tunnel vision" with the RBP/ST project, or if he actually looked into the Atari designs on a minimalistic evlalution level (perhaps having some of his engineers look them over), and rejected them for more grounded reasons. (like the Atari designs being too costly or would possibly take too long to bring to market -or both in the context of changes necessary to make the Atari designs cheaper meaning a delay to market)

 

Or regardless of his reasons being founded or not, would they have been founded if he had evaluated the Atari designs? (that's something that could only be answered with detailed information on the Atari chipsets and their development progress -even if they'd been prototyped in LSI, that doesn't mean they were production ready -AMY still had problems after 2 silicon revisions- and even if the chips were ready for production, they might not have been usable for a low-cost configuration in line with the ST's concept -or in the Amiga's range for that matter; albeit, if Atari engineers had been considering Rainbow for a console chipset, that sort of implied some degree of low-cost . . . then again, they were planning on releasing the Micky design in '84 when it would have been very expensive for a game console)