The Tramiels

[atarian63]

I thought the 8-bit market was practically already lost to Commodore 64. They couldn't have the Amiga. I think they did quite well with what they had (nothing) to come up with the ST when they did. By 1985, were 8-bit computers still "hot?"

At my dealership they were still selling 8bits but people really wanted to jump ship asap due to all the ST hype.All the mags covered it and customers asked all the time, xmas 85 limited but by 86 people were dumping 8bits like yesterdays lunch. we took trades all day (something new at the time) sold the used crap cheap,which further cut sales of new 8bit atari and c64. c64 was dying,c128 was no big hit so it was the logical next step. people viewed a powerful pc like a powerful car at the time. it was an image. There were some super 8bit deals while this went on. we had so much we were paying very little for hardware and virtually zip for software. We had several 16x16ft bins full of traded 8bit software. those who had money upgraded to St and to a much lesser extend Amiga(price etc) those with less had a feeding frenzy on used 8bit stuff. seemed like 8bit died in a year mostly even commodore. Yeah I know UK was different, this was the usa in 85/86.by 87 cheap xt clones like packard bell were everywhere as well. smaller dealer like myself carried Atari and Commodore and to a lesser extent pc. no apple. Any nationwide company by late86 were pushing a variety of pc clones with a small remnant of c64 in a few places. we used to run price match ad's on c64 and 1541,selling used/boxed 8bits in the ad but not mentioning it. Then off to service merchandise to buy ALL of thier c64 stock new at a used price. took the big boys a year or so to figure out the price match game and limit quantities.I had no problem with it as the big companies had a huge cost advantage. If a customer complained..no problem,we gave them a new one (limit 1) at the ad price,fresh from service merchandise. LOL!

[Retro Rogue]

The contract that Amiga had with Atari was really a joke. Amiga was so cash strapped that they basically gave the company away with that agreement.

 

They did nothing of the sort. The contract was for Atari Inc. to gain royalty free rights to the chipset (all technical documents held in escrow until the planned meeting in late June) if something happened to Amiga in the interim, as Amiga also had several previous investors higher up the totem who would be divying it up in that case. There was never anything for ownership, as Dave Morse was clear from the beginning his ultimate goal was to build up Amiga to sell it off - which was why only access and licensing was arranged.

 

There were two issues at play at the time - 1. Negotiating the rights to the chip set while Atari was floating them capital or 2. Just paying Atari back the money if they couldn't agree on the terms for the chipset.

 

There was never any agreement on a payback, that was Dave's attempt at backing out, which they wound up settling it out of court with Commodore (since by that time Amiga was a part of Commodore) paying an undisclosed sum for that and several patent violations later.

 

I wouldn't say that Amiga "backed out" of any deal.

 

Of course they did. They lied and stated the Lorraine didn't work right and was scrapped, paid the money back to a befuddled John Ferrand who had just met with Dave earlier that month at CES and thought everything was ok. He even tried to talk Dave out of returning the money when he showed up at Atari Inc. at the end of the month stating they had no interest in screwing up any deals he may have and he (John) wasn't even authorized to accept any check. Then they further lied in court during their testimony by further trying to portray the Lorraine as not working and scrapped.

 

Atari was trying to take advantage of a cash strapped Amiga and Amiga found someone that actually wanted Amiga for more than just the chipset.

 

 

Nope. Sounds like you've been going by RJ Mical's missinformation. This was already covered in the other thread you said you read.

 

We talked to people on all four sides sides, including Commodore, Amiga, Atari Inc., and Atari Corp. people. That includes members of the Mickey team. We recovered internal email and directories of Atari Inc.'s mainframes, engineering logs, and paid for all copies of all the available federal court documents which includes full testimonies and copies of the original agreement in question signed that March for the bridge loan. A good $500 worth of court document copies actually, and that's just the expenses on those documents.

 

You mentioned in your PM to me that you talked to a few Commodore people a few years ago. The problem we found with the Commodore people is they could only go by what they were being fed by Amiga. I.E. any knowledge about the agreement with Atari Inc. was based only on what they were told by the Amiga people, which turned out to be a ruse to get Commodore to give them money quicker. Likewise unequivocally that everything RJ Mical's said on the subject has been fabrication, which matches up with his other statement that between facts and a good story he prefers a good story. He was never involved with any of the negotations and such, which is ironic considering he's been the person a lot of people later relied on for their info.

Edited November 9, 2010 by wgungfu

[Cliff Friedel]

Atari's real problem was a lack of vision. There's a difference between focusing on what you'll be selling this year and planning where you want to be 5 or 10 years down the road. The Tramiels weren't really computer people, they were just shrewd (and some would say unethical) businessmen. They were able to turn things around in the short term, but they couldn't secure Atari a permanent place in the market. Few besides Apple accomplished that.

 

I think the lack of focus was their best asset and their worst problem. Sometimes, they really came up with some cool stuff. The problem though was that their marketing arm wouldn't take a chance on it and it would quickly get scrapped in the prototype stage, remade into something else that didn't sell, or it would be sold wrong (ie: 8-bits as office machines). Had they had a sales force that matched their engineering groups, I think they could have lasted quite longer. It was a lot like the Germans in WWII. They made awesome stuff, they just didn't exploit it in the most effective way and couldn't produce the stuff that worked in enough quantity.

 

Cliff

[kool kitty89]

Yeah, they'd have done good to take all the capital they invested in the ST line, and further develop the 8-bit line for sale in Europe and South America, where they would have had a huge market, instead of trying to compete with the likes of the AMIGA and MAC, using lower price as their only valid selling point.

It was rather late to do that... at least in Europe. Had they gotten good support before the Speccy, C64, MSX, and CPC had filled the market, they could have competed, but otherwise there wasn't much point in doing more than what Atari Corp did in that respect. (ie not worth investing R&D when the ST was obviously the right move in that sense) Most of the key opportunities in the US and EU for the A8 line were under Atari Inc, not Atari Corp...

 

Really, they should have invested more in R&D for the ST, not the A8 line, they should have upgraded it sooner and far more consistently than what happened. (rather than jumping to the blitter, they should have upgraded the SHIFTER with V/H scroll registers, they could have upgraded sound much sooner -lots of options for that, pushed for faster CPUs, later on added 256 color modes with an expanded palette and packed pixels to match VGA not necessarily with all the features of the TT SHIFTER but preferably by '88 at least with a 320x200 8bpp mode and perhaps higher-res versions of the bitplane modes as well -VGA did that as well with the 640x480 16 color mode, but even a 640x200x16-color mode would be useful)

That and possibly looked back through some of Atari Inc's prototype designs for components to expand the ST architecture with.

 

Lots of potential options, most of which came up here recently: http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/171509-were-the-atari-sts-big-for-gaming-or-just-the-8-bit-line/page__pid__2132705__st__100#entry2132705

 

 

 

 

Atari's real problem was a lack of vision. There's a difference between focusing on what you'll be selling this year and planning where you want to be 5 or 10 years down the road. The Tramiels weren't really computer people, they were just shrewd (and some would say unethical) businessmen. They were able to turn things around in the short term, but they couldn't secure Atari a permanent place in the market. Few besides Apple accomplished that.

 

I think the lack of focus was their best asset and their worst problem. Sometimes, they really came up with some cool stuff. The problem though was that their marketing arm wouldn't take a chance on it and it would quickly get scrapped in the prototype stage, remade into something else that didn't sell, or it would be sold wrong (ie: 8-bits as office machines). Had they had a sales force that matched their engineering groups, I think they could have lasted quite longer. It was a lot like the Germans in WWII. They made awesome stuff, they just didn't exploit it in the most effective way and couldn't produce the stuff that worked in enough quantity.

 

Cliff

Lack of focus may have been an issue with Atari Inc in some respects, or rather general management problems, but lack of vision wasn't... though lack of a focused vision perhaps. (you had upper management with one vision -like Kassar's for the A8 being an appliance computer- and then the visions of the engineers)

With the prototype stuff, it was rarely scrapped, more often shelved as with the advanced 16-bit computer designs... and those very well may have started up again had Atari Inc stayed with Morgan rather than Warner splitting it up. (the reasons Tramiel didn't start them back up are another issue though)

 

But Atari Corp seems to be a rather different case in general and they did seem pretty focused (at least when Jack was heading things). The focus on low-cost high-performance computers seemed to be consistent... and they game systems were likewise pushed fairly heavily into the budget market. (albeit that was all that was really left with Nintendo pushing like they did and it;s rather lucky that the 2600 and 7800 fit the low/lower price niche so well -albeit the marketing was heavily tied to Michael Katz's management skills as well)

 

 

 

 

 

I thought the 8-bit market was practically already lost to Commodore 64. They couldn't have the Amiga. I think they did quite well with what they had (nothing) to come up with the ST when they did. By 1985, were 8-bit computers still "hot?"

Note quite true, Atari Inc had a LOT of advanced prototypes to work with including several fully prototyped 16-bit chipsets that could have overshadowed the Amiga in capabilities by a good margin, but for a number of reasons (not least of which being the preoccupation with RBP/ST development) Tramiel didn't push for any of that stuff beyond initially applying AMY to the ST before dropping it due to time constraints.

Atari Inc also had a Unix based OS and "Snowcap" GUI in development for use with the 16-bit machines and the Lorraine chipset, but that wasn't used by Atari Corp either for whatever reason.

 

I'm sure Curt and Marty know more details on this and I believe a fair bit is still being researched, so it should become more clear eventually. (in their books if not updates to Curt's site or other forum topics)

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's way too much speculation supporting this notion that the Tramiels were competent people to be doing business on such an important or grand scale (relatively speaking), so I'll water it down and just say that I "hate(d)" them for their laziness, greed, incompetency and downright outdated methods and mindsets on how to run a tech business such as this. Rehashing and re-branding ancient technology over and over and over again, for an American market, was just plain dumb in the late 80's. The old Tramiel M.O. had a backbone of talented developers and their own in-house MOS manufacturing, so while they couldn't really "afford" to keep making the same mistakes at Commodore, they did have more leeway that way, it would seem vs. their time at Atari.

Commodore didn't make the really big mistakes until after Tramiel left...

And I'm not sure what you mean by "Tramiels" as the sons weren't really closely involved with the business until Atari Corp. (especially Lennard, who had been away at College until just about the time Atari Corp was formed -or rather Trammel Technologies took on the new name)

 

And likewise, don't lump all the Tramiels into one basket... Jack and his sons had specific roles at Atari Corp and it was only Jack followed by Sam who were head of the company. (iirc Lennard was managing engineering)

And it seems that Sam was a fair bit less capable at managing the company than Jack... indeed when Sam took over in '89, things started to become rather troubled. (Marty -Wgungfu- once described it as a downward spiral that took Atari Corp from a multidivision multi-product company in 1989 to a single product company with the Jaguar in the mid 90s)

 

There's nothing wrong with re-packaging old 8-bit technology, but don't insult the intelligence of the American consumer, trying to pass that stuff off as something "new" or different. Since Tramiel was an ex-concentration camp victim, one would think he would have had a better understanding of just where to market their old patently outdated goods: middle Europe! But they again contradict and instead of focusing on selling these 'good', but seriously outdated computers to lesser developed corners, they tried and tried and tried to stuff them down the throats of consumers that didn't even really want an ST, let alone an 8-bitter from the late 70's. Why they felt they could market some of their console stuff better in South America and parts of Europe, but not feel that way about their computer line astounds me.

It was a bit late to push them in Europe... others had filled that niche by '85 and with prices that Atari couldn't match generally. (especially for the lower-end stuff where you had the Spectrum and clones out there -among a few others including the VIC) They'd be competing directly with the C64 and that was already more widespread in Europe and thus getting more software support.

They did try pushing it more into Europe, but it was the ST that became successful not the A8 with the 8-bit market already saturated and the A8 not offering enough over what was already more popular. (the ST was in a different market segment though and was by far the most affordable and arguably the best cost/performance as well -in terms of affordability you could argue for the QL but that had other problems by far and then there's actual performance)

 

Atari Inc missed out with the A8-bits in Europe and they really needed to get established before the home computer boom hit in 1983 with significant developer interest by then. (they'd have needed to cater a bit more to the low-end niche with more emphasis on cassettes as well as more actively supporting 3rd party development if they were going to get established before Commodore/Sinclair/Amstrad more or less closed things up -the MSX was very significant in some countries as well -prior to the explosion of the market ~83 they could have probably positioned a cost-cut derivative of the 400 to be between the VIC or even lower end Sinclair machines and the more expensive BBC Micro line probably along side something closer to the 800 which was in direct competition with the Micro)

 

Atari Inc missed out in both the US and EU for some of the same and some different reasons, but one common factor was general management problems and the unfortunate halt in production for several weeks in late 1983 that delayed the spread of the 800/600XL (albeit they really could have used both of those a year earlier and the 800XL is the only one that mattered for Europe as 16k was too small to be really useful with carts not viable media -predominantly tapes). And from what I understand the 800XL was the most popular of Atari Inc's computers in Europe, so delaying that would have been pretty significant.

Warner's split of the company in mid '84 certainly didn't help things either though, so you had problems on top of problems to work through and just when Morgan is really working in a positive direction with reorganization, Warner splits up the company and sells off the consumer assets to TTL -and rather poorly organized at that with zero notification to Morgan or senior Atari Inc staff prior to the sale -with Morgan called into a meeting literally minutes before the actual documents were signed, so that not only put an end to Atari Inc's future but with the sloppy execution of the split, Warner made sure the transition to Atari Corp was not going to be smooth at all.

 

 

And in addition to all that, where did you get the idea they were presenting the XE line as new hardware? It seems to me that they were fairly straightforward about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NImJFV3wH88

see 1:50 where Tramiel plainly states that the 65XE "is really the same machine" as the 800XL but "part of a family look."

Albeit it's not quite the same machine (aside from the keyboard) as it's missing the PBI port and ECI of the 130XE and unlike the 800XL has the FREDDIE chip.

 

 

Going back to this assumed notion of competency, seemed to me that the Tramiels were not only in denial about many things, but were also becoming too used to suing and trying to develop capital that way instead of obtaining it a more legitimate way. No different a mindset than the guy who's always looking for a handout instead of working to feed himself. It's not a good way to live, nor is it a good business model. Ethics aside, seemed to me that their hearts just weren't in it toward the end. You see this a lot with so many CEO's and upper management as they know they're taking their companies nowhere fast. Sort of like having an 'abandon ship' type of mentality. Mix all this with arrogance and there you have it: Atari and Commodore throughout the late 80's and early 90's. Commodore's story is more sad to me, knowing Tramiel left the way he did. All of it and the demise of both seem totally unnecessary to me. There *was* room for such competition back then. But not by the hands of people who didn't know what in the hell they were doing.

What are you taking about? Most/all of the suits were completely legitimate so why shouldn't they have defended their property? (be it patent violations, broken contracts, etc)

 

Amiga should be here and viable today still.

 

ST should have elegantly faded away into obscurity - not as abruptly as it did. AND Atari should still be marketing consoles that compete with M$, Sony & Nintendo.

And what does the Amiga's failure have to do with Tramiel? (many argue the opposite, that Commodore wouldn't have screwed up like they did had Jack stayed)

 

But in all honesty, the ST was more likely to become a common standard than the Amiga ever was and it very well may have had the PC not already been established and growing. (namely due to the potential to be cloned... that is unless CBM had licensed out the AMiga chipset to various 3rd parties to create a broad market standard -but who knows if Tramiel might have done that or not)

 

The lack of standard expandability is one major difference from the ST and other clone-potential machines, but that issue alone could have been solved by the clone manufactures if not Atari. (the MEGA ST didn't quite do that initially, but it was getting closer)

 

Then again, you already had the Apple II with huge potential to become the de-factor market standard with clones (and already with flexible expandability) had the PC not filled that role.

 

It's all about mass market production and standardization, that's what made the PC more cost competitive than any other in spite of an initially inferior design. (it was initially spurred by the IBM name of course and to some extent of it actually being a fairly powerful machine for 1981 for business/science/professional use -the TRS-80 model II might have been fairly close in some respects and in Japan you had the PC-8000 series followed by the PC-8801 and the FM-7, but the price wars with the low-end computers along with the rise of the PC and C64 exploding in popularity pretty much locked the Japanese machines out)

 

The main reason for TTL/Atari Corp producing the RBP/ST design was due to Jack perceiving a hole in the market to fill and in particular keep the Japanese from pushing into the market as they had with several previous cases. (including adding machines and calculators -with direct experience of CBM selling those with justified experience with the Japanese)

Edited November 9, 2010 by kool kitty89

[toptenmaterial]

To me it is very easy -- if the Tramiels had not stepped in, in all likelihood, we would not have this conversation today. As to "clueless," Jack built Commodore into a formidable force, much to Atari's and others ultimate detriment. And finally, the PC computer model changed everything. Essentially, it killed all others, except Apple, and certainly came close to that.

 

For a good perspective (and some fascinating reading), I recommend "The Home Computer Wars," "On the Edge," and "West of Eden," and "Apple Confidential." I have yet to find a good account of the development of the PC and unfortunately, our beloved Atari.

 

-Larry

hi Larry, check out "Zap! The Rise and Fall of Atari" by Scott Cohen. It actually was published in 1984, and puts a lot of perspective on the crash (not so much the home computer angle though). for the years after Tramiel's acquisition read "The Ultimate History of Video Games" by Steven L. Kent. It isn't very kind to Jack and Sam!!

[Retro Rogue]

hi Larry, check out "Zap! The Rise and Fall of Atari" by Scott Cohen. It actually was published in 1984, and puts a lot of perspective on the crash (not so much the home computer angle though). for the years after Tramiel's acquisition read "The Ultimate History of Video Games" by Steven L. Kent. It isn't very kind to Jack and Sam!!

 

Please do not use Zap! as a source, it's a horrible book. As Al Alcorn recently said in his interview in RetroGamer Magazine (issue 83):

 

"Unfortunately the guy that wrote that book [scott Cohen in 1984] never travelled west of the Mississippi river. Many of the facts and names in that book are wrong, which is kind of sad, as it was great to have somene write about what we'd done, but the guy just based it on articles he'd read and just made stuff up."

 

And unfortunately, Steve Kent's book gets some things wrong as well. For example, the famous "Stormtroopers" story is told completely wrong as Atari's Consumer and Coin divisions were not housed in adjoining buildings. In fact Coin was up the street, and it was Jack's son Leonard that happened to after he drove over to coin to interview some people for positions at the new Atari Corporation. Kent's book is frustrating as it's a great source for quotes, but horrible on his fact checking of "facts" and figures.

Edited January 9, 2011 by wgungfu

[carmel_andrews]

Well, whether we hate the tramiels or not, I remember reading in the book home computer wars that sam tramiel had a son, i am assuming that leonard and gary (or was it garry) tramiel also spawned offspring (from their wives)

 

So i am guessing that we have the 2nd generation of the tramiel dynasty (or is it 3rd generation)...I guess that sam, leonard and gary impart some of jack's (their father's) business mentality/mantra into their offspring (so that they can become the new tramiel dynasty)...and make for a new CBM or Atari (in their dreams ofcourse)

Edited January 9, 2011 by carmel_andrews

[svenski]

Well, whether we hate the tramiels or not, I remember reading in the book home computer wars that sam tramiel had a son, i am assuming that leonard and gary (or was it garry) tramiel also spawned offspring (from their wives)

 

So i am guessing that we have the 2nd generation of the tramiel dynasty (or is it 3rd generation)...I guess that sam, leonard and gary impart some of jack's (their father's) business mentality/mantra into their offspring (so that they can become the new tramiel dynasty)...and make for a new CBM or Atari (in their dreams ofcourse)

 

Watch out infogrammes, the Tramiels are coming back with a 260XE with 1MB of RAM, 40GB SD Drive, and new "Laura" video chip. I had lunch with them yesterday.

[Cliff Friedel]

Well, whether we hate the tramiels or not, I remember reading in the book home computer wars that sam tramiel had a son, i am assuming that leonard and gary (or was it garry) tramiel also spawned offspring (from their wives)

 

So i am guessing that we have the 2nd generation of the tramiel dynasty (or is it 3rd generation)...I guess that sam, leonard and gary impart some of jack's (their father's) business mentality/mantra into their offspring (so that they can become the new tramiel dynasty)...and make for a new CBM or Atari (in their dreams ofcourse)

 

Watch out infogrammes, the Tramiels are coming back with a 260XE with 1MB of RAM, 40GB SD Drive, and new "Laura" video chip. I had lunch with them yesterday.

 

As long as they come with a 2100 dual 5.25" drive and don't need translator XL to run some games, I am all for it =)

[kool kitty89]

hi Larry, check out "Zap! The Rise and Fall of Atari" by Scott Cohen. It actually was published in 1984, and puts a lot of perspective on the crash (not so much the home computer angle though). for the years after Tramiel's acquisition read "The Ultimate History of Video Games" by Steven L. Kent. It isn't very kind to Jack and Sam!!

 

Please do not use Zap! as a source, it's a horrible book. As Al Alcorn recently said in his interview in RetroGamer Magazine (issue 83):

 

"Unfortunately the guy that wrote that book [scott Cohen in 1984] never travelled west of the Mississippi river. Many of the facts and names in that book are wrong, which is kind of sad, as it was great to have somene write about what we'd done, but the guy just based it on articles he'd read and just made stuff up."

 

And unfortunately, Steve Kent's book gets some things wrong as well. For example, the famous "Stormtroopers" story is told completely wrong as Atari's Consumer and Coin divisions were not housed in adjoining buildings. In fact Coin was up the street, and it was Jack's son Leonard that happened to after he drove over to coin to interview some people for positions at the new Atari Corporation. Kent's book is frustrating as it's a great source for quotes, but horrible on his fact checking of "facts" and figures.

A real shame Kent didn't push harder with fact checking and to track certain less obviously accessible individuals down for interviews (Dabney would be a prime example -though some of the Japanese people from the Sega/Nintendo/Sony side could have been tough to get interviews with), let alone digging for hard documentation and records.

Even if that meant less of the other material due to time/budget constraints, it would have made the book so much better.

 

That would have left you and Marty with a lot less work cut out for you. (or even inspired others to dig further depending what was exposed)

[Bryan]

Watch out infogrammes, the Tramiels are coming back with a 260XE with 1MB of RAM, 40GB SD Drive, and new "Laura" video chip. I had lunch with them yesterday.

Wouldn't that be a 1040XE?

[toptenmaterial]

hi Larry, check out "Zap! The Rise and Fall of Atari" by Scott Cohen. It actually was published in 1984, and puts a lot of perspective on the crash (not so much the home computer angle though). for the years after Tramiel's acquisition read "The Ultimate History of Video Games" by Steven L. Kent. It isn't very kind to Jack and Sam!!

 

Please do not use Zap! as a source, it's a horrible book. As Al Alcorn recently said in his interview in RetroGamer Magazine (issue 83):

 

"Unfortunately the guy that wrote that book [scott Cohen in 1984] never travelled west of the Mississippi river. Many of the facts and names in that book are wrong, which is kind of sad, as it was great to have somene write about what we'd done, but the guy just based it on articles he'd read and just made stuff up."

 

And unfortunately, Steve Kent's book gets some things wrong as well. For example, the famous "Stormtroopers" story is told completely wrong as Atari's Consumer and Coin divisions were not housed in adjoining buildings. In fact Coin was up the street, and it was Jack's son Leonard that happened to after he drove over to coin to interview some people for positions at the new Atari Corporation. Kent's book is frustrating as it's a great source for quotes, but horrible on his fact checking of "facts" and figures.

A real shame Kent didn't push harder with fact checking and to track certain less obviously accessible individuals down for interviews (Dabney would be a prime example -though some of the Japanese people from the Sega/Nintendo/Sony side could have been tough to get interviews with), let alone digging for hard documentation and records.

Even if that meant less of the other material due to time/budget constraints, it would have made the book so much better.

 

That would have left you and Marty with a lot less work cut out for you. (or even inspired others to dig further depending what was exposed)

I am hardly an authority but I thought that a lot of stuff in "Zap!" checked out, and it's been used as a source by others. "Game Over" used a lot of it. Anyway it's enjoyable to read and Cohen is a great storyteller. If indeed it's a fraud, then I am very disappointed.

 

I would like to bring up another point: if you aren't a computer enthusiast, can it be argued that the real Atari died in '84, and has existed henseforth in name only?

[Retro Rogue]

I am hardly an authority but I thought that a lot of stuff in "Zap!" checked out,

 

No. And if employee #3 and inventor of PONG, Al Alcorn, is even stating that it's not accurate and a lot of material is made up, it's gone past a few people on a forum surmising.

 

and it's been used as a source by others. "Game Over" used a lot of it.

 

Which lends it credibility how? People unknowingly using bad material as a reference simply means they were using something as a reference for material they weren't familiar with. Happens all the time. If I'm writing an article or passage in a cooking book that needs say....material on the history of refrigerators, I might consult and reference a book on said subject. I'm making the assumption that everything in there is accurate, because it's a published source on that specific subject. But me referencing it doesn't state any more beyond that. If I'm writing Game Over, a book on Nintendo, I'm a lot more likely to reference published sources for somewhat related material (in this case Atari material) I need than tracking down a bunch of Atari people to interview. Because my time and limited resources are going to be spent on material for the main subject of the book - Nintendo.

 

Anyway it's enjoyable to read and Cohen is a great storyteller. If indeed it's a fraud, then I am very disappointed.

 

It's not a question of "if" as already stated. If all you care about are great "stories", the book is fine for that. RJ Mical is another example of that viewpoint.

 

I would like to bring up another point: if you aren't a computer enthusiast, can it be argued that the real Atari died in '84, and has existed henseforth in name only?

 

a) Atari Inc. died in 1984. Atari Corporation (1984 - 1996) was a different company. Atari Interactive (Hasbro) that followed was also another company. Likewise for the current Atari Inc. (formerly Infogrames NA).

 

b) I'm puzzled at the computer enthusiast division - Atari Corporation released the 2600jr, 7800, XEGS, Lynx, and Jaguar.

[toptenmaterial]

I feel like a dirty, dirty worm.

[kool kitty89]

Watch out infogrammes, the Tramiels are coming back with a 260XE with 1MB of RAM, 40GB SD Drive, and new "Laura" video chip. I had lunch with them yesterday.

Wouldn't that be a 1040XE?

Yeah, except didn't they sort of throe the whole RAM naming thing out the window later on? (like later 520s -or at least 520 STFs- having 1 MB and in Europe 260s had 512k -but sold without the full system bundle the 520s were)

 

 

 

 

 

I would like to bring up another point: if you aren't a computer enthusiast, can it be argued that the real Atari died in '84, and has existed henseforth in name only?

 

a) Atari Inc. died in 1984. Atari Corporation (1984 - 1996) was a different company. Atari Interactive (Hasbro) that followed was also another company. Likewise for the current Atari Inc. (formerly Infogrames NA).

 

b) I'm puzzled at the computer enthusiast division - Atari Corporation released the 2600jr, 7800, XEGS, Lynx, and Jaguar.

Atari Corp was really the same company as Trammel Technologies, right, but with a new name/brand and additional properties (namely all the Atari Inc consumer division stuff).

And Atari Games Corp was also a different company. (and changed ownership a number of times... Warner, Namco, independent, TWI, then folded into Midway and finally shut down)

 

And yeah, Atari Inc died, but Atari Corp still continued on with many of the Atari Inc consumer products as well as their own new stuff... I mean it may not have been as strong as Morgan's reformed Atari Inc could have been, but it's a hell of a lot better than if Warner had liquidated their game console and computer stuff like some others had. (Mattel, Coleco, etc -albeit there was at least Intev, and that's more than most others got but far less than what Atari Corp managed with the 2600 -the 5200 was discontinued of course, but Atari Inc had already done that iirc so it was less of an option -maybe if the 7800 hadn't yet entered production and the 5200 hadn't been discontinued by the time Atari Corp was formed it might have been more of a consideration to push forward with that -especially with the cost reduced projects and improved controllers and the fact that Atari Corp owned the IP unlike the conflict with GCC/Warner over MARIA)

Edited January 10, 2011 by kool kitty89

[svenski]

I feel like a dirty, dirty worm.

 

Don't take it personally, you were not and will not be his last victim.

[+Stephen]

I would like to bring up another point: if you aren't a computer enthusiast, can it be argued that the real Atari died in '84, and has existed henseforth in name only?

 

a) Atari Inc. died in 1984. Atari Corporation (1984 - 1996) was a different company. Atari Interactive (Hasbro) that followed was also another company. Likewise for the current Atari Inc. (formerly Infogrames NA).

 

b) I'm puzzled at the computer enthusiast division - Atari Corporation released the 2600jr, 7800, XEGS, Lynx, and Jaguar.

Well, I can answer the second part (this is all my humble opinion). For me, Atari represents the original 2600, and the 400/800 computers. Maybe that's because they were what I grew up with. After the 800 came out though, the innovation died, full stop. Not a single upgrade was done to the A8 chipset from 1979 through 1986. The 2600jr and XEGS were both repackaged ancient (even at the time) technology. The 7800, Lynx, and Jaguar were not developed by Atari - they were all done by outside vendors (GCC, Epyx, and Flare 1 respectively). To me, that is no different than Hasbro slapping the Atari name on someone else's products. What happened to the innovation that Atari showed in the mid to late 70s?!?

[Retro Rogue]

I feel like a dirty, dirty worm.

 

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=U5xEskuNA6Y

 

 

Not a single upgrade was done to the A8 chipset from 1979 through 1986.

 

That's not true. That's just on released products, and that in no way states it wasn't being worked on. From '82-'84 they were working on a multitude of products/replacements as we've already released.

 

The 7800, Lynx, and Jaguar were not developed by Atari - they were all done by outside vendors (GCC, Epyx, and Flare 1 respectively). To me, that is no different than Hasbro slapping the Atari name on someone else's products

 

That's far far different than Hasbro slapping an Atari name on something. A company seeking outside designed technology is in no way as superficial as a company who simply owns a brand name IP slapping a name on a product to connect it with the older brand holders. GCC developing the 7800 under contract (a contract forced by Warner) for Atari Inc. fell in line with the direction a large tech company moving more in the consumer direction goes - they look for outside technologies to leverage besides their own. Atari Inc. even had a division whose sole job was to look for new upcoming companies and tech to invest in or aquire for Atari. Microsoft does it, Google does it, Apple does it. The 2600Jr was actually an Atari Inc. designed product, and simply the latest in line of the 2600 designed as a cost reduced console for the final positioning of the 2600 as a lower end console to their higher end ones. As for the Lynx and Jaguar, that's Atari Corporation - a different company with vastly different resources and no consumer product engineering group outside of computers to speak of. And the Jaguar was based off the Flare 2 - and I say based, as the Jaguar was designed from the Flare 2 with Atari's input and direction (just as the process the Panther was going through). That's far different than buying someone elses system and just slapping your name on it like they did with the Portfolio.

Edited January 11, 2011 by wgungfu

[+Stephen]

Not a single upgrade was done to the A8 chipset from 1979 through 1986.

 

That's not true. That's just on released products, and that in no way states it wasn't being worked on. From '82-'84 they were working on a multitude of products/replacements as we've already released.

 

The 7800, Lynx, and Jaguar were not developed by Atari - they were all done by outside vendors (GCC, Epyx, and Flare 1 respectively). To me, that is no different than Hasbro slapping the Atari name on someone else's products

 

That's far far different than Hasbro slapping an Atari name on something. A company seeking outside designed technology is in no way as superficial as a company who simply owns a brand name IP slapping a name on a product to connect it with the older brand holders. GCC developing the 7800 under contract (a contract forced by Warner) for Atari Inc. fell in line with the direction a large tech company moving more in the consumer direction goes - they look for outside technologies to leverage besides their own. Atari Inc. even had a division whose sole job was to look for new upcoming companies and tech to invest in or aquire for Atari. Microsoft does it, Google does it, Apple does it. The 2600Jr was actually an Atari Inc. designed product, and simply the latest in line of the 2600 designed as a cost reduced console for the final positioning of the 2600 as a lower end console to their higher end ones. As for the Lynx and Jaguar, that's Atari Corporation - a different company with vastly different resources and no consumer product engineering group outside of computers to speak of. And the Jaguar was based off the Flare 2 - and I say based, as the Jaguar was designed from the Flare 2 with Atari's input and direction (just as the process the Panther was going through). That's far different than buying someone elses system and just slapping your name on it like they did with the Portfolio.

Again, I am simply stating why I have a soft spot in my heart for the "original" Atari computer division. It is nothing more than my opinion and I am not trying to present it as anything else.

 

The way I see it, there was not a single upgrade done to the 1979 A8 chipset that was released. The memory upgraded 130XE doesn't count, as Claus Bucholz already made a bank switching RAM upgrade for the 800XL. It just happened to use 32k banks rather than 16k that Atari settled on. The GTIA bandwith was never increased, no 80 column modes were added, no more colors were added. No upgrades for ANTIC were released. Hell - Atari didn't even add stereo PoKeys to the machines. They had quad PoKeys in the arcade division.

 

On top of that, no internal Atari engineered consoles were released after the A8. Every game system they released after the 2600 was either a rehash of old technology (2600 jr, 5200) or somebody else's design. That is not the Atari that I knew and loved. That Atari released the Atari Video Music, Stunt Cycle, the heavy sixer 2600, and the 400/800. They researched 16-bit 68000 systems in the very early 80s, they did holographic research. Those products were many years ahead of their time. And sadly once the original A8 computers were released, the Atari I had feelings for was past its time, never to return.

 

*** EDIT ***

Post 2000 - sure hope it doesn't upset anyone! That is certainly not the intent.

[UNIXcoffee928]

...

Again, I am simply stating why I have a soft spot in my heart for the "original" Atari computer division.  It is nothing more than my opinion and I am not trying to present it as anything else.

 

The way I see it, there was not a single upgrade done to the 1979 A8 chipset that was released.  The memory upgraded 130XE doesn't count, as Claus Bucholz already made a bank switching RAM upgrade for the 800XL.  It just happened to use 32k banks rather than 16k that Atari settled on.  The GTIA bandwith was never increased, no 80 column modes were added, no more colors were added.  No upgrades for ANTIC were released.  Hell - Atari didn't even add stereo PoKeys to the machines.  They had quad PoKeys in the arcade division.

 

On top of that, no internal Atari engineered consoles were released after the A8.  Every game system they released after the 2600 was either a rehash of old technology (2600 jr, 5200) or somebody else's design.  That is not the Atari that I knew and loved.  That Atari released the Atari Video Music, Stunt Cycle, the heavy sixer 2600, and the 400/800.  They researched 16-bit 68000 systems in the very early 80s, they did holographic research.  Those products were many years ahead of their time.  And sadly once the original A8 computers were released, the Atari I had feelings for was past its time, never to return.

...

Certainly! As I had mentioned in this post, which I'll reprint here, since it's more on-topic, and relevant to the discussion:

 

 

Ya know... THAT was the Atari Era that I liked the best... When they were truly R&D Innovators!

 

There was some very serious high-end research going on at Atari, at one time. The Atari Holoptics Lab is an interesting example of one of the research departments that made Atari so far ahead of it's time.

 

A lot of people are unaware of it, but Atari, at that time, was right up there with Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Many of the people in the advanced R&D at Atari had migrated from Douglas Englebart's Augmentation Research Center (ARC) lab at SRI, taking that culture & innovation with them. There is a direct link to the individuals at SRI, who migrated to Atari R&D & PARC, and flitted between the two labs, after leaving ARC.

 

There was most definitely a reason why Atari was presented, as it was, in the movie, "Blade Runner". At that time, many of the best & the brightest minds were closely tied to Atari's R&D labs. In the first years of the 80s, at Atari, there was no reason to believe that they could ever fail.

 

Here is the most mind blowing stuff from ARC (note the date...):

 

Mother of All Demos

 

People interested in this aspect of Atari's history should check out the books, "What the Dormouse Said", and "Dealers of Lightening", to trace the lineage of the the thought & culture that comprised Atari's R&D labs.

 

When I have some more time, I will start a topic specifically on Atari R&D, since it is a less well defined aspect of Atari's history. Perhaps, then, some users here will be able to share their memories of the Atari R&D scene, and add to the body of knowledge.

[Bryan]

You can do all the R&D you want in a cave. If you don't release it, it didn't happen.

 

Atari's last 8-bit was essentially their first 8-bit.

[UNIXcoffee928]

You can do all the R&D you want in a cave. If you don't release it, it didn't happen.

 

Atari's last 8-bit was essentially their first 8-bit.

Hey man, don't diss my cave, lol. Once I get REALLY old, I'm gonna be like the dude in the Led Zep album, with the lantern, on the mountaintop... just follow the REALLY long orange extension cord, up the hill, when you need tech support for this gear, forty years from now, ha.

 

 

 

[DracIsBack]

Well, I can answer the second part (this is all my humble opinion). For me, Atari represents the original 2600, and the 400/800 computers. Maybe that's because they were what I grew up with. After the 800 came out though, the innovation died, full stop. Not a single upgrade was done to the A8 chipset from 1979 through 1986.

 

CTIA and GTIA are not the same chips. :-)

 

 

The 2600jr and XEGS were both repackaged ancient (even at the time) technology.

 

I agree, though to be fair, the 2600jr idea has been done a number of times since. It's been pretty common for companies to take their highly successful console of the last generation and re-release a cheap budget version when the successors are around.

[Bryan]

CTIA and GTIA are not the same chips. :-)

 

Antic got that extra refresh counter bit too.

[svenski]

What about Freddie? is there no love for Freddie?