Leonard Tramiel (Atari / Commodore) – Interview - Were the Tramiel's Misunderstood!?

[Adriano Arcade]

Commodore and Atari legend Leonard Tramiel kindly gave up some of his free time to answer some questions from our Adrian. He discusses his time working at both companies, developing the Jaguar and Jaguar CD as well as the ST and the canned Panther. He also gives an insight to working with his father, the amazing Jack Tramiel. It’s a lovely read with a true gaming pioneer, enjoy.

 

https://www.arcadeattack.co.uk/leonard-tramiel/

 

 

[LynxJagLunatic]

It was a great interview and I’ve always thought pretty highly of the Tramiel’s. They are responsible for two of my favorite consoles growing up in the Lynx and Jaguar. They made a ton of mistakes and it cost them dearly. In truth they were at that point only a shell of what Atari used to be. Like Leonard said they didn’t understand the software side of things. Once Jaguar started to fail they began working on Jaguar II. It seemed their mentality was to just throw bigger and better hardware out there and that should sell itself. Never truly understanding that software drives sales. Just my thoughts.

Edited January 27 by LynxJagLunatic

[zzip]

I think the Tramiels had good ideas, with some misteps.

 

Problem was the execution.   They never spent enough on marketing, Jack seemed to think that selling for less than the competition was enough-- it worked for the C64.

They built the ST in months, but upgrades for it took way too long--   four years to get the STe upgrade, which was already behind the competition when released.

on the console side-  took them too long to get back in that game, they relied on older titles for too long instead of producing something that could beat Nintendo

[Lostdragon]

18 hours ago, zzip said:

I think the Tramiels had good ideas, with some misteps.

 

Problem was the execution.   They never spent enough on marketing, Jack seemed to think that selling for less than the competition was enough-- it worked for the C64.

They built the ST in months, but upgrades for it took way too long--   four years to get the STe upgrade, which was already behind the competition when released.

on the console side-  took them too long to get back in that game, they relied on older titles for too long instead of producing something that could beat Nintendo

The STE was far too little, far too late. 

 

Atari must of loved the UK Press talking of the Amiga-beating, 'Super ST', which was annouced at the same time, Atari UK  annouced the existing S20STFM would drop to a RRP of 299. 

 

When it was ready to be shown to UK software houses, there was none of the expected fanfare, they just talked of the additional features and left to move onto the next software house. 

 

At a time some 70 development machines were said to be in the hands of UK teams, the UK Press started to speculate that perhaps Atari had quietly admitted they'd lost the ST/Amiga war at this point. 

 

Which they effectively had... 

 

 

 

 

[Lostdragon]

On 1/24/2024 at 7:33 PM, Adriano Arcade said:

Commodore and Atari legend Leonard Tramiel kindly gave up some of his free time to answer some questions from our Adrian. He discusses his time working at both companies, developing the Jaguar and Jaguar CD as well as the ST and the canned Panther. He also gives an insight to working with his father, the amazing Jack Tramiel. It’s a lovely read with a true gaming pioneer, enjoy.

 

https://www.arcadeattack.co.uk/leonard-tramiel/

 

 

Looking at this Q+A:

 

The Atari ST was a huge success, how do you reflect back on this great PC and is it true that a console version was discussed?

 

 

I think the ST was an important machine in the history of home computing. It was the first machine that had enough resolution to do serious tasks like word processing and used a graphical user interface that had a price point that was within reach of many people. The combination was truly “Power without the price”.

 

 

A console version was discussed but the cost was too high.

 

 

When the UK Press were running headlines such as.. 

 

"Atari promise an ST-Console for Mid-'89'

 

The talk was to launch a sub-£100 console based on ST technology, with games to retail for £25.

 

The console was aimed at the younger person. 

 

So, it would make perfect sense, Project Robin, was canned if they were going to take a huge hit on each console sold, as they couldn't consolise the hardware anywhere near the planned, entry-level, price.