Subj : Re: Jack Tramiel
To : Dave Drum
From : Andreas Kohlbach
Date : Fri Jan 31 2020 01:59 pm
On Fri, 31 Jan 2020 12:24:18 +1300, Dave Drum wrote:
>
> -=> Tristan Miller wrote to Simon Geddes <=-
>
> > and ambition to do the Vic as a low-cost computer for all. I'm not sure,
> > but I feel this was partly motivated by a sense of public purpose.
>
> TM> I haven't read The Home Computer Wars, but that's not at all the
> TM> impression I got of Tramiel from reading Brian Bagnall's "On the Edge:
> TM> The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore" (or whatever it happened to
> TM> be called at the time -- the author seems to change the title of the
> TM> book with every edition). Anyways, from that book it was pretty clear
> TM> that Tramiel was driven purely by profit and egotism, not any higher
> TM> social purpose. After reading the book (and watching the "Commodore
> TM> Story" documentary) I came away with a much less favourable impression
> TM> of Tramiel than I had had previously.
>
> Jack, who dumped CBM in favour of Atari (nee Tramiel Technology Ltd.)
> was just as much about money as Irving (Gould) and Medhi (Ali) who came
> after him at Commodore and busted it out for fun and (especially) profit.
>
> ... Amiga made it possible. Commodore made it dead.
Wasn't it Commodore offering a cash back of some sort in the early to mid
1980s? You would send in your existing non-Commodore computer and get a
discount of some $199 of a price of $249. Some people bought a brand new
Timex Sinclair 1000 for $99, sent it to Commodore to receive a Commodore 64.
To make some $50. That was a very aggressive marketing strategy by
Commodore. I only learned about this reading some 1980s BYTE magazines
as PDF which also contained to contemporary advertisements.
--
Andreas
