JACK ATTACK: The Story of Jack Tramiel at Commodore, Part 1 - Kim Justice 

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@Kim the VIC was NOT a "variation of the 6502" it was a character generator for use in text based displays, but they just couldn't sell it so they popped it into the VIC. It was never meant to be for a console.

You know as a Yank, I knew nothing about British PC gaming and or gaming culture. Now I know a lot I feel, and every single fact has come from this channel. Kim is a goal scoring superstar hero.

Today I learned that PET had 4K mode. Way ahead of the time :p

'Jack gathered the retailers, told every single one of them to fuck off, and replaced them all with William Shatner' ~ Kim Justice 2016

AGGGH. Want the next installment now!

I really love the liberal use of Vince McMahon to represent Tramiel. It really does fit.

PART 1!!! Kim you're the hardest working woman on RU-vid...Christ on a bike...documentary a week...we are truly blessed and if I was in a better financial situation I would be a Patreon...when things improve I will. But for the time being please accept my humble thanks for your hard work.

Ahh in honour of Mr Justice himself at 14:25 :-D

Sinclair had a temper though, I don't really admire him personally, but his contribution still stands out easily.

Thanks for the video. My first computer in High school in Canada was a Commodore Pet

Amazing video! Can't wait for the next part! I love these documentaries! 😊

Wow Kim this stuff is fascinating. Well done.

In an alternative universe Jack Tramiel is both the bill gates and steve jobs of that reality and Amigas squeezed out both x86 and macs out of the market and now directly competing with only Sony and Nintendo. lol Oh and of course the latest Amigas are 10-15 years ahead of what we have now and do ray tracing natively off the customs chips ^^

One word: AMAZING! ;) Thanks for this, Kim! Keep it up! Love your work!

Absolutely brilliant work. One complaint, though ... the soundtrack! So many classic C64 tunes absolutely demanding one's complete attention -- a huge distraction.

This takes me back, have mixed feelings about Jack, my first computer was an Atari 800XL then Atari ST.Always remembered another one of his slogans "Power without the price!" Nice to see someone getting one over Bill Gates too.

Just watched BBC's Micro Men yesterday, and today you upload video about Tramiel... Great two days! Can't wait for the second part!

This story is worthy of a major movie.

Great video, I love all these retrospectives on the history of computing and gaming. So much of it feels like it was only yesterday. Having enjoyed a 16K ZX81 for around a year, I remember being keen to jump into colour computing, and trawling through literature on the VIC-20, Atari 400/800 and TI99-4A aswell as the ZX Spectrum.

Your amazing ! Looking forward to the 2nd part !

Love your work Kim! Keep it up!!

I'm never this early! love all your work Kim! Keep doing you and being awesome!

Another excellent and comprehensive video, thank you! The 70s and 80s were such an interesting time in computing, it's great to have these documentaries around for everyone to learn from, cheers!

AMAZING as always!

Another awesome video. Keep it up Kim.

Enjoyed thoroughly

Exceptional video. Your best yet!

wow, I was surprised how fair you are to Jack. Speaks well of you that you're willing to be so clear as to Jacks good points.

Very good as always

awesome video Kim

Another great one.

I love you Kim.

love these history documentaries!

I'm always surprised at how fast you can make these, and at such a high quality too. Keep it up!

Great work Kim!

Really love these series about gaming industry people. It's super documented, well written, articulated. The Molyneux series was awesome too (not sure which was first). Going directly to patreon!

Jack Tramiel had Polish roots all this time?! Boy, I've heard his name for so long, and I'd never guess that he comes from the same country as me!

You ever sleep? Another great video. I wonder if Bald Bull from Punchout was created in the likeness of Tramiel...

most youtubers that I watch tend to lose their appeal after a while, because they tend to get a bit too repetitive or formulaic. Not you, I always look forward to all your uploads. There is so much care and love put into your videos, and I love your work for that.

Superb, a very absorbing doc video - must have taken ages to make this !

I love your videos so much I click like before I even start watching.

I haven't watched this yet and I already know I'll love it.

I love how fast you are at putting out these high quality videos, Kim. Sadly it isn't fast enough, my girl insist on us binge-watching Jack Attack and I am not even allowed a sneak peek. :'(

A Jack Attack sounds a bit like what journalists at the Daily Mail under Paul Dacre called a "double cunting."

Thank you very much, most interesting!

Love your videos Kim. Just one request: Please mention some of the sources you used along with "recommended reading" so us viewers can dig deeper into the dirt ourselves too!

Monty on the Run for the C64 :)

as always a great video

The VIC-20 was the first computer I ever used, it was my brother's. I was hooked instantly on computer gaming and it's a lasting love to this day. That was really great, I can't wait for the next part, you got me hooked. I know you once covered the C64 VS. Spectrum British feud but will you revisit it in a future video of this series? And, as an American who grew up as a loyal Commodore user, are we still obligated to apologize for Tramiel's behavior? Not seriously of course, it's more a running gag. The man was bonkers.

The best line in this video is… “ maybe until everybody is dead!” 😂

Yes, new video!

It makes sense he was so aggressive with a start to life like that, in many ways though he sounds like the classic 70s/80s American businessman stereo type the sort you see as bad guys in films from those eras a lot. Interesting vid as always.

The story telling and the editing here is Gould!

WIll you ever do a documentary on early pre-macintosh Apple? I mean, not just focusing on Jobs but all the other important folks like Mike Markala, Arthur rock, Wozniak etc?

awesome video as always kim :3 not sure if advertising hulu or just random simpsons footage though haha

Yeeees. This is going to be amazing.

Thanks for this excellent series of videos. Really top notch work, Kim. Love him or loathe him, Tramiel was a remarkable man and I suppose the horrors of his youth determined his attitude to his job, his employees and his competitors (T.I. attempting to scupper Commodore would have been enough alone I guess). It does raise an interesting point about how long can market dominance with a single product (C64, ST) keep a company going. So many software and hardware companies have not managed to maintain their industry position by either not innovating quickly enough, by not seeing where the industry is headed, or by not understanding exactly why their product is selling so well. Even Tramiel seemed to badly misjudge the next step after the C64. So how much is it all down to luck as well?

Thanks for mentioning the C64 graphics chip the MOS VIC-II ... rarely mentioned unlike the 6502 processor or the SID sound chip for this great 1980s 8-bit computer. Didn't know Jack Tramiel could get nasty with his underling bosses... that is unpleasant. Holy cow I didn't know that those TI-99/4's that I saw in Argos in the 1980s were 16-bit ! Jack Tramiel strikes me as a man who would be charming if he thought you could help him but could be a rotter if he thought you would hinder him or accuse him of having dirty underpants.

Roll on part two another professional video worthy of a TV screening.

Thank you for your hard work

Who needed computer salesmen when they had William Shatner?

He said on film that he asked them how old he had to be and they said 18, so he went to the USA as an “18 year old” ..

We don’t know who he was and we can only imagine but it’s a very important voice in Tramiel’s debate...

fantastic

Good stuff Kim. But the real UK company was lead by Bob Gleadow and Paul Welch. Spencer was well gone and Pleasance was after the Vic 20 and C64.

So there isn't any info on who ran the Canadian and Hong Kong divisions ? I'm usually interested in the obscure you see.

5:06 my first commodore product a CBM SR 7919D, still working

Another great biopic

Tramiel you could say was CEO ET of the 80s crash

Someone needs to make a movie about Jack Tramiel, because he had an amazing life. Not only a holocaust survivor, but the man who really did play a big part in bringing computers into American homes.

I really enjoy your videos on computer and video game history; it is astonishing how well researched and produced they are. I do however wish you would tone down the strong bias against certain individuals (regardless of how well-deserved your scorn might be). This emotional narrative, with pretty clear bad guys and good guys, is what makes me classify your videos not as documentaries but as mere entertainment. Damn good entertainment, but still.

I am glad somebody has shown kindness to Jack Tramiel. You can only imagine the sights and sounds he experienced in a Nazi concentration camp, and even the mildest mannered person would have had difficulty coping with that. Sir Clive Sinclair (RIP) known affectionately as "Uncle Clive" had a ferocious temper, ditto Sir Alan Sugar. Steve Jobs, was a massive egoist, and I suspect took a lot of the credit that really belongs to Steve Wozniack. and often behaved like an ill mannered brat. He had a very soft life, as did Sir Clive, neither had the sort of background Jack Tramiel came from. I strongly suspect if Stirling Gould had kept with JT, Commodore might have soldiered on into and beyond the 90s and, arguably today. He certainly had more gumption than Mehed Ali, who was a disaster and a sick, bad tempered joke, (vastly overrated - especially by himself). How that man ever got the job, still less kept it, is beyond imagining. I can only assume he employed lots of soft soap where Gould was concerned. Jack would have shown him the door in a month, if only for giving a senior position to the idiot that dreamt up the IBM PCjr..

is that theme playing from Daley Thompson s Olympic challenge?

This should be good, I've not watched it yet but cant wait to see the bit when he went against Apple.

"Jack will come after you until you're dead. Or quite possibly everyone is dead" - damn, you figure this dude would have learned about the evils of genocide from, uhhh, you know.

That Dead Man owed as the Sword from Sword Quest.

As Mr. Andrew Eldritch once sang: I want MORE!

What's the C64 music in the background at around 3:15-3:30? I ask because it reminds me quite a lot of Andy Hunter's The Wonders Of You from Need For Speed: Underground.

I was born in the South part of Netherlands close to Germany border, and oh man C64/128 was very populair there.

6501 was the really important version but Motorola sued MOS over it as it was pin for pin compatible with the 6800. I think as part of the agreement they were to stop selling the 6501 and that the 6502 had to have different wired pins or some such. I don't know all of the detail.

Jack Tramiel was a ruthless business man, good at it as well. Would hate to have worked for him lol.

I loved the commodore 64 demo and crack scene. I had a good time when i was a kid 😁

IMHO there is no mystery to why Gould bailed out Tramiel; Gould saw potential in Tramiel (wouldn't have bailed him out otherwise) but also in play was that they were both jewish and Tramiel was a holocaust survivor (and from especially notorious situations too),it was part helping out a fellow jew and part guilt/charity because Gould probably spent those same formative years in relative comfort. Jewish people, like many ethnic groups, try to help their own people when possible and helping a holocaust survivor is almost an honor.

Love, love, love your videos! As a yank I must say however it is so hard to work around the muted enunciation of 'R' in your dialect. I have to keep rewinding the video a bit to hear things again to make out some of what you say.

wooow whattt I never knew that Iwata made games for Commodore!!!

Kim, do a feature on Gremlin Interactive!

Fascinating character Jack Tramiel, can't wait for part 2 Kim... How about that CBM Kim-1 computer eh?

Bits and bytes.

Nitpick 24:54 - double-check - sure you don't mean the Atari 400? The Commodore 64 was priced against the Atari 800, and the C64 debuted at 595.00 USD. If the Vic 20 debuted at 299, that was more than 250 less than the 400 which came out at 550 USD. The 800 was priced over 1000.00 USD. (still loving the series - which is why I'm nitpicking - it's pretty much error free, although a little heavy on the Simpsons footage).

The song at 2:18? I know it but can't recall the name!

Oh yeah...dats some good Kim Justice!

So the VIC-20 was the worlds first console?

No I know the origin of the creator behind the Sirius I used. Peddle

I didn't know Bill Cosby advertised computers. I thought he was just a comedian. I can't see someone like Jerry Seinfeld trying to get me to buy a Windows system.

What is the game music at the very start?I remember this song but can't remember the game.

Ruthless and Jewish. What a surprise. Thanks for the video.

Let's face it, none of the two could survive long. After all, they both became victims of Apple, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.

BUSINESS IS WAR!

I miss Jack! He was kinda an asshole but he still kicked ASS!