The Last Stand of Jack Tramiel: The Atari ST vs The Commodore Amiga - Kim Justice 

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Jack was an interesting character, he definitely had his good aspects and a few bad ones. I only caught the "bad" side once, when TOS was slipping and Jack had a pretty shitty meeting with the software team . . . not that motivational. For the most part he kept away from the teams, which was probably good. When I resigned from Atari, I had a meeting with Jack. I arrived on time, and he told me to have a seat while he did some writing on his desk. After a while, he looked up. "Do you know what I'm doing?" he asked. He had a kind of booming voice, it was a bit scary. "No," I replied. "I'm schmoozing." "Schmoozing?" "I'm writing to people -- CEOs, friends -- and asking them to give money to some charities and projects." These, I understand, largely involved anti-Holocaust or Jewish relief programs of one form or another. One of the things you didn't really know about Jack was that he was a serious philanthropist; he gave money to all kinds of charities and kept it really quiet. He didn't really want people to know about that side of him. He asked what my long term plans were, and we discussed that and the state of the ST and the industry for a bit, and then I left.

Having watched and loved Micro Men, I really hope someone does a movie about Jack Tramiel. The guy had a really fascinating life, and helped create the modern computing world in ways a lot of folks haven't yet realized.

This was a really well done documentary. If anybody wants to know who ran Commodore into the ground, Google a guy named Mehdi Ali. He could have made the Amiga a monster since it was so far ahead of anything on the market, but he was the picture of incompetence and apathy.

"Games is where it really mattered". Isn't that just the truth. Every game console ever made has rested not on what the hardware was capable of, but what game developers were able and willing to do with it, and how many could be bothered to do such things. Even the PC, whose life started as a no-nonsense business machine ultimately gave way to much of it's major hardware existing almost entirely for the purposes of playing games. Do you really think 3d accelerator boards would have succeeded as a 'business' item? No. Even though business focused models exist to this day, their success can be laid at the feet of games, and little else. Even basic CPU performance frequently had more to do with the gaming industry than it did with any other, much as other industries and uses for computers did of course also benefit... Games have driven so much of the home computer industry... Where would it be without them?

i had the Atari STe as a lad and i loved it, still got it now but havent used it in years

Rest in peace Jack Tramiel and may your legacy be remembered.

Jack's a complex man, that's for damned sure. For all his ruthlessness, you can't help but admire the man for having crawled out of the depths of hell into such a position of power and influence. I guess "a businessman's businessman" would be the best way to describe him. I'd love to see you do a documentary on the Tandy-1000 line, perhaps the first major IBM-compatible to really get off the ground, and one of the first really successful computers after the crash here in America (hilariously coming after the failure of IBM's own home attempt and saving Sierra from closing). That little piece of old tech is a huge nostalgia bomb for me, and given how you research so well, I'm sure such a video would be hugely entertaining. Also, what is that last song? I could SWEAR I've heard it from a PS1 game, but I'm dying here trying to remember the title...

Jack Tramiel was Commodores Steve Jobs, except they never begged him back

This was a computer way ahead of its time.(the Atari ST) Using GFA basic (compiles to stand alone exe files) I was able to develop powerful bespoke business applications using glorious hi res 640 x 400 monochrome output. The quality of this display, especially using larger third party monitors was breath-taking for its day. The Atari operating system allowed the programmer to mix text and graphics in the same window. IMB clones at that point in time where simple text only output, MS Windows at this point in time was just a pipe dream. Add to this the ability to access 4 meg of ram, cheap and reliable external hard drives and a sexy separate keyboard made the St one hell of a computer!!

Another good one! Legend has it that Jack was already in charge by the time Morse arrived to pay off the half mil. Not knowing what to do, the execs called him on the spot and not knowing about the Amiga deal, he told them: "when somebody gives you a cheque for 500k, you take it!" Nice story if it's true :)

If I may say so, you raise our community quality & class with your content Kim. Thank you for all your work.

Tramiel would make a great Scorcese movie character :D

The use of MGS music was awesome. It made me cry,very fitting to end the legacy of Jack. LONG LIVE COMMODORE. LONG LIVE ATARI CORP

I’ve worked for people like Tramiel and I agree with what you say Kim. Personally they are approachable and gregarious, but in business they are absolutely laser like in focus. You never get praise for doing well, or maybe a word or two, and get absolutely slaughtered for making even the smallest mistake. They remembered every slight, every move against them and didn’t stop until they’d got one back. But, oh damn, were you taught how to work for a living. Something I am grateful for all these years later, all the ass kickings, yelling and sheer breakneck speed at the required work rate taught me.

By the time of the Falcon Jack really had little to do with Atari, he pretty much handed over the running of the company to his eldest son, who really finished off the company. And if we are totally fair Jack's brilliant mind needed the backing of his own in house semi conductor plant/team, if not the same engineers who designed VIC-II and SID for him on salary wages cost alone, as he did at Commodore for his radical plans to work. The man was a genius with the C64 and PET and his intended £70/$70 rubber keyed Commodore 116 style machine (plus4 case, Mattel Aquarius style rubber keys, Commodore 16 capabilities) which would done really well especially if they sold a 32k RAM expansion cart later....just check out the awesome Plus4 exclusive remakes of things like Commando on my channel..

Amazingly well put together and informative documentary. I love how in-depth and intelligent your videos are.

Thanks for painting a clearer portrait of tramiel, as an amiga owner his defection to atari, probably painted him darker than necessary, the history of computers is muddled and incestuous, but an essential part of the pyramidal tapestry of where we are now, and it is very true to state that the contribution of the companys, that no longer exist, is often much overlooked.

Great documentary! I've never even considered patreon before but I am tempted in your case since your channel is my all time favorite. You've provided me with hours of top quality entertainment and I'm always excited whenever I see that you have uploaded a new documentary / video.

Excellent job Kim. You nailed it.

This is a great piece of Journalism, I loved through that era as a kid, had an Amiga 500, I bought many of the computer magazines back then yet there wasn't much in the media back then about what was really happening, maybe I was reading the wrong magazines.

This is one of the best commodore / trammel docos out there. Well researched and presented. Well done.

I think this whole 'mini-series' was super interesting; thanks for putting it together!

Just wanted to drop a line and say that your research is beyond compare. Your videos are edited well and have clips, shots and information I rarely find elsewhere. Thank you for breathing fresh air into this (generally) very banal and regurgitated genre. You rock!

You always do some amazing videos, Kim! Thank you for these.

Hey Kim, you really deserve a lot more subs. I simply love your documentaries. Thank you for putting in the effort you do :)

Excellent as usual, Kim. Thank you for all Your hard work.

Kim - Awesome as usual. I really like the respect shown for him at the end with the memorials and other things he did for awareness of the evils that happened in the past. There were two things I was kinda expecting - 1 is Tramiel Atari's purchase of Federated in ~ 1988 which caused Atari to burn a lot of cash and also lose a lot of focus on getting their ST products out there. That ultimately ended up being a distraction. 2 is Jack's method of getting around the DRAM regulation in the mid 80s that caused prices to go way up; there were some illegal imports of DRAM to Atari that he used both for his computers and resold at a profit that are fairly documented out there.

Somehow I'm reminded of Robert Maxwell if you replace home computers with newspapers, of course Tramiel didn't fall off his yacht and get a plum spot at Mount of Olives cemetery.

Thankyou Kim for an excellent documentary, i think we do have alot to thank Jack for.I bought an Atari 800Xl in 1986 after he slashed the price to less than 100 pounds and i was hooked.I bought an ST in 1988 and had it for ten years, learned to program it and made a few demos.Good times.

Such a great documentation, funny, entertaining and educating, perfect! Thank you very much!

The 500 000 from Atari at CES show, was never about buying "Amiga" for only that amount, it was only temporary hand money for Amiga Corp to take care of urgent matters. The arrangement was that they would meet again and work out the details a months later. The price for each stock was less than they hoped for and they got the impression Atari was only interested in the custom chips and not the team and the "computer". Commodore offered more money for each stock and was interested in the team and to spend resources on developing the Amiga computer. (Commodore also owned MOS chip manufacturer, that helped a lot when it came to putting the Amiga Corp full size breadbin boards into silicon (chips).

Thanks Kim! Excellent overview and great to watch.

The statement about Atari "never succeeding" in the home-computer market is ludicrous. The 800 was very popular around the world, not surprising since it was half the price of Apple's comparatively weak offerings. And here's something interesting from an Ars Technica article: "At first, IBM thought about rebranding an existing computer, and had selected the Atari 800. However, after a visit to Atari headquarters, where IBM businessmen were literally put in a box and run through the assembly line by unorthodox and sometimes stoned Atari employees, the computing giant decided they would rather build their own computer."

I remember being pissed off as a kid because the arsehole salesman convinced my parents that the ST would be better for me than the Amiga from an education point of view. Obviously I wanted to play games, which were always better on my mates' Amiga. Utter bastard.

Great documentary mate ! Finally I can understand the complex history between Amiga and Atari.

Just wanted to say nice work on this series - well researched and well presented

This vid was probably the highlight of the Jack-trilogy. Great job.

Nailed another video. I was born in '82 and grew up with loads of UK/European computers and I was too young to know what all the stories were behind so many things around me. I've watched almost every Kim Justice video and they are all stunning I don't know how you gather all the information and the scripts are fabulous. I have a stack of old Mega Drive and Atari ST mags in my attic somewhere - mostly game stuff, that's all the info I had back then. Under 5 years old I stated with a ZX Spectrum - Jet Set Willy was the first game I ever played and probably one of my favourites. Kim - have you ever considered a short doc on the programmer Matt Smith who did Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy? Because he disappeared for years and here were rumours of him joining a hippy commune in Amsterdam and frying himself with a shit ton of LSD.. mad story. I also don't know a lot about Joffrey (I think you mentioned he was a programmer at Ocean Software) Maybe a documentary on some late/great programmers or a few Bedroom coders that did well.

Great video, as usual. Thank you so much.

I’m always impressed at the quality of KJ videos. Bravo. You truly shine on RU-vid in an ocean of dummies making content for the lowest common denominator.

Very enjoyable videos; I got into computers in the 8 bit era so good to find out more about the dealings back then.

Fantastically put together as usual.

Good video, I have watched it a few times and keep learning new things about computer history. I love how when talking about Jack you use footage of Vince Mcman and Eric Bishops's "Im Back" music.

I am absolutely loving your videos. taking me back.

That was a very informative overview of what happened at Commodore after Jack left.

All I have to say is that the usage of music from A Better Tomorrow is fucking ACE.

I bought an Atari ST because I needed a computer for college and couldn't afford an Amiga at the time. I wanted an Amiga because it was most like my current computer at the time - the Atari 8-bit. One thing I wish this video would have mentioned was that one could turn the original Atari ST with the monochrome monitor into an Apple Macintosh that actually ran faster than the Mac. So for the fraction of the price one could "own" an Apple Macintosh for around $700.

Amazing doc Kim. Thanks for this.

Awesome vid, Kim! :) Thanks for this!

Love the use of the Bischoff theme.

Awesome documentary again!!

In the 1980s, Microsoft Xenix was the best-selling Unix and every 286 and 386 PC has the potential to run it, hence the importance of MMU being included as standard for 286 and 386 CPUs. Xenix 286 runs on 286. Xenix 386 runs on 386. MS-Dos is for standalone PCs. OS/2 and the later Windows NT are the Xenix replacements.

I used nearly all Atari ST's including Falcon. It was a sad day when I had to switch over to Windows 3.1 and DOS...

Excellent. I had both a 1040 ST and an Amiga 500, and later an Amiga 1200. As much as I enjoyed some ST games and STOS, the Amiga was so much better in every way. Not only much better sound and graphics, but the Amiga OS was so far ahead of its time.

Both Atari and Commodore tried making PC Clones, but it didn't go anywhere. The PC Clones were killing the Amiga and Atari ST in the USA, as a lot of good games only existed on the PC clones MS-DOS machines. Jack Tramiel always tried to sell a cheaper computer with the basics and then sell the extras and peripherals to make up the difference. Atari tried the XEGS making the 8 Bit line into a video game console, and Commodore had the 64GS turning the C64 into a video game console. They both flopped. The 7800 was made too late and lost to the Intellivision and Colecovision. You are right about the NES outselling Atari video game systems and getting a lot of video games for it. Nintendo got some arcade games ported to the NES/Famicom and sold the NES as an entertainment system rather than a video game console, they added a light gun and robot to some games, and with clever marketing sold a lot of units.

- Fascinating, well-researched content - Excellent narration - Wrestling references - FF7 music ... Kim, why do you do this to me? It's a 10/10 from me. Again. Please keep up the great work.

A fantastic production, don't think I need to learn anymore on the subject of Jack Tramiel, I think you've covered it pretty on the dollar. thank you.

Loving the gangster clips, and hen you slip in a quick Don't Pay Take It Away, spot on. Also Fester was a nice touch. :D

Absolutely superb !

I was watching a video from Bill Herd and he said the reason for the bust up was due to Gould using the company jet for his own purposes. Jack was one of thooe who would pay for himself where as Gould it would seem would use the company assets as an extension of his own assets.

This documentary is a work of art, Kim I've recently found your channel, you're so good at the writing, (loving the Lock, Stock & updated references, gives the reality of the point your making very understanding, good production). Loving the Commodore era stuff, Jack was a legend of his times. More please! 26:42 - Is that a stock photo or what was left of the actual Commodore offices?

Great Documentary again, i love these... Any hints on whats next..?

I lived and breathed Jack's products for 10 years of my life easy, I have only just realized how one person can have such an impact on ones life, I had to ponder for a bit after that. Thanks for the videos as always.

Absolutely brilliant documentary. Can't wait for the next one. This shit should be bought by a TV network

Great video as always.

I was on the Amiga side of the fence myself, most of this is new to me. Awesome stuff.

lol. Love the Mr. Show callout. "You'll never find a rat in one of our computers. That's the Atari promise."

What a finish! This trilogy was very insightful. Thanks for making it, Kim! Interesting to learn that the man was much more than a one-dimensional business monger.

GREAT vid, as always

Thanks Kim. You make the best videos on computer/gaming history. Plenty of excellent research and well presented in a no nonsense or bullshit manner whilst retaining humour. :)

Just want to say that your music choices were on point today Kim, I can just imagine Jack walking through the offices on his first day in charge with Eric Bischoff's theme following him. Its time, get in line 'cause I'm gonna make some changes, and judging from that layoff list, he did just that.

amazing video, thanks Kim

+15 points for using Eric Bischoff's WWE theme!

Just great to see a video about my beloved Atari ST 1040f and Cubase .... Kim, you are a fine RU-vidr :)

Great series!

Thank you for this vid ! Amazing !

Atari's arcade division merged with Midway, not Namco.

Great episode! Thanks!!

37:50 LOL the Hedley Davis Memorial Disk Drive xD

The Atari 8-bit computer was the second best import computer in UK, after C64. A8 also did very well in Germany and not too bad in USA, as magazine like Compute, CGW had loads of Atari 8-bit gaming reviews.

brilliant as usual. thanks kim!

Great one Kim, thanks.

Kim, an excellent video as always.

Even though the Atari ST bombed in America, it actually had some success in Canada for some odd reason. I knew a lot of people with Atari ST's while I was growing up in Canada, but I never knew anybody with an Amiga.

My mom still has a factory sealed Atari 800XL still in the packaging... When they were failing my mom had an 800 that failed and she contacted them. they sent her a brand new 800XL but she had switched to PC by then and never opened it. Still sitting in the closet. I see that ad with the guy with the Sinclair... I have one of those in the box as well... maybe I need to start a museum...

Great video mate.

Kim, I had an Atari 520STE for about 8 years in all. In fact, I'm toying with the idea of doing a little video about my computer history.

The funny thing about Tramiel's Atari is they always seemed to learn the wrong lesson. The ST floundered against the Amiga because it had less dedicated hardware that would help push next-gen games. So when it came to handhelds, they backed the system with by far the most advanced graphics and sound capabilities, but again floundered because to THAT market battery life and portability was more important.

I can hear the Lotus The Ultimate Challenge soundtrack in the background :)

I love how every time Jack Tramiel is mentioned in these videos, we see clips from gangster movies. That never gets old. Also, I'm curious to hear what Kim Justice has to say about the theory that Warner sold Atari Inc. because they needed to fight off a potential hostile takeover by Rupert Murdoch, and that their financial situation wasn't as bad as it appeared. I'm not sure how much truth there is in this story, and goodness knows it's hard to learn the truth in any story about big-name businesses, thanks to the enormous egos involved.

This is basically an "Amiga" video again. Here in the USA, Amiga really caught on in 1986-1987, but by 1988 the PC was coming and Deluxe Paint started allowing for VGA's 256 colors and Super VGA cards were coming out. By 1989, the PC began to start dominating in the states with Super VGA VESA programmability, Sound Blaster, and of course Intel's 486, then in 1990, Windows 3.0 came out as well as "Wing Commander". 1991 came Sound Blaster Pro with CD-ROM support and 1992 with Intel's Pentium and 16-bit sound cards such as Sound Blaster 16 and Gravis Ultrasound which also had Wavetable sound. Then there was "Wolfenstein 3D" After 1992, Amiga sales fell down through the basement. In October 1992, AGA was simply too late and there were not many killer apps and so Commodore lost a lot of money and this is the beginning of the downfall. So, the PC had 486dx/Pentium support along with 16-bit sound cards with wavetable support and SuperVGA along with CD-ROM games and the Amiga couldn't compete against all of that. The Amiga did not have AGA until late 1992, by then really it was all over with and that's why the sales were not good, people were going over to the PC in droves. Commodore killed the Amiga because it tried to compete against the entire PC clone market and that's never a good idea to try to win against a huge industry.

In the end Jay Miner's designs beat Jack Tramiel's Atari's bravado and belligerence. It's a shame that both companies bit the dust in the 90's, I got to enjoy both computers back in the day the first being a 520 ST(fm). It was a good computer but even to a 9 year old kid it was obvious that the Amiga left it for dust games not only looked better but they sounded better. In 1992 I was fortunate enough to be given an Amgia 1200 for my birthday, fantastic piece of kit and enjoyed every second of it. What I didn't realise at the time was just how dated the hardware was, a year or two latter a friend of mine showed me games like Doom and Command and Conquer running on his Dad's PC which was a hell of an eye opener and they were well ahead of anything that was being released for the Amgia at the time.

fantastic job, subbed

amazing video thx !

Re:Price Wars. When the global DRAM chip shortage hit, Sam Tramiel assured people Atari would absorb the price hike,rather than pass the increase onto the consumer. Cue the ST price being increased by £100 for a period It dropped back down, but went up by £30 at the end of the summer 1991 due to high price of the dollar on the exchange market

another excellent KJ video....

He’s a broken man, brought up around torture and hell. But one hell of a driving force, passionate and lived everyday like his last.

Kim Justice, the Richard Attenborough of gaming

Loved the use of Easy E's theme!