Another of geekdom's founding fathers..... .RIP
aww man 
I learned a ton from the commodore. It was a great computer for its time.
In his honor, the devs should make versions of the CoH client for Atari ST and Amiga.
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Actually, he was a cut-throat businessman, with the motto, "business is war". When Texas Instruments tried to get into home computer market, he insured that Commodore's prices would undercut anything TI could do. TI even tried selling the TI-99/4A at a significant loss/unit. The joke at the time was, "How does TI do that?" The answer, of course, was "Volume".|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
He wasn't an engineer like Woz or a visionary like Jobs or a cutthroat businessman like Gates but he ended up making computers very affordable which in turn led to a generation of teens and adults who could have their very own computer to learn programming on as well as interfacing it to their own peripherals.
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Tramiel may have even taught Gates cutthroat practices rather directly. One of Microsoft's first sales was their BASIC language to Commodore. In the naive transaction, Microsoft had no rights. Commodore bought full ownership of the code. They didn't even call it "Microsoft Basic"; instead it was "Pet Basic". I've read that this bugged Gates tremendously. Years later, the tables were turned, though, and the student became the master. Commodore desperately wanted a version of Microsoft Basic for the upcoming Amiga. Microsoft declined, until Commodore agreed to credit the BASIC within the then-current Commodore 128 as "Microsoft Basic", which users ended up seeing at every (non-CP/M) boot up.
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Oh, and Jack, RIP.
-- Rich
* Thresholds CoH: What to do When
* My Comics Collection
All true. But the price war he started led to a lot of people owning C64s, over 20 million.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
For those too young to remember, he ran Commodore International which, when he was there, brought us the Commodore PET, the Commodore Vic-20 and the Commodore 64 which in my opinion was the PC that unleashed programmers and tinkerers of all ages due to it's low price, especially by the late 80s.
After being forced out of Commodore he reconstituted Atari and they came out with the Atari ST.
He wasn't an engineer like Woz or a visionary like Jobs or a cutthroat businessman like Gates but he ended up making computers very affordable which in turn led to a generation of teens and adults who could have their very own computer to learn programming on as well as interfacing it to their own peripherals.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet