A legendary man in the home and small business computer field died this past Sunday, Jack Tramiel. Founder of Commodore. He made history with the PET, VIC-20 and Commodore 64.
My first computer was a VIC-20. Later I got a C-64, and eventually a C-128. After that point the writing was on the wall for the general computing field, IBM-PC style computers were mainstream from that point forward, so I had to leave the Commodore world behind.
I certainly hope the world makes as big a deal about the loss of Jack Tramiel, as they recently have for Steve Jobs. Personally I was far more influenced by Jack and his company than that arrogant and annoying Apple guy. And I believe far more people were influenced early on by Commodore than Apple. Commodore basically disappeared, and Apple eventually found it’s niche markets and obviously did very well. But for people my age, there is no comparison on which of these 2 men influenced more people in the 70’s and 80’s than Jack Tramiel. Even though he wasn’t a show-off and had a need to be as personally famous as his creations, his products influenced the most people during Commodore’s rein in small computing. Commodore’s philosophy was to make computing affordable, unlike some of the competitors of the time. Uncountable people started their computing lives with his products, and learned about computing and programming with his company’s equipment. Not to mention their start in gaming.
A great man in history, Jack Tramiel.
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Commodore computer founder Jack Tramiel dies at 83
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SciTech/20120410/commodore-founder-jack-tramiel-dies-120410/#ixzz1rfEHawJA