Subj : Re: Jack Tramiel
To   : Simon Geddes
From : Tristan Miller
Date : Thu Jan 30 2020 01:32 pm

Greetings.

On 22/01/2020 01.36, Simon Geddes wrote:
>   Re: Re: Jack Tramiel
>   By: Computer Nerd Kev to Andreas Kohlbach on Tue Jan 21 2020 10:17 pm
>
>  > From a customer's point of view I think you can admire Tramiel much
>  > more than Bill Gates. Tramiel used his ruthless business strategies
>  > to cut costs and therefore be able to profitably sell computers
>  > cheaper than anyone else - opening them up to some home markets that
>  > otherwise might have been priced out. Gates just did his best to
>
> That really came across in the book I was reading. Most of Commodore thought
> they should concetrate on high-end PET-level machines, but Jack drove the 
plan
> 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.


I haven't read The Home Computer Wars, but that's not at all the
impression I got of Tramiel from reading Brian Bagnall's "On the Edge:
The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore" (or whatever it happened to
be called at the time -- the author seems to change the title of the
book with every edition).  Anyways, from that book it was pretty clear
that Tramiel was driven purely by profit and egotism, not any higher
social purpose.  After reading the book (and watching the "Commodore
Story" documentary) I came away with a much less favourable impression
of Tramiel than I had had previously.

Regards,
Tristan

--
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                  Tristan Miller
Free Software developer, ferret herder, logologist
             https://logological.org/
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