Jack Tramiel dies at the age of 83.
It can be easy to lose sight of the fact that the video game industry is still in its infancy, that many of the people that created this form of media are still alive today. Luminaries such as Ralph Baer and Nolan Bushnell are still very much around, as are influential game designers like Shigeru Miyamoto. Sadly, we’re on the verge of beginning to lose some of those important industry founders, and one of those pivotal people has just passed. Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore, died on Sunday at the age of 83.
Tramiel, a Jewish man from Poland, was a survivor of the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz. A young man at the time, Tramiel entered the work program in the infamous death camp, and worked on the construction of the Autobahn roadway.
After the war, he spent some time in the U.S. Army where he learned how to repair typewriters. He would go on to open his own typewriter repair store in the Bronx and put his knowledge to work.
In 1955, Tramiel founded Commodore International in Toronto. The early days of the company were spent assembling typewriters, but the forward thinking business man saw the potential of digital calculators, and partnered with Casio in the 60s.
Jack Tramiel had a reputation for being a ruthless business man, and referred to his business practices as “the religion”. A man with an explosive temper and prone to firing employees en masse, Tramiel made California magazine’s list of “Bosses from Hell.”
But it was the creation and release of the affordable home computer the VIC-20 in 1981 that cemented Commodore’s place in video game history. Priced below $300, the computer was the first introduction into personal computing for many people. The more famous Commodore 64 was released a year later. While the computer isn’t brought up often when discussing classic video games, the C64 helped many influential game programmers cut their teeth in a time when computers were still very uncommon.
Tramiel resigned from Commodore in 1984, shortly after the famous video game crash of ’83. He purchased the Atari Corporation from Warner Communications in July 1984. His son Sam later became President of the company, and was in charge when the Jaguar was developed and released.
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