31–40 of 91 posts
Condolences to Mr. Tramiel's family.
Like many here, Jack Tramiel's vision of an affordable yet versatile computer certainly had a huge impact on my life. I keep my old C64 set up in my office to remind me that I have to live up to the expectations of the 10-year-old kid who would stay up late at night trying to make that machine do something amazing. Condolences to Mr. Tramiel's family.
My very first computer was a Commodore 64. My grandfather, the day before he died, said to me that I needed to get into computers as they are the future. He gave me some money that day and that evening he passed away peacefully in his sleep. I bought a C64 with this money and I still have it now.
My grandfather had a similar influence - bought me a Vic 20 as my first computer (optical/laser engineer, programmed in C). At 6 years old I did my very first programming in BASIC on that thing, wrote out a typing tutor from a book called Parrot - had a crudely animated parrot head that made noises when you typed wrong. Couple years back tried to find the Vic 20 in my parent's storage and sadly only the box remains :(
(http://www.syntiac.com/fpga64.html)
etc.
Jack did some amazing things while owner of Atari Corporation too (his son, Sam, was CEO). They helped bring the Lynx to market, developed by Epyx, which was "miles" ahead of other consoles at the time. It had amazing sound, color graphics, and 3D graphics, on a portable in 1989!
Jack did some amazing things while owner of Atari Corporation too (his son, Sam, was CEO). They helped bring the Lynx to market, developed by Epyx, which was "miles" ahead of other consoles at the time. It had amazing sound, color graphics, and 3D graphics, on a portable in 1989!
Wasn't the Atari ST during his tenure as well? That was an excellent little machine that doesn't get the recognition it deserves.
Now that was forward thinking -- brought MIDI sequencing to the masses.
--- [Additional Edit]
The C64 is also getting alot of love today from musicians due to the wonderful soundchip it had.
There is a great company called "MidiBox" that provides kits for you make your own "8bit soundmachines".
I spent about 2 summers at my friends house playing Summer Games on C64 and wrote my first lines of BASIC there, at school I used an Apple II.
We need more people like these guys for the next wave.
READY.
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