27 Jan
2010
27 Jan
'10
10:56 a.m.
On 1/27/2010 11:59 AM, Dan Roganti wrote:
I'm not referring to any timeline. I was only saying how Tramiel has a reputation
ignoring engineering advice. He has a lot of cost cutting tactics as a businessman - some
good, but also some bad = such as slashing valuable personal in the engineering staff.
Although I feel Atari lost out, I would shudder to think what Tramiel might have done
afterwards to Jay Miner's design just to make it cheaper, that's his MO ( I know
this is hindsight). He may be famous for the early Commodore success, but Commodore was
still successful without him--thanks to engineers. If he was so remarkable, how is it that
the Atari ST was just a mediocre design ( I know this just another religious war - but
open your eyes for a minute). Thankfully, we were privileged to see Jay Miner's
achievement as Commodore succeeded without a hatchet job on his design.
I would
wholeheartedly agree with this. I think it would have come
down to whether the fab Atari used being able to produce the OCS chipset
cheaper than the ST reference implementation. If not, then I think Jack
would have buried it, or maybe cherry picked some features that were
most doable.cost effective.
Note, though, that CBM did some major reworking of the Lorraine design
before it ended. As I recall, the initial box was mostly a game
machine, and CBM moved it from that spot.
Not sure what was worse, though. CBM had the engineering chops, but
Marketing and Management was a true Achilles Heel. Atari must have had
better Marketing/Management (The ST was an uninspiring product, but it
sold very well, in my opinion). It's a shame the two companies didn't
find a way to merge when the chips were down.
I could be entirely wrong. Although I tracked the Amiga as a good
Commodore fanboi (I remember buying AmigaWorld from Issue #1 on, even
though I did not have an Amiga), Commodore's Marketing just drove a
number of us 8-bitters away. I think Apple did the same thing with the
Mac introduction, but they are still around, so I guess it made more
sense there. As aresult, my Amiga knowledge is sparse.
Jim