8 Apr
2002
8 Apr
'02
8:23 a.m.
The amazing thing about the whole sale of Atari from Warner Comm. to Tramiel
Technologies, LLC was that Warner basically "gave" Atari to the Tramiels.
The Tramiels paid $50 million in cash and $240 million in promissory notes
to Warner. Meanwhile Philips Electronics wanted Atari and the only reason
they did not get it was that they 100% ownership of Atari, while Warner
wanted to retain partial ownership of Atari. In the end Warner still owned
20% of Atari, Inc in stock while retaining full ownership of the coin-op
division (later renamed Atari Games Corp) and the AtariTel
telecommunications division was sold off to Mitsubishi and BSR.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lawrence Walker" <lgwalker(a)mts.net>
To: "Curt Vendel" <curt(a)atarimuseum.com>om>;
<classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2002 9:02 AM
Subject: Re: GEM-OS
lgwalker(a)mts.net
bigwalk_ca(a)yahoo.com
I love it ! Still giggling. This puts various things
into perspective
including the
Amiga legend. Even the Hasbro sale and Atari demise is
related to the
precarious monetory origins of the Tramiel fortune. One would have thought
he came out of the Commodore thing fairly flush
Lawrence
> Here's an interesting history tidbit... the Tramiels were so strapped
for
> cash when they took over Atari, that in order to
pay DRI for the work on
GEM 68K
> for the ST computers.... they paid DRI with the
VAX 11/750 located in
the Atari
> Grass Valley R&D lab which was closed shortly
after. I spoke with Ron
Milner,
> one of the original Atari engineers and he
explained how one day Gary
Kildall
> and crew were in the R&D computer room
disconnecting the Vax and was
explained
> that it was their "payment" for
developing a new OS for the Tramiels.
>
>
> Curt
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lawrence Walker" <lgwalker(a)mts.net>
> To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
> Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2002 2:36 PM
> Subject: Re: GEM-OS
>
>
> > They had a common origin in GEM 1.2. The ST GEM ran on top of TOS.
> > The guy who wrote it for DRI (Lee Lorenzen) was one of the Xerox Parc
> > people who really developed the GUI as well as mouse usage. Jobs
> > glommed his Mac ideas as well as numerous coders from Parc and then
> > sued DRI for copying the Mac. He won and DRI was forced to cripple
later
> > versions and never marketed it very
seriously even tho it preceded
> Windows.
> > For some reason Apple didn't go after the ST or Ventura Publisher
which
> > used GEM. Lorenzen was one of the founders
of Ventura.
> >
> > Lawrence
> >
> > > And thusly Curt Vendel spake:
> > > >
> > > > Don't forget Diamond which is a GEM TOS "look-alike"
version
designed
> for the
> > > > Atari 8bits which original came on disk and then came on Super
> Cartridge
> > > > format. Designed by Reevesoft.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Does the GEM TOS have any relationship to the GEM OS that was
available
for the PC?
(Other then name)
Cheers,
Bryan
lgwalker(a)mts.net
bigwalk_ca(a)yahoo.com