this topic of how 'Jack Tramiel invest (loaned) $500.000 in Amiga to get chips for his new Atari computer' spread like a plague all over internet.
Please read complete true story of events before continue - it is part from Curt Vendel and Marty Goldberg book "Atari Inc: Business is Fun"
Atari In. Amiga Corp. contract (PDF)
It bother me much so I would like use this topic to 1) write down list of all URLs where this lies exist and 2) to make list of all authors who claim this lie 3) to ask all of you to help me assembling and documenting these authors and URLs (I add screenshots as attachment).
Code: Select all
No.) Publishing date (DD.MM.YYYY.), [b]author (nickname), [i]title, [b]site,
url
[list][size=85]quote
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notes1) 22.10.2007. Jeremy Reimer "A history of the Amiga, part 4: Enter Commodore" www.ArsTechnica.com
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/10/ ... ore-years/
- "Before Tramiel had left, Commodore had already engaged in halfhearted talks to purchase the struggling Amiga, Inc., but nothing had come from them. Atari was developing a new personal computer and game console and wanted access to the Amiga chipset. The initial offer was for $3 a share and kept getting lower. When it hit 98¢ per share, both sides walked away from the table. It was at this point that Atari "loaned" Amiga $500,000 to continue operations for a few more months.
This poisonous deal was put together by none other than Jack Tramiel, who had managed to purchase Atari's computer division after being kicked out of Commodore. "
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27.10.2016. I email author. He response: "My source for Tramiel being behind the deal was Brian Bagnall's book Commodore: On the Edge, and he cites other sources for that incident. Out of curiosity, if Tramiel wasn't behind the deal, who was?". I send a link to book paragraph 'Atari Inc: Business is Fun' (by Curt V. and Marty G.) he replay: "I haven't read the book you linked, but I will order it. It's too bad there isn't an ebook version available."
more:
"In the end, as is often the case when battling your financiers, the money people won. Jack Tramiel was forced out of his own company by the board of directors in late 1983."
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Jack was not " forced out by the board of directors" - after confronting and not finding mutual solution with Irvin Gould, he leave company.
2) 7.1.2017. Zach Weddington "Viva Amiga" documentary www.amigafilm.com
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6398570/
- @15:25 R J Mical start his usual story: "He have this great technology (Amiga), created this awesome new computer that seemed unreal..." (yata yata yata... usual stuff if you watch R J Mical before...) and he continue "if company is going to stay afloat, we would have to sell it to the someone"
than movie continue and Jack Tramiel picture appear in front of Atari booth !!! WTF !?!
and David (Dave) Needle starts: "we had made some deals with Atari..." while Jack Tramiel picture is still on screen implying that they made deal with Jack Tramiel!
Than movie show this fake "news paper article" (lifeschool found it is fake):
3) unknown date Exodus-Zandex "A brief history of the Amiga" www.mobygames.com
http://www.mobygames.com/featured_artic ... ction,101/
"Due to lack of money, the team was trying to find a company to buy their technology and to employ them. Many companies were interested in the custom chips, including Sony, Apple, Phillips, and HP."
- remark: Sony, Apple, Phillips, and HP TURNDOWN Amiga. They WAS NOT interested in Amiga.
"Atari's president, Jack Tramiel lent Amiga Inc. $1,000,000 to be paid back one month later. When the month ended, it became apparent that Amiga Inc. would not be able to pay him back, so he offered 98 cents per share for the company."
4) unknown date unknown "The AMIGA or the Multimedia Revolution" pcmuseum.tripod.com
http://pcmuseum.tripod.com/multirev.html
"Atari's president, Jack Tramiel, who had just left Commodore, because he purchased Atari secretly, was trying to get his revenge by buying Amiga inc. He lent Amiga Inc. $1,000,000, to be payed back one month later. When the month was almost up, it became apparent that Amiga Inc. would not be able to pay Jack Tramiel back, so he offered .98 cents per share for the company. Amiga Inc. looked for someone else to buy them. Just 2 days before the deadline, Commodore came in and began to talk to Amiga Inc."
5) unknown date unknown "Retro Home Computers – Commodore Amiga 1000" egames.com
http://play.egames.com/commodore-amiga- ... -computer/
"Tramiel purchased the Atari Consumer Division subsidiary from Time-Warner, he folded into Tramiel Technology Ltd (TTL), which was then renamed in to Atari Inc. ... Tramiel saw Lorraine as a golden opportunity to get a new advanced technology without spending any money or time on research and design. He made an extremely low offer to buy the outstanding stock of Amiga Inc. and gain access to the Lorraine technology behind the computer. Being desperate this offer was tentatively accepted by the Amiga Company. ... Negotiations between Atari (Time Warner) and Amiga Inc started in the Fall of 1983. Negotiations continued with Amiga during the January 1984 CES and signed in early March of 1984. The deal was for Warner and Atari to join the already several investors Amiga had, by providing a $500,000 payment."
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Tramiel bought part of Atari Inc. and Tramel Technology Ltd (TTL) was renamed to Atari Corp.
Entire article is complete mess!
TRUE STORYES: (opposite to above. Here are links that get story about Jack Tramiel and Amiga right)
1) 19.05.2016. Anthony Caulfield, Nicola Caulfield "From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years" www.frombedroomstobillions.com
http://www.frombedroomstobillions.com/amiga at 46min 50sec
- search for movie...
http://lowendmac.com/2016/the-amiga-sto ... commodore/
- However, Amiga was unable to find an investor to help complete the project.
Atari was also present during the show and was impressed by Lorraine. Instead of offering to invest in the company outright, Atari offered a $500,000 loan in exchange for Lorraine’s motherboard design. The loan would have to be paid back in one month, and if Amiga was unable to repay the loan, the entire Lorraine project would be forfeited to Atari.
Nobody at Amiga liked the plan, but there was no alternative, so the company accepted. Atari knew that Amiga wouldn’t be able to cover the loan and would be forced to cede Lorraine for a fraction of its real price.
Many of the engineers at Amiga feared that Atari had no interest in the team itself, only in the chipset, which would be used to thwart Commodore’s plans to release a 16-bit home Unix computer.
Commodore to the Rescue
Jack Tramiel in a corporate coup at Commodore, Jack Tramiel walked out of the company with much of its engineering staff and bought Atari from Time Warner. He used the Amiga deal to get back at Commodore and then sued the company for interfering with the deal. The unsuccessful suit served only to pique Commodore’s interest in Amiga’s technologies.
Commodore bought Amiga and repaid Atari’s loan just days before it was due. Lorraine was renamed Amiga and would be released in one year.
A bevy of industry heavyweights traipsed through Amiga’s booth that June: Sony, Hewlett Packard, Philips, Silicon Graphics, Apple. (Steve Jobs, ever the minimalist, allegedly scoffed at the Lorraine as over-engineered, containing too much fancy hardware for its own good.) The quantity and quality of Amiga’s write-ups in the trade press also increased significantly. Compute!, the biggest general-interest computing magazine in the country, raved that the Lorraine was “possibly the most advanced personal computer ever,” “the beginning of a completely new generation,” and “enough to make an IBM PC look like a four-function calculator.” Still, Amiga left the show without the thing they needed most: a viable alternative to Atari. With just a few weeks to go, their future looked grim. And then Commodore called.
To understand the reasons behind that phone call, we have to return to January 13, 1984, the day of that mysterious board meeting at Commodore that outraged their CEO Jack Tramiel so egregiously as to send him storming out of the building and burning rubber out of the parking lot, never to return. In his noncommittal statements to the press immediately after the divorce was made official, Tramiel said he planned to take some time to consider his next move. For now, he and his wife were going to spend a year traveling the world, to make up for all the vacations they had skipped over the course of his long career.
At the time that he said it, he seems to have meant it. He and wife Helen made it as far as Sri Lanka by April. But by that point he’d already had all he could take of the life of leisure. He and Helen returned to the United States so Jack could start a new venture to be called simply Tramel Technology. (The spelling of the name was changed to reflect the proper pronunciation of Tramiel’s last name; most Americans’ habit of mispronouncing the last syllable had always driven him crazy.) His plan was to scrape together funding and a team and build the mass-market successor to the Commodore 64.
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Although Jimmy Maher fail to mention that Steve Ross from Warner Communication was one who called Jack while he was on trip and urge him to short the trip and to come back to USA so they could negotiate about Warner problem: Atari Inc. (which lose more than million $ per day for two quarters in a row!)
and my personal note regarding Jimmy attitude: - it is interesting how he interpreted data from Marty Goldberg differently.
Example: in comments at http://www.filfre.net/2015/04/the-68000 ... k-is-back/ Jimmy Maher wrote: "Finally, Marty Goldberg’s once again shared a lot of insights and information on the legal battle between Atari and Commodore, including some extracts from actual court transcripts, although once again our conclusions about it are quite different."
Also please note Jimmy Maher attitude toward Jack Tramiel: "and even more nefarious deeds by our favorite villain around these parts, Jack Tramiel" http://www.filfre.net/2016/11/21/ - just to understand his writing, and here and there, twisting the "true" in favor of Amiga/Commodore.
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Stay tuned. More to come. Please add if you have more.
Please check great timeline of Tramel Technology Ltd. and Atari Corporation by Michael D. Current
Screenshots of FALSE claim websites:
