👩🏿‍⚕️ 🏠 🤳🏽 War 68000, Part 2: Jack Returns 🙏🏾 🕵️ 🌡️

Jack Tramel, director of a computer company, which I just want to compare with Darth Vader. I wonder why?..

Allowing the deadline for signing a licensing agreement with Atari, March 31, 1984, to pass by, David Morse was insanely risky. If he couldn’t find a way to scrape together $ 500,000 with interest to pay off the loan, Atari could get the Amiga chipset at its disposal for free, and Amiga would almost certainly go broke. Therefore, all the activity at Amiga revolved around preparing the Lorraine computer for the summer Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Chicago, which was due to start on June 3. The summer CES was supposed to be the last chance for Amiga, a desperate attempt to interest someone - anyone - with their offers so much as to get more than half a million dollars just for a start, just to prevent Atari from doing the whole thing worthless.

Closer to the first days of the exhibition, the Lorraine computer was already a much more combed version of the device compared to what the company showed at the winter CES in January, although it was still very far from the finished computer. Special Jay Miner chips have already been reduced in size and imprinted from silicon, significantly increasing the reliability of the machine and reducing its size. The long-standing identity crisis of Lorraine has also almost become a thing of the past - the collapse of the video game industry and the Macintosh example have convinced everyone that they need to make a computer, not a game console. Therefore, programmers such as Karl Sassenrath, Dale Luck and R.J. Mikal have already begun working on a suitable operating system. The Amiga computer had to do everything the Mac could, but in stunning colors and with multitasking support.However, this dream was still very far from realization. So far, Lorraine could only be managed through the Sage IV workstation connected to it.

With lead programmer Bob Pariso as an entertainer, Amiga gave at her booth at the summer CES, which could only be reached by invitation, the best view possible. The speech synthesis library written by the company's programmers really liked the people; the audience rejoiced, shouting phrases that Lorraine was asked to repeat in a female or male voice. However, the Boing demo, this time radically improved, became the favorite of the show again. This time, the ball jumped not only up and down, but also to the sides, and sampled sound effects rattled the crowd, rattling now in one speaker, then in another, which created a realistic sound environment. An impressive demonstration of the stereo sound capabilities of the "Paul" microchip went beyond the Amiga closed booth, penetrating the crowded corridors of the exhibition,due to which visitors looked around in fear, looking for a source of noise.

But, in addition to the advantages demonstrated during a luxurious presentation, the company also began to inspire much more confidence in itself, showing that its chipset is able to work as a real computer - and all due to the fact that the company simply survived and returned to the next CES. That month, a whole flock of computer industry heavyweights passed through the Amiga booth: Sony, Hewlett Packard, Philips, Silicon Graphics, Apple. Eternal minimalist Steve Jobs is said to have criticized Lorraine as an overly complex device containing too many newfangled components. The number and quality of Amiga press reviews has also increased significantly. The country's largest computer magazine at that time, Compute !, enthusiastically wrote that Lorraine had become “perhaps the most advanced personal computer of all time,” “the beginning of a whole new generation,”and "compared to which the IBM PC seems like a four-step calculator." Still, Amiga left the show without what she needed most: without a reliable alternative to Atari. Only a few weeks remained until the end of the term, and the future looked bleak. And then they called the company from Commodore.

In order to understand the reasons for this call, you must first return on January 13, 1984, on the day of the mysterious meeting of the board of directors at Commodore, which made the director of the company, Jack Tramell , so crazy that he shot out of the building with a squeal of tires and pulled out of the parking lot, and never came back. Of the vague press statements made right after the official “divorce,” Tramal said he was planning to take a break and think about the next steps. And at that time, he and his wife decided to travel for a year in order to use all the vacation services that had accumulated over many years.

And at that time, apparently, he himself believed in what he was saying. By April, he and his wife Helen had already reached Sri Lanka. However, after that it turned out that he was already fed up with rest. They returned to the United States so that Jack could start a new venture, which he called simply Tramel Technology. He changed the spelling of his name with Tramiel, because he was always enraged by the way most Americans pronounced the last syllable [ this is when you consider that at birth in Poland he was given the name Jacek Třmel / approx. perev.]. He planned to assemble an investment, team, and create a Commodore 64 follower for the mass market. And in the process, he hoped to wipe the nose of Commodore and the chairman of the board of directors, with whom he always had, to put it mildly, strained relations. Tramel always treated business as a war, but now it has become personal for him too.

To run Tramel Technology, he needed people, and almost all the people he knew and trusted were still working at Commodore. As a result, Tramel began shamelessly luring his old favorites to him. April and May of that year were marked by a mass exodus from the Commodore - it seemed that almost every second employee quit and moved to a new place. The first was Jack's son, Sam; It seemed to many that Jack simply wanted to turn Commodore into a family business, which is why he left the company. It was followed by: Tony Takai, the genius of the Japanese division of Commodore; John Figans, who was to finish the program for the company's new computer, Plus / 4; Neil Harris, a programmer who wrote many of the most popular games for the VIC-20; Ira Velinski, technologist; Lloyd Taylor, nicknamed Red, President of Technology; Bernie Witterfinancial vice president; Sam Chin, financial manager; Joe Spiteri and David Carlone, Production Specialists; Greg Pratt, Operations Vice President. The most painful thing was the departure of the chief engineer Shiraz Shivji and his three key engineers: Arthur Morgan, John Hoenig and Douglas Renn.

, Commodore

As a result of the mass exodus, the directors even voted against the candidacy to replace Tremel, who was personally picked up by Irving Gould. The former director of the steel mill, Marshall Smith, was banal to match his own name. The loss of talented engineers only exacerbated the already difficult situation of Commodore. As Plus / 4, a large new computer from Commodore, demonstrated in 1984, almost everything was squeezed out of 8-bit technology. The problem was that the company's engineers did not have experience with anything else. Tramel always kept the lowest possible number of engineers - this, in particular, explains why they did not have any new projects besides the disappointing Plus / 4 and his even more disappointing younger brother Commodore 16. And after the loss of four more key employees, the situation was very grim .

Therefore, Amiga seemed so attractive. At first, Commodore, like Atari before it, simply wanted to get a license for the Amiga chipset, and in the process, also take advantage of Amiga's weaknesses to force the company into a deal that is not profitable for it. However, a few days after the start of negotiations, the company's position began to change. They saw not only a fantastic chipset, but also a fantastic group of programmers and electronic engineers who were well acquainted with just such 16-bit technology of the next generation, with which the engineers who remained in the Commodore lacked familiarity. So why not just buy an Amiga?

On June 29, David Morse unexpectedly appeared at the Atari headquarters reception and demanded a meeting with his main contact at the company, John Farrand. Farrand had already begun to suspect something; in the past two weeks, Morse did not answer his calls and always found excuses in order not to meet with him personally. However, he was not ready for what would happen next. Morse said that he came to return him $ 500,000 with interest, and end their cooperation. Then he practically put the check in his hands, first confused, and then angry, John Farrand. Two minutes later he left.

The check, of course, was issued by Commodore as a goodwill gesture in negotiations with Amiga, and also in order to prevent Atari from taking back the technology that the latter had already seriously set its sights on. Six weeks later, negotiations between Commodore and Amiga ended with the first buying the second for $ 27 million. David Morse got his miracle. His investors and employees made good money thanks to faith in him. And most importantly, his team of young geniuses got a chance to turn the Miner chipset into their own real computer, which they, for the most part, will design at their discretion.

It is worth briefly dwelling on this impudent act, which Morse succeeded. Pressed against the wall by Atari, a company that scented blood in water, he took money from her, used it to finish the chipset and Lorraine was enough to make a deal with their main enemy, and then paid off Atari and left. As a result, the entire operation became worthy of the fraudulent scheme described in the film " Scam ." It is not surprising that the Atari leadership, where they had already begun to develop a motherboard for a game console for this chipset, was furious. But still, Atari, which will soon try to get even for this trick, will no longer be the same company that Morse negotiated in March. Confused? To understand this, again we need to go back a little.

Perhaps in 1984 Atari might have seemed like a Goliath compared to David-Amiga, but it cannot be said that the former was doing well on the financial front. Not at all. The previous year was a failure, and was marked by the loss of more than half a billion dollars due to the crisis in the gaming industry . Director Ray Kassar has gone under a hail of accusations of insider trading, management errors and incompetence - no one is turning away from geeks like Wall Street so quickly. Now his follower, cigarette tycoon James Morgan, was trying to cope with the situation by firing employees and closing offices almost one per week. The parent company Warner Communications, believing that the video game bubble really did, just wanted to get rid of Atari as quickly and painlessly as possible.

In the meantime, Jack Tramel became a frequent visitor to Silicon Valley, and was looking there for businesses and technologies that he could buy to launch his Tramel Technology company. He was one of Amiga's many visitors during that period, although negotiations did not go too far back then. And in June, Warner Director called him to ask if he would be interested in an offer to take Atari from them.

The deal was amazingly fast. Tramel did not undertake to buy Atari itself, but the assets of its units related to home computers and game consoles. Arcade slot machines did not interest him. These assets included property, trademarks, intellectual property, equipment, manufactured products, and, importantly, employees. Amazing, but he did not have to pay a dime in advance - they agreed on $ 240 million in long-term cash obligations and 32% in Tramel Technology. Warner almost grabbed the company from the hands of Morgan, who one day discussed new products and changes in strategy, and the next day he received an order to move out of his office to give way to Tramel. July 1, just two days after Morse returned $ 500,000, the largest part of Atari, the company,which just a couple of years earlier was the fastest growing company in US history, passed into the ownership of the tiny Tramel Technology, which at that time was managed from apartments located in some dubious area of the city. Within a few days, Tramel renamed Tramel Technology to Atari Corporation. From now on, there will be two Atari for many years: Atari Corporation, a manufacturer of home computers and game consoles, and Atari Games, a manufacturer of gaming machines. It will take a long time to unravel their connection; for some time their headquarters will even be in the same building.Within a few days, Tramel renamed Tramel Technology to Atari Corporation. From now on, there will be two Atari for many years: Atari Corporation, a manufacturer of home computers and game consoles, and Atari Games, a manufacturer of gaming machines. It will take a long time to unravel their connection; for some time their headquarters will even be in the same building.Within a few days, Tramel renamed Tramel Technology to Atari Corporation. From now on, there will be two Atari for many years: Atari Corporation, a manufacturer of home computers and game consoles, and Atari Games, a manufacturer of gaming machines. It will take a long time to unravel their connection; for some time their headquarters will even be in the same building.

Between Commodore and the new Atari, Jack Tramell immediately began legal problems. The first salvo was fired by Commodore, suing Shiraz Shivji and his fellow engineers. Commodore stated that when they deserted to join Tramel, they took with them a huge amount of technical documentation under the guise of “personal items”. A court order issued at Commodore’s request essentially prohibited them from doing any work for Tramel, which paralyzed his plans for a new computer for several weeks. As a result, Shivji and the company returned the collection of backup tapes, which they took from the central Commodore server, on which various schemes and other documents were stored. Perhaps when you consider what kind of computer they were going to do, it’s significantthat many of these documents related to the Commodore 900 - a prototype Unix-based workstation and a 16-bit Zilog Z8000 processor that was never made.

, Atari

If Tramel wanted to take revenge, then he soon presented himself with a rather good opportunity at first glance. Looking through the company's documents in early August, Leonard, the son of Jack, stumbled on an agreement with Amiga, found out about a check of $ 500,000, and told his father about it. Jack Tramel, who had long regarded the courts as just another battlefield in his concept of “business is war”, considered this a good opportunity. However, it was difficult to figure out who should own the canceled contract - Atari Games (with slot machines), Warner or its new Atari Corporation. Quick negotiations showed its clear advantage. Warner, apparently, did not know anything about the old agreement and what it could mean for the future of Atari if everything went according to plan. On August 13, when Commodore and Amiga signed contracts and completed the Amiga acquisition process,and Shivji's engineers started working again on what was now about to turn into the next-generation Atari computer, Atari filed a lawsuit against Amiga and David Morse in the Santa Clara Supreme Court, alleging contract fraud. The company demanded that the activities of Amiga, the new division of Commodore, be banned until the end of the proceedings - this would stall the work for a much longer period than a lawsuit against Shivji and the company.than legal action against Shivji and company.than legal action against Shivji and company.

Fortunately for Commodore, an injunction was not obtained. However, the unleashed legal battle will stretch for more than two and a half years. In early 1985, Atari significantly expanded the scope of its lawsuit, making Commodore, Amiga, and Morse joint defendants - essentially accusing them of conspiracy. Atari also added a bunch of patent applications, the most important of which was related to the Atari 400 and 800 patent, developed by Jem Miner in the late 1970s. And these schemes really had a lot in common with the chipset that was developed at Amiga. For this, Miner was added to the lawsuit as another defendant. All this catastrophe completely ended only in March 1987 by agreement of the parties, the details of which were never published. However, according to rumors, Commodore eventually lost, she had to pay Atari legal fees and additional,although unknown to us, the amount of money.

What did all this mean? A thorough analysis of the document of March 1984 shows that Amiga and Morse did not violate the letters of the agreements, that they had every right to return the Atari loan and not to conclude any more transactions. Atari's statements were more relevant to the spirit of these conventions. And specifically to the only line in the agreement signed by Morse, which could easily be considered simply a template phrase in the midst of carefully constructed legal jargon: "Amiga and Atari agree to negotiate under the principle of good faith [to act in good faith] regarding the license agreement."

It’s hard to argue with Atari’s claims that, since signing the contract, Morse has not respected the principle of good faith. The whole deal was a desperate gambit, conducted in an attempt to find enough working capital so that Amiga could work for a few more months and find another benefactor - no more, no less. Morse took time, drove by the nose and pretended to be almost three months, trying to find a more suitable patron. Atari claimed that he had verbally agreed with a list of companies to which he promised not to sell Amiga under any circumstances, while negotiating with one of the most notable companies on this list, Commodore. And when he slipped the check into Farrand’s hands to break off their relationship, Atari claimed he did it under the far-fetched pretext that the chips supposedly didn’t work as they should,despite the fact that the whole world saw a demonstration of their work just a few weeks earlier at the summer CES. So there wasn’t any special “good faith” there.

And yet, from my point of view, Morse’s actions do not look clearly unethical. It's hard to get mad at Morse for cheating on a company that apparently tried to cheat on her own. The latter, taking advantage of the weakness of his position, harnessed him to a terrible license agreement, issued an absurdly short deadline and used legal leverage so as not to give him any hope of concluding a reasonable and fair agreement. The protocol of intent signed by him is more like an ultimatum than a starting point for negotiations. John Farrand and other Atari employees said in court that they had no intention of using their legal rights and taking away the Amiga chipset without paying anything for it, even if Morse had not returned the money to them on time. However, these statements should be skeptical,especially given the desperate situation that Atari’s business has found itself in. It would be irresponsible for Morse, as the director of the company, to entrust the fate of his company to third parties only on the basis of their oral statements. If Atari really wanted to buy a chipset and arrange a fair and profitable transaction for both parties, then it would be better not to start negotiations with an absurdly short three-week period, which immediately put Morse in an uncomfortable position.then she would have been better off not starting the negotiations with an absurdly short three-week period, which immediately put Morse in an uncomfortable position.then she would have been better off not starting the negotiations with an absurdly short three-week period, which immediately put Morse in an uncomfortable position.

But this is still my point of view. The opinions of other people who have studied this problem may differ - and differ - from mine. I just would like to warn you that you do not base your opinion on the fact that Atari in the end, according to the majority, won the court. Even if you do not take into account the fact that legal and moral rights may not coincide, you need to remember that many additional problems were associated with this case. Of particular importance to me is the fact that Atari had a rather convincing argument in the statement that Jay Miner had misused their patents. The latter described the equipment for outputting images, unpleasantly similar to the Amiga chipset, up to the graphic coprocessor, very similar in shape and functionality to Agnus. That's all I can say,lacking data on the final agreement of the companies.

After the legal battle began, activity increased on the front of computer manufacturing, which would later be called Atari ST . Shivji was initially crazy about the peculiar line of processors from National Semiconductor called NS32000s, the first truly 32-bit CPU in the history of the industry. When in reality he showed himself to be much less impressive than on paper, he quickly switched to Motorola 68000, already working inside Apple Lisa, Macintosh and Amiga Lorraine. Usually it is called a 16-bit chip, but the 68000 was a kind of hybrid of 16- and 32-bit, which is why the computer was called ST - it stands for Sixteen / Thirty-two Bit [sixteen / thirty-two bits]. And Shivji even before the purchase of Atari by Tremel knew perfectly well what kind of computer he wanted to make:

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Jack Tramel and his sons condescended to Atari and with ruthless effectiveness began to separate the grains from the chaff. A huge number of employees were thrown out of the company, which over the past year has been several times reduced. The last victims of the abbreviations often found out indirectly, studying lists of names at general meetings, and sometimes they were swept away from impressions received in interviews lasting no more than five minutes. The result was simple: they were looking for someone who could throw all their efforts into creating a new and complex computer. Those who lacked skills and determination were thrown out. Tramel sold equipment, even old desks, to get fast working capital and throw them at ST development. Given the computer from Amiga and you never know what other companies could develop, speed was a priority.He expected his engineers, who began work in August, not having anything more on hand than the approximate parameters set by Shivji, to create a prototype ready for demonstration by the next CES in January.

The priority on the computer that Shivji imagined should be graphics capabilities. Therefore, electronic engineers spent most of the time developing a special video chip with support for resolutions up to 640 × 400, although only in black and white; the low-resolution mode 320 × 200, which was supposed to become more typical for games, had to support up to 16 colors simultaneously from a palette of 512 colors. In addition to this chip, the developers chose everything else to save time to the maximum from what was already on the market. This, for example, is a three-voice sound chip from General Instrument, which has already been used in the popular Apple II Mockingboard sound card, as well as in various game consoles and slot machines. The most unusual feature of ST will be the built-in MIDI interface,allowing you to control a synthesizer with MIDI support without additional equipment. It was a strange luxury, approved by Tramel, given that he was known for his requirements to include only the most necessary equipment in computers in order to minimize costs.

Perhaps the MIDI interface was allowed to turn on because of what happened at a typical product demonstration. The sellers took it as a fashion to play MIDI music, as it were on the ST itself, when in fact the sounds were made by a synthesizer hidden under a table. As a result, it was very easy for the observer to miss the mention of the computer having a MIDI interface and to assume that the ST independently produces music. And, of course, after the release of the Macintosh ST, I simply had to go out with a mouse and an OS that supports working with it.

It was the last point that became the main problem. If a sufficiently conservative hardware for ST could be assembled quickly enough, then the task of writing a modern OS with a graphical interface for a new computer was comparable to that of Hercules. Apple, for example, worked on the Macintosh OS for several years, and when the Mac came out, it was still full of bugs and disappointing bugs. This time, Tramel could no longer simply shove the PET BASIC ROM system into the machine, as he had done in the case of Commodore 64. He needed a real operating system, and quickly. Where to get it?

The solution to the problem was found in an unexpected place: at Digital Research, whose OS is CP / Mjoyfully losing the last remaining market shares of Microsoft's unstoppable MS-DOS. Then Digital took the “you can't win - join” approach, and actively developed a window manager, very similar to the one on the Mac, capable of working in both MS-DOS and CP / M. It was called GEM from the Graphical Environment Manager. GEM was just one example of many similar shells that appeared by 1985, and were trying to transfer Mac magic to the banal beige world of IBM clones. Among them was the original Microsoft Windows 1.0 - another product that Tramel briefly considered as a licensing candidate for ST. Digital got the advantage, because they promised to sell the license for both GEM and its substrate CP / M, very cheap - which always pleased Jack Tramel.The only problem was that this system only worked on Intel processors, but not on 68,000.

Atari, - Digital Research , GEM ST.

While Shivji and his electronics engineers designed iron, a dozen Atari star programmers moved 110 miles off the coast of California from Silicon Valley to Monterey's Surfer Paradise, where Digital Research was based. The Atari team worked with a prototype consisting of a jumble of wires that often refused to work for reasons other than software. It existed under conditions in which Digital Research employees looked down on them, considering them mostly programmers who wrote games. The developers were tormented with the Digital Research code for the Intel processor, which itself was actively developing, and as a result, constantly changing. And yet they were able to port a sufficient portion of CP / M and GEM to ST for a few months so that Atari could demonstrate five of its prototypes,featured by Tramel at the CES in Las Vegas in January. Shivji wrote:

, , , , , . . , . CES, 85% . . VAX, .

At the exhibition, Tramel just mocked his competitors, enjoying the new ST computer and the new Atari motto: “Opportunities without cost”. Atari paid for several billboards along the road from the airport to the Las Vegas Strip, reminiscent of the old advertising company Burma-Shave [ an American brand of shaving cream that posted funny rhyming ads along the roads / approx. perev. ].

PCjr, $ 599: IBM, were you wrong about the size of the price?
Macintosh, $ 2,195: Why is Apple a piece of this size?
Atari believes everyone else is not equal to her.
Welcome to Atari - Regards, Jack *

[ at the beginning of the Las Vegas Strip is the famous sign “Welcome to the fabulous Las Vegas” / approx. perev. ]

Specialized journalists desperately looking for a car that could stir the slowing down revolution of home computers, and as a result, the various publications for which they worked, swallowed the bait. The ST computer - or, as the press gently christened it, the Jackintosh - was the highlight of the program. “At first glance,” Compute! Magazine admiredly wrote, “it's hard to tell the GEM screen from the Mac screen,” with the exception of, of course, color graphics. There was another clear difference - the retail price of ST with 512 K of memory and a monitor did not exceed $ 1000, which amounted to less than a third of the cost of an equivalent Macintosh computer.

But, despite all the pomp of reviews, Atari Tramel almost went bankrupt a few months after the exhibition. Atari gaming consoles and the 8-bit line of home computers have almost died from a commercial point of view, crushed by the crisis in the gaming industry and Commodore 64, respectively. Therefore, almost no incoming cash flows were observed. But an international corporation cannot be kept afloat long enough, selling only old office furniture. Meanwhile, the programming team in Monterey had a serious crisis - they realized that CP / M simply could not work as the basis for GEM on ST. As a result, they ported and completed the abandoned Digital Research project, creating on its basis GEMDOS, or, as it will be called later, TOS: Tramiel Operating System. They felt incredible pressuresince their software remained the only factor delaying the release of ST, and Tramel constantly breathed in the back of his head. One of the programmers, Landon Dyer, told a story that perfectly describes the character of Jack Tramel:

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I got it. And he didn’t even have to use the Force.

Somehow they did it. ST went into production in June 1985. The very first copies went on sale not in the USA, where there was some hitch with receiving a certificate from the FCC, but in Germany. It suited Tramel anyway, emphasizing his ideas about an international computer platform. And ST really achieved overwhelming success in Germany and the rest of Europe, and not only as a home computer and gaming platform, but also as an affordable computer for small businesses - ST could not penetrate any last market at home. Sales on both continents went satisfactorily, and the press for the most part continued to pour enthusiasm.

Atari 520ST, the first of many computers in the line

And these praises cannot be called undeserved. If ST had some flaws, the inevitable consequences of a hasty development within the meager budget, then its advantages outweighed. It was created by a group of smart and practical people, and as a result, we got a very good computer for the money. GEM certainly worked much better than a hastily made port with a completely different architecture - and perhaps even better than its short-lived equivalent from Amiga, Workbench. The ST turned out to be exactly what Jack Tramel promised: a computer of ridiculously great features at a low price. This made it possible to forgive the "Jackintosh" for those features by which he did not reach the real Macintosh - for example, the angular design of the case. None of Tramel’s computers would win a design award,that Apple’s computers were already rowing them with a shovel. Materials and workmanship, as well as computer specifications, also did not stand next to the Mac. The historical legacy of ST, which has remained with us to this day is tragic in the sense that we did not remember it for its significant merits. The tragedy of ST is that it was just a very good machine, while its two competitors based on 68,000, Apple Macintosh and Commodore Amiga became pioneers of computer technology and even in some way of life, familiar to us today.that he was just a very good machine, while his two competitors based on 68000, Apple Macintosh and Commodore Amiga became pioneers of computer technology and even in some way of life style familiar to us today.that he was just a very good machine, while his two competitors based on 68000, Apple Macintosh and Commodore Amiga became pioneers of computer technology and even in some way of life style familiar to us today.

Speaking of which, what was the role of Commodore in this whole story? This question was asked by many journalists. Commodore appeared in January 1985 on CES, but only with the new 8-bit computer, the last of this line: Commodore 128. It was a strange Frankenstein hybrid that brought together the entire decade-long history of developing 8-bit machines, including both microprocessors that revolutionized PC: Zilog Z-80 and MOS 6502 (the latter was a little modified and repackaged 8502). They allowed you to work in three independent modes - CP / M, a mode 99.9% compatible with Commodore 64 and a new unique 128th mode. The latter was supposed to correct the most significant shortcomings of the 64th model, including the lack of a 80-column mode, the disgusting BASIC, which did not give access to the graphic and sound capabilities of the machine (BASIC 7.The 128th model, on the contrary, was one of the best 8-bit BASIC examples ever released), and the absurdly slow disk drives (the 128th transferred data 6-7 times faster than 64). And, despite the fact that ST in the reports on the exhibition almost overshadowed the 128th, it can still achieve significant commercial success, and sell about 4 million copies over the next 4 years.

And yet it was obvious even to contemporaries that the Commodore 128 represented the past, was the culmination of a line that began in 1977 with Commodore PET. What about the future? What about Amiga? Although Tramel and his sons talked about their plans for the ST line to everyone, Commodore strangely withheld information about what was happening at the company. The press had to deal with rumors and hints for the most part: Commodore sent a large number of prototypes to a large number of large software developers, in particular, Electronic Arts; graphics have become even better since the show at CES; Commodore plans to make a loud announcement tomorrow, in a week, in a month. The Amiga computer has become a unicorn for the computing industry, which is often discussed but rarely seen. And this, of course, only strengthened the veil of secrecy.How will he show himself in comparison with Jackintosh and Macintosh? What will he do? How much is it? What will he be like? And why the hell is he lingering so much? A month after Atari started sending ST to customers - and this computer went from idea to production much faster than Commodore needed just to complete its 68000-based computer - people finally started to get some answers to their questions .began to receive some answers to their questions.began to receive some answers to their questions.

War 68000, Part 2: Jack Returns

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