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News Computing pioneer Jack Tramiel dies, aged 83

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by brumgrunt, 10 Apr 2012.

  1. brumgrunt

    brumgrunt What's a Dremel?

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  2. Flibblebot

    Flibblebot Smile with me

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    RIP. I remember being so excited at the first electronic calculators (mainly typing 5318008 into it, as I recall), and the C64 was the first machine that got me interested in computers and programming.

    I suppose they'll be playing "Daisy, Daisy" at his funeral?
     
  3. Tynecider

    Tynecider Since ZX81

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    I had a C64 after my speccy48, great fun.
    We had a modem for the C64 too IIRC
     
  4. azrael-

    azrael- I'm special...

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    Huge loss! To me, much more so than Steve Jobs' passing last year. The C64 was what really got me into computing and, by extension, programming.
     
  5. schmidtbag

    schmidtbag What's a Dremel?

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    In terms of history, Tramiel is definitely a greater loss. But considering Apple continued to operate and grow his company, Jobs was kinda the more successful one.
     
  6. feathers

    feathers Minimodder

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    The Zilog Z80 was a far better CPU. 6510 was awful to code.
     
  7. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    End of an era. Thanks for the memories, Jack...

    [​IMG]

    All 64K of them. :rock:
     
  8. guvnar

    guvnar What's a Dremel?

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    Aaaah the memories... happy days but when I show my 11 & 8 year old sons some of the programs that were manually coded in and the games of the day they scoff!

    Kids these days eh?
     
  9. azrael-

    azrael- I'm special...

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    Only if you knew how to access them. ;)
     
  10. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Yeah, they don't know they're born these days.

    I did. I'm a geek. :D
     
  11. Coltch

    Coltch Minimodder

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    "Computers for the masses, not the iDiots."

    I was always envious of my mates who had C64's while I had my Speccy. - that all changed in '84 when I eventually got mine!.

    Who can forget Monty on the run blasting from the SID!

    Sent from Bittech Android app
     
  12. phinix

    phinix RIP Waynio...

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    Actually his real name was Jacek Trzmiel:) After war he emigrated to USA and changed his name, cause original Polish name was very hard to pronounce in English:)

    I remember when I got my first computer - Commodore 128! Sweet stuff, those were the times...
     
  13. nemo

    nemo Foregone Destruction

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    I finished reading "On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore " by Brian Bagnall a couple of months ago. It was a great read, with memorable characters.

    The bits describing the early chip manufacturing process were really amazing ("the engineers were given fresh socks as their own socks invariably had holes, which would cut into the red acetate sheet used to make the chip mask").

    Find an extract chapter pdf here :
    http://www.variantpress.com/contents/ch001.5%20TIM-KIM.pdf

    In those days, when you mastered your games, you learnt how to program your own games :)
     
  14. johnnyboy700

    johnnyboy700 Minimodder

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    So long Jack, I was a Speccy geek back in the day but I did enjoy my Atari ST and even managed to sell it for a good price years after I bought it thanks to its in built music hardware.
     
  15. Somer_Himpson

    Somer_Himpson What's a Dremel?

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    Driller on the C64...unbelievably good sound!
     
  16. Somer_Himpson

    Somer_Himpson What's a Dremel?

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  17. Zero_UK

    Zero_UK What's a Dremel?

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    Rest in peace and thank you for what you brought to the tech world.
     
  18. Crunchy

    Crunchy What's a Dremel?

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    [Salutes]

    Without Jack...
    No Paradroid.
    No Parallax.
    No Io.

    Without the C64, 8bit home computing in the early 80's would have been the extortionate CPC464/6128 or the slightly crippled ZX Spectrum.
    Without Commodore, who's later success was largely built on the revenue the C64 generated, No Amiga.
    No Amiga...what horrid words...

    Thanks, Jack.
     
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