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Turrican3

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[RETRO] Commodore: a company on the edge / The Amiga years / The final years

Aperto da Turrican3, 8 Febbraio, 2011, 16:32:25

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Turrican3

Per sicurezza ho chiesto direttamente all'autore (potevo aver frainteso, io come altri sul fatto si trattasse davvero di QUEL libro) e sì, ha confermato tutto. :inlove: :gogogo:

Turrican3

Bagnal ha twittato che The Amiga Years va su Kickstarter, a partire dal 15 giugno.

Joe


Turrican3

You might consider canceling your preorder and going through the Kickstarter. There are some nice backer rewards.

https://twitter.com/BrianBagnall1/status/605803999317483521

C'è da capire se l'idea è quella di finalizzare il progetto se e solo se si raggiungeranno i $$$ previsti.
In questo caso ovviamente non avrei alcun problema ad andare di Kickstarter: se non altro perchè l'alternativa sarebbe il rischio che il libro non esca. :-\

Joe


Turrican3

Per quanto appena detto immagino che tutti andremo di Kickstarter...

Ad ogni modo OCIO che su Amazon IT il libro (al momento) NON gode della consueta garanzia minor prezzo: ho infatti appena provveduto ad annullare il precedente ordine e a riordinarlo in quanto era sceso di circa 6 euro!

Adesso sta appena sotto 25€ per la cronaca.

Joe

Strano!
Potrei anche io metterlo in ordine, ma ho paura di dimenticarlo se poi lo compro tramite KS.  :bua:

Edit: wishlistato:sisi:

Turrican3

Citazioneby Ben Parfitt
Monday, April 16th 2012 at 2:17PM BST

OPINION: Working for Jack

Last week the games industry lost one of its founding fathers with the sad news of Jack Tramiel’s passing. Here, Zattikka president Tim Chaney recalls the legacy left by the founder of Commodore…

In early 1982 I responded to an advertisement in The Grocer for Regional Sales Executive – Consumer Durables. Ford Cortina. Well, the car did it for me so I replied and interviewed with Paul Welch, sales director for Commodore at the (was) Spiders Web Hotel, outside Watford. It was a poor interview, aggressive, hostile and as I didn’t know one end of a Vic 20 from the other, erased the interview totally from my mind as I left the car park.

A couple of weeks later, I received a call at home. ‘This is Paul’, ‘Who?’, ‘Paul Welch – Commodore. I’d like to offer you the job’, ‘Me – why me, it was a terrible interview?’, ‘Oh, they are all like that whether I like or hate you – you were the only one that fought back. And I want fighters’.

Thus it was I joined Commodore, owned by Jack Tramiel (and Irving Gould), a Polish immigrant and a famed Auschwitz survivor. In charge of the UK was Bob Gleadow, a hard, sharp north-easterner.

One of the first documents one read, and had to learn verbatim, was Jack’s Commodore Commandments (it wasn’t called that) and this contained the Commodore mantra for business. There were 10 like the Bible, but I only remember a few and they were etched for my brain for years to come: Business is War; You don’t have Competitors, only Enemies; Treat every Penny as if it was your own (I was a salesman on expenses – like that was going to happen!).

Paul Welch had another, ‘F**k goodwill – when I want it I’ll buy it’ – this being after a small retailer in Greenford was threatened with bankruptcy for not paying the Commodore invoice. The retailer sued me personally and Commodore took up the fight. Later on versus Boots, who also had ideas about suing me.

In my first week of work I was told to bring clothes for a week away and was ‘in training’ from Brian Reid (the shining star in Paul’s battalion). We camped at The Post House near Heathrow and the first field meeting each day was at 9am, regardless of distance from London – always working our way back from there on in – we had a early hotel dinner each night and then until midnight each night I had to learn ‘Introduction To Basic 1’ as I was expected to demo the machine if required. From then until the end of my Commodore days, the first meeting was at 9am, meaning that if it was in Glasgow and I happened to be at home, I would leave at 4am. Reid would soon leave and join Apple. Paul’s cloud at the time, was my silver lining.

Tramiel, as myth had it (and there were a LOT of those about Jack), didn’t believe in this home computer business as anything long term. So, our attitude was like: we have it (and even more so when we had the C64), you want it, so here it comes and these are our terms, take it or leave it. At the time of the Vic 20, the only competition in the UK was Sinclair, a home computer sold mail order (later with the Spectrum at retail) so it was with the Vic 20 and Commodore’s ‘give no quarter’ high command, we broke home computers into retail across the length and breadth of Britain. We left no stone unturned and because the biggest objection from retail was not having the in store skills to sell them, we trained the High Street from Currys to John Lewis, Rumbelows to WH Smith, the Co Op to Hoover’s approved retail partners.

Over the next couple of years, anyone who know something about a circuit board was building home computers:  Mr.Sugar with his Amstrad 464, 664, 6128, Acorn with the BBC Micro, Dragon Data with the Dragon 32 and 54 (which in fairness for a while was a competitor), the Enterprise 64 and 128, the Grundy New Brain, the Jupiter Ace, the Memotech (many of these using the off the shelf Z80 chip), the Oric 1 and Atmos, the Camputers Lynx and triple that number being sold in kit form, probably still awaiting functional assembly today.

The Z80 based computers were more an irritant than anything else – but as most were UK designed, each one ‘the next best thing’ compared to the ugly Americans. That was until Commodore finally settled in its own mind what the C64 should be: a home computer that could play great games. There was a market opportunity taking large disk based games from the US and get them playing on cassette, and then convert them to Spectrum and Amstrad. Thus US Gold would be born whom I would join as employee No.1 in 1985.

Commodore during Jack’s tenancy also launched the Commodore Max (which was offered to Marks and Spencer as a St. Michael own brand), the C16 and C plus/4 – both duffers. It was at the London launches of these later two machines that I met Jack Tramiel, fleetingly. They say ‘don’t meet your heroes’.  He was one of the few who could be more terrifying face-to-face than in photos and myth.

In 1984 Commodore-led a price war in the US against Texas Instruments, Tramiel resigned following a Board power struggle. Commodore would buy a small startup called Amiga Corporation who had a machine codenamed ‘Lorraine’, later dubbed the Amiga 1000 and Tramiel bought the consumer business of Atari Inc from Warner Communications and he struck back with the Atari ST. Amiga won.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/opinion-working-for-jack/094490

[semiOT]
Intervista a Tim Chaney, ex dipendente di Commodore prima e US Gold in seguito.

Dice una cosa che sconoscevo del tutto (o quantomeno non ricordavo di aver mai letto), ovvero che Jack Tramiel, padre-padrone di Commodore fino al clamoroso passaggio ad Atari, riteneva che il mercato degli home computer NON avesse un futuro - sul lungo periodo. E direi che nel complesso ci ha preso, per quanto si possa obiettare che in seguito i PC hanno riempito alla grande il vuoto lasciato da C64 & company.

Mr. Chaney afferma anche che Tramiel era più terrificante di presenza che non in foto. :o :bua:
Abbastanza coerente con i suoi "dieci comandamenti" citati ad inizio articolo.


Turrican3

CitazioneDINNER with Legends (West Coast). Join a private dinner party hosted by Amiga 1000 designer and bon vivant RJ Mical, Commodore marketing manager Caryn Mical, along with special guests Glenn Keller (Amiga hardware and chip designer) and Bill Seiler (PET hardware designer, video chip designer). RJ will personally prepare an incredible meal for you and his guests! Get your books signed by the real creators of your favorite Commodore computers. NOTE: One guest will be murdered and it will be up to the remaining guests to find out who dunnit!

CitazioneDINNER with Legends (East Coast). Hang out and enjoy a once in a lifetime meal with the people who designed your favorite computers. Join C128 designer Bil Herd (who will punch you in the face on special request), Amiga 2000 and 3000 designer Dave Haynie, Amiga software manager and game developer Andy Finkel (VIC-20/C64 Omega Race), and Hedley Davis (Amiga and Xbox 360 hardware engineer). Eat, drink, hear NSFW stories, ask burning questions, take pictures and get stuff autographed. It will be an amazing meal in the New York/Pennsylvania area near where Commodore Headquarters was located!

CitazioneDINNER with Legends (UK). Have a merry dinner with four people who made a difference: Insider David Pleasance who started with Commodore UK in 1983 as Sales & Marketing Director and finished in 1994 as General Manager. Multi-talented Jon Hare, who wore many hats at Sensible Software, turning out classics like Cannon Fodder (designer), Parallax, Microprose Soccer, and Wizball (graphics and co-designer). Two other special guests will be announced on Kickstarter during this campaign.

Questi sono i tre premi da 500 dollari (canadesi) più... bizzarri, ma al tempo stesso interessanti: delle cene (!!!) con celebrità che hanno avuto in un modo o nell'altro a che fare con Amiga. :|

Avessi qualche quattrino extra mi fionderei al volo in una delle due previste per gli USA - anche se non saprei chi scegliere: in modo diverso sia Haynie che Mical sono dei personaggioni di proporzioni BIBLICHE che mi farebbe - ovviamente - piacere conoscere di persona. E poi vabbè, sono anche un pezzo di storia dell'informatica mica da ridere. Ma d'altro canto anche Jon Hare mica scherza come sagomaccia. :D

Tocca cominciare a investire in gratta e vinci, hai visto mai... :asd:

Turrican3

Il progetto in meno di 24 ore ha già superato abbondantemente il target. :o

The Amiga Years si farà. :inlove:

Joe


Turrican3



Ad una manciata di ore dalla chiusura del crowdfunding siamo ad oltre 100k dollari canadesi quindi tutti gli obiettivi extra sono stati raggiunti!

Turrican3

Amazon Italia mi ha annullato l'ordine... vabbè poco male, avendo contribuito al kickstarter sono comunque coperto (e tutelato, a noi arriverà un mesetto prima dello sbarco nel retail)

Turrican3

CitazioneJust a few months ago, the fundraising part of this Kickstarter project wrapped up and was an unexpected success. Since then, I have found myself motivated to make this book better than I originally planned.
So far, this has meant doing a lot more interviews to make sure no stone goes unturned and every story is accurate. In plain numbers, the dozen interviews listed on the Kickstarter has turned into over two dozen interviews.


As you might guess, this has resulted in the early part of this project taking longer than expected. Right now, the project is about a month behind schedule. Is this a bad thing? I really hope not. I think the extra time getting the complete story will pay off in the final book. Although it sucks to have to wait a little longer, I know from experience that once the book comes out, that delay will not even matter so long as the book delivers.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1462758959/commodore-the-amiga-years-book/posts/1372519?ref=backer_project_update

Bagnall stima un mesetto di ritardo sui tempi inizialmente previsti