Jack Tramiel

Jack Tramiel ( born Jacek Trzmiel, according to other data as Idek Tramielski; born December 13, 1928 in Łódź, † April 8, 2012 in Monte Sereno, California ) was a Polish- American entrepreneur and computer pioneer.

Life

1944 Tramiel was deported for being Jewish by the Nazis only at the Auschwitz concentration camp and then in the sub-camp Hannover- Ahlem, where he had to work as forced laborers for the Continental Gummi -Werke. In 1945, he was liberated by the Americans and received an auxiliary job with the U.S. Army in Marburg. In 1947 he married in Hanover concentration camp survivors Marie Helen Gold Grub. In November 1947, he emigrated to the USA and changed his name to Jack Tramiel. In the spring of 1948 he went to the U.S. Army where he learned the repair of various office equipment.

In 1952 he retired from the army and began working as a technician or electrician for the Army. In 1953 he became an American citizen and opened a shop in the Bronx, which he called Commodore Portable Typewriter. He repaired still mainly typewriters.

In 1954 he founded in Toronto, the Commodore Business Machines International ( CBM), which initially cheaper dedicated to the import writing and other office machines from Europe. It was founded in Canada, to circumvent import restrictions in the United States.

In 1962, Tramiel Commodore public. Mid-1960s was the company from bankruptcy, but could through the entry of the investor lawyer Irving Gould ( 1919-2001 ) rescued from Toronto. In the early 1970s led Tramiel Commodore a manufacturing electronic calculators and has successfully established itself in the lowermost price segment, which had been neglected by the main rivals Hewlett- Packard and Texas Instruments for their pursuit of a high-quality brand image. In 1976, he bought up the young company MOS Technologies, then one of the main manufacturers of microprocessors, which Commodore was largely independent of external chip manufacturers. The main products, which he brought to the company on the way, were the Commodore PET 2001, the VC20 and the C64. On January 13, 1984, he was eliminated in Commodore because of disagreements with Gould; Tramiel then bought the Atari, Inc., which was at that time by the video game crash in financial need.

Together with his three sons, Leonard, Sam and Garry Tramiel he directed for 12 years the Atari Corporation. Then, after some initially successful home computer systems such as the Atari ST and the unsuccessful attempt by to take Atari Jaguar in the game console market (again) walk, had notfusionieren with the hard disk manufacturers JTS Corp. on June 30, 1996, the Atari Corporation. Atari had income generated from sales of the past and lawsuits won, although a significant cash balance on, but had by the unsuccessful Jaguar console heavy losses and no longer view of significant market share, whereby the insolvency would have been inevitable within two years. Conversely, JTS Corp. had an appreciable share of the hard drive market, however, was severely threatened by the insolvency due to its low cash balance. Although initially the intention was expressed to continue the Atari branch, but the Atari branch was quickly settled to replenish the coffers of the JTS Corp.. JTS Corp. was able to survive three years before they nevertheless had to file for bankruptcy.

Tramiel had issued the guidance of the Atari branch to the management of JTS Corp. already in the course of the merger. He then retired from professional life and lived until his death in Monte Sereno, California. There he died on Easter Sunday, 2012 surrounded by his family at the age of 83 years.

Tramiel supported his fortune to the structure of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC