Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore International and the iconic Commodore 64 personal computer, has died, according to a report.
Forbes reported that Tramiel passed away on Easter. He was 83.
Born Jacek Trzmiel in Poland, Tramiel was taken with his parents to the Auschwitz labor camp, where a biography claims that he was later rescued from by American forces. He later emigrated to the United States, worked for the U.S. Army, and later opened up a typewriter shop, dubbing his first creation the Commodore Portable Typewriter.
"Well I was in the army and I wanted to call my company 'General,' but there are so many Generals in the United States – General Electric, General Motors, etc." Tramiel said in 2007. "Then I went to 'Admiral' and that was taken. So I wound up in Berlin and we were in a cab and the cab made a short stop and in front of it was an Opal Commodore. And that was it."
Tramiel and Commodore then dabbled in the mechanical calculator market, giving way to electronic calculators using components sourced from Texas Instruments. But, after TI undercut Commodore with low-cost calculators based on its own chips, Commodore then moved into the personal computer market, designing the Commodore PET. Commodore then migrated to the VIC-20, and then to the Commodore 64, which became the most popular personal computer of all time.
In 2007, Silicon Valley luminaries celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64.
Tramiel, who ran his business on the "business is war" philosophy, said that his cutthroat attitude is why he was able to succeed in selling over 22 million units of the Commodore 64.
"I think I produced more millionaires in that company than anybody else," Tramiel said then. "My job was to tell them what they were doing wrong, not tell them how good they are."
In 1984, Tramiel resigned from Commodore and bought the consumer business of Atari Inc. with his new company, Tramel Technology, Ltd. Atari Inc. was renamed Atari Corp.
In 2011, Commodore re-emerged with "updated" versions of the company's Commodore 64 and VIC-20 PCs, manufactured by a separate company, Commodore USA, which licensed the Commodore and Amiga brands. Although the new PCs could run a C64 emulator, some technology pundits dismissed them as "fakes" that bore no real resemblance to the Commodore 64s of old. (See our slideshow below for more.)
Additional reporting by Natali Del Conte.
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