Computer What-If, Jack Tramiel Has A Clue:

[Kalvan]

While Andrew T and I have cooked up several ideas for 1987 and beyond for Dirty Laundry and Living in the Past, recently, several new computing ideas have been swimming through my head that just compel me to put them to this board.

I know not the exact POD (Probably have to be some time in the 1960s), but, let's say that, in the process of acquiring Atari in 1984, Jack Tramiel has the following ideas:

1: After looking at the specs of both the Nintendo Famicom and the prospective Atari 7800, Jack makes a counteroffer to the House of Mario:

1985 Atari 7800 ProSystem/Nintendo Famicom II
CPU: Atari SYLVIA/Ricoh 2A08: Based on the Western Design 65C02, 5.36MHz (5.07MHz in PAL and SECAM Markets) SYLVIA features SALLY interrupt instructions and authorized 6502 Binary Decimal mode, 2A08 features 2A03's sound Channels
Graphics: PICABO, basically the RICOH 2C02 Picture Processor and MARIA stitched together. Combines the NES' Tilemodes with the 7800's 256 color palette, 192 Sprites (40 on any given scanline), and 320x240 resolution.
Sound: 5 Geometry Synthesis Channels (Famicom II)+QuadPOKEY and ANITA (ANTIC+TIA)
Memory: 2K System RAM, 14K Video RAM
Misc. Chips FREDDIE (Memory Management), SLAPSTIC (Security/ Market Lockout)
(Oh, and Keyboard and Disc Drive peripherals that leverage POKEY I/O in the 7800)

2: While he still is all thumbs involving ASG computer projects(GAZA and SIERRA) and Amiga, Tramiel manages first to take up Bill Gates' offer to port MS-DOS and Windows to the Motorola 68000 architecture, and then finagles to adapt the Sharp X68000 architecture to the U.S. market, making only the changes to make it backward compatible with the Atari ST/STE and 8 bit computers instead of the Sharp MZ and X1 (Replacing the Zilog Z280-based SHERRI Sound CPU with a 65816-based solution, while adding in AMY and QuadPOKEY).

Abort? Retry? Ignore? Fail?

 

[Nivek]

Living in the Past

Which is this one..link?

1985 Atari 7800 ProSystem/Nintendo Famicom II

How much is more powerful against famicom plus mmc chips?

 

[Hulkster'01]

sounds too technical but it is a interesting concept, mind if i help out? Like with title cards or something?

 

[Kalvan]

How much is more powerful against famicom plus mmc chips?

FREDDIE Can address up to 4 MB (32Mb). In theory, it could run Kirby's Dreamland or Mega Man 6 identical to the OTL games without any add-in chips whatsoever.

 

[Kalvan]

sounds too technical but it is a interesting concept, mind if i help out? Like with title cards or something?

Go right ahead!

 

[Nivek]

FREDDIE Can address up to 4 MB (32Mb). In theory, it could run Kirby's Dreamland or Mega Man 6 identical to the OTL games without any add-in chips whatsoever.

That means roughly mmc3 Mapper power So all third generation( smb3 as Flagship would run) but not the mmc5 (four generation) ones...ummm still the issue all those Japanese famicom are now obsolete in Japan...(but before mega famiboom of 1986-1987) ummm

Both ideas are brutal itself

 

[Hulkster'01]

Go right ahead!

Ok just pm me when you need one. I might not reply since I'm going to the movies tomorrow.

 

[Kalvan]

That means roughly mmc3 Mapper power So all third generation( smb3 as Flagship would run) but not the mmc5 (four generation) ones...ummm still the issue all those Japanese famicom are now obsolete in Japan...(but before mega famiboom of 1986-1987) ummm

Both ideas are brutal itself

Well, the design is still backward compatible with both the Famicom and Atari 2600.

 

[Nivek]

Well, the design is still backward compatible with both the Famicom and Atari 2600.

That would work with old games( why 2600, just dk blow up anything 2600 ever do) So that might work

 

[Electric Monk]

I’m onboard with any super-Atari (which thanks for reminding me I have to PM you on that subject heh) but it seems far more sensible if you’re already reaching back for a 1960s POD to have a 1970s POD involving a different buyer for Atari, or Steve Ross picks the right talent to run Atari and the basic OTL Nintendo deal is signed. Unless you want to involve Tramiel, which I understand despite my iffy feelings on him (the Bermuda money laundering was a step too far, but Reagan was President lol) given the way some people considered him up to par with Steve Jobs.

I also express some serious reservations on Nintendo taking the deal, why would they split their still early first so-far successful console into a pair of SKUs the second of which they lack total control over? Sure backwards compatible but I dunno if the Japanese market—aka the only market Nintendo truly cared about then—is ready to splash out cash for an upgrade that fast (but shrug they did the buy the add-on in decent numbers) and if not that leaves the powerhouse Japanese developers only on the base spec with Western developers only on the upgraded spec…

I see a ton of potential in this deal going sideways leading to all kinds of cool butterflies. I’m rather less sure if you wanna make this a benefit for both sides beyond the short term. Either way certainly an interesting idea I’d read about .

 

[Bureaucromancer]

Anything could happen on the console space certainly, but the long term potential of "home computers" as a distinct entity from business machines is severely limited by the cost reductions in the compatible space imo. Best case scenario the path I can imagine for both Atari and Commodore resembles that of Apple in the 90s - and in my view at least, less potential for a turnaround. Atari would realistically have to prop up the ST and its successors on console profits that OTL didn't exists, and at best could be a niche "computer for gamers" type of product. Commodore at least had decent inroads into the education market, but that didn't really work out too well for Apple, and neither company, so far as I see, has the same potential for something as legitimately innovative AND mass marketed as the iPod, let alone potential to become as much a premium fashion brand as technology company...

So in short, the product could be great, and I guess it could do reasonably well in the short term, but quality and technical potential of the competing products has very little to do with why IBM compatible x86 machines dominated as thoroughly as they did. Frankly the Amiga platform was competitive right up to the day Commodore folded. We're talking about a natural monopoly when it comes to the economics of PC operating systems, and while there is SOME flexibility there the "home computer" makers really weren't in a good place at the start of the 90s.

 

[Nivek]

2: While he still is all thumbs involving ASG computer projects(GAZA and SIERRA) and Amiga, Tramiel manages first to take up Bill Gates' offer to port MS-DOS and Windows to the Motorola 68000 architecture, and then finagles to adapt the Sharp X68000 architecture to the U.S. market, making only the changes to make it backward compatible with the Atari ST/STE and 8 bit computers instead of the Sharp MZ and X1 (Replacing the Zilog Z280-based SHERRI Sound CPU with a 65816-based solution, while adding in AMY and QuadPOKEY).

This one have more long term potential, Motorolla powered Microsoft and Atari machines, years before the intel revolution and would be somehting change pc market.

OTL Nintendo deal is signed

a scam from atari?

I also express some serious reservations on Nintendo taking the deal, why would they split their still early first so-far successful console into a pair of SKUs the second of which they lack total control over? Sure backwards compatible but I dunno if the Japanese market—aka the only market Nintendo truly cared about then—is ready to splash out cash for an upgrade that fast (but shrug they did the buy the add-on in decent numbers) and if not that leaves the powerhouse Japanese developers only on the base spec with Western developers only on the upgraded spec…

That is why that would not happen, just seeing how powerful would be over vanilla NES/FAMICOM with the MMC Chip(still not powerful as MMC5,even if that was mostly japan only)

 

[Kalvan]

Anything could happen on the console space certainly, but the long term potential of "home computers" as a distinct entity from business machines is severely limited by the cost reductions in the compatible space imo. Best case scenario the path I can imagine for both Atari and Commodore resembles that of Apple in the 90s - and in my view at least, less potential for a turnaround. Atari would realistically have to prop up the ST and its successors on console profits that OTL didn't exists, and at best could be a niche "computer for gamers" type of product. Commodore at least had decent inroads into the education market, but that didn't really work out too well for Apple, and neither company, so far as I see, has the same potential for something as legitimately innovative AND mass marketed as the iPod, let alone potential to become as much a premium fashion brand as technology company...

So in short, the product could be great, and I guess it could do reasonably well in the short term, but quality and technical potential of the competing products has very little to do with why IBM compatible x86 machines dominated as thoroughly as they did. Frankly the Amiga platform was competitive right up to the day Commodore folded. We're talking about a natural monopoly when it comes to the economics of PC operating systems, and while there is SOME flexibility there the "home computer" makers really weren't in a good place at the start of the 90s.

You don't understand the implications of this development. MS-DOS and Windows (even Windows 1.0 and 2.0) for the Motorola 68000 powered Atari ST and successors means MS-DOS and Windows as optional boot-up and GUI for the likes of the Macintosh, Amiga, Sinclair QL, Sony NEWS, and even the Original Sharp X68000. Among other things, this means that Microsoft now has a vested interest in porting Windows NT to the 68K architecture, since sticking to X86 means leaving far more money on the table than merely screwing IBM over over OS/2. It also means that there will be a phenomenon that just like with Wintel machine graphics cards in the 90's before the widespread adoption of OpenGL and the Advent of DirectX, business productivity software will be written for MS-DOS 68K using the most generic screen settings possible, while games and workstation creativity software will bang the hardware directly, and be for specific machines. We could see the developments of *OpenGL* and *DirectX* to cope with this phenomenon five years early. Also, since DOS and Windows will be even more widespread, including on the Sinclair QL that was Linus Torvalds' first computer, he'll have less incentive to start Linux. The Free and Open-Source competition to Microsoft in TTL would probably be HURD.

This one have more long term potential, Motorolla powered Microsoft and Atari machines, years before the intel revolution and would be somehting change pc market.


a scam from atari?


That is why that would not happen, just seeing how powerful would be over vanilla NES/FAMICOM with the MMC Chip(still not powerful as MMC5,even if that was mostly japan only)

Your math is off. Kirby's Dreamland took up 32 megabits data, or 4 megabytes. It was the largest game by data footprint ever written for the NES or Famicom. Oh, and that the feature set of PICABO 'only' reaches that of the MMC3 means that it is equal to or better than any Famicom/NES game software published before 1991. (Yes, even the original Star Tropics).

Retooling for the new systems should be dirt cheap: they involve either chips for which the masks already exist, or stitching together existing chips. Even taking into account 200% markup for wholesale distribution and retail, it should tack on no more than $30/Y3,000 to the final purchase price. Remove ROB, and the whole shooting match can be had for no more than $115US with the Zapper at introduction. Even the differences between the Nintendo and Atari versions would be attractive to the latter: they help contribute to market lockout and, combined with different cartridge pinouts, help to discourage gray market importers. They also mean that Nintendo can simply let Atari shoulder the whole burden of developing the inevitable PAL/SECAM version. Oh, and it should drop down to Y85,000-Y95,000 just in time to utterly destroy the value proposition of the P.C. Engine.

 

[Nivek]

You don't understand the implications of this development. MS-DOS and Windows (even Windows 1.0 and 2.0) for the Motorola 68000 powered Atari ST and successors means MS-DOS and Windows as optional boot-up and GUI for the likes of the Macintosh, Amiga, Sinclair QL, Sony NEWS, and even the Original Sharp X68000. Among other things, this means that Microsoft now has a vested interest in porting Windows NT to the 68K architecture, since sticking to X86 means leaving far more money on the table than merely screwing IBM over over OS/2. It also means that there will be a phenomenon that just like with Wintel machine graphics cards in the 90's before the widespread adoption of OpenGL and the Advent of DirectX, business productivity software will be written for MS-DOS 68K using the most generic screen settings possible, while games and workstation creativity software will bang the hardware directly, and be for specific machines. We could see the developments of *OpenGL* and *DirectX* to cope with this phenomenon five years early. Also, since DOS and Windows will be even more widespread, including on the Sinclair QL that was Linus Torvalds' first computer, he'll have less incentive to start Linux. The Free and Open-Source competition to Microsoft in TTL would probably be HURD.

Maybe i'm too young but you explained it now pretty well and that is why i say i've the most potential, anything post POD in computers is a hurricane of new oportunities

Your math is off. Kirby's Dreamland took up 32 megabits data, or 4 megabytes. It was the largest game by data footprint ever written for the NES or Famicom. Oh, and that the feature set of PICABO 'only' reaches that of the MMC3 means that it is equal to or better than any Famicom/NES game software published before 1991. (Yes, even the original Star Tropics).

Retooling for the new systems should be dirt cheap: they involve either chips for which the masks already exist, or stitching together existing chips. Even taking into account 200% markup for wholesale distribution and retail, it should tack on no more than $30/Y3,000 to the final purchase price. Remove ROB, and the whole shooting match can be had for no more than $115US with the Zapper at introduction. Even the differences between the Nintendo and Atari versions would be attractive to the latter: they help contribute to market lockout and, combined with different cartridge pinouts, help to discourage importers. They also mean that Nintendo can simply let Atari shoulder the whole burden of developing the inevitable PAL/SECAM version. Oh, and it should drop down to Y85,000-Y95,000 just in time to utterly destroy the value proposition of the P.C. Engine.

You're focusing on the software when i'm focusing in the hardware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_management_controller this is my reference and show the difference between the systems of MMC compatibility and extended functions. again much MMC5 games were ultra late life and japan only.

I'm not talking new units, i'm talking in japan we're pre SMB boom but after the initial boom, when there already million of famicom out, leaving those obsolete will not be good for japan, and as @Electric Monk say, they just surrendered their hardware R&D to Atari and that is something pretty big itself.

Curious mention the PC-Engine, as the system itself was pretty more powerful but in price wars might loss...or maybe they could leapfrog straight to the PC-Engine CD system and games?

 

[Kalvan]

I’m onboard with any super-Atari (which thanks for reminding me I have to PM you on that subject heh) but it seems far more sensible if you’re already reaching back for a 1960s POD to have a 1970s POD involving a different buyer for Atari, or Steve Ross picks the right talent to run Atari and the basic OTL Nintendo deal is signed. Unless you want to involve Tramiel, which I understand despite my iffy feelings on him (the Bermuda money laundering was a step too far, but Reagan was President lol) given the way some people considered him up to par with Steve Jobs.

The POD in question is that he actually educated himself on electronics back in the '60s and then kept that up. He's not necessarily a better person, just not quite as clueless about the industry he participated in OTL.

 

[Electric Monk]

The POD in question is that he actually educated himself on electronics back in the '60s and then kept that up. He's not necessarily a better person, just not quite as clueless about the industry he participated in OTL.

Ah. That’s interesting. So you’re assuming the basic structure of Commodore goes through including MOS and Chuck and what not including him being tossed, but when the 1980s hit he’s capable enough to understand technology and grasp the potential of a home console after the crash once someone offers it to him. In that scenario I still think instead of upgraded Famicom he’d launch what they have and spend his effort on a proper successor in partnership with Nintendo. The NES Pro concept can work because the Famicom hasn’t launched outside Japan but I still don’t think Nintendo would go for that deal.

To square the circle: can Atari offer a coprocessor version of the Famicom that Nintendo could launch in Japan as part of Disk System? Would mean *NES starting with floppy discs but that’s in Atari’s wheelhouse anyway. (Yes that’d kill backwards compatibly for the *SNES but Atari/Nintendo could do like Sega and sell/bundle an add-on.)

scam from atari

You gotta give me some credit despite my love for the terrible M2 lol. I meant a real ATL deal, not the hilariously evil scam one .

 

[Nivek]

To square the circle: can Atari offer a coprocessor version of the Famicom that Nintendo could launch in Japan as part of Disk System? Would mean *NES starting with floppy discs but that’s in Atari’s wheelhouse anyway. (Yes that’d kill backwards compatibly for the *SNES but Atari/Nintendo could do like Sega and sell/bundle an add-on.)

Nintedo killed SNES BW later on as was cheaper just sold Famicoms alongside SNES, so that might not care but the idea a buffed Up Famicom as part of the Disk System..maybe bigger and with more storage disks? or that is not possible yet?

You gotta give me some credit despite my love for the terrible M2 lol. I meant a real ATL deal, not the hilariously evil scam one .

Umm that would be something a real deal here rather OTL Scam, and yeah M2 was more hype that result,

 

[Kalvan]

@

…and to that allegation, I plead guilty, guilty as charged. Through my wrath, hubris, and sloth, I caused the Great Console and Home Computer crash of 1983-4. In as much as the removal of my existence from history would have prevented it, it would not have happened, or if it did, it would have never been nearly as apocalyptic as what had transpired. Atari wouldn’t have focused nearly as much money on taking down the VIC-20 and Commodore 64 to the detriment of the development of follow-ups to the 2600, Steve Wozniak would have finished the Apple IIr and IV properly, instead of the rushed to market IIe, IIc, and IIgs, and Texas Instruments would still be in the desktop game. There would have been no Japanese or British Invasions: no MSX, no Tandy-Fujitsu FM series, no Timex-Sinclair QLX, No Acorn Archimedes, and especially no Sony NEWS.

Yet, in this endeavor, as in all the rest of my enterprises, I did not do it alone. I planted no ringers in the Atari Semiconductor Group or on the team that developed the TI99 and 99/A. The compatibility issues the 1200XL faced, and the utterly brain dead motherboard layout and OS kernel and call design of TI basic were not my fault. I didn’t send accounting saboteurs to Ohio Scientific, Osborne Computers, Orange Logic, or Pacific Computing to tack on “phantom debt” to their balance sheets. I did not and would never have developed or released the Mattel Aquarius or anything like it in 1982! I didn’t syphon off pay from the R&D folks developing those add-ons for the ColecoVision and ADAM, causing them to go on strike. Most especially, if I could have gotten away with it and I knew I could have, I would have had whichever genius it was at Warner Brothers who demanded Pac-Man, E.T., and the Swordquest series dashed out half-baked shot and buried in the desert, under lime.

Then there’s the record of my actions in the computer world, even up to that time, that turned out positively. If I had perished in that concentration camp so long ago, Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch would have had no white knight to save them from Motorola’s frivolous lawsuit, and therefore there would have been no MOS Technology 6502. No 6502 means not only no Commodore PET, number series, VIC-20, 64, and 128, but also no Apple I, II, or III. It means no recognizable Atari computer or game console hardware, no Ohio Scientific Challenger, and for those of you across the pond, no Acorn Atom, Electron, BBC Micro, or any machines by Oric, Zastava, or Nokia. There was nothing else out there with that combination of processing power and price. The Motorola 6800, Zilog Z80, Texas Instruments TMS9900 and TMS7900, and even RCA 1284 all went for north of $100 when the 6502 retailed at $25, and could be had in surprisingly small bulk quantities for half that. The only other possible alternatives on price alone, the General Instruments 1600 and PIC4 and then 8, featured even cruddier than usual per-clock efficiencies and hair-tearing processing models.

If our team in Japan hadn’t taken VIC and run with it to create the VIC-20, it wouldn’t have awakened the sleeping giant of Japanese electronics. The Altair, Apple II, Exidy Sorcerer, and TSR-80 were too expensive and too user-unfriendly for anyone to have called them “Home Computers” with anything like a straight face. There would have been no Sharp X-1, no NEC PC-88, 93, or 98, and Yamaha FM sound chips would have been strictly for keyboards.

I know what you’re going to say to that, and it’s true. Hypothetically, there were several other possible white knights available to have bailed MOS Technology out at that moment that Chuck and Bill could have leaned on. People have mentioned to me the likes of Donald Trump, Richard Branson, and even Ray Kroc, the guy who turned McDonalds from an obscure Southern California burgers and shakes walk-up stand into an empire. I have even heard that Hewlett-Packard got a call and a pitch. None of those candidates would have guaranteed that company’s future success, or even that of the chip. All of them save the last (Even Branson, at the time) were industry outsiders who would have had to build their contacts in the industry from scratch. To be sure, just about everyone at the time outside of the established Big Iron companies and Intel and Motorola was starting from scratch, too, but most of those guys at least had a Ph.D., or else people working for them with them willing to be paid peanuts and stock options. Even HP, probably the most viable candidate for Chuck and Bill, failed to stick Steve Wozniak on the HP-85 personal computer project, so he left to help start Apple. Of course, in the event that their emergency funding had allowed the funding to insure either another stipulated agreement, or the judge and/or jury laughed Motorola’s lawsuit out of court, there was no way any of them would have let Bill Mensch found Western Design Center. Trump or Branson especially, I’m certain, would have demanded the standard No Compete clause before MOS Technology saw one red cent…

From Trial and Triumph: The Autobiography of Jack Tramiel, Vol. 3, Redemption, Copyright 2009, Simon & Schuster

Abort? Retry? Ignore? Fail?

@Special thanks to Hulkster'01 for the title card

 

[Nivek]

Continue, just want to see how things Will unfold

 

[Kalvan]

It was decided, then. I was going to get back into the game. The Commodore board accepted the severance package and allowed me to cash out my stock options because they really had no other choice. If they went ahead with the lawsuit, it would open up stuff on discovery. They couldn’t claim the audio recordings of the meeting minutes where I kept trying to get Chuck the funding he needed to develop that 16-bit follow-up to the 6510 going were faked. Those tapes sounded too natural, and they knew no judge or jury would ever buy some cock-and-bull story that I had gone to Hollywood or Broadway and found and hired sound-alikes for every last director, then seamlessly edited those conversations in with the real stuff.

The real question was how was I going to make my triumphant return to the computer market? Yes, I had those folks who had decided to leave with me, but my name was mud. Unless I make bank real fast, no computer or semiconductor engineer worth his or her salt outside that group would ever want to work with me. After all the I’s and J’s were dotted and F’s, T’s, and X’s were crossed, I had a hefty sum, but even that wasn’t anything enough to buy my own fab. I had let my feud with Texas Instruments get personal, so I suspected I would get fab time or even wafer blanks from there on the Greek Kalends.

Perusing the various companies for sale, I found quite a few possibilities. Coleco was looking for a buyer for its consumer electronics division, but I would have to shoulder the debt they had run up with their engineers. Ohio Scientific would have netted me an intact factory, but their suppliers and creditors had steadfastly refused any offer for payment restructuring so far. The most promising possibility was Atari. Warner Brothers’ asking price was almost a steal. It was almost too good to be true. I would make two calls, one to Warner, and the other to Price Waterhouse Cooper to see if I could get an audit…

***

So, in the end, I walked away with almost the whole shooting match. I sold the patents to that Atari portable console to Carla Mensky, but I managed to keep the contracts to the rest of the Atari Semiconductor Group, and, most importantly in the short run, the arcade division. Not only did I never lose money any quarter overall from those quarter crunchers, but several character and gaming world properties they would create would lay the ground for computer and console game franchises for the years to come. Yet, it almost didn’t happen.

First, the accountants doing the audit on my end almost didn’t catch several things the WB board stuck in Atari’s debt portfolio that had nothing to do with Atari’s actual operations and expenses. These ranged from Loony Toons and DC Comics computer games (without versions for Atari computers, I might add) done by outside developers, to the financial bath WB had been taking on Atari branded t-shirts, sweats, and baseball caps. Warner Brothers had originally planned to sell the company off to Namco, which, by the way, had started life as Atari’s Japanese office, until Nolan Bushnell decided to sell them independent. Then they developed Galaxian, Pac-Man, and Rally X, and suddenly they were hot stuff. Namco auctioned off their properties in America, and Bally-Midway outbid Atari (and everybody else) for everything except Xevious and Pole Position, which Atari managed to snag. Midway then pissed away Namco’s good will by buying the rights to two Pac-Man knock-offs (Hangly Man and Mister Gourmet) and turning them into Pac-Man Deluxe and Ms. Pac-Man, and then proceeding to develop Baby Pac Man, Pac Man Jr., Mr. & Ms. Pac-Man, Professor Pac-Man, and Pac-Man Plus in-house. Developing an unauthorized sequel called Bosconian II didn’t help, either. As a result, Namco refused to deal with Midway any further after shipping Super Pac-Man, Pac-Man and Chomp-Chomp, Pac Land, and finally Mappy, to complete the contract. I never found out the truth of the matter, but I suspect that Warner Brothers was applying Hollywood accounting to its Silicon Valley subsidiary as a poison pill, just for me.

If Warner Brothers had insisted either on their original purchase price, or on only selling me, say, the consumer products part of the company, it could have gotten ugly very quickly. I didn’t make explicit threats, but I didn’t have to, either. In theory, Ronald Reagan and company I’m certain supported the principles behind Hollywood Accounting, especially as it applied to corporate federal income tax. However, Reagan and his base was at the moment feuding with “Liberal Hollywood,” and an attempt at extending Hollywood Economics into the durable goods industry would have been the perfect excuse to pluck them like a turkey for Thanksgiving.

However, thankfully, Warner Brothers' attorneys could put two and two together and come up with four, and they cautioned their bosses not to anything stupid. Now, combined with the engineers I had already with me working on that Motorola 68000 project, I prepared to move to the San Francisco Bay Area, for a complete technical audit of exactly what I had just bought...

From Trial and Triumph: The Autobiography of Jack Tramiel, Vol. 3, Redemption, Copyright 2009, Simon & Schuster

Abort? Retry? Ignore? Fail?