An excerpt from an intervew with Leonard Tramiel
By Martin "Retro Rogue"
Goldberg The Tramiel Clan - Gary, Sam, Jack, and Leonard.
Leonard Tramiel is a member of the mighty Tramiel clan. His father Jack founded Commodore in 1953 (known for the now legendary PET, Vic20, and Commodore 64 computers) and bought Atari from Warner in 1984 after being ousted from Commodore (he wanted Commodore to grow more, some board members thought they were already spread to thin). Leonard's older brother Sam was named as President of Atari.
Leonard's involvement with the family business began back at Commodore in 1976, while finishing his degree in Astrophysics from Columbia University. His father Jack had bought MOS Technology, makers of the now legendary 6502 processor chip (versions of which were used in the Commodore Pet andCBM line, Commodore Vic 20, Commodore 64, the entire Apple II line, the Atari 2600, 5200, 7800 and XE game consoles, the entire Atari 8bit computer line, and the Nintendo Entertainment System to name a few). Jack wanted a personal computer to show at an upcoming trade show and told 6502 creator and MOS founder Chuck Peddle, and Leonard that they had 6 months to do it in. They did it, and the world was introduced to the Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor). Involved in further projects at Commodore, Leonard came along with the rest of the Tramiel during their transition from Commodore to Tramiel Technologies to Atari Corporation. Leonard served as Vice President of Software Development during most of his tenure at Atari Corporation (1984-1996) and later as Vice President of Advanced Technology.
The following are excerpts from an interview that Leonard was kind enough to grant me while I'm doing research for my book on the history of Atari. Classicgaming.com is the only place you can find this interview, and they will exclusively have all future excerpts from other interviews with Atari notables that I conduct while doing my research.
On the transition from Atari Inc. to Atari Corp.
Marty : You guys got the home gaming and computer division of Atari and the coinop was split off in to Atari Games. Did you guys retain the rights to some of the older coinops as well though? (The actual Pong, Asteroids, Centipede, etc. arcade games).
Leonard : We had the rights to all of Atari's games in the non-coinop field. These were eventually sold to Hasbro. They have since sold them again.
Marty : Yes, that's what I was wondering. So Atari Games retrained all the coinop rights for the Atari coinops from 1972-1984?
Leonard : Right.
Marty : Which brings me to another question - when you bought Atari and formed Atari Corp., did that also include the exclusive rights to the Atari logo and name? Or was the rights to the Atari name and logo split between both you and Atari Games?
Leonard : Atari Games certainly had the right to their own name! I think there may have been a requirement for them to add "Games" anytime they used it, but the rights were certainly shared.
Marty : Including for the logo itself?
Leonard : Yes, the logo, with the word Games added below.
Marty : What happened to the rest of the Sword Quest series prizes (the crown the philosopher's stone), and was there a specific reason for canceling it when Atari transferred hands to your family? Some have speculated that because you were primarily interested in Atari for it's name in computers that it would be natural for you to cancel this. Do you know what happened to the prototype to the Airworld cartridge as well?
Leonard : If I remember correctly the Sword Quest series had a set of contests associated with it. This, combined with very little in the way of public interest, were the major reasons for cancellation. I wasn't involved in this one at all so I'm going by what I happened to hear over the years. I have no recollection of any Airworld items.
Marty : What was the status of the Nintendo deal (Warner/Atari had been in negotiations with Nintendo at the time for distribution of their Famicom system that became the NES) at the time you took over? Had it already been cancelled before your family took over, or was it just lost in the shuffle of the takeover and eventually fizzled out?
Leonard : I'm pretty sure there was no serious negotiation between Nintendo and Atari. I don't know what your source of information is, but there's a lot of bad information in the world.
Marty : The two main video game history resource books on the market detail this. Game Over is specifically about Nintendo's history and Phoenix is about the entire industry in general, and both make mention of this. Leonard: I didn't read Game Over but I have read other books on related subjects. There was one written by an ex-Commodore employee that got so many things wrong I was amazed. Even things he was closely involved in. I would take these books with many POUNDS of salt.
The 7800
Marty : Regarding the 7800, was there a specific reasoning to cancelling it when you took over and then releasing it several years later? I know that Warner/Atari had the inventory ready to go, so when you decided to cancel the release in '84, did you have any specific plans for the inventory at that time? Trash it, unload it overseas or something else?
Leonard : I was quite busy with the ST stuff but, as remember it there were a few factors in the 7800 delay. One was the lack of sales of Atari game machines in general. Another was a problem with the GCC contract.
Marty : This is interesting, because most people assume the 7800 wasn't delayed but rather cancelled and then brought out of mothballs when Nintendo resurrected things with their NES. So it'd be great to set that straight and clear things up.
Leonard : I remember a big demo setup by the GCC folk to try to convince everyone how great the 7800 was. It was impressive enough that the contractual issues were uncovered. When the 7800 launch didn't happen there was no plan to reschedule. On the other hand the inventory wasn't scrapped or sold off. Is that a delay or a cancellation? To be successful it is important to be flexible. A subtle point is that the neogtiations were very on and off, mostly off.
Marty : Ok, that's a shame then. Many Atari fans say that if it could have been launched on schedule or even in '85, it would have done quite nicely against the NES.
Leonard : Maybe it would have, maybe not. The 7800 was basically a 2600 with some things put into hardware that were done in software on the 2600. It was still quite a limited machine. At this point it is difficult to say for sure. The Lynx
Marty : I just wanted to say thanks for the Lynx and Jaguar. The Lynx still holds it's own to this day and kids I show it to get blown away when they compare it to their crappy Gameboy color's.
Leonard : The Lynx was nice machine. Too bad it was impossible to keep it competitive with the other systems at the time. Our LCD manufacturer would not reduce the price. We sued, and won, but the case took so long that the product line was long dead by the time it was over.
Marty : The Lynx became to costly to manufacture because of the LCD screen prices. So after the Lynx died you sued the LCD manufacturer? Did you feel the high price of the LCD screens (thereby not allowing you to drop the price of the Lynx) had something to do with the Lynx failing and that's why you sued them? Or were there other factors you feel led to the Lynx failing and Nintendo's piece of garbage succeeding?
Leonard : Correct. The Lynx was effectively dead by the time the lawsuit was filed. We tried to get the LCD manufacturer to reduce the price based on our analysis of competing products, like the Sega Game Gear.
Our feedback from both consumers and retailers was that the Lynx would sell and sell well but not at the price we could make money at. The major factor that kept the price up was the cost of the LCD.
The lawsuit that was eventually filed was for contract violation. There was a most favored nation clause in the contract that required the supplier to sell us product for the same price as similar products to other customers. We were quite sure that this clause had been violated and after court ordered discovery we were able to prove the case.
The Gameboy had two things going for it over the Lynx. It was cheap and it was tiny.
On Atari Corp.'s lack of Advertising
Marty : To the general public, Atari Corp. is not known for strong advertising or support of it's products and I'd love to hear your feeling on this.
Leonard : Atari Corp. was not a strong advertising company. The same was true of Commodore, for the same obvious reason.
Marty : That's what I'm curious about with though. Was that the philosophical view of your family?
Leonard : I can't say that there is a family philosophy. On advertising: My dad's general rule was to spend 10% of the previous periods profit on advertising. There was lots of variations but that was the baseline. Lawsuits are best avoided, if not then settle if you can. This is true for almost everyone that is sued. Atari didn't sue very often, as a result they won a significant percentage of the time.
Marty : Looking back now, do you think this view on advertising hurt sales on the various products at all? Or is there anything you would have done differently? Or do you feel it was the right course?
Leonard : I'm not sure. More advertising might have helped but it might not have been worth the money.
Accomplishments and wishes
Marty: Well, I'll use that to lead in to another direction - What do you feel is your greatest accomplishment with Atari? Something that you remember fondly to this day?
Leonard : We managed to maintain and improve a sophisticated Graphical User Interface with a very small group. TOS was a ROM based product. In the product's entire lifetime there was only one patch and that problem was NEVER reported (or at least I never saw a report). TOS was also very compatible from version to version. We even released a protected-memory multi-tasking operating that was compatible with the vast majority of applications many years before either Apple or Microsoft.
Marty : Also, are there any projects that never saw the light of day that you wish would have?
Leonard : The Falcon030 Microbox would have been a real nice machine. I also would have really enjoyed programming the Panther video game system. (Interviewers note - The Panther was the followup gaming console to the Atari Jaguar).
Let me just say thanks again to Leonard for the interview. And to the people out there, I hope you enjoyed this glimpse in to Atari's past from one of it's notables.
