Speaker 1: No one knows about the coffee pot. In nineteen eighty,
Speaker 1: a man named Jack Tremmel is boarding a company plane.
Speaker 1: Jack is in his fifties and has the look of
Speaker 1: a character actor from noir films of the nineteen forties,
Speaker 1: or maybe a little Telly savalis Ko Jack. One employee
Speaker 1: thought he was patent esque, as in general George s.
Speaker 1: He's traveling with his wife, Helen, three employees, and a
Speaker 1: couple of salespeople for Commodore, going from Chicago back to
Speaker 1: Commodore's home base of California. It's a jet, but a
Speaker 1: small jet, and so there are only two crew members,
Speaker 1: the pilot and co pilot, and things are okay at first,
Speaker 1: But what no one knows is that every time the
Speaker 1: plane is in the air, the coffee pot tends to
Speaker 1: slide around on the burn just a little, not really
Speaker 1: enough to notice, but over time the pot has been
Speaker 1: chipping away at the insulation surrounding an electrical component. One
Speaker 1: of Jack's employed starts to brew a pot of coffee,
Speaker 1: and this pod is the last straw for the plane's
Speaker 1: main power bus. There's a short The worn insulation prompts
Speaker 1: an electrical fire. Pretty soon flames start to lick out
Speaker 1: from the ceiling and smoke begins to fill the cabin.
Speaker 1: One of the pilots attempts to put the fire out
Speaker 1: with an extinguisher, but it's not working. The melting metal
Speaker 1: drips like the coffee from the ceiling and Singe's skin.
Speaker 1: The flames are creeping closer and closer to the fuel
Speaker 1: tank As the pilots scramble looking for a place to land.
Speaker 1: Smoke begins to fill the lungs of Jack and his
Speaker 1: fellow passengers. His eyes begin to grow distant. Those on
Speaker 1: board begin to think this is it the end. The
Speaker 1: air is running out, the smoke is taking over, and
Speaker 1: there could be an explosion at any moment. Finally they
Speaker 1: get the word that they're clear to land in Iowa.
Speaker 1: It's hard to believe, but no one is seriously hurt.
Speaker 1: But it's not the most harrowing thing Jack Tremmel has experienced.
Speaker 1: Jack has stared death in the face before, and did
Speaker 1: it on a scale most of us could never imagine.
Speaker 1: Those who knew him knew he was, in every way possible,
Speaker 1: a survivor. That's important to know because in this story,
Speaker 1: all roads lead to Jack. Four years after this near
Speaker 1: fatal incident, he acquires Atari, and many years after that,
Speaker 1: one of gaming's biggest urban legends starts to unfold. In
Speaker 1: first grabbing and then selling Atari, Jack Tremmel will inadvertently
Speaker 1: launch the biggest and most intriguing sword quest chapter of
Speaker 1: them all. Here's former Atari game designer Howard Scott Warshaw
Speaker 1: The Sword.
Speaker 2: What I heard was, you know, Jack Trammel, who was
Speaker 2: part of the Trammels who ultimate took over Atari, bought
Speaker 2: it from Warner. I heard that part of that acquisition
Speaker 2: was he got a hold of the sword, which hadn't
Speaker 2: been given out yet, And I heard that he kept
Speaker 2: it in his home. He had it up on a
Speaker 2: plaque on a wall in his home, and that was
Speaker 2: kind of cool, although I never verified that because Jack
Speaker 2: never invited me over for dinner.
Speaker 3: The sword there, it rests so close, and yet.
Speaker 4: Yet it's well guarded. Tour To reach out and seize
Speaker 4: it then attempt to get away, we'd have to be stark,
Speaker 4: raving mad.
Speaker 3: But how did it wind up here in the first place,
Speaker 3: in this house gate known as California. The journey it
Speaker 3: must have undergone. It belongs in our hands.
Speaker 4: For we have suffered the trials and danger necessary to
Speaker 4: wield it. Not this this Trammel.
Speaker 3: Perhaps someone can tell us more of this man to
Speaker 3: better understand the foe we face.
Speaker 1: For iHeartRadio. This is the Legend of sword Quest. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Jamie Loftus, And this this is episode seven.
Speaker 1: The Swordsmen.
Speaker 5: The Faithful Art of eleven has struck and Britain's final
Speaker 5: warning to Hitler having been.
Speaker 3: Ignored, a state of war once more exists between Great
Speaker 3: Britain and Germany.
Speaker 1: Having Jack Tremmel was born in Wog, Poland, in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty eight. By the time he turned ten, he was
Speaker 1: watching from his window as Nazis began marching into town.
Speaker 1: To a kid, it was exciting at first he was
Speaker 1: unable to understand what was really happening, But soon Jack
Speaker 1: and his family found themselves living in a single room
Speaker 1: in a Woge ghetto. People he knew there one day
Speaker 1: and gone the next. Jewish members of the community were
Speaker 1: being transported out by the Germans. By the time Jack
Speaker 1: was sixteen in nineteen forty four, it was his turn.
Speaker 1: He and his father were bound for Auschwitz. Jack would
Speaker 1: later recall getting a physical by Joseph Mangela one of
Speaker 1: the most notorious and cruel members of the Nazi Party.
Speaker 1: Mangele dubbed him fit for work, and he and his
Speaker 1: father were sent to labor camps. He had already been
Speaker 1: separated from his mother. With no way of contacting her,
Speaker 1: Jack and his dad assumed she was dead. For months,
Speaker 1: Jack toiled in the work camp. Liberation was coming, and
Speaker 1: so was the end of the war, but his father
Speaker 1: wouldn't make it. Typhus was the reported cause, but Jack
Speaker 1: felt differently. His father died, he later said, from having
Speaker 1: gasoline injected into his veins in some deranged experiment. Jack survived.
Speaker 1: After the war, he met and married a woman named Helen,
Speaker 1: herself a Holocaust survivor. And if anything good could come
Speaker 1: of any of this, it was that Jack discovered his
Speaker 1: mother was still alive. Back in which Jack meanwhile wanted
Speaker 1: to come to the United States.
Speaker 5: Journey right, and I went to the council there. I
Speaker 5: told him that I would like to go to the States.
Speaker 5: I was a person to go to the States, so
Speaker 5: I'm looking at we can do that. I am a
Speaker 5: the splice person.
Speaker 1: That's Jack Tremmel. In nineteen ninety he gave an interview
Speaker 1: to author William B. Helmreich for a book Against All Odds.
Speaker 1: That audio was later preserved by the United States Holocaust
Speaker 1: Memorial Museum.
Speaker 5: He said to me, when would you like to go
Speaker 5: as as soon as possible? Next week?
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty seven, Jack and Helen received assistance from
Speaker 1: the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and took an opportunity to
Speaker 1: board an ocean liner headed to America. Jack arrived first,
Speaker 1: Helen later, but America wasn't the country he imagined.
Speaker 5: It was extremely disappointed when I arrived.
Speaker 6: But I got off the.
Speaker 5: Boat seeing that the smell that they're everything else that
Speaker 5: was prepared to wait till the book returns to.
Speaker 6: Go back to Earth.
Speaker 1: No money in my pocket, I think, you know.
Speaker 5: I just went along with the crowd, and I got
Speaker 5: hit by a car right. I was crossing when I
Speaker 5: got hit by a car, and without opened my eyes
Speaker 5: up right, and I've seen all the people sitting around me.
Speaker 5: I right away, Yeah, I think I'm going to be
Speaker 5: arrested at in the car.
Speaker 1: There was no lasting damage. You couldn't really hurt Jack Tremmel,
Speaker 1: not by car, by plane or in war. Jack enlisted
Speaker 1: in the United States Army, where he did two tours.
Speaker 1: He eventually found himself repairing office equipment, like typewriters. After
Speaker 1: the war, he continued preparing them. He opened a repair
Speaker 1: shop in the Bronx. In nineteen fifty five, he moved
Speaker 1: to Toronto and soon started a typewriter company. He called
Speaker 1: it Commodore. It felt official, military like. Commodore made typewriters
Speaker 1: and later calculators. He took on a partner, a man
Speaker 1: named Irving Gold, in nineteen sixty six, but Jack remained
Speaker 1: on as the visionary, the leader. Before Apple and IBM,
Speaker 1: Jack's Commodore was offering affordable computing power. He called his
Speaker 1: philosophy hardware for the masses, not the classes. Jack knew
Speaker 1: before a lot of people did, that technology shouldn't be
Speaker 1: relegated to a small number of people. Commodore made computers
Speaker 1: a democracy. But soon a rift developed between Jack, who
Speaker 1: was determined to do things his way, and Irvin Gold,
Speaker 1: who had other plans. In nineteen eighty four, the two
Speaker 1: men had a meeting, things were said, and before long
Speaker 1: Jack decided he no longer had a role in Commodore.
Speaker 1: Most people might be content retiring. Jack was in his fifties, wealthy,
Speaker 1: and though he might not have considered it a pioneer
Speaker 1: in computing, but that wasn't Jack's nature. Commodore had in
Speaker 1: some way antagonized him. His new mission was to obliterate it.
Speaker 1: In what better way than to take charge of the
Speaker 1: competition Atari, which it made its mark in home computing
Speaker 1: as well as video games. On his first official day
Speaker 1: at Atari, Jack Tremmel allegedly parked his car in a
Speaker 1: handicapped spot, stormed in and began a radical reinvention of
Speaker 1: the company. Too many rushed games had flooded toy isles,
Speaker 1: costing Warner profits. Executives huddled with Jack, and after one
Speaker 1: all night meeting, they agreed to sell him the company.
Speaker 1: Jack's deal to acquire Atari was complex. Warner agreed to
Speaker 1: sell most of it on the basis of debt notes,
Speaker 1: essentially a deferred payment plan. Jack still had to spend
Speaker 1: his own money, by some reports, as much as thirty
Speaker 1: million dollars, but essentially he got a very good deal.
Speaker 1: Jack Tremmel, as hardened a businessman as there had ever been,
Speaker 1: was now in charge of Atari, but his the focus
Speaker 1: was on saving money, not spending it. One of the
Speaker 1: first acts of his new corporate regime was to scrap
Speaker 1: sword Quest, a contest that was costing Atari a lot
Speaker 1: of money without getting much in the way of a return.
Speaker 1: Tor and Tara were essentially served their termination notices. Other
Speaker 1: employees fit that bill as well. It's not that Jack
Speaker 1: fired them exactly, it's just that he didn't hire them.
Speaker 1: But the personnel departures hundreds and hundreds were so large
Speaker 1: that he earned nicknames Jack the Ripper, Jack the Knife.
Speaker 2: As things started to get later on into late eighty
Speaker 2: three and starting to move into eighty four, it became
Speaker 2: clear that things were not going as well for Atari.
Speaker 1: That's Howard Scott Warshaw. Again, Howard was among those who
Speaker 1: were still with ATARI when it experienced a dramatic paradigm
Speaker 1: shift in nineteen eighty four. When Jack Tremmel stepped in.
Speaker 2: It got so bad. He got so dire at Atari
Speaker 2: it even started to overcome our denial about things going bad.
Speaker 2: That's how bad it was, because our denial was really powerful.
Speaker 2: I never wanted anyone to rain on my parade, because
Speaker 2: this was an amazing parade I got to be in.
Speaker 2: But it did, and things were starting to die and
Speaker 2: fall down, and my interview with Jack Tremmel was amazing
Speaker 2: because Jack Tremmel himself is a remarkable guy. This is
Speaker 2: a guy who survived Auschwitz concentration camp, then left Poland
Speaker 2: to come to the United States, opened a typewriter store,
Speaker 2: turned it into Commodore Computers, which built up into a
Speaker 2: billion dollar company, which he then left. And now we're
Speaker 2: the first acquisition that he makes after Commodore. So he's
Speaker 2: reputed to be an extremely hard nosed businessman. So I'm
Speaker 2: kind of interested to talk to this guy. I mean,
Speaker 2: this sounds like a very interesting person. So I go
Speaker 2: in and we talk, and we start talking and he's
Speaker 2: has he He has nothing to say about the technology
Speaker 2: or what they're going to do. He's just asking me,
Speaker 2: you know what I do, and you know, what do
Speaker 2: I like? And you know, am I married? You know,
Speaker 2: which is a question I don't usually get in interviews.
Speaker 2: And I told him, yeah, in fact, you know, my
Speaker 2: wife works, and he actually says to me, he goes,
Speaker 2: what she works? You got that all wrong. You know,
Speaker 2: she should be at home waiting for you with the
Speaker 2: slippers when you get home. So it was a very
Speaker 2: interesting interview, and at the end of it, it was
Speaker 2: clear that what they were looking for was not really
Speaker 2: game programmers.
Speaker 1: For Howard, the new Atari wasn't a better Atari, not
Speaker 1: for him anyway.
Speaker 2: So basically, after the round of interviews, they offered a
Speaker 2: bunch of layoff packes. People could decide what they wanted
Speaker 2: to do, and I opted out. But I did have
Speaker 2: the interview with Jack, and I wore my slippers on
Speaker 2: the last day.
Speaker 1: Atari under Jack Tremmel was let's call it unique. His
Speaker 1: whole philosophy probably stemmed from his childhood or a lack
Speaker 1: of a childhood. Jack summed it up this way, business
Speaker 1: is war and Atari was his new battlefield.
Speaker 5: I don't know those days, and I had to approved
Speaker 5: it myself, but if I am.
Speaker 1: Equal with other people, but there was one thing that
Speaker 1: would forever alter the course of Atari. At its heart,
Speaker 1: it was a gaming company, and Jack Tremmel didn't play games.
Speaker 1: Jack recruited his three sons to work for him. There
Speaker 1: was Leonard Trammel, who had a degree in physics and
Speaker 1: was assigned to oversea software, Gary Trimmel, who was responsible
Speaker 1: for collecting on outstanding invoices money owed Atari, and Sam Tremail,
Speaker 1: who became Atari's president. When Jack moved up to chairman,
Speaker 1: Atari became a family business, the Tremmel family business. According
Speaker 1: to those who worked for him, Jack could be tyrannical, belligerent, tough, difficult.
Speaker 1: Screw up and you'd face a Jack attack, a tirade
Speaker 1: of epic proportions. It was not unheard of for Jack
Speaker 1: to remove his shoe and begin pounding it on the
Speaker 1: table during a meeting. In fact, at Commodore, someone had
Speaker 1: named one of the computer game's Jack attack as an
Speaker 1: inside joke. One Atari employee remembers that one of the
Speaker 1: Tremmel's would walk into Atari's offices a stack of pink
Speaker 1: slips stuffed in his pocket. Losing your job was something
Speaker 1: that could happen suddenly. Some gamers have even declared Jack
Speaker 1: the man who destroyed a Tari. But that's a pretty
Speaker 1: superficial understanding of Jack.
Speaker 6: Aggressive, smart, very cost conscious, tight with his money. A
Speaker 6: table pounder likened him to a Who is the Russian
Speaker 6: dictator who hit the table with his shoe? Was it
Speaker 6: Khrushchev or Gorbachev? He wouldn't take any crap.
Speaker 1: That's Michael Katz. Michael came from Mattel and Kaliko. At
Speaker 1: Mattel he had headed up design of their electronic football
Speaker 1: handheld game. That's a very retro reference, but if you're
Speaker 1: of a certain age, you'll remember it. Jack wanted Michael
Speaker 1: to come on board the new Atari. His Atari and
Speaker 1: Michael agreed, but under certain conditions.
Speaker 6: I told them I would be willing to become head
Speaker 6: of marketing for the computer division. I would be happy
Speaker 6: to become president of the video game division. I would
Speaker 6: do those first two things only if Jack created a
Speaker 6: new division and a new position called President of Entertainment Electronics,
Speaker 6: which meant toys and games that were electronic being introduced
Speaker 6: under the Atari banner. Utari name to compete directly with
Speaker 6: Worlds of Wonder.
Speaker 1: Worlds of Wonder was the company that had hit it
Speaker 1: big thanks to Teddy Ruxpin, a talking teddy bear that
Speaker 1: told bedtime stories. It was sort of like having a
Speaker 1: chuck e Cheese in your living room. Michael wanted Atari
Speaker 1: to become more of an all encompassing entertainment company with
Speaker 1: products outside of gaming and computers. For example, he thought
Speaker 1: Atari might be able to market laser tag, but there
Speaker 1: were a couple of problems. One. Jack wanted Atari to
Speaker 1: become the biggest name in home computers. If video games
Speaker 1: could do anything for him at all, it would be
Speaker 1: to subsidize his PC projects. At the time, the market
Speaker 1: was dominated by companies like IBM, COMPAC, Apple, and his
Speaker 1: own former company, Commodore. To Jack, the competition's machines were,
Speaker 1: in his words, like cigarettes. They're bad for you, but
Speaker 1: an awful lot of people are hooked on using them. Two,
Speaker 1: he didn't want to spend a lot of money. When
Speaker 1: Michael brought a laser tag, Jack initially said sure, let's
Speaker 1: do that. Then when it was time to close the deal,
Speaker 1: he waffled the laser tag. People were upset it was
Speaker 1: too late to pair with anyone else for the holiday season.
Speaker 1: That was Jack not here to make friends. That was
Speaker 1: the reason the sword Quest contest came to an end
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty six. With tens of thousands left to
Speaker 1: spend in a crashing video game market, it simply made
Speaker 1: no financial sense to allow it to continue. The contest
Speaker 1: started under Warner, it wasn't a part of the new Atari,
Speaker 1: which was really the unfinished business he had left a
Speaker 1: Commodore total domination of the personal computing market. Not only
Speaker 1: did Jack scrap sword Quest, he barely wanted anything to
Speaker 1: do with video games at all. One of the first
Speaker 1: things Jack did was try to return six million dollars
Speaker 1: in advertising. Atari, while still owned by Warner, had pre
Speaker 1: purchased for the nineteen eighty four Olympic Games, and Michael
Speaker 1: remembers one of the tremel's denying a request for fifty
Speaker 1: four dollars to mail an item overnight fifty four dollars.
Speaker 1: Michael paid it himself, though he did get reimbursed later on.
Speaker 6: We cut corners wherever we could, just to be good
Speaker 6: business people. Jack had a reputation for being very tough
Speaker 6: at Commodore, very tough at Atari. I respected that in him.
Speaker 6: I didn't look down upon it, but it meant that
Speaker 6: we had to do a lot of stuff differently from
Speaker 6: what the industry was used to.
Speaker 1: At Commodore, Jack had gotten press attention without even trying.
Speaker 1: He had a cool product, a novel product, an affordable
Speaker 1: computer that you didn't need to be an MIT graduate
Speaker 1: to use. Maybe Jack expected that same kind of attention Atari,
Speaker 1: but this was a time Atari probably should have been
Speaker 1: out courting to press. But pretty soon Atari had another problem,
Speaker 1: and his name was Mario. A Japanese company named Nintendo
Speaker 1: had released the Family Computer or Famicom in Japan in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, it was leagues beyond any gaming system
Speaker 1: of the era Atari included. In nineteen eighty five, Nintendo
Speaker 1: entered the North American market. The Famicom was retooled as
Speaker 1: the Nintendo Entertainment System or NYS, and although retailers were
Speaker 1: still feeling burned by Atari, they were lured in by
Speaker 1: lots of promises, like the fact Nintendo would accept any
Speaker 1: unsold inventory. Thanks to Super Mario Brothers, The Legend of Zelda, Castlevania,
Speaker 1: and dozens of other titles, Nintendo became the biggest brand
Speaker 1: in home gaming, a role that had previously belonged to Atari.
Speaker 1: Atari couldn't compete head to head with Nintendo. What they
Speaker 1: could do was position themselves as an affordable alternative. Families
Speaker 1: who had kids crying for an Nes but were on
Speaker 1: a tight budget could opt for the less expensive ATARI system.
Speaker 6: So my mission was to bring back the twenty six
Speaker 6: hundred under fifty dollars as a low price spread that
Speaker 6: became positioned as the game system for those who couldn't
Speaker 6: afford one hundred and forty nine or one hundred ninety
Speaker 6: nine dollars for an Atari or a Mattel.
Speaker 1: While this strategy worked, Atari blew another opportunity when game
Speaker 1: manufacturer Sega approached the company with an offer to distribute
Speaker 1: their new system, the Sega Genesis.
Speaker 6: And I thought that was wonderful that they came to us,
Speaker 6: came to me. We met with Jack and Sam and
Speaker 6: once again, and Jack seemed to be interested and excited.
Speaker 6: Jack said, it sounds great, but when it came to
Speaker 6: working out the royalty part of it and advance and
Speaker 6: guarantee part of it, Jack walked away because he didn't
Speaker 6: want to make a deal and had no interest in
Speaker 6: the next great video game system.
Speaker 1: Jack was focused on Atari's home computer projects. There was
Speaker 1: the Atari ST, which was nicknamed the Jack in Toosh,
Speaker 1: and it was Jack's obsession. It sold for around eight
Speaker 1: hundred dollars, cheaper than Apple's Macintosh. Some people considered it
Speaker 1: one of the best computers ever released, and it became
Speaker 1: really popular with musicians thanks to Midi ports. For the
Speaker 1: first time, amateurs could arrange and compose music at home
Speaker 1: on a PC without spending a small fortune, and professionals
Speaker 1: used it too. Tangerine Dream made several albums using the
Speaker 1: Atari st pop music, and Jack Tremmel. That's an interesting combination,
Speaker 1: but Jack still had a hard time getting retailers to
Speaker 1: support it. Remember that Atari Games had sat on their
Speaker 1: shelves collecting dust during the video game meltdown of nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty three. That wasn't Jack's doing, but the brand was damaged,
Speaker 1: and the thing Jack did have control over, soothing retailer
Speaker 1: fears wasn't something he really cared to pursue.
Speaker 6: On the negative side, he wasn't a schmoozer, he wasn't
Speaker 6: a massager. He ignored that ten key retailers controlled retail
Speaker 6: distribution in the whole United States and Canada, and he
Speaker 6: wasn't willing to pay them the traditional merchandising fees to
Speaker 6: support his products at retail.
Speaker 1: Michael eventually left Atari and wound up with Sega. A
Speaker 1: short time later, Atari decided to jump back into video games.
Speaker 1: The Atar ryst computer hadn't been the hit they were expecting,
Speaker 1: but Atari still had major name recognition in the gaming market. First,
Speaker 1: they introduced the Atari Links, a color handheld system that
Speaker 1: would be compared with the Nintendo Game Boy. It was
Speaker 1: probably a superior system with color graphics, but it was
Speaker 1: twice as much and that color display drained batteries too quickly.
Speaker 1: Then in nineteen ninety three, they introduced the Atari Jaguar,
Speaker 1: a next generation system boasting of advanced sixty four bit graphics.
Speaker 1: It beat systems like the Sony PlayStation to the market.
Speaker 7: With its importates three D graphics, real world animation, and
Speaker 7: enlightened scy that you can only get with Jaguar.
Speaker 6: Repeat the question, Jaguar, Jaguar, Jagar.
Speaker 1: The Jaguar got support from Walmart, who promised to place
Speaker 1: it in over four hundred of their stores, but instead
Speaker 1: of a more conventional marketing pust Atari opted to do
Speaker 1: an infomercial. It didn't resonate with gamers. Infomercials weren't really cool,
Speaker 1: and the games weren't as memorable as your Marios and Sonics.
Speaker 1: Atari had Trevor mcpherr and Dino Dunes. By this point,
Speaker 1: no matter what kind of system you had or what
Speaker 1: it could do, a company needed hundreds of millions in
Speaker 1: advertising to get gamers interested. You needed millions more to
Speaker 1: satisfy big retailers who want money for premium product placement
Speaker 1: or mentions in their own advertising. Game systems don't just
Speaker 1: ship to stores and get stocked there's a dance that
Speaker 1: goes on behind the scenes that wasn't something Atari could manage.
Speaker 1: Jack didn't dance. The jaguar floundered. Atari had a bunch
Speaker 1: of them returned. Ultimately, they sold one hundred twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand systems but had one hundred thousand in inventory. There
Speaker 1: was more bad news. Sam tra Mmel, who had been
Speaker 1: running Atari as president, suffered a heart attack. That meant Jack,
Speaker 1: who had taken a step back, returned to run things. Finally,
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six, Jack decided it was time. He
Speaker 1: worked out a merger between Atari and JTS, a disk
Speaker 1: drive manufacturer, and from what Somax employees say, the company
Speaker 1: was absorbed without much of an institutional memory. The Atari archives,
Speaker 1: such as they were, were left up to fans. In
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, Hasbro would buy Atari from JTS. Year
Speaker 1: after year, memories of sword Quest would fade in the
Speaker 1: minds of all but a handful of people. One era
Speaker 1: of Atari ended, but the era of Jack Tremmel would continue.
Speaker 1: There would be another gathering of employees, this time not
Speaker 1: in the air but on solid ground. When Jack walked
Speaker 1: away from Atari, he threw a party at his home
Speaker 1: for the amateur detectives who were following the sword Quest saga.
Speaker 1: It would be a party that became the stuff of legend.
Speaker 1: Jack Tremmel is bidding goodbye to a company he's controlled
Speaker 1: for the past twelve years, through good times and bad,
Speaker 1: through market changes, and many many tsunamis in both the
Speaker 1: gaming and personal computer worlds. He's always looking toward the future,
Speaker 1: but his past isn't forgotten. He makes a seven figure
Speaker 1: donation to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. It's around
Speaker 1: this time that Jack invites a number of friends, family,
Speaker 1: and Atari staff to his home in Moreno Valley, California.
Speaker 1: Befitting Jack's stature as a pioneer in home computing, It's
Speaker 1: a lavish estate with the expected trimmings of success, a pool,
Speaker 1: a wine cellar, the square footage of a large retail store.
Speaker 1: He toasts friends and close associates, those he calls the
Speaker 1: inner family, the people he trusts implicitly, at least that's
Speaker 1: how some people remember it. It's here at this party
Speaker 1: that the Fireplace story begins to take root. The first
Speaker 1: talk of it came in nineteen ninety seven, when an
Speaker 1: Atari fan named Clay Hollowell distributed an online Atari newsletter.
Speaker 1: In between video game reviews and industry news, Clay wrote.
Speaker 8: Useless fact of the month. Remember the fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 8: grand prize sword for the sword Quest contestatory was running well.
Speaker 8: That sword is hanging over the mantle of Jack Tremail's fireplace.
Speaker 1: Then, in nineteen ninety eight, the late Atari archivist Kurt
Speaker 1: Vin Dell posted a message to a Usenet group that
Speaker 1: was kind of a Reddit before Reddit. In a discussion
Speaker 1: about the unclaimed sword Quest prizes, Kurt mentioned that a
Speaker 1: friend of his had been told the same thing. Jack
Speaker 1: had possession of the Sword of Ultimate Sorcery. Depending on
Speaker 1: the version told, the sword hung over the fireplace in
Speaker 1: one of the homes many stately rooms, gleaming steel, proving
Speaker 1: irresistible to party goers. Or perhaps it simply hung on
Speaker 1: the wall, an ornamental flourish that didn't resonate with all
Speaker 1: but a few of the Atari faithful, who saw it
Speaker 1: for what it was, the lost treasure of sword Quest Tara.
Speaker 3: It's what we've been seeking for all this time.
Speaker 4: Let's grab it now and flee and strike down anyone
Speaker 4: who stands in our way.
Speaker 3: No, sister, let us not shed any blood this day. First,
Speaker 3: we must be sure this is the treasure we seek.
Speaker 1: A few years later, another former Atari employee created a
Speaker 1: similar post on the Atari age forums. He claimed he
Speaker 1: had been told by four separate people who had been
Speaker 1: to Jack's house for the gathering that they too had
Speaker 1: seen the sword above the fireplace. Now, one person mentioning this,
Speaker 1: that could be a mistake, maybe an exaggeration, But five
Speaker 1: people claiming to have seen it, that's compelling. So we
Speaker 1: reached out to the employee some twenty years after he
Speaker 1: created that post. Credit to him for remembering. He even
Speaker 1: wrote that he said he had heard the fireplace story
Speaker 1: from a few people, and he passed their names on.
Speaker 1: Here's what they told us, And yes these are dramatizations
Speaker 1: of their replies.
Speaker 8: I didn't see sword quest memorabilia at Jack's house.
Speaker 1: I have been asked about it before and have joked
Speaker 1: that I should have looked for it.
Speaker 9: I'd heard from multiple people during my Atari tenure that
Speaker 9: Jack had the mystical sword hung over his fireplace and
Speaker 9: his home. I no longer recall who told me that,
Speaker 9: and I never witnessed it myself. I never had the
Speaker 9: honor to be to any of the Tremmel's homes.
Speaker 1: Three other people alleged to have seen the sword didn't
Speaker 1: reply to a request to comment. Doesn't mean they saw it,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean they didn't. There's something you've probably been muttering
Speaker 1: to yourself this entire time. Just ask the Tremmel's, for
Speaker 1: God's sake. Jack's three sons would certainly know whether their
Speaker 1: father had taken in possession of the sword. They worked
Speaker 1: with him, Presumably they've been to their father's house. First,
Speaker 1: we tried Leonard Tremmel. Leonard is fairly open about his
Speaker 1: family's background in the personal computing world. He's given interviews
Speaker 1: about it. You can find them on YouTube, many of
Speaker 1: them relatively recent. So he's open to talking about this period,
Speaker 1: but he's not open to being asked about sword Quest
Speaker 1: or the prizes. We asked Leonard if you'd like to talk,
Speaker 1: but got no response. Then we heard from Howard Scott
Speaker 1: Warshaw that Leonard didn't want to be contacted for this project.
Speaker 1: Leonard's brothers, Sam and Gary haven't really given many, if
Speaker 1: any interviews following their family's exit from Atari in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six, whether it was about sword Quest or just
Speaker 1: Atari in general, and we didn't get a response from
Speaker 1: them either. Among the three Trimmel siblings, there seems to
Speaker 1: be a kind of omerita about sword quest of vow
Speaker 1: of silence, or maybe we're just imagining it. Maybe the
Speaker 1: mythology surrounding the prizes and the legend that Jack commandeered
Speaker 1: the sword is patently uninteresting to them, to the point
Speaker 1: they don't even want to bother to comment. That's possible.
Speaker 1: Here's another possibility. If the rumor were true, if Jack
Speaker 1: had taken the sword and other prizes, would the Tremmels
Speaker 1: want to confirm it. If the family admit it to
Speaker 1: having the prizes, they'd have to feel an entirely new
Speaker 1: line of questioning from curious gaming historians, or even animosity.
Speaker 1: There might be some disgruntlement among gamers. Canceling a contest
Speaker 1: and then keeping the prizes is what some might call
Speaker 1: bad optics. Less Georges Patten and more Ebonezer Scrooge. There
Speaker 1: is one possible explanation for the fireplace story, one that
Speaker 1: bridges the gap between the legend and fact. It's a
Speaker 1: conclusion summatary historians have settled on. There's one of them,
Speaker 1: Ken van Merzbergen.
Speaker 7: There is a sword that hangs there, but it is
Speaker 7: not the sword quest sort. It's another sword entirely. They
Speaker 7: saw a sword, but we talked to the Trammels, Leonard Sam,
Speaker 7: and even Jack himself. It was not the sword Quest
Speaker 7: sword sortquest. The prizes were not there when they took over,
Speaker 7: but they did have to close out the contest because
Speaker 7: that was.
Speaker 5: On their books.
Speaker 1: Wait, what did Ken say?
Speaker 7: We talked to the Trammels, Leonard Sam, and even Jack himself.
Speaker 1: By we Ken means he and fellow historian Kurt Vendell.
Speaker 1: And that's interesting since there's never been an on the
Speaker 1: record comment about the prizes from Jack himself, who passed
Speaker 1: away in twenty twelve. But there's one hang up. Kurt
Speaker 1: Vendell may have spoken to the Tremmels, but Ken didn't,
Speaker 1: and Kurt passed back in twenty twenty. Here's Ken again.
Speaker 7: I talked to Leonard Tremmell about other things, but I
Speaker 7: don't think I didn't talk sword quest with him about it.
Speaker 1: Another sword, some kind of deck sword. It's hard to imagine,
Speaker 1: but maybe Jack Tremmeel had some other sharp object in
Speaker 1: a place of prominence in his home and Atari employees
Speaker 1: familiar with the legend of sword Quest simply inferred the
Speaker 1: sword was the sword. Remember that the first known photo
Speaker 1: of the sword wasn't discovered until a few years later
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety nine. In all likelihood, no one who
Speaker 1: thought they saw the sword would know the sword Quest
Speaker 1: sword from any of the thousands of other sword designs,
Speaker 1: from antiquities to replicas, and from what we know of
Speaker 1: the prizes, none are emblazoned with the telltale sign an
Speaker 1: Atari logo. It would be hard, if not impossible, for
Speaker 1: them to make a positive identification unless they had seen
Speaker 1: it when the contest was still active, or unless Jack
Speaker 1: told them what it was. And why would he do that?
Speaker 1: Say it was the sword of ultimate sorcery? Why would
Speaker 1: Jack Tremmel, who had virtually no interest in video games,
Speaker 1: possess a symbol of video game supremacy.
Speaker 3: It's not the sword we seek after all, Tara, It's
Speaker 3: merely ornamental. It possesses no power.
Speaker 4: We've gone down the wrong path, brother, This testimony cannot
Speaker 4: be confirmed, Tara.
Speaker 3: I can't wait there, do you see it? Why the
Speaker 3: gods our quest has brought us here to the one
Speaker 3: place that might finally provide an answer.
Speaker 1: It's cold, so cold.
Speaker 3: Yes, but we must forge ahead. We must headed to
Speaker 3: the frozen tundra known as Canada.
Speaker 5: Where done.
Speaker 1: Sorry, Canada, It's game over next time on sword Quest.
Speaker 9: The Legend of sword Quest is a production of iHeart
Speaker 9: Podcasts and School of Humans.
Speaker 8: This episode was written by Jake Rosson and hosted by
Speaker 8: Jamie Loftus producers are Miranda Hawkins and Josh Fisher. Executive
Speaker 8: producers are Virginia Prescott, L. C. Crowley, Brandon Barr, and
Speaker 8: Jason English.
Speaker 9: Our show editor is Mary Doo.
Speaker 8: Audio engineering by Graham Gibson, Research and fact checking by
Speaker 8: Austin Thompson and Jake Rosson.
Speaker 9: Original score by Jesse Niswanger.
Speaker 8: This episode was sound designed by Josh Fisher, mixing and
Speaker 8: mastering by Miranda Hawkins. Show logo by Lucy Quintonia. Voices
Speaker 8: in this episode are provided by Haley Ellman and Graham Parker.