WEBVTT - 7: The Swordsman 0:00:02.880 --> 0:00:06.960 No one knows about the coffee pot. In nineteen eighty, 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:10.559 a man named Jack Tremmel is boarding a company plane. 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:12.799 Jack is in his fifties and has the look of 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:16.120 a character actor from noir films of the nineteen forties, 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:21.280 or maybe a little Telly savalis Ko Jack. One employee 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:25.000 thought he was patent esque, as in general George s. 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:28.600 He's traveling with his wife, Helen, three employees, and a 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:32.280 couple of salespeople for Commodore, going from Chicago back to 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:36.159 Commodore's home base of California. It's a jet, but a 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:38.920 small jet, and so there are only two crew members, 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.159 the pilot and co pilot, and things are okay at first, 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:45.239 But what no one knows is that every time the 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:47.960 plane is in the air, the coffee pot tends to 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:51.480 slide around on the burn just a little, not really 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:54.960 enough to notice, but over time the pot has been 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:59.320 chipping away at the insulation surrounding an electrical component. One 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:02.200 of Jack's employed starts to brew a pot of coffee, 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:05.880 and this pod is the last straw for the plane's 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:10.200 main power bus. There's a short The worn insulation prompts 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:13.880 an electrical fire. Pretty soon flames start to lick out 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:16.760 from the ceiling and smoke begins to fill the cabin. 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:22.839 One of the pilots attempts to put the fire out 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:26.759 with an extinguisher, but it's not working. The melting metal 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.680 drips like the coffee from the ceiling and Singe's skin. 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:34.800 The flames are creeping closer and closer to the fuel 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:38.600 tank As the pilots scramble looking for a place to land. 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:41.320 Smoke begins to fill the lungs of Jack and his 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:45.520 fellow passengers. His eyes begin to grow distant. Those on 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:54.880 board begin to think this is it the end. The 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:57.720 air is running out, the smoke is taking over, and 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:01.800 there could be an explosion at any moment. Finally they 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:04.240 get the word that they're clear to land in Iowa. 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:07.480 It's hard to believe, but no one is seriously hurt. 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.600 But it's not the most harrowing thing Jack Tremmel has experienced. 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:15.480 Jack has stared death in the face before, and did 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.760 it on a scale most of us could never imagine. 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:22.079 Those who knew him knew he was, in every way possible, 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:26.280 a survivor. That's important to know because in this story, 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:31.079 all roads lead to Jack. Four years after this near 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:35.600 fatal incident, he acquires Atari, and many years after that, 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:41.000 one of gaming's biggest urban legends starts to unfold. In 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:45.720 first grabbing and then selling Atari, Jack Tremmel will inadvertently 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:49.720 launch the biggest and most intriguing sword quest chapter of 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:54.400 them all. Here's former Atari game designer Howard Scott Warshaw 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:55.680 The Sword. 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:58.760 What I heard was, you know, Jack Trammel, who was 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:02.079 part of the Trammels who ultimate took over Atari, bought 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:05.000 it from Warner. I heard that part of that acquisition 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:06.960 was he got a hold of the sword, which hadn't 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.280 been given out yet, And I heard that he kept 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:11.560 it in his home. He had it up on a 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:13.799 plaque on a wall in his home, and that was 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:16.400 kind of cool, although I never verified that because Jack 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:17.840 never invited me over for dinner. 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:23.160 The sword there, it rests so close, and yet. 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:26.480 Yet it's well guarded. Tour To reach out and seize 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:29.320 it then attempt to get away, we'd have to be stark, 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:30.080 raving mad. 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:32.359 But how did it wind up here in the first place, 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.680 in this house gate known as California. The journey it 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:38.960 must have undergone. It belongs in our hands. 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:42.760 For we have suffered the trials and danger necessary to 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:46.280 wield it. Not this this Trammel. 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:49.720 Perhaps someone can tell us more of this man to 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:51.640 better understand the foe we face. 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:58.000 For iHeartRadio. This is the Legend of sword Quest. I'm 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:01.120 your host, Jamie Loftus, And this this is episode seven. 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:02.360 The Swordsmen. 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:09.040 The Faithful Art of eleven has struck and Britain's final 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:10.440 warning to Hitler having been. 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:13.440 Ignored, a state of war once more exists between Great 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:14.440 Britain and Germany. 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:21.880 Having Jack Tremmel was born in Wog, Poland, in nineteen 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:24.920 twenty eight. By the time he turned ten, he was 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:28.119 watching from his window as Nazis began marching into town. 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:32.159 To a kid, it was exciting at first he was 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:36.200 unable to understand what was really happening, But soon Jack 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:38.960 and his family found themselves living in a single room 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:41.880 in a Woge ghetto. People he knew there one day 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:46.600 and gone the next. Jewish members of the community were 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:50.479 being transported out by the Germans. By the time Jack 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:54.119 was sixteen in nineteen forty four, it was his turn. 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:58.920 He and his father were bound for Auschwitz. Jack would 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:02.520 later recall getting a physical by Joseph Mangela one of 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:06.040 the most notorious and cruel members of the Nazi Party. 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.840 Mangele dubbed him fit for work, and he and his 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:12.800 father were sent to labor camps. He had already been 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:16.120 separated from his mother. With no way of contacting her, 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.560 Jack and his dad assumed she was dead. For months, 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:24.719 Jack toiled in the work camp. Liberation was coming, and 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:26.960 so was the end of the war, but his father 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.880 wouldn't make it. Typhus was the reported cause, but Jack 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:35.040 felt differently. His father died, he later said, from having 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:41.200 gasoline injected into his veins in some deranged experiment. Jack survived. 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:44.680 After the war, he met and married a woman named Helen, 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:48.719 herself a Holocaust survivor. And if anything good could come 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.520 of any of this, it was that Jack discovered his 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:56.479 mother was still alive. Back in which Jack meanwhile wanted 0:05:56.560 --> 0:05:59.599 to come to the United States. 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:03.839 Journey right, and I went to the council there. I 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:06.159 told him that I would like to go to the States. 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:08.800 I was a person to go to the States, so 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:10.440 I'm looking at we can do that. I am a 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:11.240 the splice person. 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:15.400 That's Jack Tremmel. In nineteen ninety he gave an interview 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:19.920 to author William B. Helmreich for a book Against All Odds. 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.920 That audio was later preserved by the United States Holocaust 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.279 Memorial Museum. 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:28.680 He said to me, when would you like to go 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:31.960 as as soon as possible? Next week? 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:36.600 In nineteen forty seven, Jack and Helen received assistance from 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.880 the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and took an opportunity to 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:44.120 board an ocean liner headed to America. Jack arrived first, 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:48.040 Helen later, but America wasn't the country he imagined. 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.279 It was extremely disappointed when I arrived. 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:52.080 But I got off the. 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:56.000 Boat seeing that the smell that they're everything else that 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:58.960 was prepared to wait till the book returns to. 0:06:58.920 --> 0:06:59.640 Go back to Earth. 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:01.359 No money in my pocket, I think, you know. 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:03.360 I just went along with the crowd, and I got 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:06.680 hit by a car right. I was crossing when I 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.800 got hit by a car, and without opened my eyes 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:12.560 up right, and I've seen all the people sitting around me. 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:14.200 I right away, Yeah, I think I'm going to be 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:15.320 arrested at in the car. 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:19.840 There was no lasting damage. You couldn't really hurt Jack Tremmel, 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:24.040 not by car, by plane or in war. Jack enlisted 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:26.760 in the United States Army, where he did two tours. 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:32.120 He eventually found himself repairing office equipment, like typewriters. After 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:35.360 the war, he continued preparing them. He opened a repair 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:39.080 shop in the Bronx. In nineteen fifty five, he moved 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:43.000 to Toronto and soon started a typewriter company. He called 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:50.120 it Commodore. It felt official, military like. Commodore made typewriters 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:53.640 and later calculators. He took on a partner, a man 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:57.760 named Irving Gold, in nineteen sixty six, but Jack remained 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:02.720 on as the visionary, the leader. Before Apple and IBM, 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:07.800 Jack's Commodore was offering affordable computing power. He called his 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:12.640 philosophy hardware for the masses, not the classes. Jack knew 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:15.960 before a lot of people did, that technology shouldn't be 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:20.320 relegated to a small number of people. Commodore made computers 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:24.880 a democracy. But soon a rift developed between Jack, who 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:27.880 was determined to do things his way, and Irvin Gold, 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:31.280 who had other plans. In nineteen eighty four, the two 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:34.640 men had a meeting, things were said, and before long 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:38.480 Jack decided he no longer had a role in Commodore. 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:43.440 Most people might be content retiring. Jack was in his fifties, wealthy, 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:47.280 and though he might not have considered it a pioneer 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:52.000 in computing, but that wasn't Jack's nature. Commodore had in 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:57.480 some way antagonized him. His new mission was to obliterate it. 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:00.320 In what better way than to take charge of the 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:04.600 competition Atari, which it made its mark in home computing 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:11.040 as well as video games. On his first official day 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:15.000 at Atari, Jack Tremmel allegedly parked his car in a 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:19.960 handicapped spot, stormed in and began a radical reinvention of 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:23.800 the company. Too many rushed games had flooded toy isles, 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:29.640 costing Warner profits. Executives huddled with Jack, and after one 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:32.840 all night meeting, they agreed to sell him the company. 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:38.360 Jack's deal to acquire Atari was complex. Warner agreed to 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:40.760 sell most of it on the basis of debt notes, 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:44.880 essentially a deferred payment plan. Jack still had to spend 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:47.760 his own money, by some reports, as much as thirty 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:51.600 million dollars, but essentially he got a very good deal. 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:56.600 Jack Tremmel, as hardened a businessman as there had ever been, 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:00.520 was now in charge of Atari, but his the focus 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:04.120 was on saving money, not spending it. One of the 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:06.600 first acts of his new corporate regime was to scrap 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:09.960 sword Quest, a contest that was costing Atari a lot 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:12.520 of money without getting much in the way of a return. 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:18.440 Tor and Tara were essentially served their termination notices. Other 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:21.640 employees fit that bill as well. It's not that Jack 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:25.840 fired them exactly, it's just that he didn't hire them. 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:31.000 But the personnel departures hundreds and hundreds were so large 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:35.520 that he earned nicknames Jack the Ripper, Jack the Knife. 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.240 As things started to get later on into late eighty 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:42.360 three and starting to move into eighty four, it became 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.160 clear that things were not going as well for Atari. 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.560 That's Howard Scott Warshaw. Again, Howard was among those who 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:53.400 were still with ATARI when it experienced a dramatic paradigm 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:57.000 shift in nineteen eighty four. When Jack Tremmel stepped in. 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:01.960 It got so bad. He got so dire at Atari 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:05.600 it even started to overcome our denial about things going bad. 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:09.120 That's how bad it was, because our denial was really powerful. 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:11.640 I never wanted anyone to rain on my parade, because 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:14.360 this was an amazing parade I got to be in. 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:17.880 But it did, and things were starting to die and 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:21.440 fall down, and my interview with Jack Tremmel was amazing 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:24.600 because Jack Tremmel himself is a remarkable guy. This is 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:30.360 a guy who survived Auschwitz concentration camp, then left Poland 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:34.000 to come to the United States, opened a typewriter store, 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.240 turned it into Commodore Computers, which built up into a 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:40.840 billion dollar company, which he then left. And now we're 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:46.800 the first acquisition that he makes after Commodore. So he's 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:52.000 reputed to be an extremely hard nosed businessman. So I'm 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:53.679 kind of interested to talk to this guy. I mean, 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.720 this sounds like a very interesting person. So I go 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:59.200 in and we talk, and we start talking and he's 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:01.920 has he He has nothing to say about the technology 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:04.160 or what they're going to do. He's just asking me, 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:05.760 you know what I do, and you know, what do 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:08.680 I like? And you know, am I married? You know, 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:11.520 which is a question I don't usually get in interviews. 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:15.000 And I told him, yeah, in fact, you know, my 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:17.240 wife works, and he actually says to me, he goes, 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:20.880 what she works? You got that all wrong. You know, 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:23.240 she should be at home waiting for you with the 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.640 slippers when you get home. So it was a very 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:29.560 interesting interview, and at the end of it, it was 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:31.760 clear that what they were looking for was not really 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:32.720 game programmers. 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:37.480 For Howard, the new Atari wasn't a better Atari, not 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:38.480 for him anyway. 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:43.640 So basically, after the round of interviews, they offered a 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:46.160 bunch of layoff packes. People could decide what they wanted 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:50.000 to do, and I opted out. But I did have 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:53.080 the interview with Jack, and I wore my slippers on 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:53.840 the last day. 0:12:55.600 --> 0:13:00.760 Atari under Jack Tremmel was let's call it unique. His 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:04.880 whole philosophy probably stemmed from his childhood or a lack 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:09.360 of a childhood. Jack summed it up this way, business 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:13.480 is war and Atari was his new battlefield. 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:20.959 I don't know those days, and I had to approved 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:23.600 it myself, but if I am. 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:27.040 Equal with other people, but there was one thing that 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:30.840 would forever alter the course of Atari. At its heart, 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:35.840 it was a gaming company, and Jack Tremmel didn't play games. 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:41.880 Jack recruited his three sons to work for him. There 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.800 was Leonard Trammel, who had a degree in physics and 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:49.280 was assigned to oversea software, Gary Trimmel, who was responsible 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:55.080 for collecting on outstanding invoices money owed Atari, and Sam Tremail, 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.640 who became Atari's president. When Jack moved up to chairman, 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:05.040 Atari became a family business, the Tremmel family business. According 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:11.080 to those who worked for him, Jack could be tyrannical, belligerent, tough, difficult. 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:15.480 Screw up and you'd face a Jack attack, a tirade 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:19.160 of epic proportions. It was not unheard of for Jack 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:22.120 to remove his shoe and begin pounding it on the 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:26.560 table during a meeting. In fact, at Commodore, someone had 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.320 named one of the computer game's Jack attack as an 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:33.360 inside joke. One Atari employee remembers that one of the 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:37.240 Tremmel's would walk into Atari's offices a stack of pink 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:40.800 slips stuffed in his pocket. Losing your job was something 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:44.920 that could happen suddenly. Some gamers have even declared Jack 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:49.240 the man who destroyed a Tari. But that's a pretty 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:51.120 superficial understanding of Jack. 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:57.400 Aggressive, smart, very cost conscious, tight with his money. A 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:00.960 table pounder likened him to a Who is the Russian 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:05.320 dictator who hit the table with his shoe? Was it 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:08.800 Khrushchev or Gorbachev? He wouldn't take any crap. 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:14.240 That's Michael Katz. Michael came from Mattel and Kaliko. At 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:17.880 Mattel he had headed up design of their electronic football 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:22.320 handheld game. That's a very retro reference, but if you're 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:25.720 of a certain age, you'll remember it. Jack wanted Michael 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.920 to come on board the new Atari. His Atari and 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:33.000 Michael agreed, but under certain conditions. 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.560 I told them I would be willing to become head 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.800 of marketing for the computer division. I would be happy 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:43.760 to become president of the video game division. I would 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.560 do those first two things only if Jack created a 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:53.680 new division and a new position called President of Entertainment Electronics, 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:58.880 which meant toys and games that were electronic being introduced 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:03.520 under the Atari banner. Utari name to compete directly with 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:04.560 Worlds of Wonder. 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:07.520 Worlds of Wonder was the company that had hit it 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:10.920 big thanks to Teddy Ruxpin, a talking teddy bear that 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:14.600 told bedtime stories. It was sort of like having a 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:18.680 chuck e Cheese in your living room. Michael wanted Atari 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.480 to become more of an all encompassing entertainment company with 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:27.200 products outside of gaming and computers. For example, he thought 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:33.200 Atari might be able to market laser tag, but there 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:37.200 were a couple of problems. One. Jack wanted Atari to 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:41.040 become the biggest name in home computers. If video games 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:43.440 could do anything for him at all, it would be 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:47.400 to subsidize his PC projects. At the time, the market 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:51.640 was dominated by companies like IBM, COMPAC, Apple, and his 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:56.560 own former company, Commodore. To Jack, the competition's machines were, 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:00.240 in his words, like cigarettes. They're bad for you, but 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:04.120 an awful lot of people are hooked on using them. Two, 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:07.400 he didn't want to spend a lot of money. When 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:11.399 Michael brought a laser tag, Jack initially said sure, let's 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:15.000 do that. Then when it was time to close the deal, 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:19.439 he waffled the laser tag. People were upset it was 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:22.159 too late to pair with anyone else for the holiday season. 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:26.679 That was Jack not here to make friends. That was 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:29.360 the reason the sword Quest contest came to an end 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:33.240 in nineteen eighty six. With tens of thousands left to 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:36.800 spend in a crashing video game market, it simply made 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:40.840 no financial sense to allow it to continue. The contest 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:44.680 started under Warner, it wasn't a part of the new Atari, 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.760 which was really the unfinished business he had left a 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:53.400 Commodore total domination of the personal computing market. Not only 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:56.639 did Jack scrap sword Quest, he barely wanted anything to 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:00.000 do with video games at all. One of the first 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:03.080 things Jack did was try to return six million dollars 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:06.800 in advertising. Atari, while still owned by Warner, had pre 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:10.840 purchased for the nineteen eighty four Olympic Games, and Michael 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.159 remembers one of the tremel's denying a request for fifty 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:19.600 four dollars to mail an item overnight fifty four dollars. 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:23.520 Michael paid it himself, though he did get reimbursed later on. 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:27.840 We cut corners wherever we could, just to be good 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:32.200 business people. Jack had a reputation for being very tough 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:36.400 at Commodore, very tough at Atari. I respected that in him. 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.639 I didn't look down upon it, but it meant that 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:42.240 we had to do a lot of stuff differently from 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:43.919 what the industry was used to. 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:48.840 At Commodore, Jack had gotten press attention without even trying. 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:52.919 He had a cool product, a novel product, an affordable 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:56.040 computer that you didn't need to be an MIT graduate 0:18:56.119 --> 0:19:00.520 to use. Maybe Jack expected that same kind of attention Atari, 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:03.959 but this was a time Atari probably should have been 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:08.480 out courting to press. But pretty soon Atari had another problem, 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:16.000 and his name was Mario. A Japanese company named Nintendo 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:20.560 had released the Family Computer or Famicom in Japan in 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:24.919 nineteen eighty three, it was leagues beyond any gaming system 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:30.119 of the era Atari included. In nineteen eighty five, Nintendo 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:34.400 entered the North American market. The Famicom was retooled as 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:39.680 the Nintendo Entertainment System or NYS, and although retailers were 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:43.120 still feeling burned by Atari, they were lured in by 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:47.480 lots of promises, like the fact Nintendo would accept any 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:53.960 unsold inventory. Thanks to Super Mario Brothers, The Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:58.679 and dozens of other titles, Nintendo became the biggest brand 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:02.680 in home gaming, a role that had previously belonged to Atari. 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:07.440 Atari couldn't compete head to head with Nintendo. What they 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:12.360 could do was position themselves as an affordable alternative. Families 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:15.080 who had kids crying for an Nes but were on 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:19.560 a tight budget could opt for the less expensive ATARI system. 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:22.760 So my mission was to bring back the twenty six 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:26.960 hundred under fifty dollars as a low price spread that 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:30.560 became positioned as the game system for those who couldn't 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:33.600 afford one hundred and forty nine or one hundred ninety 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:36.800 nine dollars for an Atari or a Mattel. 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:43.359 While this strategy worked, Atari blew another opportunity when game 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:47.320 manufacturer Sega approached the company with an offer to distribute 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.560 their new system, the Sega Genesis. 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:55.600 And I thought that was wonderful that they came to us, 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:59.280 came to me. We met with Jack and Sam and 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:03.320 once again, and Jack seemed to be interested and excited. 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:08.119 Jack said, it sounds great, but when it came to 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:12.159 working out the royalty part of it and advance and 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:16.160 guarantee part of it, Jack walked away because he didn't 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:18.919 want to make a deal and had no interest in 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:23.000 the next great video game system. 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:27.399 Jack was focused on Atari's home computer projects. There was 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:31.320 the Atari ST, which was nicknamed the Jack in Toosh, 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:34.760 and it was Jack's obsession. It sold for around eight 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:39.280 hundred dollars, cheaper than Apple's Macintosh. Some people considered it 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:42.639 one of the best computers ever released, and it became 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:46.560 really popular with musicians thanks to Midi ports. For the 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:50.399 first time, amateurs could arrange and compose music at home 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:55.200 on a PC without spending a small fortune, and professionals 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:58.919 used it too. Tangerine Dream made several albums using the 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:04.639 Atari st pop music, and Jack Tremmel. That's an interesting combination, 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:08.000 but Jack still had a hard time getting retailers to 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:11.560 support it. Remember that Atari Games had sat on their 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:15.000 shelves collecting dust during the video game meltdown of nineteen 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:19.280 eighty three. That wasn't Jack's doing, but the brand was damaged, 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:23.240 and the thing Jack did have control over, soothing retailer 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:27.399 fears wasn't something he really cared to pursue. 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:31.760 On the negative side, he wasn't a schmoozer, he wasn't 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:38.280 a massager. He ignored that ten key retailers controlled retail 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:42.320 distribution in the whole United States and Canada, and he 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:47.560 wasn't willing to pay them the traditional merchandising fees to 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:50.320 support his products at retail. 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:55.040 Michael eventually left Atari and wound up with Sega. A 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:59.160 short time later, Atari decided to jump back into video games. 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:03.000 The Atar ryst computer hadn't been the hit they were expecting, 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:07.840 but Atari still had major name recognition in the gaming market. First, 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:11.800 they introduced the Atari Links, a color handheld system that 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:15.119 would be compared with the Nintendo Game Boy. It was 0:23:15.160 --> 0:23:19.080 probably a superior system with color graphics, but it was 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:22.800 twice as much and that color display drained batteries too quickly. 0:23:23.560 --> 0:23:27.399 Then in nineteen ninety three, they introduced the Atari Jaguar, 0:23:27.760 --> 0:23:32.320 a next generation system boasting of advanced sixty four bit graphics. 0:23:32.840 --> 0:23:35.960 It beat systems like the Sony PlayStation to the market. 0:23:37.920 --> 0:23:40.280 With its importates three D graphics, real world animation, and 0:23:40.359 --> 0:23:41.919 enlightened scy that you can only get with Jaguar. 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:47.960 Repeat the question, Jaguar, Jaguar, Jagar. 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:54.800 The Jaguar got support from Walmart, who promised to place 0:23:54.840 --> 0:23:58.280 it in over four hundred of their stores, but instead 0:23:58.280 --> 0:24:01.879 of a more conventional marketing pust Atari opted to do 0:24:02.080 --> 0:24:07.480 an infomercial. It didn't resonate with gamers. Infomercials weren't really cool, 0:24:08.280 --> 0:24:11.480 and the games weren't as memorable as your Marios and Sonics. 0:24:12.000 --> 0:24:17.359 Atari had Trevor mcpherr and Dino Dunes. By this point, 0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:19.760 no matter what kind of system you had or what 0:24:19.800 --> 0:24:23.359 it could do, a company needed hundreds of millions in 0:24:23.440 --> 0:24:27.639 advertising to get gamers interested. You needed millions more to 0:24:27.720 --> 0:24:31.480 satisfy big retailers who want money for premium product placement 0:24:31.760 --> 0:24:35.520 or mentions in their own advertising. Game systems don't just 0:24:35.640 --> 0:24:39.159 ship to stores and get stocked there's a dance that 0:24:39.240 --> 0:24:43.840 goes on behind the scenes that wasn't something Atari could manage. 0:24:44.480 --> 0:24:49.680 Jack didn't dance. The jaguar floundered. Atari had a bunch 0:24:49.720 --> 0:24:53.400 of them returned. Ultimately, they sold one hundred twenty five 0:24:53.400 --> 0:24:58.080 thousand systems but had one hundred thousand in inventory. There 0:24:58.160 --> 0:25:00.800 was more bad news. Sam tra Mmel, who had been 0:25:00.880 --> 0:25:05.800 running Atari as president, suffered a heart attack. That meant Jack, 0:25:05.920 --> 0:25:10.160 who had taken a step back, returned to run things. Finally, 0:25:10.320 --> 0:25:14.320 in nineteen ninety six, Jack decided it was time. He 0:25:14.400 --> 0:25:17.760 worked out a merger between Atari and JTS, a disk 0:25:17.840 --> 0:25:23.240 drive manufacturer, and from what Somax employees say, the company 0:25:23.280 --> 0:25:27.879 was absorbed without much of an institutional memory. The Atari archives, 0:25:28.000 --> 0:25:31.119 such as they were, were left up to fans. In 0:25:31.200 --> 0:25:35.280