I was a big fan of the first Atari founder, Nolan Bushnell, as my Dad had been a purchaser of early Pong games, and when the Atari VCS came out in 1977, he purchased one - I mean he just bought one, full price, no questions asked
I followed along with my Dad's loyalty to Atari, buying an Atari 400, later an 800XL, and later kind of watched the whole thing collapse, both in terms of losing the 8-bit war to Commodore, and the collapse of the video game market under Warner.
Then a curious thing occurred, Tramiel left Commodore, formed Atari Corp. from the ashes of the old Atari.
I didn't know anything about him, my friends in the Commodore community weren't sure we were getting such a gift. But man, he launched that Atari ST, and Atari was back on top.
And I'll always have fond memories of the ST, as I do of the Commodore 64 and the not-dead Amiga.
Tramiel - rest in peace dude. Thanks for the ST, and more fun years with Atari. I'll overlook that whole JTS reverse merger, where I lost my investment (tiny one at that).
I'll echo what others are saying, Tramiel was an early pioneer, and for that I have great respect for him.
