News article from Wired.com
THE TECH INDUSTRY is full of iconic rivalries. Facebook vs. Twitter. Apple vs. Google. Uber vs. Lyft. But in 1985, one of the biggest rivalries was Atari vs. Amiga.
It"s been 30 years this week since Commodore International, best known for the iconic Commodore 64, launched the Amiga, which is still remembered today as a remarkable machine that offered cutting edge multimedia features for a much lower price than a Macintosh. But the Atari ST, which was less powerful but even cheaper, aimed to fill the same niche. In 1985 the PBS show Computer Chronicles ran an episode pitting the two classic computers against each other.
Fueling the tension between Atari and Amiga was the fact that Atari was being run by none other than Jack Tramiel, the Holocaust survivor who founded Commodore as a typewriter repair company in 1953. Although Apple is often credited with democratizing computers in the 1970s, it was Tramiel's commitment to bring computers to the masses, not the classes that made computers truly accessible. Tramiel left Commodore under mysterious circumstances in 1984 and soon became the CEO of Atari, where he led the launch of the ST. To put it in modern context, imagine Mark Zuckerberg leaving Facebook and taking over Twitter. After Tramiels departure, Commodore acquired Amiga, then a struggling startup.
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http://www.wired.com/2015/07/tech-time-warp-back-day-hot-tech-rivalry-amiga-vs-atari/
