GEM-OS

From: Curt Vendel <curt_at_atarimuseum.com>
Date: Mon Apr 8 08:23:17 2002

The amazing thing about the whole sale of Atari from Warner Comm. to Tramiel
Technologies, LLC was that Warner basically "gave" Atari to the Tramiels.
The Tramiels paid $50 million in cash and $240 million in promissory notes
to Warner. Meanwhile Philips Electronics wanted Atari and the only reason
they did not get it was that they 100% ownership of Atari, while Warner
wanted to retain partial ownership of Atari. In the end Warner still owned
20% of Atari, Inc in stock while retaining full ownership of the coin-op
division (later renamed Atari Games Corp) and the AtariTel
telecommunications division was sold off to Mitsubishi and BSR.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Lawrence Walker" <lgwalker_at_mts.net>
To: "Curt Vendel" <curt_at_atarimuseum.com>; <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2002 9:02 AM
Subject: Re: GEM-OS


> I love it ! Still giggling. This puts various things into perspective
including the
> Amiga legend. Even the Hasbro sale and Atari demise is related to the
> precarious monetory origins of the Tramiel fortune. One would have thought
> he came out of the Commodore thing fairly flush
>
> Lawrence
>
> > Here's an interesting history tidbit... the Tramiels were so strapped
for
> > cash when they took over Atari, that in order to pay DRI for the work on
GEM 68K
> > for the ST computers.... they paid DRI with the VAX 11/750 located in
the Atari
> > Grass Valley R&D lab which was closed shortly after. I spoke with Ron
Milner,
> > one of the original Atari engineers and he explained how one day Gary
Kildall
> > and crew were in the R&D computer room disconnecting the Vax and was
explained
> > that it was their "payment" for developing a new OS for the Tramiels.
> >
> >
> > Curt
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Lawrence Walker" <lgwalker_at_mts.net>
> > To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
> > Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2002 2:36 PM
> > Subject: Re: GEM-OS
> >
> >
> > > They had a common origin in GEM 1.2. The ST GEM ran on top of TOS.
> > > The guy who wrote it for DRI (Lee Lorenzen) was one of the Xerox Parc
> > > people who really developed the GUI as well as mouse usage. Jobs
> > > glommed his Mac ideas as well as numerous coders from Parc and then
> > > sued DRI for copying the Mac. He won and DRI was forced to cripple
later
> > > versions and never marketed it very seriously even tho it preceded
> > Windows.
> > > For some reason Apple didn't go after the ST or Ventura Publisher
which
> > > used GEM. Lorenzen was one of the founders of Ventura.
> > >
> > > Lawrence
> > >
> > > > And thusly Curt Vendel spake:
> > > > >
> > > > > Don't forget Diamond which is a GEM TOS "look-alike" version
designed
> > for the
> > > > > Atari 8bits which original came on disk and then came on Super
> > Cartridge
> > > > > format. Designed by Reevesoft.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Does the GEM TOS have any relationship to the GEM OS that was
available
> > > > for the PC? (Other then name)
> > > >
> > > > Cheers,
> > > >
> > > > Bryan
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > lgwalker_at_mts.net
> > > bigwalk_ca_at_yahoo.com
> >
>
>
> lgwalker_at_mts.net
> bigwalk_ca_at_yahoo.com
Received on Mon Apr 08 2002 - 08:23:17 BST