RIP Jack Tramiel, Commodore founder and computing pioneer

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Holocaust survivor went from typewriter tinkering to defining gaming with the C64

Jack Tramiel, founder of early computing giant Commodore, passed away this weekend aged 83, reports Forbes (via IGN). He is survived by his wife Helen, their sons Gary, Sam and Leonard, and a legacy that continues to influence the worlds of computing and gaming alike.

A Polish-born Holocaust survivor, Tramiel was interred at Auschwitz and Ahlem before being liberated in 1945 and emigrating to the US, whose army he joined in 1947. It was here that he learned the office equipment repair skills that would begin his career, opening the first Commodore Portable Typewriter store in the Bronx after the war. This led to the founding of Toronto-based Commodore Business Machines, which would later become Commodore International, evolving from typewriters through calculators and adding machines until the 1977 debut of the Commodore PET, the company's first computer.

Above: Some greatest-hits from Tramiel's signature machine. For more, check out a celebration of C64 loading screens

The C64 would define the look and feel of home computing for a generation of enthusiasts, with Tramiel negotiating the “home computer wars” of the early 1980s by driving unit prices down to sell record numbers. Over 20 million C64s were sold to parents who'd been assured of the machine's homework capabilities; machines which were summarily used, alongside the ZX Spectrum, to spearhead the “New Wave of British Bedroom Coding” which produced series such as Dizzy and companies including Codemasters and Rare.

After leaving Commodore, Tramiel played a pivotal role in pulling Atari from the aftermath of the Great Videogame Crash of 1983.

Tramiel's role in the early days of the computer and gaming industries saw him regarded as an early precursor to figures like Steve Jobs, says Atari biographer Martin Goldberg: “His legacy are the generations upon generations of computer scientists, engineers, and gamers who had their first exposure to high technology because of his affordable computers.”