Polish Genius : Jacek Trzmiel / Atari , Amiga

Is Silicon Valley Polish? Jacek (Idek) Bumblebee . The idea of ​​a personal computer (PC) could come true in the 1970s thanks to the mass production of cheap and efficient microprocessors. Although IBM ultimately won the race for the shape of such a computer, the competition between other brands - Commodore and Atari - is still memorable. Behind their successes was Jack Tramiel, or rather Jacek (Idek) Trzmiel, a Polish Jew, born in 1928 in Łódź.

During World War II, he and his parents found themselves in the Łódź ghetto, from where they were deported to the Auschwitz camp. He only survived because Joseph Mengele decided to use the young boy for his medical experiments. When Jacek was transferred to another camp deep in Germany, the prisoners were liberated by American troops. After marrying Helen from Łódź, the young family decided to emigrate to the USA.

With ten dollars in his pocket, Jacek took every job he could find, but it was not enough to support his family. So he decided to join the American army, wanting to repay the moral debt for liberating him from the camp. Importantly, in addition to pay, the army provided him with professional training, including: office equipment repair course. After finishing his service, our hero took a job in a typewriter repair company, changing his name to a more American one. As Jack Tramiel, he helped his new employer obtain a contract for the repair of military equipment, but after not receiving any thanks, he decided to start his own business. Repairing and selling cheaper typewriters imported from the East turned out to be more profitable.

The Cold War caused the US to impose an embargo on, among others, for cheaper machine parts imported from Brno, Czech Republic (from the famous "Zbrojovka"). Canada did not impose such restrictions, so our businessman moved to the north, where he could develop his business without any problems as Commodore Business Machines International.

The development of electronics caused the company to start producing the first calculators, but its expansion was interrupted by a small supply of expensive microprocessors, which are the heart and brain of every device. The Commodore company found itself on the verge of bankruptcy, from which it was saved by a series of loans from people operating in the underworld - this was a stain on the honor of our businessman for the rest of his life. Known for his great ambitions and tough character, Tramiel moved to the famous Silicon Valley in California. He decided to change the company's profile and start producing the first personal computers, persuaded to do so by a young engineer, Chuck Peddle. Being in financial trouble, he decided to sell his idea and the entire company to a Polish-American businessman, which was a condition for further cooperation. This brought extraordinary results, because the PET-2001 computer, presented in 1977, turned out to be a huge hit. Everyone wanted to have a futuristic-looking set back then: a monochrome monitor, tape recorder and keyboard looked like props from the famous movie "2001: A Space Odyssey".

The computer that conquered the market
Strong competition, including: Apple, meant that the key to staying on the computer market was to introduce newer and cheaper models. The company's biggest hit in history was undoubtedly the C64 model, introduced to the market in 1982, also known to today's generation of Polish 40-year-olds. It was a reflection of Jacek's maxim: "Computers for the masses, not for classes."

The impulsive businessman left the company in 1986 after a conflict with his co-shareholder and bought the troubled Atari company. Driven by the desire to get back at his former colleagues, Jack Tramiel now applied a different maxim: "Business is war." Using his experience, he introduced the famous Atari ST model to the market, whose rich capabilities were eagerly used by musicians (including Jean Michel Jarre, Mike Oldfield and... Czesław Niemen).

Unfortunately, the war destroys both sides of the conflict, so manufacturers pushing IBM PC computers benefited from the fierce competition. Commodore and Atari eventually went bankrupt at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, and the rights to popular brands were taken over by other investors. In retirement, Jack Tramiel took advantage of his status as a living business legend and his Holocaust experience by becoming active in the Jewish-American Anti-Defamation League (ADL). He died in 2012, emphasizing his Polish origins to the end. In an interesting interview given to the first Polish computer magazine "Bajtek", when asked if he spoke Polish, he replied: "I did once.

I still understand everything and I'm sure that after a few weeks in Poland I would be able to communicate completely freely." It was 1987, a time when the Coommodore 64 and Atari ST models were sold in our country by "Pewex". Despite the difficult economic situation in Poland, these computers sold well, and Tramiel said in the above-mentioned interview that this could also be due to sentiment towards the president.

Arkadiusz Kugler