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I'm sure everyone has heard recently about the new book coming out discussing IBM's role in helping Nazi Germany select, sort, classify and track victims for their concentration camps by giving them technology called Hollerith tabulators before and during World War II to more efficiently complete their evil task.
The news articles state that this computing technology is what eventually was worked into the IBM compatible PC and is inherent in the architecture of PCs everyone uses today.
This calls to mind the methods used by IBM and it's coherts such as Microsoft, and the tactics they used to decimate the home computer market of the 1980s.
People talk of the use of propaganda, lying, and deceit that continues to surround Microsoft in it's effort to become and to remain a monopoly.
Being that Jack Tramiel is a Polish Jew, is it possible to surmise that he saw the way the Atari 8-bit computers were built from the ground up as less of a threat to humanity? Did he see that the Atari 8-bits were technically superior to the PC and all other 8-bit home computers, and most importantly, not designed with the inherent intention to select, sort, classify and track users?
PC Magazines have propagandized the 80s home computer scene to make it seem like Atari and even Commodore and Apple, didn't have much of an impact on anybody important. They've made it seem like all of the forward-thinking inventions and ideas originated on a PC when in fact everything's been borrowed from somewhere. They seem to trivialize Atari's importance to games - as they always have.
The Atari 8-bit computers, back in 1979 when the 400/800 were first released, came with a 256 color palette and 4-channel digital sound. It took until at least 1993 for the IBM compatible PC to even come near this for home use. All along, PC users claimed that advanced graphics and sound were only good for games.
Could "Power without the Price" have more than one meaning? The POWER of the individual to be enhanced by their computing experience as well as entertained. Without the PRICE of expensive IBM compatible PCs. OR the POWER belongs to the individual that doesn't have to be burdened by the PRICE of what could result from supporting Big Blue and the ideas it built into each PC because of it's Nazi past.
Think about it. Atari was more than just videogames, computers.. Atari has come to symbolize a social movement in computers that has been lost to the likes of Microsoft which carries on the "legacy" of IBM. (Even their own terminology refers back cryptically to IBM's shameful past. "Legacy" refers to original parts under the family tree of the Hollerith.)
Some communist countries who in the 1980s refused to allow IBM computers be sold to their people only allowed Atari computers to be sold there, which to be revealed in the book, could be because of IBM's Nazi past. Corporations like Microsoft and Intel served to separate the IBM legacy from itself. All cleverly orchestrated.
I think that is why it is cool for kids to wear ATARI t-shirts in the 21st century as opposed to anything with the oppressive Microsoft or IBM logo.
"Power Without the Price". Atari will not and should not be forgotten for attempting to make computing exciting and fun - as opposed to IBM / Big Blue's ideas of selecting, sorting, classifying and tracking.
I still hope someone out there will realize some of this and it will click in their head what Atari really stands for - freedom and individual power without the price of oppression - and bring them back from the dead. Buy Amiga back from Gateway. Use Amiga technology as the flagship Atari computer as it was originally intended before the breakup (as it was used for the Atari Lynx).
My God. Before it's too late.
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"Power without the Price" vs. Nazi Germa new
