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 the Atari ST and the Amiga is was the fact that the Atari Corporation 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 Corporation after acquiring the company's home technology assets from Warner Communications (Atari Games, the company's arcade division, remained a separate company). To put it in modern context, imagine Mark Zuckerberg leaving Facebook and taking over Twitter. After Tramiel's departure, Commodore acquired Amiga, then a struggling startup.
The Computer Chronicles video is a reminder that there was once a time when Apple and Microsoft didn't dominate the desktop operating system market. But even then, there was a sense that there was already a duopoly in personal computing. Three major operating environments were occupying the energies of programmers of the day, computing pioneer George Morrow said at the end of the segment, referring to Microsoft DOS, Apple DOS, and the Macintosh operating system. "It seems unlikely that the pool of software developers is expanding rapidly enough to support even one more operating system, let alone two," he said.
The talent war remains the fuel of many of today's bitterest tech rivalries. But the fall of both Atari and Commodore was tied to more than just competition for developers, as Jeremy Reimer detailed in an epic history of the Amiga that describes internal mismanagement at Commodore. Had either company played its cards right, maybe we would have a third major desktop environment today. Or perhaps we'd be writing nostalgically about how Apple could have been a contender if only it hadn't ousted Steve Jobs. Today, Android vs. iOS seems like a battle that will never end. But these rivalries can be more fleeting than we think.
Correction 7/25/2015 at 6:30 PM ET: This story has been updated to clarify that Tramiel acquired Atari Corporation's assets from Warner Communications and that the company's arcade division, Atari Games, remained a separate entity.
