| Soviets preferred Atari over Commodore [message #398127] |
Tue, 18 August 2020 03:22  |
Tristan Miller
Messages: 49
Registered: September 2003
Karma: 0
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Dear all,
I recently happened upon this RIA Novosti article from 2013 that tells a
fascinating story about Epyx and their contact with representatives of
the Soviet government:
< http://web.archive.org/web/20140311185310/http://en.ria.ru/a nalysis/20131115/184737635/As-Cold-War-Peaked-Soviets-in-US- Chose-Atari-PCs-Over-Commodore.html>
According to the article, in 1984 the folks at Epyx decided to provide
the USSR with a copy of the newly released Summer Games, joking that it
would allow the Soviets some measure of vicarious participation during
their boycott that year of the real-life Olympics. So the company sent
a package containing several copies of the Commodore 64 edition to the
Soviet Embassy in Washington. A week later they unexpectedly received a
reply from the Embassy thanking Epyx for the games but lamenting that
they couldn't play them because all they had were Atari computers! Epyx
swiftly dispatched another package containing the Atari editions but
alas never heard back from the Embassy.
Regards,
Tristan
--
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Tristan Miller
Free Software developer, ferret herder, logologist
https://logological.org/
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| Re: Soviets preferred Atari over Commodore [message #398172 is a reply to message #398127] |
Wed, 19 August 2020 08:43  |
Yeechang Lee
Messages: 14
Registered: September 2003
Karma: 0
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Junior Member |
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Tristan Miller wrote:
> A week later they unexpectedly received a
> reply from the Embassy thanking Epyx for the games but lamenting that
> they couldn't play them because all they had were Atari computers!
Jack Tramiel was born in Poland, and used his connections to get Atari
computers into Eastern Europe in the 1980s.
That said, the embassy likely just happened to purchase Atari
computers in the US as opposed to another brand.
--
geo:37.783333,-122.416667
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| Re: Soviets preferred Atari over Commodore [message #398180 is a reply to message #398172] |
Wed, 19 August 2020 11:10 |
Andreas Kohlbach
Messages: 1456
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Wed, 19 Aug 2020 05:43:39 -0700, Yeechang Lee wrote:
>
> Tristan Miller wrote:
>> A week later they unexpectedly received a
>> reply from the Embassy thanking Epyx for the games but lamenting that
>> they couldn't play them because all they had were Atari computers!
>
> Jack Tramiel was born in Poland, and used his connections to get Atari
> computers into Eastern Europe in the 1980s.
>
> That said, the embassy likely just happened to purchase Atari
> computers in the US as opposed to another brand.
The British company Memotech had a nice CP/M machine on the market in
1983. Nice looking too, with brushed aluminum case. They struck a deal
with the Soviets of 200,000 units. But funding from the British
government fell short and Memotech went into receivership.
So it stays an obscure computer. Would had been nice to know how the
8-bit market would had developed if the deal was successful.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memotech_MTX>
--
Andreas
https://news-commentaries.blogspot.com/
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