ATARI%UMass.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU@caip.RUTGERS.EDU (03/07/86)
From: ATARI%UMass.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU (Local UMass address is
Being a longtime Atari watcher, I remember reading about the lawsuit
between Atari and Commodore a while ago (before Commodore bought
Amiga). The details are these: Way back, several years ago, Atari
Inc. ( IE the 'old Atari') gave Amiga Corp. (pre-Commodore) half a
million dollars to develop custom graphics chips to be used in a
new computer. A year or two later ( my knowledge of the time frames
involved is not that good, as you can tell) Amiga Corp. returned the
money to Atari, claiming that the graphics chips didn't work. Then,
they immediately proceeded to demonstrate a new computer called the
Lorraine, which was in fact the Amiga, which just happened to use,
by amazing coincidence, a set of custom graphics chips that were
exactly what Atari Inc. had contracted Amiga to develop. Therefore,
Atari filed a breach-of-contract suit with Amiga (this is all before
Commodore purchased Amiga), claiming that those chips were paid for
with Atari Inc.'s money, and that therefore under the contract the
Amiga's custom chips belong to Atari. Since, of course, the rest
of the Amiga does not, Atari now must be claiming that Commodore owes
them royalties for the use of 'their' graphics chips.
I understand full well that I must be giving only Atari's side
of this, and I would be extremely interested in hearing what Commodore/
Amiga claims happened, so as to fully understand the pending lawsuit.
Hope this information has been informative....
-- Michael P. Cohan, W.Mass ST Users Group (Atari@UMass.bitnet)
(not connected with Atari or any other company either!)