The Locked File Cabinet

In July of 1984, the remaining shreds of Atari were purchased by Jack "Business is war" Trameil, who had destroyed Atari with his price wars using the Commodore 64.

This gentleman sported one of the more abrasive personalities in the business and was not well loved. But he did know how to cut costs ruthlessly. The first thing Jack did upon moving in was to hold a huge auction of all the furnishings in the now-unpopulated buildings. Tables, chairs, filing cabinets everything went in an effort to gather up a little cash. Around 2:00 on the day of the sale, I got a phone call from a reporter at the San Jose Mercury News. He told me that a local small businesswoman had purchased, for $125, a locked filing cabinet whose keys were lost. After getting it open, she discovered 84 files marked with the titles of many of Atari's games. Inside these files were thick computer printouts, big 8" floppy disks, and big electronic chips on small printed circuit boards. Could I tell him what those files were?

LESSON 90

Look before you liquidate.

It took me a moment to stop laughing, and then I explained to him that the lucky purchaser was now the owner of the Atari engineering archive, the complete collection of the original masters of all the VCS games. The legal embarrassment that this could cause Atari would be worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to the sufficiently ruthless owner. Fortunately for Atari, the purchaser did not share Jack Trameil's attitude toward business. Indeed, it took numerous phone calls to convince the Atari people that they should come and collect their software. Late that afternoon, three Atari employees arrived to pick up the masters.