Ron Stringari, who passed away in 2022, was involved with Atari on the marketing side of the business. Originally employed as a marketer and buyer for Sears, he had some minor involvement with Sears’ taking up Atari’s Home Pong console in 1975 and would later find his way to Atari itself as the vice president of consumer marketing from February 1981 through 1982, serving as the Atari Consumer Products VP of Marketing, Merchandising and Administration before leaving entirely by April 1983. He’d later return to Atari Corp. in 1988 as the company’s marketing director, working his way back up the corporate ladder before as president of the Atari Entertainment Division in 1990.
Kevin: Trying to get a complete picture of how things worked around there at the time. If you want to get rolling here, I guess my first question is you worked at Sears before you worked at Atari, is that right?
Ron: That’s correct.
Kevin: I was curious, how did you come to work there? What was your background that brought you to Sears?
Ron: Well, I graduated college with a Bachelor of Science in Marketing. I was checking out different companies when I graduated and Sears came up and offered me a trainee position. I went through training and eventually, after doing store management, they sent me off to Chicago. That’s where I started in the marketing side and buying side of Sears. That course was different. You know, marketing position and sales position and then I ended up buying, being a buyer for Sears and ended up buying video games, eventually.
Kevin: You were involved with getting Atari stuff into Sears, is that right?
Ron: Yes, I was. In fact– February 12 of 1975 was really the birth of that business. That’s when myself and some other people at Sears sat there with Al Alcorn, Gene Lipkin, and Nolan Bushnell on the 37th floor of the Sears Tower. We looked at the first- well, what they thought would be the first Pong game. It was a big breadboard that was hooked up to a TV monitor. They thought they could get that all condensed down to a chip. From that point on it became the video games industry.
We turned all the resources we had at Sears at that time, engineering, logistics, finance, manufacturing to work with Nolan and those guys to pull that thing together. And we brought it out in September of that year. September ’75 was the first introduction, and we did it under the Tele-Games brand, which was Sears’ brand and that was the start.
Kevin: What was your involvement in getting that Pong machine into the stores?
Ron: I was at the marketing site in charge of all the display merchandising, trying to figure out how are we going to display it and set it up in the stores. That’s where my involvement came in, in the marketing side of that, you know, point of sale.
Kevin: Did you have any insights into the decision to go with the store brand and then agreeing to let Atari sell under their own brand after that?
Ron: Well, eventually, of course, Atari sold it under the Atari brand to other retailers, but we stayed for the first couple of years and the different product iteration-integration jazz that Tele-Games did, the Sears brand. We changed the look of the product and we did do our own design and looks, packaging and all, that was all under the Tele-Games brand.
Kevin: Were those originally in the sporting goods department? I think I’ve read something about that.
Ron: Yeah, it was in the sporting goods department, that took place. Then couple of years later, when I became the buyer of the line, the company made a decision to move from the sporting goods to the toy department. I was in charge of getting that from sporting goods into toys.
Kevin: [chuckle] I’m just curious, do you have any idea why they made that decision?
Ron: Yeah. They looked at the gross margin on the products and once it’s below 45% margin, that was below the department– sporting goods department average. Toy department said “Oh, we’ll take it”, because it was well above what the toys generally bring a profit.
Kevin: That makes sense.
Ron: Yes, so they moved it over to the toy department. It’s a strange world. [chuckle]
Kevin: [chuckle] Do you remember what was appealing about these TV games to Sears’s perspective and your perspective?
Ron: Well, Sears it as a– You know, a part of what we called at that time “the game power” in the sporting goods department. They saw it as, if you will, an electronic version of what they were doing in the game power, was pool and ping pong tables and all that. Then of course we get- we do all the market research and we see what’s going on in the consumer’s mind and what they like about it.
That’s when they kept coming through all the different iterations, from Pong to Pong Sports, Quadrapong, and Superpong, and all of that. We all staged and planned out for the next couple of years to kept all of those different things and eventually up to the 2600 console, which came– All that stuff was planned out in a very short time because it’s always– Sears was always looking forward at that time. Can’t say the same now but you’re always looking for what’s next, what’s next, what’s coming next.
The strategy was that you bring out Pong or Tele-Games Pong and then six months later, you drop the price on Pong and you bring out Superpong. Then six months after that, you drop the price on that item. It started out to be a $200 item and ended up a $140 item, down to $99, then down to $69 in a year. In the meantime, you bring in another product that your selling at $150 to $199. You do that for six months and bring out the next product and replace it with the next step up. Eventually, when you get to the end of the rope, he introduced the cartridge game console. It was a big growth potential, at least that was the market people saw, and it turned out to be that way.
Kevin: I don’t know how the breakdown was. That’s one, maybe you can shed a little light. I heard that Sears sold a different Atari Speedway game in Canada versus the US, like a Pong-style thing. I was just curious, from your side of things in the US, if you have any role or input in Canadian operations?
Ron: No, nothing outside the US operation. We didn’t have anything to do with that.
Kevin: I just wanted to check in on that. With the 2600, I know Sears had a different game pack-in than what Atari did. How was that chosen? What was the reasoning there? Were you involved at all?
Ron: At that time with the product, no. Tom Quinn was a buyer and unfortunately, he has passed away but he was, at that point, still the buyer and setting all the parameters of what was going on with it.
Kevin: Later on, when you were handling things on that side, I know Sears published a few games exclusive from Atari; they didn’t get sold in any other stores for the 2600. Was that something you have insight on or remember anything about?
Ron: I’m just trying to recall what that might have been. It might have been a few games that were exclusive to Sears, which Sears always looks for some exclusivity. I don’t remember the titles of them but it was just a few alterations, I guess, of existing games or games that were thought of or planned, and Sears was given the exclusive on them, which is the name of some of the games. That’s how that came about.
Kevin: What led you to leave Sears? You went from there to Atari, is that right?
Ron: Yes. I was a buyer of video games at that point and Atari approached me and asked me to come to them, and be their vice president of marketing. That was back in– Jeez, I’m trying to think. 1979, I was approached in. Beginning of 1980 was when I started with Atari.
Kevin: I guess, before we leave Sears entirely, I was curious if you had any role during the Mattel, the Intellivision, under the Sears branding as well.
Ron: Oh, yes, very much. I brought that to market for Sears. That was my development, if you will, with Mattel. There were other– All the research told us at Sears that the customer was looking for– Improved graphics was the key, better graphics, and Mattel Intellivision at that time had better graphics than Atari did. Maybe not quite as fast the game but they were much better graphics, so we pulled together the Intellivision 2 and Tele-Games 2. That was the Intellivision that we incorporated into, again, a new look, new plastic, new design, and brought that to market under the Tele-Games brand.
Kevin: How was it working with Atari and Mattel during your time at Sears?
Ron: Typically, I guess, in most of business, they were competitors. Atari and Mattel were [unintelligible 00:17:24] What did you mean by how did that work?
Kevin: Oh, I was just asking, how did they work well with you individually speaking?
Ron: Oh, working relationship was great, both companies. Mattel wanted a piece of the business and they got it. Atari was just a leader in terms of volumes, so the relationship was good. It wasn’t adversarial in any way but–
Kevin: With Atari, you were involved with the marketing on that side, I remember.
Ron: Yes.
Kevin: What role did marketing have in game development during your time there?
Ron: When I got there, game development was, basically, just an engineering function. We change that and we brought game development software under the marketing and got product managers involved to work with development; the software, the cartridges. Then we set up a schedule of the introduction, which they never had before. There was one software engineer who developed a game. They said, “Okay, we’re done with– We’re finished,” and then Atari tried to sell the game to retail.
All I did was get it somewhat organized and did a plan out for a whole year so that we knew what was going to happen in January, February, June, July. With the introduction, they’re going to be each month. We had something going on the whole time throughout the year.
Kevin: Okay. You folks, you were able to provide some inputs into what games they should be producing then?
Ron: Well, we didn’t direct engineering into trying to do a game because a lot of the success was had through, things that were developed to coin-op industry and that we were able to translate into the home entertainment business by developing the software, the cartridge if you will, to replicate the Defender or Joust or Pac-Man, that kind of stuff.
A lot of the [unintelligible 00:21:05] were brought out as a response to what was going on with coin-op, and of course, a lot of them are licensed. The only input we had in the software end was when we get into some of the licensing that we did was the Sesame Street, the Muppets, Disney, in terms of what a Mickey Mouse might do in a game and what letters or, the alphabet, or Sesame Street type approach to, software.
Kevin: You were involved in getting those licenses all set up then?
Ron: Oh yes. Yes. Yes. It was a Disney, Sesame Street, Scooby,Peanuts, and all those, on the goods, all those licenses.
Kevin: Were any of those more difficult to negotiations or partners to work with on the products or?
Ron: No, they were good to work with. The negotiations weren’t particularly tough because they also saw the innovation or the benefit that we could target to bring to them and expanded their brand, I guess, going forward. It was putting them in a different light than just comic strips and they were interested in doing something.
Kevin: Were you involved at all with the international markets or were you just focused on the US one?
Ron: My focus was the US, international was a separate division, I mean, they come over and see what we were doing and I guess trying to, interpret that, what was going on internationally. I know they had different systems, with Secam and NTSC International, for the different systems that they had to cope with, but I didn’t have anything to do with their marketing plans or sales plans.
Kevin: What role did marketing play in advertising? What was the relationship between your department and the advertising department under Jan Soderstrom?
Ron: Yes, no, we, we worked together on that, we were in with all the ad agency meetings and, look at it to commercials and, the proteges and the market research they had done and, making sure we were all in agreement to what was still what was going on.
Kevin: What were your impressions of Michael Moone as a manager? Since he was the president of consumer electronics?
Ron: Yes, he was the president, yes, very personable guy. He was more the toy guy as opposed to innovation note kind of guy. The approach to toys is a little different to the approach to electronics.
Kevin: How did that manifest in your work?
Ron: Mike and I get along great. I mean, there was no difficulties that I was aware of, but, it’s just, I’m just moving on the impression that I have.
Kevin: That’s fine. What was your impression of Ray Kassar as a manager?
Ron: I’d say he was pretty, I mean, he was a good manager in terms of, I guess, the business, because he was running three divisions, he was running a coin-op, the consumer, the international, and then of course, then the computer startup. He had on his hand on all of them, but, he kind of liked the consumer division, Mike and I [unintelligible 00:27:25] to do, it was being, successful so far. When I walked in, it was a $300 million business and, when I left a couple of years later, who was a billion and three so, all that growth took place under our direction. We can’t complain about that.
Kevin: [chuckles] Pretty good.
Ron: Yes. Yes. Yes. It made Warner Brothers very happy. The only thing Ray Kassar had a, I don’t know, I guess the one thing that finally caused me to leave was, sitting in our strategic meetings about what was we needed to do as a company and, his statement was, we’re Atari and we’re invincible. Boy, up to me, we just rang a death knell right there, because you can’t approach business that way. You’re always vincible if you’re not, doing what you need to do.
Kevin: I have heard that he was not the one who would necessarily follow a corporate hierarchy. You go around people to talk to specific, like folks in the company to answer specific questions. Is that anything you had experience with?
Ron: No, I never read into that.
Kevin: While you were at Atari, how was market research performed, and how important was it to you for determining your release schedules and what you’d be putting out?
Ron: Well, marketing just kept the- they didn’t really have anything to do with the release schedule as much as it was consumer attitudes and how do you keep the people telling you that video games are harmful off your back. They were more focused on that than anything else, how valuable video games were for children at that point in time.
Kevin: How did you do that? Did you just survey people?
Ron: Yes, they do focus groups and bring up whatever the issue is that you want to check and see, how important color is, how important action games are versus educational games. That kind of thing. Then you would just keep probing all the issues surrounding those.
Kevin: That’s definitely different than how they got me doing that kind of audience research nowadays on the Internet.
Ron: Yes. Absolutely. It’s a little tough to do research with consumers when they’re just seeing something that they do not skilled in or that knowledgeable. The research you could do today on video games, which they’ve been around for 50 years. Now people can tell you what they like and don’t like about them. At that point back in the late ’70s, early ’80s, you were just asking people a lot of what I call obvious questions. Like, how do you like the graphics? They tell you, they could be better. They couldn’t tell you what they meant by that, but they just said better.
Kevin: Useful information.
Ron: Yes. That’s exactly right.
Kevin: Did you folks, did you do any sales forecasts for any specific games?
Ron: Well, there’s we knew how many consoles were out there. Based on the consoles that you had at any given time, you’d look at it with gaming, “All right, we got a million consoles out there. How many cartridges can we sell this title?” You looked at it and you say, “Well, wee think that it’s a hot enough game that we can probably penetrate 50% of those consoles or another one you might say 80%. You plan doing 800,000 cartridges if there were a million consoles. Another one you might say, well, it’s a decent game, but it’s not Space Invaders, so we’re going to do 20,000. You know what I’m saying? Or 200,000.
Kevin: Right. With demand outstripping supply there for a few years, how did you compile your forecasts? Get them as on target as you could?
Ron: That’s all we could do is look at the consoles that are out there and try and rein in as to what percentage of penetration to the bases that are out there. It had nothing to do with you expect to sell 2 million consoles this year and you know you had a base out there with a million, then they look at and say, all right, we’ve got 3 million potential buyers out there. How many of them are going to buy this particular title? That’s the best you could do is in terms of a forecast is. You look at it and you’re “All right,we think this game here is going to sell 50% of 3 million. You make a plan to produce 150,000 of that cartridge. There’s always a percentage of the bases that are out there.
Kevin: What was your impression of how corporate was perceiving the whole games and their computers for long-term planning?
Ron: My impression was like I said, one of the statements made by Ray Kassar, he told me to get the hell out of there in 1982 or ’83, I guess. They didn’t have any long-range planning because all that was done when I was at Sears were either me or my predecessor, because we went through all these iterations of Pong, and the next item on the agenda was a 2600 console. Actually, the next generation of games beyond the 2600 was the Atari 400 computer. It was to replace the console because that we could get the resident RAM and stuff in there to produce the higher graphics. That was the plan back in the late ’70s that was going to replace to console, the 2600 console was the Atari 400 computer.
Kevin: Instead they just both sort of hung around basically?
Ron: Yes. They made a feeble attempt to address the issues of innovation, which to me was key was when they came out with the 5200, which was a downward compatible system so that the old cards then could be played on that. Of course, it don’t really bring out all the things that were desirable in terms of graphics [unintelligible 00:38:05] when you’re dummy-ing data [unintelligible 00:38:10] doing stuff to meet the old software.
Kevin: I was going to ask, how was the 5200 being positioned internally compared to the 2600? Was there planning to phase out the 2600, that sort of thing?
Ron: I don’t know because that was just coming out when I was leaving the company. I don’t know what their ultimate position was. Unless they thought that was going to take place of the 2600. Only because they could develop some new software and hopefully get some better graphics, but yes, it went obsolete. The existing software, which was out there because 5200 can play both 2600 cartridges and also accept new ones.
Kevin: I don’t know if this is anything within your purview in marketing, but do you have any recollection of issues within accounting matching receivables to invoices?
Ron: No. No. No idea on that at all.
Kevin: I’ve heard that might’ve been a factor in Atari not having a clear view on the amount of product that was on shelves at a given time.
Ron: Off the shelves where?
Kevin: On the store shelves.
Ron: The only way to get that information was you talk to each retailer and get what they knew about it. You [unintelligible 00:40:12] there between Atari and Sears was pretty exact. You got to remember in those days, there wasn’t a lot of computer systems in the retail world anyway. Even at Sears, the reports you got today only reflected information that actually took place a month or two ago. There was nothing really taking place at this minute.
Kevin: Were you involved at all with licensing out space invaders as well at Atari or was that before your time?
Ron: What do you mean licensing out?
Kevin: I mean getting the space invaders license rather.
Ron: Oh, you mean getting licenses in?
Kevin: Yes.
Ron: No, it was done through [unintelligible 00:41:23] involved in a lot of that, getting the actual game license from Konami or those kind of things. The corporate sometimes did some licensing but that was it.
Kevin: I understand that consumer electronics eventually got rolled into consumer products. I’m curious, what was your memories or impressions of working with Perry Odak?
Ron: Well, [chuckles] Perry was [unintelligible 00:42:14] the watchdog if you will, a kind of a check on the international division and the domestic products. He used to watch over what was going on in terms of just [unintelligible 00:42:42] but he was there. That’s about it.
Kevin: Did it change the dynamic of the company from your perspective to have the electronics combined with products?
Ron: Not really. I don’t know. Nobody sat down and said, this is what we’re trying to do and trying to achieve. I’m sure there was something in their mind, but I don’t know what it was.
Kevin: [laughs] All right. When and how did marketing realize that the market was starting to get soft in 1982?
Ron: I guess when they came out with that [unintelligible 00:43:43]. There’s been a ton of history out there on what went on or what caused the market to go soft. Good product always prevails and [unintelligible 00:44:10] a good product, you’re going to fall. You try and get the next space invaders and missile command out and everything, but sometimes, it’s not always happening that way. Eventually, they come up with a dud and that showers everybody on what the expectations are.
Kevin: Were you involved at all in getting the ET license?
Ron: No. [laughs] No, not at all. Not a thing. Not in the license, not in the game [unintelligible 00:45:02]. That was a privileged development track that was exclusively– I think it was basically Mike Moone and maybe some of the people in the corporate because they were enamored with the idea of working with Steven Spielberg. They were more star-oriented than game-oriented.
Kevin: It doesn’t seem like the best choice, but I suppose in hindsight. You ended up moving from marketing to sales. Is that right?
Ron: Yes, for a short time. That’s because they wanted me to focus on the store presentation. The best way to present stuff in stores is develop displays through the stores that showcase the product.
Kevin: Was that in ’82 or ’83? Do you remember?
Ron: It was in ’82, because ’83, I was out of there.
Kevin: How was the salesforce organized at Atari, geographically speaking or however else?
Ron: They had regional managers and then the sales reps under them. You had a southern manager and west coast manager, that kind of stuff, just by territory.
Kevin: Did the company reorganize its sales rep in 1982? If they did, how’d that go?
Ron: I don’t remember them reorganizing sales reps. [unintelligible 00:47:44] then. Of course they’d have to a few years later when the company was changed hands, then it was reworked, but not in the early days, not ’82.
Kevin: After the [unintelligible 00:48:05], were you tracking retail sales?
Ron: When you say tracking, what do you mean by tracking?
Kevin: Keeping track of sales of games to retailers.
Ron: You knew what each one was ordering, but that’s about all you could do. [unintelligible 00:48:35] comes in and says they want 10,000 of these. You know what each retailer is going to buy, that’s all you can do. Again, you can’t track sales. All you can do is get information from the retailer, tells you what they think they sold last month or last week. Nobody could hand it down to a week at that point in time, it was basically two months later that you’re going to get some information.
Kevin: How did that compare to your experience at Sears and how Sears tracked the product?
Ron: Sears wasn’t much different. The reports we used to get, [unintelligible 00:49:33] or something like that, you get them today and that was, tell me what my sales were from November but it’s already February. Sears products, you looked at what you’re going to do and you did a contract by. Sears could sit there and give a courier a contract for 150,000 chassis to be delivered in the next six months, and then you’d eventually have to see how many of those sold out.
Kevin: I’ve heard that some of the larger distributors for Atari like Don Kingsborough and Sam Borofsky, they basically got to run their own sales and distribution operations. I was curious if you know anything about how that developed.
Ron: I knew them as sales reps. I didn’t know them as distributors but as sales reps. Theoretically, what I knew of them was they were in there selling. Case of Sam Borofsky, he was in there selling Toys R Us and Child World, that kind of stuff, or whoever had the accounts. I didn’t know them as distributors. I knew some of those distributors but never associated them as being a distributor.
Kevin: I don’t know if you were still there for any of this, but do you remember anything about Atari strategy to get back on track after the end of 1982 fall out?
Ron: No. I think their strategy was probably to try and get out of the business or sell the business. The only thing I know is they brought Don Kingsborough and replaced Mike Moone. I don’t know what they were going to do after that.
Kevin: Do you have any idea how Atari managed balancing stock with retailers who have product gluts, and whether you offered them returns or exchanges or rebates or whatever?
Ron: I remember there was stock a balancing, I guess, we did with some of the people. I don’t know the details. I don’t remember the details on what was involved with that.
Kevin: After you left the Atari, what did you do after that?
Ron: I went to a smaller privately held company. I was in the process of talking to some people in Minneapolis about a new startup company, and talking to another company in Southern California that was a source of mine when I was at Sears and decided to go there because one, I only had big company experience at this point, and this would give me a chance to decide how do you meet the payroll on Friday and it’s Wednesday? How do I get there?
It was a nice little innovative company that gave me a chance to really get involved. I say involved in a small business and the day-to-day commerce of that and you’re involved in some innovative products, which was fun. Then moved on from there to North Carolina. I should say [unintelligible 00:54:47] from there after that, and Atari lured me back under a new management and I became their president.
Kevin: I was going to ask what brought you back to Atari?
Ron: They approached me about coming back to them. There was a different ownership of the company and I thought it’d be interesting to come back at that point and see what could be done. We had average excess. Mostly it just wasn’t clearing out old inventory and stuff. We had a distress sale and then coming up with something new like Lynx, which we did. It was a different type of challenge.
Kevin: You said you were president over there or what was your role?
Ron: Yes. I started off as their vice president of sales. Then I’m just trying to think about maybe not quite a year later, they got rid of the president that was there and they made me president, the company. It’s working again in the consumer division because that’s all we had at the time, was the consumer games and then there was another division that was handling computers.
Kevin: [sneezes] Bless me. What was it like working with Sam and Jack Tramiel?
Ron: They were decent people. There wasn’t anything strange about them. Jack was– I should say, he had his views of how to treat customers and how you treat them. Everybody got their opinion on that. You could just follow his lead and do what he wants you to do. He’s the boss
Kevin: What about Sam?
Ron: Sam was great. He was always looking for new things. I think the biggest problem they had was their past history followed them around, if you will, from their old days to this, and places. We couldn’t, at that point, get a license to do anything with any of this. [unintelligible 00:58:35] the clean-up developers, you couldn’t get a license from them. They wouldn’t sell a license to the Tramiels. I guess they must’ve burned a lot of bridges.
Kevin: I’ve heard that Jack had a reputation with lead distribution from his commodore days. [inaudible 00:59:01] that’s impacted your work and salary while you were there?
Ron: Absolutely. It was–
Kevin: Go ahead, [crosstalk].
Ron: As I was saying, a lot of baggage from the past follows them around.
Kevin: How did that present itself when you were working in your role there, that’s something you had to deal with the retailers?
Ron: Yes. Like I said, with the retailers, you’re basically doing a– I had to call it a grand closeout sale. That seemed like all we were doing because you didn’t have anything new to talk about. You’re just looking to dump product.
Kevin: Were you involved at all with how the company was trying to position their 7800 and their XE machines on the market at the time?
Ron: No. 7800 came out. That was the old Atari. They went to the 56 and then 7800, but no, I don’t have any input on the 7800 at all.
Kevin: Okay. The XE as far as I know was like a repackaged computer. I don’t know.
Ron: The what?
Kevin: At some point in the late 80s. I don’t know.
Ron: I couldn’t tell you anything once I left 1982. I couldn’t tell you what they were going through in ’84, ’86, that kind of thing.
Kevin: You came back around what? Was it ’88 then?
Ron: Yes.
Kevin: How did Sega and Nintendo, their move to the market impact your work with Atari at the time?
Ron: Well, again, you were dealing– The biggest thing going on, which I focused on, was graphics and that’s what I kept telling Atari they had to do, was, you got to change the system. We can have, of course, a great system for graphics and that’s what I always told Atari’s invincible. Some of the people thought that the only thing we had to do is advertise, and that was going to be the charm, and that was about it.
Kevin: How was the Tramiel’s attitude towards marketing at the time you were there and what input did they have on marketing campaigns?
Ron: None whatsoever. They wouldn’t know how to market that stuff [unintelligible 01:02:39].
Kevin: [laughs] All right. What do you remember about Atari getting the Lynx and launching it?
Ron: Well, Atari got the Lynx from another company that was actually developed by Activision [Ed. note – Ron meant Epyx, the original developers of the Lynx]. We acquired the technology, if you will, from Activision and I think the only reason Activision was involved in that is because they thought Atari had the overseas manufacturing capability because of their involvement in computers and that kind of stuff to process. That comes after Lynx and the only thing we did was do some market research focus groups and come up with a name, but technology wasn’t Atari’s at that point. It belonged to Activision.
Kevin: Do you remember anything about that your initial push for the system and any of the difficulties you faced after it came out?
Ron: The biggest problem was making sure you got some software developed for the system and that was the biggest challenge. I think I know and that was the problem, it was the excess baggage that the Tramiel’s carried with them. Was, if tried to get a title, nobody would license them to do it because of their past history for some reason and because you couldn’t go either in the license next Donkey Kong or Mario Brothers because of it.
Kevin: All right.
Ron: Software became the issue, what games you’re going to put on the thing.
Kevin: Was there any distribution issue with the Lynx at the end besides just the software?
Ron: I know they went to some of the toy stores like Toys R US, were the first ones to get involved in it. After that, I probably– I’m trying to think of it. I don’t know if the company again in 1990, I got out of there. I don’t know what else they ran into after that.
Kevin: What led you to depart to Atari in 1990 then?
Ron: My father was diagnosed with terminal cancer and he was in New Jersey, and I was in California. I got out of there to spend time with him and that was the reason.
Kevin: What did you go on to do after you left Atari?
Ron: I went on to a company down here in North Carolina I had business with years ago at Sears, in the plastics business. Then I went and ended up owning a shoe dealer’s store for a number of years and went back into business with another guy that I knew in the nanotechnology business.
Kevin: Wow. That’s very cool. I guess, one quick thing before we drop Atari. How is the electronic entertainment division treated in relation to the computer division in those last couple of years you were there?
Ron: When I was there it was– Like you said, I left in the end of ’82.
Kevin: I meant during ’88, ’90, that period.
Ron: Oh, well, ’88 I wasn’t even there, I couldn’t tell you. I was just coming back in at that point. Like I said, the business at that point was, how do you get rid of all this old inventory that’s been sitting around in the games area.
Kevin: Got you. Are there any more talks or events from your time with Atari or Sears that we might have missed that you’d like to mention?
Ron: [chuckles] I’m sure there are, but I couldn’t begin to tell what they might be but it was a fun time, that’s all I can tell you. It was an experience.