Jay Miner
Contents
Introduction
Jay Glenn Miner is regarded as the father, or padre of the Amiga. He was born in Prescott, Arizona on May 31, 1932 and grew up in southern California.
In 1950 he was attending San Diego State University when the Korean War started. He promptly joined the Coast Guard and received training in Groton, Connecticut as an electronics technician. While in Groton he met his future wife, Caroline Poplawski. They married in 1952.
In the North Atlantic Weather Patrol he would repair electronic devices used in communication. He was later discharged from military, having served for 3 years. After the military he enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley, where he graduated in 1958 with a major in Electrical Engineering.
MOS Pioneer
Six years after graduating college and doing contracting work, Jay joined General Micro Electronics (GME). At GME he would design a MOS calculator chip. In 1973, he became the co-founder of Synertek, a company who would later second source the 6502 processor from MOS Technology. It was also around this time he would begin working at Standard Microsystems.
Work at Atari
Jay was hired at Atari in 1975 upon the recommendation of Harold Lee, who had designed the custom chip in their home Pong console. The two had worked together at Standard Microsystems.
Also present at Atari was Jay's dog, a cockapoo named Mitchy. She accompanied him wherever he went and was even counted as an employee, having a brass nameplate on Jay's office door as well as an ID badge. His previous employer, Synertek, despite him being a co-founder wouldn’t let him bring Mitchy to work.
The following year he was moved from Los Gatos to a secret office at 471 Division Street in Campbell to work on a project which would become their flagship game console, the Video Computer System or VCS. In 1976, Jay and his apprentice, Joe Decuir designed Stella, a custom graphics and sound chip for the VCS. The chip was later renamed TIA, or Television Interface Adapter.
Not long after the VCS was released in 1977, Jay and Joe began work on a successor, these materialized as two machines: The Atari 400 and 800 computer systems. They used 3 custom chips, ANTIC, CTIA and POKEY. Jay was the project manager for the computers.
By 1979, Jay had become wary of the new management at Atari and left early that year along with several engineers and programmers. His reasons for leaving were two fold: Employees weren't going to receive promised bonuses despite the success of the VCS and CEO Ray Kassar turned down his proposal for a 16-bit computer. His exit interview with Ray took place in February.
Joe Decuir would leave that June. But on his last day at the company, he drew a block diagram for a third system. It was to be 16-bit, based around a Z8000 or Motorola 68000 and like the 400 and 800, it had 3 custom chips.
ZyMOS and Hi-Toro
After Atari he went to work for a chip company called ZyMOS, designing chips for pacemakers.
In 1982, Larry Kaplan at Activison calls Jay and wants to start a new company for making a game console. Larry had previously worked for Jay at Atari on the 400 and 800. Jay agrees on the new venture so long as he gets to be the vice president and can design the chips. The company would initially be known as Hi-Toro. That Fall, Jay calls Joe Decuir to help design the new game console. He goes back to the block diagram he drew in 1979 and already has a plan for the system's architecture. Hi-Toro was renamed Amiga. He remained at Amiga until 1987 when Los Gatos was shut down.
Hospitalization
In or around 1989, Jay was hospitalized for kidney failure and remained on dialysis for approximately one year. His sister, Joyce Beers wound up donating a kidney.
Ventritex
After being released from the hospital, he started a job at a company out of Sunnyvale called Ventritex. There he designed an implantable defibrillator which could be adjusted by a doctor over the phone line.
Conclusion
Jay died of complications related to an additional kidney failure on June 20, 1994 at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, California. However his work and his honest, yet encouraging style of management still inspires people today.
During his life, he had 6 startup companies.
Other Facts:
His hobbies included backpacking, camping, gardening, model airplanes, nudism, sailing and square dancing. He was known for having hot tub parties at his house and was also an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church.
Memorable Quotes:
"A great computer can play great games."
"Just because you can make something doesn't mean you should."
"Engineering is the art of compromise."
"Success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan."
References
- http://elwoodb.free.fr/Amiga/JMS/jay-miner.html - Obituary from the San Jose Mercury News - 7/22/1994
- https://reference.jrank.org/biography-2/Miner_Jay.html
- Weddington, Zach. Viva Amiga Bonus Content – Joe Decuir, Ron Nicholson and Don Reisinger Amiga 30 Interview
- Bagnall, Brian. Commodore: The Amiga Years Variant Press - 2017
- Goldberg, Marty and Vendel, Curt - Atari Inc.: Business Is Fun - Syzygy Co. Press/Atari Museum - 2012
- Giancarla, Marisa Amiga History - Jay Miner Interview
- Neb6 Jay Miner. Lead Designer: Atari 2600, Atari 800, Amiga. 1989
- The Guru Meditation The History of the Commodore Amiga - Rare Jay Miner Speech AmiExpo 1990 3/18/1990, 9/9/2020
- Jay Miner - Google Groups - 8/13/1994
- Savetz, Kay ANTIC Interview 38 - Liza Loop, Technical Writer - 4/27/2015
