Jay Miner
Introduction
Jay Glenn Miner was born in Prescott, Arizona on May 31, 1932 and grew up in southern California. He is regarded as the father, or padre of the Amiga.
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, he 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.
Work at Atari
He was hired at Atari in 1974 by Harold Lee, who had designed the custom chip in the home Pong console. Two years later, he worked on designing what would become their flagship game console, the Video Computer System or VCS. For the VCS, Jay and his apprentice, Joe Decuir worked on a custom graphics and sound chip, Stella. It 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 would become the project manager for the computers.
By 1979, Jay had become wary of the new management at Atari and left early that year. 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.
Enter Hi-Toro
Three years later, Larry Kaplan at Activison calls Jay and wants to start a new company for making a game console. Larry had previously worked with 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.
Conclusion
Jay died of kidney failure on June 20, 1994 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.
Memorable Quotes:
"A great computer can play great games."
"Just because you can make something doesn't mean you should."
"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
