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You mean the way he came to us with his lies chasing? Still tons of news with interesting images. Think we had attitude from day one. 1999 is my favorite year. Forum still rocks. Yes, it is mine and I will do with it what I see fit. Now who is stuck in 1999????? Innocent liars?

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lol e-rage, im sorry haven't heard that one before, noted.And yes, those were my exact thought, but then again its just like Nancy Grace, what today's "OUTRAGE STORY?"

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We read that, and we understand it. You did not accept his offer. You told him to have someone else send you the data. In short, you treated him like a personal assistant.

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We read that, we understand it. You did not accept his offer. You told him to have someone else send you the data. In short, you treated him like a personal assistant.I don't believe their claims either, and I appreciate people trying to find the truth. I just think you would have gotten further if you had accepted his offer. Sometimes it is best to cut out the middle man, who in this case didn't know anything and couldn't do anything for you.

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That's exactly it, as soon as they place a quantifiable number in their advertising, that's an open invitation for anyone to say "30%...ok, let's see how you came up with that number". This is the computer hardware enthusiast crowd, not your average joe beer drinker.

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I really think some people are being a bit hard on Kyle. Did he come off as rude and unprofessional in his "panties in a wad" email? Absolutely. Was he unnecessarily childish and combative? Yes. Does this unprofessional kind of demeanor contribute to HardOCP's apparent "plateau" in terms of success? I believe so. Is Kyle a petulant assh**e? Maybe. And is it lame to self-digg? Perhaps... (it does help avoid duplicates, though). ;-)Nevertheless, the comments about Kyle's "ginormous ego and inflated sense of self-importance" (paraphrased) are out of line. There are people here with the impression that this Dave Tractenberg had no idea who Kyle was, and that Kyle contacted him out of the blue asking about Commodore's claim about being the best. In short: No, that's not how it went. Dave Tractenberg knew exactly who Kyle was, since he was the one who sent a PR email to HardOCP in the first place looking for free press. Dave came to Kyle asking for a favor (publicity), knowing full well that HardOCP was influential enough to be worth asking. Kyle wanted to know why he should help them (implying it's something he'd consider if he was given all the information), and he was right to wonder. When it comes down to it, it doesn't even matter how successful HardOCP is - regardless of whether Kyle is the head of CNN or a 12-year-old kid blogging on Myspace, a corporation asked a favor of him: And nobody is "too small or unimportant" to demand an explanation. Bottom line: If Kyle was important enough to send a PR statement to in the first place, he's not being presumptuous in thinking he's important enough to demand more information from the company before essentially advertising for them.I see far too many people saying things along the lines of, "Well, every company says they're the best! Every company does this! This is just standard corporate run-of-the-mill BS PR that we're used to taking without a fuss, and there's no reason anyone should have a problem with it!" A few things:1.) First of all, I think it's sad that we accept BS PR just because "everyone does it." That does not make it right, and I fully loathe every company that misleads consumers (an ugly word for human beings, but it's in wide use, so...whatever) in order to look good. They ALL deserve to get called out, one by one, and publicly humiliated. Their executives and PR teams should be put in the stocks and ridiculed until they have flooded the entire world with their exquisite tears. Will that ever happen? No, it won't...there are far too many offenders to count. Still, even if Kyle (or anyone else) decided to pick on Commodore and randomly call them out, ignoring every other company's offenses, he'd have been right to. It's not his fault that there are too many offenders to count; picking a name out of a hat and making an example out of someone is perfectly legitimate, if "unfair."2.) However, Commodore is not just a "run of the mill" offender. For starters, they're a pretty big-name company that has had a special place in the hearts of many for decades. They immediately stood out from no-name upstarts (no offense to upstarts intended), and their name was probably enough to get HardOCP's attention.3.) Next, they said they were the "best" *before they even entered the market.* A lot of companies think way too highly of themselves, but there are few who have the nerve or arrogance to call themselves industry leaders before even selling anything. Kyle's "What exactly makes them a leader?" email is something I'd love to send to just about every company, but Commodore/Traction PR was particularly deserving in this instance. It was blunt, but it wasn't overly rude, and it was well-deserved. The response Kyle got back was "Really, were you being serious? Just need to know if want a real answer on this one…" Now that...that was rude. That's like saying, before ever even marketing a product, "Anybody who's anybody knows we're the best!" People say that Kyle has too much bravado...no, Dave Tractenberg has too much bravado. While I still feel that it was unprofessional for Kyle to lose his cool a couple emails later, Dave honestly had bitchslaps and wakeup calls coming to him from the moment he said "...were you being serious?"4.) Then, they stated this: "Commodore systems have managed to beat every other high performance PC on the market without overclocking our chips. In some cases we have beat major gaming systems by 30% in 3DMark tests." At that very moment, Dave Tractenberg unquestionably left the realm of "ordinary corporate BS" (which should still never be tolerated) and entered the domain of "outrageous claims." Once you pull crap like that, *the burden of proof rests on you.* You need to be able to provide solid evidence offhand, and by the very nature of Dave's claim, he should have at least had exact 3DMark scores and system setups. If the precise scores are a "company secret" that they're waiting for the right moment to unveil, then it's just bad PR to throw out the "beat everyone" statement and 30% figure so early and without anything to back it up (and it's something they would, once again, deserve a bitchslap and some harsh words for). Instead of a.) claiming "company secrets" or b.) qualifying his outrageous claims, however, Dave started wasting Kyle's time with counteroffers like, "Well, we can give you the opportunity to *disprove* us six months from now! How does that sound?" While the engineer was copied in on the emails, Kyle has yet to hear from him. Hopefully he'll be able to prove that Commodore is not making this up...but somehow, I doubt it.In short, while Kyle's conduct is self-defeating and detrimental to his own professional success, that's his own prerogative, and he was nevertheless on the right side of the argument. Commodore deserved to get called out (and deserved it more and more with every email), and Dave Tractenberg of Traction PR should have been fired from the moment he said, "Really, were you being serious?" Regardless of Kyle's own behavior, Dave is a PR guy, and as such, he should: 1.) Never make claims he can't back up (though this happens far too often, since many companies have horrible PR), and 2.) Always remain polite. PR has two major legitimate modes of operation, and remaining polite is key to both: a.) When a company has royally screwed up, their PR should admit fault, beg for forgiveness, honestly swear that it will never happen again, and announce that the company is making reparations. b.) At all other times, every PR rep should eternally have candy and roses erupting from even the abyss of his/her butthole.Dave failed on both counts...he should be fired by Traction PR, Traction PR should be fired by Commodore, and Commodore should do some serious - and honest - damage control. Otherwise, they're merely insulting and ruining the good name of the company they used to be.

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Yeah! <a class="user" href="http://digg.com/hardware/1982_Commodore_64_computer_1_MHz_64_K_RAM_as_web_server&quot;&gt;http://digg.com/hardware/1982_Commodore_64_compute ...</a>Not so sure about this new Commodore stuff though...

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