Jack Tramiel, the man behind the Commodore line of computers, has died.

It would not be wrong to say his computers had easily as much to do with the pervasive spread of computing as anyone else. I never had one — my parents swayed me to buy local and get something at Radio Shack, more’s the pity — but he looms large over generations of computer nerds like me.

Thing I did not know before today: Tramiel was born in Poland; he and his family spent the war in Auschwitz and other camps before Tramiel alone was rescued in 1945.

More at MeFi.