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Curt Vendel has passed away. :(


Albert

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Oh my goodness, I cannot believe this.  I was always in constant communication with Curt throughout the years, we'd talk on the phone, text each other and hang out at conventions.  I've been so busy at work that I am barely finding out about this.  I am so sad.  :(  He was a great friend of mine.  We always talked about Atari, we talked about a business that he wanted me to be a part of, he gave me great advice on collecting and, of course, he sold me a ton of his ultra rarities throughout the years.  He always told me that he trusted me with his ultra rare items but what I always appreciated about him was his sense of humor, honesty, integrity and caring.  Every time I saw him he would always give me a great hug.  I just cannot believe it, I am speechless.  The Atari community just lost a great treasure and resource.  Most importantly, we lost somebody that deeply cared about Atari and its integrity.  Curt will live on in my heart and I am really going to miss him.  :(  God bless him and his family (you will always be in my prayers and my heart).  

 

@ Curt- Please make sure that you have an Atari ready for us to power up when I see you in heaven.  I expect to play many rounds of Warlords with you on a Flashback 2 (don't forget to test the paddles).  Until we see each other again my Friend.........

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Sad news. I did not know Curt but I am well aware of the work he did collecting, archiving and making available stuff from Atari that would other wise have been lost and work on the hardware side.

I hope all that hard work, dedication and enthusiasm is not lost following his passing.  

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Very sad news indeed. He was a fuel to my passion on researching Atari when i first started in the mid 90's with my Finnish Atari page. He always had time to answer my silly questions, helped with photos and everything. I've learnt so much from him.

 

Without Curt i wouldn't have started my hobby as an Atari ST software historian, software cataloguer and preservator. 

A true hero who will be deeply missed.

 

RIP Curt and thanks for everything.

 

My condolences to his family.

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Wow, I am shocked. I spoke to Curt occasionally about the XM project and his revamped High Score cart (which I was going to bug him about again after the XM project was finally complete) and he seemed like a great guy from our messages, trying to put as much as could back into the Atari community. This is a huge loss to the community in general :(

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I'm not active in the community anymore but I wanted to stop by to pay my respects.  My most vivid memory of him was where I went to one of the CG Expo conventions in Los Angeles to panhandle for money to finish editing Stella at 20.  Curt was gracious enough to devote a monitor at his booth for me to run a tape through with a leaflet.  That was a really nice thing for him to do.

 

I've come to realize that there's a continuum between being a fan or collector over to being a historian.  As Generation X interests age more and more we rely on people like Curt to document that history for posterity.  This is because more traditional "historians" don't see enough value in (relatively) recent history to document.  But by the time they come around, much will have been lost.  Surprisingly enough even some of the people directly involved discounted their past.  So there are usually only a very small number of fans who have the passion, time, and skill to do this.  Without them, this history will fade into legend and/or obscurity.

 

I have started to gather up some of the fruits of these enthusiasts, these thick encyclopedias that tell you everything you ever wanted to know (and more) about stuff that (let's face it) normies might feel wouldn't justify the attention.  I have stuff like Nick Nugent's Knight Rider Companion, When We're Singing about the Partridge Family, Jeff Bond who has archived classic soundtracks like the original Star Trek and has just released this book on The Motion Picture.  Curt is part of this exclusive club, and it deserves more respect.

 

 

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