 Tramiel, originally from Poland, retained strong links with Eastern Europe.When these countries began to remove themselves from the Warsaw Pact, capped by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, he was able to use these relationships to open new business opportunities for the company.To address the need for a very low cost machine suitable for sales into these regions, where the economies were still post-communist and the exchange rates very high, Atari introduced the last machines in the 8-bit series to hit very low price points.