Last Updated on January 6, 2026 by Dave Farquhar
Ira Lewis Velinsky was the industrial designer for Commodore and later Atari in the 1980s. He was responsible for the curvy “Porsche PET” cases, as well as the case design of the short-lived Commodore TED machines, and later, the Atari ST. Sadly, Ira Velinsky died November 14, 2000 of a heart attack while returning home from Comdex in Las Vegas. He was only 46.
Early life and education
Ira Velinsky was born in Plainfield, New Jersey in 1954. He attended Plainfield High School before graduating from Rochester Institute of Technology with honors. He then taught under a full scholarship at Cornell University graduate school. While still an art student, he interned at Plainfield’s city planning department, where he created an innovative bus stop sign that included the routes for each stop, and attractive iconography for the bus. Other cities copied his design.
While at Cornell, he designed a system that integrated the face mask, helmet, and backpack into the rest of a firefighter’s clothing to improve how they functioned together, including providing better air flow and visibility.
But it was in the computer industry that Ira Velinsky’s design work had the biggest impact.
Joining Commodore
Velinsky joined Commodore in the early 1980s. His obituary credited him with the design of the original Commodore 64, nicknamed the breadbin, with its brown/gray/beige color scheme. But some Commodore historians believe it was another designer named Nishimura who designed the C-64’s casing. Velinsky did design the Commodore MAX case, the predecessor to the C-64, as well as the SX-64, the portable version of the Commodore 64.
Velinsky’s most distinctive designs were arguably the cases for the final Commodore PET computers, nicknamed the Porsche PETs. Rumor had it Commodore commissioned the design from Ferdinand Porsche, but it turned out Porsche’s design was too expensive. Commodore went with a design from Velinsky instead. One of his final designs at Commodore was the casing for the TED machines such as the Plus/4. The Plus/4 design was ahead of its time, with a black case and white keys. The Plus/4’s design echoed would not look at all out of place in a modern computer setup, more than 40 years after its launch.
When Commodore CEO Jack Tramiel left Commodore and bought Atari, Velinsky was one of several key Commodore employees who followed him. Former Commodore engineer Bil Herd has said Commodore hired an industrial designer from Franklin Computer to replace Velinsky, and it was this designer who designed the Commodore 128, Amiga 500, and Commodore 64C.
Bil Herd has also said Ira Velinsky designed the case for the DEC Rainbow before joining Commodore.
Ira Velinsky at Atari
At Atari, Jack Tramiel installed Velinsky as his director of industrial design. Initially responsible for the design of the Atari ST and the restyling for the Atari XE computers, he also designed later Atari computers and game consoles. Velinsky left Atari in the late 1990s.
It appears that after leaving Atari, Velinksy either worked for or consulted for Sega from about 1996 to 1998. His name appears on 8 Sega patent filings.
Sozo Design
In 1998, Ira Velinsky founded Sozo Design LLC in Burlingame, California, a design consulting firm. One of his designs integrated a PC into an ottoman so it would blend perfectly into the living room. His dream had been to run his own company, but sadly, he didn’t get to live his dream very long. Ira Velinsky died November 14, 2000 of a heart attack while returning home from Comdex in Las Vegas. He was only 46.
Unlike some other industrial designers of comparable talent, Velinsky was not a very public person and there isn’t much information online about him, nor are there many photos. Here’s a blog post with a couple of photos and some information about his early life.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.