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A History of Atari — the Golden Years
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Aug 21, 2008 05:12 PM
from the slap-in-the-nostalgia-cartridge dept.
from the slap-in-the-nostalgia-cartridge dept.
simoniker writes "Over at Gamasutra, Steve Fulton has published a massive 23,000-word history of Atari from 1978 to 1981, encompassing '... some of the most exciting developments the company ever saw in its history: the rise of the 2600, the development of some of the company's most enduringly popular games (Centipede, Asteroids) and the development and release of its first home computing platforms.' Best quote in there for Slashdot readers, perhaps: 'Atari had contracted with a young programmer named Bill Gates to modify a BASIC compiler that he had for another system to be used on the 800. After that project stalled for over a year Al was called upon to replace him with another developer. So ... Al is the only person I know ever to have fired Bill Gates.'"
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who would of thought (Score:5, Interesting)
that today they sue their fans [techradar.com] and anybody who gives a negative review of their games [techspot.com]
oh how the mighty has fallen
Re:who would of thought (Score:5, Informative)
To be fair, the company now known as Atari has virtually no relation to the company known as Atari in the late '70s and early '80s.
Parent
Re:who would of thought (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:who would of thought (Score:4, Funny)
I'm still a fan of some of their recent work, but to my knowledge there is exactly as much relation between Atari today and the Atari that is the subject of this book, as there is between Me and Zombie Me. Clothes might look familiar, just don't get too close.
-Matt
Parent
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Yup, they're now in bed with a very dodgy outfit that get their intelligence from a company who've been widely discredited across the EU. But not the UK yet.
Sending out thousands of "pay us or go to court" fishing mails, suing people and crowing about a 16K judgment made in absentia (that's right, she'd moved and the judgement was a default - ie not worth the paper it's written on as a precedent and open to a range of appeal options).
yay atari!
Re:who would of thought (Score:4, Informative)
The original Atari has been dead and buried for a long time now.
The current "Atari" is actually a company that used to be known as Infogrames and mostly changed their name to get out from under their rep of being purveyors of crap.
Parent
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Today's Atari is an insult to the historical company. Now it is nothing but a brand name, maybe some long-lost trademarks/IP and a bunch of dirty corporate slugs who are milking the name to death.
First they got bought out by that idiot Tramiel, the guy who pumped and dumped Commodore. They still managed to produce the 520ST and 1040ST, which were kind of proto-Macs. Then came the underpowered Jaguar and Lynx, both huge flops!
"Classic Atari" was pretty much dead by then, no good console to sell, and no de
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Umm, the Lynx was a color handheld, released over 9 years before the GameBoy got color. (According to wikipedia, Atari Lynx was introduced September 1989, and the GameBoy Color was introduced October 21, 1998 in Japan.)
(No, I'm not a huge Atari Lynx fanboy -- I bought one used, a long time after they stopped selling them, on the net for like $50.. I only ever got one or two games for it.)
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1. Gates of Zendocon: I really like this shooter, it's both relatively mindless and pretty creative.
2. Chip's Challenge: I think this is probably the best puzzle game for the Lynx.
3. Zarlor Mercenary: Well, if you like Shoot 'Em Ups, this one is a good one.
4. Ninja Gaiden III: It's a duplicated of the NES version, if you liked the NES Ninja Gaiden games you'll like this one.
5. Xenophobe: There are a few different choices I co
How Atari Failed (Score:5, Interesting)
My father was a die-hard Atari user back in those days. I remember asking him why Atari was not as popular as it used to be as the years went by, and I'll never forget his answer:
"Because Apple went to lunch with the schools, IBM went to lunch with the companies, and Atari didn't go to lunch with anybody."
I never learned how much truth there was in that answer, but I really liked his response! That, and his "Join the Revolution! Buy an Atari!" stamper.
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Wrong. Atari went to lunch with Stephen Spielburg.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial_(Atari_2600) [wikipedia.org]
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They did, in 1984. Atari Games and Atari Corporation.
The real problem with Atari as a computer maker is that Atari Corporation was run by Jack Trameil (also known for being the guy who brought us the PET, C64) who wanted to use it to bludgeon his old company for getting rid of him.
And what's best (Score:5, Informative)
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Not only that, but nowadays anyone can use free tools to write a semi-decent Atari game.
Batari Basic is a good example, although "free as in beer":
http://bataribasic.com/ [bataribasic.com]
I was addicted to Atari 2600 (Score:3, Informative)
But as cool as it sounds to be the best in video games in the world... It really is hard to rate a video game player. You have all different genre of games.
No one probably cares, but I have memories. One of the memories was 1983 when I thought Atari 2600 should just keep making games. I never thought to myself that the video games could get better though with more powerful computing. Just breathing in today's world is living the dream for a video game player. And once you played out all the video games, you have the potential to make games too.
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I too was addicted to the Atari. Both the 2600 and later the ST when we had one. But for me it was always the deeply held belief that if I could just last a bit longer, I might reach the end. Or at least 'something special' would happen.
I wanted to beat Pitfall. I wanted to see if there was an end to River Raid.
Cosmic Ark, Riddle of the Sphinx, the Swordquest games. These all surely had to have some sort of ending... and I wanted to know what it was. The 'stories' that came with the games certainly implied
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Why in the world would you point out to a man who calls himself "CrazyJim1" that he might not be right in the head? Is it really necessary?
Atari AGAIN? (Score:5, Insightful)
Listen, could you pseudo-gamer-journalists stop writing about Atari's history? We've all heard and read about it a million times. We ALL know about Atari. We all know about Ralph Baer, Higgenbotten, and that Centipede was designed by a woman. Now, how about some REAL history even us old gamers don't know about?
What was it like working for Cinematronics? What was their culture like? Why did they go out of business? What was it like being on the Dragon's Lair team (and I don't mean just talking to Don Bluth and Rick Dyer; that's been done to death. What about everyone else like the tech developers? Did they think it would take off? What about the teams involved in vector games? What was that like?)
How about Universal? What happened to them? What was it like working there? The art department must have been a trippy place considering the fascinating psychedelic art their arcade game cabinets had. Who designed Mr Do? Lady Bug? When could they sense the writing was on the wall? Why couldn't they compete?
How about Stern's video department in 1978-82? At least you know where to reach Gary Stern today...
How about Williams video department? They made such cool games (Robotron, Defender, Sinistar...) What was their workplace and culture like?
Write about something new for fuck's sake.
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"i agree with you except i think you mean "write something new about something old""
Innovate kind of like you did last year, none of this new stuff. [gamasutra.com]
I don't know, fly casual.
one page version (Score:5, Informative)
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Also, in case you don't know what Atari is, here's the Google search [google.com], and an explanation of what Google [wikipedia.org] is.
Seriously, why do people do this? You know that we all have web browsers and mice, and can just click the same links ourselves, right?
Oh, *that* is what the ROM was for... (Score:2)
Wish I kept my old catalogs and such (Score:2)
I bought a used Atari 800 to play games on after my IBM PC (original) proved pathetic for this purpose.
1986 was a GREAT time to own one of these old 8 bit systems. Software was still being made for it, and the slightly older hardware (8xx series printers, disk drives, serial interfaces, etc.) was available for firesale prices from mail order joints. The general audience computer magazines covered the platform, and there was at least one slick magazine with you-type-it program listings.
I played lots of the o
Massive? (Score:2)
"Massive" is Gibbon's Decline and Fall in seven volumes. 23,000 words is about 2-3 times as long as a typical article in the kind of magazine that doesn't have recipes or pictures of Paris Hilton. That a lot of words, but it isn't enough to fill even a short book (about 75,000 words). Hardly "massive".
Al ? (Score:2)
I'll wait for the movie... (Score:2)
yes - I know - dicaprio... titanic... *yuck*
but after "catch me if you can", "aviator" and now this project i start respecting him... (yes, i just said jehovah! stone me!)
Re: (Score:2)
The Departed? Blood Diamond? That new one with Russell Crowe, Body of Lies?
Lefites: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates & Jerry Seinfe (Score:2)
Golden Years... (Score:2, Funny)
or Golden Showers?
All bow down before Custer's Revenge [wikipedia.org].
Another old guy reminiscing... (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember getting my first Atari 800... Then after that the 800XL, 130XE, 520ST, 1040ST, etc.. The 800XL was my first real chance to learn to program. Previously it had been on a Commodore Vic-20 at a cousin's house. I actually owe my career to those days spent writing little BASIC programs to do simple things.
At the time there was a magazine called Compute!. It had program listings for multiple machines including the Atari, Commodore, Apple IIe, and later on, the PC, ST and Amiga lines. Many of the programs were written in BASIC, but as the magazine progressed more and more were written in 6502 assembler. It was tedious to key in those listings (essentially typing in HEX dumps with a checksum) but we managed.
In middle school I was in one of the first programming classes in the school and district. The computers were all Apple IIe and Franklin Ace 1000s, but the instructor had a soft spot for the Ataris. For the end of term project I wrote a little quiz program that flashed a question on the screen in one of the Atari graphic modes, then read the 8-bit joystick port to see which answer was selected. I also tried to write an Infocom-like game, but it proved much harder than I had anticipated. I did get the user to be able to navigate a map though :D
For a long time I missed those days... Luckily Linux came along and all is well again...
The REAL Atari... (Score:2)
I won my 2600 in a competition (Score:2)
It was my first console, courtesy of Kentucky Fried Chicken. The eight games that came with it kept me satisfied until I got my C64.
Let me see if I can remember them: Ms Pac-Man, Galaxian, Bezerk, Missile Command (my Dad managed to roll-over the score), Haunted House, Yar's Revenge. I think my cousin had Adventure because I don't recall it much, but that freakin' duck gives me flashbacks. So that leaves one or two, but the list [wikipedia.org] doesn't give me any ideas. Must have been the lame ones that I didn't play.
Best quote from story (Score:4, Insightful)
"I felt that the computer system should not be a closed system, we needed to have third party software developers. I could see Steve Jobs out evangelizing, and Atari was saying that if you write software for the Atari computers, we will sue you. I just thought that was foolhardy. They were from the record world, where you sue people."
- Nolan Bushnell
You know, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
I loved my Atari ST... (Score:2, Interesting)
my... girl Atari ST ;)
Actually, I had the Atari ST when I was in college... I really liked it and I could do my assembly projects on it (our assembly and hardware classes were all based on the M68K).
Sob...sniffle (Score:2)
All this coverage truly brings a tear to me eye :'(. I am surprised no one here has mentioned The Flashbacks [wikipedia.org]. The Flashback2 atleast can be hacked to take the original 2600 cartridges :D
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Star Raiders.
Re:Help me find an old 2600 game (Score:5, Informative)
Star Raiders [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I googled for "atari 2600 shields blue". And I think I did play that game in my youth...
Help me find an old 2600 controller (Score:2)
Is there any way to get the special controller? Or better yet, homebrew one?
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
As others have noted, the classic space combat game is Star Raiders [wikipedia.org]. But Star Raiders was excellent on the Atari 800 and 400 computers; the official Atari version for 2600 was, IMHO, very poor.
Happily, the Activision folks made an excellent knockoff of Star Raiders called Starmaster [wikipedia.org]. The most important parts of the Star Raider experience are there: you can raise and lower shields, you have a galactic map, you have multiple star bases, the enemy will surround and destroy the star bases, you can get damaged
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I was just about to say exactly that. I remembered Atari 800 Star Raiders from my childhood, and got the 2600 port as an adult hoping it would be as good. Not even close. So I just play it in emulation instead.
Someday I'll find that deal on an atari 800 Ive been looking for. My dad gave ours away many years ago.
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Okay, raise your hand if the first thought that came to your mind was, "I'd like to fire Bill Gates... out of a cannon."
No? Maybe it's just me....
It's computing, Jim, but not as we know it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps if Bill Gates hadn't been fired... he wouldn't have ended up creating Microsoft.
How would a world without Microsoft be? Would we have the internet as we know it? Less viruses, probably. But now that I think about it... the internet may have not had the same popularity... Linux would still be for hobbyists... would we have a browser war? What would have happened to specs made by the W3C? Maybe Netscape would still be alive... AND buggy.
Most people are idealistic and want to believe that Bill Gates was the ONLY evil in computing - but what about the "patches welcome" attitude in programming?
Sometimes I'd like to start a contest on "how the world would have been without Microsoft". Would we have social networking sites? CSS 2? Ubuntu? And would the Mac have adopted a Freebsd-based Operating System?
How would the 80x86 computers run, for starters? Would they run Unix? CP/M? Would videogames use even worse copy protection schemes? Would the PC be an actual competitor against Nintendo and Sony? Or maybe, Atari would take the place that the XBOX has now?
I'd love to see the possibilities with my own eyes. Just to satisfy my curiosity.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because he enforced consequences for actions, and stuck to his word? I don't see a problem with that. I only had to lose a few toys I really liked before I started learning how to pick things up. There's no saying that their father threw it out... perhaps he just sold it or gave it away. Either way, it's called "parenting".
Just because the Atari cost more than other toys shouldn't make it any less susceptible to the rules.