Atari's 30th Anniversary

Atarian writes "Atari was officially incorporated 30 years ago. While many thought Atari started the video game business, that was not correct, it was Magnavox and its Odyssey console designed by Ralph Baer that would be the first. Atari would be the company that would put videogames on the map right from the start back in 1972 with the release of PONG, its coin-op arcade machine first setup in Andy Capps Bar in California, the game was a smash hit and people begin lining up first thing in the morning at Andy Capps just to get inside and play games on this magic box with a TV inside. Atari would then release its VCS (Video Computer System aka The Atari 2600) and launch Atari from its meager $500 starter capital beginnings into a $2 billion dollars in sales monster in 1982. Atari would later fall to the wayside to be replaced by Nintendo, then Sega, and othes that followed. Atari is still around in a small way, and still keeping the name and spirit alive to this very day, 30 years later. 'Have you played Atari today?'"

Has anyone noticed?

[Apreche]

The Atari logo is on the Neverwinter Nights box. Feaky eh?

Oh yeah.
Pitfall.
Word.

Have you played Atari today?

[LordYUK]

Why yes, yes i have... its on each Neverwinter disk, as well as the first screen you seen when you hit "play".

I am not sure their offical role in the developmental process, however, but I did play Atari today! ;)

Re:Has anyone noticed?

[Ass-Gas-Istan]

Pitfall, though played on the Atari 2600, was created by Activision [activision.com].

Re:Anyone got a working Atari?

[Apreche]

Depends what's wrong with it. Cleaning it out usually works. Open it up and clean all the dust off all the boards and chips. We have a working 7800 here, and quite a few games. Trying to get the 2600 sticks though, they are so much better than 7800 sticks.

Meet and Greet

[gej]

If you're in Vegas August 10th or 11th, stop by and meet some of the people who made it happen: cgexpo [cgexpo.com].

Re:Has anyone noticed?

[tfreport]

Freaky eh?

No, actually it is not freaky. Atari has decended down and been purchased, acquired, or something along those lines by Infogrames. Infogrames is a big software player in Europe but has small brand recognition in the States. They figured for marketing that they would be better of using the Atari name and logo in the U.S. where it would be more recognized than Infogrames.

So when Neverwinter Nights was going to be released by Publisher Infogrames, what name did they use? Atari of course. Not freaky. Just a sound business decision for those that have never heard of that particular European company.

Some technical information about the atari 2600

[nebaz]

can be found at Warren Robinett's Adventure here [warrenrobinett.com]. Arguably the coolest Atari game of all time, it was one of the first games with an easter egg, and a "Zelda" type interface. Dragons, castles, goblets, and a bat, and it all fit in 4K of memory. The most telling thing about this, they paid him $22,000 a year, and they sold 1 million copies of the game, at $20 a pop.

OT: Blade runner curse

[GuyMannDude]

The Atari logo is also in Blade runner. Maybe Ridley Scott should get Lucas to go in and replace it with an sony logo.

Interestingly enough, most of the companies that were featured in the futuristic world of Blade Runner have since gone bankrupt. So many, in fact, that this observation has been dubbed The Blade Runner Curse [scribble.com]

GMD

Forget reissues -- just get MAME

[GuyMannDude]

Reissues of arcade classics (centipede, tempest, asteroids) for my PC.

Screw the reissues. Just download MAME and you get to play the EXACT SAME game you remember as a child.

...but there was something they had which was like a four screen version of asteroids which looked cool has heck, years ago ...

I always thought a very underrated Atari game was Warlords which was kind of a 4-person cut-throat version of Breakout. You had to defend your "castle" against a bouncing ball and use it to destroy the castles of your 3 opponents. Cool game.

GMD

Re:Anyone got a working Atari?

[Viperion]

Try looking at AtariAge.com [atariage.com]. Either the site or their forums should be able to point you in the right direction on where to go.

Re:Atari ST

[linderdm]

On the Moulin Rouge DVD, Fatboy Slim, aka Norman Cook, talks a bit about how he uses his Atari Computer to do his electronic music. He said that he uses it because it's all he knows how to use. Plus, it still works great, so why upgrade?

I played an Atari game just now NWN

[ryouki]

Atari is before woc logo. Just got the linux server running. Life is good

Re:Has anyone noticed?

[Pfhreakaz0id]

Like Pitfall? I loved it. I recently found a java version on the web here [plutoniumsoftware.com]

Neverwinter Nights

[Cyberllama]

I believe NwN is an Atari game. Am I mistaken? Atari doesn't do so much hardware anymore, but they still have a hand in many popular games.

Re:Anyone got a working Atari?

[Jerf]

Another source of joysticks are Commodore 64 joysticks, which can be up to ten years younger, and IMHO many of them were much better designed and more likely to last. They can make River Raid a lot more fun, since it's far less frustrating to crash when you feel more like it was your fault, and not your input device's fault.

Commodore 64 joysticks can do diagonal, but it doesn't seem to confuse the Atari's too much.

Also an option are the original Genesis controllers. Use "B" as the fire button, and the pad as the directions. Again, Genesis can do diagonal, but that's OK.

Re:Anyone got a working Atari?

[dubiousmike]

You would be surprised that contact control spray will "fix" many old electronic parts. It has gotten me out of jams many times and I'd highly recommend it.

Hardware store usually carry it and brand doesn't really matter.

I have fixed quite a few Atari joysticks with this.

Re:Who remembers Firefox?

[smerritt]

If you liked that, you should check out Solar Wolf [pygame.org]. It's an updated Solar Fox, written in Python, with modern graphics and sound.
I've spent too many hours playing this game...