A History of Atari — the Golden Years 170
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.'"
The history of my Atari (Score:1)
We had a 2600 with a whole bunch of games. It was played with often.
One day we left it out and attached to the TV. My father said if he saw that we left it out once more, it would disappear forever.
Sure enough, 2 days later it disappeard forever. We never even asked him about it. We knew it was history.
Looking back, we never really missed it. It wasn't all that important to us then. (1980 - 6th grade)
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Have you ever mentioned to your father that he was a complete douchebag?
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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.
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No, because he lacked a sense of proportionality. How about "leave it out again, and lose it for a week... and the next time it will be for a month"?
WTF? Are you competing for having the biggest loser dad? Let's see how your argument stacks up against life:
* If you don't clean those grease traps, you're fired. (Damn--your boss should have had a sense of proportionality and just sent you to time-out for a few minutes.)
* If you drive drunk, you go to jail. (Damn--that officer should have had a sense of proportionality and just told you to 'It better not happen again'.
* If you don't pay your rent, you get kicked out. (Damn--your landlord should
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2) I would hazard to guess that more than half of the people who get busted for DUI get off with a fine and/or suspended sentence. No jail time.
3) If you are late with your rent, there are normally laws that allow for some level of protection against being thrown out for being one day late with the rent once
Help me find an old 2600 game (Score:1)
There was a space flight simulator for the 2600 that resembled Battlestar Galactica, except that you could turn on your shields that tinted the screen blue.
Does anyone know the name of this game?
Andy
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Star Raiders.
Re:Help me find an old 2600 game (Score:5, Informative)
Star Raiders [wikipedia.org]
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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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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
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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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$26 + shipping and it's yours [ebay.com].
I'm not affiliated with the seller, and rarely buy things on eBay, but I usually find that it's great for finding those oddball things you want that you can't find anywhere else.
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.
Re:who would of thought (Score:4, Funny)
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
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Right. The current Atari was Infogrames
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To be truly fair, that's because 'golden age' Atari failed and split in 1984, allowing the brand and properties to end up in other hands, who could make them viable.
It's true that the company split in 1984- Warners wanted to sell off the suddenly loss-making company, but Jack Tramiel (who had just left Commodore) only wanted the home/computer division (Atari Corp.), not the coinops (Atari Games).
Still, it's hard to say that the "real" Atari died there. Both the successor companies were still essentially descendants and continuations of their respective Atari divisions (Atari Games perhaps moreso), and they continued to operate like that for well over a decade. Atari
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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.
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Does anyone have a timeline chart for this sequence (or for other Silicon Valley companies). Our history teacher used to have this timeline chart (Rand McNally Histomap of World History) [yorku.ca] for the nations of the world.
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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
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If you look at Apple history, you see they made stuff like Apple TV and even digital camera before anyone could imagine it. I think they were too early to ship Lynx or Jaguar and their usual "so bite me" attitude to Developers paid back.
I remember 65xx ASM/C developer friends trading "super secret" like documents between them. The big secret? POKEY chip! Yes, they had to find some secret hacker documents to program the sound chip of machine (800XL). Atari also almost sued their turkish distributor for print
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It's true... the problem is that Atari was, much like Nintendo, a major player in the software market. Giving away open documentation would have enabled 3rd parties to compete with Atari on the software front, which they saw as a threat.
Meanwhile, the PC flourished not on technical merits, but on developer support. Where would the PC be today, if the average VB moron didn't have the ability to write and distribute random apps ?
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Actually, try reading the article yourself instead of skimming it.
From the article:
"Gamer.nl contradicted the statements, claiming the game was provided to them directly by Atari. What's more, they claim that Atari says they only let 'high scoring' reviews release before embargo."
"One of the sites in question claims their copy was actually purchased at retail."
"it seems as if Atari is only interested in suing those who portray their games in a bad light."
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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Atari found out with the 5200 that nobody wanted to buy a new system unless it ran the old legacy games, so the 7800 was made that ran the old 2600 games, but by that time the Intellivision, Colecovision had 2600 adapters and dozens of 2600 clones were being sold and anyone and their dog could make a 2600 game because Atari did not handle the game licensing properly.
By the time Atari got their act together, Nintendo ate their lunch with the NES or Famicom systems and Atari had millions of ET 2600 games they
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Devil's Tower is in Wyoming.
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Thanks my son had an allergic food allergy while I was writing it and I had to finish it up fast because I couldn't figure out what my wife was talking about because it was thundering outside at the same time, and I thought she was trying to tell me to shut off my computer before it gets fried. I later learned my son developed hives from eating some snack with whey and milk cultures in it and might be allergic to milk, though he's eaten the same food before without a reaction. Might be something else instea
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wait...where? (Score:2)
landfills in New Mexico near Devil's Tower
Ya know, having been there, I'm pretty sure Devil's Tower is in Wyoming. :)
Trippy place, everyone should visit it if given the chance. And since you'll be nearby, check out Mount Rushmore, just over the border in South Dakota (then leave South Dakota as soon as you're done). Other things to see in Wyoming include the Grand Tetons (which make the Rockies look rather sickly in comparison), and Yellowstone National Park (where Old Faithful is, among other things). Oh,
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The Grand Tetons are part of the Rockies, FYI.
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The Grand Tetons are part of the Rockies, FYI.
Sorry, "the rest of the Rockies".
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With all the things to do in South Dakota... the fact that you'd single out Mount Rushmore as "the best" shows that you aren't aware of the beauty of the area surrounding it.
Don't try to fool me. I drove across the entire state, thus my advice to see Mt. Rushmore and immediately leave. Unless you like playing with Buffalo or tumbleweeds, it's basically frickin' Mars. Some people like living in desolation, but I'm not one of them. At least on Mars, you'd have some fun with the lower gravity.
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Don't forget the Corn Palace! I drove my family from northeast Nebraska to Rapid City to visit some friends, and the Corn Palace billboards became a running joke: "Only 36 miles to the Corn Palace!", then "Only 34 1/2 miles to the Corn Palace!", etc.
Oh, and same for Wall Drug, except that it was interesting on its own and not for ironic reasons.
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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
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This is absolutely true - when I was younger and the Commodore-64 was just going out of style in favor of things like console games, or even "IBM-PC" games, I swore a solemn oath that when I grew up and became a real videogame programmer, all my games would support the Commodore 64.
I grew up to write financial software instead... and it all runs on the Commodore-64!
Ok, no, that last part is a lie.
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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?
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I had #1 in ladder in Starcraft in like 99. Koreans were good, but they were predictable, always muta-ling. I had a winning ratio vs pretty much everyone. I made it to the semis in the $25k Blizzard World championships, but I lost to some bad luck, and my opponent using Battlenet spies to find out my strategies. The winner, XDs Grr, I had a winning ratio against him. I won like 65% vs him.
In Warcraft 3, my 3v3 record was 200-1. I was the first to 1500 wins, and Blizzard p
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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.
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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?
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I'm not your guy, friend.
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".
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Er, Gibbon's Decline and Fall is *six* volumes.
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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!)
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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...
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I'm old and I'll tack my reminiscence onto this thread since Byte was mentioned. I was working at my first job out of college and Byte was delivered to the office each month. It was their serialization of De Re Atari [wikipedia.org] that convinced me to buy an Atari 800. Before I ever even owned the machine, I had read a thorough explanation of display lists, player-missile graphics, and so on. I bought my system from a tiny hole-in-the-wall Mom & Pop shop where I eventually ended up working part time to be able
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I remember Compute!. It used to be one of my favorite magazines. You can get the content of some of them and other old computer magazines online at http://www.atarimagazines.com/ [atarimagazines.com]
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Awesome link..
I remember the Antic magazine also. One of the issues had a utility to build a WeFAX (Weather facsimile) decoder. I was able to build everything but missed the ham radio part :)..
Magazines were much broader in scope then. Besides the software and hardware reviews there were in depth articles on how to do interesting things with your computer. For example, the STart (Atari ST magazine) had information about MIDI interfaces and how to fix the MIDI ports on the back of the Atari ST.
Then there was
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I bet you miss the feeling of the amaze when someone comes up with a new demo, game which doesn't remotely ensemble anything you have seen before. It is missing from current computers.
For example I remember watching Alternate Reality (The City) intro of Atari 800XL completely amazed. Not a big surprise that same guy ended up coding the actual B2 Bomber software when his distributor didn't pay for his work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_Reality_(computer_game) [wikipedia.org]
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
Fire Bill Gate (Score:2)
Al is the only person I know ever to have fired Bill Gates.
Every time you install an OSS system or buy a Mac, you fire Bill Gate.
atari mail (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.textfiles.com/games/ATARIMAIL/ [textfiles.com]
Description from the site:
Jed Margolis got his hands on something precious: a decade of internal mail from the now-defunct Atari Games corporation, makers of some of the more beloved arcade games in history and one of the more amazing stories in computer history. Buried among these large collections of e-mails from the Atari Corp. VAX are discussions of programming, trivia, jokes, and some real i
Best ATARI Games Ever! (Score:2)
Atari automatic Bowling scoring system (Score:2)
Does anyone remember bowling with the Atari automatic scoring system?
I think I played on an Army base in New Jersey in the very early 1980s.
Today, automatic scoring is everywhere, but in the early 1980s it was nowhere. It had video screens and even let you print out your frames on paper roll printers.
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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....
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BUZZ!
http://www.forbes.com/2008/03/05/buffett-worlds-richest-cx_mm_0229buffetrichest.html [forbes.com]
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Heh - neither, because the furniture is actually pronounced just like the meal, buff ay.
The ett part of the name is either pronounced 'it' or 'ette' (like the French word ending) usually.
In response to the grandparent, those are estimated numbers, so in reality any one of them is the true richest man at any particular moment (yes, man - the world's richest woman is reported to be L'Oreal heir Liliane Bettencourt at a paltry 23 billion, but that may entirely depend on pre-nuptials).
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No need for profanity.
I guess it could be argued either way. He said "who's been the richest man in the world for a decade straight." I interpret that as being generally understood to mean that he is _still_ the richest man in the world. It could also be interpreted as "who's been [in the past] the richest man in the world for a decade straight", which is true.
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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.
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Or maybe, Atari would take the place that the XBOX has now?
I suddenly felt horrified for a second to think that in this twisted, parallel universe we would have the successor of the Atari Jaguar [wikipedia.org] instead of the XBOX. Then I realized everything was OK and that never happened. I checked with all my co-workers to make sure they hadn't suddenly grown goatees just to be sure.
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I wouldn't call most short lived - maybe Altair or MSX Basic (remember Microsoft's failed z80 based computer?) - MS released BASIC for every successful platform - Apple (Applesoft BASIC), Tandy (Color BASIC, TRS-80 Level II BASIC), IBM (too many to count - QBASIC and Visual I remember - QBASIC was on OS/2 as well), Commodore (Commodore BASIC), Atari (heh - I read TFA to learn that one), and Amiga (um... damn, can't remember the name, but I'm certain it was MS or MS derived).
Personally, I only used the Atari
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Atari and Amiga were true PAL/NTSC output machines (that is why still used at some TVs) and there were a good deal of analogue signal loss "anti aliasing" involved along with game developers doing very clever tricks.
As minimum screen is 1024x768 now and there is not a single pixel loss, you can't expect to see same quality of graphics you remember,