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Atari Founder Debuts Linux-Based Game Machines
jalefkowit writes "Wired News has a great story about uWink, Nolan Bushnell's new game company. Bushnell is the creator of "Pong" and the man who was behind the early successes of Atari, including the 2600 console and its pioneering stand-up arcade machines. Now he's launched a line of new stand-up, net-connected game machines that are powered by Linux."
Just to clarify Willy Higinbotham invented electronic "tennis for two" (Pong) in 1958, but sought no patent. If he had it would have been property of the federal government since he did it while at his job. There's a scary thought, the US government owning videogames. Ralph Baer did patent his electronic Hockey game (Pong) in 1971 and licensed it to Magnavox. Nolan Bushnell saw Ralph Baer's Hockey game at a trade show and later asked Al Alcorn to create a ball and paddle game (Pong). He did not say where the idea came from. Rumors that Nolan Bushnell did not actually see hockey at the trade show are false. He was there, he played it and HE SIGNED MAGNAVOX'S GUEST BOOK. Duffus. Nolan Bushnell also lied to Al Alcorn about a contract signed with General Electric to sell Pong (GE was never even contacted). Al Alcorn programmed Pong.
Nolan Bushnell does deserve much credit for laboring long and hard to put Spacewar (Computer Space) on smaller cheaper hardware and inventing the first electronic arcade game. And he deserves credit for successfully marketing Pong as an arcade and home game. But he did not invent Pong
... was TouchNet. I found a News.com article from 1996 about it.
He also founded Chuck E. Cheese.
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
I'm no guru, but aren't there lots of things that you can leave out when you compile the kernel?
And they're not necessarily even running a non-"standard" (whatever that would be) kernel. They may be using ONLY the kernel.
But go ahead and be a gadfly. That's the sort of thing that keeps companies honest. It should cost them next to nothing to say "Yes, we're not violating the GPL, and to prove it, here's the process you can go through to produce the GPL binaries on our system - include these options, exclude those, and use this compiler."
Hmm, here's an interesting way to abuse the GPL:
- Lease the box for your "operating system" for 100 years at whatever price you would have sold it at. Make it so you need the box to use the O/S.
- Modify any GPL software however you like to make it work whatever (improved) way you want.
- When they ask for the sources, simply tell the people they don't own the "operating system", and are only leasing the box and therefore have no rights to its source.
Now we know how Microsoft Linux is going to happen.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Enhancing your time in the pub? I thought that's what the booze was for...
as Kasparov is defending his title, currently Champ: 3 Challenger: 4.
Oh, was that offtopic?
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
"Bushnell is the creator of "Pong" and the man who was behind the early successes of Atari, including the 2600 console and its pioneering stand-up arcade machines"
I really object to this generalization. If you do some research, I think you'll find Bushnell did not program all the early Atari arcade machines (or 2600 games) by hismelf nor de he build all of them by hand in his garage,
This kind of over generalization really minimalizes all the hard work and genius of the OTHERS who worked on these projects. (A few of whom it has been my pleasure to know later in their careers.)
Those little sets are everywhere in a few coffee shops around here. Oddly enough with all the rinky-dink games they have(some feature nudity in them like Gals Panic), they never seem to be idle.
Of course, there's a Centipede machine at another coffee shop I know of that is never idle either.
I hope someday to see a MAME cabinet/cocktail at a coffeeshop so I could play alllll day long from a selection of 400+ games.
The GPL only requires that they provide the source to people that they distribute the code to. There is no requirement that they make it available to anyone who asks. And it also means they don't have to provide anything until the ship.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
as I understand it, you don't have rights to the source unless a binary has been distributed to you.
Good point. If however, I was a kiosk owner, and I purchased a console, then I would be recieving the binaries (and the device) and I could then ask for the source, and distribute it freely myself.
Volunteers?
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Eh? They aren't talking about games 'like Pong'. The 'Pong' reference is due to the fact that Nolan Bushnell is widely credited as having created Pong (though he had help).
There's a reason for that - they're stupid puzzle games. I'm so annoyed that they're sticking to such boring games for this concept. While I agree that the overgraphicked monstrous racing games of today's arcades would be a bad move, this isn't too good either. I mean, all they offer are a ton of variations on solitare and mindlesssweeper. They connect ot the internet, but most aren't even multiplayer. Its idiotic. While I realize they are looking for simple games that wont maul the newbies, that doesn't mean they have to be so boring. Simple games I'd like to see on one of these 1) cybersled (really easy to learn but intricate) 2) Z (really fast and easy RTS game) 3) scorched Earth (this is great over coffee, I've tried) 4) Liero (always a classic) 5) some sort Space War remake. 6) Ballistix (wierd psygnosis pinball/sport hybrid thing) 7) Ballblazer - the original (1 on 1 soccer with hover vehicles) 8) Cannons and Catapults (old BBS game that would be great for multiplayer) 9) Rampart You're probably noticing that I list old mainly old games. This is cause new ones are waaaaay to0 complicated for newbie gamers. Do you remember the first time you played Quake with a mouse? Not much fun. I mean, think of all our big hits right now - the Sims, UT, StarCraft, HomeWorld, Diablo, etc. About the only one I'd wanna really get into in the first game, without prior experience in the genre, is Diablo. There are very few recent games that are really easy to play. 3d is part of the problem, as 3d makes steering more complicated. The most complex 3d game I'd put in one of these would be a really oversimplified flight/space sim, like Line Wars, or VR Slingshot, or Pyrotechnica. Thats why Cybersled is on the list - its a simple game, but the 2-joystick system is dead easy to pick up, and there's just two buttons to worry about. Z would be nice because it has none of the traditional learning problems of an RTS game - its got no buildings to build, no rescources to manage. Its just one non-stop rush. I think the main things to consider when planning one of these games is A) is it easy enough to play decently first time? B) is the match short enough that a person wont play for hours on 1 payment? (Total Annihlation games are hours long, so that's not happening). These things have to make money. A game shouldn't last more then 5-10 minutes. That's why Z is the only RTS I'd consider. C) is it casual? You don't really want to play Q2, with all its gore and splattering and gunshots, in a coffee shop. That's why I think Scorched Earth would be a good move for that. Of course, I'm being unrealistic anyways. I know that, if they're trying to pander to the average joe, the only non-puzzle games that'll sell will be the sports games.
"Are these registers running Windows?" I asked incredulously when I got to the head of the line.
"Yes," she answered, "that's why they go down so often."
Until you try to get broadband into every bar/pub/arcade/K-Mart in the country and realize that most of these places have a tough enough time getting phone lines installed. A couple of weeks ago I went down to the Radio Shack in the mall (seems they were giving away free barcode readers ;) and I noticed that they were showing "internet connections" using a standard dialup, worse apparently the store only had one dialup line, so whever someone went and showed off "that internet thingie" the people at the counter would have to wait (apparently there computers have to be dialed up to do anything). Talking to the guy behind the counter, I learned that they had applied for an ISDN line (the only kind of "broadband" you can get in the mall) over 6 months ago and still hadn't recieved it. Is this the kind of hassle you want people to face when they put your box in their back room? No, most owners would just return it and buy something that didn't require them to deal with the phone company.
I read the internet for the articles.
Nolan didn't just start Atari. He was also the pioneer of Chuck E Cheese, that annoying pizza/playspace chain. It's a sad commentary on American consumerism that Chuck E Cheese is the $300 million company it is, while Atari, his true love, has all but slipped of the map. It must be truly frustrating, or at least as frustrating as things can be when you're still as rich as he is.
-- Anne Marie
"Hmmmm, mechanical bull or pong?"
BOSTON SUCKS!
When 'fat pipe' higher bandwidth connections begin to be standard in home networking, then it's more likely to be usuable.
Having said all this, having an ADSL connection on an arcade machine surely isn't infeasible; arcade machines are pretty pricy on their own, and an ADSL connection would be peanuts compared to the purchase price.
- Linux is good at networking... uWink involves networking a whole bunch of game machines together...
- Linux licenses are free of charge
... Thus making it cheaper to deploy uWink systems ...
- Linux means that uWink does not need to be dependent on Where Microsoft Is Going Today
...
I doubt it involves "free" software in "user space" to any meaningful extent; this proposal sounds pretty much a "poster child" for the scenario where it makes sense to use some sort of "Embedded Linux" to implement a networked graphical system.If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Wow... mindless games with sub-standard graphics! I'm so impressed! But wait! They run Linux! Can anyone imagine a Beowulf cluster of these linked together? Think of the FPS we can get in PONG! It'll be so lifelike!
"Evil beware: I'm armed to the teeth and packing a hampster!"
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
Playing against people across the country in bars and restaurants? Well, if you like trivia, several thousand bars across the US already have NTN trivia which uses a satellite dish and a modem dial up to connect tens of thousands of people at a time to compete in a variety of trivia games. Some of us are hopelessly addicted...
We must respect evil, and we must make evil respect us.
I'll go ahead and say that I'm in Mississippi which is not known for its addoption of new technology (they are just now making braodband ubiquitous in the state's capital), but none the less I can't help but notice that a good number of the arcades in Jackson (the captial) and some other places I've visited are either closing or haven't bought a new machine since Tekken 3. It seems hard to imagine how an arcade can compete with PC and console machines that can produce close to or better graphics and game play, and cost a WHOLE lot less. There is the atmosphere and all that, but at 50 cents a pop, it had better be some damn good atmosphere. Now, I'd be interested to know how small to medium arcades are doing, I only have my one area to see, but the best I can tell is their dropping like flies. The point of all this is to say that perhaps arcades aren't the best places to bet your brand new company on. Then again, perhaps this could mark a new beginning for arcades. The only real draw to an arcade in the first place was to play a game that looked better and was more fun than anything you could have at home. If they could get this massively muliplayer enough, in a way that PCs and regular dial=ups simply couldn't, perhaps that part of arcades could be regained. If its nothing more than 32 people in a room shooting at each other, then this is more likely something that I could just as easily do at home in my underwear, rather than going to the mall and spending $10 on a couple hours of game play.
I don't know if you checked out their site, but, when broadband becomes more accessable, these seemingly flexible console-kiosk things boxen can probably be retrofitted with equipment to allow a variety of services. The flexibility of Linux allows a lot more leeway than older, size-constrained (and proprietary) ROM setups.
I'm thinking, more or less, about videophones... but I'm sure there are a lot more useful ideas that will come about with more flexible kiosks.
but he didn't invent tv ping-pong, anymore than Msft invented 'Windows'. That honor goes to Ralph Baer, excerpt:
On 29th May 1972, Nolan Bushnell (later President of Atari) visits the "Magnavox Profit Caravan" at the Airport Marina Hotel in Burlingame, CA. He signs the guest book for Magnavox Odyssey Demo and plays the Odyssey Ping-Pong game hands-on. Later, he hires Alan Alcorn to design and build a coin-op version of the Ping-Pong game: PONG. This will mark the begining of the coin-op market.
I was about to chime in with that, but I read before doing so. Mr. Baer is a family friend, and I have spent many an amazing trips down gaming memory lane in his basement. Talking GI-Joe? Simon? Those are only a few of his masterpieces...
I would like to play "Disk of Tron" with millions of people across the world, because I really kick ass at that game, and I believe myself to be the Kasparov of "Disk of Tron".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
$2 a game?
Hm.
The most I'd ever put into an arcade machine is a pound a game, and only if it were a really good game (multiplayer, and/or with some sort of gimmick like Silent Scope's zoomed sniper scope rifle).
And this is London prices, so everything's about double what you'll pay in the rest of England.
for $28 Million but remained on the Atari board. Don't know if anybody could have brought Atari out of the '84 crash, or the Tramiel rein; maybe a successful partnership with Nintendo, but it's all just speculation over what 'could have been' now.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
The IE5.0 code is just as bad. Thankfully tidying their code hasn't prevented them from making a really kickin' set of innovative games that push the limits of interactivity and really enhance one's time in the pub
I do not have a signature
and here's a link with pictures of the "first video game" at BNL.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I don't care in the slightest what proportion of that time involved:
The point is that it took ten minutes from the time of pressing the power switch before the cashier was able to Enter My Order, which is, after all, the whole point of having the computer there.
And, as for the "journalling" issue, I have gotten myself a journalling filesystem, at least as far as metadata goes. I've been using ReiserFS for probably the last 18 months, thank you very much...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
I heard a story about Nolan's last company. And I'd give you the name if I could remember it. They had a similar product. It was a little set top box, that was meant to be located in bars around the country. They had cute little trivia games and some simple reflex games on it. Basic stuff, but seemed like a reasonable concept.
The machines had some networking support, so they could download new trivia questions and software updates and high scores and things. So, every gamebox shipped with Windows NT on it. They had a custom touch screen driver so you could tap on the screen to push buttons.
As I heard it, everything was going okay, until they got hit by two things. First Microsoft announced some kind of Microsoft based coin-op box. I don't know what ever happened to this. But, it was big competition. Now, the venture capital was a little harder to find.
The second problem they had was that the game machines were all working fine -- that is until Daylight savings time changed. On that day every machine out in the field popped up a dialog box from some driver in Windows NT. Which for some weird reason crashed the machines, and they were no longer able to talk to the central servers. They had to ship out new hard drives to every one they had sold. Ooops.
Maybe they'll have better luck with Linux.
http://junglevision.com -- Shamus for Gameboy
Its about time coin-op arcade games joined the networked multiplayer arena. By far the most fun coin-ops are the ones where there are multiple machines next to each other (e.g. Sega Rally et. al.), and you can play your friends (and shout at them when they overtake you).
Adding more players over a network could make it even better... if done well.
The logistics are difficult though. On lots of multiplayer games on a PC you end up spending most of your time in the 'lobby' area waiting for a game, or searching for one that you can connect to with reasonable latency. Coin-ops need a quicker, more reliable process of game selection; put your coin in, and play, without any fuss.
As for the credit card aspect of it, well, I don't know. There's something to be said for just putting a coin in, having a quick fun game, and leaving.
From the wired story (emphasis mine):
This seems incredibly short-sighted to me.
To go to all the trouble of creating and marketing these boxes, getting them into the venues, and connecting them without broadband is just silly. Especially since they accuse the industry of remaining in the dark ages....
La via sola al paradiso incommincia nel inferno
actually, they look childish, and simplistic. they are all fairly non-complex games. most of them look like variants of memory or tic-tac-toe.
ugh.
tagline
... hi bingo
Unfortunately, the day I was there, the system got confused, and was sitting stuck in the BIOS configuration screen. Had I not told the cashier to "Just press enter when it says to," she was cruising for getting really frustrated watching it cycle through the "Post" routine.
At least there was a regular keyboard...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Before "Pong" started the coin-op video game market, Noland tried to market a coin op game called Computer Space.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
You can get away with that on the 7800 and the Jaguar..but the 2600 was very popular in its day. I certainly saw a lot more of them at the time than, say, Colecovisions. After all, that's probably why they made that little adapter that would let you play 2600 games on your Colecovision. And, on the same token, why Atari made an adapter to play 2600 games in the 5200, and the 7800 had built-in support for 2600 games. You don't normally go through that much trouble for compatibility with an unpopular system.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
I'd vaguely heard about Higginbotham, and thought it was only a 'bouncing ball' gravity simulation. Interesting that Dave Ahl was influenced by it.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I don't think there is enough booze in the world to make most of these games even mildly exciting.
I do not have a signature
but he didn't invent tv ping-pong, anymore than Msft invented 'Windows'. That honor goes to Ralph Baer, excerpt:
On 29th May 1972, Nolan Bushnell (later President of Atari) visits the "Magnavox Profit Caravan" at the Airport Marina Hotel in Burlingame, CA. He signs the guest book for Magnavox Odyssey Demo and plays the Odyssey Ping-Pong game hands-on. Later, he hires Alan Alcorn to design and build a coin-op version of the Ping-Pong game: PONG. This will mark the begining of the coin-op market.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
After reading the Indrema replies, I noticed the big question was: "Well what large game companies are going to support them?" The same could be asked of this setup, but I suspect otherwise. If the arcade machines are cheap to deploy, and cheap to develop for (similar to Indrema's free SDK), then large companies would probably love this as it gets there game out there quickly, cheaply. So now think of the ports over to the Indrema! It seems to be an obvious progressive alliance possiblity for the two (If it's not already there).
They run a Linux- derivative operating system.
This statement implies that they have modified the OS. Any direct modifications to linux would fall under the GPL. I searched their site and couldn't find the source.
I just sent them a polite email asking for the source code. I'll keep you posted, but feel free to join me in politely asking where all their GPL'd code is dropped.
Sure would be fun to play with.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns