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Artwork from Ancient Atari History
Matey-O writes: "Safestuff.com contains some early information on Atari's arcade games. Internal memos, brainstorming sessions, and artist renderings that accurately predicted what arcades would look like. (Except there seems to be a LOT more women in the arcades than I seem to recall.) The artwork has been there a while, so it's archived on the wayback machine."
Looking at the pictures, the arcades 'of the future' force you to wear clothes 'of the past.'
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A similar style of art was used by the BBC for I love the 70's/80's/90's which features items talking about the significance of Space Invaders in 1978 and Pac-Man in 1980
The 'blood' under most of the machines just raises yet more worry for me.
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While I own & still do play the Arcade Atari games, I was more of a 2600/7800 gamer myself. They defined Video Games for me at a very young age, I don't think there's one person that lived through the 70's & 80's without seeing an Atari product somewhere.
Barnstorming, River Raid, Missle Command, Boxing, Pitfall, Dig-Dug, Pacman.. These games defined a LIFETIME addiction of indulging in madly pressing buttons and screaming at a television set.
...and I have very rarely had more fun with any "modern" game than I had with my old VCS2600. Maybe it was the fact that the graphics were so bad you had to use your imagination which made the game experience so much fun. Sure, interactive movies with 5.1 sound are impressive, but mostly they aren't as fun as a good match of David Crane's "Decathlon" with two joysticks and some friends.
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Erm, I could be mistaken here, but I believe that was added to help stem the inevitable Slashdot inundation.
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
For some bizarre reason, this is actually a facsinating read
...on this one. Perhaps there's a reason for her smile of anticipation?
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
Along with the assortment of no-knob joysticks, it looks like the concept artists also envisioned several games with cranks, paddles, sliders, yokes, and HUGE FUCKING TRACKBALLS THE SIZE OF CANTELOPES!
I guess they were expecting lots of 'pong' type games where the only control was 'back and forth'.
It's funny, because the only one of these that's still really used is the trackball... I've got one attached to my PC right now, only the ball is way smaller. What joysticks we have *All* have knobs on the ends, unlike the old 2600 variety and they are usually significantly smaller than those pictured.
Ergonomics isn't that new a science is it?
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Well, I thought I was in for a treat here. Hi-resolution, colour, exciting images of a bygone era: remembrance of things past. Instead I'm presented with a bunch of links (no thumbnails) of badly photographed pictures of 'art' of extreme dubious quality, unceremoniously dumped on a page with scant regard to format or presentation. One of the photos even has the flash reflecting off the frame's glass!!! Most are off-centre. I hope to God my enthusiasm of retro geek does not cloud my judgement as much as this guy's does.
Somehow that scene in war games where they're playing tic-tac-toe springs to mind. Maybe we could get a jpeg of *that*, taken with a digi-cam off my vhs recording of it when it was on TV last christmas. Yeah, cool.
Maybe Atari's downfall was hastened because of their inability to see video game culture taken over by hordes of people just like them: mouth-breathing, pimply-faced, adolescent male dweebs in O.P. shorts.
The only certainty is entropy.
My kids are 2nd generation computer users. I was the first in the family to get a computer and learn how to play games. My parents NEVER asked me what games I was playing, never monitored my online access (until my first 600 dollar long distance bill.) My parents didn't buy a home computer for themselves until 10 years after I had my first computer a c64.
My kids started using a computer when they could move a mouse. They would play the preschool toddler series, and graduated to basic movement games and puzzles, now its fighting games, racing sims and some RPG games. My girls can already play street fighter well enough to at least put up a fight. I wouldn't be surprised when they get older they want to play arcade games. They have been playing games for years.
It was 1 computer in the house when I was a kid, and it was in my room. Now its almost 1 in each room, and 6 in my den. Each kid has their own computer, all networked, internet access, Instant messaging, online games with other kids. They email and send pictures to the grandparents.
So am I surprised more girls are in arcades? No, Im more surprised that arcades can compete with a xbox, ps2 or pc.
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Life is like a dogsled team. If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes. - Lewis Grizzard
...by the seventies dream girl. C'mon, they were fantasizing in these pictures. They couldn't do better than that?!?
Dirk
I see the clothes the girls are wearing haven't changed much ;)
Someone should open a nightclub/lounge so we can all (apologies to the orignal) "munch pills in the dark and listen to repetitive beats", and remember the good ol' late seveites and early eighties. This time around we might be able to attract more girls, or one cold always hope.
The only certainty is entropy.
There are documents listed in the archive that are apparently the first proposals for the Star Wars arcade game, at that stage a First Person Spacewar. The documents (from Nov 1979) predate Battlezone (1980, referred to as 'Future Tank' and 'First Person Tank' in the proposals), and the Star Wars game didn't appear until 1983, according to the KLOV. You get a nice insight into how much they were pushing what could be done with the hardware they had, and also into how early the name of the game is decided (i.e not at all).
Either that, or Lucasfilm agreed a license with Atari who then dusted off some 3 year-old junk to make a tie-in game...
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Atari's vision of the future was pretty intelligent: games like "Thrill Drive" can only be appreciated in the arcade, sitting in a fully blown machine.
In the '70s they said "Home Taping is Killing Music". Today it can be said that "Home Gaming is killing Video Games". The custom hardware and elaborate bespoke controls that are deployed in Arcade games are ruled out for small, generic controls when you move from the arcade to the home console.
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There are some incredible games on home consoles, thats not in dispute. What I mourn is the ability to play a game like "Marble Madness" with its control (a huge trackball) made specially for the game, or "Paperboy" (bicycle handlebars), "Crystal Castles" (trackball), "Propcycle" (full size bicycle with fan in front to simulate rushing wind), and of course, "Missile Command", one of the early trackball games...there are so many examples. Ideally, the controls should be designed for the game. Game designers should be free to design both the controls and the gameplay.
I mourn the fact that these types of innovative game are being sidelined for development of Hollywood tie-in Lamestation fodder, and that so many Arcades have bitten the dust. In London, all the great Arcades have gone; the ones that remain are full of slot machines, meaning that no one under 18 can get in. The last big Arcade, at the Trocadero is full of poorly maintained machines, poor security, bumper cars and other distractions.
Namco Wonderworld is one of the last great, true arcades in London.
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I can't believe it. Missile command 2 has finally been found. It's the first frickin' picture I'ver ever seen. I remember back in the day there was a long article on the atari historical society's page http://www.atari-history.com this guy wrote about his long and arduous journey to find a MC2 machine. He ended up speaking to many former atari employees, and in the end he found a board, but the person wouldn't give it to him, and he found the side art. Can't find the article though, dang.
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Yes, Ping! The exciting new game from Atari that measures IP path latency. Thrill as you send packets into battle with enemy hosts! Will they return safely, or will they be forever lost in the hostile ether? It all part of the fantastic adventure that is Ping! Lowest score wins!
Play Ping: the game that will really socket() to 'ya!
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New wallpaper all round then!!
They make it faster, easier and cheaper to make incredibly real-looking illustrations.
Why then, do I find these hand-drawn illustrations so appealing? Is it just because they look different? Or did the artists add a little creative something that isn't so easy or so common today.
Whatever, I sure did enjoy them.
although it's not a good one. See here. In a nutshell, the field techs are told that the AMD RAMs are not reliable, and although they'll pass self-test, during gameplay the 3D objects will become distorted.
I guess they've come a long way, eh?
My favorite was Warlords with Capture Ball and Fast Release enabled. Am I going to......nail you....nail you.....OR NAIL YOU EAT THIS! Yep, it looked like crap but sure was fun. The competition factor was completely different from fragging people in huge arena. There was no running around trying to find someone. Everybody was right there and fighting for control of the ball so they could get their licks in. Since it was a paddle game, the Capture Ball variants allowed fast unpredictable attacks. The psychology of this game is fantastic.
Seriously, though, there are probably more girls in these pictures because they look like concepts for PR art. It's the same idea as putting a model next to a sportscar.
I have one question, though: what are these nets on the ceiling for?
A couple of weeks ago I found my Atari 2600 back from early 80s. It was the only console my parents ever purchased. It only had 3 games, Tennis, Donkey Kong and Enduro (car racing).
After some time I found that it plugs into the antenna connection, not the AV. After switching many channels, I just made out the image on the screen. Black and white and badly distorted.
I opened the console, and found inside a variable resister with a plastic cap. Some fine tuning with a flat head screwdriver brought up the image perfectly on the screen. I was overjoyed.
I drilled a hole through the plastic in the top of the console, so I could adjust it again as needed, without opening the console.
I like the concept design for the "ping" game ...
f f.com/atariart25.jpg
http://web.archive.org/web/20010828031441/safestu
I think they should have arcade versions of all the standard UNIX system functions.
"d00d, I just set the new high score on grep!"
...or does anyone else think that all the people in the pictures look stoned out of their minds?
Some of the girls are cuties though, I sure wish the artist's redition were true, that'd make my obsession with video games worthwhile.
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You ever notice most of the marquee artwork for Atari games in the late 70s to the early 80s have a red-orange-yellow stripe somewhere?
This rules, my dad owned a vending company, pins and early vids, in the heyday of this, 77-85 , I always LOVED the atarti Vector games, asteroids, tempest, and star wars, I still have a star wars game, a little worse for the wear anymore but a ton of fun to play.
:)
I remeber in about 85 , I finished the 99th level of tempest. its all Black, you can see nothing....
Iwas and still an arcade game freak, I spent MANY too many of my youths hours playing whatever was in the garage for service.
People bitch about how much games cost now, what they dont realize is what the damm things cost new, Tempest was over 3 grand and that was if you could find one, My dad was buying PacMan knock off because you couldnt get a real one , some of those machines were bringing in a grand a week thoug at the roller rinks and such.
Ahh the good old days, I love the Pics, Makes me yearn for the days when an asteroids baseball shirt was the coolest shirt in school
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
It's such a shame that a company with so many on point ideas and cutting edge innovation had to be laid to rest. I have always enjoyed the content of this site, as they have made a respectable effort to preserve Atari's legacy. Take a look at their arcade exhibit, especially the 1970-1974 page. There is also solid content on some interesting projects and prototypes that you probably had no idea Atari even attempted, like the AtariTel division, which developed phones designed by Porsche. Many interesting pictures...
Surely it's the historical context that's interesting?
No one's claiming that the 'art' is anything special (though its not exactly bad - love the 70s girls...), rather it's an interesting insight into the creative process behind some of the ideas that went on to become part of a hugely succesful industry.
Also on the same site, this guy aparently got a hold of Bradley Trainer which was military simulation commissioned by the Army to train troups, and is based off of the hit game Battlezone.
;)
AFAIK, there are only two in existance, and many people had been wondering for a long time whether this machine even existed at all, or if it was just an urban myth. No idea where this guy got it, he won't say, but he was nice enough to dump the ROM so we can all play it in and upcoming release of MAME.
This document, Protection For Coin-Operated Games is pretty interesting. Looks like copy protection was a worry for Atari in 1980. The memo discusses how to handle copy protection issues of PCB's and ROM's. In particular it mentions using checksums to detect violations and then put in unexpected events. It mentions giving away free credits (that'll put someone outta business :P) and causing the graphics to go screwy. The funny thing it says is to wait until later in the game before you start messing it up. Everyone really gets pissed when just before you blow up the death star the game resets!
bbh
Vax Mail, memos, and status reports
Tomcat, Atari's last XY game
Atari patents
There's a lot more on the site, including an article about XY monitors, but nothing else really Atari-related.
--
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I wonder how they brainstormed *this* up:
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$20 in 1980 would be worth $45 in 2000. A $15 game would cost $34. Lots of games cost that much. In fact, you can even pick up second-run playstation/ps2 games for $20 these days. That's only $8.75 in 1980 dolars.
You might want to consider turning on your brain once in a while. The price of games has come down in terms of real money.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The brainstorming session on the site includes an interesting one - 14: "Mr. Bill". Could this be a precursor to xBill?
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Actually, it's extremely likely that the ROMs have been backed up. I don't know any serious collector of arcade memorabilia who doesn't have an EPROM burner. Many also have universal programmers, so GALs, PALs, FPGAs, and (of more interest to the 80s scene) bipolar PROMs are also archivable.
The problem with prototypes is that there are only a few copies in existence, and the intellectual property of Atari was borged by Warner. Warner was borged by Time. And Time-Warner was borged by AOL.
Unlike maintaining a publicly-accessible ROM archive of games where tens of thousands of copies were produced, the owner of a prototype is painfully aware that releasing the ROM images is tantamount to installing large glowing red light on one's ass, saying "AOL/TW lawyers, one credit, one play, insert quarter-million in legal fees here".
Oops. I may be wrong about it being AOL/TW's IP, then. (Infogrames, borged by Hasbro, weren't they?) I think all they did was release games that used the trademarks of the old classics, not the actual code/firmware.
So I don't know who actually owns the ROM code. (But I'll stand by my original point, which is that whoever owns the rights to the firmware has better lawyers than the collectors ;-)
Yet another argument for having copyrights exist for a limited term. As in, "a hell of a lot more limited than the Sonny Bono Mouse Copyright Protection Act". IMNSHO, it should be no longer than the length currently in effect for patents, and if not renewed periodically, the works should lapse into the public domain.
Last saw this in Narita (Tokyo Int'l)
Two reasons it's popular:
1)Kid Fantasy: "I wanna be a pilot when I grow up!"
2)Adult Fantasy/Therapy: "How hard could it be to fly one of these?" "If I can fly it then I shouldn't be so afraid of flying"
Unlike combat and other sims the player has direct involvement in what is being simulated. (they are about to get on board an airliner which is why you see these at airports.)
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
I found a link to this site maybe a week ago through bOING bOING and first hit a "this site has used up its bandwidth" message, so when I did get through I optimised their images and at the same time gave them a thumbnail image page to replace the text list (see the wayback pages). Great to see they used it!
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