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?'"

Comments

Atari, Commodore, Apple....

[crumbz]

The golden age of 8-bit computers. What can you say? Not only was Atari the foremost console manufacturer at one point, but they produced a decent home computer. I still have my 800XL and run M.U.L.E. on it occasionally when I need a fix. Or 7 Cities of Gold.
Nothing like nostalgia to remind oneself of one's age.

Ahh the Atari ST

[fruey]

It was a lesser cousin to the Amiga, both being based on the Motorola 68000 chipset also found in old Macs of course. Amiga had the edge on colours and sound chips, but the ST was a workhorse in a lot of recording studios because it had built in MIDI ports with the 5-DIN jacks which you could plug in with your regular keyboard cables needing no adaptor.

I had an Atari ST (first series) with :

• Single sided, double density 3.5" drive (320KB formatted) which I upgraded myself to a double-sided drive, involving cutting the case because it wasn't an "official" upgrade - my first case mod at just 13 years old...
• 512Kb RAM
• TV out
• Yamaha sound chip (4 x 8bit, 44.1kbz samples simultaneously with a bit of luck)
• 8Mhz clock speed (I think)
• 16 colours simultaneously from a palette of 512 (RGB values from 0-7 respectively) which you could up to a full 512 onscreen by changing the palette registers several times then waiting for a vertical blank and looping again)

There were 1, 2 and 4Mb versions as well - studios all had at least 1Mb of RAM because Cubase wouldn't run in 512Kb (except the cracked versions).

Loads of great games were out for it, and some good cracking crews with much less of the pretension of the new WareZ k1dd1ez... they had to snail mail disks amongst themselves pretty much...

I learned a lot of my trade on that Atari ST. It was a 16 bit architecture, ahead of its time for its price, and trained my hands on a mouse, touch typing, and of course coding in STOS Basic and later 68000 assembler (remember devpac, anyone)?

Atari ST

[Rui del-Negro]

A lot of musicians still have Atari ST computers in their studios. Thom Yorke (of Radiohead) often wears a t-shirt with an Atari logo on stage. And recently Infogrames bought Atari, so we'll probably be seeing a lot of games released under the Atari brand (Neverwinter Nights being the first of those).

RMN
~~~

Re:Anyone got a working Atari?

[gmhowell]

eBay is your friend. About a year or two ago, I got two systems, a ton of controllers, and a big pile of games for about $45 or so.

Atari and Neverwinter Nights?

[Quixadhal]

Considering the rough ride Atari has had in recent years, I was quite surprised when I got my copy of Neverwinter Nights last week and discovered that one of the prominant company names on the front (and in the opening credits) was... Atari!

I wish them well, as without the venerable Atari 2600, I might have never wandered down the home computer path, and then I'd have to find something ELSE to blame my lack of a life on.

Re:Has anyone noticed?

[Reductionist]

Atari now is nothing more than just another brand used primarily to capitalize on the nostalgia associated with the Atari corporation of yore. The only connection Infogames has with Nolan Bushnell's Atari is that they happen to be the latest in a long line of companies since Warner Bros(Jack Tramil, JTS, Hasbro etc) that have bought and sold the intellectual property/trademarks associated with the Atari name.

Incidentally June 25th marked the 20th anniversary of the release of Blade Runner. Atari's long decline, which began after the great video game crash of '83, has long been associated with the so called 'Blade Runner Curse'. Atari, along with Pan Am, Cusinart, and Ma Bell were just a few of the companies whose logos were prominantly featured in the film only to suffer a complete financial collapse in the 1980s. Other companies, such as Coca Cola, suffered minor setbacks(i.e. New Coke) while others such as Budweiser and TDK emerged unscathed.

Re:Excuse for old farts to feel even older

[YeOldeGnurd]

I remember going to Disneyworld with my mom for the bicentennial (1976 -- the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence for those of you non-USAers). I kicked her butt at Pong in the motel lobby in Orlando. That Christmas Santa brought me the garrish yellow Magnavox Odyssey 300, which played three variations of Pong.

A "hockey" style where each controller controlled two paddles and you had to get the ball through a small "net" opening

A "tennis" mode where you had to get the ball past the oponents paddle

A "handball" mode where you took turns hitting the ball off a wall.

I whined and cried when we couldn't get the darn thing working Christmas night when it had been working earlier in the day. Turns out we had an AC adapter with multiple jacks available, and I had the polarity reversed.

I still hate hardware to this day.

Anyone want to buy my old Odyssey? I'll make sure it still works before shipping it.