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Where Are They Now: Q*Bert
An anonymous reader writes "Two guys who worked on SNL and the Conan show cover the drug-addled history of Atari's classic blobish-looking character, Q*Bert."
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How about QIX???
to Dilbert?
the 5 seconds it took to skim that site and decide it was a total waste of time was total worth having to look at that bloody ad that popped up for /. referrers. thanks!
Why do people seem to think that all arcade games came from Atari?
...is whether Q*bert is more closely related to Dilbert or CueCat. You can't tell from the 10-pixel bitmap.
Repeal the DMCA!
Thanks M.A.M.E!!!
The package said "Windows XP or better. Pentium Class Processor or better"... So I got a Mac with OS X
"On October 5, 1990, Q*Bert was found face down in an aquarium filled with kerosene."
Q*Bert was always fun... but did he really have a chance once Mario, Samus, and other big characters hit the scene?
--------
Free your mind.
Or at least that's what the Perl regex guide said.
Was this article supposed to be funny? Seems more like it was written by junior high school students.
This may sound somewhat unorthodox, but I prefer humour that makes me laugh, or at least smile.
hey need to know info request, those q-bert programers were on What?
I need some of that.
A drug that can twist you to write such a program sounds hmm, well kinda sweet, 8).
Now we know why SNL sucks so bad.
involve alcohol, weed, and q-bert... throw in river raid and hunt the wumpus....
Wait a second.
s200.org - visit it (me), love it (me).
Forget Q*bert, whatever happened to dig dug??
One of Richard's suggestions for the main character was Q*Bert, a combination of CUBE (QUBE) and HUBERT. Don't ask me who Hubert is. Waxman recalls an intermediate step, "It went from *&!!#$$! to cubert but I was afraid it would be pronounced 'cub bert' so I had suggested that the 'cu' be changed to 'q'."
Looks like the asterisk might have come from the swearing characters.
"Two guys who worked on SNL and the Conan show ..." .. as what, janitors? I'm sorry, but this just wasn't funny. Not even a little. If it really took two people to write this, then it's a sad, sad day for geek humor.
Now THIS is funny. Well, sort of. More worthy of front page then this trash, though!
Just seen this game sold in local computer store
here (Frys electronics) for Macintosh.
Not really. I like the Onion, but its getting tiresome - Area Man does X, World Leader does Goofy Thing, etc. I still read the horoscopes and the little insets because they're still pretty funny.
Vote for global prefs bug
Two words:
Gay Porn.
SNL nowadays is barely funny on TV, and in text isnt worth the reading the two pages this one took. What happened to /. editing?
--enter the sig--
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
Punctation, Pronunce, Asterik, and Dasterdly. All in one paragraph, although I think "dasterdly" appears a couple more times in the article.
Nevermind Carnivore and whatever - we need a spell-checking filter between every host on this beloved internet. I'm getting really sick of feeling superior because I can spell. I'm also wondering (worrying) about the socio-economic fallout from a nation/world of communications-challenged users! Learn the language, learn to SPELL!
db
Cig:
ôô
...or JIC you don't want to deal with the GD awful advertisments!!! - full text.
His adventures enthralled thousands. The punctation of his name baffled millions. Whether or not you were able to pronunce the word asterik you knew Q*Bert. Even those who did not participate in his adventures, they were aware of his sometimes fruitless attempts to outwit the dasterdly Coily the snake.
But where is he now?
A direct descendant of the Roman Emperor CueBertiMus MaxiMus, Q*Bert was raised with the knowledge that he was destined for greatness. This fact was never lost on his parents, who were always slightly disappointed that their "Little Bertie" never really applied himself towards his schoolwork, always seeming more content to be alone in his bedroom. Whether he would ascend the stairs with paint thinner, airplane glue, or turpentine, his parents secretly hoped that he would one day share with them whatever wood-working project he was surely building in there. In an interview in 1986 with Scratch and Sniff magazine, Q*Bert revealed that this was actually the beginnings of a life-long addiction to inhalants.
The altered state of mind that he often found himself gave him what his teachers generously referred to as "an over-active imagination", which by today's standards would be classified as "borderline schizophrenic." However, Q*Bert was perfectly content in his notions of government conspiracies against revealing the truth. Q*Bert was convinced that the world we live in is actually comprised of miniature cubes, and he would go at great lengths on this subject, spouting of phrases and word combinations that no one could really understand. Many would simply try and listen closely, or even recording what he said and playing it backwards, but, the fact of the matter was simple: Q*Bert was never really saying much of anything. Once this became apparent, he went largely unnoticed.
Word of this unique character reached Michael Ovitz who was then employed by the Atari Corporation as a scout for stars for their video game adventures. Q*Bert's strange features and oddly pixelated quality made him perfect. Ovitz felt that he had the next Frogger on his hands. He immediately approached Q*Bert and brought him to the offices to meet with the video game makers. The research and development team at Atari spent a great deal of time studying what made Q*Bert tick, and what type of game would suit him. Their first attempt, Q*Bert's Filthy Swear-o-Rama, never really got off the ground. Game programmers took a closer look scrawlings about how the universe was actually comprised of cubes, and how mastery of those cubes would lead to ultimate power. Or at least that's what he attempted to express, despite it actually coming out sounding more like "Eep Opp Ork Ah-Ah."
His ailing health made it impossible to tour in promotion of Q*Bert's Qubes, ensuring that it could never succeed.
It helped that he had countless drawings on the topic, which he was able to turn over to the designers. The notion of a game largely comprised of cubes excited all involved, because it was the one thing that could actually be made to look realistic at that time. Now, the only problem was to find a formidible adversary for Q*Bert. The ideal foe was already signed to an iron-clad ten-year contract: a purple snake named Coily, whose previous game Coily's Slither Disco '81 failed to catch on due to lack of interest in playing a game where a snake does the hustle.
By early 1983, the game was ready to go. Q*Bert would hop around trying to change the colors of the cubes, all the while attempting to evade Coily's dasterdly intentions. The flying disks were a last minute addition to add slightly more risk to the game, and because Q*bert seemed to like the way that flying through the air made him light-headed.
The game test-marketed so well that it was decided to market the game as a first-run arcade video game. This was great news for Q*Bert and Coily, who would each share three cents of every quarter that was put into the game which put Q*Bert on the fast-track to superstardom.
He was on top of the world. Happy for the first time in his life, he purchased an estate with a reinforced swimming pool which would satisfy his increasingly insatiable cocaine addiction. Unfortunately, with Q*Bert's recreation of choice, it was only a matter of time before tragedy would come knocking.
Riding high on both the success of the video game, and the coconut sized chunks of cocaine he inhaled, Q*Bert was totally unaware of a worsening health condition. Despite the fact that the septum of his nose had once been the size of a small child's arm, he was oblivious to its virtual disintegration, and his diagnosis with Paranasal Sinus Cancer caught him completely unaware.
Refusing to accept his condition, he returned to work. However, his constant hopping resulted in a thin layer of blood left on the entire game cube. With increasing awareness of the AIDS virus, Coily swore to never work with Q*Bert again.
At the height of his fame, you could have Q*Bert in your very own house. Although he preferred to be kept right next the cleaning supplies.
Within days, Q*Bert was unable to perform, which could not have come at a worse time for him. A sequel to his eponymous adventure was the all-new Q*Bert's Qubes. A major media push had been planned, with Q*Bert doing a multi-city tour. But, not only was his health too poor to do the tour, but Atari executives felt that Q*Bert's fans would not be able to handle seeing his bulging eyes and cancerous growth on the side of his nose.
With Q*Bert unattached to the project, Q*Bert's Qubes met with minor success. He cast aside his recreational lifestyle and set out to beat his cancer. Sadly, a year of intense chemotherapy was not enough. His only chance for survival was to have his nose removed. Although it meant the end to his livelihood, and all he had worked for, Q*Bert was glad to be given a second chance at life. He had the procedure done, and spent several months recovering. The remainder of his fortune went to reconstructive surgery, so that he could function again.
Finally healthy, Q*Bert began to try and get his career on track. But, the public simply didn't recognize him, and the video game market had changed so drastically that there simply was no longer a home for him in the industry. A short-term job as a sunglass-clad rock n' roll orange for Sunkist paid the bills, but it wasn't enough for him. He'd always known he was destined for better things, and he knew if he worked hard enough, they would happen for him all over again.
Only they never did. Years went by, and despite guest appearances on Empty Nest and A Different World the public never really accepted the nose-less Q*Bert. Worse than that, Q*Bert could no longer accept himself. His ensuing depression illustrated how old habits die hard. With his nose removed, his ability to inhale toxic fumes had diminished, and he had to seek out larger and larger quantities of them.
It was just such a pursuit that put a tragic end to Q*Bert's struggles. On October 5, 1990, Q*Bert was found face down in an aquarium filled with kerosene. Friends within the video game community were devastated, and banded together to make sure that nothing like that would ever happen again. The Q*Bert Memorial Fund was set up in 1992, establishing for the first time health insurance for video game characters. Then to honor his memory, in 2000 a newly generated Q*Bert-like character took his place in an all-new adventure for Sega Dreamcast, proving that he might be gone, but never, ever forgotten.
I rather liked Q*Bert, and I've been trying to find a freeware clone for the PC (win32, in this case), but I just haven't found any (and, no PC Bert isn't really applicable since it's just DOS game). Any suggestions?
Along those same lines, I'm also a big fan of arkanoid. Any recommendations on PC clones there? I've already discovered the excellent DX-Ball 2 but I've beaten all the included levels (and extra levels aren't free).
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Maybe "mostly sucks" was a little harsh, but the stories now don't make me laugh out loud like they once did. The recent story on BBSpot about Saddam Actually Just Doing Research for a Book on Weapons of Mass Destruction was brilliant and reminds me of what The Onion used to be like.
Wouldn't that be the '.' ? Or has Perl changed since the last time I used it?
...oOOo..'(_)'..oOOo...
This jerkcity guy. I dunno. Looks like a blatant rip to me. http://jimwoodring.com
"Two guys who worked on SNL and Conan" - possible translation - two guys who fielded phonecalls for SNL and fetched coffee on Conan... I know people who've WRITTEN for both shows, and there's a huge number of hangers-on who work there just for the resume credit.
"InsideJoke.TV" is, in my experience, one of a number of groups who spam the standup comedy newsgroup (and others) with pointless drivel a few times a week. I dunno how they got on Slashdot... I don't know from Slushfactory.com, perhaps they have some decent stuff elsewhere on the site, but like several previous posters, I don't have the time to go look for it.
If you have to TELL people how funny you are, you aren't.
Perfectly Normal Industries
Now I can sleep at night now that the mystery of Q*Bert has been cleared up.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Where are THEY now? Find out...
E! True Hollywood Story: Thundercats
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Now *that* was funny. You know that /. is getting bad when the stupid troll posts are a more entertaining read than the /. article.
the link leads to an ad, not an article
I oYJF.php HTTP/1.0
/ /www.slushfactory.com/content/EpuFukEpAFFjrIoYJF.p hp HTTP/1.0
l iate=slushfactory&channel=filmtv&subchannel=alsopl aying&Network=affiliates&rating=pg13 HTTP/1.0
I'm not sure what the link leads to. Under Phoenix, got an infinite loop of
GET http://www.slushfactory.com/content/EpuFukEpAFFjr
GET http://www.slushfactory.com/takeoverAd.html?http:
GET http://mediamgr.ugo.com/html.ng/size=300x250&affi
Under Internet Explorer, it didn't appear to loop, but stuck at the takeoverAd.html page.
So I never saw the great creative efforts of these idiots, because they were more concerned about "managing" my web experience, sticking a cookie on my machine, or -- if takeoverAd is wahta I suspect it is -- capturing me on a "sticky" page where each time I hit the back button, I get a page that redirects me forward.
This problem isn't limted to these Picassos of comix art: I visted BMG.com today, on a tip from a friend, thinking I might buy a $160.00 set of Gilbert & Sullivan DVDs. The page looks lovely, dark and artsy, but there's no indication of home to search it or use it in any way -- unless it's via javascript and cookies, which I block. Net result: no $160.00 sale, BMG. But your site sure is cute.
I also spent over thirty minutes searching Verizon's site, trying to find tech support's number. Naturally, Verizon is too cool to actually list phone numbers; no, instead there are drop down lists, javascript and cgi and cookies -- again, I had to imcommodate myself to continue in a customer relationship I already have with Verizon. I am noe considering my otyer ISP options.
Beware being so cool nobody can understand you, or figure out how to tell you you're being an ass.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Yup. /. sure has been running a lot of stupid articles lately. I guess we can no longer trust the slashdot editors to submit links to good articles, especially on slow news days.
I have an idea that I think will solve this problem. Why don't we let the moderators rate the article. The average rating (e.g., a number between 1 and 10) will get displayed on the main page next to the article. If the article rating drops below a certain level, the article automatically get deleted (or perhaps moved onto a "these articles suck" page).
I loved the game, and still play it, Qix, and Bert (a mac 68xxx version of qbert) in both its original forms, and with the 2001 Q*Bert game for Macintosh.
.36final to .63 ) here
Licensed to Konami for Japanese manufacture and distribution. (02/1983)
Inspired by artwork by M.C. Escher who was an artist that Jeff admired. Ron Waxman came up with the idea of Q*Bert changing the color of the cubes. Q*Bert's name originated by the combination of cube and Hubert, but the "Cube-Bert" was changed to "Q-Bert" to make it more unique. The concept game was called "Snots and Boogers" and then "@!#?@!" (which many of the programmers and Gottlieb VPs said would be impossible to get anyone to say) before the final version was called just "Q*Bert". Slick and Sam were a play on the phrase "spick and span" with Sam being named after co-worker Sam Russo. Rick Tighe came up with the idea of adding the pinball hardware which generated the very mechanical KA-CHUNK when Q*Bert falls off the pyramid.
Approximately 30, 000 units were produced.
Grab the rom (valid for mame from
PLAY INSTRUCTIONS:
- Jump on squares to change them to the target color.
- Stay on playfield! Jumping off results in a fatal plumment unless a disk is there.
- Avoid all objects and creatures that are not green.
- Use spinning disks to lure snake to his death.
- Extra life at 8000 and each additional 14000.
Twenty years ago, gamers were captivated by a foul-mouthed orange mutant named Q*bert. In the two decades following his epic battle with the relentless Coiley, Q*bert's life evolved into a happy, normal existence. Q*bert had a girl, Q*dina (you can tell she's a girl because she's got a bow ), a powerless, frustrated enemy named Q*dirk, and a big cube land to hop around in and show off the enigmatic protrusion that must be the source of his power and charm (yeah, just go on thinking it's a nose).
Recently, with the help of Hasbro Interactive, an insidious corporation called Sega stole Q*bert's female and placed arch-nemesis Coiley in his path, hoping the ensuing confrontation would be enough to revive their doomed platform.
When asked to comment on the situation, Q*bert said, "&%$#@."
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. it's the only thing that ever has.
What popup?
Don't you have your browser blocking popups?
Mozilla does it, no excuses!
This piece of shit should never be reproduced anyway. How obscenely unfunny.
you seem to be over-confident, linking from /. to your site
Unfunny.
Those guys really were writers for SNL and Conan O'Brien.
This is neither "news for nerds" nor "stuff that matters."
- Peter
Making fun of a Video game character (who few under the age of 30 can remember) and putting together an obit column is just not funny. You need to pick characters that everyone can relate to, and still relates to. Even better yet, tie it into current events. Good subject matters include: Recognizable Corporate Mascots, Fad products that everyone bought and now no one will admit to owning one, characters from public service announcements.
And drug humor isn't all the funny anymore. It's like jokes in sitcoms about gays and casual sex. Sure the subject was shocking in the 70's, spoofed in the 80's, but by the 90's all of them were old hat.
Now, you want a subject matter that will make your average american's skin crawl, talk about race, the stock market, or political correctness.
I'll start. What's the difference between your 401K and a baseball card collection? Baseball cards at least came with gum at some point.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
what does the * stand for anyways?
"Whatever you want."
It works for boy bands, too.
$ ls -l *NSync
-rw-r--r-- 1 scv users 0 Jan 25 02:42 Fuck_NSync
-rw-r--r-- 1 scv users 0 Jan 25 02:45 I_Hate_NSync
-rw-r--r-- 1 scv users 0 Jan 25 02:44 Kiss_My_Ass_NSync
For what it's worth, Q*bert is available on cell phones with certain service providers (SprintPCS and ATT Wireless). SprintPCS is promoting it on the first page you see when you log on to the web on your phone. This is all thanks to our good friends at Sony Pictures Mobile (did I miss the Q*bert motion picture?). Of course they're charging $5 to use the game for only 60 days, so best not to be too thankful. Despite the steep rates, I do like the fact that my favorite games of yore are being reborn in the wireless world. How long 'till I can play dig-dug on the subway?
...but, WHAT THE HELL?
Q-Bert? He just switched to a mac... that's where he's been!
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
Q-Bert on MSX was great, too. I can't remember a day where I had enough of the game. Just one of those games that you never let go of. Well, y'all know what I'm talking about... :)
Here's the secret to immortality:
From the first paragraph of the article:
His adventures enthralled thousands. The punctation of his name baffled millions. Whether or not you were able to pronunce the word asterik you knew Q*Bert.
Yeah, it's a tricky one to pronounce, let alone spell. Something tells me they fifn't invest too much effort in this site...
If you can't see this, click here to enable sigs.
Well, technically "." by itself requires something to be there, so if you want nothing your out of luck. Also if you want multiple things your screwed. ".*" is a better anything you want.
Though in formal languages the kleene star means ".*"
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
i can back up the claim that the writers of that story worked on SNL... the article was unfunny and it went on too long.
It's not funny, it's sad.
I agree with you 100%.
I will soon be switching my ISP from Earthlink to some other ISP for this very reason.
(Pages take forever to load.
Getting detailed network statistics is a major pain (requiring a copy/paste and manual edit of URLs).
Hell, I can't even sign in any more (despite having cookies enabled for earthlink); I just get sent to a page that states that I have to enable JavaScript to sign in.
This means that I can't even change my password any more.)
I have scripting, cookies, and even referer turned off (except cookies for a few choice sites).
When I visit a site that requires these things, I go away.
If it was a commercial site, then they just lost a potential customer.
The problem is that people are hiring artists and marketing people, rather than programmers, as web page designers and implementors.
The marketing person should define the reuirements for the site, the artist should design the look of the site, and then a programmer should create the site, with alternate HTML for those people who have all of the fluff disabled.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Wow! My very first eletronic game. The beggining of a life-long addiction. !@#!#@!$!
Prescriptive grammar:linguistics
That's got to be one of the most embarrassing products of wannabe fanfic (like that isn't in and of itself a capital crime) I've seen in a long time. Take special note of the misspelling of the word asterisk in the first paragraph: a premonition of the value of this piece. I'm amazed it was even deemed worthy for inclusion.
.....SNL is about as funny as an evicerated penis.
and he uses a Mac. :P
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I remember it well and I mostly hated it. Funny how such a simple game could be so addicting. Crappy graphics and sound but it always sucked me in.
Forget Q*bert, whatever happened to dig dug??
It's quite sad really. You can read all about it here.
For the same reason that they think that all parody songs (no matter how foul-mouthed) come from Weird Al Yankovic. You bring up a very good point.
Personally, I was disgusted by this article. It's filled with lies and exaggerations, and thrashes the good name of one of my childhood heroes!
Sure, there was cocaine, but hey, it was the 80's, and what else would you expect from a star with a nose like that? To say that he was hooked on other inhalents, however, is pure slander! Additionally, the whole cancer aspect of the story is pure fiction! Yes, Q*Bert had cosmetic surgery, but again it was the 80's and that was the thing to do at the time.
Lately I've heard that, like so many other video game stars, he's gotten into techno music. In fact, the last time I saw he was in an Apple "Switch" ad:
http://www.apple.com/switch/ads/djqbert.html
-Cybrex
(OK, maybe I should get a life)
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
Here's a story of a Q*bert clone for gameboy color
written for joy only that got published all by itself
http://www.1000klub.com/Qbert/
Or, that's what it would be called if it had actually been news. So I guess it's a slow humor day.
What was the competition? "America's Funniest Surgical Malpractice Bloopers"? Sorry, guys -- no, on second thought, Slashdot editors, YOU should be sorry. "It's Funny. Laugh" indeed -- it's a hugely overworn idea which is NOT rescued by anything new in the execution. This is the sort of article the Onion churns out in its sleep, and when the Onion churns it out, it sucks, and when they churn it out and it sucks it's STILL better than this.
Oh, and the references to AIDS just sorta capped things. Was there some connection I'm missing why it's especially ironic for Q*bert to contract AIDS or to leave blood everywhere he hops or for Coily to refuse to work with him because of it? Or is AIDS just considered automatically funny?
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.
Gottlieb produced Q*Bert, not Atari. Sheesh.
Kris
Kriston
It's here. Alas, it's MS only. Maybe it'll work under Wine.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
...is on the Onion A.V. Club interviews. They interviewed Jeff Lee, a Q*Bert creator, a while back, to see what he was up to.
e 3513b.html
Here is the article: http://www.theonionavclub.com/avclub3513/avfeatur
Here is a sample excerpt:
O: There was a TV show once, a cartoon.
JL: Right, in Q*Bert's heyday. I would love to see tapes of that. I remember they gave Q*Bert arms so he could have these adventures. He needed arms for some reason.
O: Why didn't you originally give him arms?
JL: For the game, you didn't need 'em! We just needed something that jumped around, and the arms were superfluous.
-----
Cast a Cold Eye
On Life, on Death
Horseman, pass by
--W.B. Yeats' gravestone
"On October 5, 1990, Q*Bert was found face down in an aquarium filled with kerosene"
Sounds to me like the work of the Mario Bros.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
You really should be watching Craig Kilbourne. Now HE'S PHUNNY!
Yup. Qbert scratches it.
Wonderful. I go to their website and get some lame-ass "take-over ad" that just keeps trying to redirect my browser to a different webpage. Anybody have a working link?
Darryl L. Pierce "What do you care what people think, Mr. Feynman?"
surely you guys must have heard of DJ Qbert ... if not, check him out - he's pretty legendary.
[ UNSIGNED NOT NULL ]
Q Bert was so much like having an LSD trip I didn't need to have one myself.
Complete with the seeing snakes.
I mean a video game that swares... I was sure someone spiked my coffee. After the disorenting experence of the odd movements and enemys with a totally diffrent center of gravity I couldn't walk.
I could sware all those kids jumping around the arcade were Q Berts when I finally turned away from the game.
Good thing Pacman didn't have that kind of effect on me or I'd be totally overweight.
I don't actually exist.
Try http://www.wherearethetoonsnow.com/