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The Last Days Of Atari - In Full Color

Posted by simoniker on from the amazing-ancient-artefacts dept.

AtariKee writes "Scott Evans (famous to video game collectors as the sole owner of Army Battlezone and two Marble Madness 2 machines) stopped out at the former Atari's Milpitas, CA facility [most recently a Midway office] and took a large collection of pictures of what was once the mighty arcade giant's headquarters." The good news is that Scott "was able to obtain and preserve the majority of what you see here."

5 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Atari in San Jose by fm6 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My company took over Atari's building on North First Street in San Jose. There was a whiteboard that still had a project status for porting various well-known arcade games to Apple, C64, etc. Very melancholy.

  2. Milpitas? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The new building?

    I can still remember seeing the Atari logo on a building off of Winchester Blvd., in Campbell. Or, it may have been in Cupertino.

    Alas, gone like the 'roids of yesteryear. Still, there is something pure in its annihilation, like a Silicon Valley marriage.

  3. I was there once... by kreyg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I had a job interview there in 1998 - they were known as "Atari Games," which I think was to distinguish them from "Atari," which was the part of the company that had more to do with the original console hardware (and the Jaguar?) and had spun them off at some time. In any case, they were owned by Midway.

    It was an interesting experience, walking the halls and seeing posters of so many classic games. They were still developing arcade hardware, and I was being interviewed about porting one of the arcade games to the N64.

    I believe I actually sat at the table in this picture - I had one interview over lunch with someone who was quite humorless and clearly hadn't slept for far, far too long. Actually, I think they got him out of bed to talk to me. I also played the green SF Rush machine in that picture - quite the arcade they had there.

    I guess I should be glad I took a job with another company. Still, sad to see them go. RIP Atari.

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  4. Add trackball by lightbuddy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm the admin of http://www.midway.com. I hope the low comment count and the buried link keeps us from getting slashdotted during our last days in Milpitas. It's been real...It's been fun...Can't say it's all been real fun. Big shouts to the final few. Special thanks to Jeff Bell...the oldest (not age wise) real Atari employee. See Jeff's fish at http://dickdafish.org. I'll be helping him close the doors after 31 years of service. Jeff, I'll buy you a beer for lunch tomorrow. Oh yeah, and everybody should buy the new SpyHunter2! WWIII

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    End of an era...
  5. Marble Man Roms by Xenolith · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Could some fine ex-Atari employee please release the ROMs for Marble Man (Marble Madness II), so it could be emulated for the PC? I don't see any reason to withhold the ROMs at this point in the game. I can't see anyone profiting, etc.

    Thanks for hearing my plea...

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