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A History of Atari — the Golden Years
simoniker writes "Over at Gamasutra, Steve Fulton has published a massive 23,000-word history of Atari from 1978 to 1981, encompassing '... some of the most exciting developments the company ever saw in its history: the rise of the 2600, the development of some of the company's most enduringly popular games (Centipede, Asteroids) and the development and release of its first home computing platforms.' Best quote in there for Slashdot readers, perhaps: 'Atari had contracted with a young programmer named Bill Gates to modify a BASIC compiler that he had for another system to be used on the 800. After that project stalled for over a year Al was called upon to replace him with another developer. So ... Al is the only person I know ever to have fired Bill Gates.'"
We had a 2600 with a whole bunch of games. It was played with often.
One day we left it out and attached to the TV. My father said if he saw that we left it out once more, it would disappear forever.
Sure enough, 2 days later it disappeard forever. We never even asked him about it. We knew it was history.
Looking back, we never really missed it. It wasn't all that important to us then. (1980 - 6th grade)
There was a space flight simulator for the 2600 that resembled Battlestar Galactica, except that you could turn on your shields that tinted the screen blue.
Does anyone know the name of this game?
Andy
that today they sue their fans and anybody who gives a negative review of their games
oh how the mighty has fallen
I hope it's not true that the most interesting sentence for Slashdotters is about firing Bill Gates. Is the anti-MS kneejerk reaction so common that it would overshadow any amount of interesting or even merely amusing or nostalgic story? Somebody thinks so.
My father was a die-hard Atari user back in those days. I remember asking him why Atari was not as popular as it used to be as the years went by, and I'll never forget his answer:
"Because Apple went to lunch with the schools, IBM went to lunch with the companies, and Atari didn't go to lunch with anybody."
I never learned how much truth there was in that answer, but I really liked his response! That, and his "Join the Revolution! Buy an Atari!" stamper.
30 years later they still have people making brand new original games for the Atari 2600 like this one or that one!
You just got troll'd!
I played Atari from when I was 3 until I was 8(1984-C64+ 1985-NES). I can't see anyone having played more hours of it than I did. I don't know. For some reason, I wanted to be the best video game player in the world. A video game allows children an outlet to their problem solving and reflex desires. I saw Atari 2600 as something new to my generation, so I played it as hard as possible. I figured that I may not be able to compete at games that have been around longer than I have because people had the age advantage on me. But video games were fresh so I put all my effort in them to get better. I was #1 in Starcraft for a while, and #1 in Warcraft 3 for a while too.
But as cool as it sounds to be the best in video games in the world... It really is hard to rate a video game player. You have all different genre of games.
No one probably cares, but I have memories. One of the memories was 1983 when I thought Atari 2600 should just keep making games. I never thought to myself that the video games could get better though with more powerful computing. Just breathing in today's world is living the dream for a video game player. And once you played out all the video games, you have the potential to make games too.
God spoke to me.
Listen, could you pseudo-gamer-journalists stop writing about Atari's history? We've all heard and read about it a million times. We ALL know about Atari. We all know about Ralph Baer, Higgenbotten, and that Centipede was designed by a woman. Now, how about some REAL history even us old gamers don't know about?
What was it like working for Cinematronics? What was their culture like? Why did they go out of business? What was it like being on the Dragon's Lair team (and I don't mean just talking to Don Bluth and Rick Dyer; that's been done to death. What about everyone else like the tech developers? Did they think it would take off? What about the teams involved in vector games? What was that like?)
How about Universal? What happened to them? What was it like working there? The art department must have been a trippy place considering the fascinating psychedelic art their arcade game cabinets had. Who designed Mr Do? Lady Bug? When could they sense the writing was on the wall? Why couldn't they compete?
How about Stern's video department in 1978-82? At least you know where to reach Gary Stern today...
How about Williams video department? They made such cool games (Robotron, Defender, Sinistar...) What was their workplace and culture like?
Write about something new for fuck's sake.
in case you don't feel like clicking through 20 pages of ads, you can view the article as one page here: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3766/atari_the_golden_years__a_.php?print=1
When I left MS back in 'bout 81, I had an extra ROM pack for the Atari 400/800. Wow, I wonder if I should give it back?
All my favorite Atari games started with a "P".
I spent countless hours jumping over alligators. http://www.atari.com/us/images/games/FBK2/manual/pitfall.htm
I mentioned tinker-toys once in a post - now I'm modded down for life.
I bought a used Atari 800 to play games on after my IBM PC (original) proved pathetic for this purpose.
1986 was a GREAT time to own one of these old 8 bit systems. Software was still being made for it, and the slightly older hardware (8xx series printers, disk drives, serial interfaces, etc.) was available for firesale prices from mail order joints. The general audience computer magazines covered the platform, and there was at least one slick magazine with you-type-it program listings.
I played lots of the original EA classics; Seven Cities of Gold, Archon, and M.U.L.E. Amazingly crude by today's standard, but they were amazingly entertaining and so perfectly adapted for the platform.
Once in a while I'd get an old catalog or brochure. They were an interesting mix of slick and naive, with occasional vaporware products. I wish I kept those.
I dragged a cubic yard of Atari stuff with me to California after grad school. I hadn't plugged any of it in for maybe five years when I decided to sell it all for $20.
"Massive" is Gibbon's Decline and Fall in seven volumes. 23,000 words is about 2-3 times as long as a typical article in the kind of magazine that doesn't have recipes or pictures of Paris Hilton. That a lot of words, but it isn't enough to fill even a short book (about 75,000 words). Hardly "massive".
This Al ?
Read radical news here
I have the opposite problem. I have a Star Raiders cartridge and a working 2600, but I don't have the special controller needed to play the game. (So as a child, I'd plug in the game periodically, see only the 4x4 grid, die, think "this game sucks", and play Adventure or Jungle Quest instead.)
Is there any way to get the special controller? Or better yet, homebrew one?
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
Leonardo Dicaprio is making a movie about the history of atari...
yes - I know - dicaprio... titanic... *yuck*
but after "catch me if you can", "aviator" and now this project i start respecting him... (yes, i just said jehovah! stone me!)
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
The first computer I ever owned was a Radio Shack Model 100, in 1980. It was wonderful, came loaded with BASIC, made sound and had a fairly decent screen. I still have it somewhere. The software and OS, however, were not that impressive today. The Model 100 is famous for having been the last software written by Bill Gates himself. I suspect he also wrote the computer's manual, which was a mess. It had references to non-existent sections, did not ever make sense and was just in general a joke. I was glad to have it but now I see the fingerprints of Bill Gates all over it. Apple is what it is because of the personality of Steve Jobs. Likewise for Microsoft. Quite curious that we have all these lefties atop of this struggle. What what that is all about...
or Golden Showers?
All bow down before Custer's Revenge.
I remember getting my first Atari 800... Then after that the 800XL, 130XE, 520ST, 1040ST, etc.. The 800XL was my first real chance to learn to program. Previously it had been on a Commodore Vic-20 at a cousin's house. I actually owe my career to those days spent writing little BASIC programs to do simple things.
At the time there was a magazine called Compute!. It had program listings for multiple machines including the Atari, Commodore, Apple IIe, and later on, the PC, ST and Amiga lines. Many of the programs were written in BASIC, but as the magazine progressed more and more were written in 6502 assembler. It was tedious to key in those listings (essentially typing in HEX dumps with a checksum) but we managed.
In middle school I was in one of the first programming classes in the school and district. The computers were all Apple IIe and Franklin Ace 1000s, but the instructor had a soft spot for the Ataris. For the end of term project I wrote a little quiz program that flashed a question on the screen in one of the Atari graphic modes, then read the 8-bit joystick port to see which answer was selected. I also tried to write an Infocom-like game, but it proved much harder than I had anticipated. I did get the user to be able to navigate a map though :D
For a long time I missed those days... Luckily Linux came along and all is well again...
I still have my Atari 2600, with about 30 games, controllers, and paddles (for playing Kaboom, my favorite). I grew up on that thing. The only person in the house that was any competition for me was my mom. She kicked ass at Kaboom, and I remember being in awe as I watched my aunt score 1,000,000 points on Missile Command.
I plugged in in a few days ago to play it, actually. It still works great. And totally sucks. But I love it.
You never forget your first.
Sig? SIG? We don't need no stinkin' sig!!!
... was coin-op. Atari Games is dead. Long live Atari Games!
"You're getting brutal, Sark. Brutal and needlessly sadistic."
"Thank you, Master Control"
-Sark and the MCP
It was my first console, courtesy of Kentucky Fried Chicken. The eight games that came with it kept me satisfied until I got my C64.
Let me see if I can remember them: Ms Pac-Man, Galaxian, Bezerk, Missile Command (my Dad managed to roll-over the score), Haunted House, Yar's Revenge. I think my cousin had Adventure because I don't recall it much, but that freakin' duck gives me flashbacks. So that leaves one or two, but the list doesn't give me any ideas. Must have been the lame ones that I didn't play.
Consultancy: If you're not part of the solution, there's money to be made in prolonging the problem
"I felt that the computer system should not be a closed system, we needed to have third party software developers. I could see Steve Jobs out evangelizing, and Atari was saying that if you write software for the Atari computers, we will sue you. I just thought that was foolhardy. They were from the record world, where you sue people."
- Nolan Bushnell
You know, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
my... girl Atari ST ;)
Actually, I had the Atari ST when I was in college... I really liked it and I could do my assembly projects on it (our assembly and hardware classes were all based on the M68K).
All this coverage truly brings a tear to me eye :'(. I am surprised no one here has mentioned The Flashbacks. The Flashback2 atleast can be hacked to take the original 2600 cartridges :D
Come on you know you want to!
What was with those ugly C-64's , the XL line was so beautiful to look at.
Al is the only person I know ever to have fired Bill Gates.
Every time you install an OSS system or buy a Mac, you fire Bill Gate.
This was a very good article, I don't much about Atari as it was before my time and this article gave some really good insights.
If it's not too late for anyone to read anonymous posts, atari is a baduk related term: http://senseis.xmp.net/?Atari
Here's 10 Years of Atari/Atari Games VaxMail, this is history!!!!
http://www.textfiles.com/games/ATARIMAIL/
Description from the site:
Jed Margolis got his hands on something precious: a decade of internal mail from the now-defunct Atari Games corporation, makers of some of the more beloved arcade games in history and one of the more amazing stories in computer history. Buried among these large collections of e-mails from the Atari Corp. VAX are discussions of programming, trivia, jokes, and some real insights into the day-to-day concerns of this company.
Has everone seen these?
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
http://www.atariguide.com/
I imaged over 200 diskettes and keep them on my laptop as a server. Then I connect the laptop to the 800 and play the original games on it. It took seven different pieces of technology to do it: 1) 1985 technology (Atari 800 using 6502 processor at ~1mhz) 2) Hand-made SIO2PC cable from Poland (eBay) 3) USB-Converter cable (Iomega) 4) Semi-recent IBM Thinkpad (T42) running Windows XP 5) Shareware server software (don't recall the name just now) 6) Video adapter which converts RCA-type composite (with audio!) to coax into... 7) 60" DLP High-definition television Ahhh.. the good life of M.U.L.E, Archon, Bruce Lee, BallBlazer, Ali Baba and Ultima III... [basking in it!]
It was written for the 400/800
A friend of mine and I would turn the B&W/Color switch to B&W whenever we played Combat with the tanks or airplanes. Gave it that "old World War II movie" feel.
landfills in New Mexico near Devil's Tower
Ya know, having been there, I'm pretty sure Devil's Tower is in Wyoming. :)
Trippy place, everyone should visit it if given the chance. And since you'll be nearby, check out Mount Rushmore, just over the border in South Dakota (then leave South Dakota as soon as you're done). Other things to see in Wyoming include the Grand Tetons (which make the Rockies look rather sickly in comparison), and Yellowstone National Park (where Old Faithful is, among other things). Oh, and that gas station in Gillette that sells the tequila suckers (with worm).
Perhaps if Bill Gates hadn't been fired... he wouldn't have ended up creating Microsoft.
How would a world without Microsoft be? Would we have the internet as we know it? Less viruses, probably. But now that I think about it... the internet may have not had the same popularity... Linux would still be for hobbyists... would we have a browser war? What would have happened to specs made by the W3C? Maybe Netscape would still be alive... AND buggy.
Most people are idealistic and want to believe that Bill Gates was the ONLY evil in computing - but what about the "patches welcome" attitude in programming?
Sometimes I'd like to start a contest on "how the world would have been without Microsoft". Would we have social networking sites? CSS 2? Ubuntu? And would the Mac have adopted a Freebsd-based Operating System?
How would the 80x86 computers run, for starters? Would they run Unix? CP/M? Would videogames use even worse copy protection schemes? Would the PC be an actual competitor against Nintendo and Sony? Or maybe, Atari would take the place that the XBOX has now?
I'd love to see the possibilities with my own eyes. Just to satisfy my curiosity.
I think the game I played most on my Atari 512ST and 1040ST was Chrystal Castles. There is still some version out there on the web, but the gameplay and graphics is less beautiful than I remember
Wikipedia explains why: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Castles. I would really like to see this game being ported to the here and now on all major platforms.
Hey Bill, 6502!=8080.
"Oh My God! I'll drag my feet for a year
until I figure this thing out"
Does anyone remember bowling with the Atari automatic scoring system?
I think I played on an Army base in New Jersey in the very early 1980s.
Today, automatic scoring is everywhere, but in the early 1980s it was nowhere. It had video screens and even let you print out your frames on paper roll printers.
Kriston