"I suspect this is the same mindset at the person who was angry at McDonalds when she burnt her legs driving off with hot coffee between her knees."
Please do some research on the facts. Comedians and so-called *tort reformers* tried to use this example as yet another frivilous lawsuit wrecking the legal system but it was not. McDonalds was punished economically by the large award the jury awarded the plaintiff (but on appeals, it was reduced). It was discovered that McDonalds had settled thousands of lawsuits over the temperature of their coffee over the years and did nothing to correct their behavior. McDonalds discovered that if they used excessive heat to make their coffee, they could use far less coffee beans to make their coffee, thereby increasing their profits. It was so profitable that there was no reason to change this behavior; they'd still make excessive profit even after having to settle a few lawsuits here and there. I suggest you watch the movie *Fight Club* and listen to what goes into deciding whether an auto manufacturer recalls a car or not. So McDonalds was punished by the jury for their unethical behavior and disregard for their customers. Ergo, it was not a frivilous lawsuit at all...
There might be something positive coming out of Damage Studios publically stated hiring position with respect to SCO employees. For one, it might be a wakeup call to rank-and-file SCO'ers that 1. when their company goes bankrupt next year, they won't find anyone particularly sorry for them in the IT sector. They probably couldn't even get an outsourced job in India because of SCO's actions. 2. This will motivate them into distinguishing themselves from their foolhardy management team - this could create a whistleblower atmosphere at SCO where employees start saving legally-challenged memos and such and bring them into the spotlight for a government inquiry. 3. Mass exodus (no pun intended with the Utah connection) of employees willing to leave Utah. SCO could be embarassed from having no real programming staff left... So in retrospect, thank you Damage Studios...
Throwing Enron employees in jail sounds good to me. And I'm sure there are plenty of mutual fund owners who have lost life savings on them based upon the fraud perpetrated by that company...
Works for the U.S. Military, or not... Does anyone know the status of the British military implementing the decision of the European Court of Justice in a similar matter?
Somehow, I think the person that posted this was hoping for a "Funny" Moderation to be given to his posting... Perhaps Slashdot should add a new listing, "Pathetic."
The way to ween the American public off dial-up is to offer tiered cable modem services. Say Comcast offers AOL for the same price as dial-up service, with guaranteed 128kbps downstream/56kbps upstream. Or barebones ISP (sans AOL or any other *content-enhancements*) for $19.99 per month. The cable companies would even steal customers away from Netzero and the like by appealing to the fact that there's no need for a dedicated telephone line anymore for internet access. But nope, the cable companies would rather try to charge the flat $40 plus per month on *broadband* speeds that not everyone actually wants. I wish Comcast would raise their downstreams back to @home speeds which were 3Mbps instead of the current 1.5Mbps for those of us that actually are content with paying $40+ per month for broadband. They'd [the cable companies] also beat out their other competitors [DirecTV and Dish] if they'd simply offer a la carte choices for television programming but it seems like they'd rather fight with Sen. McCain until the government forces the issue upon themselves. A la carte digital cable at reasonable prices coupled with the elimination of analog cable would cut out cable piracy as well as their competitors if they'd only practice common sense. Giving up their *stupid* monopoly (like Bell Telephone renting telephones to customers) on renting set-top boxes and going for the retail channel of Joe Consumer purchasing their set-top box would also improve their fortunes...
Ripping the contents of a CD and creating an.Ogg, MP3, MP3+, AAC, or WMA file is not stealing, its conversion at the very most. It is only *theft* if people are downloading the songs in their native CD file structures... Somehow, I have a problem with the RIAA being able to sue people for sharing file formats the RIAA members themselves do not commercially distribute to consumers... Its like a movie studio suing someone for actually owning prints of theatrical releases that they use for their own home consumption instead of owning a VHS or DVD copy which is intended for consumer usage... Its too bad none of the judges haven't had the juevos to dismiss the lawsuits for improperly labeling the alledged crime...
No prob. But when Quebec finally attains *independence,* will you support NAFTA membership or an EU Association Treaty? I wish I was vacationing in Cancun right now, err, protesting the WTO conference...:)
You are incorrect on where military dollars flow to. The last time I checked, BAE (British Aerospace)is not an American company, yet they are a large military contractor with contracts with the Pentagon. The Pentagon has fought against Congressional aims to purchase only from American companies fearing politics would get in the way of acquiring the very best military technology. Oh, here's a better example. The official sidearm (and most civilian police forces) of the U.S. Military is the Beretta 9mm (since the mid-80s when they replaced the American Colt 45). You might have heard of them. They are the 500 year old Italian weapons manufacturer; not exactly American are they? Perhaps you should spot check the amount of Japanese semiconductor technology has historically been in the F-16. As for the American National Debt (which Lester Thurough of MIT's Sloan School of Business has historically called "The National Asset"), it is mostly owed to American institutions. We can write-off our own debt if it comes to that, after all, it sure is fashionable for America to forgive the debt of third and second world nations. Do tell me, has Canada paid off its WWII debt to the United States? And as for WMD, it is a matter of symantics. If the former Iraqi regime was innocent in terms of WMD development since the end of the first Persian Gulf War, perhaps they shouldn't have spent considerable resources trying to evade weapons inspectors. Why evade the weapons inspectors if there's nothing to hide? You and your fellow chanters against the Anglo-American War in Iraqi have failed to disprove that the WMD technology has been moved to other countries such as the fellow Baathist regime in Syria. I personally do not care about Israel, but if American interests are threatened, then we can and shall use our military when diplomacy fails or has no realistic means of solving anything in the first place. When people spout out about the authority of the UN General Assembly, how many of those member nations are actually democracies anyways? Some authority. Oh yeah, the United States pays a disproportionate amount of money on that talk-shop as well. I'm sure you also think that negotiations with North Korea will solve the crisis as well instead of using a few megaton warheads. In the old days, nobody defied the will of the Roman Empire and the western world and culture flurished. I think we should remember that when dealing with such pipsqeaks with dangerous aspirations on the world stage. And in all fairness, I think the Administration and the British government should remove Robert Mugabe as well...just to be fair... Canada, France, and Germany can all sit on the fence and lose out on the rebuilding contracts...
What infuriates me the most is the fact that to this date, none of the artists the 12 year old was supposedly hurting didn't tell their record labels to tell the RIAA to stop pressuring the family. I am sure this girl's family bought an eMachine from Best Buy and is either using MSN from one of the original ISP rebates or they are using Netzero for their internet access. So much for the credibility of the RIAA only going after the massive file traders. Why isn't the RIAA going after the company that charged the family $29.99 for access to Kazaa? What about the retailer or other establishment that sold the software? It also amazes me how Hollywood figures can always advocate liberal use of middle-class tax revenue on feel-good social programs (and knee-jerk anti-war stances) but when it comes to their own bread-and-butter, you better not cross them otherwise you are a law breaking pirate and/or an economic terrorist...
good luck with that currency of yours! It will truly be funny when Quebec finally votes for its independence and your country ceases to exist and the various provinces come knocking on Washington's door to be admitted into the Union... or perhaps they'll apply for European Union Member State or Association Status...
Our disproportionate tax dollars spent on our Defense Department and Industry kept your pseudo-country from becoming yet another Republic of the good ol' USSR following WWII (and please spare me from watching that Dan Akroyd film on how the Canadian aerospace industry helped pioneer jet fighter development too). Furthermore, your country's generous spending on welfare state programs would not have been possible had your country had to pay "its fair share" of defense, just like Western Europe. So if you are going to criticize, you better instruct your Parliament to pay up because we have better things to spend our money on...
Have any of those techno-Rabbis run a comparison search with their "Bible Code" program on SCO? Did it come up with the phrases "bankrupt in 2004," "full of camel dung," and "Serpent of Utah"? How about running the "Bible Code" on Unix System V. code? Considering SCO's fondness for converting code over to Greek symbols for their presentations, converting to sanskrit, Hebrew or Aramaic shouldn't be a problem...
They [Motorola] used to make great televisions and monitors as well...yet another market they lost...
why aren't we using the Russian Shuttle now?
on
The Return of Apollo?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The Russian Shuttle was built like a tank. Since it was built after the majority of our own shuttles, isn't its heat tiling superior? Perhaps NASA should acquire it...
There was a gentleman before Ralph Baer that is now considered the father of videogames. Yes, the Magnavox Odyssey was out first, but it was the arcade videogame craze that literally founded the modern day industry, and that was via Nolan Bushnell's Atari. Similarly, Nolan Bushnell designed the arcade game "Computer Space" at Nutting & Associates prior to his founding of Atari, and Computer Space was based upon the spacewar type game he had played on the minicomputers and that dated back to the mid 60s. But in the vernacular, Atari means videogames, not Magnavox... But good points nonetheless...
1. This machine only has a 166mhz processor. The TiVo Series2 has a 200mhz processor (Series1 had a 50mhz PowerPC deriviative). 2. There could be various IP issues relating to transmitting and storing pictures from a Nokia camphone on the PVR's hard drive...Replay received several patents about transmitting and storing media files on the PVR's harddrive - this is one reason why TiVo's Home Media Option only streams pictures and music from a PC/Mac to the TiVo and doesn't actually store it natively...of course, this was done before TiVo and Replay ended their foolish lawsuits and cross-licensed their IP portfolios, right before SonicBlue went bankrupt. 3. What Replay didn't have in patents on PVR, TiVo does, and you can expect lawsuits on behalf of the MPAA and RIAA using TiVo as the proxy... In terms of beating them on features, I guess its time for TiVo to bring out a Series3 unit with Bluetooth built in and a slot for an Airport Card for wireless networking without having to buy a bunch of third-party Ethernet-to-USB adapters...
Pole Position and Pole Position II were imports directly from Namco(t) Japan and pre-1984 Atari Inc. coin-op releases. Do you mean "Super Sprint" or "Championship Sprint"? Yes, Atari Games did import Namco titles post-1984. Games such as "Pac-Mania" and one of my favorites, "Rolling Thunder," (and "Vindicators")but that does not constitute a majority of Atari Games titles. Atari Games also became 75% owned by Namco from 1987 to approximately 1991 when Time Warner returned to 100% shareholder (and then the stock swap that later happened between Atari Corp. and Atari Games. over licensing titles for the Lynx). However, I'd like to point out that the fan favorite post-1984 Atari Games arcade titles were primarly Atari Games creations, not Namco: Gauntlet & Gauntlet II, Paperboy, 720 Degrees, Xybots, Roadblasters, Cyberball, Tournament Cyberball 2072, Toobin', Primal Rage, Hard Drivin', Road Riot 4WD, Pit Fighter, EPROM, A.P.B., Batman, Hydra, S.T.U.N. Runner, KLAX, Rampart (an updated "Warlords"), Steel Talons, Marble Madness, Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom, Atari's/Tengen's Tetris (the criminally great version), T-MEK, and San Francisco Rush... did I forget any? I liked Blasteroids but a lot of people didn't...
If memory serves me correctly, Marble Madness (released in 1984/85) was programmed by a 16 year old, who later went on to create Crash Bandicoot. There was a good conversion of Marble Madness by EA for the Commodore 64/128. The Atari ST version wasn't so good. However, none of the console versions were as good as the arcade edition with that trackball. This was one of the first titles that ushered in the second golden age of Atari Games... Original and creative games (Gauntlet, Paperboy, 720 Degrees, Toobin', EPROM, etc.), unlike all the copycats of Streetfighter II that eventually destroyed arcade gaming in the States...
1972 - Nolan Bushnell co-founds the company named Atari, Inc. The genius Al Alcorn designs Pong. Pong becomes a big success and Atari essentially creates an entire industry. Atari gives birth to all sorts of interesting things and also employs Steve Jobs. Atari is primarily an arcade game company but wants in on the consumer market. It makes stand-alone home game systems that Sears sells in their stores. But Bushnell is trying to fund the development of the VCS (Atari 2600) and ends up selling out to Warner Communications (later Time Warner, AOL Time Warner, etc.) for $26 million. Bushnell had to pass up funding Jobs and Wozniak's Apple I prior. Warner pumps in a large amount of money but is under pressure to make the company profitable. In 1977, the Atari 2600 VCS hits the market. 1979 becomes an interesting year; Atari brings out the 400 and 800 8-bit computer line, cancels their failed pinball division, and Nolan Bushnell leaves the company. By 1982, Atari Inc. is the fastest growing company in American business history. It controls over 90% of the videogame industry and is the only company that makes arcade videogames and has a home console. But, Atari Inc. later collapses. From 1980-82, many talented programmers leave Atari to form their own companies, such as Activision and Imagic. Atari Inc. does not adequately control the third-party market for 2600 cartridges and cannot guarantee their quality. Atari itself botches up E.T., the 2600 version of Pac-Man, and many other titles that year. The 5200 is brought to the market but isn't backwards compatible with the 2600. Commodore is eating into everyone's 8-bit computer sales with the Commodore 64, which they can market cheaper (comfortably) than their other competitors such as Atari, Texas Instruments, and Apple because Commodore owns MOS Technologies, who manufacturers the CPU used in all of those machines, the 6502. Atari Inc.'s CEO, Ray Kasser ("Yar's Revenge" is named after him) leaves the company under suspicion of insider trading. The videogame (non-arcade) industry collapses in 1984 but is set for a rebirth. Atari is ready for a turnaround with the 7800 and a slew of computers their customers wanted to buy. However, Atari's spectacular losses drove Warner Communications stock in the toilet and management was fighting off a hostile takeover attempt from Rupert Murdoch, who eventually loses out and buys Twentieth Century Fox instead. But, the pressure on Warner stock forces the company to sell Atari just for good press. Warner sells the consumer division of Atari Inc. for $350 million in promissory notes to Jack Tramiel in 1984 (freshly ousted from Commodore) for a 75% stake (Warner retains 25% because Steve Ross knew videogames would come back - he also refused to sell Atari to Philips because Philips wanted 100% control). The figure is based upon the amount of Atari 800XL's in the warehouses valued at $80 a piece. Tramiel stupidly passes up purchasing the arcade division for a mere $10 million more. So Atari Inc. is split up in 1984 between newly renamed Atari Corp. under Jack Tramiel and Co. and Atari Games Inc. (later Atari Games Corp.) which is the arcade division. Atari Corp. has the rights to the brand "Atari" for computers and home videogames if they decide to return to the market. Atari Games had exclusive right to the brand for the arcade games (which later causes extreme confusion to Joe Consumer). Tramiel fires 9,000 employees and sets about creating the ST line of computers to revive Atari, and it works. But at the same time, Nintendo revives the home game industry in the U.S. in its own image. By 1986, Atari Corp. wants back in the industry and releases the 7800 game system which had been scheduled to be released in 1984 had the Tramiel takeover not happened. Unfortunately, Nintendo locked in all their third-party developers into exclusive contracts and it takes pressure from an anti-trust case from both Atari Corp. and Atari Games Corp. to cause Nintendo to relent (Atari Corp. lost the case, surprisingly). By this ti
Pamela Harriman. Persons less polite than myself would include Jackie Kennedy-Onasis, Hillary Clinton, and Arianna Huffington. Yes, marrying money for status and power is a form of prostitution. You were saying?
Slashdot Mirror
"I suspect this is the same mindset at the person who was angry at McDonalds when she burnt her legs driving off with hot coffee between her knees."
Please do some research on the facts. Comedians and so-called *tort reformers* tried to use this example as yet another frivilous lawsuit wrecking the legal system but it was not. McDonalds was punished economically by the large award the jury awarded the plaintiff (but on appeals, it was reduced). It was discovered that McDonalds had settled thousands of lawsuits over the temperature of their coffee over the years and did nothing to correct their behavior. McDonalds discovered that if they used excessive heat to make their coffee, they could use far less coffee beans to make their coffee, thereby increasing their profits. It was so profitable that there was no reason to change this behavior; they'd still make excessive profit even after having to settle a few lawsuits here and there. I suggest you watch the movie *Fight Club* and listen to what goes into deciding whether an auto manufacturer recalls a car or not. So McDonalds was punished by the jury for their unethical behavior and disregard for their customers. Ergo, it was not a frivilous lawsuit at all...
There might be something positive coming out of Damage Studios publically stated hiring position with respect to SCO employees. For one, it might be a wakeup call to rank-and-file SCO'ers that 1. when their company goes bankrupt next year, they won't find anyone particularly sorry for them in the IT sector. They probably couldn't even get an outsourced job in India because of SCO's actions. 2. This will motivate them into distinguishing themselves from their foolhardy management team - this could create a whistleblower atmosphere at SCO where employees start saving legally-challenged memos and such and bring them into the spotlight for a government inquiry. 3. Mass exodus (no pun intended with the Utah connection) of employees willing to leave Utah. SCO could be embarassed from having no real programming staff left... So in retrospect, thank you Damage Studios...
Throwing Enron employees in jail sounds good to me. And I'm sure there are plenty of mutual fund owners who have lost life savings on them based upon the fraud perpetrated by that company...
Works for the U.S. Military, or not... Does anyone know the status of the British military implementing the decision of the European Court of Justice in a similar matter?
"... The fragrance of Afghanistan, rewards a long day's toil..."
:)
Doesn't the fragrance of Afghanistan comes from a long day's toil, or a few months of toil? Just checking!
Somehow, I think the person that posted this was hoping for a "Funny" Moderation to be given to his posting... Perhaps Slashdot should add a new listing, "Pathetic."
The way to ween the American public off dial-up is to offer tiered cable modem services. Say Comcast offers AOL for the same price as dial-up service, with guaranteed 128kbps downstream/56kbps upstream. Or barebones ISP (sans AOL or any other *content-enhancements*) for $19.99 per month. The cable companies would even steal customers away from Netzero and the like by appealing to the fact that there's no need for a dedicated telephone line anymore for internet access. But nope, the cable companies would rather try to charge the flat $40 plus per month on *broadband* speeds that not everyone actually wants. I wish Comcast would raise their downstreams back to @home speeds which were 3Mbps instead of the current 1.5Mbps for those of us that actually are content with paying $40+ per month for broadband. They'd [the cable companies] also beat out their other competitors [DirecTV and Dish] if they'd simply offer a la carte choices for television programming but it seems like they'd rather fight with Sen. McCain until the government forces the issue upon themselves. A la carte digital cable at reasonable prices coupled with the elimination of analog cable would cut out cable piracy as well as their competitors if they'd only practice common sense. Giving up their *stupid* monopoly (like Bell Telephone renting telephones to customers) on renting set-top boxes and going for the retail channel of Joe Consumer purchasing their set-top box would also improve their fortunes...
Ripping the contents of a CD and creating an .Ogg, MP3, MP3+, AAC, or WMA file is not stealing, its conversion at the very most. It is only *theft* if people are downloading the songs in their native CD file structures... Somehow, I have a problem with the RIAA being able to sue people for sharing file formats the RIAA members themselves do not commercially distribute to consumers... Its like a movie studio suing someone for actually owning prints of theatrical releases that they use for their own home consumption instead of owning a VHS or DVD copy which is intended for consumer usage... Its too bad none of the judges haven't had the juevos to dismiss the lawsuits for improperly labeling the alledged crime...
No prob. But when Quebec finally attains *independence,* will you support NAFTA membership or an EU Association Treaty? I wish I was vacationing in Cancun right now, err, protesting the WTO conference... :)
You are incorrect on where military dollars flow to. The last time I checked, BAE (British Aerospace)is not an American company, yet they are a large military contractor with contracts with the Pentagon. The Pentagon has fought against Congressional aims to purchase only from American companies fearing politics would get in the way of acquiring the very best military technology. Oh, here's a better example. The official sidearm (and most civilian police forces) of the U.S. Military is the Beretta 9mm (since the mid-80s when they replaced the American Colt 45). You might have heard of them. They are the 500 year old Italian weapons manufacturer; not exactly American are they? Perhaps you should spot check the amount of Japanese semiconductor technology has historically been in the F-16. As for the American National Debt (which Lester Thurough of MIT's Sloan School of Business has historically called "The National Asset"), it is mostly owed to American institutions. We can write-off our own debt if it comes to that, after all, it sure is fashionable for America to forgive the debt of third and second world nations. Do tell me, has Canada paid off its WWII debt to the United States? And as for WMD, it is a matter of symantics. If the former Iraqi regime was innocent in terms of WMD development since the end of the first Persian Gulf War, perhaps they shouldn't have spent considerable resources trying to evade weapons inspectors. Why evade the weapons inspectors if there's nothing to hide? You and your fellow chanters against the Anglo-American War in Iraqi have failed to disprove that the WMD technology has been moved to other countries such as the fellow Baathist regime in Syria. I personally do not care about Israel, but if American interests are threatened, then we can and shall use our military when diplomacy fails or has no realistic means of solving anything in the first place. When people spout out about the authority of the UN General Assembly, how many of those member nations are actually democracies anyways? Some authority. Oh yeah, the United States pays a disproportionate amount of money on that talk-shop as well. I'm sure you also think that negotiations with North Korea will solve the crisis as well instead of using a few megaton warheads. In the old days, nobody defied the will of the Roman Empire and the western world and culture flurished. I think we should remember that when dealing with such pipsqeaks with dangerous aspirations on the world stage. And in all fairness, I think the Administration and the British government should remove Robert Mugabe as well...just to be fair... Canada, France, and Germany can all sit on the fence and lose out on the rebuilding contracts...
What infuriates me the most is the fact that to this date, none of the artists the 12 year old was supposedly hurting didn't tell their record labels to tell the RIAA to stop pressuring the family. I am sure this girl's family bought an eMachine from Best Buy and is either using MSN from one of the original ISP rebates or they are using Netzero for their internet access. So much for the credibility of the RIAA only going after the massive file traders. Why isn't the RIAA going after the company that charged the family $29.99 for access to Kazaa? What about the retailer or other establishment that sold the software? It also amazes me how Hollywood figures can always advocate liberal use of middle-class tax revenue on feel-good social programs (and knee-jerk anti-war stances) but when it comes to their own bread-and-butter, you better not cross them otherwise you are a law breaking pirate and/or an economic terrorist...
good luck with that currency of yours! It will truly be funny when Quebec finally votes for its independence and your country ceases to exist and the various provinces come knocking on Washington's door to be admitted into the Union... or perhaps they'll apply for European Union Member State or Association Status...
Our disproportionate tax dollars spent on our Defense Department and Industry kept your pseudo-country from becoming yet another Republic of the good ol' USSR following WWII (and please spare me from watching that Dan Akroyd film on how the Canadian aerospace industry helped pioneer jet fighter development too). Furthermore, your country's generous spending on welfare state programs would not have been possible had your country had to pay "its fair share" of defense, just like Western Europe. So if you are going to criticize, you better instruct your Parliament to pay up because we have better things to spend our money on...
Have any of those techno-Rabbis run a comparison search with their "Bible Code" program on SCO? Did it come up with the phrases "bankrupt in 2004," "full of camel dung," and "Serpent of Utah"? How about running the "Bible Code" on Unix System V. code? Considering SCO's fondness for converting code over to Greek symbols for their presentations, converting to sanskrit, Hebrew or Aramaic shouldn't be a problem...
How exactly can you drop an electronic book?
They [Motorola] used to make great televisions and monitors as well...yet another market they lost...
The Russian Shuttle was built like a tank. Since it was built after the majority of our own shuttles, isn't its heat tiling superior? Perhaps NASA should acquire it...
Yes, but will the workers on the Moon have union representation?
There was a gentleman before Ralph Baer that is now considered the father of videogames. Yes, the Magnavox Odyssey was out first, but it was the arcade videogame craze that literally founded the modern day industry, and that was via Nolan Bushnell's Atari. Similarly, Nolan Bushnell designed the arcade game "Computer Space" at Nutting & Associates prior to his founding of Atari, and Computer Space was based upon the spacewar type game he had played on the minicomputers and that dated back to the mid 60s. But in the vernacular, Atari means videogames, not Magnavox... But good points nonetheless...
1. This machine only has a 166mhz processor. The TiVo Series2 has a 200mhz processor (Series1 had a 50mhz PowerPC deriviative). 2. There could be various IP issues relating to transmitting and storing pictures from a Nokia camphone on the PVR's hard drive...Replay received several patents about transmitting and storing media files on the PVR's harddrive - this is one reason why TiVo's Home Media Option only streams pictures and music from a PC/Mac to the TiVo and doesn't actually store it natively...of course, this was done before TiVo and Replay ended their foolish lawsuits and cross-licensed their IP portfolios, right before SonicBlue went bankrupt. 3. What Replay didn't have in patents on PVR, TiVo does, and you can expect lawsuits on behalf of the MPAA and RIAA using TiVo as the proxy... In terms of beating them on features, I guess its time for TiVo to bring out a Series3 unit with Bluetooth built in and a slot for an Airport Card for wireless networking without having to buy a bunch of third-party Ethernet-to-USB adapters...
Pole Position and Pole Position II were imports directly from Namco(t) Japan and pre-1984 Atari Inc. coin-op releases. Do you mean "Super Sprint" or "Championship Sprint"? Yes, Atari Games did import Namco titles post-1984. Games such as "Pac-Mania" and one of my favorites, "Rolling Thunder," (and "Vindicators")but that does not constitute a majority of Atari Games titles. Atari Games also became 75% owned by Namco from 1987 to approximately 1991 when Time Warner returned to 100% shareholder (and then the stock swap that later happened between Atari Corp. and Atari Games. over licensing titles for the Lynx). However, I'd like to point out that the fan favorite post-1984 Atari Games arcade titles were primarly Atari Games creations, not Namco: Gauntlet & Gauntlet II, Paperboy, 720 Degrees, Xybots, Roadblasters, Cyberball, Tournament Cyberball 2072, Toobin', Primal Rage, Hard Drivin', Road Riot 4WD, Pit Fighter, EPROM, A.P.B., Batman, Hydra, S.T.U.N. Runner, KLAX, Rampart (an updated "Warlords"), Steel Talons, Marble Madness, Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom, Atari's/Tengen's Tetris (the criminally great version), T-MEK, and San Francisco Rush... did I forget any? I liked Blasteroids but a lot of people didn't...
If memory serves me correctly, Marble Madness (released in 1984/85) was programmed by a 16 year old, who later went on to create Crash Bandicoot. There was a good conversion of Marble Madness by EA for the Commodore 64/128. The Atari ST version wasn't so good. However, none of the console versions were as good as the arcade edition with that trackball. This was one of the first titles that ushered in the second golden age of Atari Games... Original and creative games (Gauntlet, Paperboy, 720 Degrees, Toobin', EPROM, etc.), unlike all the copycats of Streetfighter II that eventually destroyed arcade gaming in the States...
I think it is TIME FOR A CHINESE FIRE(wall) DRILL!
1972 - Nolan Bushnell co-founds the company named Atari, Inc. The genius Al Alcorn designs Pong. Pong becomes a big success and Atari essentially creates an entire industry. Atari gives birth to all sorts of interesting things and also employs Steve Jobs. Atari is primarily an arcade game company but wants in on the consumer market. It makes stand-alone home game systems that Sears sells in their stores. But Bushnell is trying to fund the development of the VCS (Atari 2600) and ends up selling out to Warner Communications (later Time Warner, AOL Time Warner, etc.) for $26 million. Bushnell had to pass up funding Jobs and Wozniak's Apple I prior. Warner pumps in a large amount of money but is under pressure to make the company profitable. In 1977, the Atari 2600 VCS hits the market. 1979 becomes an interesting year; Atari brings out the 400 and 800 8-bit computer line, cancels their failed pinball division, and Nolan Bushnell leaves the company. By 1982, Atari Inc. is the fastest growing company in American business history. It controls over 90% of the videogame industry and is the only company that makes arcade videogames and has a home console. But, Atari Inc. later collapses. From 1980-82, many talented programmers leave Atari to form their own companies, such as Activision and Imagic. Atari Inc. does not adequately control the third-party market for 2600 cartridges and cannot guarantee their quality. Atari itself botches up E.T., the 2600 version of Pac-Man, and many other titles that year. The 5200 is brought to the market but isn't backwards compatible with the 2600. Commodore is eating into everyone's 8-bit computer sales with the Commodore 64, which they can market cheaper (comfortably) than their other competitors such as Atari, Texas Instruments, and Apple because Commodore owns MOS Technologies, who manufacturers the CPU used in all of those machines, the 6502. Atari Inc.'s CEO, Ray Kasser ("Yar's Revenge" is named after him) leaves the company under suspicion of insider trading. The videogame (non-arcade) industry collapses in 1984 but is set for a rebirth. Atari is ready for a turnaround with the 7800 and a slew of computers their customers wanted to buy. However, Atari's spectacular losses drove Warner Communications stock in the toilet and management was fighting off a hostile takeover attempt from Rupert Murdoch, who eventually loses out and buys Twentieth Century Fox instead. But, the pressure on Warner stock forces the company to sell Atari just for good press. Warner sells the consumer division of Atari Inc. for $350 million in promissory notes to Jack Tramiel in 1984 (freshly ousted from Commodore) for a 75% stake (Warner retains 25% because Steve Ross knew videogames would come back - he also refused to sell Atari to Philips because Philips wanted 100% control). The figure is based upon the amount of Atari 800XL's in the warehouses valued at $80 a piece. Tramiel stupidly passes up purchasing the arcade division for a mere $10 million more. So Atari Inc. is split up in 1984 between newly renamed Atari Corp. under Jack Tramiel and Co. and Atari Games Inc. (later Atari Games Corp.) which is the arcade division. Atari Corp. has the rights to the brand "Atari" for computers and home videogames if they decide to return to the market. Atari Games had exclusive right to the brand for the arcade games (which later causes extreme confusion to Joe Consumer). Tramiel fires 9,000 employees and sets about creating the ST line of computers to revive Atari, and it works. But at the same time, Nintendo revives the home game industry in the U.S. in its own image. By 1986, Atari Corp. wants back in the industry and releases the 7800 game system which had been scheduled to be released in 1984 had the Tramiel takeover not happened. Unfortunately, Nintendo locked in all their third-party developers into exclusive contracts and it takes pressure from an anti-trust case from both Atari Corp. and Atari Games Corp. to cause Nintendo to relent (Atari Corp. lost the case, surprisingly). By this ti
Pamela Harriman. Persons less polite than myself would include Jackie Kennedy-Onasis, Hillary Clinton, and Arianna Huffington. Yes, marrying money for status and power is a form of prostitution. You were saying?