Q&A With Atari Pioneer Al Alcorn
Al Alcorn was a big player in the early days of Atari, having had a hand the development of Pong and the Atari 2600; Retro IGN has posted an interview with Alcorn, who offers up a variety of insights on the early days of Atari gaming.
IGN AU: Yeah I have. I was actually going to ask you about how much of making games in those days were kind of 'happy accidents', because the sound design for Pong was just working and playing with what you had right?
Al Alcorn: I mean, you were at the edge of technology, right? There was no microprocessor, there was no computer in there. In fact, what happened with Nolan with the first Computer Space was, he had an order for ten Supernova mini computers, and his wife refused to send out the order – it was like $20,000 and they didn't have the money. By the time he expected the things to arrive – even then computers were so slow, they couldn't do anything at video rates, that the computer was doing less and less and less. By the time he thought he needed the computers he was like 'hey wait a second, I just need to add a couple of flip-flops. I don't even need the computers.' And then he said 'oh shit, what do I do with the computers?' [His wife said] 'oh, I never sent that order.' [Laughs] That's how that came out. There is a patent out there – Nolan Bushnell, you can look it up – that has the motion circuit as a clever trick to make things move. There was no memory – memory didn't exist in those days. It was a clever engineering trick he discovered.
Link: http://retro.ign.com/articles/858/858351p1.html
From: http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/37315/Q-A-With-Atari-Pioneer-Al-A...
Donkey Kong and Me
The tale of the man who ported Donkey Kong to the Atari 2600.
In the fall of 1981 I was going to college and became addicted to the Atari arcade games Centipede and Tempest. I knew a little bit about the hardware of the Atari 400/800 home computer systems, and decided to make a scary purchase on my student budget and buy an Atari 400 and a black and white TV (which was all I could afford). I messed around in Basic for a while, then bought an Assembler/Editor cartridge and started hacking away on a Centipede clone. I didn’t have much to go on in terms of seeing prior designs for games and had to figure everything out myself. Like most of the school problems, you really just have to work things out with a few hints from the textbooks and lectures...
Link: http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=987
Taking orders for CT63
Rodolphe Czuba announced on usenet: You can order now with payment for the new batch of CT63 that will be shipped in 4 to 6 weeks.
Link: http://www.czuba-tech.com/
From: http://www.atari-users.net/
TeraDesk 3.95 released
Djordje Vukovic announced on usenet: Version 3.95 of TeraDesk open-source desktop for the 16-bit and 32-bit lines of Atari computers is available at: http://solair.eunet.yu/~vdjole/teradesk.htm
This release fixes several bugs related to handling of times and dates. It also brings an improvement in behaviour related to 'special' applications. Powering-off of CT60 at shutdown now works correctly, even in single-TOS.
Beside the changes made to the program itself, a new page was added to the introductory section of the hypertext manual, highlighting some nice features specific to TeraDesk which otherwise may pass unnoticed by users.
From: http://www.atari-users.net/
The Hall of Shame 03.20.08: The Atari
Two software companies that used to be on top of the hardware industry until something went horribly wrong. This week I focus on Atari, the same company behind the great Atari 2600 and the horrid Jaguar.
Atari: One of the first video games companies to be started and became the leader of the industry in the 70's with memorable classics such as Pong, Asteroids, Battlezone, Breakout, Yar's Revenge, Missle Command, and countless more.
Sega: A video game company that decided to take on Nintendo, who by the late 80's had pretty much owned the video game market with the NES. By the 16-bit era, Sega had risen dramatically to the point of almost being on equal ground with Nintendo.
But somewhere along the line, both of these companies screwed up when it came to creating consoles. Atari had a failing console before the video game crash, and then once Nintendo brought the industry back, would create what was quite possibly the worst console of all time. Sega would just go completely overboard with creating way too many consoles, and by the time they decided what they wanted to do, Sony came along and took over the industry. Two once mighty first-party titans have been reduced to third-party peons.
In a two-part Hall Of Shame induction, I'll be taking a look at the hardware failures of Atari and Sega...
Link: http://www.411mania.com/games/columns/71273/The-Hall-of-Shame-03.19...
Jagfest planned to retun to The Video Game Summit
On July 19th,1997 the very first Atari Jaguar Festvial (Jagfest) took place 11 years ago in Rosemont,IL. After that it was at various locations in the US. The last time Jagfest was back in IL was 3 years ago at Video Game Summit 2005. While Goat Store's Midwest Gaming Classic had Jagfest from 2003 to this year, and they are doing a good job with it. The VGS Staff felt it's time for Jagfest to return where it's started 11 years ago in IL, specificly at The 2008 Video Game Summit. But we can't do it alone we need your help to make it a success so here is what we are looking for: 1. Jaguars (can't have a Jagfest with out them) at least 8: 4 for network games,2 for cart games 2 for CD games 2. Lynx: Tom L usally supplies the Lynx display,but you are welcome to bring your Lynx collection (were also planning to have DS Party in the Deli all day,more on that come later) 3. Nuon: while it's not an Atari system but it was developed by former Atari employees so it's considered an Atari system,so at leasta couple of them would be great. (we will also need TV's as well)
The Video Game Summit, now in its fifth year,is Chicago's premier Video game and computer trade show that brings together classic and modern generation gamers from all over the country to swap stories, games and to compete in sanctioned tournaments. The event is open to the public and people of all ages with an interest in video games or computers are encouraged to attend.According to the event’s organizer, Dan Iacovelli, “we plan to have several gaming consoles set to free play and a trade room where collectors will be free to swap their extra games.” Best of all, admission is free!
Link: http://avc.atari-users.net/Events/VGS_files/VGS08-04.txt
Persuasive Games: Video Game Pranks
Software easter eggs arose partly in response to the cold anonymity of the computer, and the first video game easter egg had precisely this problem in mind. In the late 1970s, Atari engineers created titles for the Atari VCS singlehandedly, from concept to completion.
Despite their undeniable role as authors of these games, the company did not publish credits on the box, cartridge, or manual. When Warren Robinett completed the classic graphical adventure Adventure in 1978, he included a hidden room with graphics that read, "Created by Warren Robinett."
The process of discovering the hidden message was complex and unintuitive, although not difficult enough that it couldn't be done.
Atari learned of the prank when a 15 year-old player wrote the company a letter about it. It was never removed from the game, and Atari even used the gag to their own benefit, spinning it as a "secret message" in the first issue of fan magazine Atari Age.
Soon enough, higher-ups embraced the easter egg as a way of deepening players' relationships with their titles. Howard Scott Warshaw's inclusion of his initials in 1982's Yars' Revenge was fully endorsed by management.
Link: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3579/persuasive_games_video_g...
Top 10 Worst Atari 2600 Arcade Ports
To say that the Atari 2600 wasn't able to recreate the arcade experience is something of an understatement -- the most popular home console of the early eighties was grossly out-matched by quarter-munchers. While the Colecovision was earning its reputation for hosting remarkable arcade ports like Donkey Kong and Zaxxon, the 2600 was bringing us the most abominable version of Pac-Man ever seen -- a choice so obvious that we left it off the list. Seriously, that port is now legend. These are the top ten worst Atari 2600 arcade ports ever released. These games are so bad, we wanted to get them out of the way on Monday this week to allow four more days just the cleanse the palette.
Link: http://retro.ign.com/articles/860/860116p1.html
XSC in new release
XSC, the Atari ST and Amiga music player for Mac OS X have been updated to v2.1.
The new version have a few new improvements:
- Universal binary, now runs native on both PowerPC and x86
- Spotlight support. Spotlight can now search inside SNDH-files
- Oscilloscope view
XSC v2.1 requires Mac OS X 10.4 or newer.
Link: http://xsc.atari.org/
From: http://www.atari.org/
Must read blog for Atari fans
Landon Dyer writes about the early days at Atari.
Link: http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/
From: http://www.atari.org/
