*Atari* 8-bit sightings (movies, videos, and more)

[+Larry]

OK, since people had added some sightings, I just changed the title -- this is now the one.

 

Here's my first sighting, and it's what made me think about this topic. "Videodrome" with James Woods and Debroah (Debra?) Harry. A scene with an 800 computer in a video processing room.

 

-Larry

Edited April 8, 2008 by Larry

[Ross PK]

I remember it too.

 

Try searching 'cameos' if you haven't done already.

[+CharlieChaplin]

hmm,

think I once wrote a topic like "Atari at the movies" or something similar... -Andreas Koch.

[LYNXGUY]

Well IMHO this should prove to be an interesting and fun topic which will make us keep our eyes and ears open for all things ATARI

[+Philsan]

I have found this video featuring Sesame Street's Cookie Monster with an Atari 800:

Edited April 5, 2008 by Philsan

[Ross PK]

800XL, 1050 and a kid playing Pole Position in the movie D.A.R.Y.L

 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vlDYoATH_jI

Edited April 5, 2008 by Ross PK

[+Philsan]

800XL, 1050 and a kid playing Pole Position in the movie D.A.R.Y.L

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vlDYoATH_jI

Have you seen the speed of the game when the second kid plays?

It must be a NTSC computer!

[Ross PK]

Lol.

[Tezz]

An early Jackie Chan movie Police Story includes an 800xl in which also the plot surrounds retrieving 'data' from the Atari which contains vital evidence. Actually also in one of the early Jackie Chan films (I forget which one) you might recognise an Atari game song which David Whitaker recreated after watching the movie!

[peteym5]

800XL, 1050 and a kid playing Pole Position in the movie D.A.R.Y.L

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vlDYoATH_jI

Have you seen the speed of the game when the second kid plays?

It must be a NTSC computer!

 

Well that is Hollywood rewriting the laws of reality. The game cannot accelerate to that speed either on NTSC or PAL. They also inserted some text after the game was completed.

[carmel_andrews]

The 'terminator' Movies.... The 'Eye' view is apparently a 6502 listing of Atari dos (VTOC section)

 

The American series 'Kate and Ali', the son, Chip has an Atari 800

 

One of the 'Airplane' films has a little boy playing an atari (not sure which one) in the ATC (Air Traffic control) centre... also in the first one where the ATC'rs are playing Atari's Basketball whilst cooking something in a microwave

 

In the series Magnum PI (The scene where Tom Sellecks character is laid up in hospital) the little kid opposite him is playing on an atari 600xl and the game defender...a little later in the episode, tom selleck uses the little kids atari to hack into another computer system

 

Apparently one of the superman films (the one with Richard pryor as one of the baddies) has Robert Vaughans Character playing the 5200 version of superman

 

Though it's not a 'movie', as part of the 'Open University' series of programs on BBC2 one of the programs focused on the early 80's computer industry and Atari was predominantly featured (incl. Atari UK's former Marketing Director and the then new owner, Jack Tramiel at the PCW show)

Edited April 7, 2008 by carmel_andrews

[Rybags]

The listings in the early Terminator movies are actually Apple 2 listings.

 

Thanks for the "Airplane" reference - I'd forgotten about this one:

 

In many markets outside the US, the films were called "Flying High".

In the second movie, in this (pretty hilarious) scene where William Shatner appears, you can distinctly hear the SIO sound from an Atari disk drive (read mode):

 

Buck Murdock: We'd better get to the tower, Lieutenant.

Lt. Pervis: We have no tower, sir.

Buck Murdock: No tower?

Lt. Pervis: Just a bridge, sir.

Buck Murdock: Why the hell aren't I notified about these things?

 

ed: found it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHKd80asXy4

Edited April 7, 2008 by Rybags

[Rybags]

I remember an article in Compute! about the sound effects in Tron.

 

It mentioned many of the sounds being done on an Atari and Apple 2.

 

But, I suspect most of them were likely done on the Apple, using an 8-bit DAC addon card.

[carmel_andrews]

Can't remember the name of the film, but it showed and 'out of focus' shot of the Atari 800 running the APX program 'Scram' fairly prominantly throughout the movie

 

In regards to the 'D A R Y L' Movie, I remember a similar trick (i.e an A8 game, in this case 'Space Invaders' being played at Turbo Speed), it wasnt a film but a Childrens TV series called 'Chocky' (or was it Chocky's Children) one of the two, anyway the main male character is seen sitting down with an A800 playing Space Invaders at Turbo Speed

 

There was a film called Paris, Texas...The scene i remember was shot in a shopping centre (or 'Shopping Mall' to you peeps) and some bloke came out of one of the shops there carrying what looked like an Atari 600xl box and a 1050 disk drive also in a box

 

Although it isnt an A8...In the second terminator film, the John Connor Character is seen hacking a security terminal using little more the an Atari Portfolio (or it could have been the DIP version)

Edited April 7, 2008 by carmel_andrews

[doctorclu]

Here was my recent contribution... Donnis Iris featured a 1200xl in the video "Do You Compute"

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=123211

 

I remember the year the 1200 came out one was given to Miss America as a prize. I thought it was funny because 1) I doubted Miss America would know what to do with a computer since computers were not THAT common a household item 2) I laughed because at the time the 1200 was known for being extremely buggy.. the "Edsel of Ataris" as it were.

[+CharlieChaplin]

And err,

- Terminator 2 while John Connor is at the arcade you can see lots of "old" Atari automats (by Atari Games as listed in the credits of the film)...

 

- Knight Rider: there are at least two episodes where KITT shows some A8 graphics (in one episode they are hunting a villain and KITT shows some nice player-missile grafix and a simple street layout on its screen)

 

- Outer Limits: in one episode Aliens invade the earth (you don`t see this!) and some soldiers "hiding" in a nuke-bunker (ready to start the nuclear weapons) get their daily news-bulletin from their general (who in the end appears to be an alien, keeping the soldiers from pressing the buttons)... anyway in their bunker they have 2-3 Atari automats, one being Missile Command, (the others I do not remember)...

 

- Futurama: think you all know this episode don`t you ?!? Its the "what if my life were a videogame?" episode which features somewhat the "war" of nintendo icons/figures vs. atari icons/figures (like Q-Bert, Pacman, Ms Pacman, the Berzerk Robot, the Space Invaders, etc.); in another episode of futurama one can see that Bender`s brain is a 6502...

 

- the Simpsons: in one episode Homer visits the university and tries to create some chaos there... when he enters the room of his comrades the very first time they say (at least in the german synchronization): "Eindringlings-Alarm, Eindringlings-Alarm" which translates to "intruder alert, intruder alert!" and when Homer leaves the room they say "Humanoid darf nicht entkommen" which translates to "humanoid must not escape!", the well known speech-samples from Berzerk...

 

- Startrek 2 or 3: features some A8 noises...

- Cloak & Dagger

- Bladerunner: features a big (electric/lighted) Atari sign

- the Last Starfighter: movie done in co-operation with Atari, the first film to feature more than 100 computer effects; if you look closely at the alien car and some spaceships you can almost recognize the fuji symbol (well, it does not look like JIL, more like JL, the middle thing is missing)...

- Airwolf

- Sesame Street or The Muppets

 

- Superman 3: afaik the computer effects at the end of the film were not done with an A8 nor by Atari... (the same counts for the James Bond movie "Never say never", the war-computer effects were NOT done by Atari)

- and many many more...

 

Afaik there once was a site (homepage) that not only listed Atari sightings in movies and tv series, it also had lots of screenshots of the sightings... -Andreas Koch.

Edited April 7, 2008 by CharlieChaplin

[thomasholzer]

8-bit computer, well there is a full-page ad for Commodore 64 and FDD/monitor in this May 2008 edition of USA PC World magazine (page 2). (Really an HP advert, still looks cool though)

Edited April 7, 2008 by thomasholzer

[Ross PK]

8-bit computer, well there is a full-page ad for Commodore 64 and FDD/monitor in this May 2008 edition of USA PC World magazine (page 2)

 

An ad for the Commodore 64 in a 2008 magazine? I don't understand.

 

Could you shed anymore light on this? Infact could you scan it and post it?

 

Thanks.

[thomasholzer]

- Superman 3: afaik the computer effects at the end of the film were not done with an A8 nor by Atari... (the same counts for the James Bond movie "Never say never", the war-computer effects were NOT done by Atari)

- and many many more...

 

 

Superman III: in late 1982 Paramount approached Atari to provide the video sequence for the forthcoming Superman III movie. Steve Wright (Pele's Soccer) of Atari done the whole work on an Symbolic3600 computer, so yes, it was done by Atari (Interview with Steve Wright in UK Retro Gamer issue 35)

 

Never say Never: Also done by Atari, as mentioned in the end credits.

Edited April 9, 2008 by thomasholzer

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well,

concerning Superman 3, I think I read in a Telematch magazine that the Superman 3 computer effects were NOT done by Atari (corp.) itself... but that information could be wrong of course...

 

concerning Never say never, I have a book about the Bond movies named "Das große James Bond Buch" by Henschel Verlag, Berlin 1995. On page 104 one can read about never say never: "Für die Videospiel-Aufnahmen des elektronischen Kampfes um die Welt, "Domination" genannt, mußten die Akteure simulieren, denn das Holographie-Spiel - geschaffen von der US-Firma "Apogee" unter derem bekannten Leiter John Dykstra - wurde erst später in die Bilder hineinprojeziert".

 

(The german quoting could be translated into something like this "For the videogame-recordings of the electronic fight for the world, named "Domination", the actors had to simulate, because the holographic-game - created by the US firm "Apogee" under their well-known leader John Dykstra - have been projected later into the pictures". Sorry for any inaccurate translation, my mother tongue is german you know...)

 

Besides, my videos of Never say never and Superman 3 do not credit Atari anywhere... (normally I do not read the credits, but here, as well as in Terminator 2, I used slow motion or half playback speed to look for any Atari credits...)

 

-Andreas Koch.

[thomasholzer]

8-bit computer, well there is a full-page ad for Commodore 64 and FDD/monitor in this May 2008 edition of USA PC World magazine (page 2)

 

An ad for the Commodore 64 in a 2008 magazine? I don't understand.

 

Could you shed anymore light on this? Infact could you scan it and post it?

 

Thanks.

 

 

As I said it's really an HP advert, but here's the Commodore bit:

[thomasholzer]

Well,

concerning Superman 3, I think I read in a Telematch magazine that the Superman 3 computer effects were NOT done by Atari (corp.) itself... but that information could be wrong of course...

 

concerning Never say never, I have a book about the Bond movies named "Das große James Bond Buch" by Henschel Verlag, Berlin 1995. On page 104 one can read about never say never: "Für die Videospiel-Aufnahmen des elektronischen Kampfes um die Welt, "Domination" genannt, mußten die Akteure simulieren, denn das Holographie-Spiel - geschaffen von der US-Firma "Apogee" unter derem bekannten Leiter John Dykstra - wurde erst später in die Bilder hineinprojeziert".

 

(The german quoting could be translated into something like this "For the videogame-recordings of the electronic fight for the world, named "Domination", the actors had to simulate, because the holographic-game - created by the US firm "Apogee" under their well-known leader John Dykstra - have been projected later into the pictures". Sorry for any inaccurate translation, my mother tongue is german you know...)

 

Besides, my videos of Never say never and Superman 3 do not credit Atari anywhere... (normally I do not read the credits, but here, as well as in Terminator 2, I used slow motion or half playback speed to look for any Atari credits...)

 

-Andreas Koch.

 

 

I own all issues of TeleMatch, and you make me go in the attic and grab them if you want (As honstley I don't remember what TM writes, but they were very often more wrong than right):

 

But no matter, who should be right? The creator of the Superman III effects, Steve Wright or TM, I reckon you should read Retro Gamer issue 35.

 

 

 

Atari is mentioned in the end credits of the USA/UK versions of Never say Never (maybe for some other work?), maybe the German version credits are cut off or something? We Germans are known to do stupid things like that.

Edited April 7, 2008 by thomasholzer

[guyjin]

A couple of youtube videos with Atari 800 appearances:

 

shows off one of the special features of the Atari 800.

 

has only a brief appearance by it, showing off a cartridge.

 

also, this family brings an atari 1200xl (?) computer home.

Edited April 8, 2008 by guyjin

[S1500]

The listings in the early Terminator movies are actually Apple 2 listings.

 

 

Interesting. I always was fascinated with the Terminator POV, freeze-framing it on the VCR to see if I can make anything out on the on-screen stuff.

 

 

I know there was a movie called "funny money" where an Atari 800 was used + reel-to-reel tape machine to make fake magstripes for credit cards to rob a bank, thru the ATMs.

[+Philsan]

As I said it's really an HP advert, but here's the Commodore bit:

 

I envy Commodore's monitor.

I would have liked an Atari monitor designed for 400/800, XL or XE (XC1411) computers: