RedWolf

There ya go. That's probably what they used then. Overall, I'm still fascinated that they used Apple Lisas. But back to the topic at hand...

Man, I had no idea they used Lisas either. That's very interesting as well. Makes sense that a 68K system would be useful for developing on another 68K system. I wonder if any Atari engineers / R&D people continued to use Macs or Lisas after the Atari ST came out. By the way, I said Macintosh because as far as I know, the Chicago font wasn't available on the Lisa -- it was created by Susan Kare for the Macintosh. And the possibility of an upgraded Lisa -> Macintosh XL is ruled out by the date (the XL launched in '85). Not to say that it's impossible it was drawn on a Lisa, just not likely -- but now I'm just splitting hairs. After all, this is an Atari thread. Great info overall, and excellent work on Curt's part to unearth all this. P.S. I love your websites, Marty. I've been visiting them for a very long time.

Wow. It's very interesting that Robert Alkire drew that on a Macintosh. The fonts are unmistakable. Probably in the original MacPaint, in fact, considering the 1984 date on the document. Interesting to know that Atari employees of any kind were using Macs for work back then. It was before the ST, so I guess they could do it without internal company shame.

Thanks -- it worked! Benj

This may be a really dumb question, but the other day when I was reading threads on AtariAge, it displayed everyone's replies completely after the original post. Today, it only shows the first post in the thread, then a list that says "Posts in this thread" in a tree-like condensed list of replies that only includes the title. How can I change it so I see replies with their post text? Thanks, Benj

That would be wonderful. I'd love to see it.

Great thread, and this method is great news for collectors. I've updated my article on plastics yellowing to include this option (someone mentioned it earlier in this thread). http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/189 --Benj

I can vouch for David here. I have been in close contact with Ralph Baer for the last two years, and even in this short time, he's begun to mix up his numbers and dates more and more. Considering his age, that's perfectly excusable. Otherwise, he's still sharp as a tack. Ultimately, the answer to "who was first with what" is always difficult, and in this case, it always comes down to how you define "video game" or "computer game." So if you want to, you can manipulate the definition however you like to make almost any game fit the bill. You can get more factual about true firsts by using more precise definitions, though. For example, Ralph Baer created the first electronic game to use a standard consumer TV set as a display in 1967 -- and that's a documented fact. But once you go beyond the precise facts into imprecise terminology, things start to get fuzzy: for example, in doing what I stated above, it is almost certain that Baer also created the first electronic game to use a video display. But here, you've already got problems. Some people can probably finagle a weird definition of "video," which was never completely set in stone, but was almost always used -- prior to the 1980s -- to describe electronic signals on a raster-scan CRT display designed to show moving images (ala "television"). So Baer's games were the first to use video displays as they understood them at the time, but even now, it's still not case closed -- as display technology has changed, the conventional use of the term "video" has changed as well. This, in turn, has retroactively broadened the reach of the term "video game" along with it. And so on, and so on. It never really ends. I expressed my thoughts on this topic with more depth in "Video Games Turn Forty" at 1UP.com (published in 2007). You guys might find it interesting (see pages 4 and 5): http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=0&cId=3159462 Also, regarding the origin of the term "video game," I asked Nolan Bushnell this in an interview a few years ago. You can read his answer here: http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/404 Of course, his memory could be completely wrong. Interestingly enough, we also discussed Ralph Baer in that interview. -- Benj