Retro Rogue

Well in the consumer arena, after Atari Corp. closed down there was no more physical trail. No company, buildings, people, etc. to tie Hasbro or Infogrames to anything legitimate. Just a purchase of a brand name and some paper assets. That's why people aren't interested, because it represents people with no actual connection or creative investment coming along and superficially using them like they would anyone else's IP. No different then when Infogrames but out games under a number of different defunct brands, which were nothing more than logos slapped on a box. Curt and I could certainly tell a ton of personal stories and background info about the Infogrames years. But a) The company isn't gone yet. b) we're just not interested, because to us it doesn't have anything to do with what we consider to be real/genuine Atari history. I.E. anything to do with the actual Atari companies. That's why we're sticking to just those. The transfer of IP to Hasbro and Infogrames will be covered very briefly at the end of this second book. But that's about it.

What's annoying is your constant need to ignore facts to promote a rose colored pro-Nintendo agenda in this forum Jess. Your statement is completely false, the Jr. and 7800 were started up again before the NES had even been test marketed in the US. Mike Katz knows when he was approached by Jack, what he was approached for, and when he started it. Likewise the GCC people, hadly in Jack's corner, also verified when he paid for what and about the ongoing talks. There are all kinds of direct interviews with Atari Corp. employees which also illustrated this that we conducted (with the people directly involved in these projects such as Mike), and internal documentation that show this as well. The only biographies/historians that say opposite are usually regurgitating each other or the same one or two previous resources and "stories." I've talked to most of them, from Steve Kent to Frank Cifaldi, and in fact most of us historians, arcivists, and industry biographers are all part of the IGDA Preservation group together. Likewise, the ex-Atari Corp. people that make these "not interested in games" statements are all conveniently ex-Atari Inc. people who came over to Corp., and all are usually very jaded and isolated from what was going on upstairs (Jack wanted Atari Corp. to be a family run company, and the close knit circle was only family and ex-commodore people in this early period). As stated, we used to think the same way until we actually dug further into resources and took the time to get more elaborate resources rather than going by "stories." Nobody is setting out to whitewash or rewrite, and there's just as many further negative things about him we've uncovered as well in the process. However, correcting negatives that were incorrectly identified as such is not a rewrite, any more than discoveries in any other historical field that correct previous misconceptions and expand our understanding automatically are. Your attempts to discredit by creating the notion of us doing something less than genuine, honorable, or valid are what come off as shark like, wrongheaded, and as usual annoying, if not very childish in the above example.

Forgot to mention, my 520ST (early 520ST, though not the TOS on disk version) was also packed with 1st Word and Megaroids.

Inerestingly, my early 520ST came bundled with Megaroids.

The third book is on Atari Games, the other half of the split up Atari Inc. and what many of the ex-Atari employees considered the "original Atari," since Atari was originally a coin company. Most of the coin people we interviewed for the first book continued on business as usual with Atari Games (original PONG tester Jeff Bell was actually the last person out in 2003), and interestingly they have the viewpoint of the Consumer Division being nothing but a side project that got way out of control and nearly brought the company down, since to them Atari was a coin company first. Atari Games lasted from 1984 to 2003, so there's a lot of material to cover besides the Tengen material it encompasses. My next book project is on Mattel Electronics.

Lol, there's no confusion going on Dan. I'd counter and say that you might be very jaded and obviously were not exposed to these elements, and are throwing out guesses to decisions that are not the case, because of that. But at this point I don't think the conversation is going to go further than what it's at now. I noticed you Didn't elaborate on this meeting that was supposed to have occurred with Nintendo during July or August '84. Looking into who in management or hardware would have been involved, so far nobody from Corp. that we're talking to from that time has heard of it - even on the Nintendo side of things. This is part of our process when claims are made, we need to go and vet them, get multiple independent sources for corroboration. I'm almost wondering at this point if its not being confused with GCC's meeting at that time? Unless you're able to provide more names of people that were in the meeting that we can verify with, that's what I'll have to assume. If it's not the case and it actually did happen, it would be great to be able to dig into it further. You also didn't answer my question about your different stated ending dates in this and another thread. In this thread he stated he left by '85 but in another you stated you left and January '86. Is the '86 date simply the ending of your contract date from when you came back to do the game debug? Either way, verifying that you were debugging desert falcon in '85 was helpful and fell in line with all the other information we have including what I was told by Mike Katz. That's a perfect example of the independent verification we seek to vet information we were told by others. Once again they didn't fire anybody, nobody was inherited over, they were hired over. People that weren't hired over were then Warner's responsibility (since they fell under Atari Games Inc.), and let go. As stated, The Tramel's were well aware that their not hiring someone over was akin to letting that person be fired. We verified this with Jack and on the Warner side, and with many of the people we did interview they were let go during that time who all stated they got their final checks from Warner. The second the split occurred, all employees were actually employees of Atari Games Inc., which is what Atari Inc. was immediately renamed to as of the signing. Employees may not have realized this because of how things were handled poorly as I mentioned. People were then interviewed and hired over to Atari Corp. As I stated previously, I understand how many employees including yourself thought they were being interviewed to see whether they were going to be fired or not. Who said anything about just a couple of emails? I brought that up for timeframe. We talked directly to the hardware guys for instance, who were in charge of getting the 2100 Jan project going again too during that time (the 2600 junior project that I mentioned as being in the emails at the beginning of August). It actually occurred. "All that stuff" has come after extensive research into documentation, internal logs, and direct interviews. Never taking a single source as de facto, because as stated one persons view point can be very jaded and based upon what they themselves interpret of what they experienced vs. what was actually going on in other people's minds and agendas. I'll restate again, they certainly intended on bringing computers to the forefront. But abandoning games with a brand like Atari was never the goal. The events I stated regarding the 7800 actually happened. We verified that on the Atari Corporation side, the Warner side, and GCC. Etc., etc.

Yes, they approached some of the game developers to come over via contract to finish games they were working on or stay on to do others. We interviewed these people directly. There were people from all different areas doing new jobs from what they had been doing at Atari Inc. I'm not sure how that's reflective of anything other than they needed to cut down the amount of manpower in all the areas including game development, because as you yourself stated the market appeared in dire straights. It was no different than what Morgan was planning to do, massively cutting down Atari Inc,'s Consumer Division to a few profitable products and the staff to support it. A good bunch of people that were hired over to Corp. from Inc. all left by September. The bulk of the rest left by or during '85. No, it was for the reason I mentioned above. When Jack got the Consumer Division, he also had to take on Atari Inc.'s overall debt as well as part of the agreement. So he had to immediately look at ways to cut costs across the board (many of which wound up being what Morgan was moving towards as well under his planned re-organization). Even then, he was pumping in a lot of his own money into the company as well to keep it afloat. Not at all. People were hired over to Atari Corp., not inherited, though it's a common misconception that we found amongst employees (including yourself). That's what the interviews that Leonard and company did across early July were for, to see who they wanted to hire over to Atari Corp. and who would not be. Those that weren't got their final checks and packages (for those who that applied to) directly from Warner (which we also verified). The whole thing was handled horrible by Warner, and instead of any normal preparation when you plan to split apart a company, it was done on the fly. Many people were left working business as usual through the first half of July without knowing what was actually going on, they thought the company itself had just been purchased and they were simply under new ownership. When Atari Inc. was split on paper, the problem was most of July was spent with Atari Games Inc. (what Atari Inc. was renamed to) and Atari Corp. inhabiting the same buildings and such as before. While they worked on splitting up who was taking what assets and building wise, Leonard ran around with some others interviewing who they wanted to hire over to Corp. Those Consumer Division people that weren't, were summarily dismissed by Warner and paid by them (since these people fell under Atari Games Inc. yet). Jack and Leonard were well aware of the consequences though that by not hiring these people to Atari Corp. they were essentially dooming them to be let go all together. Atari Games Inc. was eventually paired down to just the coin-op division by the end of the year and then had it's majority share holdings sold to NAMCO in early '85 when it was then renamed to Atari Games Corp. You'd be 100% wrong. We directly interviewed those people, one of which was Steve Woita who remembers very vividly when he was over at Coin's main building (where the console programmers had been moved when Gibraltar was closed earlier under Morgan), listening to his Walkman and coding when he was tapped on the shoulder and given the offer to either severance or come over to Corp. as a contractor to finish the games he was working on. He chose the former. Six people chose to come on as contract programmers to finish their games, which they did. Not at all, as stated he still planned on releasing the 7800 and jumping to the Jr. for the 2600 (as internal emails showed), and even was giving interviews to that effect. He had also inherited a massive backstock of consoles and games with the Consumer Division which he fully planned on continuing to use and promote to help keep the company afloat while RBP was under development. But money was a constant issue at the time, considering all the debt he took on. Warner's promise of him being able to recoup mass amounts of money from money owed to Atari Inc. that he tried to collect on also completely fell through. (That's what forced him to re-negotiate terms and get money from Warner in the Fall of '84.) The wrench in the 7800 again was how the GCC project stayed with Warner, which combined with the money problems meant he had no intention at the time to sink mass amounts of money back into a product until things were more stable - he instead wanted a deal. He tried negotiating for better deals with Warner and GCC through Spring of '85 as I mentioned, when he finally capitulated and sent them a check for MARIA development (also verified on the GCC side). You're talking about the ST and games on that computer, what does that have to do with consoles and starting up a console group again? And as stated, that's false on zero interest in games. He paid GCC in Spring '85, paid off the launch titles by early Summer, and then was looking for people to formally start up a console division in that August. I talked to Mike Katz directly on this, it's not something I'm making up. Jack approached a couple different people first and finally got around to him. And Mike stated the only way he'd come on is if he was allowed to make it more of a Consumer Entertainment Electronics division because he had his eye on some laser tag related products he wanted to do as well. Jack agreed, Mike came on in September (and admitted he's still ticked that Jack decided later not to invest money in the laser tag product he wanted them to buy). This is all directly from Mike. I was surprised when I heard the facts the first time as well, because I (along with Curt) were of your viewpoint. But as we dug in and did the active research, we found very different. There's a difference between not interested and not interested in spending a lot of money on it because of those concerns. Your experience and stories you keep recounting seems to be in relation to what was going on (or not) in relation to games for the ST. The original talk of a deal was between Nintendo and Atari Inc., and it was anything but cheap (we have the full demand list). It included Atari being nothing but an OEM re-seller, with Nintendo producing all hardware (console and cartridge) and Atari agreeing to guaranteed amounts. This would not change. Likewise, as stated, he was already involved in negotiations for the 7800 (to which Warner was also applying pressure back for him to pay for the development for because they wanted it released as well). So why would he show interest in the Famicom? Who else was in the meeting btw when you were there for part of it? Jack, Sam and Leonard? Nintendo doing well where? They didn't start doing well in the US until '86. And as stated, restarting the 7800 and a consumer games division was already in play by Summer of '85, had nothing to do with Nintendo. ST was tanking how? It helped bring Atari Corp. into the black by early '86. (Genuinely interested in your thoughts in light of that). BTW, I'm confused. You're saying you were at Apple in '85 but in the other thread you said you left Atari Corp. in 1/86? Did you mean you left as a contractor in January '86? Then when did you actually leave Atari Corp. as a regular employee? It has nothing to do with belief, I'm explaining what was going on at the time that you may not have been aware of. I don't doubt you experienced what you did, but that doesn't automatically make your interpretation of what you experienced accurate either. That's precisely why we go by internal documents, logs, emails, and multiple interviews across the board on a subject. We go for the bigger picture in our research rather than just one person's viewpoint, because a single person is limited by what they were exposed to, or as you even said yourself earlier they can be jaded viewpoints as well. Were the Tramiels interested in bringing computers to the forefront at Atari Corp.? Certainly, and that's the way the consumer industry was headed at that time. Were they looking to completely abandon video games or simply not interested? No, there's no truth in that given everything else that occurred that we now know.

That's actually a common misconception about the Tramiels, but I can understand where people making the transition from Atari Inc. over to Atari Corp. would have thought that given the isolation from the inner circle. However, they did try to get some of the Consumer Division game programmers to stay on in a contract status. Likewise, internal emails show them wanting to start up the 2600 Jr. project again that August '84 and they of course also planned to rely heavily on the inherited back stock of game consoles and games to help keep the company afloat. That's actually not what happened at all (assuming by other people you mean Nintendo and the NES). The original 7800 development deal was with Warner (because GCC's contract was with Warner), not Atari Inc. So it didn't come with the Consumer Division when Jack purchased it and folded it in to TTL to form Atari Corp. Jack tried to negotiate with Warner for it, because he still planned on releasing it (contrary to one popularly told tale that is suspect as to whether it actually happened). GCC had yet to be paid for the development of the MARIA chip and the 10 launch titles they did, so Warner wouldn't let him have it until he paid for those. He was involved in on again and off again negotiations with Warner and GCC from August '84 through April/May of '85, at which time he gave in to Warner and paid GCC to get access tot he 7800. Then he started negotiating for the 10 launch titles, and wrapped up that by August '85, which is when he started looking around the industry for someone to come in and restart a video game division including relaunching the 7800. Long before Nintendo's test marketing in New York even began. He started wooing Mike Katz around late August, and Mike finally agreed to leave Epyx and come on board by late September (not announced until October). At which point Mike started up looking for licensing more titles to put in to development, which is when he first started hearing about Nintendo's console (mainly because a lot of the coin licenses he wanted to get were already locked in. That's what drove him to go back to the computer games industry for licensing of new titles). He launched the 2600 Junior during the Christmas '85 season and the 7800 was reintroduced that early January at CES. All nothing to do with Nintendo, who only had a single poorly received (according to retailers) test marketing in New York. Nintendo had yet to do the slightly better received test marketing in Los Angeles (which didn't occur until February '86). As the NES was slowly moving to test marketing in other cities and backing the previous cities with heavy advertising, the 7800 backstock had already been distributed and in fact had to be rationed through Spring and early Summer until the new manufacturing run was in play because of locations selling out quickly.

Thanks for sharing the pics, love the lit up instruction area on the bezel. As far as differences, it's not just cabinet size but also design. Trak 10 is what Al was brought out of sabbatical to do, redesigning the Gran Trak board to eliminate the National Semiconductor chips and other changes from the original Cyan designed game. There was a much smaller run done of Gran Traks than Trak 10s. Btw, who did the board repair?

It was cancelled by the Tramiels when they took over the assets of the Consumer Division. According to what Leonard told me, they thought it was silly.

It appears some of the posters in the thread are missing a few things the creator of the process has stated elsewhere, leading to some confusion here. 1) He stated that the process may have to be repeated depending on how deep the chemical change that caused original yellowing runs. Retrobrite only targets the surface area, and if it runs any deeper it'll eventually cycle up the non-changed molecules. That is why some of you have had the "reversal" problems (which isn't really a reversal), even when covering it with a protectant. Eventually, when everything cycles out, it will stay. It is also untrue that it's standard that the process only lasts a short while. I have several machines that are the same as when I did the process several years ago. 2) He also stated that oxygen is the culprit in the original chemical process that caused the yellowing, and if you don't seal it then eventually it'll fall victim to the same long term effects that caused it in the first place. However he did not state sealing it with some thick lacquer or car protectant. He stated a flat matte acrylic - the type you'd use for spraying on documents for preservation.

Tried it, this is what I got:

I have a bumper sticker for it as well.

Man, that profile pic goes back.

Mine, also purchased in '86, was the same as tjlazer's. I know mine came with logo as well, but I can't remember if it was on the language disc or a separate logo disc. All I do remember is being horribly disappointed with the ST BASIC environment. Seemed extremely sluggish. Having been used to the 8-bits as well, it also took some getting used to not having BASIC as part of the system interface.

Yes, most of the info for that chapter (including the passage you included a clip from) came directly from the Colleen engineering logbooks we were given from Joe Decuir. (He still has most of his engineering logbooks from his time at Atari). That's also why we decided to go with more of a diary/logbook feel for these kind of chapters. Alan is of course famous for being one of the original 2600 launch programmers and later co-founder of Activision.

Not what's meant by pre-console. Anyways I remember when those projected light gun type games were popular in late 70s. I had the Star Wars one: http://collectibles.about.com/od/priceentertain/ig/Star-Wars-Pictures-and-Prices/Star-Wars-X-Wing-Target-Game.htm

We never manufactured any with LEDs in it. Also, be careful it's not one of the pirate FB2s released those consoles have a high failure rate and the games don't work right.

Well, with the news out we can finally mention what we were describing as pure chaos and a sleazy "clusterfuck." Infogrames/Atari SA (remember, all the "Atari companies" are one) after seeing the success of auctioning off Battlezone on it's own has now decided to do that WITH EVERYTHING. ALL THE CLASSIC IP. That's right, unless someone manages to pick up a sizable amount of the individual assets plus the separately auctioned Atari brand name, what was left of the Atari legacy is now finished. Way to kick Atari fans in the ass on the way out the door. http://www.law360.co...r-extra-60-days

It depends if you use the included controllers or a set of normal 2600 paddles (which of course also work on it as well). Normal paddles are of course two to a port.

There were never millions produced and I they were never for sale, there was a limited number manufactured (125) for a promo given directly to execs of the soda company. Very likely if it turns out that more were produced than sold. However, they probably won't be very usable at this stage. Stardust, what are you talking about? They were never sold or sent for mass production, there was just a limited engineering prototype run (these are runs that were done at Atari to use for evaluation and promotion) of both the computers and the 1090. And the dumping in Alamogordo was done *while* these were still in development, not after. This is again how these wild rumors start. All the working protos of the 1400s and 1450s either stayed with employees (which is how collectors have them today), and several were gotten rid of locally at the Atari company store and later after Tramiel found several, at Federated (though the badges were removed). And again, these were all from the limited run of engineering/promo protos. Likewise for the 1090s, of which an extremely (as in handful) were produced for engineers and only a couple in it's full format for use at trade shows and promo shots. As with the 1450, the 1090 was still in development during '84 when Atari inc. collapsed. In fact, Joe Decuir was back at Atari working on the 1090's card protos when the collapse happened.

It's most likely that someone in Mexico picked one up from Japan. The 2800s were specifically for the Japanese market.

My misunderstanding.

Schell's is closed. http://www.schells.com/

It was Nolan and Ted, and the story was it had been reserved for another company in California by a law firm. Not sure where the beekeeping idea came from, maybe you're confusing that with the candlemaker company which also was based off of confusion (their original location had a candle manufacturer next door). The reservation by the other company never happened, (and in fact it's suspect because the full reservation Nolan and Ted were trying was for Syzygy Co., not just "Syzygy" which was already in use at the time by several business actually). Because it was never copyrighted or trademarked before, and because Ted is a co-founder of the new Syzygy Co. I'm not sure where you got that from, there's already several well discussed games in development to use the XM's capabilities. Take a look through the 7800 forum. Thanks, which is why when we got done doing the modern version of the 2600 controllers for the Flashback 2, we thought they'd be perfect to based a USB controller around.