Retro Rogue

That in no way disagrees with what I stated. Spielberg gave an initial idea, but ultimately left the creativity up to Howard as he had with Raiders, which is why he handpicked Howard. Howard spent two days doing the basic design for E.T. then had a meeting with Spielberg, Ray Kassar, Skip Paul, and Lyle Rains (who was working on the coin-op version), at which time Spielberg approved the concept and it moved on. Just as with Raiders, he kept checking in during the process to see how things were progressing and saw the final game which he gave his approval to as well. What we have directly came from Howard (multiple phone interviews, email, skype, and in person when we were out there by him last year), as well as his manager, and Ray Kassar, and internal documentation. There are no disagreements. Not what happened at all. Pac-Man had already started tanking by the Summer of '82, and we have the production memo to stop producing Pac-Man and stop using it as a pack-in before E.T. was even released. It was simply a nail, which took on more significance in hindsight because of it's timing.

That's correct. I clearly stated it wasn't a mass ET dump, it was a clearing out of stock from the El Passo manufacturing plant as it switched over to automation and a change in focus to hardware (cartridge manufacturing was moving to China). It was a full spectrum of game titles, consoles, and hardware. That's what we have in the book, and that's what I've posted here.

Bystanders watching the dumping stated they saw E.T., Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, consoles and computers, and kids raiding it (many of them who still live there today as adults) said they took games like E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, Defender, and Bezerk. That's a pretty good listing of the games that would have been recently manufactured at El Passo during the Summer of '83, along with the hardware they were manufacturing there as well.

Dan, I think you'll find if you look through other posts of mine in this and other threads, I have certainly been promoting to people the fact that there was a dual management. I.E. Warner management would often swoop in and make decisions for Atari - often against decisions Atari management had already made. This did not start to happen more until the early 80s though. The direct liaison from Warner who was in charge of overseeing Atari was Manny as stated. Ross had more of a hands off approach. That stopped when Ray was let go and Ross started even going around Manny to make direct decisions - which was why Manny wound up being let go almost immediately after the splitting up of the company. I wouldn't call Ray and his team "Yes men" though I admit some at Atari may have seen it that way. From our interviews with him (and other Atari management as well as supporting documentation) to get to the bottom of things, he sincerely tried to lead Atari in the best way he thought possible and it worked for a time. The problem was when Ray started building up more and more isolation with management from the rest of the company and handing more and more power over to marketing - which he himself admits. (Owen Rubin had some funny stories about that as well). As you just mentioned, you joined the company in '83 - already well into the downfall and the start of the clamping down by Warner. Nolan has always been an exceptional start-up guy, which is what his forte is. Running large corporations though takes a different skill set, and that's why shareholders of most growing startups require some sort of management be put in place. Nolan even realized this himself early on, leaving Atari's presidency not long after Ted was forced out and just remaining as chairman of the board, having Dr. John Wakefield and a number of other people brought in to run things. They almost ran Atari in the ground, causing huge financial problems that ultimately lead to seeking out investors and then the sale of Atari to Warner. Which shows you have to choose the right people to be at the helm. Warner were the right people for a time. It was under them that Atari became the large company you remember and that had the glory years of the brand. As for why everything would be Warner-Warner-Warner instead of Nolan by that time, remember that Nolan had already been gone by late '78 and even then he had already "checked out" after the sale to Warner, preferring to focus on Chuck E. Cheese and sailing (and I emphasize sailing, because even then it was Gene Landrum who led the design and building of the Chuck E. Cheese concept and first location) - which even he has admitted. By the late 70s, the creation and oversight of game creation was coming directly from the people in Coin and their regular game concept meetings that they kept logs of in the cherished "game ideas" book (I say coin, because Consumer and the fledgling 2600 programming group were largely taking their lead from Coin at that point). Al Alcorn famously recounts in Steve Kent's "Ultimate History of Videogames" how the few times Nolan tried to get involved (while he was there), he'd have to manage Nolan's involvement to try and not interfere. We have most of this in the book as well. Likewise, when you joined in April '83 there may have been an appearance of being awash in money, but that wasn't the case according to the financials and goings on. The dam had just burst that December '82 and was already sincerely going downhill, enough so that Ross and Manny had a meeting with Ray that January who was expecting to be fired, but he survived that for another 6 months (others were not so fortunate and layoffs were done that January). Additionally, please understand - in no way did we just go by what one person said. In every way possible we used a multitude of cross-referencing and vetting, including direct documentation, logs, the internal email system (which Curt still has an archive of), and having others corroborate a story or material without leading them to. That's for example, why we didn't include one story where Ray talked about being in negotiations with Steve Jobs to buy Apple in '79 and Steve Ross nixing it (Warner would have had to of funded the purchase). We couldn't find anyone else or any supporting evidence to corroborate it.

That's actually the perspective of the Atari management we interviewed regarding the whole thing, including Ray. After Ray was let go, certainly. Before that it was all Manny on the Warner side. He was the Warner liaison in charge of overseeing Atari. And No, Kassar tried to do his own thing. In the early days he succeeded, by the early 80s though not so much. He tried to push back on the demand the game be ready for the Christmas shopping season, but Ross wouldn't listen. And Howard was put on it at the specific request of Spielberg, because of the job he did on Raiders, which Spielberg loved. We have the whole story in the book, having talked directly to Howard, Ray, Manny, and George Kiss (Howard's supervisor). Likewise we tracked production numbers, returns, etc. via the production manager's logs that were loaned to us. ET was such a small part of the problem, because the problem was already in full swing before ET was even started. It just happened to reach it's crescendo around the release of ET, which is why it's become such a symbol. ET was released Thanksgiving weekend of '82 and was started in late July '82 (the deal was done by Ross in early July). Even accounting for that, the number in use would have been at least 8-10 million. According to sales figures another million units were sold that '82 Christmas season alone. Five million was not over production based on those numbers of past, present, and future sales.And that's not even accounting for the fact of competing consoles having 2600 adapters and further opening up 2600 cart sales opportunities. 5 million units would have been about half of the installed base, ignoring the million units sold that Christmas and the additional platforms opening up. Certainly 110%, 100%, or 90% would have been complete stupidity. I don't think that was the case here. The stupidity in E.T. was purely in Ross agreeing to the short dev time and guaranteed royalties to Spielberg regardless of the number sold. If Howard would have been giving the 9 months he had to do Raiders, I think it would have been a much better scenario all around. Not a problem, glad you enjoy the material. You're talking like you have no familiarity with what happened. Spielberg was in on the whole process, he handpicked Howard, and he was shown the game several times and loved it, enough to give it final approval. Howard was not given "creative license," He was given about a week to try and design an entire game and in the process was able to do some innovative console firsts like a full title screen and cut scenes. That's an easy answer. Nolan gave his stamp of approval to the horrible recent Star Radiers and Yars Revenge remakes when he was on the board as an adviser to Atari SA. We were actually asked to come in and try save both (having consulted with them as well), but it was too late to do any of the major changes we advised.

A one word answer was because it was a yes or no question. Regardless, I know because I know Howard well enough to know that's not true. But just in case that wasn't good enough, I also just asked him again outright: Fishy?!?! Holy Mackerel! No, I was never related to anyone from Warner. I wouldn't have minded being an heir to any of the execs there, though. But that is totally baseless. There are a lot of rumors floating around lately. Thanks for checking in on this one. Chat Conversation End

No.

I've been seing that and all sorts of nonsense about possible prototypes. First off, Curt has the early Mindlink prototype already. Second, there was no development done at El Passo, it was just a manufacturing plant. Atari didn't. Warner head Steve Ross did. And he did it solely because he wanted to woo Spielberg over to Warner for his movies. Ross giving Spielberg whatever he wanted (guaranteed release by Christmas, guaranteed royalties, etc.) is what lead to all the issues. A myth. There were not more ETs made than there were consoles, by the end of the Christmas '82 season there were about 12 million VCS consoles in homes. We're actually going to be putting up an article on the book site regarding this, including showing sources.

And that wink is for? There's no shenanigans going on. We have the location, we went and visited it ourselves while we were there to verify it does exist, and we promised the several people who gave us the location (each independent of the other, we wanted zero cross-contamination) that we wouldn't publish it. Last thing the local Silicon Valley businesses want is people showing up digging through the no longer in use landfill right next to them. Not a conspiracy, and certainly not a big deal. They routinely dumped stock and parts, including in the foundation of some of the many many buildings they had as they'd build them.

It was a wide selection of carts and hardware (consoles and computers). It was not an "E.T. Dump." For those interested: Debunking the Myth of the Buried Atari E.T. Cartridges http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2419949,00.asp

The New York Times article does not mention ET. Likewise, it states carts and hardware. As stated, it was simply a clearing out of the El Passo manufacturing plant as it transitioned to automated manufacturing and a focus on hardware. There was a simultaneous downsizing of employees there as well. That was also reported in newspapers at the time, none of which reported ET though. There was one that used ET in the headline but then went on to explain it as a play on "Extra-territorial" to signify the dumping being one state over from the actual plant. Many of those kids are adults living there today btw, and they still have those carts they owned and showed them recently as well to the Alamogordo reporter I talked to. None of them were ET. It was not dumping of overstock (i.e. warehouses being cleared out), El Passo was not a warehouse it was a manufacturing plant. One of the main ones in fact until Atari started up it's Taiwan and then mainland China manufacturing operations. That's actually why El Passo was being converted over, as cart manufacturing was moving over to China. There seems to be two different stories people are being confused with when trying to say what did and didn't happen. Story A is that the dump was a mass dumping of ET carts. This is false. Story B is to whether or not there was an actual dumping of anything period. This is true, there was. BTW, in case people are interested: Debunking the Myth of the Buried Atari E.T. Cartridges http://www.pcmag.com...,2419949,00.asp

?? What worker that claimed that? If you mean the garbage man in the latest interview, he said no such thing. He said he knew where the dumping site was, and that it was comprised of hardware and games including ET. Same thing we stated. Nothing about an ET dump. Once again, Alamogordo is not an ET dump. It was simply a clearing out of the Texas manufacturing plant as it became automated and shifted emphasis away from game manufacturing to hardware manufacturing. It consists of console and computer hardware and a swath of their in production games at the time - everything from Raiders to Pac-Man to Combat to ET. It was in no way an ET dump though.

No, the hardware ownership is split. This current Atari would own any remaining patents and copyrights for console and computer hardware. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment owns any remaining patents on the arcade hardware. All the patents for the original Atari Inc. would have expired by now. Any remaining patents would be from under Atari Corporation and Atari Games. As for hardware copyrights and trademarks, the current Atari Inc. continued to update their copyrights for hardware names - such as Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, etc.

This has already been cleared up. There's no mystery.

This is just getting silly already. As was stated earlier in this thread and in other threads on here, it was *not* an E.T. dump. It was simply a clearing out of the Texas plant as it switched over to automation and switched focus from mainly game manufacturing to mainly hardware. Dumped stock was a wide assortment of games and hardware (console and computer).

I say we start a kickstarter for a combination ET Dump/Swordquest Sword commemorative plate in the style of those Franklin mint plates:

And I just did...

If they seem confused to you, it's because they were attempting to respond to a post that seemed very confused. Wow, really? "I've never said Alamogordo is an ET dump" isn't clear enough as a no answer?

Please Moycon, not again. It's like we're reading two completely different things or you're not actually reading what I just said. Which is what I just said as well. " It's the article that's quoting him that's alluding to it being an E.T. dump, and it's a lot of the PR surrounding this that is." Where on earth are you pulling that from? I've never said Alamogordo is an ET dump, even in the other thread. In fact I've been trying to fight that nonsense and tell what it actually was: "the dump there was simply a clearing out of Atari's Texas manufacturing plant as it transitioned to automated production methods and a focus on personal computer manufacturing. It had previously been one of the main plants for manufacturing of game cartridges and other hardware, and game manufacturing was being moved overseas to China. As part of the transition the unused stock of a group of titles (not just E.T.), console parts and computer parts from that plant were all dumped there in New Mexico." A) The quote I was referring to in my previous post was the garbage man's quote that was in the current article. B) What you repeated was not Ray's quote, it was a quote of me stating that Ray's quote on 3.5 out of 5 million returned was correct (via the documentation we have) and then I stated the mass burial of overstock from all of Atari's warehouses across the country was in Sunnyvale (again, not specifically an ET dump, it was a lot of titles - including ET - and hardware). Leonard Tramiel also verified that they were told about the dumping of overstock, which included all the ET overstock, during the transition in July when they were working with Atari and Warner executives those first few weeks.

I think you're confusing two different things. What the article is alluding to and what he actually states in the quote. His statement backs exactly what we talked about in the other thread. He in no way states it was an E.T. dump, he describes exactly what was reported in the newspaper back then as well. That it was a lot of hardware and a variety of games that was dumped there. It's the article that's quoting him that's alluding to it being an E.T. dump, and it's a lot of the PR surrounding this that is. And it's quite frustrating to see it. As I stated before, the dump there was simply a clearing out of Atari's Texas manufacturing plant as it transitioned to automated production methods and a focus on personal computer manufacturing. It had previously been one of the main plants for manufacturing of game cartridges and other hardware, and game manufacturing was being moved overseas to China. As part of the transition the unused stock of a group of titles (not just E.T.), console parts and computer parts from that plant were all dumped there in New Mexico. And that's exactly what he's stating he remembers part of dumping: "It was the game systems, actually the game systems themselves it was actual cartridges and games, ET and so on"

It's a non-event publicity stunt. The dumping was simply a clearing out of stock from the Texas plant as it moved over to automated manufacturing and game manufacturing moved to China. What they'll find are parts of consoles, computers, and an assortment of game cartridges. Stardust - there would be no protos, there was no programming done in Texas. Atari's game design was back in Sunnyvale.

Apparently the concept of writing something while other people are adding additional posts is escaping you. Nope, there was no thought, that's what they had directly planned out together. See my other post. Backed up by the engineering logs at the time as well. Likewise, as stated and shown in the other sources, the Lorraine itself started as a game console. Now you're trying to speak for Jay and read a lot into a single statement. Completely false. As stated, the original concept was for a game console with a keyboard on it, whereby it could function as both a console for players and for the developers as a regular computer. That's exactly what that's backing up. Joe also specifically stated their original vision was something almost exactly like what Amiga eventually released as the Amiga 500. Why, oh why to I get drawn in to these arguments with armchair website researchers? Outta here.

No, you're reading things into that. A console is a computer and vice versa. We have the full story of what they proposed to Ray Kassar at Atari, and what they (Jay and Joe) wanted to do was research into a 68000 based design to build a hybrid console/computer. I.E. a console with a keyboard on it so they developers could directly code on the console (something that was an issue at the time since typically the console games were coded on mainframes and transferred over via eprom burning for testing on the actual thing. Actually, Jay has incorrectly stated things in interviews in the past. Like when he recounted RJ Mical's version of the Atari/Amiga lawsuit when it was entirely incorrect. Everybody has to be checked and verified, you can't go by face value. Multiple sources, and hopefully engineering logs and other documents.

They are, actually. The sense you were using them is confusing with the specific term "general purpose computer." A state machine computer is not any less of a computer than a general purpose or "stored program" computer (which is what Von Neumann architecture was describing). Any more than analog computers (also a form of state machine) are not computers either. Both have always been under that category. In fact, even general purpose computers are described as state machines (though not finite state machines). Here's a bit of Al Alcorn describing the TTL based state machines they used to design at Atari. It's not up, it's a direct interview with Joe. Though you can pretty much google "jay miner amiga started as game console" and a ton of interviews, pages, and such come up regarding that. There's also books like this and this.

I'm not sure where you get the exception for PONG and other dedicated systems. Those and early coin-ops are based around what's called a "state machine computer," where instead of a general purpose computer they are based on a single purpose, i.e. specific algorithms. Which also fits the "optimized for playing games" singularity. No, it had nothing to do with an overstock of XE computer parts or the NES. Per direct talks with Michael Katz (head of the Electronic Entertainment Division) and Leonard Tramiel, the XE Game System was released in the same relationship as the 5200 was to the 2600. It was specifically planned and marketed as a higher end GAME CONSOLE to the mid level 7800. In fact Leonard's words verbatim are "We wanted to do the 5200 done right." They wanted to do a game console that could expand in to a legitimate computer. And yes, it was intended as an upgrade path for those who wanted to have a game console that could expand in to a computer - which is also why the computer expansion for the 7800 was never pursued further and the expansion port wiped out. Certainly they had plenty of 8-bit software stock to use up, but Katz was against the XEGS being released because (in his words) it didn't have any "hot" titles to launch it with. That's backwards. According to Joe Decuir (Jay's protege, close friend and badge #3 at Amiga, designer of the system bus and Angus chip), it was always intended to be a console that you could directly program on. The two of them came up with the idea back Atari and it was Jay who pursued it via Hi-Torro/Amiga and then brought Joe in again as a contractor. It was later changed from a console to a personal computer. It wasn't, Youki is mistaken or confusing things. We have it all documented in the book, direct from Cyan and Atari engineering logs. The part he may be confusing is that the computer project grew out of the original project to do a next generation game console. Originally they looked at ways to expand the 2600's TIA hardware into more of a TV terminal format, and then that ended and it was decided to devise a completely new chipset to be used in both a game console and personal computer (and technically for coin as well though that changed once it was realized home TV output was more constrained than what was needed for coin). The game console is what was changed into the Atari 400 the last minute (it was a game console the entire time of development) and the computer, the Atari 800, was always intended and designed as a high end personal computer. It was certainly not a game console with computer stuff added on, and only the 400 was originally a game console.