Retro Rogue

That's not what I said, you're cherry picking. I stated most companies left in '83, and the larger more established companies (also) leaving by the end of the year OR making plans to wind down and exit by the beginning of '84. The crash had already occurred, '84 was just a continuation and wind down. That bullet analogy simply doesn't work, '84 was not the completion of the bullet being fired. The bullet (the sudden crash) struck in '82 and the bleed out and death lasted over the next year and a half. Not much different than when the tech bubble (dot-com bubble) burst (crashed) in 2000 and the resultant shakeout of companies lasted for the next two years. If the bulk of the companies leaving as well as the financial ramifications (the crash) had all occurred in '84 you'd be spot on, but that's not how it happened. The crash itself refers to the sudden financial shift and resultant shrinking of the industry, not what's left after the industry has already crashed. That's after the fact, i.e. the already crashed industry.

Unless you're just using it to show it had nothing to do with ET, I'm not sure what else that's intended to show. The '84 claim is wrong, as is again the claim of market instead of industry. For Atari it began to hit by mid '82 and started affecting the industry as a whole towards the end of the year. '83 is when it started building to it's crescendo starting with mass layoffs through the year and with most companies leaving (the bulk of which had part of the large influx the year before) and the larger more established companies leaving by the end of the year or making plans to wind down and exit by the beginning of '84. Again, we have this all mapped out in the book, other researchers in the academic front have shown this as well. People's memories aren't always the best, plus as a programmer you're not always exposed to everything going on with the business end.'84 was really a wrapping up of the US industry crash (which is what it was) with '84 and '85 really being just a period of aftermath. Plenty of product was still available the entire time and was selling, it's just most of the companies that were behind the product were now gone. That's why, as has been discussed in many threads here before, the average person wasn't even aware there had been a crash until they started reading about it during those aftermath years.

Actually no, it had very little to do with the crash or the problems at Atari. Everything that happened to Atari was already starting to happen before ET was even started as a project, and coming to a head when ET was first being released. As former Atari employees like Jerry Jessop say, ET was a symptom not the cause. Even the documentary points this out. It began in 1982. Again no, that's more myth. 1985 was simply a test marketing in New York and one that didn't go that well. Additionally, the market never went away (there was product available for consumers the entire time), it was the US Consumer video game industry that did. People often state market when they mean industry. That's what started reviving, and it was during 1986. The first inklings that was happening started occurring during the summer of '86 where the consumer electronics media saw Nintendo and Atari being on the market with new consoles along with the announcement of Sega's upcoming console as being a sign that it was reviving. By the close of the '86 Christmas season the industry was being trumpeted as having been revived and with Nintendo in the lead.

That's a bit of twisting of the facts there unless I'm misinterpreting what you're trying to say. Even ignoring the 5 million part of the legend, the other half of the legend was that the game was so bad Atari had to dump it in the desert. That's not what happened, and that certainly was not verified by the dig nor by the person who buried these in the first place. This had zero to do with the burial of bad games or a burial of ET. The fact that there were some ETs in the over 60 titles there in no way validates the claim that this was an ET burial. In fact the only thing the dig verified is what was already known and well covered back in 1983. That Atari buried product there in 1983, it came via El Paso, and that product was considered defective. These were all just a wide array of games being returned for store credit as part of the process Atari normally gave retailers to allow them to replace old stock with new.

Well to Moycon's original point of people trying trying to "change the myth," there were actually several different versions floating around for years in the media. That's one of the things I'm tracking in my book (Atari Shock - From Alamogordo Trash to Pop Culture Treasure) is the evolution of these various myths and claims. As far as what I was right about, even then Jim provided far more details than what we were initially able to get through interviews. We weren't able to track down Jim in time for the 2012 release of Business Is Fun, as we had been referred to him just before we got into publishing it. Most of what we had came from the people above him, and now Jim filled in the blanks. Alamogordo was an emptying out of El Paso, but the other side of that is El Paso was the receiving point for games and hardware being returned from stores for credit (i.e. that's usually marked as "defective inventory") plus the regular defective inventory the Service Center hub would work on and refurbish. At first the games and such were being sent back to California for destruction but then Jim got orders it was too costly and to destroy it locally, which is what lead to Alamogordo. I've got an article on all this in the next issue of RETRO for anyone that's interested in learning more and not waiting for the book. I couldn't talk about a lot of this earlier because the documentary producers had asked me to hold off until it aired. There were console and computer parts recovered, but most of the hardware is going to be the stuff from the actual service center area in El Paso (El Paso was both a manufacturing plant and the Service Center headquarters). Most of the actual hardware was being destroyed in California. And when I mean destroyed I mean put into a 1500 horsepower hammermill and smashed to pieces and having it's metals stripped. As mentioned, I have full color pictures of this and the Alamogordo burial that are currently being scanned (600 dpi Tiff) that I'll be including in this book and that we'll be including a few of in the second edition of Business Is Fun. There's also some in the RETRO article. The pictures being scanned include pictures of the concrete cap being poured. And really what was being covered didn't look much different than the area they dug up and the pictures that were shown on the net such as this one: In the 1983 ones that are being covered by the cap, it looks like a ton of Defenders and what looks like Star Raiders or Yars' Revenge (orange-red boxes). There really was no difference between the capped area and the uncapped area, other than Jim wasn't sure how much concrete he'd need for the whole thing and ran out.

Jim Heller, the person who buried everything took pictures of that and another destruction and held onto them all these years. We're in the process of doing high-res scans of all of them for archiving. If the photos you're talking about are in color, those are some of them. He provided them to the film company for their proposal to the city and helped them find the location.

I did no such thing. The photo was on AGH from before I ever got involved, back when Keita and John Hardie were running it in the 90s. They "slapped the AGH logo" on it back in 1998. I simply grabbed it off the AGH server (which has a large collection of such material dating back to '98) to quickly share. In fact, here's the archive.org save that shows the server upload date of Feb 2 1998: https://web.archive.org/web/20031022034928/http://www.atarihq.com/museum/2678/hardware/ Going back to even 2002 on the original 2600 connection site, I don't see where this image even existed on yours: https://web.archive.org/web/20020329060618/http://2600connection.atari.org/ In 2012 I still don't see it: https://web.archive.org/web/20120519080516/http://2600connection.atari.org/index.html Finally when you moved the site to your own URL in 2013 and revamped it, it shows up. https://web.archive.org/web/20130702082236/http://www.2600connection.com/faq/faq.html Regardless, you want to make accusations about me make sure you have the facts.That's conduct I'd expect from Scott, so it figures.

Yes, I have a set of three they tried to get to work on site. Plus Ben Heckendorn documented his attempts at getting his cart working. http://www.benheck.com/atari-landfill-cartridge-resurrection/

They're all corroded, and you can risk blowing it out if you do.

The book I'm working on is on Mattel Electronics itself, which will include the Intellivision for a major portion of it of course. It will be covering the entire history of that division though, from the handhelds to board games to the Intellivision in the same manner as Atari Inc. - Business Is Fun. There's certainly room for a Racing the Beam style book specific to the Intellivision and the development of it's games, or a coffee table "visual book" like you're talking about, I wouldn't see that as competition to this. Just some overlap. As for Fabulous_muller's request to Keith, if it were specifically about coding on the Intellivision and the development of it's games (like Racing The Beam) I could see Keith for it. If it's more about the platform's creation and the hardware, I'm not sure Keith would be the right person beyond just supporting such a book. He came there later in the system's life and as a game developer. You'd need one of the original hardware developers involved. Racing the Beam is only part of the MIT platform series btw, there's also The Future Was Here on the Amiga and Joe Decuir's forthcoming book on the development of the Atari PCS. My book schedule is pretty full as well right now, besides the Mattel Electronics book I have the second edition of Business Is Fun, plus there's Atari Corp. - Business Is War for next year and I'm also working on a book on the Alamogordo burial (a direct account of the actual burial and specifics surrounding it, as well as tracking it's rise in pop culture along the many legends and myths that sprung up around it and concluding with the dig). I'm looking to have the Mattel Electronics book done for early 2016.

That's not an "Atari lipstick" and it's not 2600 specific. It was a product from the late 80s put out for multiple computer systems and consoles, and it's not really "voice control" setup. Already discussed in this thread here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/226000-my-video-about-the-mbx-system-milton-bradley-1983/ Here's the original ad: As for the original question, yes Atari was working with Milton Bradley on a voice control and synthesis module for the 2600 called the 2600 Voice Commander. You can see the original announcement here: http://atariage.com/catalog_page.html?CatalogID=38&currentPage=2 And here is the proto unit: It was ultimately cancelled, and Milton Bradley decided to release it on their own as the MBX system for the TI 99/4a. The only thing that survived from the Atari partnership was Atari's release of the controllers for it as their "Space Age Controller."

Jay Miner and Joe Decuir.

Dave Nutting Associates. Nutting Associates was his brother Bill's company that went out of business by '75. Jay miner and Joe Decuir.

Because while he tends to annoy the hell out of peopl sometimes (including ex-Atari people), he hasn't crossed any of our lines in the sand yet. And we don't ban people based on what goes on here.

That's correct, it's not. Everything that came from the actual dig and is being auctioned has a serial number and certificate of authenticity. The only thing to make it out of the dig that does not are the one PCB and two ROM chips that are now in our possession. These were pulled during the dig and used on site for testing hoping they could get footage of one of the games powering up. They were then packaged up and sent directly to me with the ROM switching cart I had lent to them. Now that does not preclude items originally taken from the dump. Those would be in as good a shape as their owners kept them all this time as they were never crushed. Little known fact: the semis couldn't get close enough to the actual dumping area because of the ground. So they had to manually unload the pallets of games and such and haul them over to the actual dumping area. In the interim, that's when kids started sneaking in and stealing them off the semis and pallets, which is what led Jim to get security and then pour a concrete cap on most of it (he didn't have enough for the full area). Alamogordo had laws against scavenging, which is one of the main reasons he chose the area in the first place. Anyways, if any one of the now grown kids (many of which now work for the city) were selling it then it they might look like this. But then the seller would be from the Alamogordo area then.

Not several sites. The main location was in San Jose, and no it's not someones backyard and no there was no Arizona site. There were several big destruction lots during 1983, originally all through San Jose then sent through El Paso to San Jose, then finally Alamogordo which was the only location that the items weren't chopped up and scrapped. I interviewed Jim Heller at length a while ago and had been sitting on it all this time per the request of the documentary producer. Just finished a nice size article detailing all this (and including pictures that Jim lent to us to produce high res scans from) that'll be in the next issue of RETRO magazine.

No, not really. As I just mentioned, it takes far more resources to even begin to recreate Jaguar hardware whether in hardware or emulation. It makes far more sense from a commercial standpoint to use modern standard hardware and run a multitude of emulators on it (ala AtGames) or to simply recreate these older platforms in single chip format (like we did).

We had a 5200/Atari 8Bit computer Flashback planned next. It coming out or not had nothing to do with a niche market. No, the last three were all emulators (that's what atGames uses). You're talking about the Flashback2 that we designed. It's currently up to the five, AtGames took over after we did the 2+ and went in the spam direction. As for the original question of why no cart, that's already been covered fifteen times over. We gave them the option of a cart slot in the 2 and they didn't want the support nightmare of people trying to plug in 30 year old carts and call they weren't working. So we compromised and built in the ability to hack in a cartridge port (which also voids the warranty). AtGames doesn't really care about that kind of stuff (it's just another product in the lineup and they've already proven they're very unfamiliar with the subject matter). Regarding the Jaguar, the original poster is obviously unfamiliar with the fact the Jaguar is multiprocessor system. AtGames' ARM based emulator chip would have an extremely hard time running an emulator for that, let alone even creating an emulator for it in the first place. There's not even a desktop based emulator that can fully handle or emulate the hardware.

Yup. Jobs set that up in '97. http://www.tuaw.com/2014/05/20/what-ever-became-of-microsofts-150-million-investment-in-apple/

I should also mention I have an article coming out in the next issue of RETRO that fully details everything that lead up to the dumping at Alamogordo and Alamogoro itself from Jim Heller's perspective (including covering all the destruction of consoles and games going on before). I've been sitting on it since last June at the request of Lightbox and some of the people there we worked with on the documentary, as they wanted us to wait until after the documentary was officially released. It also covers the efforts of the archaeological team that was there, and the little known (because it was hidden) on site testing of games that was going on during the dig. Jim also snail mailed us all of his photos and slides from his years at Atari (including the dump) which we're in the process of scanning and archiving, and afterwards he's providing the Alamogordo specific ones to a museum in Alamogordo I believe. Some will be in the next edition of Business Is Fun, plus I'm also adding another book to my "in progress" list that will detail the Alamogordo burial and dig in both historical and pop culture contexts.

As I've mentioned in the past, unfortunately everything RJ states about Amiga's early dealing with Atari Inc. is made up (but told very entertainingly nonetheless). As he states in another video, when it's the choice between the facts and a good story, he'll choose the good story. It started out as an idea between Jay and Joe Decuir as a console/computer hybrid (ala the Atari 400). A 68000 based console with a keyboard on it that would allow developers to code directly on the console, and also support game distribution by floppy disk. It continued in that spirit when Jay joined Hi-Torro and then brought Joe on there as well (he was badge #3 and he was the chipset architect and designed the Angus). As he states, their original concept was for something that would have looked like the Amiga 500 with 128K of DRAM and no GUI OS. In fact he also feels if the video game industry problems hadn't happened people would have been playing Amiga consoles in the second half of the 80s instead of the NES. Instead the problems happened, Amiga sold out to Commodore and they changed the course of it. Someone else mentioned the question about what would have been different if Atari had gotten the Amiga chipset. I'm assuming they mean Atari Inc., because that's who had the deal with Amiga. It was only a licensing deal, it wasn't for any ownership. Amiga was free to continue on with their own system and even license out the technology to others (though Atari did stipulate a list of competitors they were not allowed to license to). The license itself was only for an Atari game console (and coin use), which would be allowed to expand with a keyboard the following spring. Atari Inc. was then allowed to release a full computer on the market in 1986, again specifically constructed because Amiga wanted time on the market first with their own. If the original asker meant Atari Corp., the RBP (the proto of the ST) was *never* planned around any Amiga technology. They didn't even know about the deal with Amiga when they were sold Atari Inc.'s Consumer Division, and in fact it didn't even come with the purchase. It stayed with Warner Communications (as did GCC's contract and several others). His son Leonard discovered the cashed initial check while going through papers in late July. Commodore had already placed an injunction on Shiraz and two other former Commodore engineers claiming theft of trade secrets, which effectively shut down all development for July. With Commodore's announcement of the pending purchase of Amiga and Leonard discovering the check and agreement, Jack negotiated with Warner for the contract in early August, got it and launched a countersuit at Commodore via Amiga. I.E. trying to do to Commodore what they had done to him. As for the original question why the Amiga failed, it was the same reason the ST failed. Both companies had been relegated to niche markets (the ST with musicians and the Amiga with video production) by the 90s as the Wintel format began to take over. Apple isn't a really good comparison to say "Well it didn't happen to everyone." Apple was indeed going down, it just had deeper pockets to last through that fall a bit longer than the others until the tools for it's famous transition were in place. No matter whether people love or hate Steve Jobs, it was that transition to him and the steps he took that saved it. The Apple over the last fifteen or so years has little resemblance to the one that was dying in the early 90s.

That includes the media, lol. I loved how they all started self-editing themselves after the dig to portray that they had always been saying there were hundreds of thousands of games there instead of millions (and that was what the myth had always been as well).

All the games were stock returned from stores.

He also regularly opened his home to fans, journalists, historians, archivists and more. Spending the day (or days) with them, bringing them down to his basement lab to show his latest project, etc. I was one of those fortunate enough to do that, staying there for a week several years ago, and it's a memory I'll always cherish.

I didn't say the quote you're attributing to me. As far as not knowing what went on in the coders' office, that's not true. As stated, we interviewed Tod at length for the book to clear up a lot of these myths that have been repeated over the years. Likewise he also posts and responds on the Atari Museum group on Facebook.