NolanB

The early art was from a guy named George Faraco. Later George Opperman (who created the Fuji Logo) became the look and taste of Atari. He really had a great eye and none of us would second guess his genius.

Cant talk about things in too much detail but think about board games and then put an I pad in the middle of the table and everyone around the table has an Iphone that is connected to the iPad through bluetooth or Wifi. It becomes the universal board game videogame delivery platform.

Wow, I didn't know that Pong's sounds came from the video circuits. There's that theory that constraints make for great art, because we are forced to move beyond what's easy and truly engage creatively in what we're doing. Apparently the audio constraints of those early years did just that! Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. I thought of another interesting anecdote. I told Al to use the sound circuitry from Computer space to simulate a crowd clapping. (you do that by creating noise and then shaping the envelope of the sound wave) Al though it was too much trouble and started poking around on the board till he got the right sounds. Genus. Remember the prime clock frequency was 3.58Mhz and the counters counted down for horizontal and vertical sync. So any frequency that is a binary divisor of that number is available down to 60 hz which is frame rate.

the company continues to have installations and we just signed a big deal in China. This could lead to over 100 units in a few years. As the economy recovers I expect other franchise customers to emerge.

Thanks for the appreciation of Video Music it was the only product on my watch that was not profitable. I think we sold less than 100 at full price. Too far ahead of the curve. the initial DNA of the company was coin op. We found that Music and sound if well done increased earnings drastically. The ability to make good sounds with the technology at the time was expensive and less than satisfying in many cases. Pong for example just used signals that were already available from the video drivers. Nolan

I fired one up about a year ago. It depends on who I am with what cart I use. I keep coming back to the early favorites like tank and breakout. Later titles are in my collection but seldom used. Nolan

After my time and I have no Clue.

We plan to give you guys some previews but not for a few months. We have to bake this cake for a while.

It is true. Remember that Atari at the time did not have the cash to fully exploit the 2600. We ended up selling to Warner so we could finance the inventory. We were growing very quickly and were always short on cash. (am I sorry for that mistake ---you bet.)

I hope to start attending as may of the Atari fan groups as possible. My schedule is not set and we have to make sure that Marty is disarmed.

I programmed several games but the one that played the best and was sent around the country was Fox and geese. In the game the fox could move in any direction at twice the speed of the geese there was only one fox. The geese could move up to the right or the left. If a goose was alone the fox could eat it. If there were two geese adjacent he could not. The object was for the fox to either eat all the geese or escape past them. The geese won if they trapped the fox against the upper part of the screen. The number of geese was variable. 3 geese almost always lost 7 geese always won, Nolan

I probably should not do this since there are some Baer lovers and I know that I will do nothing to change that but me and Don Quixote love to tilt at windmills. 1. What did I take from Ralph Baer? I came I saw I signed the book with my own name and never denied it. 2. What did I see that was new or unique. Nothing. I saw a blip moving back and forth. Had I see that before? Yes in 1965 at the University of Utah. 3. Did you see any circuitry---No 4. Did I or any of my people see any of Ralphs Circuitry before the patent suit No we did not and were frankly not interested. 5. Did the demonstration remind me of the ball and paddle game. Yes. It was easy to assign Al to do it as a training project had I not gone to the demo would I have assigned a ball and paddle game to Al? I will never know that one without a back to the future machine.. 6. Did Ralph invent the ping pong type video game. NO there were several digital versions starting in the early 60 and Willy Higgenbotham demonstrated a stand alone unit in 1958. 7. Did Atari pay Magnavox a royalty NO we settled for a paid up license for 100,000 per year for 5 years which was less than our legal costs would have been. In our eyes it was a junk settlement. If it would have been a royalty it would have been less than a half a percent the first year and less in subsequent years. 8. Why do I get irritated with Ralph? He likes to claim that he invented Pong He did not Al Alcorn did most of the work and I helped with some details. It used circuitry that I invented two years prior to the Magnavox demonstration. He saw my game "Touch Me" patented a version and licensed it to Hasbro. Could I have sued him for that, probably did I no. (Do a search on Pong and notice the lack of Computer space which was in the market for a year before the Burlingame show, why??) 9. He claims that I will not appear with him on a public forum. The opposite is true he is the one that cancels. I am happy to have that discussion on the net, on a video conference. any forum. I would love to have Ralph interject on any of the above points. Summation: People should claim their own work and give credit to those upon whose shoulders they stand. I have always credited Steve Russell and the guys at the U of U, Stanford and Mit that did the early video game programming that I played loved and got hooked. Do a search on Pong and you with see Ralph all over them without any credit to Al or Atari. Ask yourself how that happens. The web is great for those that want to self promote. I have been silent for 30 years in an attempt to be above the noise but I think that it is time to get the true record and history on the table. Nolan

BTW Marty I am happy to give your girl friend back, buy you a beer and bandage your hand. I would love to have a conference to understand you bile. If I have somehow wronged you lets talk. Nolan

As I said. This should not be about me or Dabney or any of the players but to Atari the brand and the technology. I would love to have a new thread started where I can answer questions, get feedback and set a clear record of the history of which I am very proud. I think that if there is a civil environment which may be difficult for Marty (I have no idea what I did to him but he is really on a rant against me. He has been at work for several years on my personal profile on Wikipedia some os which was damaging. I don't think we have ever met but without knowing it I must have stolen his girlfriend, spilled is beer or stepped on his hand.) But so be it. I think that Getting as many of the players as possible in conjunction with Curts extensive collection of written documents we should be able to create a much better history than any one persons recollection. It has been over 30 years and we tend to forget or worse try to conform history to our wishes. The more of us commenting will lead to a most accurate record that I for one would be happy to have. Nolan

I just wrote on my facebook wall and talked to Ted on the phone. I can assure you all that Ted wrote his entries and he can authenticate me.

I just got off the phone with Ted and yes his posts are real and he does have a daughter. She was older than mine and ted reminded me of the time they came up to my house and we were all around the pool. It was a senior moment that I forgot it. Ted was a huge help and a good engineer and we worked closely together. He thinks that the slip counter system was his idea and I think it was mine. I think that it was some melding of the two. But I think the real issue is that Dabney and I did Computer space and created the technology that powered the game business for 8 years. Al did most of the Pong work and Dabney was able to get the thing into production. Don't forget we thought of ourselves as a studio designing games for others to manufacture. Neither Ted or I thought the Baer patents were important and at most a distraction. The record shows that no one other than Magnavox used and of his circuitry.

See the previous post regarding the date of the original specification document for Missile Command and the date of Bushnell's departure from Atari. Both dates are on the public record, and both conflict with this account. Are you sure about the coin op version? I dont think I am wrong.

I am going to bed. I am not as much of a night owl as you guys. Post questions an I will try to answer them tomorrow. This has been fun. Dont worry about offending me. Ask hard questions. I am proud of my wins and sad about my failures but will not sugar coat either because both wins and losses are part of your game history and learning from both is important.

At what time did Bushnell help to fine-tune Missile Command? And who were the other members of the development team who can verify this? You got me, I cannot remember who was on the team. Sorry. But I remember the day when missile command was in the conference room with all of us around. It had to be after 1976 since we were on Borreagas avenue.

Okay, let's take the issue of Bushnell's involvement with the creation of Computer Space. Was it Bushnell or Ted Dabney who originally designed the hardware? Or what about Pong: is it true that Bushnell saw Ralph Baer's TV Tennis before giving the game concept to Al Alcorn for implementation? If he did not, has he has claimed over the years, how did his signature end up in the guest book? EDIT: I see you've already posted about Computer Space, although you didn't entirely answer all of what Curt has written. Why does Bushnell claim that he converted his daughter's bedroom into a lab for the development of Computer Space when Ted Dabney has stated that it was his daughter's bedroom that was converted into a lab? Perhaps it is because Ted Dabney does not have a daughter. My daughter was Britta and I put her in with her older sister Alissa. Both Ted and I did the hardware. Ted the analog and me the digital. See my other post about Baer

Missle command was done by a small team and I only helped fine tune it. In no way could I be classed as the inventor.

I would love to talk. But understand my bias. While 3d is interesting visually I am more interested in new game mechanic. Remember all the controversy and flames when I said that the Wii was much more interesting that the PS3 a year before it launched. The controllers were more interesting than the better graphics. Lets be serious the Wii has at best a poor graphics engine but it really kicks ass in new types of game play. Now we have the Iphone and I pat both of which have some really cool things that can be done. Watch this page cause that is where I am going.

While it is my turn to rant. During the Magnavox patent suit Baer came to atari and spent a lot of time in our game room playing our coin op game touch me. A few years later he licensed the game to Hasbro as Simon. He even patented it? Ask him who invented Simon some time.

Ralph Baer was at most a pain in the ass. He is what i like to paint as a patent whore. Just one step from a ambulance chasing attorney. The real important guys upon whose shoulders I stood was Steve Russel from MIT who programmed the PDP1 to play space wars. His program was written in 1963 I played it in 1965 and loved it and it changed my life. I saw the Burlingame demo of the odyssey and thought it was crap and it was. I signed the register with my own name and have never denied it. It did spark the idea that the ping pong idea could be an interesting game if it were done well. Odyssey only did as well as it did because people had played Pong in the bars and they though that was what they were buying. Magnavox discontinued odyssey because of all the returns they got. When we came out with consumer Pong the market was soured. We showed it at the toy show and sold none because of the bad taste that Odyssey gave them. If it hadn't been for Sears the Magnavox Baer disaster may have spoiled the whole market. Atari signed a license to get out of the Magnavox patent suit. I thought and still do think that Baers patents are crap but because we were raising money it was cheaper to settle for a "junk" settlement. We settled for less than it would cost to litigate and it amounted to less than .5% on sales. That is a junk settlement. Ask Ralph about that.

The most silly things that Curt said is that Dabney did the original tech. Dabney was a good hardware engineer and a good friend. He was not a digital engineer. He did the tv interface circutry for Computer space and the sound module. Important things but clearly not patentable. The slip counter architecture that all game were base on until 1978 when the microprocessor took over were my invention and patented