Asking Permission for Homebrews?

[Asking Permission for Homebrews?]

For registered trademarks you can search the US Federal registered trademarks database, click the "Trademark search" link. Works pretty darn good. But popular trademarks like "Atari" get more complex because there are many variations, But even then it doesn't take long to see the "Atari" trademark is owned and is active.

 

That's for a registered trademarks were people send in a form every few years along with a fee to protect their property. They can use the ® symbol for registered trademarks.

 

Common law trademarks use the ™ symbol. Anyone can use that, no registration, no fees. As long as you are actively using that trademark, assuming it doesn't infringe on another person's property, you will own that trademark. However, you must defend it. Registering the trademark just gives you more leverage in court.

 

Copyright would apply to the computer code. It is similar to trademark in that you do not have to register anything. You don't even have to use a © symbol, but that makes it a lot easier to defend. A copyright can be registered but that's mainly a way to show a specific date of copyright. Like if I write a game I have an automatic copyright. But if someone got my game, removed my copyright notice and started passing it around the web I'd have a harder time proving which came first, my copyrighted version or the bootlegged copy. If I sent in a registered copy of the game I'd have a better claim as long as that happened before the bootleg appeared.

 

The other big difference is that copyrights last a really long time, 70+ years I think, maybe 150+. And the owner doesn't have to do anything to keep their rights. So every video game computer code is owned by the author unless explicitly placed into the public domain by them. Even taking small segments of code would be stealing. Whether or not you get caught, or whether or not the owner cares is a different matter. If I steal your lawn furniture no one may catch me, but it's still stealing. Or the owner may have seen me stealing the furniture but not care because it was crappy. Still stealing. If I knock on the owner's door and get permission it's not stealing.

 

Example

I've been able to trade mark VentureVision™ because the registered trademark was abandoned almost 30 years ago and hasn't been used actively since. Same with Rescue Terra I™. However I can't use any of the computer code inside Rescue Terra I™ because that's copyrighted and still protected, but the name was available for trademark.

 

Respect vs Law

I've made my living creating software, so I have a very different perspective from people who think companies or people who defend their ownership are evil greedy bastards. Thieves generally have that opinion but evil greedy bastards are often trying to protect fans as well as their own rights because they're connected. No artist can afford to create over a lifetime if everything they do is stolen. Real fans understand this.

 

If a person ever wants to work in any creative field I can tell you any type of plagiarism is not looked at favorably. There's a kind of creative peaking order to things:

 

- The more original the piece the more highly regarded because you're really taking a chance.

 

- Game inspired by another game. Virtually all games are inspired by other game, but there are lines that shouldn't be crossed.

 

- Port. Can be a great port, but regarded as a programming feat, not a very creative endeavor. Little to do with game design.

 

- Rip off. Can range from the really bad like ripping off a game to sell and cash in on another person's effort, to the not so bad fan tribute in which the author might be flattered. I think honesty goes a long way. Ripping someone off and not at least giving them credit is pretty low.

 

- Hack. Has lots of meanings, but in this context to me this means using another person's code and changing a few things. This can also range from completely dishonest to the more honest fan giving away a hack with more levels.

 

Not a clear and certain topic. Each case is different. Some care should be exercised imo because once whatever you do will be out there and you can't take it back. Forget about court, consider your reputation, and what you will think of yourself.

[Atari Mindlink controller]

Looks like maybe the same, or smaller version, Tan Le developed. There are a few TED type talks on it. Here's one.

[Atari Mindlink controller]

I was only involved with the Mindlink for a couple of weeks. I didn't hear anything about it being used for anything other than playing on the 2600. I certainly could have been adopted to other devices but software would have to be developed specifically for the device.

[Atari Mindlink controller]

I used it during development of Telepathy and thought it worked very well, but took time to get good with.

 

The unit I used had a sensitivity dial on it and that determined how much you had to tense your forehead/eyebows muscles. At first it could be a real mess for some people. But with a little thinking and practice you could turn down the sensitivity so much that you could play a game without other people being able to see any movement at all. It seemed like you were controlling the game with your mind. Actually got to be relaxing to just sit there playing a game with no movement, almost like yoga.

 

http://youtu.be/6mUooo5Z8b0

 

The sensitivity dial was kind of a crude controller. The game itself did/could/should do most of the adjusting. For example in Telepahty I start out with a simple screen, kind of like Kaboom where gold nuggets come toward you in a pattern. I always start the nuggets on the right side of the screen so I can track what kind of max values I read. That give a basis for what "max" is. And that can be adjusted over and over again.

 

http://youtu.be/BvAxvQeOFsw

 

With only a value that ranged from near 0 to some higher number there was no up, down, left, right or fire button. So the game had to be designed accordingly. For example in the mine if you walk over a hole gravity can move you down. In the underground river water flow would move you forward if you swam left or right and lined up with an opening.

 

In the mine you fall down into the shaft to rescue a hurt miner. When you hit a wall and keep walking into the wall the logic changes to mean "climb up" the wall.

 

So even though you can only move left or right the player on screen can be controlled to move up and down too.

 

I enjoyed using it a great deal. But I probably logged about 100 hours of use. My muscles were a bit tired the first couple of hours, but then I figured out it didn't take hardly any movement at all.

 

At first people would have basically 2 moves, 0 and max. That would cause the player to move across the screen and you could kind of play Telepathy that way. That could be exhausting because to get max they'd tense their face a lot. But when you calmed down and actually controlled the player in the middle of the screen, it was fun and almost no effort.

 

The biggest problem I remember is when we focus tested the unit (at least this was the only focus test I saw) the unit had an RF transmitter which didn't work in the focus test room because of the fluorescent lights. The unit I'd been using for development didn't have a RF transmitter, it was wired directly into the 2600. The focus testing had to be done with the lights off. I assume the RF problem could have been fixed, but at the time it was a serious issue.

 

I thought it was a pretty amazing piece of engineering. I remember it always working well.

 

I'm not sure the actual reason the project was scraped was because people got headaches or not. That's the story I've read and is on Wikipedia. I think that could be more myth than true. Peoples' hands also got tired when first using a joystick but that didn't stop joysticks from being released. People learn you don't have to hold them so tight or jam the stick. I think there were probably several factors stopped the Minlink. Cost vs profit, low adoption rate, specialized games required, and it's not like the Mindlink was a better controller by any means. It was just unique. That's a tough business for a company selling into the mass market. Plus Atari was just about out of business by the time the Mindlink would have come out.

 

But the headache thing sounds better.

[I took a drive down Borregas Ave]

Thanks. That's more the way I remember it. The link I posted to the lease was the wrong address, sorry.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

Anthony, thanks. And Robert Weatherby was in our group, how could I not remember that.

[I took a drive down Borregas Ave]

Pictures please.

 

I don't remember a lot of signs saying Atari, or at least they didn't stand out. I think if I drove by I might not have even noticed. It didn't have a feeling of being a campus to me. The Apple campus was the same type of deal but they had the full color Apple logo which really stood out.

 

The world changed though when you went into a building. And the deeper you went the stranger it got. Like 1265 Borregas had a private "cafeteria" only for executives. Waiters, linen tablecloths, menu as good as any restaurant within 20 miles. Very surreal. They could enjoy a nice meal while figuring out their next big plan and looking down at employees standing in line at the roach coach in the parking lot. It was my last chance to see a 18th century style of management.

 

Lease info for 1265 Borregas. I remember it being a darker color and the entrance a different shape. But my memory is crap.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

Wife just looked at the photo of me..."you look better without hair". Now that's a wife!

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

Hi Chris! How are you doing?

 

I was reading A history of Atari Corp by Michael Current which said you didn't leave Atari until December of 1984? My memory is crap, were you at Atari Corp or Atari Games?

 

I'm also very confused on whether our group was in the home computer division or coin op?

 

I've got maybe one photo from back then so thanks for posting. Do you remember who's in the photos? First one is that Brad Fuller?

 

I found some YouTube videos that I think are by Jim Morris, member name "wolfmanjm". He's working on a pretty cool delta printer that I'd never seen before, if that's him.

 

I've been trying to remember the name of the...I think Product Manager...a close friend of your's that hung out with us. A Brit and I think he has the product manager on Mindlink at the end. I keep thinking Peter? Great guy.

 

It would be cool to hear what you saw behind the curtain. I'm guessing I didn't know 99% of what was actually going on. Statute of limitations is probably over for most stuff. Like when we moved to the coin-op warehouse I assume now was some pretty clever saving of our butts. I'll bet you also saved my ass in the Atari Corp take over. I remember having a short interviewed with them, in your office I think, but there had to be more to it.

 

Past few weeks I been researching all this old stuff and slowing some memories have come back. I thought it was pretty cool working for you back then but must say, after experiencing many other companies and bosses, you're at the top of my list of best people to have worked for.

[Atari's Landfill Adventures, I now have the proof it's true.]

That's not accurate. There were two approvals by Spielberg. First was the concept presentation, which Spielberg approved after his suggestion of possibly doing a pac-man style game was shot down. Second was after the game was finished, where he came in to literally play it and try it out, giving his approval. He did the same thing for Raiders as well.

I don't think judging people's states of mind as being accurate or not is wise. The Warshaw interview is Warshaw's perspective, one side of the story. It's interesting and informative, but it is what it is.

 

From my perspective if a client looked at a game pitch and made any kind of reference to another type of game type that would be a huge red flag. Huge. I would have to explore what the client was thinking, assuming you want the client involved. That Warshaw dismissed Spielberg's suggestion entirely, apparently without cause of any kind, and Spielberg didn't push back doesn't mean Spielberg was OK with the design.

 

Sign off isn't approval or endorsement. It's just permission to proceed. I won't stand in your way. We have a deal. He may have just deduced Atari/Warshaw didn't want his input at all and so there was no point in discussing anything. In that case he would have had two choices, pull out of the deal (which I don't know was even possible) or take the money and let Atari/Warshaw be responsible for whatever they produced.

 

Same with "sign off" when the game is done. It's zero hour. Everyone had to be fully aware that to even suggest the most minor change could kill the entire project, a project everyone there very much wanted to go forward. How long did Spielberg play the game? I doubt more than a few minutes. I also doubt he felt confident in saying whether any game was good or bad.

 

In forums sure, people trash this and that all the time. In a professional environment you don't trash someone's work unless you really feel you have to. Once a product is out there's no professional upside to then say anything but highly glowing comments. You don't burn bridges. That Spielberg had glowing remarks afterward doesn't tell me what Spielberg actually felt in any way. I've been called a genius too, but only by people trying to talk me into something I shouldn't be doing. There was a translation dictionary for Sig Hartmann, an exec at Atari Corp. When Sig said "You're a super creative guy" it meant "don't let the door hit you on the way out." Words are not always accurate imo.

 

I see nothing in Warshaw's comments to make me think anyone other than Atari management was responsible for the ET fiasco. That management, who I assume was also at the meeting, didn't step in when Warshaw told Spielberg to lump his game idea would be really poor management imo. However, I no idea what other people at the meeting might have said or not said. That wasn't part of Warshaw's statements and he may even have been unaware of what other people were saying.

 

The Warshaw interview is interesting and informative about his perspective. But accurate is not a term I would use for the perspective of any single person on any subject.

[Atari's Landfill Adventures, I now have the proof it's true.]

I do think when faced with a tight deadline, and I assume Warshaw was also feeling a lot of pressure to deliver, a programmer is going to, has to, fall back to their strengths and not take risks. The ET design is straight forward for the VCS while Pac Man type games are not.

 

From the dates I've seen there wasn't an extra day. Christmas doesn't move. If Warshaw had taken 1-5 days more and missed more, or all, of the Christmas selling season it could have turned out even worst for Atari. Because it isn't just 1 extra day programming = 1 less selling day. The factories at that time of year would have been running full out and slots would have been scheduled. Yeah, there's always a lot of shuffling, but the risk increases. An extra day of programming might mean 3-5 days delayed shipping. It's not clear Atari management would have scaled back production either.

 

To me the ET fiasco was entirely due to Atari management (that includes Warner execs who controlled Atari). Yeah, maybe Warshaw could have pulled off a miracle, but I don't think he would have had that right, to put Atari at even more risk. People's jobs were on the line, people's investments. Management created the rules.

 

I've been in similar positions many times. The programmer's #1 job in those cases is to ship a product on time, no matter what. It's management responsibility to decide if they want to run their company that way, trading quality for sloppy planning. If I pass on the job it's just going to someone else.

 

Atari had choices...

With so much riding on ET why didn't Atari create 2, or 3, or 4 independent projects? Put one team on a Pac Man type theme, 1 or 2 others on original concepts. What would that have cost? $10K, $50K extra? Seems like business 101 to me. Do it in secret if needed.

 

Atari probably had 30 suits for every game designer at Atari. It's not like the suits were so over worked they couldn't have managed 2 or 3 independent projects. I think it's because they knew almost nothing about how games are developed.

 

As far as Spielberg approving the game...this would have been more to review content, not game play. A game pitch can't show game play, so it's not something at that stage that can be judged. Unless of course Spielberg really did want a Pac Man type game.

 

At that time very few people had any idea what a VCS could do, and I doubt Spielberg would have felt comfortable asking for any design to be tossed. He would have only been making a decision based on the brand. He'd probably veto ET being killed in the game or if an image looked too much like a swastika. Game play I assume he would have had to leave to Atari.

[Atari's Landfill Adventures, I now have the proof it's true.]

Retro, all good points.

 

I look at this more as entertainment than whether something is true or not. It's really cool that all this info is being found and cross checked by a surprising (to me) number of archivists. I think you all have done an excellent job of showing as a realistic representation as is probably possible. However to me the best possible case is more like a story based on actual events. Even if you ask me what I had for lunch I can't accurately convey fact, best I could do is tell a story, leaving out some bits I don't remember and filling in with made up memories.

 

No reflection on you or other archivists excellent work, but I see all history, including what I had for lunch, more as fiction based on actual events than any kind of fact when it gets into emotion, frame of mind, circumstances. Timelines and documentation of course stand up much better.

[Atari's Landfill Adventures, I now have the proof it's true.]

Obviously management were all yes men and Ross didn't run day to day operations. But if Ross picked up the phone and told Kassar to paint all the buildings pink guess what color the buildings would be? The concept of Warner and Atari being separate identities is false imo.

Oops...meant "Obviously management weren't all yes men".

[Atari's Landfill Adventures, I now have the proof it's true.]

Think ET just happen to be the last nail in the coffin and so it gets more crap than it deserves.

[Atari's Landfill Adventures, I now have the proof it's true.]

Questions for Dan - did your perception and experience at the time differ? Do you think Nolan would have let that game out of the gate if he had still been running Atari?

I joined Atari 4/83 and never met Nolan and no one I knew at Atari ever talked about Nolan. It was Warner, Warner and more Warner. My indoctrination was as Atari was falling apart so the stories I heard were no doubt skewed toward blaming management, which meant Warner. People knew very little about how the deal started but they were very aware of the result. For sure there was virtually no respect that I saw toward management as far as knowing anything about games. It's pretty typical at any company for workers to complain about management, this was more. When I joined Atari was still awash in money, or was shortly before. Everyone still had the feeling anyways of being an extremely successful company that had been built in no time with their own hands. Not cocky, more proud and astonished.

 

Then seeing that go away completely in a few months was also astonishing. There was a feeling that to wreck all that in such a short period had to have been done by tremendous stupidity at the highest levels. This wasn't caused by competition or even the threat of competition. It wasn't caused by a fickle consumer. Atari had a product a huge part of the world wanted and was willing to pay a good margin. Atari was well capitalized and had already gained a lot of control over the market. It was their's to lose and they did exactly that almost over night.

 

Certainly there are mitigating circumstances and reasons behind decisions, but to me Atari is a case of monument to stupidity.

 

I do enjoy learning more about what happened, or what people say happen, behind the scenes. And learning has changed my opinion over time. However, it still remains a monument to stupidity to me.

 

And I think it should be considered that what people say happened behind the scenes doesn't mean that's what actually happened.

[Atari's Landfill Adventures, I now have the proof it's true.]

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.

Obviously management were all yes men and Ross didn't run day to day operations. But if Ross picked up the phone and told Kassar to paint all the buildings pink guess what color the buildings would be? The concept of Warner and Atari being separate identities is false imo.

[Atari's Landfill Adventures, I now have the proof it's true.]

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.

That's an interesting perspective. From inside Atari it seemed a lot more like Steve Ross was part of Atari because he ran it. Yes, he also ran other parts of Warner, but he still ran Atari. Kassar served at Ross's pleasure I think.

 

That Ross helped bury Atari by making Atari pay off Spielberg so other Warner units could gain Spielberg movies I think wasn't too bright. Short sighted at best. I haven't actually read anything about Ross saying this was his reason for paying so much for the game license. I look forward to reading that in the future or if you have a link handy.

 

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.

I believe the ET games were made before the end of the Christmas '82 season and the decision to make the ET game even eariler.

 

I also believe numbers like 12 million are total units sold, not the number of units still in use. Regardless of the actual number, I still think it was a now classic business lesson and monument to stupidity to think any product could sell 110%, 100%, 90% (pick whatever percentage you like) of an installed base.

 

I look forward to your article. I've already learned a lot of what I'd thought was true were myths, thanks probably to your info, and always happy to learn more.

[Atari's Landfill Adventures, I now have the proof it's true.]

Besides, seeing a film crew documenting the digging up of 30 year old trash of any kind is going to be entertaining. And more news worthy than 95% of what on "news" channels. 30 year old can of unopened Mountain Dew...still "good", film at 11.

[Atari's Landfill Adventures, I now have the proof it's true.]

Wonderfully delicious loads of crap.

 

In the very long list of conspiracies an crap that passes for news this one seems pretty harmless and entertaining. Grading on the curve.

[Atari's Landfill Adventures, I now have the proof it's true.]

Aren't most conspiracies a creative endeavour? That's what makes them so delicious.

 

My guess is they find Jimmy Hoffa.

[Atari's Landfill Adventures, I now have the proof it's true.]

The crushing of products matches this being a tax write off. Kind of a silly thing but it helps shows the inventory is indeed worthless. The concrete too. The worker who I think said the concrete was to stop kids from going thru the dump I assume was speculating, or someone told him just as PR spin. I doubt Atari executives told him their real reasons.

[Atari's Landfill Adventures, I now have the proof it's true.]

Scott Stilphen emailed me this NPR article...

http://www.npr.org/b...nearly-30-years

 

Pretty funny the way "news" is written. In one sentence the "dump" and in the next "Mindlink". They don't actually say Minlinks could be in the dump...they leave that to the reader's imagination.

 

To me the dump is a big story as a monument to stupidity.

 

Step 1. Offer a huge amount for a license with having no idea what your market is.

 

Step 2. The only way we can make back our license cost is to sell (build) more games than there are consoles.

 

Buildings filled with suits thinking that's a good idea. It's a testament to the products that it took the suits that long to drive it into the ground.

[Coming up with game ideas, your thoughts on the subject!]

Recently I've been reading interviews by other 2600 programmers and where ideas came from and was surprised how many games I thought were 100% original were based so heavily on other games. Kaboom for example is one I always thought was 100% original.

 

At Apollo we did get a lot of mail with ideas. And I think Wabbit was base on those. I remember we got 2 virtually identical Wabbit type game ideas from 2 completely different people. Both letters included a color picture of the game screen and even both drawings looked almost the same. It was scary weird.

 

But in general companies didn't like having ideas submitted. Opens you to lawsuits and bad feelings because people think you ripped off their idea even if you never saw it. So Atari never did anything with submitted ideas as far as I know.

 

It my case people would tell me the game idea. Like at Apollo I was given Demon Attack and told to "make that" and made Space Cavern. I knew they didn't mean steal Demon Attack, they wanted something like it. Call it based on or inspired by. I assume all games are inspired or based on other games. Once you've seen a game it's going to have some influence.

 

My own personal belief is a game is created at the keyboard, at 2 am, day after day, night after night. If the game consumes you it will be pretty much all you think about. You play it over and over in your head at the same time you're programming, eating, in the shower, all the time. That's when ideas come, but they're connected to code you've already written. And the game play comes in fine tweaks to get movement just right, collision detection perfect, scoring not too easy and not too hard. Perfection of course isn't possible but trying to get as close as possible is the goal.

 

To me story lines come as the game is being created. Being tied to an initial idea is a problem. Like Star Castle and Yar's Revenge Couldn't do Star Castle but came up with Yar's Revenge, probably a better game than Star Castle could ever be on the 2600 in those days. Williamson's Star Castle is kick ass but Warshaw may have just seen Yar's Revenge and had to do that. Sometimes game ideas pick programmers.

 

Then you look at cases where programmers had no choice and the results aren't great. Pretty much every movie license.

 

So better to let the game tell you what it wants to be. Like "maid cleaning others appartments" is a start. But as you draw characters and get them on screen you might notice "that doesn't look like a very good maid" and get depressed. But then notice it looks like great penguin. Maybe it becomes a game about a penguin instead.

 

One kernel of an idea I always have is some tech trick. Like Innerspace having explosion sprites generated at runtime in RAM instead of ROM is an idea I had while doing Rescue Terra I. But you can't scrap your current game and start over. So I start designing that trick into the next game in my head as I'm finishing my current game. A tech trick alone can drive the rest of the design.

 

Ideas and concepts are not games. Don't let an idea or concept stop you from doing a great game.

[Is Laser Gates really Inner Space?]

Do you have any box art for Inner Space or did you have something in mind? Would be great to be able to get boxed copies.

Sorry, forgot to answer that earlier. There was no box or manual or anything for Innerspace. At that time we would have needed to sell some Rescue Terra games to get money to make Innerspace ROMs. Without ROMs on order we wouldn't have put a dollar into any kind of print material. There was like a 6-10 week lead time on ROMs which gave us plenty of time for boxes, manuals and marketing. So a ROM order was a go-no go point.

 

Kept working on Innerspace hoping. But by the time it was done the game market was beyond all hope for the short term and we were almost out of cash. At the most Bob Hesler would have typed a manual into his computer, but I don't remember it.

 

I think there was a question about the artist for the Rescue Terra I box/manual. I remember we interviewed a local artist who painted space art, nebula type stuff, maybe some NASA stuff. I think he was hired for the box/manual art. His paintings were very good, but I don't think he'd ever done packaging. Plus I doubt we could pay much so he wouldn't have been able to put in the time needed to do something really good..

 

Some more ideas for a special release: old photos from VentureVision (office, building, ...) or from the CES. Source code if you still have it, even if you just have fragments. Information how you came up with and created the sprites, how the development tools/process was back then. Maybe a new contest where the winner gets something special. Contestants need to have the special edition.

Unfortunately no source code, no notes, no business cards. I have zip. Pre digital cameras, so taking pics was a bigger deal. I have one B&W of me a local newspaper did which I think I still have. We were pretty much heads down working trying to get it off the ground.

 

Funny, I was thinking today I should put another contest flyer in a new game as a parody. 30th annual non-contest - Grand prize $5.

 

In general I'm not thinking along the lines of doing any kind of collector repack of old stuff. That would more of a marketing thing, not my strength or interest.

[Jaguar's demise]

I don't think JTS paid anything for Atari Corp. They just merged on paper with agreements like the Tramiels being able to sell Atari assets as compensation. Just a cheaper way to wind down two companies. Maybe JTS losses were used to offset Atari income to not pay taxes. Tax code is written by corporations so they can do stuff like this.

 

I look forward to the book too. Tramiels were pretty interesting. I never had a clue what they were thinking or trying to do.