fultonbot

A squad of three men Are attached together forever They have but one goal Moving as a team Kicking out towards the ball Just like chorus girls Totally in-tune In-sync, attached forever Complete unison Their goalie watches Mesmerized by our footwork The shot comes quickly Into the corner The crowd erupts, the sky lights With a fireworks show!

1983 Computers still a hobby User groups flourish We found our local Set of fans in the back of Antic Magazine South Bay Atari Computer Enthusiasts A gaggle of geeks Met in a small hall Across from a gay bar in North Redondo Beach Lucasfilm once came To show us their first two games Before they were out Atari ruled No 'Commode-Door' 64s Allowed anywhere The high-tech lost cause Relentless devotion to A fading image

Holy S$&*!T. Yes! Or at least that is pretty close!! I see it's from ACE. I bet one of our SBACE guys pulled it off a BBS and printed it out. Wait, that can't be true though. How would one print a full-color image in 1984? I'm sure you *could* get it printed, but at what cost? Whatever it was, Commode-Door 64 was worth it. It just shows you how much the "home computer wars" really meant to us. Can I get permission use that image in story I'm writing?

The back of the store 1977 Right of the housewares Next to the fire door Heavy Sixer with Combat! Two wide-eyed kids Thumbs on the buttons CX-40s in our palms Hands and eyes in-sync "This f-ing rules man!" "cool-ass games on a TV!" "Much better than Pong!" Tanks, bi-planes and jets Bouncing shots, racking-up scores We play while mom shops "This aint no arcade" Yells the TV salesman in The C&R suit He says "That's it boys" He then hits the power switch "Now get outta here!" We skulk away From the TV section, but We will be back soon

I'd kill for a full set of Electronic Games from 1981-1985.

Corporate I.T. committed suicide in the mid 2000's. I saw it with my own eyes. 100's of proud I.T. workers lost their jobs at my work while everyone was told how much better I.T. was going to be, but that never materialized. Luckily, while I was "technically" in the I.T. dept, (because all "programmers are I.T., right?") they could not outsource my function because our game dev team was too efficient, worked too hard, and was too costly to replace...until 2011 when they "fixed" the issue and stopped making games internally all-together.

It's been more than three years and I still feel burnt-out from the game industry crunch I endured from 2005-2013. I've just recently been able to open Unity3D and start programming again.

I distinctly recall a guy at our local SBACE meeting (South Bay Atari Users Group) creating "Commode-Door 64" poster that had the Commodore logo on a toilet seat. I have not been able to associate Commodore with anything else since.

I posted this after listening to Kevin interview Peter Liepa on the Antic Podcast yesterday. When Kevin asked his standard question about "do you have anything to say to the Atari computer users out there" he replied "get a life". It was a joke, but not really. The thought struck me: The Atari 800 gave me a life. That's why I'm still here.

Why do I still like Atari 8-bit computers? I can't explain it other than this: When everything in life is nuts, and I can't think straight, or when everything is quiet and my mind clears, I think about the same thing: It's 1983, and I'm sitting at the salvaged office desk my dad found on the side of the road and rebuilt for my brother and I. I'm searching through the the box of 5.25 floppies that came with the Atari 800 system my dad bought from a friend, who gave it up at a great price because he my dad could not afford a new Atari computer for us. I put in the disk, get a listing of files. I run one of them. Suddenly the outside world of 8th grade and family turmoil does not matter, and I'm sucked into a new dimension that makes perfect sense. I can control it with a the keyboard, joystick or paddle. I can reset with the BASIC cartridge in, and try to remake the world myself. The Atari 800 computer was ground-zero for the rest of my life. It's as important, if not more, than anything I've ever read, seen, or been told about what life is supposed to be, or how to make my way through it. The Atari 800 was the first thing in my life that made perfect sense, and I will never for get it.

Ever winding road The dwindling sunlight puts my Life in grave danger Paddle controller Rests in my left hand, my thumb Ready to hit the gas Right hand steers the car I can't stray outside the lines Certain death awaits Time ticks ever downward The horizon forever black All an illusion?

Oh, sorry man, I should have looked. I love your "timeline". It's something I've worked on myself in the past. I have a huge long word document called "Atari Timeline" that has 100's of dates, but it's like 15 years old now.

Have you guys considered cross referencing with the Arcade Express newsletters? I believe that came out bi-weekly from the editors of Electronic Games geared towards the industry as opposed to consumers. They have news and reviews, and I would suppose they are more timely than regular magazine issues. If they have reviews or release announcements they might further help nail down release dates. (at least to the month).

Behind Jaggi Lines Not Rescue On Fractulus That name really blows

Thanks! I wanted a 1450xld as a kid, but I never really understood all the differences when is came the the Freddie and the MMU.

Was the 1400xl or the 1450 xld designed to have expansion slots?

The 400 was a great idea! My buddy got one in 1982, and we spent hours at his house typing-in games from Antic and Analog on the chiclet keyboard. However, the 1200xl sh*t the bed, the 600xl was unnecessary, and the 800xl arrived too late to fight off Commodore.

Why so damned hard? Leatherneck, why taunt me so? I die so often There are 4 of us But 3 die so instantly Left all by myself Up through the jungle Dodging phantom gunfire in 16 colors. Don't stop the music AY-3-8910 It's so compelling It keeps pulling me I never get much further One more go, restart

8-bit *and* ST! Plus news updates, etc. Awesome news!

There two significant dates in the trademark: Filing Date May 5, 1983 FIRST USE: 19830421 So it could be April or May 1983. Argh! I'd go with May (IMHO). To get it down any further, the only thing I can think of is to get to the library and scan the microfiche of newspapers, focusing on Sunday ads and see if there is a specific date when it was advertised for sale at Toys R Us or similar.

Here is the trademark record for Solar Storm. Not sure if this has a usable date or not: Word Mark SOLAR STORM Goods and Services (CANCELLED) IC 028. US 022 038. G & S: Video Game Cartridges. FIRST USE: 19830421. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19830429 Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING Serial Number 73424633 Filing Date May 5, 1983 Current Basis 1A Original Filing Basis 1A Published for Opposition March 20, 1984 Registration Number 1281690 Registration Date June 12, 1984 Owner (REGISTRANT) Imagic CORPORATION CALIFORNIA 981 University Ave. Los Gatos CALIFORNIA 95030 Attorney of Record Bruce L. Davis Type of Mark TRADEMARK Register PRINCIPAL Live/Dead Indicator DEAD Cancellation Date November 19, 1990

Ms. Pac-Man was one of my favorite VCS games. It came out just a year or so after Pac-Man, but the damage was already done. I could convince none of my friends that it was a good game. The zeitgeist was on the Vectrex, Commodore 64, Colecovision, and the fact that you could pick-up 2600 games for $5 each at the discount stores. Heck, I recall a sale at Target in the summer of 1983 where they cut-open shipping boxes of 70's Atari VCS games (Street Racer, Video Olympics, Blackjack, Slot Racers) and sold them for $2 each.

As far as I can tell from reading everything I can find, that EG Review of Pac-Man was the first real, mainstream "bad" review of an Atari game. I've tried to find as many sources as possible, but I'm sure I missed things, but from what I can find, real video game "criticism" started on May 11th, 1982 (the day that issue was published), and it was focused on Pac-Man. Certainly was negative for marketing departments which could no longer just add Don Knotts to a commercial and think it would make-up for a bad game.

Crush Crumble And Chomp You are a monster, you live You eat, you destroy Bash through the city Police cars chase, shoot to kill Yum! Very Tasty Here come tanks and planes You fight, the battle is fierce Yet, you carry on What, a scientist? Is that his secret weapon? Monster dead. Restart.

If it was purely up to me, as a kid in 1982, then absolutely, *yes*, Pac-Man was a major factor in Atari's demise. I hated it. My friends hated it. Pac-Man became a reason to make-fun of Atari, the VCS, etc. Among my group of friends, Atari lost it's "cool" factor because Pac-Man was such a dog. Before Pac-Man, I never thought twice about my purchase of an Atari VCS game. I was not happy with some of them, but at the store it was never an issue. Pac-Man helped make me into a 12 year old contentious consumer. My bible at the time (like many others) was Electronic Games magazine. I recall that the tenor about the VCS completely changed after Pac-Man was released. I recall that they stopped giving Atari VCS games easy reviews, but became far more critical. Recently I wanted to know if this was true, so I went back and scoured all the reviews of Atari 2600 games in the pages of EG and Arcade Alley prior to the release on Pac-Man. What I found was that the review of Pac-Man turned the burgeoning video game press from "enthusiasts" into "critics". Prior to Pac-Man, nearly every game was "reviewed" by listing the good qualities almost like they were arguing for the existence of video games as hobby, and not trying to critically review anything. Here are a few examples from Arcade Alley January 1981 Issue: "Night Driver": "Arcaders who love driving games will be glued to wheel for this home version" June 1981 Issue: "Slot Racers": "ranks as the most important of the classic labyrinth games" June 1981 Issue: "Maze Craze: "If you like mazes you'll go crazy of Maze Craze" July 1981 Issue: "Championship Soccer": "This one's relentless action, it's spare yet effective graphics and the unusual myriad of options make this an outstanding team sports cartridge" However, Pac-Man marked a total sea-change in how games were reviewed. Here is how they described it in the June 1982 issue of EG: ""It's disappointingly difficult to find anything positive to say about this game. Considering the anticipation and considerable time the Atari designers had to work on it, it's astonishing to see a home version of a classic arcade contest so devoid of what gave the original its charm." In essence, Pac-Man helped create the critical press for video games. I remember reading that review and thinking that they had to be wrong. So I still bought the game because I trusted Atari. To me, the game was dreadful and I realized EG was correct. I started to trust EG far more than Atari at that point. Atari's marketing could no longer win by default. Did Pac-Man directly lead to the demise of Atari? Probably not. Was Pac-Man one of hands shoving Atari towards the edge of the cliff: yeah, I'm pretty sure it was one of them.