* Alternative Reality * Posted April 19, 2007 Share Posted April 19, 2007 Hi everyone! It's great to be here at AtariAge! I have been a longtime fan of the classic system and was thrilled to find this message forum! Thanks go out to the Atari Museum for introducing me to this very informative place! Okay, forgive my "newbie-ness" and also forgive me if this has been posted in the wrong section........i chose this one mainly because my subject matter is so closey associated to it. I would like to know who here has had the opportunity to meet the man himself, Nolan Bushnell. I am sure there must be a lot of you here, and i would personally love to hear your stories, and you opinions. What is he like? Can anyone here provide any insight into what one could expect if they were to meet him? i did a search last night on this very topic, and read hundreds of posts but did not find any that directly told of experiences with him on a fan-level. SO ...i would like to hear from those of you who HAVE met Nolan and what it was like! Huge thanks in advance, i look eagerly forward to your responses! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted April 19, 2007 Share Posted April 19, 2007 I met him at CES several years ago while he was promoting uWink in its infancy. He was very approachable and he spoke to me for a few minutes, even though I'm sure it was obvious to him that I really wasn't interested in buying any of his bar-top game systems. He probably thought I was a nutcase when I told him I ran an Atari-related site. This was in January 2001 (I believe), so AtariAge was fairly young at the time. I have a picture somewhere, I'll have to find it. ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeusExMachina Posted April 19, 2007 Share Posted April 19, 2007 (edited) No, but I met his cousin a few times. Edited April 19, 2007 by DeusExMachina Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homerwannabee Posted April 19, 2007 Share Posted April 19, 2007 Hi everyone! It's great to be here at AtariAge! I have been a longtime fan of the classic system and was thrilled to find this message forum! Thanks go out to the Atari Museum for introducing me to this very informative place! Okay, forgive my "newbie-ness" and also forgive me if this has been posted in the wrong section........i chose this one mainly because my subject matter is so closey associated to it. I would like to know who here has had the opportunity to meet the man himself, Nolan Bushnell. I am sure there must be a lot of you here, and i would personally love to hear your stories, and you opinions. What is he like? Can anyone here provide any insight into what one could expect if they were to meet him? i did a search last night on this very topic, and read hundreds of posts but did not find any that directly told of experiences with him on a fan-level. SO ...i would like to hear from those of you who HAVE met Nolan and what it was like! Huge thanks in advance, i look eagerly forward to your responses! I have a feeling that you are Nolan Bushnell incognito. So welcome Nolan errrr I mean Alternative Reality Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rik Posted April 19, 2007 Share Posted April 19, 2007 No,never met him,but i'll admit,talking to him would be sweet,i love the nostalgiac info about ATARI and how it all started! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsoper Posted April 19, 2007 Share Posted April 19, 2007 I was at his CGE talk four years ago or so. He had a nice dry humor when telling war stories. "When Atari first began, I went to the California Department of Labor for employees. We didn't know at the time that the CDL labor pool consisted mostly of alcoholics and drug addicts. We were making pong arcade machines by taking the picture tubes out of black and white televisions. It turned out that B&W TVs are very easy items to fence...........................We were having a slight inventory control problem for awhile." "One trick we used to discourage pirate copies was to include an uncommon logic chip like a quad exclusive OR, because with rare chips, you can actually corner the whole worldwide production for yourself. One quarter, we checked the numbers and found we had purchased 120% of the total number of ICs produced. After investigating, it turned out an Atari stockroom worker was stealing ICs out the back door and selling them back into the front. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Climber Posted April 19, 2007 Share Posted April 19, 2007 Hi everyone! It's great to be here at AtariAge! I have been a longtime fan of the classic system and was thrilled to find this message forum! Thanks go out to the Atari Museum for introducing me to this very informative place! Okay, forgive my "newbie-ness" and also forgive me if this has been posted in the wrong section........i chose this one mainly because my subject matter is so closey associated to it. I would like to know who here has had the opportunity to meet the man himself, Nolan Bushnell. I am sure there must be a lot of you here, and i would personally love to hear your stories, and you opinions. What is he like? Can anyone here provide any insight into what one could expect if they were to meet him? i did a search last night on this very topic, and read hundreds of posts but did not find any that directly told of experiences with him on a fan-level. SO ...i would like to hear from those of you who HAVE met Nolan and what it was like! Huge thanks in advance, i look eagerly forward to your responses! I have a feeling that you are Nolan Bushnell incognito. So welcome Nolan errrr I mean Alternative Reality Seriously though you know Nolan has to have visited the site before and maybe even posted, I wonder what he would use for a screen name? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snider-man Posted April 19, 2007 Share Posted April 19, 2007 Yup, I met Nolan at CGE a few years back. Very nice, very approachable guy. In fact, on the wall above my game collection, is a framed birthday card to me he signed at that same CGE. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted April 19, 2007 Share Posted April 19, 2007 Like someone else said. not met him but i did see a piccy of him standing outside Regents Park Zoo (aka London Zoo) holding a prototype AG Bear i think (Database, Atari User magazine) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayhem Posted April 19, 2007 Share Posted April 19, 2007 Like others, met and chatted with him at CGE 2003... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted April 19, 2007 Share Posted April 19, 2007 Have you ever met Nolan Bushnell Nope. I didn't even get to eat any of his pizza. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted April 19, 2007 Share Posted April 19, 2007 Yep I met him at CGE when he came. I got a picture of me with him and his autograph on something (but I don't recall what). Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolenta Posted April 19, 2007 Share Posted April 19, 2007 (edited) I met him three times. Once at E3, once at CGE, and once at a gaming competition in NYC (I forgot the name of it) http://www.rolentapress.com/rolenta/celebrities/bushnell.jpg Edited April 19, 2007 by rolenta Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
* Alternative Reality * Posted April 20, 2007 Author Share Posted April 20, 2007 (edited) Thanks go out to those who have responded so far....i particularly like the comments regarding what your experience with him was like. I have always had the impression he was a personality you could easily approach, and not like the usualy stereotyped "too busy for you" type. I always enjoyed his dry humour as well in the few interviews i have seen, it makes him come across as being someone you would be comfortable with just hanging out with. So, for those who have said you met him: Describe what impression you had after the meeting. I am really curious about what the experience was like...in the slim chance that maybe some day i have the opportunity. Oh....and just so you know, i am not Nolan incognito! I actually found that comment pretty funny....whatever gave you THAT impression ? LOL!! Edited April 20, 2007 by * Alternative Reality * Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thomasholzer Posted April 20, 2007 Share Posted April 20, 2007 I met one of the Tramiels in London, at the Earls Court Computer Show once, does that count? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Student Driver Posted April 20, 2007 Share Posted April 20, 2007 I've met Al Alcorn, but not Bushnell. I think I'd be more excited to meet Ralph Baer, though. (I was disappointed a couple of years ago when I got an early order in for Baer's book through Rolenta Press and it didn't get autographed.) The pic above of Mr. Bushnell reminds me of the z-movie director Ted V. Mikels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted April 20, 2007 Share Posted April 20, 2007 From what I remember, he was a nice enough guy and seemed amused that people still went nuts over Atari. However I just didn't see the "Atari Love" that I was expecting to see from him. Sure he was proud of Atari, but it almost seemed like it was just another business venture for him and he had moved on. Sort of like how you may be obsessed with an actor because of a certain role they played but when you finally met them you find out that that was "just another thing I did during my career". Still, he was nice enough to indulge us Atari fanboys. He was very willing to talk about his Atari days. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P.I.X.L. Posted April 20, 2007 Share Posted April 20, 2007 You can say I have (sort of) Who Am I? From what I remember, he was a nice enough guy and seemed amused that people still went nuts over Atari. However I just didn't see the "Atari Love" that I was expecting to see from him. Sure he was proud of Atari, but it almost seemed like it was just another business venture for him and he had moved on. Sort of like how you may be obsessed with an actor because of a certain role they played but when you finally met them you find out that that was "just another thing I did during my career". Still, he was nice enough to indulge us Atari fanboys. He was very willing to talk about his Atari days. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BydoEmpire Posted April 20, 2007 Share Posted April 20, 2007 I met him at CES several years ago while he was promoting uWink in its infancy.I met him briefly at an AMOA show (or something similar) when he was doing uWink. I was working on Midway's Touchmaster at the time, and we discussed how all the bartops (Megatouch, Touchmaster uWink, etc) ripped off each others games. He was mostly talking to my boss, though, I was just sort if standing there. Still cool to see him in person. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassidy Nolen Posted April 20, 2007 Share Posted April 20, 2007 Twice. First time, 2002, I flew to San Fran for the 30th Anniv. party of Atari (40th Anniv. of Space War). Got to meet Steve Russell, Al Alcorn and a host of great people. He was walking to his car and I passed him in the parking lot. Very interesting, I knew it was him and I had little idea what he looked like. I found people gravitated towards him. He is charismatic, innovative and inventive. It fills the room. He has "that look" that you can tell he is crafty. Nothing gets past him and I said at the time, I would follow him blindly down a path given the chance. He was talking to a few of us and he said his uwink was headquarterd in SoCal because the valley was too expensive of real estate. I jokingly said its your fault it is. He got a kick out of that. Second time was CGE when he was being followed by a mob of onlookers and I just walked up and said Hi. I actually took the pic of Tempest with him Honestly, I applied his philosophy to the way I live my life. Sounds cheesy but his 80% mastery of something makes sense. You can master something to a point very quickly. You then have to spend many years getting the remaining portion. He also is willing to try new things, take big chances and enjoy big payoffs Cassidy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grimbasement Posted April 20, 2007 Share Posted April 20, 2007 I look like a complete fan boy but still it was great to meet him and chat for a few minutes. He expressed regrets that he sold Atari to Warner. He said they offered him more money than he thought he would probably ever see in his life (Turns out he was probably right). and said what a tragedy that Warner and later Tramiel ran it into the ground. Additionally he said that Atari wasn't really a gaming company but a research company using games to innovate. He said unfortunately Atari had grown just about as much as it could have with the current venture capital and he needed the deep pockets of a mega corporation. But R&D are not strong points of entertainment companies like Warner. Like today all entertainment companies are formula driven and not into the R&D side. He also said he would be interested in buying back Atari and bring interactive entertainment back to the US and that it's a tragedy that an industry that started in the US has so little influence in the gaming industry. Note that this was in 2001 when Sony had a huge market share. He noted that there was the "x-box but really, who can get excited about Micro$oft?" Finally he had a lot of contempt for the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) saying that the patent process significantly slows down the development process and getting ideas to market. It used to be that patents could protect the little guy with an idea. But now there companies whose sole purpose is to patent ideas and then go after anyone who might use that idea in any product or process even if they never intend to manufacture or market the product or process. It's a real racket called patent squatting. I work for a patent law firm and I think he's absolutely right. Grim meets Nolan Bushnell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homerwannabee Posted April 21, 2007 Share Posted April 21, 2007 Thanks go out to those who have responded so far....i particularly like the comments regarding what your experience with him was like. I have always had the impression he was a personality you could easily approach, and not like the usualy stereotyped "too busy for you" type. I always enjoyed his dry humour as well in the few interviews i have seen, it makes him come across as being someone you would be comfortable with just hanging out with. So, for those who have said you met him: Describe what impression you had after the meeting. I am really curious about what the experience was like...in the slim chance that maybe some day i have the opportunity. Oh....and just so you know, i am not Nolan incognito! I actually found that comment pretty funny....whatever gave you THAT impression ? LOL!! Because I could actually see Nolan Bushnell asking this question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted April 21, 2007 Share Posted April 21, 2007 Who Am I? Are you the patron saint of epileptic seizures? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Student Driver Posted April 21, 2007 Share Posted April 21, 2007 Very interesting, I knew it was him and I had little idea what he looked like. I found people gravitated towards him. He is charismatic, innovative and inventive. It fills the room. He has "that look" that you can tell he is crafty. Nothing gets past him and I said at the time, I would follow him blindly down a path given the chance. I can very honestly see this. The video and still pics of him all have that vibe. Even the above pic of him has that charismatic quality. The kind of guy who would go up to someone and say "I've got a great idea, and we're going to do this..." and they'd wholeheartedly leap into the plan with him. The kind of guy who could walk into a car dealership and get them to pay him to take a vehicle off their hands. Explains why he's led a seemingly endless series of start-ups; I imagine he's really successful with face-to-face presentations with venture capitalists and the like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
* Alternative Reality * Posted April 23, 2007 Author Share Posted April 23, 2007 Awesome insights so far guys...keep them coming! I totally agree about the "charasmatic factor" I have seen a few interviews of him from the 80's and he definately has that appeal. He really comes off as a person you would love to sit down with for a couple of hours at a lounge and hang out with, talking about old times. So far i have heard nothing but positive things. Keep the reviews coming! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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