how to pronounce Imagic

[SeaGtGruff]

This thread could get way off track talking about all of the ways people mispronounce things.

Oops! I contributed to doing just that before I read your cautionary warning! But it might not be mispronouncing things, because people in some areas pronounce things differently than people in other areas. Like the way Brits say "SHED-jew-ul" but Americans say "SKED-jew-ul."

 

Muchael

[Zoyx]

I've been pronouncing it eye-magic. And I plan on continuing to pronounce that way, just to piss people off.

[atari_envy]

And while we're on the subject, it's Gif, not Jif like the peanut butter.

 

That's sort of a running joke at our company because once someone asked for more memory, like maybe another jigabyte of RAM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Interchange_Format#Pronunciation

 

Lies. All lies.

 

I will still say Gif Guh Guh Guh Gif, Not Jif, because it's stupid.

 

yes, I am very mature.

lol. That's cool, you are probably in the majority of pronouncee's. I just want to make sure you don't give people like me who pronounce it (arguably) correctly a hard time. I am old enough to remember when the GIF format came out and read the CompuServe manual which stated how to pronounce it. Consequently, I have always pronounced it like that.

[Keatah]

ehm-ad-jik - the official sound-it-out-spelling according to a letter I got from the company years back in response to this very question. Back in those days you felt god-like if a videogame company responded back to you personally!

Edited September 21, 2009 by Keatah

[HammR25]

Gif reminds me of this:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnqtXOi1iaY

[hideovideo]

It's pronounced "two thousand six hundred," right?

That's right. And "caramel" is properly pronounced "car-mull."

Yes, but is it "poh-TAY-toh," "poh-TAH-toh," or "TAY-ter"?

 

Michael

[hideovideo]

Find a copy of the documentary "All In The Game," which was filmed at Imagic "back in the day." Everybody at the company from Bill Grubb on down pronounces it with a short "I", so I can only assume that's the correct way to pronounce it. People who pronounce it differently are probably the same people who call the Atari 2600 "the Atari two-six-oh-oh".

[hideovideo]

Find a copy of the documentary "All In The Game," which was filmed at Imagic "back in the day." Everybody at the company from Bill Grubb on down pronounces it with a short "I", so I can only assume that's the correct way to pronounce it. People who pronounce it differently are probably the same people who call the Atari 2600 "the Atari two-six-oh-oh".

[hideovideo]

Wow, what have I stumbled into? For some weird reason, Bill Grubb's name came to mind and I wondered what had become

of him. When I did a search I ended up here. I was the Producer/Writer/Director of "All In The Game." It was produced

out of KQED, the public TV station in San Francisco, for a PBS series called, "Enterprise." We basically followed the

growth of the company from just after start-up till the whole thing crashed -- just weeks before they were going to go

public (although I believe they hung on for several more years). We simultaneously followed the development of "Atlantis,"

which I believe was Denis Koble's (though, in truth, we fudged some of the time frame because we came in at a point where

the game was already somewhat developed). I haven't watched it in years, although it was always one of my favorite shows.

I just checked the PBS website to see if there were copies for sale and came up empty. If there are people actually interested

in getting copies (and no, I'm not about to try to find mine and make dubs), I'd suggest calling KQED. It's been more than

25 years since I worked there but about 10 years back I called trying to find a copy of a show I'd done and managed to

buy it directly from them. One trivia note: we were originally going to follow Adam Osborne and the development of the

Osborne computer but I was already an Atari nut and chose Imagic instead because of the game angle and because Bill Grubb

was a perfect showman and allowed us a lot of access because of the publicity value. So back to the beginning: does anyone

know what Bill Grubb moved onto?

[Zoyx]

You are making this forum posting thing way harder than it should be.

[jaybird3rd]

Wow, what have I stumbled into? For some weird reason, Bill Grubb's name came to mind and I wondered what had become of him. When I did a search I ended up here. I was the Producer/Writer/Director of "All In The Game." It was produced out of KQED, the public TV station in San Francisco, for a PBS series called, "Enterprise." We basically followed the growth of the company from just after start-up till the whole thing crashed -- just weeks before they were going to go public (although I believe they hung on for several more years). We simultaneously followed the development of "Atlantis," which I believe was Dennis Koble's (though, in truth, we fudged some of the time frame because we came in at a point where the game was already somewhat developed). I haven't watched it in years, although it was always one of my favorite shows. I just checked the PBS website to see if there were copies for sale and came up empty. If there are people actually interested in getting copies (and no, I'm not about to try to find mine and make dubs), I'd suggest calling KQED. It's been more than 25 years since I worked there but about 10 years back I called trying to find a copy of a show I'd done and managed to buy it directly from them. One trivia note: we were originally going to follow Adam Osborne and the development of the Osborne computer but I was already an Atari nut and chose Imagic instead because of the game angle and because Bill Grubb was a perfect showman and allowed us a lot of access because of the publicity value. So back to the beginning: does anyone know what Bill Grubb moved onto?

Welcome, and thank you for your excellent work on "All In The Game"! Most of us on these forums are especially interested in the early years of the video game industry, and the companies and developers that produced what are now considered the "classic" video games. I remember that those of us who hadn't seen it before were so excited to discover "All In The Game" when it was first brought to our attention about three years ago; it's one of the best and most unique behind-the-scenes looks inside a major video game publisher during that era, and an important snapshot of the history of the industry. You can follow some of our discussion of the documentary in this thread, if you're interested.

 

The documentary ends in late 1982, just after Imagic's public offering was derailed--on the same day they were pricing the stock--by a premature announcement of poor earnings from Atari. Many of the people inside Imagic believed that Atari timed the release of this announcement specifically to disrupt Imagic's IPO. Grubb talks at the end of the documentary about making a second public offering in 1983, but that never happened: the industry went into its first major downturn shortly afterward, going from (if my numbers are correct) about $2 billion in sales in 1982 to less than $200 million in 1983. Like many video game publishers, Imagic had some serious inventory problems: about 40 million dollars' worth of unsold product sitting on shelves in the retail market, combined with an excess of new product that had been built up in anticipation of Christmas 1982 sales which never materialized. Activision and Atari were larger and had enough capital to weather the storm (Activision had already gotten their IPO in while the business was still hot), but Imagic wasn't so lucky, and Grubb himself was dismissed from Imagic in early 1983. Bruce Davis, Imagic vice president and general council (and later CEO of Activision), took over Imagic and kept it going until it finally closed its doors in the spring of 1985.

 

As for Grubb's subsequent career, I only did a quick search, but it seems that he moved on to telecommunications in the late 1980s and into broadcasting & cable in the 1990s. I haven't found much after about 1997, so I'm afraid I don't know what he's doing now. Just out of curiosity, were you an acquaintance of his? Did he contact you with the idea of filming the documentary inside Imagic, or did you bring the idea to him? I'd be interested to know how it all came about, since nothing like "All In The Game" was produced at any of the other major video game publishers of the time.

Edited November 15, 2009 by jaybird3rd

[kool kitty89]

Don't some people (mis)pronouce imagine the same way as that, like eee-magine?

 

First time I saw the name I thought it was pronounced I-magic.. like an Apple product...

[hideovideo]

Wow, what have I stumbled into? For some weird reason, Bill Grubb's name came to mind and I wondered what had become of him. When I did a search I ended up here. I was the Producer/Writer/Director of "All In The Game." It was produced out of KQED, the public TV station in San Francisco, for a PBS series called, "Enterprise." We basically followed the growth of the company from just after start-up till the whole thing crashed -- just weeks before they were going to go public (although I believe they hung on for several more years). We simultaneously followed the development of "Atlantis," which I believe was Dennis Koble's (though, in truth, we fudged some of the time frame because we came in at a point where the game was already somewhat developed). I haven't watched it in years, although it was always one of my favorite shows. I just checked the PBS website to see if there were copies for sale and came up empty. If there are people actually interested in getting copies (and no, I'm not about to try to find mine and make dubs), I'd suggest calling KQED. It's been more than 25 years since I worked there but about 10 years back I called trying to find a copy of a show I'd done and managed to buy it directly from them. One trivia note: we were originally going to follow Adam Osborne and the development of the Osborne computer but I was already an Atari nut and chose Imagic instead because of the game angle and because Bill Grubb was a perfect showman and allowed us a lot of access because of the publicity value. So back to the beginning: does anyone know what Bill Grubb moved onto?

Welcome, and thank you for your excellent work on "All In The Game"! Most of us on these forums are especially interested in the early years of the video game industry, and the companies and developers that produced what are now considered the "classic" video games. I remember that those of us who hadn't seen it before were so excited to discover "All In The Game" when it was first brought to our attention about three years ago; it's one of the best and most unique behind-the-scenes looks inside a major video game publisher during that era, and an important snapshot of the history of the industry. You can follow some of our discussion of the documentary in this thread, if you're interested.

 

The documentary ends in late 1982, just after Imagic's public offering was derailed--on the same day they were pricing the stock--by a premature announcement of poor earnings from Atari. Many of the people inside Imagic believed that Atari timed the release of this announcement specifically to disrupt Imagic's IPO. Grubb talks at the end of the documentary about making a second public offering in 1983, but that never happened: the industry went into its first major downturn shortly afterward, going from (if my numbers are correct) about $2 billion in sales in 1982 to less than $200 million in 1983. Like many video game publishers, Imagic had some serious inventory problems: about 40 million dollars' worth of unsold product sitting on shelves in the retail market, combined with an excess of new product that had been built up in anticipation of Christmas 1982 sales which never materialized. Activision and Atari were larger and had enough capital to weather the storm (Activision had already gotten their IPO in while the business was still hot), but Imagic wasn't so lucky, and Grubb himself was dismissed from Imagic in early 1983. Bruce Davis, Imagic vice president and general council (and later CEO of Activision), took over Imagic and kept it going until it finally closed its doors in the spring of 1985.

 

As for Grubb's subsequent career, I only did a quick search, but it seems that he moved on to telecommunications in the late 1980s and into broadcasting & cable in the 1990s. I haven't found much after about 1997, so I'm afraid I don't know what he's doing now. Just out of curiosity, were you an acquaintance of his? Did he contact you with the idea of filming the documentary inside Imagic, or did you bring the idea to him? I'd be interested to know how it all came about, since nothing like "All In The Game" was produced at any of the other major video game publishers of the time.

[hideovideo]

No, I'd never met Bill till I went down the first time and was really impressed with him. That and the fact that the

designers were such a great group of guys (no women that I remember) sold me on doing Imagic instead of Osborne. I don't

remember what their first big hit was -- some kind of knock off/variation of "Space Invaders" -- but they gave me a copy and

I rolled it over for the first time in three or four days. When I went back for our next pre-production meeting and told

them that, it broke the ice with the designers. After that, Denis kept giving me new versions of "Atlantis" and I'd

report back on what I thought. I don't know what the ultimate music was but all the prototypes had this kind of calliope

music that was maddening. It was really sad when the IPO went down the drain. These poor guys had already cashed in

their stock in their minds. All they could talk about was the cars they were going to buy. Filmically, it was a great

ending but I'd grown close to everyone and couldn't help but be disappointed for them.

[hideovideo]

No, I'd never met Bill till I went down the first time and was really impressed with him. That and the fact that the

designers were such a great group of guys (no women that I remember) sold me on doing Imagic instead of Osborne. I don't

remember what their first big hit was -- some kind of knock off/variation of "Space Invaders" -- but they gave me a copy and

I rolled it over for the first time in three or four days. When I went back for our next pre-production meeting and told

them that, it broke the ice with the designers. After that, Denis kept giving me new versions of "Atlantis" and I'd

report back on what I thought. I don't know what the ultimate music was but all the prototypes had this kind of calliope

music that was maddening. It was really sad when the IPO went down the drain. These poor guys had already cashed in

their stock in their minds. All they could talk about was the cars they were going to buy. Filmically, it was a great

ending but I'd grown close to everyone and couldn't help but be disappointed for them.

[hideovideo]

PS-- Thanks for the thread. It really made me proud that so many people were interested in the documentary and seemed to

like it.

[Zoyx]

I've watched the documentary a couple times, very well done. Nice to have that piece of history documented... thanks.

 

Still chortling over your forum posting skills... but cutting you some slack, now that I know where you are coming from.

[jaybird3rd]

No, I'd never met Bill till I went down the first time and was really impressed with him. That and the fact that the designers were such a great group of guys (no women that I remember) sold me on doing Imagic instead of Osborne. I don't remember what their first big hit was -- some kind of knock off/variation of "Space Invaders" -- but they gave me a copy and I rolled it over for the first time in three or four days. When I went back for our next pre-production meeting and told them that, it broke the ice with the designers. After that, Denis kept giving me new versions of "Atlantis" and I'd report back on what I thought. I don't know what the ultimate music was but all the prototypes had this kind of calliope music that was maddening. It was really sad when the IPO went down the drain. These poor guys had already cashed in their stock in their minds. All they could talk about was the cars they were going to buy. Filmically, it was a great ending but I'd grown close to everyone and couldn't help but be disappointed for them.

 

PS-- Thanks for the thread. It really made me proud that so many people were interested in the documentary and seemed to like it.

I would guess that the "Space Invaders knockoff" you mentioned was Rob Fulop's Demon Attack, although it might not have been called "Demon Attack" during development. It was one of the first titles shipped by Imagic, and one of their most popular.

 

Regarding the failed IPO: I remember that, at about the middle of the documentary, you showed the meeting where Bill Grubb announced the public offering to the people inside Imagic, and it was an especially sad moment given our knowledge of what happened afterward. I've heard similar stories from many other people in the industry at that time, who have talked about how they hoped to cash in on the video game craze only to have their fortunes disappear with the crash. It must have been a real roller coaster ride, especially since Imagic had been flying so high only a few years earlier: they sold something like seven million dollars' worth of product in their first six months, which was the fastest revenue growth in history at that time. I suppose it was analogous to the "dot-com" boom and bust, about fifteen years later. Fortunately, many of the people at Imagic (particularly the main guys like Koble and Fulop) were among the best in the business, and were able to move on to bigger and better things despite all the ups and downs of the industry.

 

Thanks again for your outstanding work on "All In The Game." Apparently the people from Imagic still remember it fondly, too; I might have mentioned this in the other thread, but Rob Fulop talked a little bit about it a few years ago at the Classic Gaming Expo, saying that he still has his copy and plays it to lift his spirits whenever he's in a bad mood. It's a pity that Atari and Activision didn't bring you in to produce something similar at their companies; it would have been wonderful to have their early years captured on film also!

Edited November 16, 2009 by jaybird3rd

[almightytodd]

...and don't even get me started on Iran (eye-ran? No, ee-ron) and Iraq (eye-rack? No, ee-rock). To be fair, it's hard to figure out how to pronounce made-up business words when there's so much inconsistency in the pronunciation of "real" English words. I'm sure many of you have already seen this English Pronunciation Poem...

[+Random Terrain]

I'm sure many of you have already seen this English Pronunciation Poem...

That wasn't a poem, it was an entire book.

[hideovideo]

I've watched the documentary a couple times, very well done. Nice to have that piece of history documented... thanks.

 

Still chortling over your forum posting skills... but cutting you some slack, now that I know where you are coming from.

 

 

Sorry. Don't have any idea how to do this. Have never been interested in forums till I stumbled across this one. Maybe this

is the correct way to respond. (?)

[Bountybob]

For Years I pronounced Sega as Seega , Jaleco as Jaleco instead of Haleco and Xevious as Exevious instead of Zevious.

[Zwackery]

After that, Denis kept giving me new versions of "Atlantis" and I'd report back on what I thought. I don't know what the ultimate music was but all the prototypes had this kind of calliope music that was maddening.

Prototypes? Have you been bombarded with messages about these? Do you still have any?

 

"Paging Dr. Wonder, Paging Dr. Wonder"

[hideovideo]

After that, Denis kept giving me new versions of "Atlantis" and I'd report back on what I thought. I don't know what the ultimate music was but all the prototypes had this kind of calliope music that was maddening.

Prototypes? Have you been bombarded with messages about these? Do you still have any?

 

"Paging Dr. Wonder, Paging Dr. Wonder"

 

 

No, they didn't seem important at the time. In fact, by the time the game was released I didn't even bother to get one.

I was too tired of playing it.

[mos6507]

Lies. All lies.

 

I will still say Gif Guh Guh Guh Gif, Not Jif, because it's stupid.

 

yes, I am very mature.

 

It's my feeling that the ambiguity of the pronunciation of a lot of computer terms is a sign of the social isolation that most computer geeks suffer from, where these things exist almost exclusively as characters on a computer monitor rather than spoken in conversation. Maybe that's less so now, but not entirely gone when dealing with more specialized terms.

 

That being said, I remember being in a store once and overheard some idiot pronounce CD-ROM as "ROME". Not sure how the hell he came up with that one.