Atari Mindlink controller

[Mr SQL]

Rogue,

Jess and Dan just have a different viewpoint than your sources did. I found your book excellent and very enjoyable, but I don't feel your ideas always accurately portray reality; History is rewritten all the time by Historians and Researchers for the simple fact they are researching after the fact.

 

There's nothing wrong with that, it's just the writer's lens and it adds to the fun!

 

I worked in the industry in the 80's and it seemed Jack was all about selling the computer, not the games.

 

Dan's opinion regarding the details is most likely to reflect what happened since he was on the scene at the time and not a lay person; it's interesting to suggest Jack was really into games from the start instead of being reactionary but can you support it with an argument besides jaded?

 

Dan,

I heard that Jack made his computer orientation clear by dramatically smashing a 5200 console in a meeting early on; can you shed any light on this?

[Andre81]

@Retro Rogue: Are you going to publish the internal emails and documents you are refering to?

 

[almightytodd]

This thread has gone wildly off-topic, but it is quite fascinating. It boosts the anticipation of the next books to get the full story with the documentation that backs it up.

[Andre81]

I heard that Jack made his computer orientation clear by dramatically smashing a 5200 console in a meeting early on; can you shed any light on this?

Atari Corp. actually produced more 5200 games in 1985 in Taiwan.

 

2600 games were also produced in 1985. Phil and I are documenting all printing dates of the boxes/manuals, so we can say soon during which months in 1984/1985 games were not produced.

 

Also Solaris and Midnight Magic were produced/released 1986. And they produced re-releases of the entire 2600 line-up in 1986 (mostly sold through Kaybee). This was before the NES took off. So they have atleast still produced and sold their entire portfolio.

[Jess Ragan]

I was overly grouchy in my response, and I apologize for that. I don't apologize for my view of Jack Tramiel, though. He was not an ethical businessman (the reason VICs and C64s were so cheap? He essentially stole parts from manufacturers, driving them into bankruptcy) and his disdain for video games was reported early and often by those closest to them. I can't say Steven Kent is right 100% of the time (that Playstation 2 "coronation" article... oh lord), but his book The Ultimate History of Video Games was well researched and factually sound.

 

Jack probably had a less jaundiced view of video games than his contemporary Clive Sinclair, who lamented that his own computer was best known for "Jet Set fucking Willy," if the British documentary Micro Men is to be believed. Nevertheless, after all I've heard, I've got to take any reports of Jack Tramiel embracing video games shortly after buying Atari with a heaping spoonful of skepticism.

[Retro Rogue]

Just revisiting this, as we're knee deep in interviews and resource gathering for the second book (specifically on the May through December '84 period). Specifically in relation to two previous claims in this thread.

 

First, regarding this meeting with Nintendo that was brought up, we did manage to track down and talk to people (management) directly involved in these meetings (not just poking their head in). It was a series of meetings, not just one, and it had nothing to do with Nintendo offering the Famicom to Jack. What they had to do with was Nintendo coming after Jack for royalties they were promised based on the licensing agreement with Atari Inc. Specifically, that Jack's July '84 purchase of Atari Inc.'s Consumer Division was only an assets purchase of that division and the Atari name and logo. As such, Nintendo was counting it as a sale of game stock (one of the assets he purchased), and felt it was entitled to earned royalties. Until it was settled, Jack was not allowed to sell Donkey Kong or Mario Bros. for any platform. These meetings lasted into '85 and almost went to a full lawsuit until an agreement was finally made.

 

Second, we have direct verification from GCC (printed documentation and interviews) that as of August '84 Jack was in talks with them about releasing the 7800 that Christmas '84 (and not only that but upping the initial order that Atari Inc. had placed). The sticking points were indeed a) GCC was in business with Warner and not Atari, and felt Warner still owed them for MARIA development and the development of the launch titles. Warner in turn felt Jack would have to pay that if he wanted it. b) Jack wanted to sell the 7800 units and carts for lower than what Warner/Atari Inc. had agreed on, which would mean lower royalties for GCC which didn't sit well with them. Both issues lead to continued negotiations into spring of '85 until an agreement was made and payment rendered.

 

Third, we have direct verification from GCC (printed documentation and interviews) that Jack also discussed with them on his plans to release the cost reduced 2600 (the 2600 Jr.) alongside the 7800 that Christmas '84 (which matches the Atari Corp. internal documentation we had that the 2100 aka the Jr. was started up again in August), to which GCC was looking forward to because of planned royalties on the 2600 titles they programmed for Atari Inc. To that end Jack had already had planned out and enacted how to reduce the costs of manufacturing on both units and carts to make manufacturing new 2600 feasible considering the game industry at the time.

 

Again, this documentation regarding GCC is from August '84 and the related events lasted into '85. We will have the documentation reproduced in the book as we did with other important documents in the last book.

[+Psionic]

You'd be 100% wrong. We directly interviewed those people, one of which was Steve Woita who remembers very vividly when he was over at Coin's main building (where the console programmers had been moved when Gibraltar was closed earlier under Morgan), listening to his Walkman and coding when he was tapped on the shoulder and given the offer to either severance or come over to Corp. as a contractor to finish the games he was working on. He chose the former.

Interesting, since that appears to directly conflict with what Steve himself said here. He apparently remembers "vividly" what he told you, yet he said (or at least alluded to) something completely different just a few years ago. I think you need some clarification on this, to say the least.

 

Six people chose to come on as contract programmers to finish their games, which they did.

If I may ask, who were the six people and what games are you referring to?

[Lynxpro]

I'm amazed at the Lazer Tag-ish reveal of Mike Katz's desire to get into that market. Especially since Nintendo of America took over Worlds of Wonder's [the makers of Lazer Tag] distribution system which helped the NES succeed in the US.

 

Thinking back, there was Lazer Tag, Photon (the original), and some other smaller knockoff competitors… Laser Age or Laser Active, something like that.

 

The Photon unit chestpad plugged into the Photon blaster using a DB9 connector. I plugged my chest pad into my 7800 with Robotron playing and it freaked out the chest pad causing it to register as receiving enough hits to be considered "dead".

 

An Atari version of Lazer Tag/Photon could've been really cool. I'm sure they would've branded that around "Atari Force" unless Corp. would've had to pay Warner-owned DC Comics for that privilege.

[DanOliver]

I lost track of this thread, not really too interested in "fact" spinning. I only skimmed so sorry in advance if this seems out of left field...but this thing about the Nintendo meeting I was referring to, and maybe others were referring to, had to do with discussing royalty/payment problems. In the meeting I'm referring to the conference table was covered with Nintendo equipment, at least it looked like Nintendo equipment to me. We were told a little bit about the system, I don't even think I sat down. When we left we were asked if we thought it was a good game platform, 30-40 second "discussion" tops.

 

I've been in more than a few meetings at different companies to discuss royalties and payment issues...you don't bring equipment for those meetings, you bring lawyers. You don't show off games you're working on.

 

That we (the group of game designers) were given just a short demo and asked for a very short opinion makes me believe we were only there as window dressing. I've been in many meetings, including at Atari, where 3rd party equipment and/or software was evaluated...entirely different process. Hours and hours long, follow up meetings, testing, etc. It's a big deal.

 

We (game designers) weren't even scheduled for the meeting. Someone just walked thru the offices and found who was there and dragged them off to the meeting. Dog and pony show.

 

The executives I knew at Atari had less than zero interest in games while I was there. That changed after I left and I even did work on Desert Falcon and later at CES when Jaguar was shown Atari was trying to recruit back all the game designers that had left. While I was at Atari Corp my assumption was anyone working on anything game related would be fired. Maybe there were secret game projects going on but I doubt it. All the bosses came from Commodore and they looked down their noses at games, I think mainly because they knew nothing about games. On the subject of games they were pretty insecure imo, defensive. Just a vibe. And that was fine with us. Being able to create a new personal computer with ex-Commodore people and some of the best people from Atari was a great opportunity and a heck of a lot of fun.

 

Now that's only my perspective. To me it's completely possible that there were several meetings with Nintendo. There could have been a royalty/payment meeting going on at the exact same time in another office, or on another day, or whatever. For all I know there could have been some royalty/payment meeting in that very conference room on that very day and then later there was another meeting about Atari selling Nintendo equipment in the US or developing games for their unit (I don't even know why we were evaluating the system). The concept that a person knows something about a single meeting on a single subject and therefore no other meeting is possible would be myopic.

 

I've been interviewed a few times by some pretty serious journalists and read the published result. I'd say 50-80% of each article was completely wrong. It's like you give the journalist a bunch of items and they put the bits in a box, shake it up, and then make up something using those bits so it sounds kind of real but is far from "fact" in any shape or form. These things are written as entertainment. There are a few people trying to document the history of games, that's a different process. Anyone writing something to sell has to add entertainment value, their own spin. They have to punch it up, have a point of view.

 

There have been a few hundred biographies written about President Lincoln all giving a perspective. Taking any of these as "fact" is problematic.

 

Online the tiniest tidbit can be claimed as fact and then "defended" ad nauseam. I find that to be pointless. Knowledge isn't that simple.

Edited December 23, 2013 by DanOliver

[Lynxpro]

So Dan:

 

Do you consider the ST to be an actual "Atari" product in the spirit of old-Atari, a hybrid synthesis, or something else?

 

I find it interesting Corp tried hiring back a lot of ex-Atari programmers to work on Jaguar games. If only they would've done that for the 7800 a few years before. It still baffles me about why the later Corp " entertainment division" ended up in Chicago instead of pulling from the former talent locally but I'm sure that'll be covered in Curt's and Marty's sequel book.

 

IMHO, the Chicago division did better work on average than a lot of the contractors did in the interim period. At least the Lynx benefitted from that. I still say the Tramiels should've sold Corp to Time Warner back in 1990-91 when they expressed an interest following their re-acquisition of Atari Games during that period. EGM was certainly hot for them to do that...

[Curt Vendel]

I asked Steve about that, he rethought the whole time and realized that wasn't a correct description of what had occurred that he'd wrote. This is understandable, many who have given us interviews or posted recounts sometimes remember later that their memory wasn't always accurate. The actual hard copy memo's and emails also back these things up and help these guys remember better... and all of us have to remember this was 30 years ago for these guys, some of us can't remember what we wore last week or what we had for lunch yesterday, so them not always remembering things exactly does happen. This is why Marty and I always gather multiple sources of material on events for cross-referencing and verification. Many times it turns out to be that very same persons own notes that they wrote.

 

That should help clarify things better.

 

 

 

 

Interesting, since that appears to directly conflict with what Steve himself said here. He apparently remembers "vividly" what he told you, yet he said (or at least alluded to) something completely different just a few years ago. I think you need some clarification on this, to say the least.


If I may ask, who were the six people and what games are you referring to?

[Curt Vendel]

I wouldn't term it as "embracing" video games, more that he understood Atari's strengths lied in its name in video gaming and that he was sitting on large inventories of product and parts that he needed to generate capital from. Its the same with the XE's, this is why they didn't get a much attention as they did in the past, basically it was about moving product and inventory. The ST's were the prime focus of the company. Apple did this as well with its Macintosh over its Apple 2 line, however Apple gave a substantial amount of support to its 8bit line till its end of life, far more than Atari did for its XE line, but it was still supported. Same with the 2600 and 7800 line, Jack hired back several programmers are contractors to finish games, he maintained licensing contracts for game titles, paid GCC a substantial sum to acquire the 7800 system from them because it wasn't part of the Atari sale to Jack because GCC worked for Warmer Comm and not Atari so it wasn't part of the sale.

 

Also I wouldn't so much say disdain either... these were computer guys, that was their interest, they didn't see video games as they say computers. This of course was a downside because again they bought a company and brand that was known more for video games than computers, a legacy not easily shaken, though in the end Atari was known more for its computers than video games by the late 80's - but at what cost. Either way, the fact remains from day 1 Jack intended to have video games a part of Atari, the difference was under Atari Inc video games were the star, the computer were the background dancers. Under Atari Corp the roles were reversed and for many internally working at Atari and outside as consumers or reviewers - seeing the video games in the background meant Jack and company didn't care about videogames, it just meant they weren't given the top priority they enjoyed from 1977-1984.

 

 

I was overly grouchy in my response, and I apologize for that. I don't apologize for my view of Jack Tramiel, though. He was not an ethical businessman (the reason VICs and C64s were so cheap? He essentially stole parts from manufacturers, driving them into bankruptcy) and his disdain for video games was reported early and often by those closest to them. I can't say Steven Kent is right 100% of the time (that Playstation 2 "coronation" article... oh lord), but his book The Ultimate History of Video Games was well researched and factually sound.

Jack probably had a less jaundiced view of video games than his contemporary Clive Sinclair, who lamented that his own computer was best known for "Jet Set fucking Willy," if the British documentary Micro Men is to be believed. Nevertheless, after all I've heard, I've got to take any reports of Jack Tramiel embracing video games shortly after buying Atari with a heaping spoonful of skepticism.

[DanOliver]

So Dan:

 

Do you consider the ST to be an actual "Atari" product in the spirit of old-Atari, a hybrid synthesis, or something else?

 

I find it interesting Corp tried hiring back a lot of ex-Atari programmers to work on Jaguar games. If only they would've done that for the 7800 a few years before. It still baffles me about why the later Corp " entertainment division" ended up in Chicago instead of pulling from the former talent locally but I'm sure that'll be covered in Curt's and Marty's sequel book.

 

IMHO, the Chicago division did better work on average than a lot of the contractors did in the interim period. At least the Lynx benefitted from that. I still say the Tramiels should've sold Corp to Time Warner back in 1990-91 when they expressed an interest following their re-acquisition of Atari Games during that period. EGM was certainly hot for them to do that...

I think the ST was completely a Jack Tramiel product. I wouldn't say that made it a Commodore or an Atari product. Working for pre-Tramiel Atari and post was night and day. I don't consider them to be the same company. I mean if the manager of the Blackhawks gets booted and buys the LA Lakers, fires 100% of management and 95% of players and brings in ex-Blackhawks management, hires hockey players to play basketball, would the LA Lakers still be the LA Lakers? Yeah, but in name only.

 

After the ST dream started to have problems I think the Tramiels started to look around for something to salvage and saw they were sitting on top of one of the best brand names ever, tons of owned rights, and games were starting to make a come back, it had to be a no brainer...sell games. Purely a business move driven by limited options. Zero interest in games other than making money. I wasn't there, but that's my opinion.

 

I was at CES with some other game designers when the Atari people were trying to talk us into doing Jaguar games. This was such an unbelievable concept we didn't even consider the pitch at all. We didn't talk about it at all, didn't even crack any jokes. I like the Tramiels a lot, they do what they do very well and I always found them to be smart and very nice people. But they and their team weren't into software of any kind. I did ST Writer on my own because I thought it was insane to try and sell a computer without a word processor and they had no 3rd parties lined up. But to them they were selling hardware and thought that would be so compelling others would provide the software. Worked for the Vic 20 so why not again? Their passion was creating pretty dare good hardware at an insanely low price. But times changed.

 

If you want to write apps and have them published you don't hook your wagon to non-software people like the Tramiels. Almost every company I ever worked for were either hardware or software people. Most of them would actively dismiss the other. Apple did embraced both, but ever there the two parts were very separate. So doing games for the Tramiels, at lease for people who had experience with them, the concept was ludicrous. Creating games is a creative process, cranking out low cost hardware is more about logistics. Creating games takes passion. There's no way the Tramiels could ever do that imo, they just didn't play games or see why people liked games. That just never works.

 

And even if they did happen to stumble into a hit game and did well guess how the designers would have been treated? As prima donna towel designers. So there was little reason for experienced game designers to get on board with the Tramiels. For us it would have been lose, lose. There were many more opportunities around that looked a lot better..

[DanOliver]

I wouldn't term it as "embracing" video games, more that he understood Atari's strengths lied in its name in video gaming and that he was sitting on large inventories of product and parts that he needed to generate capital from. Its the same with the XE's, this is why they didn't get a much attention as they did in the past, basically it was about moving product and inventory. The ST's were the prime focus of the company. Apple did this as well with its Macintosh over its Apple 2 line, however Apple gave a substantial amount of support to its 8bit line till its end of life, far more than Atari did for its XE line, but it was still supported. Same with the 2600 and 7800 line, Jack hired back several programmers are contractors to finish games, he maintained licensing contracts for game titles, paid GCC a substantial sum to acquire the 7800 system from them because it wasn't part of the Atari sale to Jack because GCC worked for Warmer Comm and not Atari so it wasn't part of the sale.

 

Also I wouldn't so much say disdain either... these were computer guys, that was their interest, they didn't see video games as they say computers. This of course was a downside because again they bought a company and brand that was known more for video games than computers, a legacy not easily shaken, though in the end Atari was known more for its computers than video games by the late 80's - but at what cost. Either way, the fact remains from day 1 Jack intended to have video games a part of Atari, the difference was under Atari Inc video games were the star, the computer were the background dancers. Under Atari Corp the roles were reversed and for many internally working at Atari and outside as consumers or reviewers - seeing the video games in the background meant Jack and company didn't care about videogames, it just meant they weren't given the top priority they enjoyed from 1977-1984.

 

 

I try to base most of my notions of other people by their actions.

 

When the Tramiels came into Atari I heard zero talk about games. When they interviewed me they asked zero questions about games or work I'd done on games. Maybe there was some secret group some place, but in the area where I worked it was zero games 24/7. It was like games had never existed. I don't remember even seeing an Arcade game in the break room. I never saw a single person ever play a game at Atari Corp, ever. Not a game poster, nothing. I assume people did play games sometimes, but I don't remember seeing any. Wasn't common. There were a fair number of game designers working on the ST and I don't remember any of us having even one of our boxed games on display. We didn't discuss games future or past ever.

 

For that first year or two after the crash most people thought video games were gone forever. You'd be considered imbecile to even consider games. Plus the Tramiels didn't even have any kind of game background, so even in the heydays they didn't have anything to do with games beyond helping them to sell hardware. It seemed normal and very sensible to me in that environment that they had less than zero interest in games.

 

So that's my basis for thinking the Tramiels had no interest in games. If they had an interest then buying Atari certainly would have given them every opportunity to express that interest and they didn't.

 

Only after the ST failed did they resort to games at what looked to me like a life line. Even then imo it was all about leading edge hardware at low cost and not much about games. Their pitch was all about RAM, bus, CPU like they were talking about a laptop. Looking at the controllers it just seemed pretty clear that this wasn't designed by people who loved games, or had ever even played a game. Kind of figured the hardware inside wasn't any better. There were certainly some people there who were into games and understood games, but too low level to have a real impact on development unfortunately.

 

That's my personal big picture view, not saying it's any more true than anyone else's. I'm sure there were memos and conversations where people could get a different view if they wanted. People say lots of things to different people for different reasons. To me that isn't as convincing as bigger picture actions over a long period.

 

Jack Tramiel did tremendously great things. He just didn't happen to be into games.

Edited December 28, 2013 by DanOliver

[Andre81]

Only after the ST failed did they resort to games at what looked to me like a life line.

The ST sold pretty well in Europe. So imo it is not right to say the ST failed. There must have been a very positive cashflow from Europe.

 

Also the ST was developed at TTL before they bought Atari. They bought Atari in 7/1984 and showed the ST at the CES 1/1985. The ST was developed by former Commodore staff, namely Shiraz Shivji. So the ST is absolutely not an Atari Inc. product.

 

You could say Atari Corp. was a merger of Atari Inc. and TTL (Ex-Commodore).

 

 

[DanOliver]

I kind of hate to say the ST "failed", it succeeded in many aspects. But as a business it didn't bring in enough profit to keep Atari going as a business so it failed in that sense.

 

I attribute the ST to Jack. Shiraz, and a few other engineers, certainly made the ST happen. I would say Shiraz created the ST. But my feeling is Jack drove Shiraz to create that specific machine with those specific features. But that's only my impression, I certainly know zero of what actually went on.

 

My impression at the time was Atari Corp was 100% Jack and company. Nothing from Atari survived other than the name at least from what I could see. Some of the old Atari may have resurfaced after I left, don't know.

[Andre81]

I kind of hate to say the ST "failed", it succeeded in many aspects. But as a business it didn't bring in enough profit to keep Atari going as a business so it failed in that sense.

 

I attribute the ST to Jack. Shiraz, and a few other engineers, certainly made the ST happen. I would say Shiraz created the ST. But my feeling is Jack drove Shiraz to create that specific machine with those specific features. But that's only my impression, I certainly know zero of what actually went on.

 

Leonard Tramiel confirmed that the ST was designed at Tramel Technology Ltd. (TTL) which was then renamed to Atari Corp.

 

The only odd thing is that TTL was founded in 5/1984 and Shiraz joined in 6/1984 and in 7/1984 they bought the Atari assets and at the CES in 1/1985 they already showed the ST.

 

So I think it is likely that work on the ST either started right after Tramiel left Commodore in 1/1984 or even before. Would be interesting to know what Tramiel already had when he bought Atari. Would be interesting to interview Shiraz, but I don't think anyone would confirm that they took the design and idea from their days at Commodore.

 

I wouldn't say the ST failed, Atari Corp. just made the same mistake as Atari Inc. before. Both had successful products (2600, 8-bit computers and ST) but failed to establish a successor and didn't use synergies between computers and consoles.

 

The XEGS should have been released in 1982 instead of the 5200. And if the Mega ST (with blitter) would have been released as a console in 1987 it could have competed with the SEGA Genesis. Atari may have even taken the market by 1989 when the Genesis was released.

 

A common misunderstanding seems to be that Tramiel bought Atari. Through his company TTL he bought the home computer and home video game assets of Atari and the logo/name.

 

[DanOliver]

Yes, I think the ST hardware or concept was fully formed when Tramiel bought Atari. There was some chip tweaking, but the concept of a Mac killer was fully formed imo.