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Pictures of Activision office/employees, circa 1983


JayAre

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I was able to come across some pictures of Activision's main office and its employees, from around 1983.  I don't think very many of these types of pictures survived and thought you guys might find them interesting.  Enjoy! 

 

On the right side, there appears to be a poster for Megamania.  There's also a poster showing the different high-score patches

image.thumb.png.6c18f2cb7f2fe514ab40e934d6617417.png

 

The ladies appear to be looking at a folder with samples of the artwork for River Raid on the 5200

image.thumb.png.e49e2976ee3f21fbbc39849405fadf24.png

 

Poking out from underneath the wall calendar is a promotional sheriff's badge for the Happy Trails game for Intellivision

image.thumb.png.99c99b200190eec938e35f1fec3025ec.png

 

What stood out to me here is that, on the dry erase board, there appears to be a comment which says "Order Shrink Wrap".  I can't make out what the other comments mean

image.thumb.png.a24586faa23afefed49e73a81b39b029.png

 

A couple of Activision letters or memos can be seen on the wall

image.thumb.png.d448c6c86eb0e9c61378a79aaa54f7d0.png

 

Activision President, Jim Levy

image.thumb.png.db928e120eb8ee8a4649ffb947250cc6.png

 

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1 hour ago, Jettgogaming said:

very cool! Thanks for sharing! I love how vintage everything used to be, radios, telephones, desk lamps, calculators took up 1/3 of your desk. Good ol' 80s!

My pleasure.

 

And check out the cool digital wristwatch in the first picture.  I think many of us had one of those back then.

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57 minutes ago, CapitanClassic said:

Pretty sure the last couple lines are, "

Dedicate line (blue)

Ship "Fk/ft" (blue, not sure)

....a Stalcup

...for trip to

...yville I'll (red)

O...order Shrink WRAP

memo to --------- about suitcase heavey 

Check on service of F. Car"

 

Cap, thanks for trying to make some sense out of what was written on the board.

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1 hour ago, fiddlepaddle said:

...how vintage everything USED to be?! I'm sure I have more stuff from that era now than I did back then.

As a matter of fact, I have a desk lamp and a phone just like that. And for those who don't know what a dial tone is, telephones like that were often rented (that one from GTE, I bet).

Lol yes, you don't see vintage like that in the work world anymore! My desk consists of high definition slim line monitors, a computer, no calculator (I use Windows for that) and an IP phone. I feel like nowadays there are more ways to wander off and get sucked into Google searching or playing a game on your smartphone. Back then you had binders of paper, simple analog phones and stuff that could only entertain you to an extent. We definitely live in a much busier world now!

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14 hours ago, Atari_Bill said:

Love that poster with the patches!!  Too bad that wasn’t a consumer release.  At least I’ve never seen it before. Anyone else?

That really is a nice poster.  I had never seen it before either.  Maybe it was displayed at trade shows and/or sent to retailers.

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On 7/29/2020 at 5:40 PM, Rom Collector said:

Do you mean touch tone?

No, dial tone is the sound you hear on a land line phone that indicates the switchboard is ready to accept a phone number; it exists on every land line phone that I'm aware of, including dial phones that existed many years before touch tone existed (although, yes, the phones in those pictures all appear to be touch tone phones).


When the handset is lifted off the "hook", it takes some time (usually a portion of a second, but sometimes much longer, depending on network activity) before the dial tone begins and continues for maybe 60 seconds to allow you to enter a phone number, before eventually timing out.  At that point, the connection must be closed (ie, hang up the phone) for a few seconds and then one can try again.

 

Dial phones will work fine on (most) touch-tone capable land lines, but touch tone phones will not work on land lines that have not been upgraded, but there are probably very few of these left.

 

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10 hours ago, fiddlepaddle said:

No, dial tone is the sound you hear on a land line phone that indicates the switchboard is ready to accept a phone number; it exists on every land line phone that I'm aware of, including dial phones that existed many years before touch tone existed (although, yes, the phones in those pictures all appear to be touch tone phones).


When the handset is lifted off the "hook", it takes some time (usually a portion of a second, but sometimes much longer, depending on network activity) before the dial tone begins and continues for maybe 60 seconds to allow you to enter a phone number, before eventually timing out.  At that point, the connection must be closed (ie, hang up the phone) for a few seconds and then one can try again.

 

Dial phones will work fine on (most) touch-tone capable land lines, but touch tone phones will not work on land lines that have not been upgraded, but there are probably very few of these left.

 

Yes, I know what a dial tone is. So you meant land line phone? In my 53 years never heard it referred to as a dial tone phone.

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You are correct Rom Collector. There's a rotary (dial) phone and a touch-tone phone.  The touch-tone phone was never called a dial tone phone.  Both phones first used analog phone lines.  Both can still be used on digital phone lines, you just need a pulse to tone converter for a rotary phone and a filter for both.  Some touch-tone phones had a switch on them that allowed it to be used for both pulse and tone dialing.  The dial tone is the signal sent by the phone company.  The tones are the sounds a touch-tone phone makes when using it.  A land line is the physical cable that goes to your house.  It can be either analog or digital.

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On 7/29/2020 at 10:43 PM, CapitanClassic said:

Pretty sure the last couple lines are, "

Dedicate line (blue)

Ship "Fk/ft" (blue, not sure)

....a Stalcup

...for trip to

...yville I'll (red)

O...order Shrink WRAP

memo to --------- about suitcase heavey 

Check on service of F. Car"

 

I wonder if the red one is either Shelbyville, Grayville or Jerseyville in Illinois.

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1 hour ago, Lord Innit said:

I wonder if the red one is either Shelbyville, Grayville or Jerseyville in Illinois.

Lord, I think you're absolutely right.  I thought the "Ill" was referring to "I'll" (as in "I will").  But since it says "for trip to" right above this, it looks like it was referring to some kind of business trip to the great state of Illinois.

 

Good catch.

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Well, if you read my sentence a little more carefully, you'll realize the noun in that clause is dial tone, not telephone, which is in the conditional clause. Despite my point being trivial and irrelevant, the word choice is as intended.

Also, touch-tone and rotary are not the only options. There are pre-rotary phones as well that work. The last time I tried, you could still get an operator by pressing the hook up and down a couple of times and be connected to someone.

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34 minutes ago, 4ever2600 said:

How in the world did you find these?

I got them from a former Activision employee, whom I know.  She recalls that the pictures were taken by a professional photographer.  They're actually on 35mm slides; I used a scanner to convert them to photographs.

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48 minutes ago, JayAre said:

I got them from a former Activision employee, whom I know.  She recalls that the pictures were taken by a professional photographer.  They're actually on 35mm slides; I used a scanner to convert them to photographs.

Nice to have a connection!  You’ve brought to light some really cool things from her. 

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