New interview with Nolan Bushnell

[Mindfield]

Sorry, lamps. Same results, though. :-)

 

Wasn't the 8-bit computer line originally designed by Jay Miner?

[Rhindle The Red]

I love how he talks about the Atari 800 computer system as if he really knew anything about it, he was gone Dec 78'  The only thing he'd really seen was the pre-800 design based on a TIA chip that he, Steve Bristow and Joe Keenan flew up to Cyan Engineering in Grass Valley several months before his departure from Atari.  

 

When I read that interview, that thought crossed my mind, too. What on earth did Nolan have to do with the computer industry???

His comments on the Atari 800 are very clearly from the perspective of an outsider. He uses the term "we" once in a "we-as-Atari" kind of way, but in no way does he imply he had anything to do with the Atari computer line.

 

And Nolan was right, anyway. As much as I love my Atari computer(s), it was a bad decision for Atari, a video game company, to get into that line of work. If Warner had listened to Nolan and focused on video games, things could have turned out very differently for Atari and the entire video game industry.

 

(And you might want to amend your book, Rolenta, to point out that Steve Jobs didn't create Breakout for Atari. His friend Steve Wozniak did and Jobs took the credit and most of the money.)

[rolenta]

As much as I love my Atari computer(s), it was a bad decision for Atari, a video game company, to get into that line of work.  If Warner had listened to Nolan and focused on video games, things could have turned out very differently for Atari and the entire video game industry.

 

I disagree. For one, it wasn't the Atari computer that killed Atari and the industry. If Atari hadn't gone into the computer business, the outcome would have been the same.

 

Anyone who used an Atari 800 in the early '80s knew what a great computer it was. The problem was that Atari didn't know how to market it. The public's perception of the 800 was that it was a glorified game machine and Atari's management did nothing to change them. In fact, Atari's management didn't even use them in-house because they didn't know what to do with them!

 

And you might want to amend your book, Rolenta, to point out that Steve Jobs didn't create Breakout for Atari. His friend Steve Wozniak did and Jobs took the credit and most of the money.)

 

This is correct and will be changed. Thanks.

[Rob Mitchell]

This is correct and will be changed.

 

Another edition?

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

[Rhindle The Red]

As much as I love my Atari computer(s), it was a bad decision for Atari, a video game company, to get into that line of work.  If Warner had listened to Nolan and focused on video games, things could have turned out very differently for Atari and the entire video game industry.

 

I disagree. For one, it wasn't the Atari computer that killed Atari and the industry. If Atari hadn't gone into the computer business, the outcome would have been the same.

Well, of course, that's your opinion. It could also be argued that an Atari that was focused on video games and didn't divide its R&D and advertising budget would have been a stronger company overall. If Atari had only a video game line, they may have been able to respond to the ColecoVision faster and maybe staved off the crash by moving the industry forward instead of allowing it to cling to the 2600, which is where the glut (and therefore the crash) came from.

 

Sure, they would have probably still made "E.T." and it would still have been a disaster, but perhaps not an unsurvivable one.

[Rhindle The Red]

*curses the lack of an edit button*

 

It's one of the reasons Nintendo has always been successful. They have not tried to branch out too far from their core business of making video games. Sony and Microsoft may have market share, but they are not as profitable as Nintendo is, generally.

 

Corporate diversity is a wonderful thing, but it's not too hard to make the argument that video games and computers (despite their similarities) are *vastly* different fields and it was ultimately unwise for Atari to cross over.

[rolenta]

Another edition?

 

Hopefully by year's end to cover videogame history through 2004.

 

And in addition to that, Ralph Baer's book, and the 2nd edition of "ABC To The VCS", I'll also be publishing "Confessions of the Game Doctor" by Bill Kunkel. Plus other surprises to hopefully follow.

[Gregory DG]

(And you might want to amend your book, Rolenta, to point out that Steve Jobs didn't create Breakout for Atari.  His friend Steve Wozniak did and Jobs took the credit and most of the money.)

According to this, and this, Breakout was Bushnell's idea. Woz only created the actual game from that idea.

[slapdash]

(And you might want to amend your book, Rolenta, to point out that Steve Jobs didn't create Breakout for Atari.  His friend Steve Wozniak did and Jobs took the credit and most of the money.)

According to this, and this, Breakout was Bushnell's idea. Woz only created the actual game from that idea.

 

I don't know the accuracy about who's idea the game was, but as to Jobs vs Wozniak, the story I've always heard is that Jobs was to be given $100 bonus for each chip that he could eliminate from the game's hardware design (i.e. it was already complete, in a sense), and that he foisted the challenge off on Woz who loved such challenges, but pocketed the bonus himself. Neither Jobs nor Woz had any affect on the GAMEPLAY design as far as I know.

[mos6507]

And Nolan was right, anyway.  As much as I love my Atari computer(s), it was a bad decision for Atari, a video game company, to get into that line of work.  If Warner had listened to Nolan and focused on video games, things could have turned out very differently for Atari and the entire video game industry.

 

But Nolan did want to diversify Atari, like with AtariTel. After Nolan left, Space Invaders turned Atari's home division into a REAL cash-cow, and Warner Atari would have been free to go in many different related directions.

 

He also wasn't against Atari using it as a home computer. He was against them marketing it as a home computer when its strength was in videogames. He wanted to keep the initial price of the console at a minimum and make it as much of a mainstream product as possible to gain some market-share. Think what Apple was charging for Apple IIs vs. Atari with 2600s. A huge gap inbetween. Even the Atari 400 was sold beyond what most people would ever spend on a game console. And the carts were expensive too. I remember buying carts for something like $44 for my 1200XL in 1983 or so.

 

I read somewhere that the total number of 8-bit home computers in the late 70s was still in the tens of thousands. (We're talking pre-Commodore 64 here, the early expensive days of 8-bit computing.) Game consoles circa the Space Invaders boom was well into the millions. The margin on computer hardware was greater, but the volume on game consoles was much greater.

[mos6507]

Also, I can tell you from friends and from personal experience, Nolan treats his employee's like pee-on's

 

That may be true, but he does still have friens from the old days who have fond enough memories working with him to remain loyal to him. So I wouldn't take that bitterness you have and try to apply an eraser to all his past accomplishments. People change, that's all.

 

Just to bring it back to games...

 

For the record, I see nothing compelling to me in uWink because I think Nolan made a fatal error in going with a touchscreen display. This pretty much makes action gaming impossible. This is not something that would have happened, for instance, in the coinop division in classic Atari. Game controls were paramount back then. Wasn't Space Race the first joystick game? That's where the trakball was invented, or the flight yoke for Star Wars that was prototyped with the Bradley Trainer, or the hall-effect joystick.

 

So I do have a problem when Nolan pontificates on what makes games great since uWink's games don't really rise above the kind of Flash and Java applet games you can play online for free on sites like the one I'm employed by (grab.com).

 

It was twitch games like Asteroids and Missile Command that exemplify Nolan's ideal of quick to learn, difficult to master, not card and puzzle games.

 

So I can't understand why Nolan isn't practicing what he preaches.

 

Original homebrew titles like Oystron or Space Treat have done a better job of continuing the tradition of classic gaming than uWink does.

 

That doesn't change history for me, though. People are not static creatures. They change, sometimes for the better, sometimes worse.

 

Nolan used to be a kid who would hang out at amusement parks. That initial spark of inspiration, that drive that led him to stumble his way into making Computer Space I think is long gone. I think (beyond the profit motive) he's more interested in social engineering through gaming than he is in gaming per se. Nolan being a family guy with lots of kids, his mind is on social interactions. Findind a way to get people to interact in public places again is something he's talked about a lot. It's like he wants to feed us nutritional food instead of a chocolate sundae.