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- Atari’s founders invented the video game arcade cabinet, helping to create the arcade culture that gave birth to modern video games. Without Atari, the history of games would have been completely different.
www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/20/ign-presents-the-history-of-atari
Nov 1, 2021 · Why? Because the innovations it introduced to the world represent the building blocks of the gaming universe we love today. Here are ten innovations and ideas that Atari pioneered. Each one...
- Scott Bernberg
Dec 22, 2021 · So why isn't Atari listed next to PlayStation and Nintendo today? The answer is one of the most dramatic stories of meteoric ascent and catastrophic cratering in corporate history. Let's take a look at the rise and fall of Atari.
Nov 20, 2017 · Amid this evolution, Atari was a key pioneering force, sparking the initial home video game craze that has laid the foundations for a generation of Wii U and Xbox playing fanatics around the...
Jun 1, 2021 · But most games developed for Atari were not Pac-Man-level quality, and that ultimately led to the platform’s demise. New research from Maryland Smith pinpoints the best strategies for today’s platforms to curate lots of high-quality content and avoid Atari’s fate.
- Beginnings
- Computer Space
- Avoid Missing Ball For High Score
- Birth of Atari, and Arcades
- Have You Played Atari Today?
- Computers For People
- Atari Becomes A Household Name
- The (Video Game) Music Stops
- Atari Corporation: Power Without The Price
- Sputtering and Last Gasps
When I grew up, two common tropes were that the first video game was Pong and that Nolan Bushnell invented it. Although Bushnell and Pong both deserve plenty of credit, the real story is more nuanced. It evolved over the course of the 20th century, as amusement parks led to penny arcades, Skee-Ball, pinball, and other electromechanical attractions ...
After Bushnell earned his electrical engineering degree and went to work for videotape company Ampex, he began designing his own Spacewar!-like electronic coin-op game with his coworker Ted Dabney. They mocked up a prototype, and along with fellow Ampex employee Larry Bryan, they started a partnership called Syzygy Engineering. They soon joined for...
The Magnavox Odyssey was the world’s first home video game console. The late Ralph Baer conceived the Odysseyway back in 1966 and built several prototypes of it. In 1971, Magnavox agreed to manufacture and sell Baer's system. Bushnell saw an early version of it at a Magnavox dealer demonstration later in 1971. He played the built-in table tennis ga...
Once the game was finished, Bushnell and Alcorn installed a prototypeof Pong in a local tavern to see how it did, only to get a call a couple of weeks later that it had broken. It turned out so many people played it that the coin box was already overflowing and had jammed. The new Atari, Inc. began manufacturing and distributing Pong cabinets later...
Atari also broke into the home console market like Magnavox, but not until 1975 with Home Pong, a dedicated unit that played selectable variations of its first hit arcade coin-op. Other copycats followed this effort, too, and 1976 marked a brief wave of popularity for these devices. Soon, the microprocessor-based Fairchild Channel F arrived, a cart...
In 1976, Warner Communications had purchased Atari for $28 million, giving it the cash infusion necessary to properly launch the VCS. This move also proved problematic; in 1978, Warner installed Ray Kassar, a textile executive, as CEO of Atari. The ground immediately shifted, as Kassar and Bushnell battled over the company’s direction, most notably...
If you were a kid in the early 1980s, you had to have an Atari console, or at least know a close friend with one—particularly after Atari's conversion of Space Invaders arrived. Excellent conversions of Atari's own Asteroids and Missile Command arrived the year after, plus new hits such as Yars' Revenge. After a highly publicized break with managem...
All three new consoles launched in 1982, but fizzled out within a year. So did everything else related to video games. An oversaturation of arcades, consoles, cartridges, and increasingly poor quality cartridges led to a massive video game crash in 1983. Atari was hit particularly hard, thanks in part to the colossal bungling of its home Pac-Man re...
In January 1984, Tramiel and his sons had a falling out with other Commodore management. They left the company, entered negotiations with Warner, and then struck a deal to split off and buy Atari Computer from Atari Coin. The coin-op division became Atari Games. Tramiel bought everything else and named the new company Atari Corporation. Tramiel imm...
By 1990, it was clear Atari wasn’t doing well—especially in the US, where sales had reached a near standstill. Atari's upgraded 1040STE model launched in late 1989 with support for 4,096 colors, digital sound, and hardware scrolling, which better positioned it against the Commodore Amiga 500, but it was two years late. Otherwise, the operative word...
- Jamie Lendino
- Editor-In-Chief, Extremetech
Jun 21, 2018 · Inside Atari’s rise and fall. By the first few months of 1982, it had become more common to see electronics stores, toy stores, and discount variety stops selling 2600 games. This was...
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Jan 27, 2013 · Although the PlayStation and Xbox generation might find it difficult to believe, Atari is one of the most important names in video game history and the news of its recent bankruptcy marked a...
- 29 sec
- Mark Langshaw
