Atari took off the gaming industry with its game Pong. Home version of Pong had to be connected to a television and it was an early “video gaming console.” During the long time when Atari has been on the market, they revealed multiple gaming consoles, such as Atari 2600 (VCS), 8bit computers series Atari 400,800, 16bit computers Atari ST, 64bit console Atari Jaguar or portable gaming console Atari Lynx.
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Nolan Bushnell (born on 5th February, 1943) is rightly considered to be the father of computer entertainment. He grew up in a Mormon family and he was interested in electronics since his childhood. Already as a boy he enjoyed fixing washing machines or radios and he was up for any challenge. And life offered him many. At the age of 11, he aimed to assemble a rocket engine running on a liquid fuel. When he was only 15 and his father died, he had to instantly take care of all father’s business contacts. He enrolled for the University of Utah in 1963. There he familiarised himself with DEC PDP-1 computer and Space War game (1962) by professor Steve Russel. This very game played a crucial role in his future. Nolan couldn’t think of anything else but games, entertainment and their future in the computer world. So games and entertainment didn’t influence only Bushnell, but also millions of others just a few years later.
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In 1969, Bushnell started as a development engineer at Ampex Corporation. There he got to know Ted Dabney with whom he planned to remake professor Russel’s game so that it could be used in video game coin machine. Nobody had ever seen such machine and that’s why was Dabney so enthusiastic about the idea. They made their improvised workroom at Bushnell’s place. It turned out that desire, time and skills still aren’t enough to assemble the machine. They needed an investor. They offered their project to Ampex but it wasn’t interested. That’s why both decided to quit Ampex and started at Nutting Associates where Bushnell got an offer for a senior engineer.
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In the second half of 1971 was the machine ready. It was as high as a man, its appearance reminded of a wardrobe, coins were inserted directly inside and the player had to stand while playing. Computer Space game was quite complex and there was sold only about a thousand machines.
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Bushnell didn’t want to give up on his vision of fame and wealth so he and Ted Dabney founded Atari on 27th June 1972. It was shortly followed by the first video game Pong and a phenomenal success came with it. There aren’t many people (above 30) who wouldn’t know a simple game with two platforms bouncing a ball. 10 thousand units of Pong were sold.
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Bushnell benefitted from his business talent at other fields, too. He has founded about twenty other businesses and has done trade with various range of products during his life. Pretty popular has been his pizzeria chain (250 parlours) with Atari gaming machines, sale of speaking teddy bears, robots or sat-nav systems. That wasn’t it for Bushnell. He is also an author of many US video game patents and he received many awards for his pioneering works.
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Spy vs spy (First Star Software – 1984) Two spies in one building and documents to be found. Who will be first? Laying traps, shooting and screen divided in two halves so that you can keep an eye on both spies.
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Draconus (Zeppelin Games – 1988): One of the best graphically designed platform games with great music, gameplay and animations.
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The Guild of Thieves (Magnetic Scrolls – 1987): A popular text game whose graphics wasn’t the best in Atari version.
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Other games: Asteroids, Gravitar, Lunar Lander, Super Breakout, Crystal Castles, Fatal Run etc.
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1/ There is so called Bushnell’s law: “All the best games are easy to learn and difficult to master.”
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2/ Atari Inc. was first meant to be called Syzygy inspired by an astronomical term.
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3/ The word Atari is used in Go game and it informs the opponent that their stone is in danger. Go was Bushnell’s favourite.
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4/ The demand for video gaming machines went up so much in 1973 that it was necessary to hire more workforce. As placing the machine didn’t require any special skills, Atari accepted everyone interested – people from the street, bikers or local hippies etc.
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5/ Within the first year Atari went from two to eighty employees. At its peak, Atari was employing 10 thousand employees.
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6/ Atari employed also Steve Jobs after an early termination of his university studies.
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7/ Atari’s motto: “Work smart, not hard.”
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8/ There was a beer party every Friday at Atari.
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9/ If a decision had to be made, the meeting was held in Jacuzzi with alcohol and weed.
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10/ Atari employees’ dress code was never formal. Not even for meeting with business partners. A social blunder happened while Atari representatives, in jeans and trainers, held a meeting with Sears representatives, dressed formally. Later on, at another meeting, Sears representatives changed to casual shirts to better fit Atari culture while Atari representatives made exception and dressed formally to fit the Sears culture.
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Steve Jobs was a man with crazy but great ideas. Yet his social feeling was shifted and his ability to be fair was sometimes completely missing. When Bushnell gave him a straightforward task to decrease the number of integrated circuits in Breakout game, offering USD 100 for each circuit, Steve Jobs found his very own solution. Because it was a really good deal, Jobs asked his friend Wozniak (employed by HP at that time) for help. Thanks to Wozniak, 50 circuits could be removed. Jobs promised Wozniak to share the reward and so he did. Jobs received from Bushnell USD 100 per circuit which made it USD 5,000 but told Wozniak he received USD 700 and so Jobs paid him half of this amount.