Atari

By Francisco Rangel

(To the tune of We Didn't Start the Fire, by Billy Joel)

Discover why Tom and Jerry had such an influence on one of the most cherished shooters ever

Copyright 1994 Ben Parrish

Jack Tramiel has always whipped through the personal-computer market at microchip speed. Following his January exit from Commodore International, a company he had helped found, he lined up a low-cost computer-assembly line in the Far East and raised $75 million in capital. Last week Tramiel was right back on center stage, taking over the hemorrhaging Atari home-computer operation from Warner Communications.

Before it crashed and burned, Atari created a fertile incubator for some of the sharpest scientists and programmers in the business. Their ripples continue to change the face of personal computing.

As a former shareholder, I attended the 1993, 1994, and 1995 Annual Shareholder's Meetings at Atari Corp., not to mention the last Atari "Media Day" event in 1995 under the direction of Ted Hoff. Here are some of the things that stand out in my mind...

It was an intriguing idea. To put on a show that centered around the company that started the video game craze some twenty years after it began. Set over three nights and two days, the World of Atari 1998 show took place at the Holiday Inn Casino Boardwalk in Las Vegas. And the gaming world may never be the same.

To sell this year's model, you can't use last year's commercial. A look at the making of Atari's "Yar's Revenge" television commercial.

Curt Vendel is a normal guy. Mostly. By day, he works as a computer engineering consultant for Manhattan investment banks. He has a wife. He has a dog named Gizmo. Then there's his other life. He estimates he spends about $15,000 a year on Atari, and when he starts talking about the company his dark brown eyes can wander a bit, as if fixed on a higher purpose. His calling -- preserving Atari's history -- might sound odd, or funny, or just a tad obsessive. Who cares about Atari anymore anyway?

In an age of ever crisper, more realistic graphics, some older video game fans are nevertheless looking back with zest to the platform of their youth, craving to get a shot at Space Invaders, Ms. Pac Man or Pole Position.

The oldest videogame company of them all once held an entire industry in its grasp. And then it threw it all away. So why is Atari now back in the running?

The real story of Asteroids, Pac-Man, Pong and Pole Position

Those beeping video invaders are dazzling, fun -- and even addictive

This is a story about a famous person whose name you've probably never heard. He is a modern artist. His works adorn millions of homes nationwide. They command the families' attention for hours on end every week. His income is astronomical. Yet only now are he and others like him emergine as significant figures in the public consciousness.

There is a lot of anti-Bushnell rhetoric on the net lately, and I suppose it makes sense since since he did steal the Pong idea and never did a heck of a lot of engineering, per se...

Only 10 when the Nazis marched into his city of Lodz, Poland, in 1939, Jack Tramiel (then named Idek Tramielski) initially had a kid's thrilled reaction to the sheer spectacle of the scene: weapons glinting in the sun, soldiers goose-stepping, planes overhead. "It was a fantastic thing," he remembers.

Can It Become a Force in Electronic Gaming?

By Arnie Katz, Electronic Games, September 1984

Remember the first time you saw "Star Wars"? The George Lucas science fiction fantasy epic filled audiences with awe, amazement and a sense of wonder with its mixture of "B" movie thrills and "A" movie production values and artistic sensibilities.