The Atari Years (2014) | Hacker News Reader

The Atari Years (2014)

erasmatazz.com

37 pointsnickt20 comments

The author was laid off in 1984 -- presumably around the time this email was written: https://atariemailarchive.org/thread/on-atari-s-future-38.

[Shameless plug: I made Atari Email Archive and it's fun to peruse if you are interested in primary source material from this era. The emails all come from Jed Margolin (jmargolin.com), with his permission.]

Fascinating threads in there... like discussions about the Challenger explosion and whether or not the tragedy was actually a tragedy (or a spark for a new Atari game).

> CIGGIES AND GAMES ARE SORT OF THE SAME... LITTLE SQUARE BOXES THAT TEENIES GET HOOKED ON.

So even then we suspected the addictive aspect of video games?

Yes, this was part of the public discourse around video games in the 80s.

See: https://atariemailarchive.org/thread/on-claiming-that-video-...

This is a quote from an Erma Bombeck article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erma_Bombeck).

> challenger explosion

https://atariemailarchive.org/thread/on-the-challenger-shutt...

Can we get these archived at archive.org? What a treasure trove.

How does one do that?

I think Jed's messages are probably archived -- text files linked to at the bottom here too: https://www.jmargolin.com/vmail/vmail.htm

> How does one do that?

Go to https://archive.org/web/ scroll to the bottom where it says “save page now”. Enter URL and click “save page” button.

I have not found a way to enter multiple URLs or tell the archive to crawl an entire domain/site. If you figure that out, please let me know.

I remember the home computer price wars of 1983. The TI-99/4a that I had paid hundreds of dollars for in 1982 was selling for $59 by late 1983.

I remember at that time that the discounted Atari 800 was something like $400, then only a year and half later the discounted Atari 800 XL was $99. I was very happy to be able to afford these computers at the time, I didn't understand that this was the death knell.

I was annoyed at having to use a C64 for one of my first for pay projects, when the 800 XL was so much better as a development machine (yes the sound and graphics were better on the C64, but slow disk and lack of good OS ruined it for everything else). But they correctly deduced that the C64 would have more longevity so they chose it.

I was 15 and joined a local TI-99er club in my hometown because so many people were buying them for $149 (CAD).

This is truth, my first computer was a TI99/4a. I woke up on Christmas 1983 to find a TI99 connected to the TV, which my dad had bought for the $59 sale at Sears. I still have it, and new hardware and software is still being released for it, for example F18a VGA upgrade https://codehackcreate.ecwid.com/F18A-V1-8-Video-Board-p1402... , FinalGROM SD card cartridge https://endlos99.github.io/finalgrom99/ and plenty of new games. Skyway is actually great. http://tigameshelf.net/asm.htm

>Apple’s big advantage in the early days was its color display, but this advantage was shattered with the appearance of the Atari computers, whose graphics far outshone that of the Apple.

I have a recent direct comparison between the two, Prince of Persia. The Atari port is recent:

Apple: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZDAPp61aak

Atari: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD2Z5FqZi7I

That is a lame comparison. From what I saw, it doesn't use any of the Atari's advantages. For example, fine scrolling (with redefinable character set), player/missile graphics, display list interrupts (for 256 colors and "altered-perspective scrolling").

It’s neither the best comparison nor a fair one. The Atari was like a little Amiga but the Apple II version captures the spirit of the era better - an Atari port would have looked more like Karateka. As a side note, when I saw Prince of Persia for the first time, I felt a twinge of pain - why would I want to play a maze puzzle platforms version of Karateka, maybe the slowest paced, most masochistic game of the era, the one we played to see the animations of the next stage? Ugh, I did that once already, I don’t need more…

Funny how some things stayed the same for decades. In junior high or high school, the kids who had Apples were often pompous douches who didn't know anything about computers, but loved to spout off about how Apples were best. Kids who had Ataris actually programmed and could talk about computers technically, and mocked Apples for being double the price while not even offering lower-case letters... let alone any sound or graphics capability to speak of.

Apple has always known its audience, huh?

- typed on an iMac

Original Apple computers where actually amongst the hacker's computers iirc, they have changed path quite a bit since.

In 2019 I went to Vegas (I'm European) to play poker, and there is a place nearby called the "pinball hall of fame" where I spent an afternoon, playing all those retro games in the same conditions that they were played in the 80s and even earlier. It is a charity, the employees there manage the shop and maintain the machines in great conditions. Apparently they have moved nearby recently. It was really fun and worth the time spent.

Great article but should be titled 'The Warner Atari Years' -- Atari Corporation went on for another 12 years under Jack Tramiel

I think these are the author's Atari Years, as he was laid off in 1984 :-)

If you dig this stuff, the Antic podcast is more catnip.

https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/

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