X-Nico

unusual facts about Atari, Inc.



ANIM

Most of these are strictly of historical interest as the only one currently used is the vertical run length encoded byte encoding developed by Atari software programmer Jim Kent.

Asteroids Deluxe

The hardware consists primarily of a standard MOS 6502 CPU, which executes the game program, and the Digital Vector Generator (DVG), vector processing circuitry developed by Atari themselves.

Atari 5200

Atari Inc. released the Pro-Line Trak-Ball controller for the system, which was used primarily for gaming titles such as Centipede or Missile Command.

Atari Age

It was founded in 1998 by Alex Bilstein and Albert Yarusso and is well known for selling homebrew software for Atari video game systems, some of which have been included in official video game compilations such as Activision Anthology.

Atari demos

In 1988 the Atari Demo scene gathered further momentum with the release of the B.I.G. Demo, which was a large collection of music ported from the Commodore 64 by Jochen Hippel onto the Atari ST.

Atari Jaguar

The "CatBox" is an unofficial expansion peripheral for the Atari Jaguar released in 1996 by the Rockford, Illinois company ICD.

Atari Joystick Controller TV Video Game System

The Atari Joystick Controller TV Video Game System was made in 2003 (copyright 2002) in Jakks Pacific's Plug It In & Play TV Games plug-n-play game system lineup.

ATASCII

Some Atari-based BBSs exploited this difference by asking the client to hit the "Return" key.

Brad Fregger

He was the producer of Activision's Ghostbusters, the game Hacker, the Atari and Commodore 64 versions of Pitfall II and Shanghai (the first commercial version of Brodie Lockard's Mahjong solitaire), and he designed and produced the first commercial version of computer solitaire (Solitaire Royale, published by Spectrum Holobyte).

Brian Moriarty

Two earlier games, Adventure in the 5th Dimension (1983) and Crash Dive! (1984), were published in the pages of ANALOG Computing, a magazine for Atari home computer enthusiasts.

Chanda Dancy

In addition to her film scores, Chanda has composed the music for the acclaimed role playing games Arabian Lords and Tariq's Treasures by BreakAway Games, as well as the sound implementation for the PC role playing game Never Winter Nights 2 by Obsidian Entertainment and Atari.

Christian video game

The programs were intended to work in any version of BASIC, but the book included tips for adapting the programs for the Apple II, Atari 400/800, Commodore VIC-20/64, and TRS-80, as well as extending and customising the programs to make them more interesting.

Colony 7

Colony 7 is an arcade shooter game by Taito Corporation released in 1981 that is in many ways a combination of two of the most popular shoot 'em up games of the time, containing elements of both Taito's own Space Invaders and Atari's Missile Command.

Datamost

Some Atari variants of these games had software protection and featured music generated by the Advanced Music Processor by Philip Price.

Doctor Pong

Originally designed to be model of Snoopy's dog house with Pong built into the side of it, when Charles Schulz declined Atari the use of Snoopy the model was changed to a generic doghouse with a puppy looking over the top.

Don Leicht

In 1982, art writer Glenn O'Brien in a review in Artforum magazine states, "Leicht’s piece consists of a sequence of creatures that exist only on a video screen- Pac Man, Donkey Kong, and other Atari-type stable mates.

Electrical connector

A few examples are monitors (MGA, CGA, EGA), the Commodore 64, MSX, Apple II, Amiga, and Atari joysticks and mice, and game consoles such as Atari and Sega.

Evesham Technology

They also sold a range of software and peripherals for Amiga and Atari ST computers.

GamersGate

GamersGate sells games for over 250 publishers and developers, including Electronic Arts, Atari, Bethesda Softworks, 2K Games, Ubisoft, SEGA, Capcom, Paradox Interactive and Epic Games but also smaller independent video game development developers such as 2D Boy, Jonathan Blow and Amanita Design.

Gigan

In the Atari game trilogy, Gigan has the ability to teleport in a flash.

Lempel–Ziv–Oberhumer

Various LZO implementations are reported to work under Win32, AIX, ConvexOS, IRIX, Mac OS, Palm OS, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Wii, Solaris, SunOS, TOS (Atari ST), Linux and VxWorks.

Lyle Rains

Lyle Rains was a senior executive at the arcade game company Atari and is sometimes, with Ed Logg, listed as a co-developer of the video game Asteroids.

Matt Broughton

Prior to his involvement in the world of poker, Matt spent 15 years in the video games industry, where he held various roles, including European Marketing Director for Midway Games, and International Director of Communications for Atari.

Medieval Mayhem

The game was inspired by Atari's 1980 arcade game Warlords, which was first ported to the Atari 2600 in 1981 by game designer Carla Meninsky.

Microdeal

The company was quick to recognise the music capabilities of the Atari ST and Amiga and went in production of Music Samplers such as "MasterSound" and "Amas" the latter of which was featured on a Paula Abdul music video which won MTV's Music Video of the year award.

Motorola 68881

Notable computers including 68881 or 68882 FPUs included the Sun 3 from Sun Microsystems, the Macintosh II family of computers from Apple Computer, the NeXT Computer, parts of the Atari family (Mega STE, TT and Falcon030) and the Commodore Amiga 3000.

Okimate 10

The Okimate 10 by Oki Electric Industry was a low-cost 1980s color printer with interface "plug 'n print" modules for Commodore, Atari, IBM PC, and Apple Inc. home computers.

Power Pad

Short Order, features gameplay similar to that of Atari's arcade game, Touch Me, and Milton Bradley's electronic memory game, Simon, where the player must build a hamburger in which the customer requests by remembering the order of ingredients that the customer puts out.

Powerplay Cruiser

The secondary connector is compatible with the non-standard Amstrad built ZX Spectrum computers; the Sinclair Interface II and other popular ZX Spectrum joystick interfaces were Atari compatible.

Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System

Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System is a book by Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort describing the history and technical challenges of programming for the Atari 2600 video game console.

Rick Raymer

However, Hasbro Interactive was shut down soon after hiring Raymer, who was designing several games, including an updated version of the Atari classic Combat! for the PlayStation.

Ronald Wayne

Wayne worked with Steve Jobs at Atari before he, Jobs, and Wozniak founded Apple Computer on April 1, 1976.

Similarity heuristic

For example, when Nintendo wished to launch its Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in the United States, it did so in the middle of a video game depression; Atari had managed to make video games one of the least popular American pastimes.

Sony Pictures Loot

The second Stage Set to be released from Loot in joint with Atari and Terminal Reality was the Ghostbusters Firehouse (originally named the Ghostbusters Firehouse: On Location.

Sound chip

Atari Jerry, in addition to FM and WS capabilities, Jerry supported PCM sampling.

STOS

STOS BASIC, a programming language for the Atari ST computer.

Television Interface Adaptor

Development of the TIA was led by Jay Miner who continued at Atari expanding on the design of the TIA for the Atari 400/800 computers with the ANTIC and CTIA/GTIA chips.

Texas Instruments LPC Speech Chips

Used on the Atari arcade games Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 720°, Gauntlet, Gauntlet II, A.P.B., Paperboy, RoadBlasters, Vindicators Part II, and finally Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters.

Toobin

Toobin', a 1988 arcade game by Atari and later ported many other platforms

Tooth Protectors

Released in 1983, Tooth Protectors is one of the earliest "advergames" or "promogames" – games with overt tie-ins to retail products – and one of several released that year for the Atari 2600 platform (others included M Network's Kool-Aid Man and Purina's Chase the Chuck Wagon.

Transworld Snowboarding

In 2002, Atari/Infogrames released a video game for the Xbox console under the name Transworld Snowboarding developed by Housemarque.

Twin Transistor RAM

TTRAM should not be confused with TT-RAM, Atari's name for a special bank of DRAM in Atari TT030 personal computers.

Video Chess

For example, Atari had to overcome sprite limitations; the Atari 2600 was only capable of displaying three sprites in a row, or six (such as in Space Invaders) with the right programming.

Video game remake

After Atari's demise, Hasbro continued the tradition, with 3D remakes of Pong, Centipede, and Asteroids.

Yamaha YM2151

It was also used in arcade games, starting with Atari's Marble Madness, and later being licensed for use by many other companies including Sega, Konami, Capcom, Data East Pinball and Namco, with its heaviest use in the late 1980s, as well as in the Sharp X1 and Sharp X68000 home computers.


see also