Flashback 2+ for preorder on Atari.com, get a free T-shirt

[jaybird3rd]

...

 

So with all that in mind, and knowing what we know about Warner and what they wound up keeping, all things point to him telling the truth about this as well.

I don't doubt it. I'm glad that at least one of the Tramiels is participating in this project, especially given how one-sided all of the talk about the Tramiels and the history of their involvement with Atari/Amiga/Commodore/etc has been.

[nathanallan]

(though the FB is appealing in its own right and will defend it till I die).

 

If you are talking about the mini 7800 original Atari Flashback from 2004, I'm also proud to have it in my collection along with an Atari Flashback 2/2+!

 

Signed,

 

Rick

 

I found one of those at a garage sale. Are they worth more than the other Flashbacks?

I don't think they're worth more meaning money, there's not a lot of collector's appeal because of what it is. They *are* worth having, especially for less than $15 even without the box. If you lucked out at a garage sale good deal!

 

I got mine for I think $20, but I had to hunt through parts and pieces to make it complete (controller here, power supply there, all that jazz). I never mind looking through parts boxes

Edited February 28, 2010 by nathanallan

[Retro Rogue]

...

 

So with all that in mind, and knowing what we know about Warner and what they wound up keeping, all things point to him telling the truth about this as well.

I don't doubt it. I'm glad that at least one of the Tramiels is participating in this project, especially given how one-sided all of the talk about the Tramiels and the history of their involvement with Atari/Amiga/Commodore/etc has been.

 

 

Curt and I laid the whole Atari/Amiga/Commodore thing to rest last Fall. Did you see the thread on that?

[jaybird3rd]

Curt and I laid the whole Atari/Amiga/Commodore thing to rest last Fall. Did you see the thread on that?

I must have missed it. I'll look it up.

[Retro Rogue]

Curt and I laid the whole Atari/Amiga/Commodore thing to rest last Fall. Did you see the thread on that?

I must have missed it. I'll look it up.

 

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/152112-sneak-peak-amiga-atari-design

 

I also did a presentation of our material over at the ECCC last September. Bohus taped it and it should be going up at Retrothing.com one of these years.

Edited March 1, 2010 by wgungfu

[atarilovesyou]

This whole thing is hilarious.

 

Personally...I could care less. The FB was cool, but this version is, in my opinion, not as good. And since they're probably not going to be widely available, I don't think I'm missing out on anything. With the removal of the awesome Activision titles on the FB, the only reason to own the FB- version is for the novelty.

 

I hope the FB3, if it ever sees the light of day, turns out better than this.

[Lynxpro]

Wow, another newbie making ill-informed, yet assertive commentary. How refreshing.

 

I'm not a newbie. I just never posted here in the past [too much time on Slashdot, Digg, and AICN]. I was a very vocal Atari Corp. shareholder at the meetings back in the day. So roll your eyes at someone else.

 

 

) Not going to happen for a long long time. France isn't selling the properties any time soon.

 

 

Do you have proof that the French government considers "Atari" aka "Infogrames" as one of their so-called "national champions" that they would either intervene over or try to sick the European Commission into protecting? I highly doubt it. Infogrames continues to teeter with their finances. Considering how certain Hollywood studios seem eager to make motion picture adaptations of classic Atari titles, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to strategically figure out that Warner Bros. Interactive - at the behest of TimeWarner and Warner Bros. Pictures - will most likely make a play for Infogrames when the time is right.

 

 

) There is no "descendant", anything left of the descendant was closed down years ago. There is simply IP, and that makes what Warner Bros. Interactive has no more a descendant than the current Atari Inc.

 

 

That's how you view it. It certainly wasn't how the Atari Games Corp. staff viewed it after the splitting of the original Atari, Inc. They always claimed they were the "real Atari" back then, and it played quite the hand in them choosing the name "Tengen" to operate in the home market since they didn't have the right to use the name "Atari" in that sphere. Even after several different ownerships and their company being renamed - a la "Time Warner Interactive" - they always reverted back to a derivative of the Atari name. "Atari" or "Atari Games" has more pizazz than "Warner Bros. Interactive" ever will.

 

Furthermore, ever since the Steve Ross days, it is on page 1 of [Time] Warner's textbook strategy to never leave markets that they consider "theirs". If there's any pressure on their stock, they will try to unload an entity but retain a large minority share in the continuing operations, wait for some other party to turn it around, and then try to reacquire it cheaply and in-full. They did that with Atari Consumer, and if EGM and other video game magazines were to be believed back then, they approached the Tramiels back in 1991 seeking to reacquire Atari Corp. in full just as they had done with Atari Games. [Time] Warner also did this with Warner Music a few years ago. Internet piracy and the continued declining sales of CDs put a hurt on Time Warner stock. What did they do in response? They "sold" Warner Music to Edgar Bronfman but retained the magic 25% stake. They'll most likely try to reacquire it in full in the next few years

 

 

That's a Namco title. As was stated, they wanted to keep costs to a minimum hence no licensed titles. Likewise, the idea was to create a new themed section hence the sports titles. People are never satisfied, no matter what games are included they'd always say "Why didn't you include such and such?"

 

Because it was a license. Licenses expire.

 

They had a license - i.e. a lease. Those are not indefinite. Any games with properties from other companies we would have had to of licensed that property again. Period.

 

 

They held those licenses for nearly two decades and had sub-licensing rights to many of them. And those licenses survived the changeover to Tramiel owned Atari Corp.

 

So how about providing some info on the licensing rights to the Namco - and Williams - titles that the original Atari Inc. negotiated, that the Tramiel owned Atari Corp. preserved, and which now apparently are no longer valid through the Infogrames entity named Atari Inc. today?

 

And not all licenses expire. Namco could've easily given an exclusive license in perpetuity to Atari for those particular titles on specific Atari hardware [2600/5200/7800, 8 bit computers, etc.] , but since marketing ROM images was not something that was thought of back then - for the most part - it would not be privy to an emulation console 20+ years later, much as many of the home video licenses pertaining to sound track music were not naturally covered for later DVD releases. So my point was valid, thank you very much.

 

 

) Jack did not take over the company. Atari Inc. ceased to exist. Jack's Atari Corporation was a new company formed when the purchased Atari Consumer assets were folded under Tramel Technology Ltd., and TTL was renamed Atari Corporation.

 

Atari Corporation assumed many of the obligations of the original Atari, Inc. Consumer Division and thus it was a continuation of the prior entity. By your logic, the General Motors of today is not the same company as before even though it owns all of the prior assets and has the very same labor contracts with their employees.

 

But you are sort of right. The Tramiels butchered the original Atari. They let Amiga slip through their hands and Jack Tramiel personally gave away the worldwide video game industry to Nintendo for free. They also fired key staff to where they couldn't use certain technologies in their product lines that old Atari paid for... a la the AMY Sound Chip. Yep, they did a fantastic job. Maybe you should've asked Leonard about JTS and their revolutionary hard drive technology that racked up a ton of consumer complaints with the Better Business Bureau before they went bankrupt.

 

 

makes no sense as an attempt at comparison. Williams bought Midway from Bally. They then folded their video game properties in to Midway, and several years later reformed Midway as a spin off company. That company recently filed for liquidation bankruptcy and that's when Time/Warner purchased much of the assets and the Chicago studio. None of that has anything to do with any licensing, transfer of licensing, or anything of the like.

 

My point was the ownership of the Williams titles is not in question. That [the IP] is all owned by Warner Bros. Interactive now.

 

 

zero proof of that other than someone stating they may have seen it at Jack's house many years ago. In our talks with his son Leonard, who's been very forthcoming and honest (and has yet to tell us something we found later to be untrue - in fact quite the opposite) he has stated his father has none of those prizes and never has. In fact, I think it's more likely that either someone at Warner kept it (since they kept ownership of any of the ongoing or open accounts).

 

 

Yeah, Leonard. The man who believes the 7800 was a souped up 2600. Or the rest of the Tramielian logic they were so well known for. Like Sam Tramiel asserting to us shareholders - including representatives from Time Warner - that the Jaguar CD was bound to be a spectacular success because Commodore had such a fantastically high attachment rate of 1541 Disk Drives sold with the Commodore 64. That was indicative that they did not understand the video game industry whatsoever [especially with the failure of the Sega CD so fresh in everyone's mind then] and just because they got lucky with Commodore's original success did not mean lightning would strike twice for them.

 

Speaking of trustworthiness, one might consider how Commodore originally [allegedly] acquired MOS Technologies back in the day. But that is covered well elsewhere on the net. Or maybe a nice chat with Ted Hoff could shed some light on that trustworthiness too. Or maybe you could ask an old [Greater] Sacramento [Metropolitan Area] Atari dealer - computers and game systems - about how Sam Tramiel tried to hit him up to sell a Sony Playstation to Sam's friend at wholesale when it debuted.

 

But maybe you are right. Shadoe Stevens must have liberated the sword when Atari Corp. fired him as "Fred Rated" during their wildly successful ownership of the Federated Group.

 

 

That didn't stop Atari from including all 3 on "Atari: 80 Classic Games in One" for the PC and "Atari Anthology".

 

It was meant to be a joke.

 

 

There's zero proof of that other than someone stating they may have seen it at Jack's house many years ago. In our talks with his son Leonard, who's been very forthcoming and honest (and has yet to tell us something we found later to be untrue - in fact quite the opposite) he has stated his father has none of those prizes and never has. In fact, I think it's more likely that either someone at Warner kept it (since they kept ownership of any of the ongoing or open accounts).

I don't want to take this off-topic, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that you are working on an upcoming book. Am I correct in assuming that your conversations with Leonard are part of your research? If so, I can't wait to see the book finished: this particular story about the SwordQuest prizes is only one of the many tiresome misconceptions and urban legends that have gained a kind of false credibility through sheer repetition on the Internet, and they're long overdue for an authoritative rebuttal.

 

 

Again on that trustworthy bit. I seem to recall Sam and Leonard in that Antic Magazine profile of Atari Corp. vehemently denying the well known rumors - even back then - that Atari Inc. had prototypes more powerful than the later ST in development prior to the Tramiel ownership. That profile was in, what, 1987? And then years later, Curt discovers that Atari Inc. had developed the Sierra and Gaza systems which were more powerful than the later Atari ST. Who to believe? The Tramiels? Apparently not.

 

http://www.atarimagazines.com/covers/showcover.php?issue=v5n11

 

 

, if anything we usually take stories with a grain of salt until they can be verified - that was including Leonard. We've found that people's memories tend to be faulty over time (sometimes because of jadedness), exaggerated, or some have outright lied. So we try to corroborate from multiple sources, including internal paperwork and emails, engineering log books, marketing books, etc. and even unrelated interviewees. Since I first interviewed him back in 2002, everything that we've researched has in hind site wound up backing him up. Anything he said regarding the whole Amiga mess, the on again and off again negotiations with GCC regarding the 7800, different outlooks on internal matters such as them actually spending a significant amount of money on advertising, etc. He's always been very honest and forthcoming with anything we've asked him, supplied materials we've asked of him, etc. So with all that in mind, and knowing what we know about Warner and what they wound up keeping, all things point to him telling the truth about this as well.

 

 

The only thing I'm familiar with that is an urban legend accepted as fact - which it is not - is that Steve Ross of Warner Communications Inc. decided to acquire Atari after he witnessed his family playing one of their arcade games at Disneyland. That was refuted in the biography that was written about him that most Atari fans never read. But that of course, is very ancient history, but it has been repeated ever since those good ol' days.

 

As for Atari Corp.'s advertising, the real problem was that most of it was horrible. If Warner did one thing right, it was advertising. They advertised Atari all the time. The Tramiels generally advertised on independent tv stations at 4 am [for their computers]. Of course, to be fair, that was still far more advertising than what Commodore did for the Amiga. It probably gave Irving Gould heartburn to approve of any expense beyond 5 cents. After all, we're talking about a man who had an Amiga fan [not me] - and Commodore shareholder [again, not me] - arrested for asking questions at the Commodore International shareholder's meeting in the Bahamas.

 

 

...

So with all that in mind, and knowing what we know about Warner and what they wound up keeping, all things point to him telling the truth about this as well.

I don't doubt it. I'm glad that at least one of the Tramiels is participating in this project, especially given how one-sided all of the talk about the Tramiels and the history of their involvement with Atari/Amiga/Commodore/etc has been.

 

I liked Gary from my personal interactions with him. He didn't get worked into a sweat if a shareholder took home an Atari Computer stamped coffee mug. His father was a different story and was probably instrumental in having the coffee served in styrofoam cups from then on. Although that was not my fault. The Time Warner rep in the $3k suit with his underlings was the person who treated the property as swag first.

 

Bob Brodie had nice things to say about Jack. Bob Brodie will also tell anyone that he tried convincing the Lynx team [what were they called? Atari Electronic Entertainment?] to license MIDI Maze for the system, and that was a good year before Bulletproof Software did the same and ported it as "Faceball 2000" to all other non-Atari game systems. Sig Hartman would also probably have nice things to say about Jack, but I think he's dead.

I'm sure John Skrutch (sic) would have a differing opinion since he was an original Atari Inc. holdover who was with Atari [Corp.] until JTS turned off the lights to his office. I hope he's still alive.

 

And Ted Hoff would definitely have a different opinion. Ted rocked.

 

 

More importantly, when is Infogrames, ahem, Atari, going to reactivate the Flashback 2+ website since none of the units are on the shelves at Target currently?

[Retro Rogue]

Do you have proof that the French government considers "Atari" aka "Infogrames" as one of their so-called "national champions" that they would either intervene over or try to sick the European Commission into protecting? I highly doubt it.

 

What are you talking about? I never said anything like that. I stated France as in slang for Infogrames, which is something people commonly do around here.

 

Infogrames continues to teeter with their finances. Considering how certain Hollywood studios seem eager to make motion picture adaptations of classic Atari titles, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to strategically figure out that Warner Bros. Interactive - at the behest of TimeWarner and Warner Bros. Pictures - will most likely make a play for Infogrames when the time is right.

 

They're making the films because the current Atari Inc. is pitching them. Not because Hollywood came courting.

 

 

That's how you view it.

 

View what? Atari Games closed down. There's nothing left of it, the studio was closed in 2003 (then known as Midway Games West) and liquidated. There's no building, no people, no resources, no nothing. The only thing Warner has purchased are some IP - there's nothing left of the original Atari Games. Those are facts.

 

It certainly wasn't how the Atari Games Corp. staff viewed it after the splitting of the original Atari, Inc. They always claimed they were the "real Atari" back then, and it played quite the hand in them choosing the name "Tengen" to operate in the home market since they didn't have the right to use the name "Atari" in that sphere. Even after several different ownerships and their company being renamed - a la "Time Warner Interactive" - they always reverted back to a derivative of the Atari name. "Atari" or "Atari Games" has more pizazz than "Warner Bros. Interactive" ever will.

 

Wow, you really didn't bother to read what I wrote, because the above has nothing to do with any of it. In no way shape or form did I comment on whether the old Atari Games Corp. was the "real spirit" of Atari. I stated what I stated above - Atari Games Corp was closed down and liquidated in 2003 - there was nothing left of it for Warner to recently buy other than IP. In fact the quote of my exact were are "There is no 'descendant', anything left of the descendant was closed down years ago." As in 2003. This isn't an instance of renames as you describe above where the company itself (building, people, etc.) still existed and was simply changing owners and being renamed. It literally does not exist any more. It closed up in 2003. Only the IP exists now.

 

 

They held those licenses for nearly two decades and had sub-licensing rights to many of them. And those licenses survived the changeover to Tramiel owned Atari Corp.

 

No, they didn't. They had to be renegotiated or were canceled during the '84 changeover. Licenses are never open ended, and the licensor can certainly change it at any time if they feel the brand and it's usage as termed under the license threatened (a clause in just about every license). A change in ownership of the licensee covers that as well. Just as Hasbro didn't have them, just as Infogrames/Atari Interactive does not either.

 

 

So how about providing some info on the licensing rights to the Namco - and Williams - titles that the original Atari Inc. negotiated, that the Tramiel owned Atari Corp. preserved, and which now apparently are no longer valid through the Infogrames entity named Atari Inc. today?

 

The info is plain and simple, and exactly what I said already. The current company using the Atari name has none of those licenses. Hence we could not put them in the Flashback, Flashback 2, and Flashback 2+ without licensing them again. Should I have Curt come here and explain it as well and say the exact same thing?

 

And not all licenses expire. Namco could've easily given an exclusive license in perpetuity to Atari for those particular titles on specific Atari hardware [2600/5200/7800, 8 bit computers, etc.] , but since marketing ROM images was not something that was thought of back then - for the most part - it would not be privy to an emulation console 20+ years later, much as many of the home video licenses pertaining to sound track music were not naturally covered for later DVD releases. So my point was valid, thank you very much.

 

Once again, arguing about nothing and proving you didn't read anything. I clearly stated that licenses can be originally negotiated for other terms (such as transferability for instance). So your argument and reason for arguing was invalid, other than to continue to surmise about shoulda coulda woulda fantasy points.

 

Atari Corporation assumed many of the obligations of the original Atari, Inc. Consumer Division and thus it was a continuation of the prior entity. By your logic, the General Motors of today is not the same company as before even though it owns all of the prior assets and has the very same labor contracts with their employees.

 

Once again a comparison that makes no sense. Atari, Inc. ceased to exist, and Atari Corporation was a separate entity, that's a fact. You're confusing a brand continuing vs. a corporate entity. Buying the IP and related materials of a division of a company does not make it that company. Any more than Williams buying Midway (a division of Bally) from Bally, made them Bally. Warner and Jack split some of the open accounts, with Warner getting the majority - that hardly makes a continuation of a corporate entity. By your logic, Atari Corp. could have been sued over Atari Inc. matters, regardless of what division it involved, because you claim it was a continuation of the prior entity. That was certainly not the case, and in fact was written in to the purchase agreement. Likewise, Warner kept Atari Inc. going on paper for a good year after (before dissolving it and reverting to the original Atari Holding Company) to cover lawsuits (which there were, and in fact Atari Inc. and not Corp were named in lawsuits over the next several years), as well as splitting of patents and such between what Jack bought and what Warner was keeping with the arcade department (before Namco bought it). There were no continued "labor agreements", or continue employment - we have the paperwork for the actual agreement.

 

 

But you are sort of right. The Tramiels butchered the original Atari. They let Amiga slip through their hands

 

Never happened. Curt and I covered that ad nauseum already. The Amiga agreement did not come with the purchase of Atari Consumer, Warner had brokered and hung on to that. Jack needed to sign another agreement to get it from Warner to use in the counter suit against Commodore via Amiga.

 

and Jack Tramiel personally gave away the worldwide video game industry to Nintendo for free.

 

Also never happened, it was an issue of who owed what to GCC (Warner or the new Atari Corp.) that kept further work on the 7800 delayed for almost a year.

 

 

They also fired key staff to where they couldn't use certain technologies in their product lines that old Atari paid for... a la the AMY Sound Chip. Yep, they did a fantastic job.

 

Once again, that's Atari Inc. and Atari Corp. and Atari Games Corp., three separate companies and corporate entities.

 

Much of the projects done with the Warner's Atari Inc. were only found out about later after the takeover, much of it (included plans, paperwork, protos, etc.) walked out the door in July of '84. That's why Curt and I were lucky to find out about half of them over this past year, due to some of the people that are still sitting on them. The Tramiels didn't even know about the Amiga/Mickey project until after the freeze when Leonard happened to discover the cashed check.

 

Maybe you should've asked Leonard about JTS and their revolutionary hard drive technology that racked up a ton of consumer complaints with the Better Business Bureau before they went bankrupt.

 

Which really has nothing to do with what we're talking about, other than you seem to be pretty bitter and jaded when discussing this material - not very conductive to objectivity. Which is again why we go by multiple sources, paperwork, logs, internal memos, email, mainframe backups, interviews, etc. etc. You're not the only one to fall victim to their jadedness, RJ Mical is a perfect example. In fact he's let drive him to literally make stuff up as we found out.

 

 

My point was the ownership of the Williams titles is not in question. That [the IP] is all owned by Warner Bros. Interactive now.

 

No, don't try and play a context switch now. You clearly stated it as an example to try and back up a supposed transferring of early 80's licensing that Infogrames/Atari Interactive should somehow own. My comment was to show your example didn't back that up because William's had to do with transfer of IP, not licenses. It was a clear succession of IP, because it was an actual company changing ownership.

 

 

 

Yeah, Leonard. The man who believes the 7800 was a souped up 2600. Or the rest of the Tramielian logic they were so well known for. Like Sam Tramiel asserting to us shareholders - including representatives from Time Warner - that the Jaguar CD was bound to be a spectacular success because Commodore had such a fantastically high attachment rate of 1541 Disk Drives sold with the Commodore 64. That was indicative that they did not understand the video game industry whatsoever [especially with the failure of the Sega CD so fresh in everyone's mind then] and just because they got lucky with Commodore's original success did not mean lightning would strike twice for them.

 

Speaking of trustworthiness, one might consider how Commodore originally [allegedly] acquired MOS Technologies back in the day. But that is covered well elsewhere on the net. Or maybe a nice chat with Ted Hoff could shed some light on that trustworthiness too. Or maybe you could ask an old [Greater] Sacramento [Metropolitan Area] Atari dealer - computers and game systems - about how Sam Tramiel tried to hit him up to sell a Sony Playstation to Sam's friend at wholesale when it debuted.

 

Which again has zip to do with what I stated. And btw, a lot of people view the 7800 as a souped up 2600, that's not limited to Leonard. A simple google search shows that, and a look in to the history and design constraints of it verifies that. That's not to say it's not a much more powerful machine, but requiring it to use the TIA with the full 2600 hardware compatibility makes the "souped up 2600" statement valid from a hardware perspective.

 

Which is all irrelevant and does nothing to disprove the facts previously stated - everything we've checked and rechecked through independent sources has panned out and been verified. Whether it was regarding the 7800 delay, the fact that the ST was never based off any Amiga plans, marketing amounts, or many other things.

 

Again on that trustworthy bit. I seem to recall Sam and Leonard in that Antic Magazine profile of Atari Corp. vehemently denying the well known rumors - even back then - that Atari Inc. had prototypes more powerful than the later ST in development prior to the Tramiel ownership. That profile was in, what, 1987? And then years later, Curt discovers that Atari Inc. had developed the Sierra and Gaza systems which were more powerful than the later Atari ST. Who to believe? The Tramiels? Apparently not.

 

http://www.atarimagazines.com/covers/showcover.php?issue=v5n11

 

Apparently you're either really out of the loop, or have an need (because of the jadedness) to want to put things out of context. Read the link I posted, Curt and I (we're partners in case you didn't realize that) were able to discover a large amount of info regarding work that was going on computer and console wise over the year and a half leading up to the purchase. Most of the info came from former employees we interviewed who it walked out the door with that July, and recovered backup tapes that Curt's in possession of. They went out of their way to make sure it didn't wind up with Jack - even going so far as to deleting directories of info on their mainframe accounts. How did you think he got the earlier (and now outdated) Gaza/Sierra info? Tracked down from these people. We put a hell of a lot of work interviewing and tracking down this material, reconstructing things, and getting to the facts of time lines and such. From Jack, Sam, and Leonard's perspectives, as far as they knew there wasn't anything major going on before - because all the info was gone. One of the people from the previous teams that was rehired that we talked to, did try and mention a little something about his previous project to Jack, but at the time (end of July/beginning of August) they were already going full force in to laying out the RBP wirewrap. Hell, they didn't even have a clue about Mickey (the Amiga project) until Leonard discovered the check, because all the project material for that had walked as well.

 

 

 

The only thing I'm familiar with that is an urban legend accepted as fact - which it is not - is that Steve Ross of Warner Communications Inc. decided to acquire Atari after he witnessed his family playing one of their arcade games at Disneyland. That was refuted in the biography that was written about him that most Atari fans never read. But that of course, is very ancient history, but it has been repeated ever since those good ol' days.

 

Certainly. The other myths I was referring to as well were the whole Amiga deal (we paid for the actual Federal court documents and testimonies, did scores of interviews, etc.) that we cleared up, as well as the whole "7800 frozen on a shelf because Jack didn't want to do video games" myth.

 

As for Atari Corp.'s advertising, the real problem was that most of it was horrible. If Warner did one thing right, it was advertising. They advertised Atari all the time. The Tramiels generally advertised on independent tv stations at 4 am [for their computers].

 

That was the later years, and was mainly Sam. Curt has the figures for advertising and marketing dollars spent during the mid through late 80's, and it was quite a bit.

 

I'll tell you what, let's turn this convo in a more positive direction, as there may be some things as a former stock holder you can answer. First, what years were you a stock holder during? If during the late 80's, do you have any idea when it was that Jack "retired" from operations and passed the CEO title to Sam? We know it happened sometime after '87, when the company was still profitable and in the black. Previous to that, Jack had been Chariman of the Board and CEO, with Sam as President. Sometime after '87, Sam took over and became both President and CEO with Jack just remaining as head of the board. That's when the financial decline started, and many of the 90's bad decisions took over until Sam had the heart attack and "Jack came back", eventually doing the whole JTS thing (which by the way he's still involved in lawsuits regarding).

 

 

More importantly, when is Infogrames, ahem, Atari, going to reactivate the Flashback 2+ website since none of the units are on the shelves at Target currently?

 

It's being done through Atari Inc. and Atari Interactive, not out of the France main office (Atari SA). And we don't know, they haven't told us. Likewise, we stated they should be going to retail through Target. We did not state they currently are, or that's a done deal. Once again, this was a limited run they did with us.

[Austin]

I love how everyone is getting rep in this thread.

 

**edit: Hey, wait?? Was I on the wrong page or something when I wrote this? Everyone's rep just disappeared.. D'oh!

Edited March 1, 2010 by Austin

[+LS650]

Some of you guys are getting a little too worked up over this.

 

Time to go outside and play...

[TrekkiELO]

zero proof of that other than someone stating they may have seen it at Jack's house many years ago. In our talks with his son Leonard, who's been very forthcoming and honest (and has yet to tell us something we found later to be untrue - in fact quite the opposite) he has stated his father has none of those prizes and never has. In fact, I think it's more likely that either someone at Warner kept it (since they kept ownership of any of the ongoing or open accounts).

 

Speaking of trustworthiness, one might consider how Commodore originally [allegedly] acquired MOS Technologies back in the day. But that is covered well elsewhere on the net. Or maybe a nice chat with Ted Hoff could shed some light on that trustworthiness too. Or maybe you could ask an old [Greater] Sacramento [Metropolitan Area] Atari dealer - computers and game systems - about how Sam Tramiel tried to hit him up to sell a Sony Playstation to Sam's friend at wholesale when it debuted.

 

But maybe you are right. Shadoe Stevens must have liberated the sword when Atari Corp. fired him as "Fred Rated" during their wildly successful ownership of the Federated Group.

 

Man does that bring back some memories, from 1986-1988 my friend and I rode bikes 4 miles one way to the local Federated in Redlands, California just so we could buy their cheap Atari games with our allowances for all their systems we owned.

 

Wonder if he still has his look alike ventriloquist doll, "Fredrated, uh huh, uh huh. Fredrated, uh huh, uh huh."

 

That didn't stop Atari from including all 3 on "Atari: 80 Classic Games in One" for the PC and "Atari Anthology".

 

It was meant to be a joke.

 

Doh, got it.

 

 

Signed,

 

Rick Vendl II

[Lynxpro]

I'll tell you what, let's turn this convo in a more positive direction, as there may be some things as a former stock holder you can answer. First, what years were you a stock holder during? If during the late 80's, do you have any idea when it was that Jack "retired" from operations and passed the CEO title to Sam? We know it happened sometime after '87, when the company was still profitable and in the black. Previous to that, Jack had been Chariman of the Board and CEO, with Sam as President. Sometime after '87, Sam took over and became both President and CEO with Jack just remaining as head of the board. That's when the financial decline started, and many of the 90's bad decisions took over until Sam had the heart attack and "Jack came back", eventually doing the whole JTS thing (which by the way he's still involved in lawsuits regarding).

 

 

Agreed. Unfortunately, I could not give a good answer to that because I owned stocked from around 1990 to right around the time the Jaguar was cancelled. I mainly bought stock - well, my parents did for me - so I could attend the shareholders meetings and actively participate in the Q&A sessions, and report back to the local Atari user's group. It was a forum that I felt was more constructive in passing to the Atari brass how us owners really felt since they didn't seem to actively listen to the actual end users through the Customer Service office [i bet Diana Goralczyk really disliked the number of letters I sent them over the years] or through the feedback from the user groups.

 

I can tell you one obvious difference between Jack's leadership of Atari Corp. and Sam's based upon that 1987 Antic article and what I witnessed personally a few years later. Jack may have disliked cubicles and banned them, but Sam had no such objection. The Jaguar game testing staff and product managers had cubicles.

 

Besides the shareholder meetings, I also met various Atari staff when they came to our user group meetings, the World of Atari show, and their "press" day in 1995.

 

 

being done through Atari Inc. and Atari Interactive, not out of the France main office (Atari SA). And we don't know, they haven't told us. Likewise, we stated they should be going to retail through Target. We did not state they currently are, or that's a done deal. Once again, this was a limited run they did with us.

 

 

That's a real shame they haven't gone through the retail channels. Have they verified with you guys that every system manufactured has already been sold? If that's the case, it would explain why it had already disappeared from their website by early February.

 

 

What are you talking about? I never said anything like that. I stated France as in slang for Infogrames, which is something people commonly do around here.

 

 

I thought you meant you were implying that the French government would try to block an acquisition of "Infogrames" by Time Warner/Warner Bros. Interactive. But thanks for the heads up on the slang. Still, I bet $5 that Time Warner will acquire Infogrames before 2012.

 

 

No, they didn't. They had to be renegotiated or were canceled during the '84 changeover. Licenses are never open ended, and the licensor can certainly change it at any time if they feel the brand and it's usage as termed under the license threatened (a clause in just about every license). A change in ownership of the licensee covers that as well. Just as Hasbro didn't have them, just as Infogrames/Atari Interactive does not either., they didn't.

 

 

I can accept that. However, it would be nice to know when the licenses did expire. After all, Atari Corp. was still re-issuing classic Namco titles on the Lynx circa 1991. If Atari Corp. didn't renew, it was probably under Sam's tenure. I had a conversation with him at the 93 shareholder's meeting about the lack of Atari Games Corp. arcade titles on the Jaguar - compared to what had happened with the Lynx - and he was very dismissive of that company. His comments were [and I paraphrase] "well, it's not like they've had a big hit recently". This had also been sparked by walking down Atari's hallways which had the Lynx games box art framed and our group had just walked past the artwork for "Hydra". I reminded him of how important it was for an Atari branded console to at least have available "Atari Games" arcade hits since most of the general public was unaware that they were two separate companies and would expect those titles to appear. As a disgruntled 7800 owner who became livid when I noticed "Gauntlet" and "RBI Baseball" were heading to the NES instead of the 7800 back in 1986 and then I discovered via ANALOG Magazine that they were separate companies, I personally hounded Atari Corp. monthly through my own personal letter writing campaign about how they needed to buy back Atari Games if they were going to compete in the video game industry. Funny how that can be so crystal clear to a 12 year old and not the actual CEOs. I should dig out the old discs I have which had all the letters I wrote to Atari and then later personally to Sam and Jack - all written using First Word - about that point. There were plenty of my friends then that were massively disappointed that the Atari games we played at Shakey's Pizza and Scandia [Gauntlet I & II, Road Blasters, etc.] were going to the NES and not the 7800. Of course, Atari Corp. finally understood this which could be seen by the number of Atari Games titles that appeared on the Lynx. I'm sure the multiple lawsuits against Nintendo brought a lot of close cooperation between the two companies, and apparently some of that came at the behest of Steve Ross, according to the "Game Over" book. Of course, getting back to the Sam bit, it became clear the next year that there had been a royalty disagreement between Atari Corp. and Atari Games Corp. which was settled by Atari Corp. granting more stock options to Atari Games thanks again to Time Warner's suggestion.

 

 

Once again a comparison that makes no sense. Atari, Inc. ceased to exist, and Atari Corporation was a separate entity, that's a fact. You're confusing a brand continuing vs. a corporate entity. Buying the IP and related materials of a division of a company does not make it that company. Any more than Williams buying Midway (a division of Bally) from Bally, made them Bally. Warner and Jack split some of the open accounts, with Warner getting the majority - that hardly makes a continuation of a corporate entity. By your logic, Atari Corp. could have been sued over Atari Inc. matters, regardless of what division it involved, because you claim it was a continuation of the prior entity. That was certainly not the case, and in fact was written in to the purchase agreement. Likewise, Warner kept Atari Inc. going on paper for a good year after (before dissolving it and reverting to the original Atari Holding Company) to cover lawsuits (which there were, and in fact Atari Inc. and not Corp were named in lawsuits over the next several years), as well as splitting of patents and such between what Jack bought and what Warner was keeping with the arcade department (before Namco bought it). There were no continued "labor agreements", or continue employment - we have the paperwork for the actual agreement.

 

 

Here's my point. Atari Corp. back in the day would make claims to the press that they had been in business since 1972 [of course, Sam would make a distinction at the shareholders meeting from time to time and bring up TTL and 1984, but that was only when he wanted to bash the old Warner Atari] in order to make the point that "Atari" started the video game industry and thus they were better than their Japanese competitors. From a legal perspective, that was incorrect. The same goes for the Atari Games Corp. They claimed a legacy back to 1972 as well, and rightfully so since their incorporation/corporation was a reorg. Again, from the legal perspective, they started fresh in 1984 as well. Yet if you ask most folks, they were still the "real Atari". And despite the fact that all the staff are gone now as well as the buildings, their IP now is back with Warner. I'm sure in the next Time Warner annual report, they'll be quick to claim that legacy in the write up about Warner Bros. Interactive.

 

As for Atari Holdings, Inc., it would not surprise me if it still exists on paper. The last time I read a Time Warner annual report - either in the late 90s or early 00s - it still did.

 

I brought up "labor agreements" from what I wrote about GM. The "new" GM is still GM. They dumped their debt and killed shareholder value but the vast majority of people will still claim it is the same company. The same goes for Halliburton becoming a multinational based out of Dubai. But I digress. I just wanted to further explain where I was coming from. An ideal will outlast buildings and employees. If that weren't the case, none of us would be on this board, buying up nostalgia, or keeping our fingers crossed that someone will once again restore "Atari" to its proper place in the industry.

 

That was the later years, and was mainly Sam. Curt has the figures for advertising and marketing dollars spent during the mid through late 80's, and it was quite a bit.

 

For video games or computers? The computer line probably received the least amount of advertising [or it was done heavily at 4am]. For a while, Atari started advertising heavily for the 2600/7800/XE Game System on afternoon kids shows, but a lot of the ads were terrible. The marketing campaign was also less effective than their competitors since it was split between 3 systems and from my recollection, too much of it was done promoting the 2600 being "under 50 bucks".

 

 

Certainly. The other myths I was referring to as well were the whole Amiga (we paid for the actual Federal court documents and testimonies, did scores of interviews, etc.) that we cleared up, as well as the whole "7800 frozen on a shelf because Jack didn't want to do video games" myth.

 

 

Well, it didn't help matters that at that press conference debuting the "New Atari" Jack Tramiel supposedly announced that video games were dead and that Atari Corp. was a computer company, while pushing a 7800 off the table as a symbolic break with the past. Or do you have evidence that that was actually an urban myth? And wouldn't the one year timeline dispute with GCC end with 1985 and not 1986 which was when Atari Corp. ultimately released the 7800? I'm trying to recall when it first appeared in the seasonal Sears catalog. I know my grandmother immediately bought it when it hit the store shelves for $150 and then my parents bought one for my birthday in December of the release year. Still, even with the disputes with GCC, Atari could've brought out the 2600 Jr. earlier when it became evident that video games were not dead. Sure, it can be argued that they already had their hands full but it would've raked in some extra cash.

 

Do you have the info on the final 1987 settlement between Atari and Commodore?

 

 

Apparently you're either really out of the loop, or have an need (because of the jadedness) to want to put things out of context. Read the link I posted, Curt and I (we're partners in case you didn't realize that) were able to discover a large amount of info regarding work that was going on computer and console wise over the year and a half leading up to the purchase. Most of the info came from former employees we interviewed who it walked out the door with that July, and recovered backup tapes that Curt's in possession of. They went out of their way to make sure it didn't wind up with Jack - even going so far as to deleting directories of info on their mainframe accounts. How did you think he got the earlier (and now outdated) Gaza/Sierra info? Tracked down from these people. We put a hell of a lot of work interviewing and tracking down this material, reconstructing things, and getting to the facts of time lines and such. From Jack, Sam, and Leonard's perspectives, as far as they knew there wasn't anything major going on before - because all the info was gone. One of the people from the previous teams that was rehired that we talked to, did try and mention a little something about his previous project to Jack, but at the time (end of July/beginning of August) they were already going full force in to laying out the RBP wirewrap. Hell, they didn't even have a clue about Mickey (the Amiga project) until Leonard discovered the check, because all the project material for that had walked as well.

 

I hadn't seen the thread before. I had seen Curt's earlier postings about the Sierra and Gaza but had not seen any follow up. That behavior on the old Atari Inc. staff baffles me. I understand being royally cheesed off at a now former employer and the instinct for sabotage but hiding the info does not make much sense to me. Surely had Atari Corp. found that info, took advantage of it, and released the products successfully, those former staffers could claim on their resume that they were part of the team that created it. That would certainly hold more water than stating they were part of a team of developers that worked on a secret platform that could not be verified as ever existing by the present Atari owners. Regardless, you two interviewed them all so you can attest to what they asserted as their state-of-mind at the time. If their motive was to take the info elsewhere and thus basically commit industrial espionage, then I'm sure they must've understood the consequences at the time for that. I can't wait to see what you guys make public about that.

 

As I type this on a MacBook, it is heart breaking to read that Atari had done in 1982-84 what Steve Jobs ultimately did with NeXT and now Apple... Create a BSD based powerhouse of an OS platform with some great hardware to go along with it. I can't wait to see the GUI they had come up for it. Have all the parties involved agreed on any type of license to ultimately release it under?

 

Jaded? Possibly. Bitter? Indeed. Show me a former ST owner [or 8-bitter] or former shareholder that isn't still.

 

 

Which again has zip to do with what I stated. And btw, a lot of people view the 7800 as a souped up 2600, that's not limited to Leonard. A simple google search shows that, and a look in to the history and design constraints of it verifies that. That's not to say it's not a much more powerful machine, but requiring it to use the TIA with the full 2600 hardware compatibility makes the "souped up 2600" statement valid from a hardware perspective.

 

I was pointing that out in a manner of saying that some of what may have been said coming from any of the Tramiels might be treated like a grain of salt, so to speak. Maybe Leonard should be taken to task for that comment by making the counter claim that the C128 must be a souped up Kaypro because of the inclusion of the Z80 processor in it.

 

 

They're making the films because the current Atari Inc. is pitching them. Not because Hollywood came courting.

 

Sort of half-and-half on that one. Lorenzo de Bonnaventure (sic), a former Warner big-whig seems to be on a personal kick to adapt every single kid toy into a motion-picture. He wasn't satisfied with just GI Joe or the Transformers, now he's interested in board games and now Atari's Missile Command.

 

 

Which really has nothing to do with what we're talking about, other than you seem to be pretty bitter and jaded when discussing this material - not very conductive to objectivity. Which is again why we go by multiple sources, paperwork, logs, internal memos, email, mainframe backups, interviews, etc. etc. You're not the only one to fall victim to their jadedness, RJ Mical is a perfect example. In fact he's let drive him to literally make stuff up as we found out.

 

In RJ's defense, could it be that for all of this time, he's merely just chosen to believe what David Morse represented as truth to him back then? I mean, the guy was on a bender completely focused on banging out Intuition at that time. Why fault him for believing what a person [Morse] he closely worked with chose to represent to him. From what I gathered from the other thread, it appears Morse was the person who misrepresented things to Atari/Warner/Tramiels/etc. in order to get that $25 million from Commodore. Now combine that first [or second] hand experience along with again having his work fall again to the Tramiels [the Lynx] via yet another Morse company [Epyx] and to top it off have yet another one of his creations [the 3DO] crushed by another Tramiel product [Jaguar]. I can understand that bitterness. He probably could easily conclude that the universe is out to get him. Heck, he joined SCEA right in time to see Sony nearly lose this generation's console lead to Microsoft.

 

Here's a suggestion. Have a pow wow with him at the next Burning Man festival. If you say that you'd like to see AmigaOS officially ported to the PS3 by Sony, that might make his day.

 

 

Some of you guys are getting a little too worked up over this.

Time to go outside and play...

 

 

Don't you mean "play Atari" instead? I would if I had a Flashback 2+. There's something perverse about getting excited about hooking that thing up to a 42" Sony Bravia in order to play 30 year old games.

 

 

Man does that bring back some memories, from 1986-1988 my friend and I rode bikes 4 miles one way to the local Federated in Redlands, California just so we could buy their cheap Atari games with our allowances for all their systems we owned.

 

Wonder if he still has his look alike ventriloquist doll, "Fredrated, uh huh, uh huh. Fredrated, uh huh, uh huh."

 

 

Me too. I wish I would've bought Ball Blazer and Rescue on Fractalus for the 5200 in the "Atari/LucasFilm" packaging which they dumped at the local Federateds after the Atari takeover. When they were actively recruiting Atari user group members to work in the computer section, I was too young to qualify. Even before the Atari takeover, Federated was the only place I knew that actually sold those PS3000 monitors. I bought most of my 7800 games from them. I also picked up some of the Atarisoft titles for the TI99/4A since my cousins owned one [free from a real estate seminar].

 

I wonder if any of the Federated Group IP is still owned by "Atari" or if it was all transferred to defunct Silo since they bought some of the stores. There's a car insurance company in WA/OR that advertises very similar to the old Federated commercials. Look up Vern Fonk on YouTube. Shapoopie!

[TrekkiELO]

There were plenty of my friends then that were massively disappointed that the Atari games we played at Shakey's Pizza

 

Are those still around? Their pizza, chicken and mojos were to die for, Chuck E. Cheese by Atari Founder Nolan Bushnell was also an awesome arcade/pizza place, but not anymore!

 

And wouldn't the one year timeline dispute with GCC end with 1985 and not 1986 which was when Atari Corp. ultimately released the 7800? I'm trying to recall when it first appeared in the seasonal Sears catalog. I know my grandmother immediately bought it when it hit the store shelves for $150 and then my parents bought one for my birthday in December of the release year.

 

January 1986, my parents bought me one shortly after at Toys R Us in San Bernardino, California that still had its original 1984 expansion port underneath.

 

TI99/4A since my cousins owned one [free from a real estate seminar].

 

Got mine as a time share open house free gift, then Commodore's Vic-20 from another, no longer have either though.

 

I wonder if any of the Federated Group IP is still owned by "Atari" or if it was all transferred to defunct Silo since they bought some of the stores.

 

I remember Silo, they came on the scene when Circuit City did, similar building designs too.

 

There's a car insurance company in WA/OR that advertises very similar to the old Federated commercials. Look up Vern Fonk on YouTube. Shapoopie!

 

Sounds cool, will check it out, thanks.

 

 

Signed,

 

Rick

Edited March 2, 2010 by TrekkiELO

[Lynxpro]

Are those still around? Their pizza, chicken and mojos were to die for. Another great arcade/pizza place, Chuck E. Cheese, but not anymore.

 

I don't think there's anymore still open in the US. Back in the late 80s, an Asian [i can't remember if they were Korean or Singapore based] investment firm bought up the chain with the plan to expand it internationally. I think there was an effort to mark the first location here in Sacramento as a historical landmark a few years ago. The sign is still up but the business is long gone.

 

Chuck E. Cheese had the best arcades in the area. Although I noticed in the Southwest, Pistol Pete's Pizza gave them quite a run for their money. I was very disappointed when Sam's Town closed in Folsom a few years back. Their arcade was filled with the early classics. I think they even had an Atari "Fire Fighter" arcade game. It was B&W.

 

 

January 1986, my parents bought me one not too long afterwards from Toys R Us in San Bernardino, California that still had its original 1984 expansion port underneath.

 

 

I sent many letters to Atari Corp. asking them when they'd release some type of peripheral that would take advantage of it. I think they finally dropped it in the post 1987 models. Of course, Nintendo was guilty of the same thing with that unused expansion port at the bottom of the NES. That thing sparked so many playground conversations back in the day.

 

 

Got mine as a time share open house free gift, then Commodore's Vic-20 from another, no longer have either though.

 

 

I am envious. My grandmother at the time kept receiving time share seminar offers. The first she received was for an Atari 800XL. Of course, she didn't go to that one; she went to the seminar the month later and was rewarded with a Commodore Plus4. This was around circa 1985. That made me rather cross. I had another year to wait before the parents bought a computer [a 1040ST]. Would've been nice to have had the 800XL to mess around with.

 

The cousins had TI's Defender clone called Parsec. That was nice with the speech synthesizer. I think I picked up Picnic Paranoid from Federated for it [for them] and a couple of other titles.

 

Here's a collection of Federated commercials on YouTube:

 

[Mirage]

... time share seminar offers. The first she received was for an Atari 800XL. Of course, she didn't go to that one; she went to the seminar the month later and was rewarded with a Commodore Plus4.

 

LOL, dude, you got shafted

 

I wasn't even really that excited about the 2+ since I already have a 2, but all this talk makes me want one. I hope they turn up at Target or wherever sometime.

[TrekkiELO]

I don't think there's anymore still open in the US. Back in the late 80s, an Asian [i can't remember if they were Korean or Singapore based] investment firm bought up the chain with the plan to expand it internationally. I think there was an effort to mark the first location here in Sacramento as a historical landmark a few years ago. The sign is still up but the business is long gone.

 

Figures.

 

Chuck E. Cheese had the best arcades in the area.

 

This is because Atari Founder Nolan Bushnell bought them from Warner Brothers, but Starcade in Tomorrowland at Disneyland blows everything else away as it's the biggest arcade I went to back then, two levels jamb packed full of classic game machines.

 

 

I think they finally dropped it in the post 1987 models. That thing sparked so many playground conversations back in the day.

 

Indeed on both counts.

 

Got mine as a time share open house free gift, then Commodore's Vic-20 from another, no longer have either though.

 

I am envious. My grandmother at the time kept receiving time share seminar offers. The first she received was for an Atari 800XL. Of course, she didn't go to that one; she went to the seminar the month later and was rewarded with a Commodore Plus4. This was around circa 1985. That made me rather cross. I had another year to wait before the parents bought a computer [a 1040ST]. Would've been nice to have had the 800XL to mess around with.

 

The cousins had TI's Defender clone called Parsec. That was nice with the speech synthesizer. I think I picked up Picnic Paranoid from Federated for it [for them] and a couple of other titles.

 

It was actually a Timex Sinclair 1000, not TI99/4A, sorry about that.

 

Also, Commodore 64, then Amiga, more affordable and better than Macintrash were my computers before PCs!

 

Here's a collection of Federated commercials on YouTube:

 

 

Yep, another trademark, smashing televisions.

 

 

Thanks again,

 

Rick

[Retro Rogue]

That's a real shame they haven't gone through the retail channels. Have they verified with you guys that every system manufactured has already been sold? If that's the case, it would explain why it had already disappeared from their website by early February.

 

No, they haven't verified anything regarding number sold. We're just the hired guns/designers, and know how many were manufactured - that's where the buck stops unless they want to tell us more. We've still got the PAL version sitting on the shelf as well waiting to go if they want to go that route too.

 

Regarding the $5 bet about 2012, you're on. Atari Interactive (the actual holding company for all the Atari IP) would be the last thing to go if Atari SA is under. Just as they held on to that and closed down/sold off a lot of the other studios.

 

I can accept that. However, it would be nice to know when the licenses did expire. After all, Atari Corp. was still re-issuing classic Namco titles on the Lynx circa 1991. If Atari Corp. didn't renew, it was probably under Sam's tenure. I had a conversation with him at the 93 shareholder's meeting about the lack of Atari Games Corp. arcade titles on the Jaguar - compared to what had happened with the Lynx - and he was very dismissive of that company.

 

Those were brand new licenses. Atari Corp. gave stock in lieu of cash, same with some of the Atari Games titles they released on the Lynx as well (Klax, Gauntlet, etc.)

 

The attitude was because they spent most of the late 80's in heated negotiations with them over property and patent ownership from the split. Also, because as stated - they were always trying to do stock deals instead of cash, and probably used up their allotment by that time (i.e. Atari Games wouldn't go for it anymore).

 

His comments were [and I paraphrase] "well, it's not like they've had a big hit recently". This had also been sparked by walking down Atari's hallways which had the Lynx games box art framed and our group had just walked past the artwork for "Hydra". I reminded him of how important it was for an Atari branded console to at least have available "Atari Games" arcade hits since most of the general public was unaware that they were two separate companies and would expect those titles to appear.

 

Certainly good points to them on your part.

 

 

and apparently some of that came at the behest of Steve Ross, according to the "Game Over" book.

 

Careful with that book. While there's a lot of good information, there's a lot of missinformation in there as well.

 

 

Here's my point. Atari Corp. back in the day would make claims to the press that they had been in business since 1972

 

That's just marketing though, it does not represent actual fact. And certainly the press treating it as such out of confusion, didn't help matters. The current "Atari" does the same thing now as well, even going so far as naming the US branch Atari Inc., which confuses people because they think it's the same Atari, Inc. from the 70's/early 80's. Stating they've been around since 1972 and this is the same Atari that invented all those classic IP, only further confuses people. I actually had to write an article explaining everything for a well known industry trade site, because they were falling for that as well.

 

I brought up "labor agreements" from what I wrote about GM. The "new" GM is still GM. They dumped their debt and killed shareholder value but the vast majority of people will still claim it is the same company. The same goes for Halliburton becoming a multinational based out of Dubai. But I digress.

 

If that were the case here though, I'd certainly agree. That's the literal continual evolution of the GM company. In this case though, anything that was a company of the consumer brand was completely shut down in '98 (even if it was just a desk at the time). In the case of the arcade brand, anything that was a company was completely shut down in 2003. There is no continuation or evolution - just simply another company renaming themselves with a brand name years down the road. The current Atari Inc. is the former GT Interactive for instance.

 

 

I just wanted to further explain where I was coming from. An ideal will outlast buildings and employees. If that weren't the case, none of us would be on this board, buying up nostalgia, or keeping our fingers crossed that someone will once again restore "Atari" to its proper place in the industry.

 

The buildings/employees/whatever was brought up because you had mentioned it - my intention was to show that in those cases, there was some sort of direct continuation - i.e. something legitimately to latch on to the "spirit" with. In this case though, as mentioned, anything left of solid connection with Atari Games was shut down in 2003. Paper (IP), doesn't have spirit. If that were the case, the current Atari Inc. wouldn't need Curt or any of the stuff he and I continually lend technical support, advising, resources, and work to. Legacy is actually maintaining the "spirit of the original Atari" in the current one. We hope to do the same thing with Warner as well.

 

 

For video games or computers?

 

Everything in general.

 

Well, it didn't help matters that at that press conference debuting the "New Atari" Jack Tramiel supposedly announced that video games were dead and that Atari Corp. was a computer company, while pushing a 7800 off the table as a symbolic break with the past. Or do you have evidence that that was actually an urban myth?

 

That wasn't a press conference, that was in a private meeting with an employee who recounted that during the GCC anniversary reunion that Curt put together a number of years back. And since that time, we've gotten the rest of the picture. Jack and Warner were in negotiations at the time over GCC and who had to pay it. He planed to do video games from the beginning - they needed that to keep the company afloat, they were extremely worried about the money running out after the buyout. In fact they immediately started up the 2600 Jr. project again that August of '84.

 

And wouldn't the one year timeline dispute with GCC end with 1985 and not 1986 which was when Atari Corp. ultimately released the 7800?

 

Negotiations were finally completed in the end of Spring of '85 on the chip set. Then they started additional negotiations on the launch titles - which were all also coded by GCC. Under pressure from Warner, things were finally settled by the Fall and operations started up again on it (including trying to get coders) at the time. It was relaunched in January of '86 at the Winter CES, and the previous stock started filtering out over that Winter and Spring to be sold at distributors.

 

 

Still, even with the disputes with GCC, Atari could've brought out the 2600 Jr. earlier when it became evident that video games were not dead. Sure, it can be argued that they already had their hands full but it would've raked in some extra cash.

 

See above. Work started on that again immediately according to internal emails we have. Likewise, they had a large cache of already produced merchandise and parts to go through, which is what they continued to sell and distribute from '84 through '85, and had a record sales season that Christmas of '85. Part of that had to do with the magic $50 price point that was hit in September of '85. In fact, it was the large sales that prompted them to announce that very fact - that video games were not dead - at the Winter '86 CES. Nintendo was still being treated as a nobody by the press at that time (as evidenced by the Winter CES reports) and had only had the poor New York showing at that point. It wasn't until the Summer CES that ramblings about the industry being "possibly revived" started because of all four consoles (2600 Jr., 7800, NES, Master) being shown off at the show.

 

 

Do you have the info on the final 1987 settlement between Atari and Commodore?

 

It was sealed, but from the interviews and what Jack recently alluded in his own interview a few years ago at the Computing Museum, they settled for the a minimal money amount - the suit by that time had also had some patent infringements added to it.

 

Commodore (who had actually started it all with their suit and injunctions) had already settled with Shiraz and the two other former Commodore engineers.

 

 

I hadn't seen the thread before. I had seen Curt's earlier postings about the Sierra and Gaza but had not seen any follow up. That behavior on the old Atari Inc. staff baffles me. I understand being royally cheesed off at a now former employer and the instinct for sabotage but hiding the info does not make much sense to me.

 

You have to remember, Jack had just been the head of their chief competitor and "scourge of the industry". They'd all heard the horror stories and such, and didn't want their babies to wind up in his hands. The closest thing to relate it to is after the whole Gore/Bush election debacle, when Clinton White House staffers removed all the W keys from the computers.

 

Surely had Atari Corp. found that info, took advantage of it, and released the products successfully, those former staffers could claim on their resume that they were part of the team that created it.

 

That wasn't really a necessity, the work was done at Atari Inc. regardless. They didn't need to have it be at a second company to be able to put any previous work on a resume.

 

 

That would certainly hold more water than stating they were part of a team of developers that worked on a secret platform that could not be verified as ever existing by the present Atari owners.

 

Honestly, that's not how it works in the tech industry. Projects and companies start and stop all the time and still wind up on resumes. What do you think half the people looking for jobs after the dot com bubble burst put on their resumes when their company no longer existed?

 

Regardless, you two interviewed them all so you can attest to what they asserted as their state-of-mind at the time. If their motive was to take the info elsewhere and thus basically commit industrial espionage, then I'm sure they must've understood the consequences at the time for that. I can't wait to see what you guys make public about that.

 

No, there was no intended espionage. They simply didn't want their work being absorbed in to the "Tramiel empire". Jack had instituted a lock down when he came in, but they weren't aware of all the other buildings and warehouses. The others that missed the lock down literally had people pulling up in vans and U-hauls hauling stuff out. That's why we have a lot of the hardware prototypes out there we do now and that collectors now enjoy. In regards to many of the advanced computers and the Mickey/Amiga projects, those were actually taking place over in the Coin building. Not that they were Coin projects, just that some of the space there was being used. Which is also why again the Tramiel's had no idea about some of them. The whole idea of the lock down was to be able to go through every single little thing (not just projects, but every literal nut and bolt down to desks and refrigerators) to see what they all got in the purchase. Then evaluate what they needed and what they didn't need, which took most of the month.

 

As I type this on a MacBook, it is heart breaking to read that Atari had done in 1982-84 what Steve Jobs ultimately did with NeXT and now Apple... Create a BSD based powerhouse of an OS platform with some great hardware to go along with it. I can't wait to see the GUI they had come up for it. Have all the parties involved agreed on any type of license to ultimately release it under?

 

They did that and a lot more, they had a bunch of next gen projects going after the 1200xl debacle. They also had Alan Kay leading an advanced research group at Atari to figure out what computers would be doing years in to the future (which is what lead to Amy) - same thing he did at Xerox. They also had an technology acquisitions group that was constantly evaluating new start ups and technology to gain licenses or outright ownership of technology.

 

The issue was in the dual management problems. Many of these projects were canned at the behest of Warner management, not Atari's. Some projects and deals were also done by Warner and thrown on to Atari management (such as the whole E.T. thing, or the Amiga thing). You can't run a company with two different competing management teams.

 

And a lot of those people left Atari Inc. before the split. Alan and most of his team left that May for instance.

 

Maybe Leonard should be taken to task for that comment by making the counter claim that the C128 must be a souped up Kaypro because of the inclusion of the Z80 processor in it.

 

That comparison doesn't make sense though. A more logical comparative example would be claiming that the C128 is a souped up C64.

 

Sort of half-and-half on that one. Lorenzo de Bonnaventure (sic), a former Warner big-whig seems to be on a personal kick to adapt every single kid toy into a motion-picture. He wasn't satisfied with just GI Joe or the Transformers, now he's interested in board games and now Atari's Missile Command.

 

No, it's not half and half. It was directly because of Atari Inc. courting Hollywood as I stated. Lorenzo happens to be the one who's been biting. Again, because I can't talk about privy info, just remember that we have a working relationship with the current Atari Inc.

 

In RJ's defense, could it be that for all of this time, he's merely just chosen to believe what David Morse represented as truth to him back then? I mean, the guy was on a bender completely focused on banging out Intuition at that time. Why fault him for believing what a person [Morse] he closely worked with chose to represent to him.

 

Nope, we have David Morse's testimony. He knew full well of the actual details. As Curt mentioned in the thread, RJ has literally stated that if he has to decide between truth and a good story, he chooses the good story.

 

RJ is the chief source and evangelist of the misinformation. He puts himself out there as the most vocal proponent of it. He's also represented himself as having somehow been directly involved and repeating what he witnessed. He's gone out of his way to do full presentations on it (check out the Amiga "history" presentation he did years back that's on Youtube). Quite the opposite of what you're trying to portray him as above.

 

In fact it's because of the very fact that he actually had zero involvement with the negotiations and was just the GUI guy at the time, that we've called him to task on it like this.

Edited March 2, 2010 by wgungfu

[Lynxpro]

This is because Atari Founder Nolan Bushnell bought them from Warner Brothers, but Starcade in Tomorrowland at Disneyland blows everything else away as it's the biggest arcade I went to back then, two levels jamb packed full of classic game machines.

 

 

That was nice. The Atari Adventure at the Disneyland Hotel back in the day was also nice.

 

It's a shame Nolan got distracted trying to be Simon Le Bon yacht racing while Pizza Time Theatres finances crumbled which led to the takeover by Showbiz. It was never the same after that.

 

 

LOL, dude, you got shafted

 

Tell me about it. Maybe it's a collectible now. But I would've preferred having the ability to play Star Raiders, a la the 800XL route.

 

The issue was in the dual management problems. Many of these projects were canned at the behest of Warner management, not Atari's. Some projects and deals were also done by Warner and thrown on to Atari management (such as the whole E.T. thing, or the Amiga thing). You can't run a company with two different competing management teams.

 

The majority of Atari fans do not understand the reason for E.T. It was Steve Ross's attempt to lure Spielberg away from his father-figure Lew Wasserman at MCA. So Ross had Atari pay Spielberg $25 million and covered the cost of moving homes in order to lure Spielberg to making movies for Warner. The plan did work so-so since Spielberg did ultimately agree to split his movies between MCA and Warner, but it almost took down Warner via Atari in the process.

 

Warner also nixed the idea of a single $500 million Atari campus. In hindsight, that would've been a great plan but I guess after several years of no profit at Atari, I'm sure Warner wanted to show an actual profit for the division.

 

No, they haven't verified anything regarding number sold. We're just the hired guns/designers, and know how many were manufactured - that's where the buck stops unless they want to tell us more. We've still got the PAL version sitting on the shelf as well waiting to go if they want to go that route too.

 

No, it's not half and half. It was directly because of Atari Inc. courting Hollywood as I stated. Lorenzo happens to be the one who's been biting. Again, because I can't talk about privy info, just remember that we have a working relationship with the current Atari Inc.

 

They did that and a lot more, they had a bunch of next gen projects going after the 1200xl debacle. They also had Alan Kay leading an advanced research group at Atari to figure out what computers would be doing years in to the future (which is what lead to Amy) - same thing he did at Xerox. They also had an technology acquisitions group that was constantly evaluating new start ups and technology to gain licenses or outright ownership of technology

 

 

The only thing I had read about Kay's time at Atari was his R&D budget was about $100 million and he was working on "amplification" of toys and other interactive media.

 

Since you have the ear of current Atari, perhaps you could remind them that this is the 25th anniversary of the release of the 520ST. If you guys can get the AMY chip working, just imagine if "Atari" were to release a diskless 25th Anniversary ST with the AMY chip included. Give it a full 4 MB, SD card based, included AMY chip, 16Mhz derivative 68000 processor and otherwise STE chipset, sell it as a limited release through Atari's website at about $150, and that would generate massive buzz on the net. Atari could DRM it, then sell ROMS from their website. After that, if you get the Sierra/Gaza/Gump system up and running, another limited edition could be cranked out in that "1600XL case". In a word, it would be "legendary"... Just a thought.

 

Hell, since it is the 25th anniversary of the release of the Amiga, maybe there could be a final release of an Atari Lorraine game system. Again, it could be SD based. You'd want it to have 512k or at least 1MB though so all the Amiga game ROMs could run on it. Amiga Inc. - aka Amiga in Name Only - would probably sign off like yesterday for it for a $5 royalty payment. Amiga fans, that comment was for you [since none of them think highly of A Inc. and side with Hyperion for the most part]...

 

 

Honestly, that's not how it works in the tech industry. Projects and companies start and stop all the time and still wind up on resumes. What do you think half the people looking for jobs after the dot com bubble burst put on their resumes when their company no longer existed?

 

Probably McDonalds since we're talking about people who only knew how to code in HTML and/or had MCSE certs.

 

 

That comparison doesn't make sense though. A more logical comparative example would be claiming that the C128 is a souped up C64.

 

I was trying to be as dismissive of their work as they've been about anything designed at Warner Atari. A souped up C64 would be too complimentary. A souped up Kaypro - thanks to the inclusion of the Z-80 - seemed insulting enough.

 

 

Nope, we have David Morse's testimony. He knew full well of the actual details. As Curt mentioned in the thread, RJ has literally stated that if he has to decide between truth and a good story, he chooses the good story.

 

That's so Hollywood of RJ. Granted, those videos posted to YouTube were made at the height of the ST/Amiga rivalry, could you expect any less? And since then, with the way the Lynx went down and how the 3DO got crushed, I could see why he [possibly] has a virtual chip on his shoulder about everything. He has more right to wear the Tramiel busters t-shirt that one of our user group members created and proudly wore around one of the Atari shows back in 1990.

 

 

In fact it's because of the very fact that he actually had zero involvement with the negotiations and was just the GUI guy at the time, that we've called him to task on it like this.

 

Well, he probably is still mad that the lawsuit froze him out of work on the Amiga for most of summer 1984. Then again, I still think GEM was a better looking GUI.

[+wood_jl]

I don't want to take this off-topic, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that you are working on an upcoming book.

 

Yes, Curt and I are working on a two volume set.

 

Oh boy, this sounds good!!! Will be a while, I take it?

[+wood_jl]

Since you have the ear of current Atari, perhaps you could remind them that this is the 25th anniversary of the release of the 520ST. If you guys can get the AMY chip working, just imagine if "Atari" were to release a diskless 25th Anniversary ST with the AMY chip included. Give it a full 4 MB, SD card based, included AMY chip, 16Mhz derivative 68000 processor and otherwise STE chipset, sell it as a limited release through Atari's website at about $150, and that would generate massive buzz on the net. Atari could DRM it, then sell ROMS from their website. After that, if you get the Sierra/Gaza/Gump system up and running, another limited edition could be cranked out in that "1600XL case". In a word, it would be "legendary"... Just a thought.

 

Hell, since it is the 25th anniversary of the release of the Amiga, maybe there could be a final release of an Atari Lorraine game system. Again, it could be SD based. You'd want it to have 512k or at least 1MB though so all the Amiga game ROMs could run on it. Amiga Inc. - aka Amiga in Name Only - would probably sign off like yesterday for it for a $5 royalty payment. Amiga fans, that comment was for you [since none of them think highly of A Inc. and side with Hyperion for the most part]...

 

Meanwhile, people are waiting for FB2+ to show at retail. How could any of the above fanciful devices compete with Xbox and Wii? Who would finance all this development and marketing, and why? How many kids would put down their "Bioshock" or "Mass Effect" (or whatever the kids are buying now) to play 25 year old games for $150? Just curious, since I'm not much of an "idea man" myself.

[+pboland]

I don't want to take this off-topic, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that you are working on an upcoming book.

 

Yes, Curt and I are working on a two volume set.

 

Oh boy, this sounds good!!! Will be a while, I take it?

It does sound good. Heck, it sounds like it would make a good movie as well. But that's just me.

[Lynxpro]

Meanwhile, people are waiting for FB2+ to show at retail. How could any of the above fanciful devices compete with Xbox and Wii? Who would finance all this development and marketing, and why? How many kids would put down their "Bioshock" or "Mass Effect" (or whatever the kids are buying now) to play 25 year old games for $150? Just curious, since I'm not much of an "idea man" myself.

 

 

Uhm, it would be for retro fans. Have you not seen how hot classic computers are on eBay? I would assume "Atari" would pay for something like that and have a limited run of 1,000 or so strictly sold on their website. It would create buzz and get the word out. It would be an instant hot topic on Slashdot, Digg, Wired, Engadget and Gizmodo, etc.

 

Maybe the ST would not be the best choice at first. Since it would also be the 25th anniversary of the release of the 65XEM - had they released it - maybe that would be the first one to focus on, if the AMY chip is functional. There's a lot of people in the "chiptunes" scene that would buy it up. I would love to see that happen since it would silence the SID evangelists like Timbaland. I'm sure 8-bit Weapon would do wonders with it.

 

So maybe this is more realistic at the $150 price level. A 25th anniversary "65XEM" computer - although it should probably be a souped up 130XE but with the AMY chip - the top amount of RAM that can be accessed via bank switching [i've heard that is 2MB], SD card, a less mushy keyboard, maybe 2 MIDI ports, a USB port, and if possible, an HDMI output since it sounds like Hollywood may be successful in eliminating analog ports on new tvs soon.

 

Remember, nostalgia sells.

[Lynxpro]

It does sound good. Heck, it sounds like it would make a good movie as well. But that's just me.

 

 

Heck, Atari's early history sounded good enough for a film back when "Zap - The Rise and Fall of Atari" hit the bookstores. I really cringed when the "Pirates of Silicon Valley" omitted Bushnell from the narrative. It's not like Jobs came from out of nowhere...

[+wood_jl]

Meanwhile, people are waiting for FB2+ to show at retail. How could any of the above fanciful devices compete with Xbox and Wii? Who would finance all this development and marketing, and why? How many kids would put down their "Bioshock" or "Mass Effect" (or whatever the kids are buying now) to play 25 year old games for $150? Just curious, since I'm not much of an "idea man" myself.

 

 

Uhm, it would be for retro fans. Have you not seen how hot classic computers are on eBay? I would assume "Atari" would pay for something like that and have a limited run of 1,000 or so strictly sold on their website. It would create buzz and get the word out. It would be an instant hot topic on Slashdot, Digg, Wired, Engadget and Gizmodo, etc.

 

Generating "buzz" and having the potential to recoup millions of dollars in r&d/manufacturing/marketing are worlds apart. I follow classic computers all the time on Ebay.

 

Maybe the ST would not be the best choice at first. Since it would also be the 25th anniversary of the release of the 65XEM - had they released it - maybe that would be the first one to focus on, if the AMY chip is functional. There's a lot of people in the "chiptunes" scene that would buy it up. I would love to see that happen since it would silence the SID evangelists like Timbaland. I'm sure 8-bit Weapon would do wonders with it.

 

This stuff is never going to happen. There isn't even an AMY chip; this was never produced. If I understand correctly, Curt's researching remaking GTIA (and other Atari custom chips) for potential use in some future Atari retro-device. Custom Atari chips that were real. What is the liklihood of anybody doing this for the AMY chip which was never produced? You think somebody's going to finish the AMY chip, then develop software for it??? Who would do this, why, and who would pay them for it? Seriously....??? The AMY thing was dead a long time ago, and we're out of that era entirely.

 

So maybe this is more realistic at the $150 price level. A 25th anniversary "65XEM" computer - although it should probably be a souped up 130XE but with the AMY chip - the top amount of RAM that can be accessed via bank switching [i've heard that is 2MB], SD card, a less mushy keyboard, maybe 2 MIDI ports, a USB port, and if possible, an HDMI output since it sounds like Hollywood may be successful in eliminating analog ports on new tvs soon.

 

Remember, nostalgia sells.

 

Nostalgia sells....CHEAPLY. That's why the Flashback 2 stuff is $30 and the Plug&Play joysticks are less than $20. As well, the Plug&Play joysticks and the Flashback stuff are based off the 2600 - perhaps the only Atari product that truly had broad appeal (broad appeal means not a niche product - loads of people had one and EVERYBODY knew about it). So the P&P joystick and Flashback are CHEAP products with BROAD APPEAL. NOBODY is going to pay $150 for any nostaliga device - NOT EVEN CLOSE. After the next round of price cuts, the modern console systems will approach that price - with their HD graphics and all....

 

You should do some research - a feasibility study - into the cost of developing devices like the above XEM thing. So you want a 130XE with AMY, 2MB or RAM, SD card, 2 MIDI ports, USB port, HDMI.... Figure out what it would cost to develop this. There's no point in spouting these great ideas without basis in reality, and dollars are about as real as it gets. Most people (in the general population of the world, not AtariAge users) wouldn't even have a clue what a 130XE was/is. I think Atari would laugh if they were proposed this, however.

 

I don't understand the confusion between "What I like" and "What has broad appeal." Just because I like Atari and retro consoles doesn't mean everyone else does. A successful product is going to have broad appeal. Retrogaming has a limited appeal. It always will. That's one of the cool things about it. 1957 Chevys are really cool. They have a limited appeal. Same thing. Retro is not cutting edge, and it never will be. Just because I love 130XEs (and I do), thinking they're the "next big thing" is kind of like a '57 Chevy driver thinking the 2011 Chevy should be a '57 Chevy.

[atarilovesyou]

Ya know, these last few posts have finally made me realize that a) we aren't ever going to get something we'd like to see due to profitability, and b) everything I wanted from back in the day, I already have.

 

The closest I've seen in 'perfection' in a mainstream unit was the Flashback 2.0, but even that had its limitations.

 

Money talks, and suckers walk. I wish all those the best in their dreams of new gear incorporating the 'best of the old', but I ain't holdin' my breath.

 

I guess that's why the past is the past, after all!