Atari memories (well, UK, anyway)

[high voltage]

UK could have had the BBC, what a quality computer, typewriter keyboard (with a spacebar in its normal size and where its supposed to be), colour, sound, plug it into a computer monitor, fdds, joysticks, almost as good as a C64 or A8.

 

Anyway, as someone said before ....back to Atari 8 memories.

 

My local computer shop in Poole, Dorset ALWAYS had Commodore and Atari on display, and both versions of the game, tape and disk, and even the third version, if available, carts.

I used to stop off before going to work, see if anything was new, they were on the ball too, getting softs from Red Rat, Tynesoft etc especially for A8, and I'd splash out on the latest C64 game, or A8.

They actually also stocked EA, Origin, Infocom, Synapse, Sir-Tech, SSI, Microprose, Broderbund, Mindscape and many other excellent US companies, softs you'd never see at Boots or WHS.

That computer shop had, without a doubt, between GBP 50 and 80 a week from me, software heaven.

 

Later (1988ish) a shop opened up in Bournemouth, buying and selling second hand softs/ hardware, but only Amiga and C64. Roadwar Europe cib for GBP 5, Reach for the Stars, cib GBP 7, I take those....Muppet keyboard cib GBP 2.....yes magic, tape games for 0.99, also good.

Those were the good old days, disposable income (I used to spent up to GBP200 a month on magazines, well that was more in the 90s, during the 80s the mags were still cheap), and being a C64 and A8 user I had the best of both worlds.

Edited January 8, 2013 by high voltage

[GroovyBee]

UK could have had the BBC, what a quality computer, typewriter keyboard (with a spacebar in its normal size and where its supposed to be), colour, sound, plug it into a computer monitor, fdds, joysticks, almost as good as a C64 or A8.

 

It wasn't cheap to buy. It probably sold more than it would have normally due to its BBC and schools tie in.

[mimo]

 

 

It wasn't cheap to buy. It probably sold more than it would have normally due to its BBC and schools tie in.

It wasn't Cool either, as it was the computer you were forced to use at school

[GroovyBee]

It wasn't Cool either, as it was the computer you were forced to use at school

 

Maybe not cool to you but I still liked using and playing games on them because they weren't a Speccy or a C64.

[mimo]

 

 

Maybe not cool to you but I still liked using and playing games on them because they weren't a Speccy or a C64.

I'm not trying to upset anyone, but certainly at the school that I went to with a computer suite consisting of 20 or more beebs and a rm380z it was considered uncool to own a beeb. Didn't stop me from wanting an acorn to replace our zx81 though. I knew there was no way my parents could afford the BBC. Thankfully they bought us an Atari 400 , I guess they must have been on offer as the xls were coming

[richard_g]

I got a Grundy NewBrain as my second computer (after a ZX81). Still got it and it's in great shape - just need to give the PSU some attention as a cap blew on the last power up.

 

Was slightly cheaper than the BBC and was bought for me by my parents on the recommendation of my brother who worked in 'computers' back in the 80s so his word was gospel.

 

Lovely machine. All TTL - loads and loads of it folded up over three boards within the machine. Superb build quality too. Brass inserts and shaped anodized aluminium heatsink formed the back of the casing.

 

I learned how to program with this machine - well I didn't have much choice really and there was very little of the shelf stuff.

[+Stephen]

I got a Grundy NewBrain as my second computer (after a ZX81). Still got it and it's in great shape - just need to give the PSU some attention as a cap blew on the last power up.

 

Was slightly cheaper than the BBC and was bought for me by my parents on the recommendation of my brother who worked in 'computers' back in the 80s so his word was gospel.

 

Lovely machine. All TTL - loads and loads of it folded up over three boards within the machine. Superb build quality too. Brass inserts and shaped anodized aluminium heatsink formed the back of the casing.

 

I learned how to program with this machine - well I didn't have much choice really and there was very little of the shelf stuff.

Sounds killer! What is that machine in your avatar? Is it one of the early KIM 6502 kits?

[richard_g]

It's a Heathkit ET-3400. 6800 based trainer. I've always had a soft spot for trainers and single board computers.

 

She's a beauty!

 

[+Stephen]

It's a Heathkit ET-3400. 6800 based trainer. I've always had a soft spot for trainers and single board computers.

 

She's a beauty!

 

That is a sexy piece of kit! Almost as old as I am too and looks to be in better shape

[richard_g]

Yep - mint condition. Smells really nice too...

[+orpheuswaking]

Red Rat Software was one of my favorites, Still looking to pick up a copy of Astro Droid!

[ilaskey]

One place I've not seen much mention on here was some place up north which used to advertise heavily and have a lot of Atari stuff you couldn't get elsewhere very easily in the UK like all the OSS programming languages. Their catalogue was like an aladin's cave. I'd love to have got to the shop but it was too far away for me. Trouble is, I can't remember the name now. Arghh. Old age is a bitch.

[+orpheuswaking]

Software Express International in Birmingham?

Edited January 9, 2013 by orpheuswaking

[ilaskey]

Yep! That's the one - well done :-)

Edited January 9, 2013 by ilaskey

[+orpheuswaking]

Trusty Atari User (UK) to the rescue...

[carmel_andrews]

From the mid 1980s it became difficult to get anything into stores if you didn't fit into a distributor's neat pigeonhole and jump through the correct marketing hoops (have a watch of Commercial Breaks, there's a glimpse of what's involved when Ocean start pushing Hunchback 2 out near the end). People like Jeff Minter and Mel Croucher struggled to get their games to the masses on the C64 and Spectrum because, despite the demand being there after positive magazine reviews and from word of mouth, they weren't mainstream and i suspect this is why Minter started working with other publishers around 1985, it was easier to leave the hassle of marketing to people who actually wanted to do it.

 

 

 

 

 

I didn't know that Mel C. programmed games, I though he was only a magazine columnist/freelace journalist type

 

So, It wasn't the softie houses (as mclaneinc called them) that were 'anti atari 8bit' it was the el crappo distributors (who probably knew even less about that market then the likes of Atari did)

 

Perhaps we should have waged a war against the distributors and sued them under UK consumer laws, like restraint of business, operating a cartel or anti competitve business practices (i.e UK or EU competition/monopoly laws)...Perhaps then they might have listened then

 

The question is though, why were the software houses relying on the el crappo distributors to getting 'their product' into the stores/shops, why didn't the software houses just hire 'half decent' sales reps and sell directly to dealers/retailers etc, after all surely the software houses knew how to sell their own product (or am i missing something here)

[Mclaneinc]

Pimania, Deus Ex Machina...Mel Croucher and other games...

 

The softies (the programming house but that's what called them) obviously wanted their products out but the distributors were not chance takers, dead stock is dead stock, people like Ocean who COULD have taken the chances often refused to based upon ill informed suits.

 

These were the years of "this is where the big money is at" with easy money being the target, this affected both getting games out and what sort of games were programmed.

 

Very few dared to buck the trend.

[Mclaneinc]

Yep - mint condition. Smells really nice too...

 

Having been a Heathkit distributor we found them a pain in the backside. wonderful kits but price and dealing between us (Maplin) and Heathkit indirectly made them my least favourite stock, they just sat there going nowhere.

 

But I do remember that trainer, we had a prebuilt one for display in the shop...The quality and build description was suprb..

[TMR]

I didn't know that Mel C. programmed games, I though he was only a magazine columnist/freelace journalist type

 

He was a designer rather than a programmer and at a time when those jobs were usually done by the same person. Deus Ex Machina was his most daring game, at the start of each load it needed to be manually synchronised to a supplied audio track (which was voiced by Jon Pertwee, Ian Drury, Frankie Howerd and Croucher himself who also did the music) and events played out on screen in time with the audio.

 

MP3s of the audio are available at World of Spectrum and it's a fairly unique and indeed surreal experience to play, there's no way to die so the entire journey is completed every time and "success" is measured by the final percentage score. Croucher essentially invented the "art game" twenty five years before anyone else.

 

So, It wasn't the softie houses (as mclaneinc called them) that were 'anti atari 8bit' it was the el crappo distributors (who probably knew even less about that market then the likes of Atari did)

 

Nobody was really "anti Atari" as such, as Paul and others have said they went where they thought the money was so, if a market wasn't perceived to be profitable enough, they moved out of it. It's worth noting that this was back when many companies worked at a national rather than international level so many UK publishers were primarily worried about the UK with Europe or the US possibly happening as an afterthought, so a machine's perceived "success" in the UK governed how the publishers here looked at it.

 

The question is though, why were the software houses relying on the el crappo distributors to getting 'their product' into the stores/shops, why didn't the software houses just hire 'half decent' sales reps and sell directly to dealers/retailers etc, after all surely the software houses knew how to sell their own product (or am i missing something here)

 

Because it cost money to do that basically. Even a small concern already had some serious overheads (printing costs for inlays and tape labels, cassette or disk mastering with somewhere like Ablex, magazine advertising, staff and that was usually covered before they worried about paying the coders!) so paying full-time reps to tour the country would've been prohibitive. The distributors did that legwork for them as part of the cut they took from sales and could push titles into the big high street stores like WH Smiths or Boots.

 

Some publishers did send out reps though (i remember regular visits by a nice bloke from CDS about once a month?) and the budget houses had more wiggle room because they didn't rely purely on the regular channels, selling through other means like garages, newspaper shops, novelty stores and so on.

[carmel_andrews]

Strange, i do remember some corner shops (i.e newsagents) selling computer games....don't remember seeing anything Atari though (only comm64, amstrad and sinclair)

 

I only remember Mel C (or his column) when my commodore owning older brother (who actually started out with an A800xl) let me read some of his 'commodore porn' (i.e zapp, YC/CU and CDU)

[Stormtrooper of Death]

Any more memories from the other members of this forum ?

[Lost Dragon]

Mine will seem quite dull in comparison, but i'll start with a few that stick out:

Ok, my 800XL getting a fault (loved that self-test) and my poor old parents driving 2 hrs+ to return it to the Dixons in Turo, where they'd bought it (on a family day out few months before) only for the lass behind the counter to cheerfully inform them they could have taken it to ANY branch and got a replacement (Barnstaple was a lot nearer).

My worst Xmas ever (as a kid) as folks and rest of family, knowing i had a 'new' computer and not one damn thing would load (and i was hogging the 'Big TV' on Xmas day).My dad's puzzled look of 'whats a Boot Error?' still sticks in my mind) and i tried to explain to them the tape heads needed re-aligning (had cleaned them so many times etc) cue post Xmas trip to my Grans and my (step) grandads workshop being filled with the warbling sound of Acker Bilk's Strangers on the shore-only tape my mother brought with her.

[Lost Dragon]

Few more:

 

My then best mate, Ben Bartrum, riding his push bike 9 miles to our place (talk about more innocent times, hell i'd often walk those 9 miles to local village to see me mates, walk back, never say what time i'd be home etc.No mobiles, CCTV back in them days), and bringing me Thrust (and being mate enough not to tell me how much better it looked on C64, lo) and Elktraglide (which he knew looked worse on C64).

 

Witnessing the nightmare of the ONLY 'local' shop (try 45 miles away) in Barnstaple, moving to Exmouth (2 hrs away from us) and thus my only source of games other than mail order being taken from me.Luckily my sister got a job at Exmouth, would send games down (but Gunlaw Heather? really?) and me blitzing the shop when we went up to visit her.

 

And me foolishly telling my mate at school, Ninja Master was bloody amazing (how would i know, at that point i could'nt get it to load), only have the piss taken out of me for weeks after by him, as it loaded 1st time for him.

[Lost Dragon]

And last off (multiple posts as on mobile browser), despite owning a ZX81 and 2600 previousily, the 800XL being the 1st time my folks (mum espically) took gaming 'seriousily' after hearing the (loading? yeah it was the loading music i think, been over 25 years since i used a tape player on the A8, blimey) on Lone Raider and the 'ditty' on Mountain King.

 

 

And wondering why on earth my versions (well A8 versions) of Spellbound and Beach Head II did'nt sound as good as my mates C64 versions (no Hubbard music on 1st, no speech on the 2nd) and, once moving to a C64 as it had games!, why Zzap 64 had such a cob on about Ninja and Ghost Chaser, i loved those and was horrified to see Zzap rip into them.

[Dub]

Old thread I know... but does anybody on here remember the Midland Atari Centre in Broad Street, Birmingham UK?

 

I worked there for a while and also went the BUG meetings in the Bull Ring....1986 IIRC...

 

This was all about the time when Mercenary came out from Novogen Software, even remember working at Novogen for a few days putting all the newly printed boxes and manuals etc together for it! And having to collect something from Paul Woakes house.... can't remember what..