Original Gauntlet two player arcade machine

[AlanJMurphy]

I am moving overseas and want to sell or find a good home for my Gauntlet arcade machine. Does anyone know a museum that would take it? It has some historical value. I won it by picking straws with the other artists at Atari and its been sitting in my house since the mid 80's. As far as I know, it's the first one ever built and was used as a test machine in an arcade in Cupertino before it was put into full production. I put it up for auction on ebay but overpriced it and it had a lot of interest but didnt sell. Now I just want to get rid of it. I would like to get money for it but it'll end up at the dump otherwise. Please help me find a suitable home for it. Its in good condition, works fine, etc. I can send pictures to anyone interested. I leave in 12 days.

[Tempest]

Where are you located? California I imagine.

 

BTW, welcome to AtariAge! If you have some time, can you tell us about your time at Atari and what games you worked on?

[VectorGamer]

I am moving overseas and want to sell or find a good home for my Gauntlet arcade machine. Does anyone know a museum that would take it?

 

Donate it to the American Classic Arcade Museum at Funspot in New Hampshire!

 

http://www.classicarcademuseum.org/

[Crazy Climber]

The KLOV admin/museum guy (mclemore) lives in CA, pretty sure he would stop by in a heartbeat.

As Tempest stated, as long as you are here and want to chat a little, we are all ears to listen to old atari stories

[AlanJMurphy]

Hi, I live in San Jose California about 3 miles from the original Atari location.

 

I can't ship this machine, it's very heavy. If a museum will pay shipping and move it before the end of this week, it's free.

 

If you have questions about Atari, let me know, otherwise I'm busy packing for a move and there's a lot to do to get ready. I will check in from time to time this week.

 

Thank you,

 

Alan Murphy

[Tempest]

Can you tell us about any unreleased games that you may have worked on?

[AlanJMurphy]

Hi, That might take a while. At Atari the coolest unreleased game was something called Air Race. It was the first dedicated 3D hardware game.

 

Before that there was something called spitfiire that had true algorithmic 3D on the 5200: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-5200-spitfire_14919.html

 

There were several others: Accelerator, Bugs Bunny, Xevious 5200, I'd have to check. Here's a link to the website for a list of games released and unreleased: www.alan-murphy.com.

[Tempest]

I've covered Spitfire (and a few others) on my website: http://www.atariprot...re/spitfire.htm I'll have to add your name, I didn't know you worked on it as well.

 

I also covered Xevious: http://www.atariprot...ous/xevious.htm and Bugs Bunny: http://www.atariprot...y/bugsbunny.htm

 

 

Can you tell us anything about Spitfire? Why was Spitfire unfinished (it looked amazing)?

 

What was Accelerator? I've never heard of it before.

[AlanJMurphy]

Sptifire was using an algorithm that scaled a 2D block towards the viewport, basically a 3D block that I used to build terrain and the player ship sprites. Joe Copson was a Viet Nam war vet and the programmer.I spent long evenings at Joe's house digitizing a toy we found for the spaceship using very a primitive digitizing method where I'd draw the ship from different angles and convert the drawing into pixels using "animat" software written by Dave Theurer (Missile Command, Tempest, I, Robot, etc.). Spitfire was cancelled because it was taking to long to create a game that anyone thought would sell. It was also slow to compute all the "3D" pixels.

 

Accelerator was an arcade game that had a sideways scrolling play field and a monorail track. The monorail would switch tracks at high speed and you'd have to make the right choice or the train would crash. Dennis Harper programmed, I was the artist.

[Tempest]

Sptifire was using an algorithm that scaled a 2D block towards the viewport, basically a 3D block that I used to build terrain and the player ship sprites. Joe Copson was a Viet Nam war vet and the programmer.I spent long evenings at Joe's house digitizing a toy we found for the spaceship using very a primitive digitizing method where I'd draw the ship from different angles and convert the drawing into pixels using "animat" software written by Dave Theurer (Missile Command, Tempest, I, Robot, etc.). Spitfire was cancelled because it was taking to long to create a game that anyone thought would sell. It was also slow to compute all the "3D" pixels.

That's a shame, because the two prototypes that exist look really nice. It's almost like a 3-D version of Zaxxon. The Atari 5200 could have used more games like this.

 

I assume that the 8-bit and 5200 versions of Xevious was never released due to the collapsing game market?

 

BTW I just want to say that Countermeasure is one of my favorite 5200 games, I love that screen with the tank and the moon you get when you win a level.

 

Does the name Quagmire ring a bell? I have a 5200 prototype that appears to be a menu for a demo kiosk of some sort that mentions a game called Quagmire (it still refers to Countermeasure as Failsafe so it must be fairly early in the 5200's life cycle). I assume it's a WIP name of a 5200 game that I'm not familiar with: http://www.atariprotos.com/5200/software/menu/menu.htm

[AlanJMurphy]

I think Quagmire is a game that I worked on with Jim Andreasen (5200 Pacman). We worked on something that was shown at a conference. I'm pretty sure that's it anyway. I have the animation for it somewhere.

 

Countermeasure has my first easter egg; it's in the 'explode skull' screen at the end. You can see the initials AJM when the color cycling starts.

[Tempest]

I think Quagmire is a game that I worked on with Jim Andreasen (5200 Pacman). We worked on something that was shown at a conference. I'm pretty sure that's it anyway. I have the animation for it somewhere.

Can you describe at all? What was the gameplay like? How far along did it get? Any information would be great.

 

Countermeasure has my first easter egg; it's in the 'explode skull' screen at the end. You can see the initials AJM when the color cycling starts.

That was one of the first Easter Eggs I ever noticed. Of course I didn't know what AJM stood for back then, but I figured it must have been someone who worked on the game.

[Crazy Climber]

Hi, That might take a while. At Atari the coolest unreleased game was something called Air Race. It was the first dedicated 3D hardware game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvYLCsmNKfE

 

Before that there was something called spitfiire that had true algorithmic 3D on the 5200:

 

There were several others: Accelerator, Bugs Bunny, Xevious 5200, I'd have to check. Here's a link to the website for a list of games released and unreleased: www.alan-murphy.com.

Sptifire was using an algorithm that scaled a 2D block towards the viewport, basically a 3D block that I used to build terrain and the player ship sprites. Joe Copson was a Viet Nam war vet and the programmer.I spent long evenings at Joe's house digitizing a toy we found for the spaceship using very a primitive digitizing method where I'd draw the ship from different angles and convert the drawing into pixels using "animat" software written by Dave Theurer (Missile Command, Tempest, I, Robot, etc.). Spitfire was cancelled because it was taking to long to create a game that anyone thought would sell. It was also slow to compute all the "3D" pixels.

 

Accelerator was an arcade game that had a sideways scrolling play field and a monorail track. The monorail would switch tracks at high speed and you'd have to make the right choice or the train would crash. Dennis Harper programmed, I was the artist.

I think Quagmire is a game that I worked on with Jim Andreasen (5200 Pacman). We worked on something that was shown at a conference. I'm pretty sure that's it anyway. I have the animation for it somewhere.

 

Countermeasure has my first easter egg; it's in the 'explode skull' screen at the end. You can see the initials AJM when the color cycling starts.

Very Cool!

If you still have any old stuff, especially from unreleased games make sure you don't throw it away in the move Us guys around here go nuts for these kind of things! If you ever have some free time and want to show us any of it that would be awesome too

[Tempest]

I think Quagmire is a game that I worked on with Jim Andreasen (5200 Pacman). We worked on something that was shown at a conference. I'm pretty sure that's it anyway. I have the animation for it somewhere.

Did you get a chance to find the animation for this? Can you describe the game at all? How far along did it get?

[onmode-ky]

I think the most important question we should be asking is whether a good home was ever found for the Gauntlet cabinet. With it being a pre-production test machine that's even still in working order, it would be awful if the machine ended up going to the dump. I really hope it found a lovely place for its second retirement.

 

onmode-ky

[BillyHW]

Hi, That might take a while. At Atari the coolest unreleased game was something called Air Race. It was the first dedicated 3D hardware game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvYLCsmNKfE

 

Before that there was something called spitfiire that had true algorithmic 3D on the 5200: http://www.atarimani...fire_14919.html

 

There were several others: Accelerator, Bugs Bunny, Xevious 5200, I'd have to check. Here's a link to the website for a list of games released and unreleased: www.alan-murphy.com.

 

Wow, that looks awesome for 1985.

Edited June 22, 2013 by BillyHW

[VectorGamer]

I think the most important question we should be asking is whether a good home was ever found for the Gauntlet cabinet.

 

I sent an email to Gary of the American Classic Arcade Museum giving him a heads-up on this thread. Whether he took any action I suppose the OP could tell us. Having this machine at ACAM would've been the best place for it.

[Tempest]

Did someone end up snagging this?

[Crazy Climber]

Did someone end up snagging this?

I REALLY hope so...

[onmode-ky]

I contacted Mr. Murphy a couple of weeks ago asking about the fate of the cabinet, and he replied that he had given it to a friend. So no need to worry; it did not end up in the great outdoors. Also kind of interesting, I discovered that he had worked on an unreleased Hasbro plug-n-play system that I had heard about a couple of years ago.

 

onmode-ky

[mstulir]

Holy dead thread revival Batman!

 

Through the generosity of a donor who has not given their permission to be identified yet, the American Classic Arcade Museum has acquired another piece of video game history....the same test cabinet for Gauntlet that started this thread. Atari Games put this cabinet on-site in a Cupertino, CA arcade prior to the official release of the game. This cabinet was previously owned by former Atari/Atari Games graphic artist Alan Murphy and has been authenticated by him.

 

It will be available for play soon at the American Classic Arcade Museum.

 

[Inky]

I saw one of these at the America's Playable Arcade Museum in McLean, IL a month or so back.

[DeanS]

I played a small roll in this machine’s history. I picked it up from Alan as soon as he told me about it. Borrowed a truck from a friend and kept in the garage for several years. I passed it to a friend in NY pre-pandemic and he donated it to the museum. Here’s video of me shipping it East. I’m glad people can enjoy the original prototype of this classic golden era title.

[DeanS]

On 6/11/2013 at 6:14 PM, AlanJMurphy said:

I think Quagmire is a game that I worked on with Jim Andreasen (5200 Pacman). We worked on something that was shown at a conference. I'm pretty sure that's it anyway. I have the animation for it somewhere.

 

Countermeasure has my first easter egg; it's in the 'explode skull' screen at the end. You can see the initials AJM when the color cycling starts.

 

[DeanS]

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