One or 2 innaccuracies in Phoenix (fall and rise)

[carmel_andrews]

I came across the innacuracies from two renowned sources, A- Guiness book of world records, And B- A BBC2 program about the videogame tetris

 

The reference to the Guiness book of world records is mentioned because, according to the guiness book of world records (whichg correct me if i am wrong is accepted world wide incl. the USA as the defacto standard publication for pioneering human achievements, world/human firsts and human/world records), in their computing section, they class the worlds first 'electronic computer' or electronic computing device as being the one invented and designed by Alan Turing and Von Neumann under the auspicies of British Govt intelligence servives at Bletchley Park, known as the 'Collosus', it helped crack the german Emiga Machine codes in WW2, strange then that the guiness book of world records doesn't make mention of any of these computing devices that the book 'phoenix' makes mention of, considering that phoenix is suppossed to be a 'potted' history of computer/video games, you would have thought that they would mentioned 'collosus' that thaty system is regarded by many experts in computing as the very first 'electronic computer' or 'electronic computing device'

 

The reference to the BBC2 programme regarding the tetris videogame was mentioned because, according to phoenix, Robert Stein was mislead into thinking that he had acquired the gaming and computer rights to tetris

 

This is not so, according to the BBC2 programme regarding tetris, the BBC programme had interviews with several of the protagonists in this issue, including Henk Rogers (Bullet proof software and nintendo), Alexiy palitov (orig. tetris designer) and Kevin Maxwell (Son of the Chairman of Mirrorsoft/Spectrum hollobyte) and Some bloke from Atari gamea/tengen and various officials from ELorg (A russian/USSR govt dept. co-ordinating patents, copyrights, IPR etc for software hardware designed and written by russian companies and countries allied with the comecon or russian traidng block) According to the bbc2 programme, once elorg had got wind that stein had approached Palitov or palitovs company regarding the tetris program, stein got a threatening letter from elorg accusing him of stealing russian patents/copyrights etc and as elorg 'apparently' owned the tetris patents/rights etc, that stein and whoever he was dealing with would have to pay stiff royalties and unlimited damages for infringing russian copyright/patent laws, stein eventually went to russia to sort things out and came back with what he thought was a contract/agreement for the total rights to tetris, stein then began talks with mirrorsoft, who bought in both Atari games (for the gaming and coin op rights) and spectrum hollobyte for the US/Nth Am. computer rights), according to the bbc2 programme a few months went by and a little known software company called bullet proof software demo'd a proto version of 'tetris' on a proto version of the gameboy, initially Henk rogers and nintendo starting dealing directly with Robert stein, when they knew this wasn't getting anywhere, they starting making contact with elorg, through henk rogers, the weird thing was, was that the meeting that henk rogers/nintendo and Robert stein/Mirrorsoft was to have had with Elorg were all going to be on the same day, the meeting with robert stein didn't go very well as the russian officials demanded that stein pay up the money he still owed for the rights he 'owned' on tetris and also any future monies will be paid up front, additionally they (the russians) wanted to 're-evaluate' the original contract they had with robert stein as well as the contract robert stein had with Paliytovs company... because the russians knew that video and computeer gaming was a hot thing in the west, the thought that this tetris thing was worth a pile of money, they didn't see the sense in letting only one person/one company owning the various platform rights to tetris, so they (the russians) 'twisted' the original contract stein made with the russians and paliytov, by adding various clauses incl a definition of the computer platform, which essentially meant that stein would only be getting rights to the computing rights to tetris, and the russians did a deal with Henk rogers/nintendo regarding the handheld and gaming rights

 

 

Not that i want to bitch about, just thought that i'd correct a few inaccuracies