Purposely POOR PAC MAN 2600

[carmel_andrews]

Incorrect, atari did also sue commodore over jelly monsters over it's similarity to pacman (it formed part of the lawsuit atari had with the said company over it's range of joysticks which used the same connector as atari's own joysticks)

[NovaXpress]

I've found that you're right, Atari sued Commodore before they sued Magnavox. I see that Commordore actually had the Namco licenses for Japan, so JM was released as Pac-Man. Their Japanese editions of Galaxian and Rally-X had to be redone as well.

[Nukey Shay]

As for the colors, Atari designers knew from Pong and their early games that they couldn't have high contrast colors for static backgrounds (i.e. the maze) because tv sets from those days were VERY susceptible to burn in. That's also why all Atari games cycle the color palette when they finish. Imagine a kid playing Pac Man for six hours a day for a few weeks. Bright blue on black would have left a burn-in on those old tv sets.

That's nonsense. First of all, burn-in wasn't that big an issue. Second, bright colors on black made up the majority of 2600 games so it's clear that no one was avoiding it.

 

It took an extremely long time to cause burn-in, even back then.

 

Actually, it was one of their selling points back in the day (their "attract mode" infiltrating even their computer line). But by the time games like Pac Man appeared on the shelves, televisions were also being made less prone to damage from image burn (IIRC, this has to do with the higher phosphor content in older television tubes).

[carmel_andrews]

I read in a couple of British computer mags (at the time) that they reckoned that the speccy/c64 version were the best of the 8bit computer versions ...So does that make the A8 version even more crap then the 2600/vcs version

 

I found that strange because the c64/a8 version are almost identical

[Student Driver]

Incorrect, atari did also sue commodore over jelly monsters over it's similarity to pacman (it formed part of the lawsuit atari had with the said company over it's range of joysticks which used the same connector as atari's own joysticks)

 

Atari also sued Sierra On-Line over Jawbreaker... covered in an interesting manner in Levy's book Hackers.

[Brad2600]

We'll friggin never know. Although of course, the pure badness core of the 2600 Pacman maze is precisely what I love about Nukeys update.

 

 

Agreed. That update is just bee-yoo-tiful!

[atm94404]

As for the colors, Atari designers knew from Pong and their early games that they couldn't have high contrast colors for static backgrounds (i.e. the maze) because tv sets from those days were VERY susceptible to burn in. That's also why all Atari games cycle the color palette when they finish. Imagine a kid playing Pac Man for six hours a day for a few weeks. Bright blue on black would have left a burn-in on those old tv sets.

That's nonsense. First of all, burn-in wasn't that big an issue. Second, bright colors on black made up the majority of 2600 games so it's clear that no one was avoiding it.

 

It took an extremely long time to cause burn-in, even back then.

 

Actually, it was one of their selling points back in the day (their "attract mode" infiltrating even their computer line). But by the time games like Pac Man appeared on the shelves, televisions were also being made less prone to damage from image burn (IIRC, this has to do with the higher phosphor content in older television tubes).

Funny that as I'm typing this, I'm watching my ReplayTV put up a little bouncing "R" on a blank screen because the menu has stayed static for too long. Burn-in was a huge deal at the time the 2600 was introduced. People did tend to keep their tv sets much longer so it wasn't all that unusual for an Atari to be hooked up to an eight-year-old set. A neighborhood friend of mine had a little Goldstar BW tv that had a very definite burn-in from a Coleco (I think) Pong knockoff (Telestar?) . You could clearly see the ghost image of the playfield.

[SoundGammon]

As for the colors, Atari designers knew from Pong and their early games that they couldn't have high contrast colors for static backgrounds (i.e. the maze) because tv sets from those days were VERY susceptible to burn in. That's also why all Atari games cycle the color palette when they finish. Imagine a kid playing Pac Man for six hours a day for a few weeks. Bright blue on black would have left a burn-in on those old tv sets.

That's nonsense. First of all, burn-in wasn't that big an issue. Second, bright colors on black made up the majority of 2600 games so it's clear that no one was avoiding it.

 

It took an extremely long time to cause burn-in, even back then.

 

Actually, it was one of their selling points back in the day (their "attract mode" infiltrating even their computer line). But by the time games like Pac Man appeared on the shelves, televisions were also being made less prone to damage from image burn (IIRC, this has to do with the higher phosphor content in older television tubes).

Funny that as I'm typing this, I'm watching my ReplayTV put up a little bouncing "R" on a blank screen because the menu has stayed static for too long. Burn-in was a huge deal at the time the 2600 was introduced. People did tend to keep their tv sets much longer so it wasn't all that unusual for an Atari to be hooked up to an eight-year-old set. A neighborhood friend of mine had a little Goldstar BW tv that had a very definite burn-in from a Coleco (I think) Pong knockoff (Telestar?) . You could clearly see the ghost image of the playfield.

 

I have a friend who played Tetris, the Tengen version on the NES, so much, the she now has a Tetris "Tower" burned in to her big projection screen!

[moycon]

$55 is crazy indeed, considering that Pac-Man retailed for thirty bucks.

Was it really only $30? I don't remember, that's too long ago.

 

..Al

 

I got that 1982 Sears catalog in today. Sears sold Pac-Man for $29.99 that Christmas of 82.

The most expensive game was Star Raiders at $37.99 suprisingly the second most expensive games were M-Network games. They were $34.99 when most other games were $19.99-$27.99