Talk:Atari/Archive 1

Syzygy

People keep comenting about this:

The company was originally known as Syzygy? (would somebody stop putting this in this article? This is not true!), referring to the alignment of planets and the sun (as seen several times in the movie 2001). When it was discovered this was in use by a Californian roofing company, the name was changed to a term from the board game Go.

Has anyone got any references to back up this story. At which point we could add it back to the main article...—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Alex (talk • contribs) .

As I understand it, Bushnell initially wanted to name the company 'Syzygy' (sp?) but when he discovered the name was in use he went with 'Atari'. To the best of my knowledge, the company never actually operated under the first name, it was still just an idea at that point. When I get my copy of "Pheonix" out of storage (I recently moved) then I can look this up and be sure. -Dan Mazurowski

I've heard the "syzygy" story, and it's pretty widespread on the 'Net, but every version I've read is consistent with the above, that Bushnell liked the idea but found another company using the name, so he chose "Atari" instead. We could accurately say something like this: "Bushnell wanted to call the company 'Syzygy,' but when another company turned up by that name, settled on 'Atari' instead." If it's even worth mentioning. Personally, I'm just happy that we've built a reasonably complete history of the tangled family of companies. -Dave Farquhar 03:51, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)

OK, found the info on the origin of the Atari name. Bushnell and his partner Ted Dabney did indeed choose the name Syzygy, but then found it was already in use. They then considered using their initials, but found those were already in use as well (B&D for Black & Decker, D&B for Dunn & Bradstreet). So Nolan wrote down three words from his favorite game, Go. They were "Hanne", "Sente", and "Atari". He took this list with him to the California Secretary of State office, and asked somebody at the office which they liked best. Atari was chosen. This account is from Leonard Herman's book, Pheonix. -Dan Mazurowski

I have heard of the syzygy story and I believe it, but I believe it was never incorporated as that name. Sort of Electronic Arts and "SoftArt". TheListUpdater 22:20, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

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About that postscript note at the end added by an anon user, I would word it better and incorporate it into the article myself, but I am not quite sure about it's validity.--Lucky13pjn 17:59, Jul 3, 2004 (UTC)

The Expo has existed since 1997, but otherwise it's a valid statement. I reworked it. I don't know that it necessarily belongs at the top where I put it; feel free to move it and/or reword it further if you think it needs it. --Dave Farquhar 22:37, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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About the name; I've heard atari is a descriptive term to some situation in the famous board game Go. If that is true, shouldn't it be added if someone knows anything about this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 194.251.240.116 (talk • contribs) .

Well, apart from the very first line being a "disambiguation" note pointing to Go_terms#Atari, this seems to be covered in the history section, and to have been mentionned somewhere in most versions of this article. - IMSoP 20:13, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hasbro controversy

Either here or at Hasbro Interactive, we need to note the controversy Hasbro caused by filing (ridiculous, in my POV) lawsuits against makers of clones of classic Atari games while they held the license. - furrykef (Talk at me) 20:07, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hasbro never made remakes,they were made by jakks pacific and ATARI -- User:209.247.5.68 (User_talk:209.247.5.68) 18:53, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

That would be incorrect, and you're confusing plug and plays for actual software. Hasbro Interactive released several remakes of Atari properties (all 3D updates), including PONG: The Next Level (1999), Breakout (2000), and Centipede (1998).

Splitting the article...

IMHO the article should be split into two: one for the original Bushnell/Time Warner/Tramiel Atari, and one for the GT Interactive/Infogrames Atari. They are two completely different companies that just share the name. This would solve many controversies, such as the founding year in the infobox: it is 1972 (the Bushnell year) or 1993 (the GT Interactive year). - tjansen

You can further split Atari in that Atari Home Computers was split off from the company named Atari that did coin-op, Atari Games. (Unclear if it was a division or a completely different company.) You had two Atari's sharing the same name. Perhaps a disambiguity with an explanation is called for? - jmccorm

It already is, see Atari Games --Tjansen 17:32, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

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Its not Time Warner, just Warner. Time Warner wasn't until the late 1980's.

The new Atari Inc. is a seperate company now of which Infogrames is a major shareholder. The founding of Atari Inc. is not tied to GT Interactive/Infogrames, and should not be promoted seperately. Just changed some of the info to relfect this, but that part of the first passage (which is not editable) should be taken out.

Likewise it is not a completely different company from the Warner Atari Inc. as you are saying, any more than Atari Corp. was - they own all the same properties.

Thirdly, Atari Home Computers was not split off. Atari Consumer (which included Atari Home Computers and the console division) was what was split off and sold to Tramiel to form Atari Corp. Atari Consumer was started back around '75 when they decided to go in to home consoles.

Atari Games was a completely different company, they were not two companies sharing the same name. What they did share was the fuji logo and the stylized representation of the word Atari. When Atari Consumer was sold, Warner split the rights to the logo, allowing Atari Corp. to use the original representation. Warner put the coin-op holdings under a newly created Atari Games division, which would share the logo but have to put the word Games with it. That company was taken over by Namco the next year and then directly by the employees after that. Because of some deals with Atari Corp. and a "friendship agreement" with Atari Corp. occured, and by the time Time-Warner Interactive was formed and eventually took over Atari Games, the rights to the logo were turned completely to Atari Corp. When WMS/Midway bought TWI and reinstated Atari Games, they had to license the logo. Once Hasbro obtained the Atari Corp. properties, Midway stopped licensing it and renamed the division to Midway Games West.

--Marty Goldberg 22:55, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, it was Warner Communications at that time. But, more important, the two games they developed that were disasters were ET and Raiders of the Lost Ark. PacMan may have been developed around the same time, but it was the two movie games that brought the company down.

Bradfregger 23:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC) Brad Fregger Sorry, not quite sure how to sign this. Brad

Info from redirected article

I believe most of this is duped info, but there was a New Article I made a redirect to here.

Atari Corporation is referred to the Atari company that existed from 1984 to 1996 and dealing with the consumer business (home consoles and videogames) as opposed to the Atari Games company who was developping arcade games.

When Commodre founder Jack Tramiel bought Atari Inc from Warner Communications in 1984, he only acquired the home computer and consoles divions of the company and had absolutely no interest in the arcade coin-op industry. As a result two independant Atari companies derived from the ex-Atari Inc, those companies being Atari Games who would stay at the hands of Warner Communications and exclusively be in charge with the development of Atari arcade games and the other company being Atari Corporation would deal with home console and computers. Like it was the case with Atari Games, Atari Corporation kept the same employees and staff that were before at Atari Inc. To the popular opinion Atari Corporation is considered as the original Atari Inc while Atari Games is simly considered as a brand new entity created from a spinoff. This perception can be attributed to a few reasons.

1)Atari Corp kept the Sunnyvale, California headquarters of the old Atari while Atari Games and its employees had to relocate in nearby Millipitas, California.

2)Atari Corporation only used the "Atari" label on the market while Atari Games had to use their full name "Atari Games" as a label.

3)Atari Corporation kept more employees from Atari Inc then Atari Games did since they retained two divisions out of three from the old Atari.

4)Because it was the arcade coin-op division and not the consumer side that was rejected by Tramiel, Atari Corporation is seen as the continuity of Atari Inc.

However many fans of the Atari arcade games do not agree and states that Atari Games is indeed the original Atari because when Atari was founded in 1972, it started as a arcade game developer, not an computer or console manufacturer.

Neither Atari Corp or Atari Games are alive today as both companies were shut down by their respective parent company. In the case of Atari Corp, they were closed when they were merged with San Jose hard-disk company. JTS immediately ceassed production of all Atari hardwares and sent most employees home with pink slip, keeping only 3 employees from Atari Corporation would now be engaged in JTS activities instead of Atari's. The Atari name still live on today as the branch was acquired by French company Infogrammes.

Atari Corporation was responsible for developping the Atari 7800, the Jaguar and the Lynx. Trammiel was known for its rationalisation practices and desire of saving costs by regurarily firing employees that did not met the company's expectations. Most employees who were fired at Atari Corporation were let go at the time when the company was still under ownership of Tramiel, not JTS. To the eyes of some Atari fans, Tramiel is responsible for the demise of Atari Corporation.

 RasputinAXP  talk * contribs 18:38, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Regarding point number 3 above, the notion that Atari Corp. retained a large number of employees from Atari Inc. is misleading. While Atari Corp. may have indeed inherited a great many employees from Atari Inc., nearly all of them were summarily dismissed shortly after the sale, many arriving at work to find their desks already cleared out and their things boxed and ready for them to carry away.

It should also be pointed out that Jack Tramiel did not have any more interest in game consoles than he had in arcade games. His purchase of Atari assets was actually because his company (Tramiel Technologies) needed a factory and distribution assets for the new computer they were developing (which eventually became the Atari ST). But to acquire these assets (which were as much a part of Atari's game console business as they were part of the computer business) he was forced to accept the extra baggage of the home video game business.

One final point - the 7800 was NOT developed by Atari Corp. It was designed for Atari Inc. by a company called GCC (they also developed the first 10 game cartridges, as well as a few accessories that were never released). The 7800 was launched ("test marketed") in California a month before Jack Tramiel's purchase led to the withdrawal of the unit from the market. Atari Corp. also did not develop the Lynx, this platform was developed by Epyx and purchased by Atari. As for the Jaguar, that was actually designed by a company called Flare Technology, though in that case Atari did at least fund the R&D work. --Sir Smedley 23:03, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Lawsuits

Forgot to mention the Atari/Sega lawsuit that was settled Sept 28, 1994. Sega got to use Atari's patents but had to pay $50 million for past royalties. Sega had to buy 4.7 million shares of Atari stock for $40 million. Sega and Atari cross-licensed 5 games a year, except Sonic games. Maybe there should be a separate section just for lawsuits? :D Pelladon 15:54, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I forget the exact details off hand, but the deal actually had some other conditions that made it utterly useless for Atari to capitalize on the cross-licensing deal (which is why no Sega games ever got licensed). I believe one of the conditions had something to do with waiting a certain period of time after the game had been released by Sega on their own home consoles. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.91.253.37 (talk • contribs) .

Photo

Can someone supply a better photo of a 2600 than that one taken against the orange tiles? Okay; it could do with some cropping and the removal of the wires.... but that's Photoshoppable. What I really don't get is the (totally irrelevant) Rio MP3 player sat on top of it. Why?!!

Fourohfour 20:23, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

The Rio isn't totally irrelevant. The cartridge inserted into the 2600 is a 'Cuttle Cart', a fan developed unit that allows you to load games via an audio connection. This is the same method employed by the Supercharger back in the day - you put the Supercharger cartridge into the 2600, then plug in a cassette player and load games into the cartridge from audio tapes. The problem is that there is no mention of either the Cuttle Cart or the Supercharger anywhere in the article, so only game historians or 2600 fanatics know why it's there. --Sir Smedley 23:09, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Ah, makes sense now.

The ultimate misuse of modern technology; the user has a hard-drive/flash-memory based device that can store countless megabytes of programs and has virtually instant access, yet they use it in possibly the most inefficient manner possible; like a 25-year-old cassette recorder and C-60 tape. :)

Okay, I'm taking the mick; there were probably reasons for doing it that way.

Anyway, I'll update the caption. That having been said, I still think the RIO and all the wires are a distraction, and a higher-quality image would certainly be desirable (not that this one is awful by any means).

Fourohfour 13:18, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

(Photo replaced for reasons described above and in edit summary). Fourohfour 19:11, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Lists of Atari games

The list of 'current' Atari games is beginning to show signs of getting long and 'completist'. It's still okay, but it's growing fast. Perhaps we could have a separate "complete" list article and include a shorter list of the most notable titles here?

As these things get longer, I think that they can make the article look padded out, (can) make it harder to navigate and (can) slow the page load down. We're not at that stage *yet*, but it's worth considering.

If we went with a separate list article, what should it be called, and what should it contain? "Current" Atari games will date; "Infogrames" Atari games might not. Any thoughts?

Fourohfour 13:59, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

• What would a complete games list provide that Category:Atari games doesn't? The typical answer would be that the article lists descriptions of some sort, which categories can't do. But since that's not happening, I suggest limiting the article list to just the most notable ones. --Interiot 17:07, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Photo Incorrect - Not Early Model

The photo which claims to show an early version of the Atari video game system is completely wrong. This is actually a picture of a later "cheaper" system they came out with later (prior to coming out with the really really cheap models they came out with prior to ceasing production altogether). All the the early models have 6 toggle buttons on the front panel and not 4 (which is a dead give away this is a not even close to be an early model). These 4 button toggle models are also much lighter in weight wereas the early models were very heavy.

Looks like you're right. This page explains more about the specific models. I updated the image caption. --Interiot 08:52, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Did androids and electric sheep destroy Atari?

Why there is no mention of the Blade Runner's curse in this article? 195.70.32.136 12:50, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I've never heard of /that/ - but...this article reads like a corporate advertisement. It says nothing bad about atari, at all. Shouldn't we include some of the issues of the Troika controversy, or times when they refuse to allow developers to patch their own games? Hewhorulestheworld 12:57, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Federated stores

Need info on Atari's purchase and selling of it's Federated stores (used to distribute it's computers and software in the U.S.). — Pelladon 19:16, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Update needed

The article says: "Atari could be delisted from the NASDAQ stock exchange on April 30th, 2006 if it fails to bring its stock price up to $1 for 10 consecutive days.". We are past that date now, so the statement should be updated or removed.

NASDAQ hasn't delisted the stock as of today. And according to this this June 2 interview with Atari's CEO, the company has several options to avoid delisting. So I'm going to remove that statement. Pat Berry 17:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Total sales

The article states that 4 million Atari ST computers were sold. The article also states that Amiga outsold Atari 3 to 2. Does anyone have links or records that state the actual number of computers sold? The Amiga wikipedia entry has no hard numbers either. —Pelladon 23:58, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Split, Reloaded

Even though the Atari Games is there, I think there should be an article on the "old Atari" (the one started in the 1970s, renamed to Atari Corp., and sold to Hasbro), and the "new Atari" (the same as the GT Interactive company)

That's the problem though, the view is inaccurate. a) It wasn't renamed Atari Corp., Atari Corp. was TTL which was renamed to Atari Corp. Seperate entity. In fact, there were 6 seperate corprorate entitys before the current Atari Inc. --Marty Goldberg 22:23, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

_/|\_

Atari sign can be easily written in ASCII as _/|\_ sign. I post this tip for convenience.

Was the Jaguar revolutionary?

The History section begins with a claim that the Jaguar was "revolutionary for its time". From browsing the relevant Wikipedia articles, I would say that the Jaguar was not truly revolutionary, except perhaps in the area of sucking. But I will not make this change summarily; perhaps someone with more extensive knowledge than I can confirm or deny my assessment? 24.118.231.95 01:13, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

It was touted, by Atari, as being revolutionary in that it was a 64-bit machine. But as it was really a faux 64-bit machine which utilized two 32-bit co-processors, and a 32-bit instruction set. Its primary processor was actually a 16-bit Motorola 68000. If memory serves, they were trying to use the 64-bit as a selling point against the 32-bit machines entering the market at the time. Despite all of this, I wouldn't say that the machine excelled at "sucking." It was actually a fairly fine machine, but it looked like a toilet, and the quantity of games available for it was underwhelming. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TopaTopa (talk • contribs) 21:53, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

Actually - no. The 68000 was used for a bootstrapping and general purpose use. Likewise, you're confusing chips with CPU's (5 processors on the Jag spaced across 3 chips), and a cpu/coprocessor system for a mutliprocessor system (which the Jag was). Specifically for graphics and gameplay - the GPU was 32/64 (Has access to all 64 bits of the system bus and can read 64 bits of data in one instruction), the Blitter (does all the 3D rendering, screen clearing, and pixel shuffling) was 64, the Object Processor (takes data from DRAM and builds the display) was 64, the bus was 64 bits as well. All five processors could run in parallel as well, executing their own code as a seperate processor. --Marty Goldberg 22:30, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Intro Corporate Name History

About the merger/acquisition history in the introduction: This is complicated but I think it's more confusing than it has to be. I think it might be better to have an ordered list starting with when Atari was founded in 1972. Any thoughts? Rightleftright 16:41, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is, its not a linear history that can appear in an ordered list. You have several parallel histories of the properties starting in '84 and another group in '01. --Marty Goldberg 19:23, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Fuji symbol?

Fuji, link states that the 3 prong symbol for Atari is called Fuji. Not sure if this is true. Thanks Marasama (talk) 06:04, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it was referred to by Atari Inc. as a "Fuji". It originally was designed to resemble the letter A as well as two people playing pong. However, during the mid 70's the descriptive was changed to a fuji. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 07:17, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. Though, I'm not sure how to write it in the main article. Thanks,Marasama (talk) 06:35, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Trivia

• The founder of Atari, Nolan Bushnell, was also the founder of the well known restaurant franchise Chuck E. Cheese's.
• The Ataris, a band, is named after the company.
• The German Digital hardcore band Atari Teenage Riot is also named after the company
• The Atari logo appeared in the futuristic 1982 movie Blade Runner.
• In the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day, young John Connor uses an Atari Portfolio (predecessor of the palmtop computer) to steal money from an ATM.

From main article, created simple condensed Popular culture section. LanceBarber (talk) 21:18, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

All pop culture entries have to follow the guidelines at WP:VG/POP. That includes meeting notability standards and full citations. In answer to your question on my talk page, the reason the citation requests were not there before is because it was a trivia section. As stated by the trivia tag, all items are expected to be removed or worked in to the main article. The second you revamped it as a pop culture section, it fell under the pop culture guidelines. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 00:24, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Just letting you know the article has been vandalised

yeah someone has been messing with the article such as the put the founders had sex someone should look for the changes and fix them Demiser (talk) 13:00, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Merge

I propose merging Atari, Inc (Infogrames) with this article, seeing as how Infogrames finally bought out Atari completely.[1], [2],[3]. Therefore it is not necessary to have a seperate article, when the company is now fully owned subsidiary by Infogrames.--EclipseSSD (talk) 15:22, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

• Do not mergeThe Atari page is about the Atari brand itself and its entire history, its not Infogrames specific. If you were going to propose merging it with something, it'd be better suited to discuss merging it with Infogrames. But even then, that has little precedence here. Just because something gets bought out or a company merges with another to become a private subsidiary does not remove the need for the original pre-merge company's article. See Namco, Bandai and Namco Bandai Holdings for this precedent. If anything, all that should happen is (once the deal goes through - it hasn't yet), you just change the company type to Private. There are previous discussions in the video game project on just this subject, and this is what consensus followed. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 16:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
• Do not merge. As Wgungfu said, Atari was far different than it is now. The Atari Corporation was on the most influential companies in video game history. The Infogames brand is, well, just a brand. The two are, despite their names, completely different entities. -DevinCook (talk) 20:11, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose merge: The Atari company has existed as a separate, prominent brand for quite a while. It needs its own article. At the end of the history section, the buy out should be mentioned. Infogrames may continue to let it operate as a separate brand, in which case there will continue to be more history. — Val42 (talk) 03:57, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done Consensus is for no merger, closing out and removing tags. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 20:28, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Needs info on corporate culture at early Atari

I was playing around with this page post-vandalism trying to improve what I could. What's really needed is at least some information about the totally informal, mellow and permissive atmosphere at Atari in the early days and after the success of Asteroids. People were smoking pot and taking drugs and doing what lots of people did in 1970s California. This is fairly well documented, although I don't have the sources on hand to do it justice. Also, it seems from the article Atari was more about consoles than arcade games, or at least that's the impression I got. Atari was best known for arcade games, the consoles and computers sort of rode on Atari's reputation earned in the video arcade arena. Ooops, scratch "post-vandalism," a bunch of stuff was just reverted. Hypatea (talk) 20:05, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what edits you're referring to as vandalism, your additions to the pop culture section were removed for a specific reason. And I'd refrain calling edits by major contributors as "vandalism", it violates WP:CIVIL and WP:Good Faith (which is something that was applied to you when you came out of nowhere doing a mass of edits). With regards to what you mention above, that stuff doesn't belong here, this is about the history of the general brand name. There are main articles on the various corporate entities for that kind of material. Make sure you use citations if you do add any of that controversial material. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 20:12, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism mentioned above and cited on http://www.wikirage.com/top-edits/24/Vandalism/ as in the last 24 hours. I read the wiki page on popular culture references and was satisified mentioning WHERE in Bladerunner the Atari logo appeared was sufficient here. Is there a main article on Atari somewhere else? If not, corporate culture is key. I'm not planning to add that material. My mass of edits stemmed from a desire to improve readability and content. See ya. Hypatea (talk) 20:43, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't complaining about your mass of edits. Just pointing them out with regards to them be approached as good faith edits. When a previously unseen editor (with a redlinked name that denotes a pretty new editor) starts doing a mass of edits, it can send up flags among regular contributors. But I took a look and saw they were all good faith edits, and some very well done. And yes, you were also referring to me in the vandalism statement -"Ooops, scratch "post-vandalism," a bunch of stuff was just reverted." As far as the Blade Runner citation, the guidelines (which I actually helped write) clearly state that it still needs to follow regular citation guidelines. I.e. stating something you've seen in the constitutes WP:OR, and does not satisfy WP:VERIFY. There has to be a verifiable source documenting the appearance. I've seen it in Blad Runner as well, so I know its there. But that doesn't meet Wikipedia standards. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 20:55, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah yeah, right. Full of good faith edits here. I found the logo discussed on bladerunner fan sites with graphics of pics from the film posted showing the logo. There seems to be enough discussion about it and the bladerunner curse to take it on faith. Haven't watched bladerunner since it came out in theaters and don't recall it anyway. Understand your concerns and wiki policy. Cheers.Hypatea (talk) 22:36, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Question

I was wondering. Can we make a timeline of the different Ataris? Like the one that's used for the Apple laptop and iPods, except applied to different Ataris? Just wondering.

AlexanderTG (talk) 22:14, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

If anyone wants to, go a head. I'm not familiar enough with the Wiki code to do it. You might consider doing it on this talk page first so we can get any errors out of the way first and then move it to the main page. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 22:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)