Game Designing - The Atari Way

kentmurphy

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Hopefully this isn't a repost.

This series of videos is amazing. It shows Atari designers, engineers, and graphic artists at work in 1982.

http://starcade.tv/starcade/showstream-atari.asp?no=1 of 4&Atari=Atari1
http://starcade.tv/starcade/showstream-atari.asp?no=2 of 4&Atari=Atari2
http://starcade.tv/starcade/showstream-atari.asp?no=3 of 4&Atari=Atari3
http://starcade.tv/starcade/showstream-atari.asp?no=4 of 4&Atari=Atari4

There are a number of interesting clips in these videos.

In part 1 right around the 3:18 mark there is a closeup of a terminal. Pause the video and look closely at the screen. The user is using the finger and talk commands. You can even see the results of the finger command which lists user names and what they were doing. The date on the screen is June 23rd 1982. Did they use some flavor of Unix at Atari? There is another screen closeup where a developer appears to be debugging code. I see what appears to be registers at the top and assembly code in the lower right corner. Anybody know what tool he is using?

Part 2 focuses on designing the various ICs and the cabinet art. At about the 2:52 mark you can spot a cabinet mockup in the lower right corner that I have never seen before. The sideart and cabinet itself look really neat. Anybody know what it is?

Part 3 shows some marketing folks testing Centipede. What I found interesting is when the female marketing person states they expect Centipede to appeal to females. There are also some neat shots of the manufacturing facility. You can see cabinet sides being cut, artwork being applied, etc. Very cool.

Part 4 must have been shots for an Atari Club Med promotional video. I believe that's been talked about on here before, but I really have no idea what it was all about. There is a really nice shot at about the :30 mark. :)

If you haven't seen these videos take the time to watch them. Very interesting.
 
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JK
 
fair enough, but I'm a nerd with some class ... :) ... I find the clip at about the :30 mark in part 4 to be more interesting than the terminal screen clips ...
 
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great link but god that sites bandwidth sucks. Even pausing to let the video load doesn't work.. chopchopchopchopchop hahah
 
In part 1 right around the 3:18 mark there is a closeup of a terminal. Pause the video and look closely at the screen. The user is using the finger and talk commands. You can even see the results of the finger command which lists user names and what they were doing.

Just noticed that too. The commentator is talking about how the programmer issues commands to the system to develop the game etc and the guy is actually sending an IM to his buddy about what they are doing for lunch. :)
 
Just noticed that too. The commentator is talking about how the programmer issues commands to the system to develop the game etc and the guy is actually sending an IM to his buddy about what they are doing for lunch. :)

Ha ha!!! "Why don't you ever answer your phone?" :rofl:
 
Going through #2 now. Interesting... I didn't know Atari was involved in much custom chip development.
 
It's good to know corporate America hasn't changed much in 30 years ... :)

Just noticed that too. The commentator is talking about how the programmer issues commands to the system to develop the game etc and the guy is actually sending an IM to his buddy about what they are doing for lunch. :)
 
I love watching those brand new cabinets and marquees being cut and printed in video #3. So colorful and clean. Why are they cutting holes in the side of the BattleZone cabinets at the 2:47 mark?
 
Great videos !! Note how they completely omitted putting names on the screen, fully according to Atari's rules....I really wish we could put some names to faces.

It is a bit sad that most of it seems to be about Dig Dug and Kangaroo, two licensed games but plenty of great things to look at anyway.

It looks like we see some of the "Blue boxes" that Jed mentions on his site..

Thanks for linking to this !!!
 
Uhhhh, POKEY, ANTIC, CTIA/GTIA ?

Pokey I've heard of... never heard of the others. Even so.. with only a handfull of chips you would think it would be easier and more cost effective to just contact a semiconductor manufacturer to the design+fab for you.
 
Uhhhh, POKEY, ANTIC, CTIA/GTIA ?
GLUE, MMU, SHiFTER, BLiTTER...

ajcrm125 said:
Even so.. with only a handfull of chips you would think it would be easier and more cost effective to just contact a semiconductor manufacturer to the design+fab for you.
When you are talking about producing millions of chips, absolutely not. Commodore's manufacturing costs were slashed after their purchase of MOS.
 
Uhhhh, POKEY, ANTIC, CTIA/GTIA ?

Yeah, the POKEY is perhaps the most famous. I think the others you list were more home/console and home computer chips; not sure if they saw use in coin-op. But they were Atari nonetheless (not sure when the divisions split up).

After Pokey, the next coin-op ASIC I can think of is the AVG, used in many color vector games. A replacement exists: http://www.biltronix.com/BXAVG.html

After that, there's the Gauntlet and System 1 stuff: Slapstick, the "SLAGS", and other LSI chips
 
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