The Atari Culture - Russell Dow - Lindsey Wilson College

Russell Dow | 05 AUGUST 2016 Essay 02: Digital Revolution Professor David Meyers IXDS5403 Media History & Theory Master of Arts Degree in Interactive Design LC4D @ Lindsey Wilson College, Columbia, Kentucky

Atari was an inspiring group of non-conformist individuals who set off to create an industry and influence a generation of creative minds. Atari set out to be unlike any company of its time, a company that nurtured creativity by creating a culture that was non-hierarchical, flexible, and casual, allowing for ideas to be developed organically, not in the standard 9-5 business frame. It would become the hallmark for casual creative work environments that have become the norm in many creative industries but most famously influenced the culture of Apple Computers.

“I had an awful lot of my soul invested in Atari culture.”

—Nolan Bushnell

Early Life It all started in 1970 when Nolan Bushnell took the popular computer game, Spacewar and created his own version called Computer Space. This was a passion of Bushnell’s for which he eventually licensed to Bill Nutting Associates under the name Syzygy Engineering. “We blew the coin-op industry’s mind.”

The company only built 1,500 of Compture Space.

Nutting wanted to do another game and approached Nolan, he agreed to license another game to them but Nutting wanted to own the game so Nolan and Nutting tried to come to terms on a deal, but in the end Nolan and fellow partner Ted Dabney went off and decided that instead of licensing their technology to other companies to manufacture. Bushnell and Dabney would design and sell games on their own investment of $250 dollars, which would turn into $28 million within 5 years. On June 27, 1972 Atari, Inc, named after an ancient Japanese board game “go”, was officially registered and in a few months their first product became the “Pong heard around the world” which went into history as the game that started the industry of Video Arcade Entertainment.

Image source: http://ringzero.logbar.jp/press

Many consider Bushnell to be the father of the video game industry.

(Atari, Inc., 2012)

image source: Atari

pong Pong was a coin operated video game that rivaled the then popular pinball industry.

The actual Pong prototype was installed first at Andy Capp’s, a local bar. At the time the team used a repurposed television as the main screen. Its coin slot came from the Laundromat industry for which the quarters dropped into a milk carton. A week after the machine went live, Atari got a call from the bar with bad news: the machine was acting up. When Al Alcorn, the engineer who built Pong, checked on it, he figured out the problem: it was overflowing with quarters. He replaced the milk carton with a bread pan.

(Brown, 2012)

(L-R) Atari founders Ted Dabney and Nolan Bushnell, with early employees Fred Marincic and Al Alcorn, pose with a Pong machine. courtesy Al Alcorn via The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences

jobs In 1974, a sandal-clad hippie walked into Atari’s lobby and demanded a job. Atari had posted a job in the San Jose Mercury that read “Have fun, make money.” The unruly hippie wouldn’t leave until he got a job. Al Alcorn was called in to help. “I was told, ‘We’ve got a hippie kid in the lobby. He says he’s not going to leave until we hire him.

Should we call the cops or let him in?’ I said bring him on in!” It has been suggested by a number of articles that this could have resulted in the cops being called to escort him out but if that had been done and this tech wasn’t offered the job we may not have had the Apple or even the Atari that we know today. That hippy was Steve Jobs.

Other Atari notable employees included Ron Wayne and Steve Wozniak. The trio would, of course, go on to found Apple.

Nolan Bushnell on Jobs: “He basically lived just below me in Woodside for many, many years, before he moved down to Palo Alto, and he’d just walk up the hill to my house and we’d go on and bullshit about stuff. We kept in contact — I’m writing a book right now called ‘Finding the Next Steve Jobs,’ because I was one of the few people that ever gave him a job.”

Bushnell says even at that early point in his career, Steve stood out. “The thing that people miss about Steve is that Steve was very, very driven and very passionate. He was an enthusiastic individual about everything. He had one speed and it was full blast,” says Bushnell. Some of the qualities Jobs is now known for were some of the reasons he first was able to join on at Atari back in the early ’70s. “We looked at what people did in their spare time, how diverse they were. We never looked at grades, college degrees.

One of the best engineers at Atari never graduated from high school, and he was one of the prime architects for the 2600.”

Bushnell says that attitude at Atari definitely shaped Apple as a company later on. “We were focused on merit. And the fact that we can go to work in tennis shoes and a t-shirt started at Atari and it was taken to Apple. Because we said this is a meritocracy, we don’t care where you go to school, when you come to work, we don’t care if you come to work, we don’t care where you are we you are at work. You get the job done, we’re happy.”

(Schramm, 2012)

image source: Atari

image source: Atari

In 1976 Atari Breakout is released which was basically a video game version of the very popular Racquetball game of the era. The concept was created by Nolan Bushnell and Steve Bristow. Looking to increase profits, the game circuit design was given to a young Atari engineer named Steve Jobs. Steve would come back and deliver a PC board design that reduced 50 chips from the cost, giving Steve Jobs a $5,000 bonus. However it would later be revealed that it was Steve Wozniak, while coming in during the middle of the night to play arcade games after work from Hewlett Packard who in fact designed the Breakout board. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak would go on to create Apple following in the footsteps of Job’s mentor, Bushnell and Atari.

Among some of the innovative business practices at Atari was competition. In the early days the pinball distributors demanded exclusive deals for products. This would have impeded any and all ambitious plans for establishing an industry from Bushnell. The way around it was to enlist and partner with a neighbor, Joe Keenan, and to form a second company that would “compete” against Atari, selling slightly modified versions of those same Atari games to competitive distributers. They called the company Kee Games. Ironically, Atari would later run into management trouble, while Kee Games continued operating smoothly and successfully. As a result, Joe Keenan was brought to Atari and promoted to president of the company. (Brown, 2012)

“There is a completely controllable and understandable universe that is predictable. Much more controllable than real life.

—Nolan Bushnell

ATARI CULTURE Atari’s new business model at the time was unheard of. It became known for it’s loose dress code, hot tub parties, and beer bashes to celebrate meeting revenue goals.

“T-shirts and jeans were something of a status symbol at Atari,” wrote Bill Haslacher, a former writer at Atari. “I swear my boss had a whole T-shirt wardrobe. He even had a T-shirt with a tie painted on it.” According to Jim Huether, a former Atari game designer, “When I started they just said, ‘We want you to do a game in about six months... you have no set hours, we don’t even want to see you until the game is almost done.’ It was great.” Nolan Bushnell was often know for wearing t-shirts or casual attire while digging in to the problem solving along with the technicians, designers and engineers.

One of Atari’s biggest deals, a million dollars, Atari contracted a small company called Microsoft to port the BASIC programming language to the Atari 800. A young developer named Bill Gates was responsible for the project. It has been said that this may be the only person who can claim to have fired Bill Gates. It was only one year into the development and it wasn’t complete so Alan Miller, an Atari game designer and programmer, took over the project and completed it.

The culture seems to have included using programmers, designers and technicians from all walks of life, different levels of education and experience. It was an idea incubator, the IDEO of the computer world before Apple and Microsoft. It was a place to create in an egalitarian collaborative environment which had the right mix to kick start multiple industries.

(Atari, Inc., 2012)

image source: Wired Magazine

ATARI predicts In addition to the first arcade games, home video game consoles, advanced computer graphics, Atari was the first to introduce a Wii Fit type product about 25 years earlier than their Nintendo competitor. In 1982, Atari released the “Joyboard,” a simple four-switch balance board controller for the Atari 2600 that stuffed the guts of a standard joystick into a ridged, black plastic slab. Only one game was released for the Joyboard, Mogul Maniac, the game emulated the experience of slalom skiing with all the subtlety a four-position digital sensor could provide. It was something to experience.

Although the program and hardware was considered a failure it lead to developments by multiple brands to emulate that product leading to the successful Wii Fit by Nintendo. The joyboard was considered finicky and hard to control and with only one program it was a hard sell.

The initial thoughts from Bushnell and company was to create an interactive “active” experience that would get you up and moving while playing the game.

(Johnson, 2008)

image source: Atari

Atari timeline - golden years (72’ to 84’) June 27, 1972

Atari Incorporated – Co-founders Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney embark on their new venture. Their first engineer hired was Allan Alcorn who designed Pong as simply a test, but it turned out to be the company’s first shipped product.

1973

To break the exclusive deals with distributors, Atari secretly creates its own competitor – Kee Games

November 1974

Kee Games releases its first unique game – Tank.

Tank II that same year.

December 1975 Pong comes home.

Sears Roebuck approaches Atari to sell video games in its Sporting Goods Department.

Atari designs a home TV version of its Pong Arcade

January 1980

Atari’s first licensed title for its 2600 game console is released…

Space Invaders.

June 1980

November 1980

November 1982

Atari Battlezone is released into the arcades.

January 1981

Atari announces but never ships – the Atari Remote 2600 and the Atari Cosmos tabletop 3D holographic game console.

April 1981

Missile Command comes home to the Atari 2600.

July 1981

Atari Centipede becomes the first coin-op to be UL (Underwriters Laboratory) Approved.

October 1977

October 1981

December 1978

Atari announces its formed a new Home Computer Division.

Asteroids also comes home to the Atari 2600

February 1983

Atari announces its new product – “The Graduate” which was also called “My First Computer” a new enhancement to the 2600 console that would’ve added a computer keyboard on top of the console turning it into a basic computer system.

March 1983

Atari begins shipment of its Atari 1200XL home computer.

Atari announces its “Next Generation” line of home computers – the Atari 600XL, 800XL to replace

February 1982

Space Duel is released in the arcades and Atari’s Haunted House is released on the 2600

Atari’s answer to the quarter eating arcade hit Space Invaders arrives – called Asteroids.

March 1982

December 1979

May 1982

Atari sells over $200 million in Atari 2600 inventory for a net profit of almost $20 million.

Atari announces a huge assortment of new games- Dig Dug, Kangaroo, Pole Position, Galaxian, Centipede, Pheonix, Vanguard, Pole Position and Ms Pac Man.

January 1982

October 1979

November 1979

January 1983

May 1983

Debut of Atari 400 and Atari 800 Home computers.

Atari 400 and Atari 800 home computers are officially released.

Atari releases Millipede, Quantum and Liberator. It also releases its newest license – Pole Position.

Atari Tempest hits the arcades. Its incredible full color vector graphics, enticing sound effects and unique game play bring in huge followings of players to this new game Atari Introduces its Advanced Video Computer “System X”, later be renamed the Atari 5200 Super System.

January 1979

July 1982

Atari opens its first “Atari Adventure Center” arcade at the Marriot Great America theme park in California.

August 1981

The Atari Video Computer System (2600) makes its debut.

Atari officially introduces the Atari 5200 Super System.

Atari releases Missile Command into the arcades.

May 13, 1976

Atari Breakout is released.

June 1982

Atari releases Pac Man for the 2600.

Yars’ Revenge is released on the 2600.

Atari Star Wars and Food Fight are released into the arcades.

June 1983

November 1983

Atari releases Major Havoc and Pole Position II into the arcades.

January 1984

Atari releases its Laserdisc arcade – Firefox, based on the movie starring Clint Eastwood.

Atari introduces “Atarisoft” and introduces its normally Atarionly exclusive titles on IBM PC, Apple ][, C64, TI/99, Intellivision and Colecovision.

(Atari, Inc., 2012)

Atari’s impact on the development of computer hardware, software, gaming and business culture was a huge leaping point in a short amount of time. It was a spring board of ideas, concepts and creations from some of the greatest minds in the modern computer era. A start up before start-ups were the norm. Atari’s later years have also followed this mantra and has continued to develop products for license, original content and development for all means of the business. If Nolan Bushnell brings the type of creative energy to his latest augmented reality and app development developments, I’m sure the impact will be seen for years to come.

Atari showed that young people could start big companies.

Without that example it would have been harder for Jobs and Bill Gates, and people who came after them, to do what they did.

—Nolan Bushnell

BIBLIOGRAPHY Isaacson, W. (2014). The Innovators; How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Atari, Inc. (2012). TIMELINE 1972-1984. Retrieved from Atari : https://www.atari.com/history/1972-1984-0 Brown, D. W. (2012, November 12). 10 things you might not know about atari.

Retrieved from Mental Floss: http://mentalfloss.com/article/31624/10-things-you-might-not-know-about-atari Johnson, J. (2008, May 15). From Atari Joyboard to Wii Fit: 25 years of “exergaming�. Retrieved from gadgets.boingboing. net: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/05/15/from-atari-joyboard.html Schramm, M. (2012, May 31). Nolan Bushnell and Atari on Pong, Steve Jobs, and touch interfaces. Retrieved from engadget: https://www.engadget.com/2012/05/31/nolan-bushnell-and-atari-on-pong-steve-jobs-and-touch-interfac/