Atari posts

Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters, Retrocomputing

The Atari classics are back and free to play! Asteroids, Lunar Lander and MORE!

by Sebastian Anthony Nov 25th 2009

Believe it or not, Atari have just released a bunch of old games on their own website. These aren't clones, these aren't even 'loving interpretations' -- these are the real thing, remade by Atari themselves. This comes as part of a re-launch for the Atari website which includes an online store.

I warn you, if you read on, this might turn into more than just a mere ten-minute time-waster.

Tags: atari, flash games, FlashGames, remake, retro, time-waster

Filed under: Time-Wasters, Retrocomputing

World's Oldest Time-Waster? Lunar Lander

by Grant Robertson Jul 20th 2009

It won't win any beauty contests, and it has a pretty weak storyline unless you have a magnificent imagination, but Lunar Lander may well be one of the oldest time-wasters in existence.

High-school student Jim Storer, obsessed with the Apollo missions -- and obviously inspired by what he'd witnessed along with the rest of the world, 40 years ago today -- took his inspiration to class in the fall of 1969. The result was a very simple text-based game for his school's Digital Equipment Corp. PDP-8. "It had 8 Teletypes, a small hard drive, and 12KB of main memory, where 8KB was used by the system and 4KB time shared by the users."

Storer, can lay claim to the first primitive game but, what about the graphical Lunar Lander we've all known and loved on one platform or another? DEC consultant Jack Burness developed the first known graphical Lunar Lander as a demo project for the DEC GT40 console in 1973. It certainly wasn't the first video game, but it definitely holds its place in video game history.

Feel like wasting a little time day-dreaming about the 40th aniversary of the Apollo moon landing? Flash versions of Lunar Lander are easy to find, but I especially love this one -- which is incredibly true to the Atari arcade version I remember as a kid wandering the halls at the Cumberland Science Museum.

Tags: apollo 11, Apollo11, atari, dec, flash games, FlashGames, lunar lander, LunarLander

Filed under: Fun, Games

Enthusiast posts source code for 13 Atari classics...legally?

by Lee Mathews Jul 6th 2009

Ever wanted to get your hands on the original code to the Atari source code to such classic games as Commando, Joust, and Xevious? Well, now you can, though definitely not through official channels as Inquisitr reported.

Rather, it's a result of the trashcan rescue efforts of an Atari enthusiast. As he points out beneath the download links, "these wouldn't exist if I hadn't of climbed into a filthy dumpster at 3am in the morning behind the old Atari building in Sunnyvale and salvaged them and restored them from their diskettes."

Unfortunately, just because Atari threw out the disks and they became public property as a result that doesn't mean the source code contained on them is up for grabs. As a commenter on Slashdot points out, an author can throw out a copy of his or her own book without forfeiting the copyright.
Either way, it only matters if Atari decides it does. There's plenty of money to be made porting classic games to more modern platforms like the iPhone, Wii, and just about every other device with a few extra ounces of processing power.

Is a takedown notice forthcoming? We'll probably find out soon. With the noise on Slashdot and coverage elsewhere, Atari has no doubt heard about this already.

[via Programmer Fish]

Tags: atari, games, source-code

Filed under: Features, Blogging

Which early personal computer personifies the candidates?

by Grant Robertson Feb 5th 2008

It's Super Tuesday here in the US, the day when a large swath of Americans cast their ballot in the Presidential primary. Try as we might, we couldn't decide who to vote for. So, we thought we'd lay things out with a metaphor we could easily understand; classic computing. After analyzing candidate after candidate, we think we've figured out which goes with what, so without further ado we answer the unasked question, "Which early personal computer personifies the candidates?"

Barack Obama

The Lisa. Predecessor to The Macintosh, and every Mac which came thereafter, the Lisa was a powerhouse in its day. It was also obscenely expensive, new, and "inexperienced". The Macintosh spent the 80's and 90's as "that other PC" and has only recently come into its own and displayed the ability to lead the pack.

Tags: atari, classic-computing, commodore 64, Commodore64, Hillary Clinton, HillaryClinton, John McCain, JohnMccain, Mike Huckabee, MikeHuckabee, Mitt Romney, MittRomney, president, Ron Paul, RonPaul, super tuesday, SuperTuesday, TI99/4

Filed under: Fun, Games, News

Buy a piece of home computing history

by Grant Robertson Jun 12th 2007

Who will buy Atari's marketing memories? Maybe you, if you're flush with cash and nostalgia. The fabled Sotheby's auction house is set to sell off a group of Atari marketing materials from the golden age of console gaming, an era which familiarized the average consumer with the concept of interactive play with a big pile of transistors and bits of code.

The collection dates fromt he period between 1981 and 1983 and includes, "2,000 items of widely varying sizes and formats, including manuscript memorandum, internal specification guidelines, original sketches, blue lines, mechanicals, proofs, color separations (including acetates), and screen diagrams"

The whole lot is expected to bring between $150k and $200k US, a sum which represents pure fantasy for most mere mortals. Still, the very idea of owning a piece of that golden period in computing brings a flutter to the heart of many a life-long geek which cut their teeth on Atari's greatest hits and were sucked into a life of code as a result.

For a far less expensive but still incredibly fun trip down memory lane, check out our write-up on the TV commercials of computing's past.

[via Boing Boing]

Tags: Atari, computing, computing history, ComputingHistory, console gaming, ConsoleGaming

Filed under: Games, Windows Mobile

Tips on playing old PC games on your PDA

by Brad Linder May 3rd 2007

We're going to let you in on a little secret. That article we wrote the other day about playing Magnetic Scrolls games on your Windows Mobile phone or PDA? That's just one of many ways to relive the 1980s and early 90s with your PDA. You can also run LucasArts, Sierra, Atari, Nintendo, and even Mattel LED games.

One of the best resources for finding information on getting these old games to run on your new device is Smartphone and Pocket PC Magazine's column by Werner Ruotsalainen. In just the past few days, he's featured posts on Mattel and Sierra games, and updated his excellent Windows Mobile web browser bible.

Sure, most of this information is out there if you're willing to look for it piecemeal. But if you're in the market for a few good games or a comprehensive comparison of every web browser available for Windows Mobile, you should check out Ruotsalainen's blog.

Tags: atari, emulators, ledhead, lucasarts, mattel, nintendo, sierra, werner ruotsalainen, WernerRuotsalainen

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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