Posts Tagged ‘Atari’
Epic Adverts: Stevie Wonder Plays Atari Video Games
IN 1977, Stevie Wonder advertised Atari Video games:
“If I could play video games, you bet it would be an Atari”
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Posted: 30th, April 2014 | In: Celebrities, Flashback, Technology | Comments (2)
The 1983 Atari 2600 Bible Game Moses ‘Red Sea Crossing’ Let Christian Kids Play God
FLASHBACK to 1983: The Atari 2600 machine feature the Moses ‘Red Sea Crossing’ Bible story video game.
If you saved hard to buy this gem, then the good news is that the thing is worth a bomb. In 2012, one copy was sold for $10,400.
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Posted: 22nd, March 2014 | In: Flashback, Technology | Comment
1980s Video Game Hell: 5 Cartridges of Shame
ONCE the Atari 2600 hit its stride in ’81, there was simply no stopping the tsunami of video game offerings. The transition from coin operated arcade games to systems you could play in your living room can’t be overstated – it was revolutionary. But with this influx of new entertainment came a cornucopia of bad games. Here are five of the worst offenders.
OUTHOUSE (1982)
This TRS-80 game basically was about preventing other people from using up your toilet paper. Think about this for a moment: It was the dawn of the video game revolution, the prospects were limitless, the future full of possibilities…. and they make a video game about preserving toilet paper?
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Posted: 11th, February 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Technology, The Consumer | Comment (1)
In 1980 the US Military use Atari games to train troops for battle
COREY Meads look at how the US military has been using video games to train its fighters. He writes:
The military’s interest in the kinds of video games popular today dates to 1980, when Atari released its groundbreaking Battlezone. Not only did Battlezone evoke a three-dimensional world, as opposed to the two-dimensional worlds of such previous arcade hits as Asteroids and Tempest, but players viewed the action from a first-person perspective, as if they themselves were tank gunners peering through their periscopes at the battlefield outside — in this case, a spare moonscape with mountains and an erupting volcano in the distance. This first-person element made Battlezone a direct ancestor of today’s enormously popular first-person shooters.
Soon after Battlezone took off, the army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) requested Atari’s help in building a modified version of the game that could be used as a training device for the then-new Bradley infantry fighting vehicle. General Donn Starry, the head of TRADOC at the time, had recognized early on that soldiers would be more responsive to electronic training methods than to print-and lecture-based ones.
You can play Battlezone here.
Of course Pac-Man was a game that followed US military fighting procedure, notably in World War 2 when little pills kept the troops sharp…
Other Atari games that have inspired the US in war:
Berzerk
Golf
Xenophobe
Posted: 22nd, September 2013 | In: Flashback, Technology | Comment
It’s Atari and PONG’s 40th birthday
HAPPY 40th Atari! Amber Frost reminds us that “40 years ago today, with only a $500 out-of-pocket investment, engineers Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney introduced PONG to the market on the Atari game system. From those two humble lines and a single, noble dot came a great pioneer in computer, arcade, and console gaming. Atari is even where Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple got their start.”
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Posted: 29th, November 2012 | In: Flashback, Technology, The Consumer | Comment
