Note for the pedantic: Atari’s Adventure was released in March 1980 for the Atari VCS. That machine was renamed in November 1982 to the Atari 2600. Thus, this game was released for the Atari VCS. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
I remember replaying Adventure at a friend’s house when I lived in Mesquite, Texas back in 1980. Although I don’t think I really figured the game out until some year(s) later, at some point I did. Even decades later, I can still fire up the game on my ATGames system and play it all the way through. At some point, I learned how to navigate the mazes and, for whatever reason, that still remains in my memory cells.
When you “master” something (no, I do not claim to be a master; I can merely win the game, eventually) you sometimes try to find other ways to amuse yourself. I am therefore compiling a list of all the Silly Atari VCS Adventure Challenges I can find.
All Objects in One Room Challenge
This is where I started. Carrying every object you find into the same room is easy enough, but you also have to deal with getting the dragons and that stupid bat there. Here is a video I made of doing this some years ago:
“I prefer to lock all the dragons and bat in the white castle and depending on my mood, sometimes with the white key inside to make it impossible for them all to get out and for you to re-enter.”
– Paul B., comment o Atari Facebook page
Well, now I have to try that. I should ask if the dragons have to be alive or dead ;-)
And more?
What other challenges do you have? There are certainly Speed Runs. Should that go here as well?
Leave a comment and let’s begin building the list.
Or, even better, just tell me someone has already done this, and I’ll just point to them. Less work for me :)
A few years ago, I wrote a short series about my experiences growing up during the video game revolution that started in the 1970s. I hope to finally publish this series later this year, once I have time to find related video clips and photos.
But before I get to this, I thought I’d set the mood with a bit of video game-related trivia about Sub-Etha Software…
As you may know, Sub-Etha Software was not a gaming company. We mostly did application and utility software. However, we did release a graphical adventure game and a Space Invaders-style game, and did resell some games written by others.
In May 1993, at the 2nd annual “Last” Chicago CoCoFEST!, Sub-Etha Software announced something rather silly: a PONG programming contest. (Yes, Pong — the mother of all video games, released by Atari in 1972.)
According to my Fest report of that event, awards were to be given “based on memory efficiency, speed, originality, special effects, and playability for RS-DOS, OS-9, or OSK”. The winner was to be announced in October that year at the Atlanta CoCoFest.
TODO: link to fest report somewhere
I created a small OS-9 Level 2 demo program that played Pong on a text screen, along with details about the contest.
The winner was GNOP byChris Hawks of HawkSoft. This MM/1 (OS-9/68000) program kept the ball frozen in the center of the screen, while the entire box play area scrolled around it, with the paddles having to be controlled as the whole playfield moved. This was a very original take on Pong. HawkSoft made this program available for $5.
This, alone, makes for a cute story, but there’s another tidbit I do not know if I ever shared.
In 1993, Atari Corporation was still around. Their last home computer, the Atari ST, was being discontinued while the company turned its attention to a new video game system: the Atari Jaguar. The Jaguar would debut in November that year as the first home gaming system to use 64-bit chips (back in the day when the cutting edge gaming systems were all claiming 32-bit). Although the Jaguar never really caught on, it had some phenomenal games and was, at least initially, manufactured in the USA by IBM.
But I digress.
The point is, Atari was kind of between successes at the time (and actually would cease to exist just three years later when it was “reverse merged” with a hard drive manufacturer). For some reason, I thought it might be fun to contact Atari and see if I could get permission to legally use the name “Pong” for an official Color Computer version.
That’s right. I was actually trying to license Pong for the CoCo!
I contacted Atari about this (I don’t remember how, but I expect it was via a telephone call) and I recall whoever I spoke to was open to discussing a proposal, but I never pursued it further. Admittedly, I was really just wanting permission to use the name, as Sub-Etha would not have had any resources to pay any significant licensing fee. (Actually, it’s possible I may have contacted an Atari rep via the GEnie online service since they had an active presence there back then.)
I regret not following up on this silly idea. If I had been able to work something out, the CoCo could have been forever listed on the Wikipedia page as one of the only (if not the only) “official” Pong games that ever existed not done by Atari (or whoever owns them today).
Interestingly enough, Pong did make a comeback in 2012 when Atari released a 40th anniversary “Pong World” game for iOS. This version actually started out as an entry in a Pong Indie Developers Challenge where $100,000 was up for grabs to the best new versions of Pong.
Perhaps if Sub-Etha Software had offered that kind of prize (rather than the $1 we offered the winner), we would have had more entries back in 1993.
So there you have it… Another bit of “almost was” history from Sub-Etha Software. Apparently, we had a good idea, but had it 19 years too soon and without enough money to get people interested ;-)
1993 wasn’t my last encounter with Pong… While working for RadiSys, the company that bought Microware (creator of OS-9), we were working with a CPU virtualization company on a product that would allow the real-time OS-9 to run concurrently with Linux on a multi-core CPU. The idea would be the OS-9 side could be used for intense real-time operations, while Linux could be used for application level user interfaces and such.
A Pong demo was created, that showed OS-9 running one paddle and Linux running the other. (I do not recall having anything to do with this demo, but I found it amusing enough that I posted a video of it to YouTube back in 2006.)
I don’t know if this product ever came out or was ever used, but maybe the new owners of Microware OS-9 still have some Pong code kicking around their offices somewhere… ;-)
From a post on CompuServe, as shared by former coworker Eric. C to myself and some other coworkers, including one who formerly worked for Atari during the Jaguar days.
From 75300.1267@CompuServe.COM Sat Oct 5 02:38 CDT 1996 Date: 05 Oct 96 03:32:43 EDT From: "Donald A. Thomas, Jr." <75300.1267@CompuServe.COM> To: BlindCopyReceiver:; Subject: Did you say "Goodbye"? Content-Type: text Content-Length: 14739
Did you hear anyone say "Goodbye"? ================================== by Donald A. Thomas, Jr. (10/4/96)
It's odd to imagine an institution, which was as big and as powerful as Atari once was, to have been shut down in recent days. The real amazement for me is that it was all accomplished without a measurable flinch from within or outside the gaming industry. I can understand that gamers wanted to push Pong out the door early in the timeline. I can appreciate that the classics such as Missile Command and Asteroids do not push 32-bit and 64-bit systems to any technological limits. I know all these things intellectually, but the heart cannot face the truth that the world and the corporate machine known as Atari could not find an amicable way to coexist.
On Tuesday, July 30, 1996, Atari Corporation took each and every share of it's company (ATC), wrapped them all in a tight bundle and presented them to JTS Corporation; a maker and distributor of hard disk drives. On Wednesday, the shares were traded under the symbol of JTS. Within a few weeks, the remaining staff of Atari that were not dismissed or did not resign, moved to JTS' headquarters in San Jose, California. The three people were assigned to different areas of the building and all that really remains of the Atari namesake is a Santa Clara warehouse full of unsold Jaguar and Lynx products.
It was only as long ago as mid '95 that Atari executives and staff believed things were finally taking a better turn. Wal*Mart had agreed to place Jaguar game systems in 400 of their Superstores across the country. Largely based on this promise of new hope and the opportunities that open when such deals are made, Atari invested heavily in the product and mechanisms required to serve the Wal*Mart chain. But the philosophical beliefs of the Atari decision makers that great products never need advertising or promotions, put the Wal*Mart deal straight into a tailspin. With money tied up in the product on shelves as well as the costs to distribute them to get there, not much was left to saturate any marketplace with advertising. While parents rushed into stores to get their kids Saturns or PlayStations, the few that picked up the Jaguar were chastised by disappointed children on Christmas day.
In an effort to salvage the pending Wal*Mart situation, desperate attempts to run infomercials across the country were activated. The programs were professionally produced by experts in the infomercial industry and designed to permit Atari to run slightly different offers in different markets. In spite of the relatively low cost of running infomercials, the cost to produce them and support them is very high. The results were disappointing. Of the few thousand people who actually placed orders, many of them returned their purchases after the Holidays. The kids wanted what they saw on TV during the day! They wanted what their friends had! They wanted what the magazines were raving about!
In early 1996, Wal*Mart began returning all remaining inventory of Jaguar products. After reversing an "advertising allowance" Atari was obligated to accept, the net benefit Atari realized was an overflowing warehouse of inventory in semi-crushed boxes and with firmly affixed price and security tags. Unable to find a retailer willing to help distribute the numbers required to stay afloat, Atari virtually discontinued operations and traded any remaining cash to JTS in exchange for a graceful way to exit the industry's back door.
Now that JTS has "absorbed" Atari, it really doesn't know what to do with the bulk of machines Atari hoped to sell. It's difficult to liquidate them. Even at liquidation prices, consumers expect a minimal level of support which JTS has no means to offer. The hundreds of calls they receive from consumers that track them down each week are answered to the best ability of one person. Inquiries with regard to licensing Atari classic favorites for other applications such as handheld games are handled by Mr. John Skruch who was with Atari for over 13 years.
In spite of Nintendo's claim that their newest game system is the first 64-bit game system on the market, Atari Corporation actually introduced the first 64-bit system just before Christmas in 1993. Since Atari couldn't afford to launch the system nationwide, the system was introduced in the New York and San Francisco markets first. Beating the 32-bit systems to the punch (Saturn/PlayStation), Atari enjoyed moderate success with the Jaguar system and managed to lure shallow promises from third-party companies to support the system. Unfortunately, programmers grossly underestimated the time required to develop 64-bit games. The jump from 8-bit and 16-bit was wider than anticipated. In addition, Atari was already spread thin monetarily, but were required to finance almost every title that was in development.
After the initial launch, it took Atari almost a year before an assortment of games began to hit store shelves. Even then, having missed the '94 Holiday Season, many of the planned titles were de-accelerated to minimize problems caused by rushing things too fast. Consumers were not happy and retailers were equally dismayed. The few ads that Atari was able to place in magazines were often stating incorrect release dates because that information changed almost every day although magazines deadline their issues up to 120 days in advance.
It was in 1983 that Warner Communications handed Jack Tramiel the reins of Atari. By this time, Atari was often categorized as a household name, but few households wanted to spend much money on new software and the systems were lasting forever. No one needed to buy new ones. That, combined with Warner's obscene spending, amounted to a *daily loss* of over $2 million. Atari was physically spread all over the Silicon Valley with personnel and equipment in literally 80 separate buildings; not considering international offices and manufacturing facilities. Mr. Tramiel took only the home consumer branch of Atari and forced Warner to deal with the arcade division separately. Within a few years, Jack took the company public, introduced an innovative new line of affordable 16-bit computers and released the 7800 video game system.
To accomplish these miracles for Atari, Jack implemented his "business is war" policies. While people who publicly quoted his statement often felt that policy meant being extremely aggressive in the marketplace, the meaning actually had closer ties to Tramiel's experience as a concentration camp survivor. Of the 80 buildings in Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and Milpitas, almost every one of them were amputated from Atari's body of liabilities. The people, the work, the heritage, the history were fired or liquidated. Those who survived were unsympathetically required to fill in the gaps and while most tried, few actually found a way to be successfully do what a dozen people before them did. Atop the mountain, Jack pressed with an iron thumb. All Fed/Ex mailings were required to be pre-approved by one of a handful of people. "Unsigned" purchase orders went unpaid regardless of the urgencies that inspired their creation. Employees found themselves spending valuable time trying to find ways around the system to accomplish their jobs. Many of them lost their jobs for bending the rules or never finding a way to make things work. As horrible as it all sounds, it actually was the only way to protect Atari as a company and give it a chance to survive as it did and did very well.
Jack's introduction of the 16-bit computer was initially hearty in the United States but it went extremely well in Europe. Europeans were not accustomed to "affordable" technology and although the Atari computers were not IBM compatible, it didn't matter because people could afford them. Jacks' private laugh was that the computers were sold at prices much higher in Europe than Americans were willing to pay. As a result, most of the machines made were being shipped to European destinations to capture the higher margin. This enraged the people in the United States that had been Atari loyalists. While waiting months for stores to take delivery domestically, international magazines were touting ample supplies. Those in the know within the U.S. became dismayed. The remainder never knew Atari was slowly abandoning the value of Atari's name recognition as it became easier and easier to forget some assuming Atari had long filed for bankruptcy.
On a technical level, Atari 16-bit computers were designed beyond their time. For less than $1,000, consumers could enjoy "multimedia" before the phrase was ever really widely used. The icon-based working environment proceeded Windows popularity although the essential attributes of the two environments were very similar. MIDI was built-in and became an instant hit in the high-end music industry. Tasks were activated and manipulated with a mouse and the system accepted industry standard peripherals such as printers, modems and diskettes.
With all the genius that went into the technology of the machines, very little of equivalent genius went into the promoting and marketing the machines. Mr. Tramiel was the founder of Commodore Business Machines. When he introduced the PET computer in 1977, Jack discovered he didn't have to call a single publication. Instead they all flocked to his door demanding an opportunity to see the product. News magazines. Science Journals. Business newsletters. Newspaper reporters. They were all there with microphone, camera and pen in hand. And they kept coming back. Adding a switch, announcing a new 4K application or signing a new retailer were all big stories the press wanted to handle.
Today, a new video game announcement may generate a request from any of the dozens of gaming magazines for a press release, but a lot of costly work has to be done to assure fair or better coverage. Editorial people are literally swamped with technical news. Samples are mailed regularly to their attention. Faxes fly in through the phone lines and e-mail jams up their hard drives. It takes a lot to grab their attention.
While Atari retained hopes to be successful with the Jaguar, Atari's marketing people were fighting established standards in the industry with severe handicaps. Since cartridges (the Jaguar was/is primarily a cartridge-based system) were so expensive, editorial people were required to return them before new ones would be sent. Editorial people like to assign review projects. So finding cartridges they sent out was not always easy to do. Additionally, reviewers often love their work because they get to keep what they write about. Regardless, the few magazines willing to cover Atari products were more often turned away because of a lack of programmable cartridges or any number of other indecisive barriers. In-store signs and posters were sometimes created, but many retail chains charge premiums to manufacturers that want to display them. Some direct mail campaigns were implemented, but Atari often could not afford to keep those things being advertised on schedule. Therefore, the advertisements were published and distributed, but the product was not available.
Clearly, Jack's experience with the world beating a path to the door of a company making a better mousetrap no longer applied. The world had revolved a few times beneath him and he never noticed. The tactics used to successfully sell Commodore computers were simply antiquated notions from the past. Meanwhile, Sony launches the PlayStation with over $500 million in marketing funds. Today, the PlayStation is considered the most successful next-generation gaming machine throughout the world. Sony bought the market. Tramiel's Atari never learned how to do that. Actually, they never could afford it anyway.
After the 1990's got underway, Europe as well as the rest of the world, discovered that IBM-compatible computers were becoming more powerful and more affordable. The world always did want computers at home just like in the office and companies like Dell and Gateway exemplified the industry's trend toward home-based office computers. As a result, companies like Commodore, Atari and Next couldn't compete any longer. While the dedicated user base of each of them felt abandoned by these companies having to leave the computer market, the inevitable prevailed. Commodore jumped ship, Next changed business goals completely and Atari invested what they had left in the Jaguar game system. Even today, Apple is kicking and screaming. As good as Apple was at creating a huge niche for themselves, they focused more heavily on education. When kids grow up and get jobs, they want business machines. IBM was always the business standard.
When one examines the history of Atari, an appreciation can grow for how many businesses and people were a part of the game over the years. Chuck E. Cheese Pizza was started by Atari's founder, Mr. Nolan Bushnell. Apple Computer was born in a garage by ex-Atari employees. Activision was founded by Ace Atari programmers. The list goes on and on.
But for some pathetic reason Atari's final days came and went with no tribute, no fanfare and no dignified farewells. Why? Where did all the talent go? Where are all the archives? Where are the vaults? Where are the unpublished games and where are the originals of those that were? Why has no company stepped forward to adopt the remaining attributes Atari has to offer? Where are the creditors? What has happened to all the properties and sites? Where are the databases, warranty cards, promotional items, notes on meetings, unanswered mail? Who owns P.O. Box 61657? Who goes to work in Atari's old offices? Where do consumers have their systems fixed? Who is publishing new games? Who still sells Atari products? Why are there still a lot of people talking about Atari on-line?
I'm an ex-Atari employee and proud to have been. I'm still an Atari devotee and proud to be. To me, these are questions which all deserve an answer, but who will ask them?
The best people to ask these questions are those who have exposure to the public. If you believe Atari left us without saying goodbye, contact Dateline at dateline@nbc.com. If you REALLY believe, then send this article to 10 of your friends in e-mail. AND if YOU REALLY, REALLY believe, mail a few to newspapers or other news programs. A letter in your own words would be great!
I'd spend money for a thorough retrospect on Atari. Wouldn't you?
Wouldn't it at least be nice to say "Goodbye"?
--Don Thomas 75300.1267@compuserve.com 209/239-3898
Permission is granted to freely reprint this article in it's entirety provided the author is duly credited.
My all-time favorite arcade game was TRON, probably due to its connection with the Disney movie. I do not know if I played it much when it first came out, but during the time I lived in Broaddus, Texas (1985-1986 era) the local cafe had a TRON machine. I would walk home from school, stop in to get a .25 iced tea, and play TRON. I do not know how good I was at it, but I remember playing past enough levels that the game seemed to repeat and slow down.
Since then, I have only encountered TRON a few times. After moving to Des Moines, Iowa in 1995, I found a TRON in an arcade at our local Adventureland amusement park. I recall playing it there, but the joystick or spinner was in pretty bad shape.
I remember attending an arcade auction and a TRON game came up, but I stopped bidding at $250. I really wish I hadn’t, since years later, a TRON machine was for sale locally … for $1500.
My real interest in TRON came when a local bar-arcade opened and had a machine. I would stop by on my way home from work most days and play until I beat my previous score. Eventually, I had one “perfect” game where I got the score all the way up to where it would flip back over to 0 … and died on purpose. I was concerned that if I rolled the game back to 0, I wouldn’t get to enter my initials ;-)
My TRON high score from 2014.
This earned me a place on Up-Down’s wall of fame.
My TRON high score, immortalized in an instant photo.
To the best of my knowledge, that photo is still there, though the TRON machine died not too long after. They did get a TRON back a few times, but they all had issues — spinners that didn’t work, joystick that wouldn’t go in all directions, sound didn’t work, messed up screen, etc. I am very glad I got to play on a “good” machine all those times.
TRON-less.
Recently, I came across a video for a CoCo game called ElecTRON. I had forgotten about this TRON clone!
Then, I accidentally came across another CoCo game called KRON, which was another clone of TRON.
I now recall seeing both of these “back in the day” (and I likely had a “borrowed” copy of both of them at some point), but neither was a very good home version of TRON. It’s hard to replicate a game that needs a spinner and flight stick with a trigger ;-)
I just thought I’d share my TRON story, so there it is.
I remember the excitement surrounding Pac-Man being released for the Atari VCS (the machine later renamed to the 2600). I was in junior high school and living in Houston, Texas at the time. I recall full page newspaper ads for this cartridge.
I had played Pac-Man in the arcades a few times, but I was not good at it and therefore it was not one of my favorite games to spend a quarter on. A quarter in 1980 would be about $1 today, according to a U.S. government inflation calculator. (And yowza to that. When the Up-Down bar-arcade opened in Des Moines, Iowa about ten years ago, the inflation rate made that quarter worth about .72 then.)
No wonder my grandmother wasn’t keen on me spending money at arcades ;-)
The Pac-Man conversion was very different from the arcade original. Some of the changes made to the game were due to limitations of the hardware — such as the “dots” being replaced by “video wafers” (so said the manual) that looked like dashes. The power pills were squares. This is understandable, though future Atari ports of Pac-Man games such as Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man looked much better, thanks to using twice as much cartridge ROM as the original Atari Pac-Man.
However, other changes to the game — such as playing a tune that was NOT the Pac-Man tune, and having the tunnels at the top and bottom of the screen rather than the sides, along with a maze that did not at all resemble the arcade original, seemed … just wrong. It was “Pac-Man in name only.”
It dawns on me that many of this “in name only” ports were more “inspired by”– new games using elements inspired by the original. This is much like how movies based on books are made–changing the plot so much it is barely recognizable except for some character names and general concepts.
The more movies I see that are quite different than their source material, the more I understand the 1982 Atari Pac-Man.
After all, we have seen modern programmers use the same 4K ROM size and create a much more faithful Pac-man (see video below) though I do not know if they could have written this in the same time constraints the Atari programmer had to do his version in…
For an interesting history on the original Atari Pac-Man, check out this video:
A few years back, Color Computer community member Rietveld Rietveld took an Arcade1Up Rampage cabinet and converted it so I could run other software — such as emulators. Images have been shown of it running the Color Computer emulator and software.
Now, with the official 1.0 release of the NitrOS9 “Ease of Use”, that has been installed on this arcade machine and, by request, my OS-9 game Invaders09 has been ran on it.
I never imagined that my “arcade” game would eventually be running on a (sorta) arcade machine. Thanks, Rietveld!
In 1994, Sub-Etha Software released Invaders09 – a Space Invaders-style game for the CoCO 3.
Invaders09 by Sub-Etha SoftwareInvaders09 by Sub-Etha Software
The game was written in 6809 assembly, and ran under Microware OS-9 Level 2.
Jamie Cho took on the task of porting the game to the MM/1, a “CoCo 4” system that ran OS-9/68000.
Years later, he ported the MM/1 version to run on classic MacOS (on the original 68000 series of processors).
This led to the game being re-ported to the Mac OS for PowerPC, then Intel x86, and finally Apple’s ARM-based M1 series of processors.
Invaders 09 was originally written in 6809 assembly language for the Tandy Color Computer 3 running OS-9 Level 2. I ported it to C on the MM/1 running OS-9 68K sometime around 1995 or so and eventually to the Mac in the early 2000s or so. This means the game has successfully run more or less natively on 5 different platforms – the 6809, 68K, PowerPC, x86 and ARM. This also explains the kind of weird way the bitmaps are drawn to the screen…
– Jamie Cho on his GitHub page.
Downloading MacInvaders09
You can download the source code for the current release from his GitHub:
(Note, this leads to the current 1.0.6 build. If that link doesn’t work, check his main page for a later release.)
Running MacInvaders09
After opening the archive file, you will see the “MacInvaders09.app” application. If you try to run it, you will get this warning:
Click OK on that box to dismiss it. Go in to “System Preferences”, then in to the “Security & Privacy” section. It will look like this:
You can then click “Open Anyway” to allow this program to run. You should then see the same warning box, but now you can “Open” the program to run it.
Playing MacInvaders09
The game will open in a tiny size, matching its 1994 CoCo 3 release:
You can go full screen if you actually want to see it on a modern sized monitor:
Differences from the CoCo 3 original
Jamie’s port is more of an update/rewrite than a straight port. Trying to port 6809 assembly to C doesn’t make a lot of sense. Instead, the game graphics were brought over, and likely some of the logic. There are some significant differences:
The laser shots were enhanced to vertical lines instead of just dots. Nice.
There are new sound effects added. Also nice.
The Power level seems to be missing. (I’m not sure if the game increases the number of simultaneous shots you get as levels progress.)
There is no joystick support.
As far as I know, the undocumented “cheat mode” is not implemented, nor is the “zoop mode” which made the game play too fast on the CoCo 3.
The Invader graphics are upside down from the original. You will notice they have some dots at the top of them. In the CoCo 3 original, I looked for a “hit” by seeing is my bullet dot encountered a non-empty screen byte. I put those dots there just to give it a target at the bottom of the invader. I didn’t like the way they looked, but I didn’t know a better way to do it at the time.
The UFO in the original would always drop a bomb the moment it was above the player, forcing the player to NEVER sit still as the UFO passes. In this version, the UFO seems to drop bombs in a more random pattern.
The UFO bombs can be stopped by the shields. In the original, the UFO bomb would go THROUGH the shields, forcing the player to not hide under shields. I always through it was unfair that the player could just sit in one spot and nothing could hurt them there.
The player is allowed to move while shooting. In the original, any time you fired the laser, your movement was stopped. This prevented the player from doing “run and shoot” moves, making it a bit harder since you couldn’t take a pot shot as you scooted across the screen.
The damage taken to the shields is different. In the original, the blocks kind of pushed outwards, with the first hit taking a small dent out of the shield, and another hit in that location making the dent wider. This version takes longer bits out of the shield, matching the longer laser bolts.
I think the Invaders may move down at a slower rate. It seems much easier to clear them all out and have one left that is still very high, but I’d have to play them side by side to really compare that.
I am quite impressed and honored that Jamie has taken time to do these ports. I can’t express how thrilled I was the first time I saw this on an MM/1, and even more so on an Apple Macintosh.
Thank you, Jamie Cho, for your efforts to make defending the Earth a cross-platform activity!
