This is a brief tour through the history of Atari. Brief because you will find a lot of its history on the individual Atari products pages.
Atari - Check. Atari is a term in a Japanese board game called Go and has an equivalent meaning to saying Chess in a Chess Game. The Atari logo - the Fuji - represents the Fujiama mountain in Japan. The company nearly ended up being called Syzygy, the straight line configuration of three celestial bodies. But that name was already taken by a Californian roofing company. Atari - ThatÆs the company Nolan Bushnell founded on June 27, 1972. Bushnell was inspired by a computer game called Spacewar which was running on DigitalÆs mini computer, the PDP-1. But Bushnell believed that a video game had to be simpler in order for people to understand it right away. The first prototype of Pong was set up in a bar called Andy Caps in Sunnyvale, California. It was an instant success. Rumor has it that Bushnell was called by the bar owner to pick up his broken machine a couple hours after installation. But the truth of the matter was that it wasnÆt broken, it was filled up to its limits with quarters. AtariÆs journey into the manufacturing of video arcade games began.
Atari got sued by Magnavox who already had an unsuccessful home video game, the Odyssey, version of Pong. Bushnell claimed that he did not copy Pong from Magnavox but was unable to convince the judge. Atari started to have to pay royalties to Magnavox. Nevertheless, Atari was very successful in 73 shipping its Ping-Pong video arcade system. So successful that dozens of companies started to copy it and enter that market. Atari was too late to trademark its Pong name. Bushnell then realized that in order to stay on-top of that market you have to have unique game ideas. And those must be guarded by copyright laws. In 1974 Atari released several video games, including a racing, a football game and the famous Tank game.
Although much of AtariÆs management was against entering the home market, Bushnell wanted a home version of Pong and it was completed by the end of 1974. Since chips prices were falling, it was less expensive than the Odyssey plus featured better graphics and even color on a color TV set. In early 1975 a buyer from Sears heard about AtariÆs home Pong and offered Bushnell to buy all the units he could built in that year. Plus he would help with the financing and pay for the advertising. When Christmas of 75 came, the Atari Pong was the hottest thing around.
In 1976 the Fairchild Channel F was introduced to the consumer market. This machine offered the ability to play different games by plugging in new cartridges. Atari had to hurry, because this was a serious thread to all the dedicated game consoles. They started to work on a project called Stella. Unfortunately Atari did not have the money to finish it and get it into production. Bushnell didnÆt really want to give up control of Atari but saw the need for much more capital. In October of 1976, Atari was sold to Warner Communications for $28 million. A new era began.
Warner wanted to make Atari the dominant name in video game entertainment and invested over $100 million. Their main focus was on the Stella, the Video Computer System., which featured programmable cartridges. Warner knew from their own business, that the success lies in the selling of the software. So they didnÆt mind that at an introduction price of $200 the VCS wouldnÆt return much profit. In October of 1977 Atari released the VCS together with nine games.
AtariÆs video arcade division had major competition by then by companies like Balley. In 1978 a Japanese company called Taito introduced Space Invaders which became an instant success. But Atari, too, had many more arcade hits to come. Asteroids was one and it was release in 1979.
But first, more things happened in 1978. Atari entered the personal computer industry by introducing the Atari 400 and 800. Instead of making their video game upgrade-able to a computer, they offered their new line of home computers which were based on the 6502 micro processor. Along with it, they introduced a variety of peripherals. Bushnell left Atari in 78 and the Warner management introduced a new style to Atari. Dress codes and time cards. The free spirit was gone. Another product Atari brought to market that year was Touch Me, a version of Simon, AtariÆs first portable video game.
In 1979 and 1980 video games were getting more and more popular. Atari had released twelve new game cartridges for the VCS and was the first to license an arcade game for porting it to a home console. That was Space Invaders and when it hit the market in January of 1980, many people bought the VCS just in order to play it. It seemed that Atari was not to stop. But in that year it also started that some of AtariÆs programmers got unhappy. They felt more like artists than technicians and wanted more appreciation of their work. That year David Crane, Alan Miller, Bob Whitehead and Larry Kaplan left Atari to form Activision, a company that would develop game cartridges for the VCS.
One of AtariÆs successes in the console market was their ability to port their arcade game hits to the VCS. In 1981 Atari launched Missile Command into the home market. That year Atari also announced a successor of its popular VCS game system, which was now called the 2600. Technology had definitely progressed a lot since the introduction of the 2600. In 1982 Atari released the 5200, which basically was an Atari 400 without a keyboard in a very slick housing. The graphics were basically equal to those on home computers and so much more advanced over those the 2600 offered. Atari offered their library of arcade games to the 5200 customers. But the 5200 never became the big success Atari hoped for. For one thing it was not compatible with the 2600, for another, people did not like the analog controllers.
In 1982, a new wave of home video game excitement started when Atari released Pac-Man for the 2600. Although it did not quite resemble the arcade version, it was a huge success. Department stores around the world would hold Pac-Man contests and the kids where just hypnotized by it. Atari rose to one of the most recognized brand names in the world. At its top, Atari employed over 10000 people and owned several buildings throughout the Silicon Valley.
Also, not to forget that during all these years AtariÆs computer division had a nice share of the home computer market. Their machines werenÆt seen so much as professional machines like the Apples, Commodores and Tandys. Nevertheless, it was the perfect family computer because Atari offered many educational titles, for home use made applications and of course, games.
And then in 1983 the big party seemed to be over. Suddenly home video games werenÆt the thing to have anymore. It was a lack of new original games plus the competition they faced from home computers. The turn around started. At the Winter CES 1984 Atari surprised everybody with the introduction of the 7800 video game. It offered excellent graphics plus it was a 100% compatible with the 2600. But it would be a while until it hit the retailer shelves.
The video game market had crashed plus AtariÆs home computer line was unable to compete with Apple and Commodore. Warner wanted out. And they found their way out by offering Atari to Jack Tramiel, the man who had founded one of AtariÆs main competitors, Commodore. He had left Commodore in early 1984. A few months later he founded TTL, Tramel Technology Limited, to develop a new 16 bit personal computer. The purchase of Atari gave him the ability of marketing this new machine under a world wide recognized brand name. Of course, Atari came with its own bag of problems. Tramiel got the consumer division of Atari. The video arcade unit remained under Warner and was now called Atari Games.
So, the first thing Jack did was to put several of his old Commodore "generals", who had followed him to Atari, into place. He also got help from his three sons, Sam, Leonard and Gary. They trimmed Atari down to the bare minimum and focused on the home computer division. They immediately started slashing the prices of the XL computer line.
At the 1985 Winter CES in Las Vegas, the Tramiels and their team presented the new born Atari to the world. To life came a new 8 bit home computer line, the XE series, which was full compatible with the old Atari home computers. But the real stars of the show were the 130ST and 520ST. These 16 bit computers were based on the powerful 68000 micro processor and featured a graphical user interface much like that of the Apple Macintosh. But the unbelievable was the price. $599 for a 520ST with 512k of RAM. One third of the price of the Macintosh. Plus, unlike the Mac it also offered color graphics. No wonder people were amazed. But several more months of hard work were still lying ahead for the engineering team around Shiraz Shivji to get this machine into mass production. Despite all rumors it shipped that summer. It was anxiously awaited all over the world, but especially in Europe.
The new Atari was on its track again and went into a head on head race with Commodore, which also introduced a 16 bit computer, called the Amiga. On the Amiga design team were actually many of the Atari engineers who developed the Atari 400 & 800. In the Warner days, Atari invested in Amiga and therefor funded parts of the Amiga development. When CommodoreÆs management heard about TramielÆs purchase of Atari, they quickly decided to buy Amiga. As you can imagine, this developed into a legal battle between those two companies.
The ST was very successful and got a brother in 1986, the 1040ST. This was the first personal computer to be shipped with one mega byte of RAM. Byte Magazine stated that you never before could get so much byte for the buck. By now, Atari had most of its overseas subsidiaries back into place. A lot of the European managers came from Commodore.
TramielÆs Atari in those days focused on the 16 bit computer side of the business. But there was still the 8 bit line and the video games. The 2600 got redesigned into a more cost effective unit and Atari started to sell the 7800.
Many rumors of new lines of Atari computers existed. At every major trade show, the eyes of the press watched closely what Atari presented and announced. The year 1987 was the year of desktop publishing. Atari introduced the Mega ST and the Atari Laser Printer. For the first time a complete DTP system was available for under $3000. Atari also announced its entrance into the market of PC compatibles by showing the PC1.
The demand of ST computers was bigger than what Atari was able to produce. The company focused its shipments on Europe where it had less problems with associating the name with only game machines. In 88 it announced two new machines, the TT and the ATW. Talking about the TT began as early as 86. Rumor had it that it would be a 68020 Unix box. Now, Atari stated that in addition to Unix the TT would still run TOS (AtariÆs proprietary OS featuring Digital ResearchÆs GEM) and be compatible with the ST. The ATW was a machine being developed in England and was based on the Transputer processor technology which promised great computing power. Another machine was shown earlier that year, the Atari Stacy. This was an ST based portable computer. Because of its built-in MIDI interface, the ST was the computer of choice by musicians. The Stacy allowed even more flexibility for those users.
At the Atari Fair of 1989 in Duesseldorf, Germany, Atari showed the TT to the public. Especially the DTP users were awaiting this powerful machine which was based on MotorolaÆs 68030. Another year would go by until the machine finally shipped. Atari also introduced the 1040STE which offered better sound and more colors. By now, Atari had a full line of PC compatible machines and a very successful palmtop computer, the Portfolio. 1989 was also the year of the Lynx, AtariÆs portable video game system.
ItÆs easy to see that Atari was very active in many fields. The company in those days was led by Sam Tramiel. The hardware engineering was under Richard Miller, who was one of the engineers working on the Transputer project. Leonard Tramiel was in charge of the TOS development and Henry Plummer managed the Unix group. The game side of the company was run by John Skruch.
At the 1990 CeBIT Atari for the first time showed Unix running on their TT. Six months later the TT started shipping and in the mean time got upgraded from 16 to 32 MHz. The transputer systems traveled from trade show to trade show but was never commercially successful. The TT got quickly popular in the DTP community. Part of the reason was a very powerful DTP program called Calamus. Instead of shipping its Unix system that year, Atari announced that it would go directly from System V.3 to System V.4 and promised that for the beginning of 1991. In 1991 Atari replaced its popular Mega ST line with the Mega STE. This machine featured a 16 MHz 68000, a built-in hard disk and a VME bus.
Two other new machines were on display at CeBIT of 1991. The STBook and the STPad. The STBook was an ST based notebook, based on a 16Mhz 68000 with one mega byte of RAM. The STPad was like the STBook but instead of a keyboard it featured hand writing recognition. The STPad never went into production. The STBook shipped in small quantities at the beginning of 92. That year Atari introduced its multimedia computer, the Falcon030. This machine offered true color video, a 68030 micro processor and a DSP. Atari also revealed a major update of their TOS operating system which now offered multitasking capabilities. Also, Atari finally shipped their Unix system that summer to end customers. The Developer release was available since November of 91.
Atari fans around the world were also awaiting a machine Atari had announced in the summer of 1991. The powerful Falcon040 workstation, based on a 68040 micro processor. But by now companies like Apple, Atari and Commodore were facing the strong competition of cheap PC clones from Taiwan. And with the appearance of Windows 3.0 the PC world was finally shifting towards graphical user interfaces. To the help of its success it was backed up by major software publishers around the world. Sales for Commodore and Atari were not what they used to be. Atari got ready for a period of drought and started to stream line its operations.
The Tramiels saw that there was little money
to make with computers and noticed that in video game the world seemed
still in balance. Atari had a revolutionary 64 bit video game system in
development. The original design was done by a British company called Flair.
Atari later brought some of the engineers over to the US, and John Mathison
led the development of future Jaguar versions. Atari shifted full gear
into the video game world.
In November of 1993, Atari introduced its 64 bit Jaguar video game system in New York and it went on sale in December. It was the most powerful video game system at its time. Unfortunately not many games appeared for it during 1994. Finally, right before Christmas Atari released a number of long awaited games, including Alien versus Predator. In the summer of 1995 Atari started shipping its CD-ROM peripheral for the Jaguar. By now it was clear that Atari had left the home computer market. But sales of the Jaguar stayed below AtariÆs expectations and the company announced that it would start to enter the world of PC game publishing.
Then at the beginning of 1996, a turn around happened. The Tramiels had made sure that the cash flow of Atari was always healthy. Two major events helped Atari to have a big bank account. One was the sale of its Taiwan manufacturing facility in 92. The other one was a lawsuit settlement over video game patents with Sega in 94. Nevertheless, they felt that a crash in the video game market was about to happen and that it was wiser to invest the money elsewhere. An opportunity came up when they were approached by Tom Mitchel of JTS, a hard disk drive startup company. Mitchel had built disk drives for Jack Tramiel during the Commodore days and helped building up Seagate and Conner. JTSÆ hot item was a 3" hard disk for notebook computers and because of their fast grow, they could definitely take advantage of AtariÆs cash reserves. On July 30, Atari officially merged with JTS and is now a subdivision of JTS. Atari still holds many video game patents and trademarks and will continue to sell its Lynx and Jaguar video game systems. But the glory days of Atari home computers and video game systems seem over for now.
It's a company worth to remember. Atari came out with many innovative products which offered a lot of fun to their customers. From "Innovative Leisure" via "Have you played Atari today" and "We brought the computer age home" to "Power without the price".
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