143 replies to this topic

[RangerG]

Great videos. At what point did Imagic fold?

Edited by RangerG, Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:22 PM.

[Cafeman]

Awesome, awesome, awesome behind-the-scenes stuff!!!!! Very cool to see it all, from the huge floppy disks and dev process to the CES and the other games just entering the market during 1982.

The little Activision video was a treat as well.

[jaybird3rd]

RangerG, on Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:52 PM, said:

Great videos. At what point did Imagic fold?

I think they decided to close up shop around February 1985; they probably closed their doors for good later that spring.

[jaybird3rd]

Tempest, on Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:50 PM, said:

3. The sprite editor was interesting, I didn't realize they had something that advanced for doing graphics (I always assumed they did them on graph paper). Looks like it was running on an Atari 800 or something.

Yup, it was an Atari 800. Michael Becker, the artist who is using the system in the video (and one of the first video game artists), talked about it during the Imagic roundtable discussion at CGE2K4.

Tempest, on Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:50 PM, said:

6. About 2 min into the video where Dennis is showing off a prototype of Atlantis, whats playing on the monitor next to him?

It's really hard to tell, but based solely on its resemblance to the screenshots on AtariAge, my guess would be Shootin' Gallery (another one of Koble's games). Shootin' Gallery was released in 1983 while Atlantis was released in 1982, so it seems to make sense that it would have been under development around the same time Atlantis was being finished.

Tempest, on Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:50 PM, said:

7. The look at the kids doing the playtesting was interesting. I wonder how many original games never made it out the door because some punk ass little kid didn't think it looked enough like Asteroids, Pac-Man, or whatever arcade game was popular at the time?

Steve Woita talked about that in an interview once. Atari held a similar playtesting session for Quadrun, and according to him, the only thing the kids did the whole time was complain that the game wasn't like Pac-Man ("Hey, this isn't like Pac-Man!", "I don't see Pac-Man!", etc.) He said he cringed and held his head in his hands the whole time, and that the low scores Quadrun got during those playtests were the reason it was only available via mail order (and why it later became such a rarity).

Tempest, on Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:50 PM, said:

15. It's so sad to hear them talk about an IPO and a bright future ahead. It's like watching one of those VH1 Behind the Music things when you know something bad is going to happen after the next commercial.

That's what's so eerie about watching it now, knowing what happened and how bad the crash was. It must have been a bitter disappointment to the people inside Imagic who thought they would be set for life after the IPO. Kinda like the dot-com boom of the late 90s.

Tempest, on Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:50 PM, said:

17. Hot air balloon racing? Could they be talking about Sky Patrol?

I'm almost positive they are; Brad Stewart talked about "researching" Sky Patrol and going on a balloon ride with Grubb during the Imagic roundtable I mentioned. I'd bet that the bearded guy shown in the balloon with Grubb was Stewart himself.

[supercat]

Tempest, on Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:50 PM, said:

3. The sprite editor was interesting, I didn't realize they had something that advanced for doing graphics (I always assumed they did them on graph paper). Looks like it was running on an Atari 800 or something.

I did all my sprites using a text editor.

[Mindfield]

Tempest, on Sun Mar 11, 2007 9:50 PM, said:

I just watched this and had a couple of thoughts:
[...]
1. That WIP version of Atlantis was neat. I wonder what happened to it, maybe it's still on some 8 inch disk somewhere?

Assuming it hasn't succumbed to bit-rot, which is pretty likely.

Tempest, on Sun Mar 11, 2007 9:50 PM, said:

6. About 2 min into the video where Dennis is showing off a prototype of Atlantis, whats playing on the monitor next to him?

I can't tell -- it's a a bit blurry, but I don't recognize it.

Tempest, on Sun Mar 11, 2007 9:50 PM, said:

9. At 5:55 in the video, what game is playing on the monitor?

Looks like Microsurgeon on the Inty.

Tempest, on Sun Mar 11, 2007 9:50 PM, said:

11. It's hard to remember when K-Mart was a serious retail chain...

I remember them pretty well. I even bought a few games there around 1985 when they had some cheapo titles in the clearance bins. (The only one I actually remember buying from there though was Journey Escape) I'd exhausted all of the affordable titles I'd bought from Toys "Я" Us so I was casting further afield for new fodder for my 2600.

Tempest, on Sun Mar 11, 2007 9:50 PM, said:

15. It's so sad to hear them talk about an IPO and a bright future ahead. It's like watching one of those VH1 Behind the Music things when you know something bad is going to happen after the next commercial.

That was my line of thinking when I watched. "Man, talking about how the aborted IPO was just a temporary setback and they'll try again in a few months. They just had no idea what was just around the corner."

Tempest, on Sun Mar 11, 2007 9:50 PM, said:

16. Atari caused a massive stock market drop?!

Atari and Mattel both. It wasn't exactly Atari's fault, nor Mattel's, and it wasn't because games weren't selling. They were selling briskly -- the problem was that with increased competition on the software front meant the pie was being sliced into that many more pieces, and everyone got a smaller share, Atari most of all, since they'd gone from being the sole provider of games to being one of a dozen within a span of just two years -- less, if you consider that, other than Activision, the competition didn't really have any great load of product to offer until 1982, which meant that the Christmas '82 season was especially competitive.

Tempest, on Sun Mar 11, 2007 9:50 PM, said:

17. Hot air balloon racing? Could they be talking about Sky Patrol?

Has to be. I'm not aware of any other project Imagic had going at the time, and it's the only (known) title to have gone unreleased.

[Nathan Strum]

Man, what an incredible piece of history!

As others mentioned, it's a bit eerie watching the end of the documentary, as you can see the industry beginning to unravel. They had no idea what was coming...

I would have loved to have been at that CES though. Wow.

Very cool sprite editor. I had no idea they had anything like that. But it explains a lot about why Imagic had such impressive graphics. Much easier to sit there and endlessly tweak sprites on-screen than it would be on graph paper. You get a much more accurate look at things, too.

Just the glimpses into some of the stores with kids buying stuff... hard to believe it was really like that sometimes. But it instantly brings me back to those days.

I thought about Albert too, when watching the cart assembly lines. Except Albert is usually the only one doing it.

And K-Mart... I don't know if I ever bought games there or not. I'm sure I looked, but seems to me they always had a pathetic selection.

Thanks for posting the link to this. Great stuff!

[mos6507]

I think this is what I remember watching back in the day. I distinctly remember seeing the tools being run on the Atari 800. I could have sworn that was on 20/20 instead of PBS, though. But I guess this is it! I should have pressed Rob Fulop more about this 10 years ago as it would have been such a perfect inclusion into Stella at 20. This really is the holy grail Anyone into classic games must watch this.

[Nathan Strum]

There's always Stella at 30.

[Fellow Atari Man]

Tempest, on Sun Mar 11, 2007 9:50 PM, said:

Part III
---------
14. Billboard had a video game chart?!

Ha, yeah. It was pretty cool. I remember seeing a shot of it on a promo mailout for Pitfall 2, where they (Activision) said they couldn't make it fast enough, that it was #1 at some point (I think).

Edited by Fellow Atari Man, Mon Mar 12, 2007 10:14 PM.

[Rik]

If it wasnt for the crash,i think IMAGIC had the potential to replace ACTIVISION as #1.I think Mr.Grubb was making some pretty smart moves,too bad we didnt get to see the frutation of the hot air balloon racing game they were going to do,AWESOME FRICKIN DOCUMENTARY,if I say so myself!.Are any of the original founders still at ACTIVISION?,also,is there any way to save and store youtube videos onto your harddrive?i have a slow ass connection,it took me like 1 hr to download all 3 vids!as soon as you delete the cookies in your browser file,you have to download everything over again,ive tried isolating the 3 video cookies for the ATLANTIS videos,but cant find them.

Edited by Rik, Mon Mar 12, 2007 10:59 PM.

[supercat]

Rik, on Mon Mar 12, 2007 11:28 PM, said:

If it wasnt for the crash,i think IMAGIC had the potential to replace ACTIVISION as #1.

Imagic had some great games (e.g. Demon Attack) and Activision had some clunkers, but I'd say the ratio of good to bad is better for Activision. Did Imagic games ever grow beyond 4K?

[lord_mike]

Tempest, on Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:50 PM, said:

2. Speaking of which, what kind of systems was Imagic using to program the games? Those 8 inch disk drives are killer!
3. The sprite editor was interesting, I didn't realize they had something that advanced for doing graphics (I always assumed they did them on graph paper). Looks like it was running on an Atari 800 or something.

2. A youtube commenter on the second part of the video claimed that the system looked like an HP9000 minicomputer. If he's correct, that Hp would be brand new... and probably pretty powerful.

3. The Atari 800 did have a sprite editor just like the one shown on the video. Mostly, only developers had any access to it.

Thanks,

Mike

[Random Terrain]

Rik, on Tue Mar 13, 2007 12:28 AM, said:

. . . also, is there any way to save and store YouTube videos onto your harddrive? I have a slow ass connection, it took me like 1 hour to download all 3 videos! As soon as you delete the cookies in your browser file, you have to download everything over again. I've tried isolating the 3 video cookies for the ATLANTIS videos, but cant find them.

You can download YouTube videos with a Firefox add-on such as Fast Video Download, then watch them full screen with VLC Media Player.

[mos6507]

Nathan Strum, on Mon Mar 12, 2007 6:21 PM, said:

There's always Stella at 30.

If Chimera is indeed a dead project I might be up to financing a run of DVDs if you put it together.

[jaybird3rd]

Rik, on Mon Mar 12, 2007 11:28 PM, said:

Are any of the original founders still at ACTIVISION?

No, I think they were all gone by the mid-1980s. Activision itself went through bankruptcy in the mid-80s as well, so the "Activision" of today is really a very different company from the Activision that Crane and Company founded.

Rik, on Mon Mar 12, 2007 11:28 PM, said:

also,is there any way to save and store youtube videos onto your harddrive?

I used this to retrieve the videos, but then you'll need to find an FLV player (or something that can convert them to a different format).

[jaybird3rd]

mos6507, on Tue Mar 13, 2007 4:14 AM, said:

Nathan Strum, on Mon Mar 12, 2007 6:21 PM, said:

There's always Stella at 30.

If Chimera is indeed a dead project I might be up to financing a run of DVDs if you put it together.

Just in time for the 30th anniversary, too!

[jaybird3rd]

supercat, on Tue Mar 13, 2007 12:48 AM, said:

Imagic had some great games (e.g. Demon Attack) and Activision had some clunkers, but I'd say the ratio of good to bad is better for Activision. Did Imagic games ever grow beyond 4K?

I think Fathom was 8K, so toward the end they were at least investing in bigger ROMs.

[Nathan Strum]

mos6507, on Tue Mar 13, 2007 1:14 AM, said:

Nathan Strum, on Mon Mar 12, 2007 6:21 PM, said:

There's always Stella at 30.

If Chimera is indeed a dead project I might be up to financing a run of DVDs if you put it together.

It's on my Summer "To-Do" list.

[Mindfield]

lord_mike, on Tue Mar 13, 2007 1:51 AM, said:

2. A youtube commenter on the second part of the video claimed that the system looked like an HP9000 minicomputer. If he's correct, that Hp would be brand new... and probably pretty powerful.

I don't think he's correct (I checked out all the desktop computers and terminals from HP of that era and none match), but he might have been close. My guess is that it is a close relative to the HP-64000 series microprocessor development system (PDF warning). The unit pictured in the journal is not an exact match to Koble's, but it's close enough in design that it's probably a member of the same series.

[Mindfield]

Nathan Strum, on Tue Mar 13, 2007 10:15 AM, said:

It's on my Summer "To-Do" list.

Sweet! So what's gonna be on this thing? (I never saw Stella at 20, much to my shame)

Edited by Mindfield, Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:21 AM.

[RIVER]

Very cool video and bit of history, loved it--Thanks

[Nathan Strum]

Mindfield, on Wed Mar 14, 2007 5:20 AM, said:

Sweet! So what's gonna be on this thing? (I never saw Stella at 20, much to my shame)

Stella at 20... 10 years later.

There may be some additional stuff that didn't make the original Stella at 20 tapes, but that's up to Glenn. I still have to go through the master tapes and see what all is there.

It'd be cool to do an update of some sort. Maybe interviews with homebrewers and hobbyists. But that might just be wishful thinking. It's going to be a fair amount of work to put everything together as it is.

[jaybird3rd]

Nathan Strum, on Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:18 PM, said:

There may be some additional stuff that didn't make the original Stella at 20 tapes, but that's up to Glenn. I still have to go through the master tapes and see what all is there.

It'd be cool to do an update of some sort. Maybe interviews with homebrewers and hobbyists. But that might just be wishful thinking. It's going to be a fair amount of work to put everything together as it is.

I think an audio commentary would be great (if Glenn would be willing and could find the time).

[Rik]

Random Terrain, on Tue Mar 13, 2007 2:52 AM, said:

Rik, on Tue Mar 13, 2007 12:28 AM, said:

. . . also, is there any way to save and store YouTube videos onto your harddrive? I have a slow ass connection, it took me like 1 hour to download all 3 videos! As soon as you delete the cookies in your browser file, you have to download everything over again. I've tried isolating the 3 video cookies for the ATLANTIS videos, but cant find them.

You can download YouTube videos with a Firefox add-on such as Fast Video Download, then watch them full screen with VLC Media Player.

Yes,thanx for the link!i downloaded the videolan player,now how do you go about playing Making of Atlantis part 1on videolan?,ill lose the vid when i eventually empty my browser cache!thanx!also,will the vid be saved so i dont have to re download from youtube?,which takes FOOOOOOOREEEVER?thats what im trying to do.where do i get this"FAST VIDEO DOWNLOAD"?

Edited by Rik, Wed Mar 14, 2007 7:25 PM.