Atari 8-bit... 30 Years old?

[Shaun.Bebbington]

Hey,

 

Sorry if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but isn't the 30th anniversary of the Atari 8-bit sometime soon? December 1978 seems to be ringing a bell. Perhaps that's when the first prototypes were shown to the public? Or an announcement was made way back when? Are there any Atari experts here that can confirm this?

 

Regards,

 

Shaun.

[mos6507]

When I think of "30 years old" I always think of the 1950s and probably always will. The 1950s felt so distant when I was a kid in the 80s, so much more distant than the late 70s feels for me today.

[atarian63]

Hey,

 

Sorry if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but isn't the 30th anniversary of the Atari 8-bit sometime soon? December 1978 seems to be ringing a bell. Perhaps that's when the first prototypes were shown to the public? Or an announcement was made way back when? Are there any Atari experts here that can confirm this?

 

Regards,

 

Shaun.

It's ALIVE and Kickin!

[hitchcock4]

According to Wikipedia, the 6502 chip appeared in Sept of 1975 - so the 1978 date certainly is possible.

[hitchcock4]

Here is a page describing some of the early history.

It was "announced" in December 1978 and shown at CES in January 1979.

Read on...

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3766...__a_.php?page=4

[Godzilla]

That's a really cool article. Atari fires bill gates! oh, the headlines!

[FastRobPlus]

That's a really cool article. Atari fires bill gates! oh, the headlines!

Here's what the quote says about Gates:Atari had contracted with a young programmer named Bill Gates to modify a BASIC compiler that he had for another system to be used on the 800. After that project stalled for over a year Al was called upon to replace him with another developer. So, while Al is the only person I know ever to have fired Bill Gates, I suspect that rather than work on Atari BASIC, Gates was spending all his time on DOS for IBM. Probably not a bad career choice for him, do you think?"

 

It's interesting, but does not quite jibe with the Commodore PET story Chuck Peddle tells:

Chuck naturally turned to Micro-Soft and worked with one of their new hires, Rick Wyland, to develop a version of BASIC that could be built into hardware called a ROM (Read Only Memory). Even though this version would be difficult to steal Gates was not happy because he was sure Chuck's concept was not going to be successful. Chuck tells of a 1976 trip to Microsoft's small office, the in Albuquerque. Gates had told Wyland to "...just get rid of it... he thought is was a waste of time..."

 

So to hear Atari/Alan Miller/David Crane tell it, a year later, when BG had a fair-sized staff and no real interest in closed archetechure home computers, he personally was over at Atari working on basic like an intern?

 

I've heard this kind of revisionist history with David Fox in the "LucasArts Early Years" presentation. Fox says something like: "Rescue on Fractalus was 10 frames per second when Micrososft could only get 1 or 2 frames at best out of thier computers."

It's a cheap shot becuse MS was not developing Flight Sim at that time BAO was the developer and SubLogic was the publisher on all platforms but DOS (where MS was the publisher) It ran dog slow on all systems, including the Atari. That may be bad programming but that's nothing to do with MS. They only tell these "We were smarter than Bill before it was cool to be smarter than Bill" stories to get a laugh and some geek cred, but if you do the research you find that these guys a full of crap. It's kind of sad becuse they are legends amongs us retro gamers and don't need to be doing that.

 

Chuck's story BTW seems to check out 100%.

Edited December 18, 2008 by FastRobPlus

[+bob1200xl]

In "The Atari Basic Source Book", Bill Wilkinson tells how they delivered Atari Basic to Atari in December, 1978.

 

So, yep... Thirty Years!

 

Bob

 

 

 

Hey,

 

Sorry if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but isn't the 30th anniversary of the Atari 8-bit sometime soon? December 1978 seems to be ringing a bell. Perhaps that's when the first prototypes were shown to the public? Or an announcement was made way back when? Are there any Atari experts here that can confirm this?

 

Regards,

 

Shaun.

[atarian63]

That's a really cool article. Atari fires bill gates! oh, the headlines!

Here's what the quote says about Gates:Atari had contracted with a young programmer named Bill Gates to modify a BASIC compiler that he had for another system to be used on the 800. After that project stalled for over a year Al was called upon to replace him with another developer. So, while Al is the only person I know ever to have fired Bill Gates, I suspect that rather than work on Atari BASIC, Gates was spending all his time on DOS for IBM. Probably not a bad career choice for him, do you think?"

 

It's interesting, but does not quite jibe with the Commodore PET story Chuck Peddle tells:

Chuck naturally turned to Micro-Soft and worked with one of their new hires, Rick Wyland, to develop a version of BASIC that could be built into hardware called a ROM (Read Only Memory). Even though this version would be difficult to steal Gates was not happy because he was sure Chuck's concept was not going to be successful. Chuck tells of a 1976 trip to Microsoft's small office, the in Albuquerque. Gates had told Wyland to "...just get rid of it... he thought is was a waste of time..."

 

So to hear Atari/Alan Miller/David Crane tell it, a year later, when BG had a fair-sized staff and no real interest in closed archetechure home computers, he personally was over at Atari working on basic like an intern?

 

I've heard this kind of revisionist history with David Fox in the "LucasArts Early Years" presentation. Fox says something like: "Rescue on Fractalus was 10 frames per second when Micrososft could only get 1 or 2 frames at best out of thier computers."

It's a cheap shot becuse MS was not developing Flight Sim at that time BAO was the developer and SubLogic was the publisher on all platforms but DOS (where MS was the publisher) It ran dog slow on all systems, including the Atari. That may be bad programming but that's nothing to do with MS. They only tell these "We were smarter than Bill before it was cool to be smarter than Bill" stories to get a laugh and some geek cred, but if you do the research you find that these guys a full of crap. It's kind of sad becuse they are legends amongs us retro gamers and don't need to be doing that.

 

Chuck's story BTW seems to check out 100%.

I would tend to believe the atari version

Edited December 18, 2008 by atarian63

[Rybags]

There were early ROM versions of BASIC but I think you'll find they were usually rejected either because they were integer only or didn't run higher precision floating-point.

 

Also, Atari obviously wanted the graphics/sound support. And, memory management was different. Most BASICs of the time used RAM from the top of memory which grew downwards for stuff like strings and/or the runtime stack for loops/subroutines. Atari's various graphics modes with different memory requirements means it's not best to do things that way.

[Allas]

It's true... December 1978

 

Happy 30th anniversary to Atari 8bit System!

 

Edited December 18, 2008 by Allas

[RedBeard]

Happy Birthday, Atari 8-bit!

Here's to the next 30!

 

><>RedBeard

[+Philsan]

Happy Birthday Atari 8!

Many thanks to all the designers!

[Godzilla]

Commodore were no fans of Atari so as far as revising history, I wouldn't trust them not to...

[FastRobPlus]

Commodore were no fans of Atari so as far as revising history, I wouldn't trust them not to...

 

If that comment was directed at me then understand that Commodore does not enter into this at all. Pedle was recounting the history of early M.O.S. and C= and there was no love lost there.

I even more of an Atari fanboy than you! But I have to call bullshit on actual bullshit.

[jacobus]

Someone on eBay (not me) is currently selling a 1979 Sears catalog - with an ad for the 400! (no config specs). Interestingly the photo shows a rainbow (in browns) logo on the case. Do any of these actually exist?

 

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 160305527156

 

 

 

As well, does anyone own a CTIA machine? I would have thought they'd be fairly common, but I can't recall anyone mentioning owning one.

Edited December 19, 2008 by jacobus

[potatohead]

My friend got a 400 for Christmas very early on. It was a CTIA machine, but we didn't know it until a coupla years later.

 

The logo didn't have the gradient.

 

Hmmm... Might have to go make a visit. For all I know, that thing and the VCS are still sitting in the hall closet.

[ClausB]

This prototype is dated January, 1979 but has parts dated 1978. It also has the yellow-brown rainbow logo.

[mimo]

My friend got a 400 for Christmas very early on. It was a CTIA machine, but we didn't know it until a coupla years later.

 

The logo didn't have the gradient.

 

Hmmm... Might have to go make a visit. For all I know, that thing and the VCS are still sitting in the hall closet.

 

Funny you should bring up the logo question, I have been wondering the same thing. I was looking at my copy of the Atari Basic book and the photo on the front cover shows both 400 and 800 with the Brown Rainbow logo

 

And for another question, when were the 400 and 800 available in the UK? I saw my first 400 in Mays Electronics in Leicester(UK) December 1980 (we got a Sinclare that year )

Edited December 19, 2008 by mimo

[Rybags]

So, were any production machines made with the graduated fade logo?

I can remember seeing lots of advertising and some official manuals that had pictures that way.

[Shaun.Bebbington]

Happy Birthday, Atari 8-bit!

Here's to the next 30!

 

><>RedBeard

Indeed! And who knows about the next 30 years. 20 years ago, the Atari 'gaming' scene didn't look so hot (in the UK anyway), and now? Long live Atari :-)

 

Regards,

 

Shaun.

[WizWor]

isn't the 30th anniversary of the Atari 8-bit sometime soon? December 1978 seems to be ringing a bell. Perhaps that's when the first prototypes were shown to the public? Or an announcement was made way back when? Are there any Atari experts here that can confirm this?

I think 12/79 should be considered the 30th anniversary. According to the Gamasutra article, there were only prototypes by the 1/79 CES. Hand assembled units were shipped to a Sears warehouse on 8/29/79 so that the computers could be included in the Christmas catalog and that first arrived in November of 79.

 

Thanks for this thread. It was nice to reflect and research even if we're a year early. Anyone have pictures of Candy and Colleen (the secretaries)?

[WizWor]

I think 12/79 should be considered the 30th anniversary.

um...12/09

 

Can't seem to edit this post...

[atariksi]

This prototype is dated January, 1979 but has parts dated 1978. It also has the yellow-brown rainbow logo.

 

I also have an Atari 400 w/some parts © 1978. But it has a GTIA chip in it-- perhaps put in later on by someone. When was the GTIA introduced?

[Shaun.Bebbington]

isn't the 30th anniversary of the Atari 8-bit sometime soon? December 1978 seems to be ringing a bell. Perhaps that's when the first prototypes were shown to the public? Or an announcement was made way back when? Are there any Atari experts here that can confirm this?

I think 12/79 should be considered the 30th anniversary. According to the Gamasutra article, there were only prototypes by the 1/79 CES. Hand assembled units were shipped to a Sears warehouse on 8/29/79 so that the computers could be included in the Christmas catalog and that first arrived in November of 79.

 

Thanks for this thread. It was nice to reflect and research even if we're a year early. Anyone have pictures of Candy and Colleen (the secretaries)?

I suppose it's the same with April 1982 being considered the birth of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, and how many of those first batch actually worked Did Sinclair even have much working then? But every April the Speccy is considered one year older.

 

Regards,

 

Shaun.