32 replies to this topic

[atari70s]

What is Mircosoft doing making atari games in the 80s?


Who has some of these besides me. i got my by mistake.
tell me more all wise atarians who are smarter than me

[Ze_ro]

It's probably a different company.

--Zero

[atari70s]

maybe so who can tell me more about it?who needs a scan the dude in the pic looks little like bill gates as i was told once

[videotwit]

The Microsoft you are talking about definitely is not the "Bill Gates" Microsoft.

It was a Brazilian pirate company.

[King Asmo]

Atari 70's: What are you talking about? Your message as it reads doesn't make any sense.. we need more details.

If you mean 2600 pirate games by "Microsoft", then Twit is right.. they're a Brazillian pirate company which has no relation whatsoever to Washington State's favourite software company.

The "real" Microsoft has been publishing games all the way back to '78-'79 or so, including an excellent Flight Sim for the Apple 2. Didn't Microsoft make a couple games for the Atari 800?

They also published "Microsoft Basic" which you see as soon as you boot up a Commodore 64.

[Joel D. Park]

I've seen the picture I think you are talking about. It's black and white with a bunch of Beardy guys in the 70's then there's a young nerdy punk kid with them.

I'm almost 100% sure that's Bill Gates.. But they didn't make Atari games.

[Marco(2)]

Those Brazilian games are wrongly listed as being produced by Microsoft. Although the label says Microsoft, the manufacturer is actually Microdigital.

Of course, Ebay sellers prefer to list them as "Microsoft" for obvious reasons...

Cheers,

Marco

[videotwit]

quote:

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Originally posted by Marco:
Those Brazilian games are wrongly listed as being produced by Microsoft. Although the label says Microsoft, the manufacturer is actually Microdigital.

Of course, Ebay sellers prefer to list them as "Microsoft" for obvious reasons...

Cheers,

Marco

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Marco-

Where did you find this out? I'd be very interested to see any documentation you might have about Microdigital (aka Microsoft) -- is it from a manual, box scan, ???

Thanks!

[Albert]

quote:

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Originally posted by Marco:
Those Brazilian games are wrongly listed as being produced by Microsoft. Although the label says Microsoft, the manufacturer is actually Microdigital.

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Interesting, where did you come by this information? We definitely need to add a note to the Microsoft company listing saying it has nothing to do with the American company. If these were produced by Microdigital, that will help cut down on the confusion. Although we'll still want to note that the name shown on the carts (Microsoft) is no relation to the company we all know and love.

..Al

[videotwit]

quote:

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Originally posted by Albert:
{snip} ... the company we all know and love.

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Ummm... Please count me out of the "love" portion of that statement.

[san-d-2000]

Microdigital is molded on the back of the cartridge case.
Anyway there are a lot of Brazilian companies listed at various sites which were actualy not producers of cartridges.
For instance Fotomania and Arte were both Photo/Electronic equipment stores, which also sold or rented games and just slammed their own labels on the cartridges.

Sandy.

btw, there are also some microdigital carts which say Onyx on the label instead of Microsoft.

[Albert]

quote:

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Originally posted by twit:
Ummm... Please count me out of the "love" portion of that statement.

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Woops, that was supposed to be sarcasm, but I forgot to stick a smiley or something after that statement. I most certainly do not love Microsoft.

..Al

[atari70s]

heck i order a PAL version of ET and i got that microsoft cart instead hey im happy i wonder why they called it microsoft and not microdigital

[Rhindle The Red]

quote:

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Originally posted by Albert:
I most certainly do not love Microsoft.

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I do. Without them computers would never have become the common daily used items they are now. IBM would still be the king with $10,000 computers and there would be no internet as we know it today, no common use of e-mail, no AtariAge...

[Fretwobbler]

I agree with Rhindle the Red, the global PC market needs standardisation and MS have given the world this.

Big Bills lover

[slapdash]

The two "Microsoft" carts I have both say "Onyx Jr" on them too. "Onyx Jr" is the name of the system Microdigital sold.

I'm not sure my carts say "Microdigital" on the back, but one is a tiny bit shorter than the other.

[AtariDude]

This is a bit off topic but I think if Microsoft had never came into being or had they not gotten as big as they are now, there still would be computers now but they would probably be Apple computers. Remember that at one point, Apple was the largest personal computer company in the world. That all changed when IBM released the PC in 1981 and slowly they helped to legitimize the microcomputer.

Up until then, microcomputers were seen as advanced game machines and not worthy of being in the office except for very limited tasks.

[Ze_ro]

quote:

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Originally posted by AtariDude:
This is a bit off topic but I think if Microsoft had never came into being or had they not gotten as big as they are now, there still would be computers now but they would probably be Apple computers.

---

Either that or Amigas. I still think the fact that everyone "standardized" on MS-Dos was a huge mistake as far as the computer industry goes. When IBM's were puttering away at 4 MHz with MS-Dos, there were Mac's and Amiga's running graphical operating systems that Microsoft wouldn't equal for years to come. Hell, the Amiga was multitasking with only 1/2 a meg of ram! (I should probably mention the Atari ST here as well, but I really don't know enough about it to spout out advertising phrases)

Microsoft and IBM really should have lost the computer wars in my opinion...

--Zero

[Fretwobbler]

Originally posted by Ze_ro -

quote

Quote

Microsoft and IBM really should have lost the computer  

I think they won if for a good reason, all the people using Office 97/200/XP weren't foced to buy and use. What else was on offer, Lotus 123?????, Borland Office?????????

Which would yuou rather use?

After all the creator of Linux has been filmed quoting "I think Microsoft make the best apps in the world but they should give up when is comes to Operating Systems"

Adam

EDIT - THe ACTUAL quote was "I think Microsoft make some really great apps but..."

Filmed in a documentary made by the BBC when Lionux first took off a few years ago.


Adam

[ 12-11-2001: Message edited by: Fretwobbler ]


ANOTHER EDIT - As for the hardware - Apple made the decision to patent the architecture of their systems and this was their downfall, IBM left it open for the like of HP, Compaq(Texas Instruments) to join in the fun and breed a competitive and flourishing industry.

Adam

[ 12-11-2001: Message edited by: Fretwobbler ]

[Rhindle The Red]

quote:

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Originally posted by Fretwobbler:
IBM left it open for the like of HP, Compaq(Texas Instruments) to join in the fun and breed a competitive and flourishing industry.

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IBM most certainly did not intentionally allow the PC market to grow the way it did. The mistake they made was not owning the operating system and processor for their own machine. This allowed Microsoft and Intel to sell their respective products to whoever wanted to buy them, starting with Compaq. Compaq reverse engineered the PC to get around IBM patents (this is why reverse engineering is explicitly prohibited today). That's why the PC market was able to explode. Just build your hardware, buy Microsoft DOS and an Intel chip and BAM! (to quote Emeril) you've got yourself a PC company.

Apple, Commodore (Amiga), and Atari all retained control of all their hardware, thereby putting themselves (to varying degrees) into also-ran status as the cost of PCs and PC-clones dropped dramatically while their machines couldn't compete.

[Fretwobbler]

Quote from Rhindle the Red -

quote

Quote

 IBM most certainly did not intentionally allow the PC market to grow the way it did

I didnt realise it happened that way - I stand corrected. It was a Compaq Training Officer that told us the story above but I always thought she was a bit dizzy and just badly reading a script instead of 'teaching'.


I dont normally moan and you may agree with me on the next bit but this subject really !£$"'s me off -

On the Microsoft front I just cannot understand why in USA, which is the most succesful capitilist nation on Earth, 99% of the people living there (and everywhere else in the world) hold a grudge against a company for being succesful. IT STINKS. Why do they hate them??? Because there succesful, correct me if i'm wrong after all i'm an onlooker but isn't that what USA'a all about? - free enterprise and rewarding people for success?

So what if their operating systems a bit sloppy, if your a developer what would you rather have to develop for - 1 glabally stadardised platform or 25 differant ones. So what if they packaged a browser with it, Netscape set the price mark for their browser a $0.00. If they can do it why cant Microsoft.

Anybody that hates Microsoft is either not educated enough about the subject, working for Netscape or just jumping on the bandwaggon. There's not many people that have changed the world for the better and he/they deserve a pat on the back for doing it.

What about the 100,000's of well paid jobs around the world that they provide? What about the benefit such a hugely succesful company has on your econemy? What about the millions they invest in F.A.S.T every year? That doesn't just help stop people copying their software. What about the millions they save business's throughout the world with innovative apps that save time and resource.

People should consider the above points before slagging off what is your greatest ever corporate success story, you dont hear people slagging off Jack Welch and Generel Electric for being the biggest company in the world and making shitloads of profit.

If it weren't for them we'd all be sat at home typing letters, mailing them around the globe to each other and waiting 4 weeks for a reply instead of 4 mins.

Adam

[dwh]

The only thing microsoft did wrong was to steal the operating system(changing the prompt from a> to c>)Apple computer was worse,they stole everything Xerox Corp. had invented in Palo Alto.But in both cases the people that had invented the items to make the personal computer work did not know how to implement these ideas.If I recall correctly,the O.S. came from a university from a 'professional student' who knew nothing of business,and Xerox CEOs just could not 'get it' when shown the new technology.

[Rhindle The Red]

quote:

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Originally posted by dwh:
The only thing microsoft did wrong was to steal the operating system(changing the prompt from a> to c>)Apple computer was worse,they stole everything Xerox Corp. had invented in Palo Alto.But in both cases the people that had invented the items to make the personal computer work did not know how to implement these ideas.If I recall correctly,the O.S. came from a university from a 'professional student' who knew nothing of business,and Xerox CEOs just could not 'get it' when shown the new technology.

---

It's true Microsoft did not create the original OS on which MS-DOS was based, but they hardly "stole" it. You may or may not consider that they underpaid for it, but they did buy it legally from its creator.

And to be fair to Microsoft again, it's not like the original owner was going to do the kinds of things that Microsoft did with it. Credit Bill Gates with recognizing the potential of this OS and maximizing its use to the point where it took until 2001 for the basic DOS kernal to be removed from Windows.

As for Xerox, they shot themselves in the foot. But to the credit of the visionaries working at PARC, most of them went on to use the advances they made there to make themselves very rich.

Really, anyone who wants to truly understand how the computer market got to where it is needs to see "Triumph of the Nerds." It literally answers all your questions about who did what to who and when.

[Ze_ro]

quote:

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Originally posted by Fretwobbler:
I think they won if for a good reason, all the people using Office 97/200/XP weren't foced to buy and use. What else was on offer, Lotus 123?????, Borland Office?????????

---

I was talking more about back in the 80's when the IBM PC just became popular, and Windows either didn't exist, or was in it's "horrendously crappy" state (depending on how far back you go. Microsoft didn't have things like Office back then. I'll agree that Office is a good program (though I hate that paper clip...).

quote

Quote

On the Microsoft front I just cannot understand why in USA, which is the most succesful capitilist nation on Earth, 99% of the people living there (and everywhere else in the world) hold a grudge against a company for being succesful.

I'm not pissed off because they're successful, I'm pissed off because of how they became successful. I'm not sure how much you know about Microsoft's past or their business practices, but they've pulled some sleazy, underhanded stuff to get where they are, and they're still doing a lot of stuff that I really disagree with. In fact, the US Department of Justice is still in court with them I think...

Personally, I think Windows sucks... that's why I don't use it. However, I don't hate Microsoft for making buggy products (Hell, almost all products have bugs in them... especially software). But I still find it strange that people have put up with so many bugs for so long... especially considering that people will purposely avoid certain brands of cars based on the company that makes them.

--Zero

[Fretwobbler]

Originally posted by Ze_ro -

quote

Quote

I'm not sure how much you know about Microsoft's past or their business practices, but they've pulled some sleazy, underhanded stuff to get where they are

I'm not technical so I dont know much about that aspect although I understand the basics. On the otherhand I work for their 2nd largest distributer globally, an American company listed on the Nasdaq called Tech Data and I have 6 years experience of distributing their products amongst other big IT players. Yes theyve been underhand and the like but thats business. There certainly not the only IT company thats been 'underhand'. The IT industry is rife with scum tactics, always has been and always will be, probably because it was until recently the most competative industry in the world. Now telecoms has taken over it will probably be MCI Worldcom and Vodafone that are butt of peoples critisism's for being good at what they do and that shall stink also.

I'm good at my job and I get rewarded, if i'm crap i get sacked.

Microsoft are good at what they do and they get rewarded, if they're crap then they file for chapter 11.

Adam

EDIT - I also hate the paperclip
.

Adam

[ 12-11-2001: Message edited by: Fretwobbler ]