Scott Stilphen

Arenafoot · January 3, 2017

I didn't know there was a book on Dig Dug....wow!

That's not a book, that's a column from Joystik magazine. AFAIK there was never a dedicated book about Dig Dug.

Lost Dragon · January 3, 2017

Although the true originator of Atari driving was Night Driver, and its ingenious use of basic graphics and the natural feel of the paddle controller for steering made it a Four-Star game in that first landing of the VCS and its carts in the household.

Atari's Night Driver was actually a knockoff of Dr-Ing. Reiner Foerst's Nurburgring 1, as was Ted Michon's Night Racer. Here's more info about them:

http://jalopnik.com/5906386/meet-the-doctor-engineer-who-basically-invented-the-modern-racing-game

http://weltenschule.de/vgames/Nuerburg/Nuerburgring.html

http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=night-racer-sit-down-model&page=detail&id=1393

RickR · December 31, 2016

Anyone seen the UFO abduction in Flying Disc event on C64 Californa Games?

Or tried typing in a swear word on computer of C64 Tau Ceti...potty mouth's pay a high price :-)

Here's a video of the C64 Cali Games one, which is pretty neat:

With Tau Ceti, if you type a curse in the game (like “f--k” or “c--t”), you’ll get a message saying, "Just because I'm a machine doesn't mean you can insult me. You'll be SORRY in 10 Seconds...." and the bottom of the screen will have a scrolling message saying, “Same to YOU with Bells on”. The screen will start shaking and go black in 10 seconds!

Justin · December 31, 2016

Very cool discovery! There's a few more things in Apple II Gumball:

http://www.digitpress.com/eastereggs/applegumball.htm

Don't know if any of those are in the Atari 8-bit version.

Atari 5200 Guy · December 28, 2016

There used to be hobby/model stores everywhere in my area years ago. Now there's only 1, and half the store is a hardware store. Kmart used to carry Testors since they had model kits in the toy section. Perhaps they still do. Walmart might as well.

greenween · December 26, 2016

List updated

December 8, 2016

Neither was Ms Pac-Man (though Namco and Midway were consulted by GCC over a few aspects of the game) They're still Pac-Man games, though.

December 7, 2016

List updated.

Lost Dragon · December 6, 2016

At 1 point i had Atari: Business is Fun, down on a save on Amazon, until a good friend suggested i read through some sample pages...

I wasn't about to spend 1 cent on that book, especially since most of it is online for free at Google Books:

https://books.google.com/books?id=3FwGMtRafrAC&pg=PA001&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false

Book seemed in need of a good editor, if nothing else...everything seemed thrown in, little thought to pacing, structure etc.

Plus, writers seemed to lack any grasping of how modern assembly lines work and seemed surprised engineers would use a rubber mallet...as an ex-engineer myself who works with T.P.M in a modern factory enviroment myself still,it took me by surprise....

But it was the grammar and punctuation that did my head in, sure MY VERY OWN, IS appalling but i'm just putting info up on a forum or for a website to use as they see fit, not putting together a professional publication and charging for it.

Of all the books I've ever read, I have never come across one so appallingly bad as that one, that contains nearly every conceivable grammatical error possible. It's as though it began as 2 separate books that ended up having a head-on collision with each other, and that's the result. The punctuation and spelling errors alone should have been enough for any publisher to refuse it (their posts on Atariage are pretty much the same. I'm quite certain Goldberg still doesn't know Berzerk contains a 'z' instead of an 's'...), but when the tense starts changing all over the place, and you have photos with the incorrect captions (or quite often, no captions)... it's just a mess from cover to cover, and an insult to anyone with a basic grade school education to try and read it, let alone those with higher education, but then to charge people some $80 for a copy? And at the end of the day, that's what it comes off as - a money grab. Leonard Herman told me he sent a copy to Ralph Baer, and he put it down after a few pages. Shame he attached his name to it.

The editor, Loni Reeder, used to write articles for RePlay magazine. She was never an editor, and judging from the condition of the book, she still isn't. She happens to be a friend of Vendel (and I'm guessing her name was attached for no other reason than she used to be associated with an industry mag). They go back as far as 1999, when Vendel was involved in a scandal involving that year's CGE show:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/rec.games.video.classic/3Hlg1l8T16U

(major thread on CGE/Nolan scandal. Loni is posting under "LONBO")

https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/rec.games.video.classic/6m6KDatifpo

(vendel’s famous backing-out letter, posted under the fake account “mylar”)

What happened was, Vendel wanted to be part of the CGE show, and the people organizing the show had prior (bad) dealings with him, so they weren't about to team up with him. Vendel decided to try and sabotage the show, using a fake email address that appeared as though he was part of it. He succeeding in convincing Nolan Bushnell (who was planning on attending the first CGE show) via Loni Anderson (who was the contact person between them) to back out. When the organizers found out what he had done, they publicly outed him on the newsgroups, and a huge flamewar broke out over it. Vendel responded by erasing not only his posts, but some from others as well, which resulted in even more backlash against him. He broke a cardinal rule of the newsgroup in an effort to "calm things down" (ie. save face), but that's typical Vendel.

Even the much-touted photos need to be fixed. Photos from the 80s and earlier commonly suffer from incorrect color saturation (usually too much red). The photos on page 786 are a perfect example of this:

https://books.google.com/books?id=3FwGMtRafrAC&pg=PA786&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false

How much time would it have taken someone to color-correct them? Well, it took me less than 5 minutes with Photoshop to drastically improve them. I'm not sure what they did in the claimed 7 years of putting this book together, but I can tell you what they didn't do...

Lost Dragon, it sounds like you've done some comprehensive research in the Panther's history, as far as which games existed for it. If everyone you've talked with said there were no "cross-over" games between the Panther and Jaguar, then you're probably right. If they want to claim the opposite, they need to reveal their source(s), especially since as you mentioned, they're charging people to buy their book.

The Professor · December 5, 2016

There's some info about Frye in the VCS FAQ:

http://www.ataricompendium.com/faq/faq.html#general25

Frye has contradicted himself more than once, especially when it comes to specifics. But generally, he wasn't rushed with making VCS Pac-Man (Atari signed the licensing deal for it sometime in 1978, well before the game became a huge hit) and all the design choices were his and his alone. Frye is a very good technical programmer, but not one for making games that were interesting or having a lot of replay value. The fact is, VCS Pac-Man is atrocious. Most of his VCS games were either never released (Save Mary, Shooting Arcade) or finished (Ballblazer, SwordQuest AirWorld, Xevious). Even his Atari 8-bit computer Asteroids is clunky. The one SwordQuest game he did finish and release (FireWorld) was a disaster, along with the whole contest. He actually never understood why people flipped out over the fact the tunnels in his Pac-Man were on the top and bottom, instead of the sides, as the above video shows. And that's the essence of why his games (especially his arcade conversions) really aren't anything special. Todd wasn't a gamer, he was a programmer. To him, making games was simply a project to be completed, like making a deck. You get some boards, you put some posts up, and you nail all the boards together. Pac-Man was a maze game with dots and tunnels and 4 enemies, so he made a maze game with dots and tunnels and 4 enemies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebr9caOVlaU&feature=youtu.be&t=12m25s

(jump to 12:25 to hear his comments about Pac-Man)

In his mind, it was "Mission Accomplished". Making the game look or sound even remotely close to the arcade version simply wasn't a priority of his, and yet... that was the first thing everybody noticed before they even played it. And of course once they played it, they realized it had even less in common with the arcade game. Nobody expected it to be as good as the latest homebrew version (http://atariage.com/forums/topic/229152-new-pacman-for-atari-2600/) but there's been several hacks and homebrews in the last 15+ years to prove a better version could have absolutely been done with only 4K, so there's really no excuse for why it's so bad other than he was the wrong person for the job.

On 11/28/2016 at 4:47 AM, Justin said:

I like the idea of ghosts as monsters. It plays well with the ferocious ghost monsters in Hiro Kimura's unused artwork for Atari 2600 Pac-Man, shown in Art of Atari.

Yep, Hiro's original artwork makes perfect sense since he depicted them as monsters and not ghosts

Lost Dragon · December 5, 2016

Whilst any 'historian' can only write on information he/she has recovered, at the time, it would of been more....'helpful' had Marty perhaps of worded some of his past claims a little differently.

And there lies the problem with their book, for all the claims it makes are 'absolutes'. They claim they vetted all their information from multiple sources, and would like you to believe that somehow every previous book and article on the history of the company somehow got it wrong (because they can't be wrong). I have links to some of the more egregious errors they've made in my Pac-Man article (http://forums.atari.io/index.php/topic/915-). I pointed out another one on Keith Smith's site, The Golden Age Arcade Historian (https://allincolorforaquarter.blogspot.com/2015/01/atari-depositions-part-1.html ), courtesy of a professional author and historian, Leonard Herman. Vendel and Goldberg claim Bushnell still worked for Nutting when he attended the Magnavox Calvacade and first saw the Odyssey, even though he didn't work for them. They claim Bushnell left Nutting on June 1st, but they picked that date out of a hat because they have no physical evidence to back it up. From Leonard:

I had come to the conclusion that Bushnell no longer worked for Nutting when he attended the Magnavox Calvacade and saw the Odyssey. The two men who represented Nutting, both signed in at the same time and wrote "Nutting" next to their names. Bushnell signed separately and has no company affiliation. In their book, Marty and Curt wrote that Bushnell still worked for Nutting at the time.

They're basing it on Steve Bristow's memory that Bushnell came back from the demonstration and talked about the Odyssey. Marty and Curt think that Bushnell left Nutting around June 1 and they mention it in the book, although it's only conjecture on their part.

Ted Dabney told me that he's pretty sure that Bushnell was gone from Nutting when he saw the Odyssey. Ted did say that Bushnell became a contractor for Nutting to help build the two-player Computer Space and that's when he probably went back there and talked about the Odyssey.

So there's a perfect example of them putting a spin on a specific event to fit their opinions (assumptions). If they're willing to make an unfounded statement like that, then you have to scrutinize and question everything they say. Your info about the Panther/Jaguar games is another example. I remember reading somewhere the claim that the early Jaguar titles were originally designed for the Panther (which was the excuse for them being lackluster). They claim to have spend 7 years investigating and interviewing people, and yet the book is filled with very few direct quotes from anyone. And when such errors are pointed out to them, their reaction is instinctively to attack and insult.

With every interview I've done (50+), I not only include a person's replies to me verbatim, I give them the courtesy of proofing the final draft before it gets published; in other words, they have the last word.

I bought Lapetino's book (both versions) and it's very well done, but I do have some issues with it (most books on the subject do). On the other hand, Atari: Business is Fun has more than a few; it's nearly impossible to read due to being an incomprehensible mess, and is the sort of book that's ultimately a disservice to the company and its rich history, if not an outright danger to it..

Justin · December 5, 2016

The +5v isn't used for the joysticks, so if it's completely dead, the first thing to check would be the ground pin. It's always worth reflowing the solder on those controller ports, especially after nearly 40 years of use Next would be the 4050 chip as someone else mentioned. Last would be the RIOT chip.

fergojisan · December 4, 2016

In the book, "Art of Atari" by Tim Lapetino, the following info appears on page 264:

"Faced with plummeting sales and the video game market crash, Atari canceled the competition in mid-1984, and previous participants were bought out of their opportunity to compete in the final round with prizes of $15,000 and an Atari 7800 each. The contest legally needed to be completed, so the "Crown of Life" was allegedly awarded to the winner of a semi-public competition of several entrants."

Both Vendel and Goldberg are mentioned in the acknowledgements section, so it seems their book of errors has started to contaminate others. At least Lapetino states the crown was "allegedly" awarded (since, as I mentioned, no evidence has been shown to prove it ever happened).

There's also some neat promotional artwork for the Philosopher's Stone that appears in his book, as well as a nice copy of the AirWorld box art:

Justin · December 1, 2016

Up on Ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/291930793389

Cool stuff, though I don't think it's worth anywhere near what it's listed at. The seller even copied the text and a photo from one of my articles: http://www.2600connection.com/faq/vcs_nr/vcs_nr.html#combattwo

Michel Allaire also did the box art for VCS RealSports Baseball and RealSports Football.

Justin · November 30, 2016

They removed the comment about neither VCS game being released, but didn't mention that Pigs in Space was released (I even sent them scans of the box, cart, and manual). Ah well.

That site doesn't have much archived material anyway. I found this bit about some special recordings the 'real' Pigs in Space made for an early NASA space shuttle mission: http://www.ebay.com/itm/132018022818

They have 2 of the scripts they wrote, but not the actual audio recordings.

Atari 5200 Guy · November 29, 2016

Mostly in the early 80s, when the VCS popular worldwide. Here's a list of several more:

http://www.2600connection.com/faq/vcs_system/faq_atarivcs.html#hardware4

Rowsdower70 · November 28, 2016

You only showed 31 games:

Space Jockey

Football

Flag Capture

Golf

BASIC Math

Basketball

Slot Racers

Blackjack

Tennis

Bowling

Air-Sea Battle

3-D Tic-Tac-Toe

Combat

Skiing

Human Cannonball

Miniature Golf

Stampede

Othello

Sky Diver

Checkers

Space War

Slot Machine

Bugs

Dragster

Outlaw

Sky Jinks

Home Run

Surround

Fishing Derby

Boxing

Laser Blast

Here's a photo of it with the box:

http://www.2600connection.com/faq/vcs_system/faq_vcs_system_2600_console.jpg

There are similarly manufactured clones with even more built in games, though a number of the games often don't work.

That page says it either has 64 games or 128 If you notice, the sticker in the upper-left says 22 games with the switch to the left, and 64 to the right (for a total of 86?):

http://itools.com/tool/google-translate-web-page-translator

Looks similar to this JR with 128, but the sticker in the upper-left corner may be different:

http://www.2600connection.com/faq/vcs_system/faq_vcs_system_vcc_2600.jpg

Justin · November 28, 2016

Here's a short blog post concerning Jim Henson's interaction with Atari. I wish there was more info, but I found it interesting nonetheless.

http://www.henson.com/jimsredbook/2013/05/55-61983/

There's at least one factual error. It's stated that neither Pigs in Space or Miss Piggy's Wedding's were produced, but of course the former was.

Thanks for posting this. I emailed someone with the website and mentioned the error to them. I got a reply thanking me so hopefully they'll fix it.

Arenafoot · November 28, 2016

Here's a few more VCS-based custom cabinets:

November 26, 2016

S&H depends on how many carts you order. List was updated as some were sold.

greenween · November 26, 2016

Last updated 1-27-2024

All cartridges are tested before shipping. Photos of cartridges available upon request.

ATARI
3-D Tic-Tac-Toe (missing end label)
Adventure (picture label - missing end label)
Air-Sea Battle
Air-Sea Battle (picture label)
Asteroids
Asteroids (no copyright onscreen)
Backgammon (picture label)
BASIC Programming (missing end label)
Basketball (yellow text)
Basketball (orange text)
Basketball (1987 Atari Corp) ($2)
Basketball (picture label)
Battlezone (screw hole exposed)
Berzerk
Blackjack
Bowling (red text)
Bowling (picture label)
Breakout
Breakout (picture label)
Canyon Bomber
Canyon Bomber (picture label)
Championship Soccer (missing end label)
Circus Atari
Circus Atari (picture label)
Combat
Combat (with box and manual) ($3)
Combat (picture label)
Crystal Castles (missing end label)
Defender
Demons to Diamonds
Dodge 'Em
Dodge 'Em (picture label)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (orig. label variation)
Flag Capture (green text)
Flag Capture (orange text)
Flag Capture (red text)
Football (green text)
Football (picture label)
Galaxian
Galaxian (missing end label)
Golf
Golf (picture label)
Haunted House
Home Run
Home Run (picture label)
Human Cannonball (picture label)
Indy 500 (picture label)
Indy 500 (missing end label)
Indy 500 (spring dust cover) (1988 Atari Corp) ($3)
Jungle Hunt
Kangaroo (1988 Atari Corp) ($3)
Maze Craze (picture label)
Miniature Golf
Missile Command (lower-case letters)
Missile Command (lower-case end label only)
Missile Command (upper-case letters)
Missile Command (no "RF" Easter egg variant!) ($5)
Ms. Pac-Man (missing end label)
Ms. Pac-Man (1987 Atari Corp) ($2)
Ms. Pac-Man (1988 Atari Corp) ($2)
Night Driver
Outlaw
Outlaw (picture label)
Pac-Man
Pac-Man (dust spring cover) ($2)
Phoenix
Pole Position
Raiders of the Lost Ark
RealSports Baseball
RealSports Baseball (1987 Atari Corp) ($2)
RealSports Football
RealSports Football (1987 Atari Corp) ($2)
RealSports Soccer
RealSports Tennis ($2)
RealSports Volleyball
Sky Diver (1986 Atari Corp) ($3)
Space Invaders (text w/o Taito copyright)
Space Invaders (text w Taito copyright)
Space Invaders (picture label)
Space War (missing end label)
Space War (picture label)
Star Raiders
Street Racer (yellow text)
Super Breakout
Super Breakout (1987 Atari Corp.) ($3)
Superman (picture label)
Surround
SwordQuest EarthWorld
SwordQuest FireWorld
Vanguard
Video Checkers (missing end label)
Video Olympics
Video Olympics (picture label - green end label)
Video Olympics (picture label - yellow end label) Video Olympics (picture label - yellow end label)
Video Pinball (1987 Atari Corp) (screw hole exposed) ($2)
Warlords
Yars' Revenge

20th Century Fox
M*A*S*H
Meltdown ($15)

ACTIVISION
Bloody Human Freeway ($15)
Boxing
Dragster
Enduro ($3)
Grand Prix
Ice Hockey
Megamania (with box) ($5)
Laser Blast
Stampede ($2)
Starmaster
Tennis

COLECO
Carnival
Donkey Kong

DATA AGE
Airlock
Bermuda Triangle ($3)
Journey Escape

GAMES BY APOLLO
Infiltrate (Apollo variant - missing top label)
Spacechase personalized/monogrammed edition ($35)

IMAGIC
Atlantis (daylabel version)
Cosmic Ark
Demon Attack (text)

M NETWORK
Air Raiders (missing label)
Armor Ambush
Astroblast
Dark Cavern
Football
Lock 'N' Chase
Space Attack
Super Challenge Baseball
Super Challenge Football

PARKER BROTHERS
Amidar ($2)
Star Wars: Jedi Arena ($3)

SPARROW
Arkyology ($20)

TELE-GAMES
Asteroids (64 variations)
Asteroids (64 variations)(no copyright onscreen)
Asteroids (66 variations)
Basketball
Blackjack
Breakaway IV (missing end label)
Canyon Bomber (missing end label)
Chase (missing end label)
Circus (missing end label)
Haunted House ($3)
Missile Command
Poker Plus (missing end label)
Space Combat ($2)
Space Invaders
Speedway II (missing end label)
Tank Plus (missing end label)
Target Fun (yellow text)

U.S. GAMES
Commando Raid ($3)
Space Jockey
Towering Inferno
Word Zapper

XONOX
Artillery Duel/Chuck Norris Superkicks ($10)

Price:

$1 each unless noted otherwise + S&H

$10 minimum order

PM me to order or with any questions

Justin · November 25, 2016

Yep, that's a custom one-off cabinet someone made. The Todd Rogers "Challenge Edition" was something Todd asked me years ago if I could make for him (but I couldn't). He wanted a version of Kaboom! that only had one bucket (i.e. 1 life). He also wanted a 1-life version of River Raid.

Lost Dragon · November 23, 2016

I wrote an article about this years before that book came out, where I detailed the history of when the monsters in Pac-Man became ghosts. Here's a copy of the article:

http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/articles/pac-man_monsters_ghosts/pac-man_monsters_ghosts.html

The authors of that book took issue with it because it didn't jive with their pre-conceived assumptions.

Cool story. The guys who wrote that book can be excessively pompous to the rest of us though. If you don't know every detail of every story or you don't bow down to kiss the ring.... or say you'd like a refund for something you paid them $200 for in 2010 and never received.... then they talk down to you like you're a meaningless nothing of a person. Whip out an old Atari id badge though and it's a different story.

Yes, yes they are. But more than that, their book is full of incorrect information, which I mentioned a few examples of in my article.

The Professor · November 23, 2016

Currently have an Asteroids. Price is $100 shipped. PM me if interested, thanks.

November 22, 2016

This is actually a good point. Many times HSW said the problem was he was pressed for time, yet he chose to spend at least SOME time putting in these Easter Eggs.

HSW also said he spent very little time putting in his Easter eggs, as in a matter of minutes, and he did that at the very end of the project (i.e. last day).

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