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Martin Goldberg is a veteran game industry developer, writer, archiver, and historian who is well known and respected in the Atari community. Marty’s articles can be found in many gaming publications, and he co-authored Atari Inc. Business is Fun, A Complete History of Atar Inc. in collaboration with Curt Vendel as part of their effort to preserve Atari history with their Atari Museum archive. The period during which Aquaventure is thought to have been under development was one of change and turmoil within the Consumer Division and at Atari overall. Atari was scrambling to cover losses from a steadily worsening video game market. During the summer Jim Morgan was named as CEO of Atari, replacing Ray Kassar. But at the time of the announcement, Jim was still employed by Phillip Morris and wanted to take a sabbatical so Manny Gerard was tasked with running the company on a day-to-day basis until JIm could officially step into the CEO role at Atari. As a result of all the change, it seems there was even less executive supervision of the consumer development team, and less reporting on their activity making its way up to the top. Jim Morgan started work at Atari on September 9th, and within a few weeks he issued a company-wide freeze on all projects and products in development. A month-long product-by product evaluation period followed during which a large number of projects were modified or completely canceled. Atari’s Ataritel advanced telephone division is an example of one large casualty of the process. It also caused delays in other products that were scheduled to be released for that holiday season. The two Aquaventure ROMs that have been discovered so far have July and August dates. From what Gary Shannon has recently related to Atari prototype games expert Matt Reichart, Aquaventure was done and ready to be released and as a result Gary was set up for receiving a deadline bonus. What most likely happened is that Aquaventure was a victim of the development freeze and resulting product culling as Jim Morgan looked to make the company’s offerings leaner to help Atari weather what some were nicknaming the “Atari Crash.” View the full article on the Atari® XP website

Matt Reichert is the expert on Atari prototypes, and he maintains atariprotos.com, a website dedicated to documenting these unfinished and unreleased games. His thorough research and detailed game reviews are important to the Atari community, and impressive. I’ve explored several different possibilities on the identity of the programmer(s) of Aquaventure. Interviews with Gary Shannon and Tod Frye made it clear that they were both involved, while an analysis of the code indicated that Nick Turner may have also contributed code. Some new interviews, supported by some additional research, seems to have led to an answer. The final pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place when Rachel Kaser at VentureBeat picked up on the story of how Atari was searching for the programmer of Aquaventure. In the comments below the article Gary Shannon wrote: "I wrote the code but did not design the game. I was given detailed design specs by someone whose name I don't recall. It was my first project at Atari." This was a bit different than what Gary had told me back in January: “I had just come to Atari from Sega (coin op "Gremlin-branded" games) and was very new to the 2600, so I was definitely not the lead programmer and did mostly grunt work behind the scenes.” Intrigued by this new information I got back in touch with Gary in order to dive deeper. He said that the more he thought about the project, the more details came back to him. “As I recall, since it was my first 2600 project, I was given a sort of skeleton to build on. It might have been extracted from another game, but I don't remember for sure. I do remember that I only did coding, no design, and I did not start from absolute scratch, but had a framework to build on.” This new information probably excludes the possibility that there is a mysterious third programmer for Aquaventure. After a few more email exchanges with Gary and some additional research, I was able to piece together these details. New information probably excludes the possibility that there is a mysterious third programmer for Aquaventure. It turns our Gary Shannon was the primary, and probably sole developer on the project. After starting at Atari, Gary was assigned to work on the title Miss Piggy’s Wedding. Gary said that after working on Miss Piggy for a few weeks, the project was canceled in late June of 1983: “Miss Piggy just didn't pan out. Nobody seemed to be able to come up with a playable concept for the game. It was just a maze to run around in with routes that were pretty ugly and didn't resemble Miss Piggy or Kermit. We all tossed around different ideas, but nothing stuck. The 2600 just couldn't deliver on what Henson Associates (HA!) visualized. I think they wanted something more recognizably Muppets.” After leaving the Miss Piggy project, Gary was then given a new assignment for an original game from the ‘Brainstorming Book’. The ‘Brainstorming Book’ was a list of ideas and concepts that programmers came up with during meetings that could be used for new games. Sometimes, programmers would look through the book and pick an idea that appealed to them, other times, they were simply assigned one by their manager. It was this new assignment for Gary that would become Aquaventure. Your browser does not support our video. Gary was given a design specification with a rough idea of how the game would look and play and a code ‘skeleton’ (a game kernel most likely based on Tod Frye’s code) as a starting point. It would take Gary about two months, starting in late June and ending around the end of August, to program Aquaventure. After finishing up, Gary then went on to work on a game based on ESP (Extrasensory Perception) called Mind Race (which was never finished) before he left Atari. It has long been thought that Aquaventure was never completely finished, as the currently available prototype (which is dated August 12th) still has some minor gameplay bugs. However, Gary does think he completed the game before he moved on to another project: “I do remember quite clearly completing the coding and testing of the game, and moving on to a new project (Mind Race). The last official word was that it was going to be released. I was paid a "completion bonus" against future royalties. I have no idea why it wasn't released.” What makes this statement all the more interesting, is that no internal Atari document or memo mentions the existence of Aquaventure. Not only does Aquaventure not show up on a memo of “Finished Titles Not Released” dated August 2, 1984, but it also is not mentioned in the “Unfinished and Not Supported” section of the same memo. If Atari had a finished game ready to go, why not list it as a potential title that could be released? Did Aquaventure somehow get lost in the turmoil caused by the eventual sale of Atari to Jack Tramiel? Was it specifically left off the memo for an unknown reason? Did Atari think it had already been released? It would appear that Aquaventure has a few more secrets left. View the full article on the Atari® XP website

Matt Reichert is the expert on Atari prototypes, and he maintains atariprotos.com, a website dedicated to documenting these unfinished and unreleased games. His thorough research and detailed game reviews are important to the Atari community, and impressive. Matt took the time to share his research on the origins of Aquavanture, one of the three prototypes Atari XP is launching on cartridge. We know that Gary Shannon and Tod Frye each played a part in programming Aquaventure. There may have been at least a third programmer involved. That developer's identity remains unknown, but we do have a lead. I reached out to Dennis Debro and Thomas Jentzsch, two prominent Atari 2600 homebrew authors, for help looking through the Aquaventure code for any hints on the identity of the programmer. They could not find the programmer’s identity hidden in the code, and they could not identify any easter eggs, so solving this mystery wasn’t going to be easy. The only legible text in the code are the words ‘Looney’ and ‘Hot’. Dennis and Thomas think those words are comments left by the programmer to designate the locations of the bank switching hotspots. Bank switching hotspots are placed in the code to tell the game when to switch out the current code in memory for another section of code. Programmers did this as a work around to the 4K block memory limits of the Atari 2600. While interesting, this didn’t help shed any light on the identity of the programmer. Digging deeper, they discovered that some of the code used in Aquaventure was also found in other Atari 2600 games. These snippets formed a ‘digital fingerprint’ of code created by a single author that spans multiple titles. It was not uncommon for programmers to reuse small blocks of code that they had developed to do common functions, such as setting up startup vectors, display lists, and other ‘housekeeping’ tasks that were common to all games. Aquaventure shares code fragments with several Atari 2600 games, including Demons to Diamonds, Frog Pond, and Super Breakout, all games that were worked on by programmer Nick Turner. Nick started working at Atari in 1979. He worked on Super Breakout in 1981 before working on Demons to Diamonds and Frog Pond in 1982. After finishing Frog Pond in late August of that year, there is a six to seven month gap in his programming timeline before we know he started pre-work on Snoopy and the Red Baron. It’s possible that Nick worked on Aquaventure during this period. The use of common code across the four titles certainly suggests this is a strong possibility. The timeframe would also explain why Gary Shannon cannot recall who wrote the code, as Gary didn’t come into contact with the Aquaventure project until after Nick left Atari in May of 1983. So far this is only a theory because I have not been able to track down Nick Turner. It could also turn out that the unknown programmer simply reused some of Nick’s code, or that the code in question was part of a library that was shared by several programmers at Atari. The search continues. If you have information to share about Aquaventure, please contact Atari through one of our social channels. View the full article on the Atari® XP website

In Aquaventure you play as a deep sea treasure hunter, desperate for one big score to make your name, and your fortune. Your crew believes it has discovered the shipwreck of the notorious pirate Calico Blue, and his lost treasure. We couldn’t find any reference to a real life Calico Blue, but there was a Calico Jack. Calico Jack was an English pirate captain named Jack Rackham who sailed in the Bahamas in the early 1700s. His nickname was apparently derived from the clothing he wore. Calico -- rough cotton adorned with woodblock prints -- was a popular fabric in 18th century England. Calico Jack is credited with designing the iconic Jolly Roger pirate flag .. a skull over crossed swords. He is also famous for having two women on his crew … the pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny -- at a time when women crewmembers were quite rare. There are many articles and books on the subject for pirate fans. You can read more about the “pirate queens” Mary Read and Anne Bonny in Smithsonian magazine. Calico Jack Rackham also had a cameo, unfortunately for him as a corpse, in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which you can read about on his PotC Fandom wiki page. You can read a bio for Calico Jack at goldenageofpircacy.org. View the full article on the Atari® XP website

Matt Reichert is the expert on Atari prototypes, and he maintains atariprotos.com, a website dedicated to documenting these unfinished and unreleased games. His thorough research and detailed game reviews are important to the Atari community, and impressive. Gamers today are accustomed to long elaborate credit sequences, but what they may not know is that sharing the names of the individuals who created games was not the norm. Until the mid 1980s, most games were only credited to the company that published them. In a fast growing market, studios wanted to make it more difficult for competitors to poach talented programmers by keeping their identities hidden. This practice is why we don’t know exactly who conceived and programmed Aquaventure, along with many other titles from the early 80s. Understandably, this practice was not appreciated by programmers and it caused a fair amount of friction within studios at the time, including at Atari. This conflict over the issue only increased as video games became more popular, and individual programmers began to achieve a level of prestige among their peers. As the industry grew, and new studios formed, this practice began to change. Activision, formed by a group of ex-Atari employees, was one of the first and most prominent studios to begin crediting individuals, and their names appeared in-game on title screens and in the user manual. The creators even provided tips and tricks for playing their games in the manuals. It wouldn’t be until 1983 that Atari changed course and started crediting programmers on game boxes and manuals. By most accounts, the turning point was when programmer Steve Woita threatened to walk unless he was given credit on his new game, Taz. There was one wonderful upside to the struggle over recognition -- the invention of the easter egg. An easter egg is a hidden message or feature in a game that has to be discovered by players. While extravagant easter eggs are common now, they were rare in the early years of video games. Easter eggs were usually simple because memory and cartridge space for games was very limited. The most common form of easter egg revealed the programmers name or initials when a certain joystick or button combination was input. These button combinations were usually quite complex so they could not be uncovered by accident. This practice was not encouraged by the studios and publishers which led some programmers to bury their name or initials in the game code. Ironically, as easter eggs became popular, Atari started embracing them and encouraged programmers to add them to their code. There is some question about what game should get credit for having the first easter egg. One candidate is an Atari arcade game. In 1977, programmer Ron Milner hid the words “Hi Ron!” in the Atari arcade game Starship 1. The method for uncovering this easter egg was complex, and required timing that was difficult to pull off, so it remained hidden for over 40 years. The first easter egg on a home console was supposed to be on the short-lived Fairchild Channel F. In the game Spitfire (released in August, 1977) the player could trigger the words “Done By Michael K Glass” to display on the screen by inputting a series of forty eight numbers using the four game option buttons. Unfortunately for Glass, changes to the Channel F cartridges made his easter egg impossible to trigger in the consumer release of the game. It was only accessible in some in-store demo units, so it was not until much later that players could appreciate his easter egg using emulation. Recent evidence suggests that Spitfire may have been available on the Channel F starting on April 15th, 1977. If accurate, it would predate the Starship 1 easter egg by almost four months. The debate may never be resolved, and many people want to disqualify Spitfire because home users could not actually trigger the easter egg. The first Atari 2600 game to become widely associated with an easter egg was the 1980 release Adventure. Even though the industry started credited programmers in the mid 80s, the tradition of adding hidden names to games continued into the 90’s. Over time, easter eggs have evolved into a wide variety of inside jokes, new game options, extra levels, and even references to other games. View the full article on the official Atari® XP website

Matt Reichert is the expert on Atari prototypes, and he maintains atariprotos.com, a website dedicated to documenting these unfinished and unreleased games. His thorough research and detailed game reviews are important to the Atari community, and impressive. The origins of the original Aquaventure prototype are a bit hazy. It is thought to have been discovered by a collector at a flea market in central Florida in the mid 1990s. Eventually, this collector brought the prototype to a gaming gathering where it was dumped and distributed along with several other Atari 2600 prototypes among collectors. By the late 1990s Aquaventure had made its way into the hands of many collectors, but it kept a relatively low-profile. It wouldn’t be until its inclusion on the Atari Flashback 2 console in 2005 that the game would reach a wide audience. Two other copies of Aquaventure surfaced in the early 2000s, both having the exact same code as the prototype found in Florida. In 2003 a slightly earlier prototype was found in the collection of a former Atari programmer. This earlier version has not yet been made public and any differences present in this version are currently unknown. Aquaventure has never been spotted on internal Atari memos or status reports from the early 80s, so it has been a challenge to determine who was responsible for programming the game. For many years it was assumed that programmer Gary Shannon wrote Aquaventure during his short tenure at Atari. I first credited Gary, along with developer Tod Frye, with the development in my article about Aquaventure on atariprotos.com in 2008. I was able to interview Gary more recently, and he made it clear that he was not the original programmer: “I had just come to Atari from Sega (coin op "Gremlin-branded" games) and was very new to the 2600, so I was definitely not the lead programmer and did mostly grunt work behind the scenes. After that I worked for a few weeks on another failed 2600 game, Miss Piggy's Wedding, which never got off the launching pad at all.” Tod Frye also shared some of his thoughts with famed programmer Howard Scott Warshaw when asked about his involvement with Aquaventure: “I actually spoke with Tod about it this morning. He looked at the screens and had no recollection of having worked on it.” When asked about the possibility that he may have only been involved with writing the kernel for the game (the core of the game that controls the display and game functions), Tod mentioned that this was possible. From a conversation he had with Atari historian Marty Goldberg: “It looks a lot like a kernel tech of mine… I made my kernel tech freely available. Probably the most widely reused kernel tech ever.” This new information means that while Tod Frye may have programmed the kernel for the Aquaventure, and Gary Shannon did minor updates to an already existing code base, the identity of the original programmer who was responsible for the majority of the code remains unknown. The search continues, we will have an update soon. In the meantime, if you know anything contact Atari through one of our social channels. View the full article on the official Atari® XP website

The team at Atari recently asked Dennis Debro some questions about the development of Yars' Return. Dennis Debro worked with Curt Vendel on the development of the Yars’ Return. He also contributed to the Atari XP release, digging into the code to make some refinements. Q: How did you get involved with the development of Yars’ Return? DD: Curt Vendel and his team at Legacy Engineering had a contract with Atari to produce the Atari Flashback 2. I worked on the game Atari Climber, one of the 40 games initially available on the Atari Flashback 2. I was excited to see the unit released. Curt had worked with Atari before, and being an enthusiast, was able to convince them to release this unit. To me, this was almost like releasing the Atari 2600 again. Having an Atari 2600 was a magical time for me as a kid. Seeing this unit coming to market was almost like recapturing that excitement. When the original units were released, I wasn’t pleased with the outcome of Yars’ Return. The original game was so buggy that it was unplayable. I reached out to Curt and voiced my opinion. I really wanted better for his work. We communicated more about this for a couple of weeks I believe. Curt sent me the final ROM for Yars’ Return and asked if I could fix it. He didn’t have original source code so I reverse engineered the ROM producing workable 6502 ASM source code. Once I fixed the game to where it was playable, Curt asked if more of his vision could be added. We then worked together to produce a working copy of Yars’ Return that fit his original vision. Q: You are a fan of Howard Scott Warshaw’s Yar’s Revenge. What about the title appeals to you? DD: I’m a fan of Howard Scott Warshaw! If we are to target Yars’ Revenge then that’s a really good question. I focused more on playing Ultimate Yars! I loved the intense battle with the Qotile. The game ramps up well. Just when you think you have the mechanics down, the Qotile gets more aggressive and starts chasing Yar! As a kid, I saw this as an original title versus an arcade copy. Later as an adult, I would learn it was Howard’s interpretation of Star Castle. Star Castle was an arcade game in the 80s and Atari had secured a license to produce it for their home consoles. Howard was tasked with creating this for the Atari 2600. Instead, Howard took what made Star Castle great, added the Howard Scott Warshaw touch, and we got Yars’ Revenge! As someone that has written code for the Atari 2600, I have a newfound respect for the title. This is a great product / title for Howard to have as his first title for the Atari 2600. He was able to get all this action done in a game that is 4K in size and only 128 bytes of RAM. With that finite amount of space, there are some tradeoffs that must be made. He solved one very well by using the actual game code as the graphics for the Neutral Zone. Q: We understand there is a twist on the easter egg in this title? DD: The original release of Yars’ Return had an Easter Egg that was really only supposed to be used as a joke for the playtesters. Unfortunately, that Easter Egg made it into production. Once I was aware of the mishap, I immediately contacted Howard to let him know. The original Yars’ Revenge has an Easter Egg that will produce Howard Scott Warshaw’s initials when triggered. In the one I made for the playtesters, I had replaced this with my name ending in a smiley face emoji as a joke. I felt awful that this made it into production. Yars’ Revenge was Howard’s creation. I didn’t want to take from that. Once I alerted Howard, he immediately responded that he understood and took no offense. I was glad to hear that. I did not want to offend him or take away from his legacy in any way. He then proceeded to send me autographed copies of his book Conquering College: The Most Fun You Can Have Learning the Things You Need To Know for some future high school graduates in my family. Thank you Howard! Q: Is there a backstory on the apostrophe in the game title? DD: The original is titled “Yars’ Revenge”. With the hero being named Yar in the manual; wouldn’t that mean the entire Yar species is seeking revenge? For the original release on the Flashback 2 unit, I don’t think anyone caught this prior to going to production so the game there was titled “Yar’s Return”. Q: Can you tell us about your work on the Atari XP version of Yars’ Return? What improvements have you been able to make in this latest release? DD: There were a couple of bugs in the release we did after the original Flashback 2 units. One was spotted after release where only one of the two Destroyer Missiles would actually harm Yar. Another would only be found in sensitive 2600 units. I hope I’m not getting too technical, but it had to do with the way I was manipulating the 6502 stack. I was able to find this thanks to the wonderful team developing the Stella emulator. Another item that was improved would be the Shield graphic. The Shield is now a solid graphic instead of being interlaced as before. I learned a lot more about coding the Atari 2600 since 2005. A proper title screen has been added as well. Now the game will display the game selection names instead of game selection numbers. This was a limitation in the original Yars’ Revenge given it was done in only 4K of coding space. Yars’ Return was expanded to 8K of coding space and I had the time so, why not. The Easter Egg was also changed. The Easter Egg, in my opinion, now gives proper credit. It also allows the player to continue their game once triggered. A feature I wanted in Yars’ Revenge. Q: You have been active in the home brew community. What is it about 8-bit game design that appeals to you? DD: I grew up on the 6502 with an Atari 2600 and later with an Atari 8-bit computer. It’s nice being able to memorize the entire instruction set in your head. Specifically for the Atari 2600, I love the tricks needed to get the Atari 2600 to do what you need it to do. This unit was originally developed to do two games, Tank and Pong. The game engineers took this vision so much further. They have produced games and utilities that the original designers never envisioned for the unit. Fast forward roughly 40 to 45 years later and the kids that grew up with this unit in their living rooms and bedrooms have now started to write for it. 40+ years later, we are still discovering new things that can be done with the 2600. Q: Anything else you would like to share? DD: Yes, I want to thank Curt Vendel for allowing me to join his Flashback 2 team back in 2005. The reason Yars’ Return exists is because of Curt. Curt loved Yars’ Revenge and wanted a sequel with the Flashback 2 unit. Yars’ Return is Curt’s vision of what that sequel would have been. Curt has done so much for this community. A lot of the Atari historical documents we have today are because of his efforts. View the full article on the official Atari® XP website

When Atari was creating games in the 70’s and 80’s, every title was programmed to work with a specific configuration of processors and memory that were called “Mappers”, and over the years, these configurations changed as developers pushed the Atari 2600 hardware to the absolute limit of its capabilities. When we started the Atari XP project, we recognized that re-releasing a wide variety of titles would require making PCB with many different configurations. From a manufacturing perspective, this wasn’t ideal because it would add complexity and likely make procurement even more difficult than it already is due to global supply chain problems. Our solution for this was to make a multi-mapper that could handle the discrete hardware demands of almost any Atari 2600 game. The multi-mapper replaces five variations of three existing mappers, so we can manufacture one board rather than 15+. Now, we are able to make all of our games from a single PCB. The integrity of the product is our biggest focus, and we wanted to ensure that these new internal components would delight both old and new Atari fans. We used some new techniques to recreate 40 year-old technology, and manufactured to exacting standards. Some highlights include: The board has identical dimensions to the original The board uses a CPLD to recreate the original mappers All parts are 5V tolerant, and are 100% safe to use on all 2600 hardware The board uses Electroless Nickel Immersion Gold with 3U" gold thickness We are very proud of this new board, and wanted to show it off before it gets hidden away inside of the cartridge. The photos below show the front and back of the new sample PCB that recently arrived, still connected by the sprue. View the full article on the official Atari® XP website

The team at Atari recently asked legendary game designer Howard Scott Warshaw some questions about Saboteur, and the connections between Saboteur and Yar’s Revenge. Q: What’s up with the Yar in Saboteur? HSW: That’s a good question. Perhaps a better question is: What’s the Yar up to in Saboteur? You will note the Yar contributes to the building of the rocket transport, but it is not clear what exactly that Yar is contributing. Remember this: You can take the Yar out of Saboteur, but you cannot take the saboteur out of Yar. Q: The hero in Saboteur is a heroic mining robot hailing from Cytonia. What are his origins? HSW: The identity of a Cytonian mining robot is part of an elaborate cover story. The same could be said for the explanation of other activities in Saboteur. So far, very little has been revealed about the true purpose of this manufacturing facility. I can’t tell you everything right now, but suffice it to say that the hero in Saboteur is actually a human being on a species-critical mission. Q: The Yars’ Revege comic book explains that Yars descended from the common house fly on Earth, who were transformed into magnificent, sentient creatures through some sort of accident. Can you tell us what happened? HSW: I *could* tell you what happened, but we don’t have enough pages here. I can tell you that the transformation from house fly to Yar was an evolutionary process over hundreds of years. But fear not, the entire story of the Yar-niverse (of which the Yars’ Revenge scenario is but a morsel) will be coming soon. Q: The villain in both Yars’ Revenge and Saboteur is the Qotile. Why are they so mad? HSW: You wacky humans! You think just because someone kills you they must be angry. Are you mad at the ants you step on while hiking? Or is it just an unfortunate consequence of a chance interaction? Also, I would question your assumptions about the role of Qotiles in Saboteur. The Yar-niverse is full of secret motives and agendas. Q: Why do you think Yars’ Revenge was such a popular title on the Atari 2600? HSW: I believe there are several reasons. Yars’ Revenge is a stimulating, multi-sensual experience. That was one of my chief design goals. Also, Yars does two things gamers love to do; establish interesting new rules and break pre-existing limiting rules. I suspect Yars’ Revenge appeals to the rebel in all of us. For a full take on Yars' Revenge, my Atari experience and much more, please check out my book: Once Upon Atari: How I made history by killing an industry. Q: Considering Yars’ Revenge was such a popular game on the Atari 2600, have you ever thought about revisiting this universe? HSW: Have I thought about revisiting this universe? Yes, but only for about 3 decades. Of course, I call it the Yar-niverse. I believe lots more entertainment will be coming from this world. In fact, precious few people realize just how deeply Saboteur is already stitched into the Yar-niverse. Remember, the Hotot identity is just a cover story. Soon we will begin the epic journey into the perceptual vortex that IS the entire Yar-niverse. To learn more about Howard's work in the video game industry, check out his book Once Upon Atari. View the full article on the official Atari® XP website

Welcome to Atari XP Discovery! Watch this space – this is where the team will reveal exclusive content from old Atari game developers, discuss the new games that we’re developing for our legacy consoles, uncover the rich history of Atari, and maybe even drop a few Easter Eggs about our upcoming releases. If that sounds like fun, you’re in the right place. If that sounds terrible, please sign up for our mailing list so that we can bother you until you love it. - The Atari Team View the full article on the official Atari® XP website