No waka waka to be heard
September 9, 2023 10:51 AM Subscribe
Atari Archive, an excellent game-by-game video retrospective of the library of the Atari VCS (aka the Atari 2600) covers its infamous port of Pac-Man. (38 minutes)
To be fair, that was also when we were given the whole outdoors to play in, no parent in sight.
posted by solotoro at 11:45 AM on September 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by solotoro at 11:45 AM on September 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
Major Havoc - - you have not been forgotten - - upon your signal the rescue team will be scrambled for your extraction.
posted by fairmettle at 11:54 AM on September 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by fairmettle at 11:54 AM on September 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
I was 8 years old in 1982 and grumpy that my parents wouldn't buy Pac Man. Until I visited a friend who's parents HAD bought her Pac Man and we both just sort of sat there in horror at how utterly, unspeakably, awful, it was.
She also got a copy of ET and I didn't and... Yeah.
praemunire I dunno about that, I wasn't rich but we had a several games. Mostly bought on sale some time after they'd been released.
I do, however, still have the solution to the Blue Maze from Adventure in muscle memory. I loaded up an emulator a while back and yup, I still go through it without hesitation or thought.
posted by sotonohito at 12:37 PM on September 9, 2023 [6 favorites]
She also got a copy of ET and I didn't and... Yeah.
praemunire I dunno about that, I wasn't rich but we had a several games. Mostly bought on sale some time after they'd been released.
I do, however, still have the solution to the Blue Maze from Adventure in muscle memory. I loaded up an emulator a while back and yup, I still go through it without hesitation or thought.
posted by sotonohito at 12:37 PM on September 9, 2023 [6 favorites]
Speaking of Atari and collections, be sure to check out the Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration. Full of behind the scenes art, ephemera, interviews, games, etc. Here's a nice write-up via IGN. Available on most major gaming platforms. I'm glad someone went to all the trouble of putting this little archive together.
And thanks for sharing that YouTube link and making this post JHarris. There's a lot in there to check out. :)
posted by Fizz at 1:06 PM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
And thanks for sharing that YouTube link and making this post JHarris. There's a lot in there to check out. :)
posted by Fizz at 1:06 PM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
As someone who loved arcade Pac-Man and was so excited to play this at home, I have no words to convey what a disappointment this was.
posted by snortasprocket at 1:08 PM on September 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by snortasprocket at 1:08 PM on September 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
All I really remember is that the day we got an Atari, we also got Pac Man. I was being punished for dawdling on my walk home from school and being late to let my sister in the house. (In my defense, I was about 11 and it was a beautiful spring day with the snow melting and friends and I were making dams in the gutters and racing sticks in the melt water. My mom also got home before my sister did, so no harm no foul.)
Of course, I wasn't told I was being punished--I had to figure it out slowly when I was given one chore after another. As soon as I'd finish and run to the living room to check out the cool game everyone was playing, they'd tell me to do something else. When they finally ran out of chores, I was told I could go to bed.
I'm more bitter about that than how much the game sucked.
posted by Ickster at 2:03 PM on September 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
Of course, I wasn't told I was being punished--I had to figure it out slowly when I was given one chore after another. As soon as I'd finish and run to the living room to check out the cool game everyone was playing, they'd tell me to do something else. When they finally ran out of chores, I was told I could go to bed.
I'm more bitter about that than how much the game sucked.
posted by Ickster at 2:03 PM on September 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
What I think the Youth of Today will never viscerally appreciate about this period is that you had, like, one game. Maybe two. Three if you were rich.
Whereas my family was not rich by any stretch, but we had a Commodore 64 and a nearby flea market, so I had infinity games (if I could get the damn things to run)
posted by penduluum at 3:09 PM on September 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
Whereas my family was not rich by any stretch, but we had a Commodore 64 and a nearby flea market, so I had infinity games (if I could get the damn things to run)
posted by penduluum at 3:09 PM on September 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
Speaking of Atari and collections, be sure to check out the Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration.
I'll second the recommendation. Worth it just for the unreleased prototypes and the stuff that was never released in the US. And I never thought I would ever have the chance to play I, Robot again!
posted by MrBadExample at 3:21 PM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'll second the recommendation. Worth it just for the unreleased prototypes and the stuff that was never released in the US. And I never thought I would ever have the chance to play I, Robot again!
posted by MrBadExample at 3:21 PM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
praemunire I dunno about that, I wasn't rich but we had a several games. Mostly bought on sale some time after they'd been released.
A couple of years after the crash, a bonanza of games could be found in discount and drug stores, as the stock they had built up in a hopeful gold rush, now difficult to move, were sold for $5 each, then $3, then $2, then $1. I got more than a few excellent titles that way.
posted by JHarris at 3:39 PM on September 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
A couple of years after the crash, a bonanza of games could be found in discount and drug stores, as the stock they had built up in a hopeful gold rush, now difficult to move, were sold for $5 each, then $3, then $2, then $1. I got more than a few excellent titles that way.
posted by JHarris at 3:39 PM on September 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
In junior high for the annual fundraising carnival we brought in two 2600 machines with Pac Man cartridges, this was right after the release when most kids would have only seen it in TV commercials. We charged a quarter a game, just like the arcade, had a 30-minute line all day, setting the fundraising record in the process.
posted by COD at 3:41 PM on September 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by COD at 3:41 PM on September 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
COD But did anyone ever pay to play a second time?
posted by sotonohito at 3:55 PM on September 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by sotonohito at 3:55 PM on September 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
As mentioned in the video, despite its reputation, VCS Pac-Man sold extremely well, throughout the rest of the system's life. It sold seven million units, a figure that wouldn't be matched until Super Mario Bros. 3.
In recent years (but not that recent, they've been around for some time) people have made much more arcade accurate versions of Pac-Man for the VCS, using the much superior port of Ms. Pac-Man as a base.
posted by JHarris at 4:09 PM on September 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
In recent years (but not that recent, they've been around for some time) people have made much more arcade accurate versions of Pac-Man for the VCS, using the much superior port of Ms. Pac-Man as a base.
posted by JHarris at 4:09 PM on September 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
I heard thew new Atari (the one releasing the new 2600) bought the site?
JHarris, how will I know its actually Atari Pac-Man if my eyes don't bleed from green.
This world is going to hell in a handbasket, nothing is the same as my childhood, goshdarnit, the young kids should suffer like I have!
posted by symbioid at 5:16 PM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
JHarris, how will I know its actually Atari Pac-Man if my eyes don't bleed from green.
This world is going to hell in a handbasket, nothing is the same as my childhood, goshdarnit, the young kids should suffer like I have!
posted by symbioid at 5:16 PM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
Huh. I just learned about the acquisition. AtariAge forums are a critical watering hole for Atari hackers. I hope the site is backed up.
posted by credulous at 9:59 PM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by credulous at 9:59 PM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
Atari also recently purchased MobyGames. I didn't even know these sites were for sale, let alone that someone would want to buy them.
posted by JHarris at 10:00 PM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 10:00 PM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
We had an Intellivision and had tons of games, including, most memorably for me, Tron (which terrified me due to the sound effect for getting shocked), Snafu, Burgertime, and the free game you could get with points from KoolAid. Then we got an Atari 2600 and never built the library back up.
posted by Tandem Affinity at 10:15 PM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Tandem Affinity at 10:15 PM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
Intellivision is fascinating to me because of the way it imploded to to hubris, or at least due to really terrible business decisions.
It got to market after the Atari 2600, and it cost more, so it never really did match 2600 sales, but it was vastly superior by every other measure especially on from a tech standpoint because the 2600 was built using a slow CPU and low RAM even by the standards of the day.
But what really killed Intellivision was Mattel's decision to claim it could, and soon would, be possible to transmorgrify it into a real home computer with the fabled and never actually materialized keyboard expansion. The Intellivision core unit was supposed to slot into a bigger box that would turn it into a full blown computer with a keyboard, of course, but also more RAM, better CPU, and the advertising said it'd do your taxes, track your fitness, do word processing, and more!
Worse, they sold pre-orders for the keyboard expansion. And that was the real downfall.
Because they couldn't do it at a price point that would work. Eventually, facing lawsuits and fines for failure to produce the goods after pre-selling the product, Mattel tried to fob off a shitful thing that didn't do a tenth of their claims and that bogged them down even more and thus passed the Intellivision in a welter of lawsuits, lost profits, and hubris.
Not that Atari did much better. ET was a massive blow, then they tried recapturing their earlier success by releasing an actually better console but by then people were burned by Atari and we entered the dark age of American home gaming until the NES came along. No subsequent Atari console ever really sold enough to be worth mentioning.
posted by sotonohito at 7:27 AM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
It got to market after the Atari 2600, and it cost more, so it never really did match 2600 sales, but it was vastly superior by every other measure especially on from a tech standpoint because the 2600 was built using a slow CPU and low RAM even by the standards of the day.
But what really killed Intellivision was Mattel's decision to claim it could, and soon would, be possible to transmorgrify it into a real home computer with the fabled and never actually materialized keyboard expansion. The Intellivision core unit was supposed to slot into a bigger box that would turn it into a full blown computer with a keyboard, of course, but also more RAM, better CPU, and the advertising said it'd do your taxes, track your fitness, do word processing, and more!
Worse, they sold pre-orders for the keyboard expansion. And that was the real downfall.
Because they couldn't do it at a price point that would work. Eventually, facing lawsuits and fines for failure to produce the goods after pre-selling the product, Mattel tried to fob off a shitful thing that didn't do a tenth of their claims and that bogged them down even more and thus passed the Intellivision in a welter of lawsuits, lost profits, and hubris.
Not that Atari did much better. ET was a massive blow, then they tried recapturing their earlier success by releasing an actually better console but by then people were burned by Atari and we entered the dark age of American home gaming until the NES came along. No subsequent Atari console ever really sold enough to be worth mentioning.
posted by sotonohito at 7:27 AM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
→
That's very worrying for me. MobyGames, while a commercial entity, seemed to be very open about game metadata. The "new" Atari seems to be taking a "Nintendo - only more so" approach to IP.
posted by scruss at 8:49 AM on September 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Atari also recently purchased MobyGames
That's very worrying for me. MobyGames, while a commercial entity, seemed to be very open about game metadata. The "new" Atari seems to be taking a "Nintendo - only more so" approach to IP.
posted by scruss at 8:49 AM on September 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
I was hoping it was a comprehensive archive but thank you!
posted by cashman at 9:09 AM on September 10, 2023
posted by cashman at 9:09 AM on September 10, 2023
those archives are out there. it is said that one such archive is all of about 2.5MB, 7zipped.
posted by glonous keming at 10:13 AM on September 10, 2023
posted by glonous keming at 10:13 AM on September 10, 2023
The other thing that killed the Intellivision was a lack of arcade ports.
You could (and Mattel did, famously) put Atari 2600 and Intellivision sports games side-by-side and just laugh at the difference -- sluggish blobs with one action button versus articulated limbs and far more useful controls. But Atari won the battle through a far vaster game library and through having arcade name recognition value. There were cousins of famous games on Intellivision, but if you wanted the arcade ports, you either bought the System Changer Atari 2600 adapter or you hoped third parties would port them over.
Atari actually did a decent job with most of its Atarisoft ports for the Inty. (As did Mattel returning the favor, porting some of its titles to the 2600 on the M-Network label.) Pac-Man on the Intellivision, for instance, was solid. Coleco's ports for non-ColecoVision systems were notoriously awful, and Parker Bros. were something of a mixed bag.
posted by delfin at 2:12 PM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
You could (and Mattel did, famously) put Atari 2600 and Intellivision sports games side-by-side and just laugh at the difference -- sluggish blobs with one action button versus articulated limbs and far more useful controls. But Atari won the battle through a far vaster game library and through having arcade name recognition value. There were cousins of famous games on Intellivision, but if you wanted the arcade ports, you either bought the System Changer Atari 2600 adapter or you hoped third parties would port them over.
Atari actually did a decent job with most of its Atarisoft ports for the Inty. (As did Mattel returning the favor, porting some of its titles to the 2600 on the M-Network label.) Pac-Man on the Intellivision, for instance, was solid. Coleco's ports for non-ColecoVision systems were notoriously awful, and Parker Bros. were something of a mixed bag.
posted by delfin at 2:12 PM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
But what really killed Intellivision was Mattel's decision to claim it could, and soon would, be possible to transmorgrify it into a real home computer.
That's ultimately what killed Atari as well. By the time that they figured out that the gamer market wasn't moving to computers as quickly as European markets were and launched the 5200, they were already past the precipice of the Great Crash.
posted by dances with hamsters at 2:14 PM on September 10, 2023
That's ultimately what killed Atari as well. By the time that they figured out that the gamer market wasn't moving to computers as quickly as European markets were and launched the 5200, they were already past the precipice of the Great Crash.
posted by dances with hamsters at 2:14 PM on September 10, 2023
Tangentially related, the HistoricalSource account on GitHub has commented source code for several ancient Atari games like Ms Pac-Man for the 7800 home system and Battlezone for vector displays in arcades.
posted by autopilot at 2:29 PM on September 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by autopilot at 2:29 PM on September 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Mattel tried to fob off a shitful thing
The Mattel Aquarius! I actually have one of them, acquired a year or so ago at a local vintage toy show. There is a SURPRISINGLY robust fan community dedicated to this little machine.
posted by hanov3r at 8:11 PM on September 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
The Mattel Aquarius! I actually have one of them, acquired a year or so ago at a local vintage toy show. There is a SURPRISINGLY robust fan community dedicated to this little machine.
posted by hanov3r at 8:11 PM on September 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
But what really killed Intellivision was Mattel's decision to claim it could, and soon would, be possible to transmorgrify it into a real home computer with the fabled and never actually materialized keyboard expansion. The Intellivision core unit was supposed to slot into a bigger box that would turn it into a full blown computer with a keyboard, of course, but also more RAM, better CPU, and the advertising said it'd do your taxes, track your fitness, do word processing, and more!
See also: Coleco's Adam Bomb.
In 1983, the sales pitch for this type of transmogrification attempt was quite compelling for a non-hardcore computer dilettante: "You mean I can try out one of these newfangled computer machines for storing and printing my recipes, but if that doesn't end up being exciting enough, I can still play video games?" It appeared to be simplicity itself, as the Coleco Adam came in just one big box, printer and all.
posted by fairmettle at 8:35 PM on September 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
See also: Coleco's Adam Bomb.
In 1983, the sales pitch for this type of transmogrification attempt was quite compelling for a non-hardcore computer dilettante: "You mean I can try out one of these newfangled computer machines for storing and printing my recipes, but if that doesn't end up being exciting enough, I can still play video games?" It appeared to be simplicity itself, as the Coleco Adam came in just one big box, printer and all.
posted by fairmettle at 8:35 PM on September 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
What I think the Youth of Today will never viscerally appreciate about this period is that you had, like, one game. Maybe two. Three if you were rich.
Luckily (or unluckily), my dad was a tech nerd who prioritized buying Atari games over, say, winter coats for his kids. We had a 2600 and later a 7800, and accumulated maybe a dozen games - Combat, Adventure, Superman (my favorite), Missile Command, Yar's Revenge, ET, Robotron 2084, etc. I do not believe we had Pac-Man. At one point, it was sold with the console, but we bought ours before then and I believe it came with Combat.
This Sears catalog from 1982 prices Atari games between $20-28, or between $63 and $88 in 2023 dollars. Expensive, sure, but more or less comparable to today's console games.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:40 AM on September 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
Luckily (or unluckily), my dad was a tech nerd who prioritized buying Atari games over, say, winter coats for his kids. We had a 2600 and later a 7800, and accumulated maybe a dozen games - Combat, Adventure, Superman (my favorite), Missile Command, Yar's Revenge, ET, Robotron 2084, etc. I do not believe we had Pac-Man. At one point, it was sold with the console, but we bought ours before then and I believe it came with Combat.
This Sears catalog from 1982 prices Atari games between $20-28, or between $63 and $88 in 2023 dollars. Expensive, sure, but more or less comparable to today's console games.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:40 AM on September 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
The Mattel Aquarius! I actually have one of them, acquired a year or so ago at a local vintage toy show. There is a SURPRISINGLY robust fan community dedicated to this little machine.
Actually, the Aquarius was a different shitful thing, which was actually designed to be a standalone minicomputer from the get-go.
The Entertainment Computer System (ECS) was the add-on for the Intellivision that finally emerged onto store shelves; I have one, and can say that World Series Major League Baseball and Mind Strike are both interesting games that utilize it. Unfortunately, they're two of the only six cartridges that exist for it.
posted by delfin at 8:42 AM on September 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
Actually, the Aquarius was a different shitful thing, which was actually designed to be a standalone minicomputer from the get-go.
The Entertainment Computer System (ECS) was the add-on for the Intellivision that finally emerged onto store shelves; I have one, and can say that World Series Major League Baseball and Mind Strike are both interesting games that utilize it. Unfortunately, they're two of the only six cartridges that exist for it.
posted by delfin at 8:42 AM on September 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
The big console crash solved the "you had one game" problem nicely. Expensive games got slashed to single-digit prices in an effort to get the goddamned things off of store shelves; I used my local Kay-Bee Toys' discount rack as my fill-my-collection source of choice.
I do remember walking through a Lionel Kiddie City once and seeing Vectrex systems on deep discount, new in the box, and thinking "No one will ever want those." I shudder to think what I could move those for today.
posted by delfin at 8:44 AM on September 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
I do remember walking through a Lionel Kiddie City once and seeing Vectrex systems on deep discount, new in the box, and thinking "No one will ever want those." I shudder to think what I could move those for today.
posted by delfin at 8:44 AM on September 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
The big console crash solved the "you had one game" problem nicely.
Yes, but sadly by that point I was off consoles. (We never actually had a console--our neighbors did. Endless Combat and later Choplifter. My parents were eventually persuaded to plump for an "actual computer," the Atari 800, and I became a queen of Wizard of Wor and crappy BASIC programs. I wonder what happened to that thing.)
posted by praemunire at 8:59 AM on September 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
Yes, but sadly by that point I was off consoles. (We never actually had a console--our neighbors did. Endless Combat and later Choplifter. My parents were eventually persuaded to plump for an "actual computer," the Atari 800, and I became a queen of Wizard of Wor and crappy BASIC programs. I wonder what happened to that thing.)
posted by praemunire at 8:59 AM on September 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
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