Dadhacker started his game programming career, like many people, by making a freeware knockoff of a popular arcade game. This got the attention of Atari, who hired him to do the official conversion of Donkey Kong, then Super Pac-Man. After the crash of 1983, he survived a round of layoffs, and was pushed into the development of the Atari ST along with a group of programmers and executives from Commodore.
posted by CrunchyFrog on Mar 17, 2008 - 18 comments

The Dot Eaters. A dauntingly comprehensive history of video games, beginning with proto-PONG and Spacewar!. If it's difficult to navigate through Captain O's prize matrix, use the handy timeline/scape (the dates don't work, so don't try). It's an interesting site, for sure, but if it doesn't pique your interest maybe the links page will, since it's the largest I've ever seen. In just minutes I found the First Church of Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros fanfiction (@), and a great Robotron shrine. Plus, this noise (wav).
posted by BlackLeotardFront on Apr 27, 2006 - 16 comments

Back in April, Carmel Andrews and Charles F. Gray claimed that Commodore reverse-engineered Atari's 8-bit hardware. Bob Yannes (creator of the SID chip and co-founder of Ensoniq) responds. What results is a brief, informative history on the concept of "sprites" and the idea of reverse-engineering. More drama, reviews, and retro computing at The Atari Times. (See also this collection of links at atari.org. Happy holidays.)
posted by milquetoast on Dec 14, 2005 - 14 comments

Adventure - based on the classic text game of the same name - was the first game ever to contain an easter egg. It seems laughably primitive these days, but when it first hit shelves, Adventure was a programming masterpiece. The text version of Adventure (by Willie Crowther and Don Woods) required hundreds of KB and a mainframe computer to operate, so much that Atari brass told Warren Robinett not to even bother with a 2600 version. He did anyway, and the results are near legendary. The 2600 version of Adventure went on to sell over a million copies at $25 a pop. For his effort Robinett recieved absolutely nothing beyond his $22,000/year salary. Play the 2600 Adventure. (Flash) If you're one of those who requires some eye candy, why not download the Quake 3 Adventure Map, instead?
posted by absalom on Jan 7, 2005 - 41 comments

All you ever wanted to know about Pong, but were afraid to ask. Okay, I had no idea - none - that Pong has such a long, involved history. I'd always seen it encapsulated as a two- or three- generation buildup to the Atari 2600 home machine. David Winter has exhaustively researched the life & times of Pong (Internationally) for those interested.
posted by kokogiak on Mar 12, 2001 - 14 comments