1979: Home Computers
By the
January CES show in 1979, Atari had preliminary prototypes of its two new
computers, the Atari 400 and Atari 800. With the Apple II, TRS-80 and Commodore
PET already released, and with the market for personal computers still an
unknown quantity, many people within Atari questioned this move. However, Ray
Kassar was adamant that Atari get into the computer business as soon as
possible.
In a Spring
1979 newsletter to employees, Ray Kassar explained to Atari employees about the
400 and 800, and the marketplace they would be entering.
"1979 will be a year of new
product introductions. The most ambitious of these new products is our new line
of personal computers, the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The entry into this
marketplace is a significant challenge to all of us. The market is very
competitive and the quality and product performance standard very high." cv
-Ray Kassar Q1 report to employees, Spring 1979
The good
news was that Jay Miner, Joe Decuir, 'The Fantastic Four', and the rest of
the team who had designed the Atari
computer line had done an exemplary job.
"It is hard to overstate what a feat
these machines were. Based largely on the Apple, they were designed to do
everything the Apple could do, and then some. As it turned out, the machines
were so far ahead of their time, Atari ended up having no clear idea just what
to do with them." cvi
- John Anderson,
Creative Computing
However,
while the hardware of the computers was outstanding, the software situation was
not. Since Warner was in the record business it viewed software for the
computers the same way it viewed LPs and song publishing: Warner wanted to
control it all.
Warner wanted to build every application, and threatened to sue
anyone who would dare make software for the Atari computers. This flew in the
face of the rest of the computer industry, and started the 400 and 800 off on a
shaky footing compared to the competition, which had no such restrictions.
"The big difference was Warner
Communications against Steve Jobs. Warner could never win that one. I don't know if I could have, but I
wouldn't have made the same mistakes Warner did. The main problem that allowed
Apple to dominate was, in fact, not technology but business strategy. Steve was
out evangelizing to software developers to build software for their machines.
Our strategy with the video games was that we basically wanted to give away the
hardware and make money on the software. That called for a quasi-closed system.
Warner thought that was the right
way to do the computers business, too. So they said, 'Not only are we not going
to help third-party developers, we're going to sue you if you use our operating
environment.' So everybody that wanted to get into the software business
supported Apple over Atari. So basically Warner drove the coffin nail in the
Atari 800, despite it having a clearly superior chipset, a better operating
environment... We had a lot of innovations in the Atari 800 that became
standard later on." cvii
- Nolan Bushnell
Even after
Bushnell was gone, the remaining team begged Kassar to open up the Atari
computer line to independent developers, and open-up the machines to allow for third
party peripherals. For several years
Atari refused to even provide documentation to owners of the computers about
their internals.
"All of us on the project
strongly urged senior management to make the Atari 400/800 an open design and
publish the operating system and hardware manuals. We felt this was
essential to making the computer successful because it would encourage outside
development and allow much more software to be developed than Atari could ever
produce. Unfortunately, management decided to make it a closed system. A
few years later that decision was reversed and the entire listing to the OS was
published, but Atari didn't make any effort to sanitize the comments. So, you'll
see comments in the listing like, 'I hope this works!'" cviii
- Alan Miller
Even with
their "open hardware" limitations, the Atari computers were still
feature-filled and powerful. Atari worked feverishly to prepare the line for a
November release. Part of Atari's strategy was to return to one of their old
stand-bys that had supported them from the beginning of the consumer era:
Sears.
To make it into the Sears catalog for the 1979 Christmas season, Atari sent
hand-built 400 and 800 units to Sears on August 29, 1979 so they could be considered "shipped"
for the Sears deadline. cix
"The first official small shipment of the 400/800 was
on August
29th 1979. These were hand built
pilot run units to Sears that needed to be in stock by Sept. 1 so they could
be placed in the big fall catalog. The
units were placed in the Sears warehouse and then immediately returned to Atari
after the "in stock"
requirement had been meet." cx
- Jerry Jessop
Atari's
plan was to create a new market for the 400/800 by calling them "Home
Computers". It wanted to take away the "hacker" mystique of the
devices and make them accessible to the mass market. This flew in the face of
research at the time that suggested the market for home computers would not
mature for several years. cxi
"We believe that the Atari
computers are different because from word one they were developed to take away
whatever apprehensions a first time user might have and help him or her feel
good about interfacing with our product. With Atari computers, you don't have
to stop and think before you use them. Of course, more and more of the younger
generation are learning to program and work with more sophisticated
applications, and they will have the capability of doing so with our product." cxii
-Conrad Jutson, Atari Computer Division VP of sales and marketing
"Conrad Jutson was
an extremely thoughtful, erudite gentleman with twenty years in consumer
electronics, most recently in the stereo field. His experience in that industry
revealed a clear understanding of the computer as the central console in a
components-oriented system. As it turned out, he and Atari were a little ahead
of their time." cxiii
- Michael S. Tomczyk
The first advertisements
for the Atari computers appeared in magazines such as Byte in November 1979 (which,
at the time, described itself as a "small systems" magazine.) The 400
was priced at $549, the 800 at $999. cxiv
However, despite Atari's efforts to separate the computers from the company's popular video
games, some of the first reviews (while positive) still mentioned the
connection. It was a reputation Atari's computers could never really shake.
"With the introduction of the
Atari line of computers we are seeing a third generation of microcomputer --
not just from the hardware end but also from a marketing approach. These
computers are slightly cheaper than those of the previous generation. The major
difference is in the configuration and the application for which the systems
were designed. A recent article in Computing
described the Atari computers as hybrids -- a cross between a video game and a
small computer." cxv
- John Victor, Compute! magazine
Because the
machines were closed, Atari had to develop all the games and applications for the
computers in-house. To do this, the company started ramping up applications developers
throughout 1979. Since many of the VCS programmers were disgruntled with their
situation, they saw greener pastures with the more powerful and exciting
computer line.
However, with the loss of the Fantastic Four, the VCS division
was not ready to let them all jump ship just yet. One of the first programmers
to make the switch was a recently hired war/strategy game designer named Chris
Crawford.
"On September 4, 1979 I began my career as a professional game designer at Atari. The new
Atari Home Computer System (HCS) with two models, the 400 and 800, was just
coming out, and all the game designers wanted to work on those machines.
Management therefore ordered that everybody who wanted to work on the home
computers must first complete one on the game machine." cxvi
- Chris Crawford
Crawford
had been hired to make VCS games, but his first and only, Wizard, was never released. Crawford said, "It didn't fit well
into the product line." cxvii
Since Crawford
had already designed a few computer games as a freelancer for the IBM 1130, Commodore
PET, Tandy and Apple computers, it was not too much of a jump for him to get to
work on software for the Atari 8-bit computer line.
However, without the proper
documentation, he and other software programmers for Atari had to piece
together information about the innards of the machine before they could make
many usable programs.
Even with
an emphasis on internal software, the early selection for the computers was
rather meager. There were some productivity packages like Atari Accountant,
BASIC and Atari Word Processor. However, coming from the premier name in video
games, the entertainment software left much to be desired. The meager selection
of early game titles for the computers included Basketball and Chess.
"...they didn't want the 800 to
be seen as just a game machine; they wanted to compete with the Apple II" cxviii
- Doug Neubauer
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Thanks for the great article, although I must say that I find the claim that the VIC-20 was more powerful than an Atari 400 a bit tough to swallow... ;-)
-Clay
Thanks. That probably should read "arguably more powerful" or "perceived as more powerful". In retrospect, it wasn't.
-Steve
Having worked at Time Warner, back in the SF Rush / Rise of the Robots era, I totally recognize the pattern that has also poisoned most large developers :)
Sorry to be a pingeek but I think there's a misplaced comma: Superman the pinball, more like 3500-5000 units sold according to the ipdb. 10 K sales from the late 70's on was blockbuster.
http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/7749/fairchildchannelfcartrihz0.jpg
Channel F's Videocart 12 was baseball, released in 1977.
Good catch, but I believe it says that it was the first "single player" baseball game. I believe the Fairchild game (which I played many times at my friend's house BTW...but my favorite game was Alien Invasion) required two-players. I was trying to highlight the A.I. of the VCS game.
-Steve
We'd like to translate a decent articles "The History of Atari: 1971-1977" (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2000/the_history_of_atari_19711977.php?pag
e=1) and "Atari: The Golden Years -- A History, 1978-1981" (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3766/atari_the_golden_years__a_.php) into Polish language and publish it on a popular portal jakilinux.org (and/or osnews.pl). Do you mind us doing so? Obviously proper attribution would be paid to you as the author.
Please let us know what you think about such re-publication. (My e-mail address is tprimke_at_gmail_dot_com.)
Best regards,
Tomek
Moreover, it is very unlikely that the Atari 3200 was to be based on the same chipset as the Intellivision. The Intellivision was mostly a knee-jerk reaction to the Atari 2600 from Mattel, and therefore consisted of an pre-built, off-the-shelf game system created by chip maker General Instruments. In fact, it was an actual sku item on their 1978 parts catalog. It was later customized a little, mainly to allow for more ROM and custom graphic tiles, but it was generally an off-the-shelf product.
Therefore it seems unlikely that Atari would plan to replace their aging custom-designed Atari 2600 with an off-the-shelf product, whose technology, although having some more capabilities, was just as old.
-dZ.
Thanks for that!
I'd say that from your description, the Intellivision processor could have still been one of the chips that Bushnell had tied-up in development, especially if GI was one of the companies he used. Remember, the idea that the Intellivision was based on one of those processors did not come from myself, but from a direct quote that Bushnell gave to me in an interview. Still, it's a very gray area and this why that part of the story is painted as "not definite".
-Steve
Thanks for your response. You are right, the GI microprocessor could still have been the planned successor to the Atari 2600. However, I still think it unlikely due its many limitations (weird architecture, 10-bit memory addressing, etc.).
My point was that the only reason Mattel used it was not because it was considerably better, but because they needed a quick release, and chose the General Instrument's pre-built system in haste in order to jump into the new Video Game market.
The entire Intellivision console was indeed superior, with better graphics resolution and 3-channel DSP'ed sound (although the graphics were tile-based instead of pixel-based, limiting its practicality; not to mention the ill-conceived Disc Controller!), but its microprocessor and chip technology were the products of early 1970s technology, hardly state-of-the-art; and unlikely the first choice for a successor.
But, of course, we can't ever know, and I do concede it's possible.
I do agree that competition from Mattel could have been avoided if only Atari had adhered to Bushnell's strategy.
All in all, a very interesting and satisfying article; one that brought back wonderful memories. Please keep up with the thoughtful historical accounts of our wonderful technological roots.
Thank you,
-dZ.
P.S. Why, yes, I did (and currently) own a Mattel Intellivision, thank you.
Perhaps Gamasutra can showcase the Mattel Intellivision on a future article and fulfill my well of nostalgia, as it has already done with the Atari VCS, the Commodore 64, and Video Game arcades in general.
-dZ.
No problem! Thanks for adding to the discussion. I agree, the Intellivision story needs to be told. I'd love to try to tackle it someday, especially since it all went down near my home town (they used to frequent the local arcade here while making games), Keith Robinson from the Blue Sky Rangers draws a cartoon for the local paper, and Intellivision Productions is in the same office building as my favorite Sunday breakfast coffee shop)...plus, I currently work for Mattel.
mason,
I'm happy you noticed. The quotes, to me, are the most important part.
It was Atari that really changed my life. Starting with COMBAT. My brother and I played that till the wee morning hours and although it was simplistic. I never had so much fun in my life. That would be followed by Space Invaders. Asteroids, Adventure, which was the first game that gave me the sense I could explore a world in a game. I liked the Sword Quest series as well.
Seeing a TV ad for Atari. Going to store and seeing the box art for each game. Buying a game and taking it home and opening it up. Taking the cart out and putting it into your Atari. That was pure bliss when I was growing up.
Atari is my childhood. I love Nintendo as well, but I'm not the Nintendo generation. I'm the Atari generation. Atari forever!
We re-developed 2-3 years ago Intellivision cartridges as Keith acquired the rights to unreleased games and wanted to release them for the retro crowd.
The carts are not simple ROMs, but use a time multiplexed bus for address and data, and the Intellivision hardware is definitely odd...
We've also re-developed a 2600 clone, for a product that hasn't been released (distributor problem), so I can answer a lot of questions about the 2600 hardware and some of its history if you want to do a followup.
you can contact me at: my first name that you can see on this post @ retrogamesllc.com
>>box art for each game. Buying a game and taking it home
>>and opening it up. Taking the cart out and putting it into
>>your Atari. That was pure bliss when I was growing up.
Ryan,
That is exactly what I can't shake Atari from my mind. Somehow i want to recreate those moments, but it is very difficult these days.
-Steve