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Atari 50
''Atari 50'' (subtitled ''The Anniversary Celebration'') is a video game compilation and interactive documentary about the history of Atari that comprises newly shot interviews with former Atari employees, archival footage, emulated games from the company's catalog, and six new games inspired by Atari classics. It was developed by Digital Eclipse and released on Atari VCS, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in 2022, the 50th anniversary of Atari's founding. The main feature of the game is an interactive timeline that lays out the history of the company and its products in an intuitive way. Critics have compared ''Atari 50'' favorably to a museum or traditional documentary. They praised its thoroughness and hoped other developers would receive a similar treatment. ''The Verge'' called it an achievement in video game preservation. Digital Eclipse later announced that they would be producing more "interactive documentary" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digital Eclipse
Digital Eclipse is an American video game developer based in Emeryville, California. Founded by Andrew Ayre in 1992, the company found success developing commercial emulations of arcade games for Game Boy Color. In 2003, the company merged with ImaginEngine and created Backbone Entertainment. A group of Digital Eclipse employees split off from Backbone to form Other Ocean Interactive, which, in 2015, bought and revived the Digital Eclipse brand. Among its staff is video game preservation specialist Frank Cifaldi. History Digital Eclipse was founded in 1992 by Andrew Ayre, Hans Kim, John Neil, and Howard Fukuda. The company's first offices were opened on a "nondescript, factory-filled" street in Emeryville, California, where Ayre (a native of St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador) had moved following his graduation from Harvard University to live with his girlfriend. Initially a technology startup company, Digital Eclipse soon found that their software would be useful in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Verge
''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts. The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media's proprietary multimedia publishing platform Chorus. In 2014, Nilay Patel was named editor-in-chief and Dieter Bohn executive editor; Helen Havlak was named editorial director in 2017. ''The Verge'' won five Webby Awards for the year 2012 including awards for Best Writing (Editorial), Best Podcast for ''The Vergecast'', Best Visual Design, Best Consumer Electronics Site, and Best Mobile News App. History Origins Between March and April 2011, up to nine of ''Engadget''s writers, editors, and product developers, including editor-in-chief Joshua Topolsky, left AOL, the company behind that website, to start a new gadget site. The other departing editors included managing editor Nilay Patel and staffers Paul Miller, Ross Miller, Joann ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Crane (programmer)
David Patrick Crane (born 1953 in Nappanee, Indiana, United States) is an American video game designer and programmer. Crane originally worked in the field of hardware design for National Semiconductor. He went to college at DeVry Institute of Technology in Phoenix, Arizona and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering Technology degree in 1975. Crane started his programming career at Atari, making games for the Atari 2600. He also worked on the operating system for the Atari 800 computer. After meeting co-worker Alan Miller in a tennis game, Miller told Crane about a plan he had to leave Atari and found a company that would give game designers more recognition. From this meeting, Crane left Atari in 1979 and co-founded Activision, along with Miller, Jim Levy, Bob Whitehead, and Larry Kaplan. His games won many awards while he was at Activision. At Activision, he was best known as the designer of ''Pitfall!''. ''Pitfall!'' was a huge hit; it maintained the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allan Alcorn
Allan Alcorn (born January 1, 1948) is an American pioneering engineer and computer scientist best known for creating ''Pong'', one of the first video games. Atari and ''Pong'' Alcorn grew up in San Francisco, California, and attended the University of California, Berkeley, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences in 1971. He worked for the pioneering video company Ampex, where he met Ted Dabney and several other people that would end up being constants through the Atari, Inc., Apple, Cyan Engineering and Pizza Time Theater (now known as Chuck E. Cheese's) companies. Alcorn was the designer of the video arcade game ''Pong'', creating it under the direction of Nolan Bushnell and Dabney. ''Pong'' was a hit in the 1970s. In addition to direct involvement with all the breakout Atari products, such as the Atari 2600, Alcorn was involved at some of the historic meetings of Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs (at that time an Atari e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cathode-ray Tube
A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, which emit electron beams that are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. The images may represent electrical waveforms (oscilloscope), pictures (television set, computer monitor), radar targets, or other phenomena. A CRT on a television set is commonly called a picture tube. CRTs have also been used as memory devices, in which case the screen is not intended to be visible to an observer. The term ''cathode ray'' was used to describe electron beams when they were first discovered, before it was understood that what was emitted from the cathode was a beam of electrons. In CRT television sets and computer monitors, the entire front area of the tube is scanned repeatedly and systematically in a fixed pattern called a raster. In color devices, an image is produced by controlling the intensity of each of three electron beams, one for each additive primary color (red, green, and blue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Save State
A saved game (also called a game save, savegame, savefile, save point, or simply save) is a piece of digitally stored information about the progress of a player in a video game. From the earliest games in the 1970s onward, game platform hardware and memory improved, which led to bigger and more complex computer games, which, in turn, tended to take more and more time to play them from start to finish. This naturally led to the need to store in some way the progress, and how to handle the case where the player received a " game over". More modern games with a heavier emphasis on storytelling are designed to allow the player many choices that impact the story in a profound way later on, and some game designers do not want to allow more than one save game so that the experience will always be "fresh". Game designers allow players to prevent the loss of progress in the game (as might happen after a game over). Games designed this way encourage players to 'try things out', and on r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atari Jaguar
The Atari Jaguar is a home video game console developed by Atari Corporation and released in North America in November 1993. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it competed with the 16-bit Sega Genesis, the Super NES and the 32-bit 3DO Interactive Multiplayer that launched the same year. Powered by two custom 32-bit Tom and in addition to a Motorola 68000, Atari marketed it as the world's first 64-bit game system, emphasizing its 64-bit bus used by the blitter. The Jaguar launched with '' Cybermorph'' as the pack-in game, which received divisive reviews. The system's library ultimately comprised only 50 licensed games. Development of the Atari Jaguar started in the early 1990s by Flare Technology, which focused on the system after cancellation of the Atari Panther console. The multi-chip architecture, hardware bugs, and poor tools made writing games for the Jaguar difficult. Underwhelming sales further eroded the console's third-party support. Atari atte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atari Lynx
The Atari Lynx is a hybrid 8/16-bit fourth generation handheld game console released by Atari Corporation in September 1989 in North America and 1990 in Europe and Japan. It was the first handheld game console with a color liquid-crystal display. Powered by a 16 MHz 65C02 8-bit CPU and a custom 16-bit blitter, the Lynx was more advanced than Nintendo's monochrome Game Boy, released two months earlier. It also competed with Sega's Game Gear and NEC's TurboExpress, released the following year. The system was developed at Epyx by former two former designers of the Amiga personal computers. The project was called the Handy Game or simply Handy. In 1991, Atari replaced the Lynx with a smaller model internally referred to as the Lynx II. Atari published a total of 73 games before the Lynx was discontinued in 1995 in preparation for the launch of the Atari Jaguar. History The Lynx system was originally developed by Epyx as the Handy Game. In 1986, two former Amiga designers, R. J. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atari 7800
The Atari 7800 ProSystem, or simply the Atari 7800, is a home video game console officially released by Atari Corporation in 1986 as the successor to both the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200. It can run almost all Atari 2600 cartridges, making it one of the first consoles with backward compatibility. It shipped with a different model of joystick from the 2600-standard CX40 and '' Pole Position II'' as the pack-in game. Most of the announced titles at launch were ports of 1981–83 arcade video games. Designed by General Computer Corporation, the 7800 has significantly improved graphics hardware over Atari's previous consoles, but the same Television Interface Adaptor chip that launched with the 2600 in 1977 is used to generate audio. In an effort to prevent the flood of poor quality games that contributed to the video game crash of 1983, cartridges had to be digitally signed by Atari. The Atari 7800 was first announced by Atari, Inc. on May 21, 1984, but a general release was shelved ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atari 8-bit Family
The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, and Atari XEGS, the last discontinued in 1992. They differ primarily in packaging, each based on the MOS Technology 6502 central processing unit, CPU at and the same custom coprocessor chips. As the first home computer architecture with coprocessors, it has graphics and sound more advanced than most contemporary machines. Video games were a major draw, and first-person space combat simulator ''Star Raiders'' is considered the platform's killer app. The plug-and-play peripherals use the Atari SIO serial bus, with one developer eventually also co-patenting USB. While using the same internal technology, the Atari 800 was sold as a high-end model, while the 400 was more affordable. The 400 has a pressure-sensitive, spillproof membrane keyboar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atari 5200
The Atari 5200 SuperSystem or simply Atari 5200 is a home video game console introduced in 1982 by Atari, Inc. as a higher-end complement for the popular Atari Video Computer System. The VCS was renamed to the Atari 2600 at the time of the 5200's launch. Created to compete with Mattel's Intellivision, the 5200 wound up a direct competitor of ColecoVision shortly after its release. While the Coleco system shipped with the first home version of Nintendo's ''Donkey Kong'', the 5200 included the 1978 arcade game ''Super Breakout'' which had already appeared on the Atari 8-bit family and Atari VCS in 1979 and 1981 respectively. The CPU and the graphics and sound hardware are almost identical to that of the Atari 8-bit computers, although software is not directly compatible between the two systems. The 5200's controllers have an analog joystick and a numeric keypad along with start, pause, and reset buttons. The 360-degree non-centering joystick was touted as offering more control than ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocessor-based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridges, a format first used with the Fairchild Channel F in 1976. The VCS was bundled with two joystick controllers, a conjoined pair of paddle controllers, and a game cartridgeinitially '' Combat'' and later '' Pac-Man''. Atari was successful at creating arcade video games, but their development cost and limited lifespan drove CEO Nolan Bushnell to seek a programmable home system. The first inexpensive microprocessors from MOS Technology in late 1975 made this feasible. The console was prototyped as codename Stella by Atari subsidiary Cyan Engineering. Lacking funding to complete the project, Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications in 1976. The Atari VCS launched in 1977 with n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
