Spring+2009+Lecture+8+Notes

= __Spring 2009 Lecture 8 Notes__ =


 


 * Within a few months after Bushnell left, others followed
 * Keenan, Williams, Lipkin – all left, getting similar severance packages
 * Alcorn stayed on – one of first employees, still received a lot of respect at company
 * Did not like company's direction, however
 * Felt Atari changed since Warner took over
 * Used to be engineering company – now marketing company
 * Eager to move to next project – Kassar wasn't interested in anything but VCS
 * End of 1978 – Alcorn convinced Kassar to let him work on new project
 * Alcorn assembled team – began developing ideas
 * Negotiated deal with bank to access patents of bankrupt company – Holosonics
 * Holosonics – held most of world's patents on holographic technology
 * Holograms – 3D images on 2D planes, created using lasers
 * Brought in specialists to develop ways of using holograms in games
 * Steve McGrew and Ken Haynes
 * McGrew developed way to put holograms on sheet of mylar
 * Alcorn used this in game system – Cosmos
 * Cosmos did not plug into TV – used LED technology
 * Tabletop game (probably too big to be considered hand-held)
 * Interchangeable cartridges – cartridges had no electronics
 * Cartridges just had overlay attached on them – very cheap to produce
 * Potentially cartridges could be sold for $10
 * Holographic overlays very impressive – did not interact with game, still pretty
 * 1st game Alcorn developed for Cosmos – based off of Russell's Spacewar
 * Instead of star-field BG, used holographic BG with 3D Asteroids
 * BG did not move, ships did not interact with BG – still stunning visually
 * 1980 - 1st working Cosmos prototype
 * Alcorn presented Cosmos to Atari marketing – not interested
 * VCS had become huge success – home-games once again lucrative
 * VCS had 75% of market – systems all sold out
 * Marketing's only job at this point to tell public VCS was unavailable
 * Did not want to take on role of marketing new product
 * Also, Manufacturing too busy with VCS to make new product
 * Alcorn looked outside of Atari
 * Found facility outside of Atari that could make Cosmos at higher quality, for cheaper
 * Atari still didn't want to fund manufacture of Cosmos
 * Alcorn and team not ready to give up
 * Asked Marketing for space at Atari booth at 1980 Winter CES in Las Vegas
 * Amazingly, Marketing said yes – Cosmos's holograms attracted attention at show
 * Alcorn decided to show Cosmos at NYC Toy Fair
 * Remembered Home Pong's failure at Toy Fair
 * Set up private suite this time to make deals away from show floor
 * Cosmos did not draw same attention as VCS, but still managed to make 250,000 sales
 * Alcorn told Kassar – Kassar still refused to make Cosmos
 * Did not want to create a product to compete with VCS
 * Probably had other reasons – many who played Cosmos were unimpressed with game
 * Felt it was step backward in game-play – Holograms just window-dressing
 * Still, Alcorn very angry
 * Felt that he would be forever stuck working on old products, or create new products which would never be made
 * Alcorn decided to quit Atari
 * 1978 – Cinematronics first gets noticed in arcade video-game industry
 * Cinematronics had been in business since 1795 and made its first games in 1976 - none were successful until 1978
 * Larry Rosenthal – hired by Cinematronics in 1978
 * Rosenthal MIT graduate – did his thesis on Russell and TMRC's Spacewar
 * Created a processor capable of producing a new type of graphics - Vector display system
 * Accurately reproduced Spacewar, which years earlier ran on expensive and huge PDP-1
 * Rosenthal convinced Cinematronics to produce game using processor
 * Space Wars – another arcade copy of Steve Russell's Spacewar
 * Cinematronics Space Wars was better – used Vector monitor
 * All other game companies using Raster monitors
 * Vector allowed for crisper graphics, more objects on screen, more complexity
 * Only draw-back – vector at this time Black and White only
 * Many vector games made after Space Wars used color overlays (such as Cinematronics Star Castle)
 * Space Wars was exact reproduction of Spacewar, though
 * Computer Space, Bushnell's version, did not do well years earlier
 * By now, gamers not afraid of complex controls – Space Wars did well
 * Cinematronics saw that players were drawn in by crisp Vector imagery
 * Produced more vector games
 * 1981 – Tail Gunner - 1st game to use true 3D Animated Objects – possible due to vector
 * Cinematronics very successful
 * Made lots of games with space theme – capitalized off of Space Invaders success
 * Other companies saw Cinematronics success – made vector games themselves
 * 1980 – Atari employee Howard Delman created vector graphics generator for Atari
 * 1st Atari game to use vector – Lunar Lander
 * Developed by Rich Moore
 * Moore took physics exercise found in many science classes – landing module on moon
 * Turned it into a game – conserve fuel, counteract inertia, compensate for moon's gravity
 * Very difficult – did not do terribly well
 * Vector engine used in Lunar Lander later used for Atari's most successful coin-op game
 * Asteroids – initial idea by Atari VP of Coin-Op Lyle Rains
 * Idea was to have ship clear asteroids from a given area
 * Idea given to programmer Ed Logg – idea of asteroids becoming smaller when shot
 * Logg used same basic control scheme as Computer Space and Space Wars
 * Added in UFOs that targeted player's ship – players got bonus points if shot UFOs
 * Logg knew tiny ship would be unreadable on Raster monitor – game would look terrible
 * Used Vector monitor
 * High resolution (1024x768) allowed clear ship and crisp outlines for other objects
 * Allowed many more objects on screen – more action in game
 * Game was tough
 * Players got extra lives at regular intervals – early players rarely lasted more than a minute
 * Game fun, though – players learned nuances
 * Teenager set world endurance record for playing a game while playing Asteroids
 * Over 36 hours on a single quarter – earned so many free lives he could take meal breaks
 * Asteroids big hit in US – 70,000 units sold - Not as big overseas – only 30,000 sold in Europe and Asia
 * Logg got nickname “Golden Boy” for string of hits - including Super Breakout, Asteroids, Centipede, Gauntlet, and Steel Talons
 * Atari's biggest competitor – Midway
 * Midway purchased by Bally in 1970's
 * Bally gave new cash-flow to Midway, allowed Bally to enter video-game market
 * Taito left Midway after Space Invaders
 * Midway needs new partner – Namco
 * Early 1980 – Midway imports Namco's' Galaxian
 * Galaxian – Space Invaders rip off, but improved
 * Color graphics, non-standard alien movement – harder game than Space Invaders
 * Galaxian one of biggest hit of the time – though not as successful as Space Invaders was
 * Namco/Midway partnership threatened Atari's leadership
 * Atari responds with Missile Command
 * Based on old game called Missile Radar – player viewed radar screen, shot down missiles
 * Bushnell had seen game years before, always discussed it at brainstorming sessions
 * Idea remained after Bushnell left
 * David Theurer – Atari programmer – presented with idea
 * Theurer just finished “Four-Player Soccer” – not a good gamers
 * “Theurer's Law” - “No one gets their first game published”
 * Theurer had difficulty with soccer game – excited about Missile gamers
 * Missile Command completed in 6 months
 * Simple game – radar screen removed – too distracting
 * Used trackball to aim player's missiles to shoot enemy missiles
 * Players had limited number of missiles to defend 6 cities
 * Enemy Jets and UFOs sometimes drop bombs – player waste missiles cleaning up bombs
 * Game ends if all 6 cities destroyed
 * Originally game going to be more complex
 * Train delivered more missiles, Submarines fought, localization options – too complex
 * Final touch added – Game Over Screen, which put the words "The End" in the middle of a giant explosion – popular visual in game (even included in the 1991 film "Terminator 2: Judgment Day"
 * Missile Command very successful


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