Podcasts about al alcorn

ANTIC Episode 113 - Feeling Fancy! In this episode of ANTIC The Atari 8-Bit Computer Podcast… The clear case Kickstarter doesn't make it, lots of FujiNet news, and we end the year 2024 with a bang by bringing you all the rest of the Atari news; all while Kay is feeling fancy… READY! Recurring Links  Floppy Days Podcast  AtariArchives.org  AtariMagazines.com  Kay's Book “Terrible Nerd”  New Atari books scans at archive.org  ANTIC feedback at AtariAge  Atari interview discussion thread on AtariAge  Interview index: here  ANTIC Facebook Page  AHCS  Eaten By a Grue  Next Without For  Links for Items Mentioned in Show: What we've been up to FASTBASIC on Mac -  (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=EricCarr.fastbasic-debugger)  10-liner option of FASTBASIC - https://github.com/dmsc/fastbasic/blob/master/compiler/USAGE.md#passing-options-to-the-compiler  Finished archiving Lee Pappas' disks!! - https://forums.atariage.com/topic/378256-lee-pappas-analog-disks-treasure-hunt/  Eaten by a Grue is back - https://monsterfeet.com/grue/notes/56  Kay TODO - https://www.atariorbit.org/2024/12/26/altirra-arm-and-sequoia/  https://www.smoliva.blog/post/friend-of-the-blog-006-kay-savetz-antic-hybrid-arts/  Keeping Up With Atari: Neoliberal Expectations in Early Electronics Advertising - https://tmgonline.nl/articles/10.18146/tmg.847  keyboard to replace domes on 130XE - https://amzn.to/4i10QZz  News Clearcase Kickstarter update - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/seethruit/injection-molded-clear-case-for-atari-800xl-computer  SpartaDOS 4.50 update - https://sdx.atari8.info/index.php?show=en_download_release  RM800XL update (from Philsan) with images: Philsan post - https://mastodon.world/@Philsan/113627289787765526  RM 800XL site - https://revive-machines.com/index-en.html  FujiNet news: FujiNet RAPID 13 (2024 wrap-up) and RAPID 12 by Andy Diller - https://www.atariorbit.org/rapid/  FujiNet news substack by Brian Cox - https://fujinews.substack.com/  Video by The VintNerd and Brian Cox on FujiNet - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XcsSznKbTs  Atari FujiNet User's and Programmer's Guide (First Draft) - Thomas Cherryhomes - https://fujinet.online/2024/12/31/early-draft-of-fujinet-users-manual-for-atari-users-0-0-2/  Atari Party East 2024 update from Andy Diller (Photos):  https://www.flickr.com/photos/vladimirvince/albums/72177720322425117  https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/t0qh6ekylnscbq6vbkkh8/APXF0_WBraGyO64fhDhVFIQ?rlkey=iey7dmfhet3ecahy229tzhfsy&e=1&dl=0  Atari 1200XL-1MB, Solder-Less 1088K SRAM-Based Memory Replacement Board by MyTek - https://forums.atariage.com/topic/378131-atari-1200xl-1mb-solder-less-1088k-sram-based-memory-replacement-board/  The Joy of Sticks article in ROMchip Journal https://www.romchip.org/index.php/romchip-journal/article/view/204 Altirra V4.30 - https://forums.atariage.com/topic/378003-altirra-430-released/  ABBUC Magazine 159 - http://www.abbuc.de  Bubble-Bobble for the Atari 8-bit released - https://vega.atari.pl/main-page/bubble-bobble/  Via Bill Lange on bluesky: “Playing "Kaiser", a pretty version of "Hammurabi" or "Kingdom" on the Atari 8-bit. I translated most of the German to English here” - https://github.com/billlange1968/Kaiser/wiki  “Archer Maclean's DropZone returns with 40th Anniversary Edition landing this December” - https://www.flickeringmyth.com/archer-macleans-dropzone-returns-with-40th-anniversary-edition-landing-this-december/  Upcoming Shows Vintage Computer Festival SoCal - February 15-17, 2025 - Hotel Fera Events Center, Orange, CA - vcfsocal.com  Midwest Gaming Classic - April 4-6 - Baird Center, Milwaukee, WI - https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/  VCF East - April 4-6, 2024 - Wall, NJ - http://www.vcfed.org  Indy Classic Computer and Video Game Expo - April 12-13 - Crowne Plaza Airport Hotel, Indianapolis, IN - https://indyclassic.org/  SFGE / VCFSE - June 20-22 Atlanta, GA - https://gameatl.com/  Fujiama - August 11-17 - Lengenfeld, Germany - http://atarixle.ddns.net/fuji/2025/  Event page on Floppy Days Website - https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSeLsg4hf5KZKtpxwUQgacCIsqeIdQeZniq3yE881wOCCYskpLVs5OO1PZLqRRF2t5fUUiaKByqQrgA/pub  YouTube Videos How Atari 8-Bit Computers Work - The 8-Bit Guy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDAZAgrzNoo  Bubble Bobble: Saberman RetroNews - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXo462Es-lg  Atari 8-bits Forever - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dZcJqTdIlk  CCA - Atari 8Bit Demoscene - 48k to 128k - The 400 Mini - Exploring Demos - CoffeeCupArcade - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ury9fxpwOvk  Seven Amazing New Atari 8-Bit Games including Bubble Bobble & Time Wizard Deluxe Edition! - ZeroPage Homebrews - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P-6zzDZpHg  Silly Trip Demo for the Atari XL/XE PAL, 64kb and single POKEY by Desire - Heaven6502 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUEMvTSUEkE  The Best *#@! Christmas Ever: An Atari 8-bit Journey Into The Vertical Blank - Into the Vertical Blank - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9YfsN51kO0  Atari 2024 Recap video - https://youtu.be/J6PqOM9pXrA  Al Alcorn presents "Early Days of Atari" Lecture @ Museum of American Heritage (August 22) - https://youtu.be/0fnMoMb32ak?si=S_PxYEzDJfemcaFs  6502 coding on Atari - Ellyse - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfK78h8cvrQ  New at Archive.org  https://archive.org/details/magatar-vol-2-num-1 https://archive.org/details/cheat-alpha-systems  

EPISODE 34 of Five At The Door brings you an intimate conversation with Jared, the creative force behind Void Cavalier. Prepare for a deep dive into the introspective and grounded world of Jared's music, as we explore the origins and evolution of his solo project. In this episode, Jared opens up about his journey through various musical identities, from Gossamer Chorus to Reckless Demure, and finally landing on Void Cavalier. We discuss the simplicity and rawness of his music, the DIY spirit that fuels his creativity, and the supportive community that has embraced his work. Listeners, get ready to be transported to the heart of Louisiana, where Jared's music is crafted amidst the absence of a local scene. He shares the personal stories behind his move to Alexandria, the influence of his musical family, and the serendipitous connections that have shaped his path. We also delve into the themes of legacy and hope that permeate Jared's latest record, "Bitter South," and his plans for the future with the upcoming EP, "Better South." Jared's music is a testament to the power of self-expression and the unyielding passion that drives the DIY community. Join us as we premiere "Whimsy Dirge," a poignant track that encapsulates the essence of Void Cavalier's sound. This episode is a celebration of the beauty in simplicity, the strength of community, and the relentless pursuit of artistic fulfillment. Here's the track that's touching hearts and souls. Tune in: [Whimsy Dirge – Void Cavalier] Remember, whether you're navigating life in a small town or creating music that resonates with the world, it's the dedication to your craft and the connections you build that keep the DIY spirit alive. Don't miss this episode and join us as we delve into the world of Void Cavalier, where every note is a reflection of personal growth and every song is a journey through the human experience. Show notes penned by your favorite chronicler of the musical odyssey at Five At The Door. --- (00:00) Good morning. How are you doing today? I'm great. Things are going so good. I'm doing great (00:39) Void cavalier is your third solo project (04:29) You grew up in the Shreveport area, which is north Louisiana (07:33) So it sounds like you were in bands beforehand (11:03) You've been mostly in the south, but Midwest has been interesting (14:56) There's a lot of people in your life that have been involved with music (15:22) April's new album is a blend of indie folk and harsh folk punk (20:56) Diy says DIY Twitter is only getting bigger because of trans visibility (22:53) I want to talk to you about whimsy dirge on this record (24:56) Al Alcorn wrote "Lost" in his neighborhood (28:42) So do you have plans? Uh, uh, yes. I am two and a half songs into writing ep two (29:14) Ben: Ep two of bitter south is about hope for the future (33:43) Until very recently, I was a medication delivery courier for a pharmacy (35:56) All right, so, everyone, uh, get up from your floor ---

My guest today is an American scientist, entrepreneur, and a founding father of the video game industry. Born in 1943, he grew up in Utah, in a Mormon family, before leaving to study engineering and business at Utah State University. While a student he played Spacewar!, one of the earliest digital games designed for the PDP-1 computer. After graduation he joined an electronics company, and there met Ted Dabney, with whom he founded a start-up company with the aim of creating a commercial version of Spacewar! for the arcades. In 1972 the pair changed the company name to Atari, a term taken from my guest's favourite board game, Go. Together with another engineer, Al Alcorn, the trio produced Pong and, in 1976, the Atari 2600 console – which together birthed the modern games industry. Throughout the seventies my guest hired dozens of young engineers, including Steve Jobs who later co-founded Apple. Since then, he has founded more than twenty companies, received the BAFTA fellowship, and has been named one of Newsweek's “50 Men Who Changed America".Thank you for listening to My Perfect Console. Please consider becoming a Patreon supporter; your small monthly subscription will help to make the podcast sustainable for the long term, and you'll receive bonus content, and access to the My Perfect Console community: https://www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole  Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Before IT Happened, our host Donna Loughlin talks to electrical engineer and gaming legend Allan “Al” Alcorn, who helped build the modern video-game industry. He was both an early employee of Atari and the creator of Pong, one of the first commercial video games to ever find its way into our homes. He gave Steve Jobs his first job in tech and was an informal advisor during Apple's early days. Later, he helped launch the first tech incubator and advised scores of young entrepreneurs as they developed their new technologies.  Listen now and learn firsthand how this Silicon Valley legend managed to disrupt numerous industries starting in a time when a personal computer was still a far-fetched dream.  Before any world-changing innovation there was a moment, an event, a realization that sparked the idea before it happened. This is a podcast about that moment — about that idea. Before IT Happened takes you on a journey with the innovators who imagined — and are still imagining — our future. Join host Donna Loughlin as her guests tell their stories of how they brought their visions to life. Jump straight into: (02:00) - Al Alcron “The Disruptor” and how he became a career troublemaker - “I was always interested in how things work. I was taking things apart and breaking things and fixing things.” (04:30) - Studying electrical engineering at UC Berkeley in the 1960's - “My inspiration was coming from my head. I was just fascinated by what could be built and what could be done.” (09:22) - Al's first job and how it led him to meet eventual video game developer Nolan Bushnell - “He seemed to me more like an entrepreneurial type. He was a young man right out of college and he wanted to invest in stocks and things like that, which is not something that normal people did.” (13:58) - Building a Pong - “I guess the moment was when we put it out on location and somebody actually came up that didn't know me and played it.” (19:04) - Working with a young hippie kid named Steve Jobs - “All of a sudden this kid shows up and he had this passion and enthusiasm, and I figured: God, he's gotta be cheap if he's that age and he's a hippie, we'll hire him!” (26:52) - Bringing arcades into the home: The video game console - “Nolan had always defined Atari as more than just an arcade company and from day one it was supposed to be a home game.”  (30:34) - Al's career in the world's best technology incubators: Apple, Silicon Gaming, etc. - “What I'm proudest of is that I was allowed through my career for whatever reason to disrupt a bunch of industries.” (36:15) - User experience and how it's evolved through video games - “Pong is one of the few, if not the only video game ever produced that required two people, there's no one-player mode and I think one of the reasons for success was that women could play it.” (40:54) - Al's hackathon for kids and how he looks to inspire them - “We want to simply give them the opportunity to be successful and create something in that field. Either a game in software, sodder up a board, create an environment, do a 3D printing, anything.” Episode resources Connect with Al Alcorn through https://www.linkedin.com/in/allan-alcorn-6530b214/ (LinkedIn) Learn more about Pong in the https://www.worldvideogamehalloffame.org/games/pong (World Video Game Hall of Fame) See https://www.moma.org/collection/works/169920? (Pong on display at the MoMA) in New York City Codehttps://www.awesomeinc.org/tutorials/unity-pong/ ( your own Pong game) Read https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102658257 (Al's interview with the Computer History Museum) Read more: https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/tech-history/silicon-revolution/al-alcorn-creator-of-pong-explains-how-early-home-computers-owe-their-color-to-this-one-cheap-sleazy-trick (Al Alcorn, Creator of Pong, Explains How Early Home Computers Owe Their Color Graphics to This One Cheap, Sleazy Trick) Before IT Happened is...

In this episode, I speak to Al Alcorn – electrical engineer, Apple Fellow and the man who created Pong – one of the earliest arcade video games and one of the first video games to be commercially successful. Pong very much put Atari at the forefront of what became the gaming industry in the early 70s.Al is a great storyteller and we dive into the early days of Atari from hiring an 18 year-old intern called Steve Jobs and watching him and Woz start Apple - to getting Pong into the hands of hundreds of thousands which launching an industry that is now worth billions. We also talk about the financial struggles Atari experienced, the copycats they had to deal with and what it meant for the company when Atari got sold and the suits came in to run it. We also talk about life post Atari for Al, as he continued to pioneer in the tech field, becoming an Apple Fellow.It is rare that one gets to talk to someone who was at the dawn of an industry so I am grateful to Al for his time and hope you enjoy our conversation, as much as I did.-----Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.------Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnhamAl Alcorn on Twitter / LinkedIn-----This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. Series 1 of this podcast is sponsored by Sensate – the device which can help to reduce stress and anxiety in less than ten minutes a day. To get an exclusive, limited offer, $25 off your first purchase, simply head to Sensate and insert my discount code POD.

I've been struggling with how to cover a few different companies, topics, or movements for awhile. The lack of covering their stories thus far has little to do with their impact but just trying to find where to put them in the history of computing. One of the most challenging is Apple. This is because there isn't just one Apple. Instead there are stages of the company, each with their own place in the history of computers.  Today we can think of Apple as one of the Big 5 tech companies, which include Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. But there were times in the evolution of the company where things looked bleak. Like maybe they would get gobbled up by another tech company. To oversimplify the development of Apple, we'll break up their storied ascent into four parts: Apple Computers: This story covers the mid-1970s to mid 1980s and covers Apple rising out of the hobbyist movement and into a gangbuster IPO. The Apple I through III families all centered on one family of chips and took the company into the 90s. The Macintosh: The rise and fall of the Mac covers the introduction of the now-iconic Mac through to the Power Macintosh era.  Mac OS X: This part of the Apple story begins with the return of Steve Jobs to Apple and the acquisition of NeXT, looks at the introduction of the Intel Macs and takes us through to the transition to the Apple M1 CPU. Post PC: Steve Jobs announced the “post PC” era in 2007, and in the coming years the sales of PCs fell for the first time, while tablets, phones, and other devices emerged as the primary means people used devices.  We'll start with the early days, which I think of as one of the four key Apple stages of development. And those early days go back far past the days when Apple was hocking the Apple I. They go to high school. Jobs and Woz Bill Fernandez and Steve Wozniak built a computer they called “The Cream Soda Computer” in 1970 when Bill was 16 and Woz was 20. It was a crude punch card processing machine built from some parts Woz got from the company he was working for at the time. Fernandez introduced Steve Wozniak to a friend from middle school because they were both into computers and both had a flare for pranky rebelliousness. That friend was Steve Jobs.  By 1972, the pranks turned into their first business. Wozniak designed Blue Boxes, initially conceived by Cap'n Crunch John Draper, who got his phreaker name from a whistle in a Cap'n Crunch box that made a tone in 2600 Hz that sent AT&T phones into operator mode. Draper would actually be an Apple employee for a bit. They designed a digital version and sold a few thousand dollars worth.  Jobs went to Reed College. Wozniak went to Berkely. Both dropped out.  Woz got a sweet gig at HP designing calculators, where Jobs had worked a summer job in high school.  India to find enlightenment. When Jobs became employee number 40 at Atari, he got Wozniak to help create Breakout. That was the year The Altair 8800 was released and Wozniak went to the first meeting of a little club called the Homebrew Computer Club in 1975 when they got an Altair so the People's Computer Company could review it. And that was the inspiration. Having already built one computer with Fernandez, Woz designed schematics for another. Going back to the Homebrew meetings to talk through ideas and nerd out, he got it built and proud of his creation, returned to Homebrew with Jobs to give out copies of the schematics for everyone to play with. This was the age of hackers and hobbyists. But that was about to change ever so slightly.  The Apple I  Jobs had this idea. What if they sold the boards. They came up with a plan. Jobs sold his VW Microbus and Wozniak sold his HP-65 calculator and they got to work. Simple math. They could sell 50 boards for $40 bucks each and make some cash like they'd done with the blue boxes. But you know, a lot of people didn't know what to do with the board. Sure, you just needed a keyboard and a television, but that still seemed a bit much.  Then a little bigger plan - what if they sold 50 full computers. They went to the Byte Shop and talked them into buying 50 for $500. They dropped $20,000 on parts and netted a $5,000 return. They'd go on to sell about 200 of the Apple Is between 1976 and 1977. It came with a MOS 6502 chip running at a whopping 1 MHz and with 4KB of memory, which could go to 8. They provided Apple BASIC, as most vendors did at the time. That MOS chip was critical. Before it, many used an Intel or the Motorola 6800, which went for $175. But the MOS 6502 was just $25. It was an 8-bit microprocessor designed by a team that Chuck Peddle ran after leaving the 6800 team at Motorola. Armed with that chip at that price, and with Wozniak's understanding of what it needed to do and how it interfaced with other chips to access memory and peripherals, the two could do something new.  They started selling the Apple 1 and to quote an ad “the Apple comes fully assembled, tested & burned-in and has a complete power supply on-board, initial set-up is essentially “hassle free” and you can be running in minutes.” This really tells you something about the computing world at the time. There were thousands of hobbyists and many had been selling devices. But this thing had on-board RAM and you could just add a keyboard and video and not have to read LEDs to get output. The marketing descriptions were pretty technical by modern Apple standards, telling us something of the users. It sold for $666.66. They got help from Patty Jobs building logic boards. Jobs' friend from college Daniel Kottke joined for the summer, as did Fernandez and Chris Espinosa - now Apple's longest-tenured employee. It was a scrappy garage kind of company. The best kind.  They made the Apple I until a few months after they released the successor. But the problem with the Apple I was that there was only one person who could actually support it when customers called: Wozniak. And he was slammed, busy designing the next computer and all the components needed to take it to the mass market, like monitors, disk drives, etc. So they offered a discount for anyone returning the Apple I and destroyed most returned. Those Apple I computers have now been auctioned for hundreds of thousands of dollars all the way up to $1.75 million.  The Apple II They knew they were on to something. But a lot of people were building computers. They needed capital if they were going to bring in a team and make a go at things. But Steve Jobs wasn't exactly the type of guy venture capitalists liked to fund at the time. Mike Markkula was a product-marketing manager at chip makers Fairchild and Intel who retired early after making a small fortune on stock options. That is, until he got a visit from Steve Jobs. He brought money but more importantly the kind of assistance only a veteran of a successful corporation who'd ride that wave could bring. He brought in Michael "Scotty" Scott, employee #4, to be the first CEO and they got to work on mapping out an early business plan. If you notice the overlapping employee numbers, Scotty might have had something to do with that… As you may notice by Wozniak selling his calculator, at the time computers weren't that far removed from calculators. So Jobs brought in a calculator designer named Jerry Manock to design a plastic injection molded case, or shell, for the Apple II. They used the same chip and a similar enough motherboard design. They stuck with the default 4KB of memory and provided jumpers to make it easier to go up to 48. They added a cassette interface for IO. They had a toggle circuit that could trigger the built-in speaker. And they would include two game paddles. This is similar to bundles provided with the Commodore and other vendors of the day. And of course it still worked with a standard TV - but now that TVs were mostly color, so was the video coming out of the Apple II. And all of this came at a starting price of $1,298. The computer initially shipped with a version of BASIC written by Wozniak but Apple later licensed the Microsoft 6502 BASIC to ship what they called Applesoft BASIC, short for Apple and Micorosft. Here, they turned to Randy Wiggington who was Apple's employee #6 and had gotten rides to the Homebrew Computer Club from Wozniak as a teenager (since he lived down the street). He and others added features onto Microsoft BASIC to free Wozniak to work on other projects. Deciding they needed a disk operating system, or DOS. Here, rather than license the industry standard CP/M at the time, Wigginton worked with Shepardson, who did various projects for CP/M and Atari.   The motherboard on the Apple II remains an elegant design. There were certain innovations that Wozniak made, like cutting down the number of DRAM chips by sharing resources between other components. The design was so elegant that Bill Fernandez had to join them as employee number four, in order to help take the board and create schematics to have it silkscreened.  The machines were powerful. All that needed juice. Jobs asked his former boss Al Alcorn for someone to help out with that. Rod Holt, employee number 5, was brought in to design the power supply. By implementing a switching power supply, as Digital Equipment had done in the PDP-11, rather than a transformer-based power supply, the Apple II ended up being far lighter than many other machines.  The Apple II was released in 1977 at the West Coast Computer Fair. It, along with the TRS-80 and the Commodore PET would become the 1977 Trinity, which isn't surprising. Remember Peddle who ran the 6502 design team - he designed the PET. And Steve Leininger was also a member of the Homebrew Computer Club who happened to work at National Semiconductor when Radio Shack/Tandy started looking for someone to build them a computer.  The machine was stamped with an Apple logo. Jobs hired Rob Janoff, a local graphic designer, to create the logo. This was a picture of an Apple made out of a rainbow, showing that the Apple II had color graphics. This rainbow Apple stuck and became the logo for Apple Computers until 1998, after Steve Jobs returned to Apple, when the Apple went all-black, but the silhouette is now iconic, serving Apple for 45 years and counting. The computers were an instant success and sold quickly. But others were doing well in the market. Some incumbents and some new. Red oceans mean we have to improve our effectiveness. So this is where Apple had to grow up to become a company. Markkula made a plan to get Apple to $500 million in sales in 10 years on the backs of his $92,000 investment and another $600,000 in venture funding.  They did $2.7 million dollars in sales in 1977. This idea of selling a pre-assembled computer to the general public was clearly resonating. Parents could use it to help teach their kids. Schools could use it for the same. And when we were done with all that, we could play games on it. Write code in BASIC. Or use it for business. Make some documents in Word Star, spreadsheets in VisiCalc, or use one of the thousands of titles available for the Mac. Sales grew 150x until 1980. Given that many thought cassettes were for home machines and floppies were for professional machines, it was time to move away from tape. Markkela realized this and had Wozniak design a floppy disk for the Apple II, which went on to be known as the Drive II. Wozniak had experience with disk controllers and studied the latest available. Wozniak again managed to come up with a value engineered design that allowed Apple to produce a good drive for less than any other major vendor at the time. Wozniak would actually later go on to say that it was one of his best designs (and many contemporaries agreed). Markkula filled gaps as well as anyone. He even wrote free software programs under the name of Johnny Appleseed, a name also used for years in product documentation. He was a classic hacker type of entrepreneur on their behalf, sitting in the guerrilla marketing chair some days or acting as president of the company others, and mentor for Jobs in other days.   From Hobbyists to Capitalists Here's the thing - I've always been a huge fan of Apple. Even in their darkest days, which we'll get to in later episodes, they represented an ideal. But going back to the Apple 1, they were nothing special. Even the Apple II. Osborne, Commodore, Vector Graphics, Atari, and hundreds of other companies were springing up, inspired first by that Altair and then by the rapid drop in the prices of chips.  The impact of the 1 megahertz barrier and cost of those MOS 6502 chips was profound. The MOS 6502 chip would be used in the Apple II, the Atari 2600, the Nintendo NES, the BBY Micro. And along with the Zylog Z80 and Intel 8080 would spark a revolution in personal computers. Many of those companies would disappear in what we'd think of as a personal computer bubble if there was more money in it. But those that survived, took things to an order of magnitude higher. Instead of making millions they were making hundreds of millions. Many would even go to war in a race to the bottom of prices. And this is where Apple started to differentiate themselves from the rest.  For starters, due to how anemic the default Altair was, most of the hobbyist computers were all about expansion. You can see it on the Apple I schematics and you can see it in the minimum of 7 expansion slots in the Apple II lineup of computers. Well, all of them except the IIc, marketed as a more portable type of device, with a handle and an RCA connection to a television for a monitor.  The media seemed to adore them. In an era of JR Ewing of Dallas, Steve Jobs was just the personality to emerge and still somewhat differentiate the new wave of computer enthusiasts. Coming at the tail end of an era of social and political strife, many saw something of themselves in Jobs. He looked the counter-culture part. He had the hair, but this drive. The early 80s were going to be all about the yuppies though - and Jobs was putting on a suit. Many identified with that as well. Fueled by the 150x sales performance shooting them up to $117M in sales, Apple filed for an IPO, going public in 1980, creating hundreds of millionaires, including at least 40 of their own employees. It was the biggest IPO since Ford in 1956, the same year Steve Jobs was born. The stock was filed at $14 and shot up to $29 on the first day alone, leaving Apple sitting pretty on a $1.778 valuation.  Scotty, who brought the champagne, made nearly a $100M profit. One of the Venture Capitalists, Arthur Rock, made over $21M on a $57,600 investment. Rock had been the one to convince the Shockley Semiconductor team to found Fairchild, a key turning point in putting silicon into the name of Silicon Valley. When Noyce and Moore left there to found Intel, he was involved. And he would stay in touch with Markkula, who was so enthusiastic about Apple that Rock invested and began a stint on the board of directors at Apple in 1978, often portrayed as the villain in the story of Steve Jobs. But let's think about something for a moment. Rock was a backer of Scientific Data Systems, purchased by Xerox in 1969, becoming the Xerox 500. Certainly not Xerox PARC and in fact, the anti-PARC, but certainly helping to connect Jobs to Xerox later as Rock served on the board of Xerox. The IPO Hangover Money is great to have but also causes problems. Teams get sidetracked trying to figure out what to do with their hauls. Like Rod Holt's $67M haul that day. It's a distraction in a time when executional excellence is critical. We have to bring in more people fast, which created a scenario Mike Scott referred to as a “bozo explosion.” Suddenly more people actually makes us less effective.  Growing teams all want a seat at a limited table. Innovation falls off as we rush to keep up with the orders and needs of existing customers. Bugs, bigger code bases to maintain, issues with people doing crazy things.  Taking our eyes off the ball and normalizing the growth can be hard. By 1981, Scotty was out after leading some substantial layoffs.  Apple stock was down. A big IPO also creates investments in competitors. Some of those would go on a race to the bottom in price.  Apple didn't compete on price. Instead, they started to plan the next revolution, a key piece of Steve Jobs emerging as a household name. They would learn what the research and computer science communities had been doing - and bring a graphical interface and mouse to the world with Lisa and a smaller project brought forward at the time by Jef Raskin that Jobs tried to kill - but one that Markkula not only approved, but kept Jobs from killing, the Macintosh.  Fernandez, Holt, Wigginton, and even Wozniak just drifted away or got lost in the hyper-growth of the company, as is often the case. Some came back. Some didn't. Many of us go through the same in rapidly growing companies.  Next (but not yet NeXT) But a new era of hackers was on the way. And a new movement as counter to the big computer culture as Jobs. But first, they needed to take a trip to Xerox. In the meantime, the Apple III was an improvement but proved that the Apple computer line had run its course. They released it in 1980 and recalled the first 14,000 machines and never peaked 75,000 machines sold, killing off the line in 1984. A special year. 

A new miniseries kicks off with “the dumbest, simplest game ever made” - Pong! You'll want to sit in on this history lesson as we recount the origin of video arcade games which includes hippy candles, Nolan Bushnell, celestial bodies, Al Alcorn, and all the *bleeps* and *bloops* that built Atari. Exactly how many Pong clones were there? Which came first: the home video console or the video arcade game? How did a lie lead to the fastest-growing company in U.S. history at the time? Who really came up with the idea for Pong? Along the way we get sidetracked with memories of Videotopia, entertain the thought of a Street Fighter/Computer Space conversion, discuss the Pong RPG, and Pastblaster gets triggered by an eclipse (or was it an ellipse?).

A new miniseries kicks off with “the dumbest, simplest game ever made” - Pong! You'll want to sit in on this history lesson as we recount the origin of video arcade games which includes hippy candles, Nolan Bushnell, celestial bodies, Al Alcorn, and all the *bleeps* and *bloops* that built Atari. Exactly how many Pong clones were there? Which came first: the home video console or the video arcade game? How did a lie lead to the fastest-growing company in U.S. history at the time? Who really came up with the idea for Pong? Along the way we get sidetracked with memories of Videotopia, entertain the thought of a Street Fighter/Computer Space conversion, discuss the Pong RPG, and Pastblaster gets triggered by an eclipse (or was it an ellipse?).

ในวันที่ Atari ได้ก่อตั้งขึ้นเมื่อวันที่ 27 มิถุนายน ปี 1972 Nolan Bushnell ได้ว่าจ้างวิศวกรคนแรกของเขา Al Alcorn ซึ่งเป็นนักฟุตบอลระดับมัธยมปลายจากละแวกซานฟรานซิสโก ที่เรียนรู้การซ่อมโทรทัศน์ด้วยตัวเองผ่านหลักสูตรที่มหาวิทยาลัยเบิร์กลีย์ ในเวลานั้น Bushnell มีสัญญาที่จะสร้างวีดีโอเกมใหม่ให้กับ บริษัท Bally Midway ในเมืองชิคาโก ซึ่งแผนการคือการทำเกมแข่งรถ ซึ่งดูเหมือนจะน่าสนใจกว่า เกมยานอวกาศสุดฮิตอย่าง Spaewar ในสมัยนั้น เลือกฟังกันได้เลยนะครับ อย่าลืมกด Follow ติดตาม PodCast ช่อง Geek Forever’s Podcast ของผมกันด้วยนะครับ References : https://www.pinterest.com/pin/427771664586310436/?autologin=true =========================ร่วมสนับสนุน ด.ดล Blog และ Geek Forever Podcast เพื่อให้เรามีกำลังในการผลิต Content ดี ๆ ให้กับท่านhttps://www.tharadhol.com/become-a-supporter/——————————————–ติดตาม ด.ดล Blog ผ่าน Line OA เพียงคลิก :http://line.me/ti/p/~@tharadhol =========================ช่องทางติดตาม ด.ดล Blog เพิ่มเติมได้ที่Fanpage : www.facebook.com/tharadhol.blogBlockdit : www.blockdit.com/tharadhol.blogTwitter : www.twitter.com/tharadholInstragram : instragram.com/tharadholTikTok : tiktok.com/@tharadhol.blogLinkedin : www.linkedin.com/in/tharadholWebsite : www.tharadhol.com

Many of us grew up playing cartridge-based games. But there's few who know the story behind how those cartridges came to be. And even fewer who know the story of the man behind them: Jerry Lawson. Few people realized how his vision would change video games. Jenny List explains how before Jerry Lawson, a console could only play one game. Benj Edwards describes how Lawson partnered with a pair of engineers to design a console with swappable cartridges. Pong creator Al Alcorn recounts the FCC limitations on Lawson’s Fairchild Channel F—and recognizes Lawson’s immense contributions to the gaming industry. And those in the know, like Jeremy Saucier, advocate for sharing Lawson’s story.Because Lawson’s story was almost lost, he was recently recognized by Joseph Saulter at the Games Developer’s Conference—thanks to the work of journalist John William Templeton. And his children, Anderson and Karen Lawson, share how passionate Jerry was about electronics—and how much it meant that he finally got the recognition he deserved.If you want to read up on some of our research on Jerry Lawson, you can check out all our bonus material over at redhat.com/commandlineheroes. Follow along with the episode transcript.

mexico.sae.edu Referencias: Librería de música de AVID Extracto de video Al Alcorn talks about creating Pong at Atari in 1972 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeWwKOq0cwk&t=77s

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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Al Alcorn, video game pioneer and co-founder of Atari, to talk about when he first met co-founder Nolan Bushnell (2:30), breaking into a world dominated by pinball machines (6:30), making Pong (9:00), taking it to a bar (12:00), starting a manufacturing company (14:30), hiring hippies to work in a former roller rink (18:30), when copycats emerged (22:00), almost going bust (25:50), creating the first mass-market home console (28:45), striking a deal with Sears (30:30), building a company of young people (36:30), the hot tub announcement (40:10), why they sold to Warner (44:30), the culture clash (47:30), obsoleting their own products (52:00), hiring Steve Jobs (55:10), funding his trip to India (58:00), turning down Jobs’ offer to invest in Apple (1:00:00), and how Silicon Valley culture has changed (1:03:15) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Welcome to the History of Computing Podcast, where we explore the history of information technology. Because understanding the past prepares us for the innovations of the future! Today we're going to look at Pong. In the beginning there was Pong. And it was glorious! Just think of the bell bottoms at Andy Capp's Tavern in Sunnyvale, California on November 29th 1972. The first Pong they built was just a $75 black and white tv from a Walgreens and some cheap parts. The cabinet wasn't even that fancy. And after that night, the gaming industry was born. It started with people starting to show up and play the game. They ended up waiting for the joint to open, not drinking, and just gaming the whole time. The bartender had never seen anything like it. I mean, just a dot being knocked around a screen. But it was social. You had to have two players. There was no machine learning to play the other side yet. Pretty much the same thing as real ping pong. And so Pong was released by Atari in 1972. It reminded me of air hockey the first time I saw it. You bounced a ball off a wall and tried to get it past the opponent using paddles. It never gets old. Ever. That's probably why of all the Atari games at the arcade, more quarters got put into it than any. The machines were sold for three times the cost to produce them; unheard of at the time. The game got popular, that within a year, the company had sold 2,500 , which they tripled in 1974. I wasn't born yet. But I remember my dad telling me that they didn't have a color tv yet in 72. They'd manufactured the games in an old skate rink. And they were cheap because with the game needing so few resources they pulled it off without a CPU. But what about the code? It was written by Al Alcorn as a training exercise that Nolan Bushnell gave him after he was hired at Atari. He was a pretty good hire. It was supposed to be so easy a kid could play it. I mean, it was so easy a kid could play it. Bushnell would go down as the co-creator of Pong. Although maybe Ralph Baer should have as well, given that Bushnell tested his table tennis game at a trade show the same year he had Alcorn write Pong. Baer had gotten the idea of building video games while working on military systems at a few different electronics companies in the 50s and even patented a device called the Brown Box in 1973, which was filed in 1971 prior to licensing it to Magnavox to become the Odyssey. Tennis for Two had been made available in 1958. Spacewar! had popped up in 1962 , thanks to MIT's Steven “Slug” Russel's being teased until he finished it. It was initially written on the TX-0 and was ported to the PDP, slowly making its way across the world as the PDP was shipping. Alan Kotok had whipped up some sweet controllers, but it could be played with just the keyboard as well. No revolution seemed in sight yet as it was really just shipping to academic institutions. And to very large companies. The video game revolution was itching to get out. People were obsessed with space at the time. Space was all over science fiction, there was a space race being won by the United States, and so Spacewar gave way to Computer Space, the first arcade game to ship, in 1971, modeled after Spacewar!. But as an early coin operated video game it was a bit too complicated. As was Galaxy Game, whipped up in 1971 by Bushnell and cofounder Ted Dabney, who's worked together at Ampex. They initially called their company Syzygy Engineering but as can happen, there was a conflict on that trademark and they changed the name to Atari. Atari had programmed Galaxy Game, but it was built and distributed by Nutting Associates. It was complex and needed a fair amount of instructions to get used to it. Pong on the other hand needed no instructions. A dot bounced from you to a friend and you tried to get it past the other player. Air hockey. Ping pong. Ice hockey. Football. It just kinda' made sense. You bounced the dot off a paddle. The center of each returned your dot at a regular 90 degree angle and the further out you got, the smaller that angle. The ball got faster the longer the game went on. I mean, you wanna' make more quarters, right?!?! Actually that was a bug, but one you like. They added sound effects. They spent three months. It was glorious and while Al Alcorn has done plenty of great stuff in his time in the industry I doubt many have been filled with the raw creativity he got to display during those months. It was a runaway success. There were clones of Pong. Coleco released Telestar and Nintendo came out with Color TV Game 6. In fact, General Instruments just straight up cloned the chip. Something else happened in 1972. The Magnavox Odyssey shipped and was the first console with interchangeable dice. After Pong, Atari had pumped out Gotcha, Rebound, and Space Race. They were finding success in the market. Then Sears called. They wanted to sell Pong in the home. Atari agreed. They actually outsold the Odyssey when they finally made the single-game console. Magnavox sued, claiming the concept had been stolen. They settled for $700k. Why would they settle? Well, they could actual prove that they'd written the game first and make a connection for where Atari got the idea from them. The good, the bad, and the ugly of intellectual property is that the laws exist for a reason. Baer beat Atari to the punch, but he'd go on to co-develop Simon says. All of his prototypes now live at the Smithsonian. But back to Pong. The home version of pong was released in 1974 and started showing up in homes in 1975, especially after the Christmas buying season in 1975. It was a hit, well on its way to becoming iconic. Two years later, Atari released the iconic Atari 2600, which had initially been called the VCS. This thing was $200 and came with a couple of joysticks, a couple of paddles, and a game called Combat. Suddenly games were showing up in homes all over the world. They needed more money to make money and Bushnell sold the company. Apple would become one of the fastest growing companies in US History with their release of the Apple II, making Steve Jobs a quarter of a billion dollars in 1970s money. But Atari ended up selling of units and becoming THE fastest growing company in US history at the time. There were sequels to Pong but by the time Breakout and other games came along, you really didn't need them. I mean, pin-pong? Pong Doubles was fine but , Super Pong, Ultra Pong, and Quadrapong, never should have happened. That's cool though. Other games definitely needed to happen. Pac Man became popular and given it wasn't just a dot but a dot with a slice taken out for a mouth, it ended up on the cover of Time in 1982. A lot of other companies were trying to build stuff, but Atari seemed to rule the world. These things have a pretty limited life-span. The video game crash of 1983 caused Atari to lose half a billion dollars. The stock price fell. At an important time in computers and gaming, they took too long to release the next model, the 5200. It was a disaster. Then the Nintendo arrived in some parts of the world in 1983 and took the US by storm in 1985. Atari went into a long decline that was an almost unstoppable downward spiral in a way. That was sad to watch. I'm sure it was sadder to be a part of. it was even sadder when I studied corporate mergers in college. I'm sure that was even sadder to be a part of as well. Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, the founders of Atari, wanted a hit coin operated game. They got it. But they got way more than they bargained for. They were able to parlay Pong into a short lived empire. Here's the thing. Pong wasn't the best game ever made. It wasn't an original Bushnell idea. It wasn't even IP they could keep anyone else from cloning. But It was the first successful video game and helped fund the development of the VCS, or 2600, that would bring home video game consoles into the mainstream, including my house. And the video game industry would later eclipse the movie industry. But the most important thing pong did was to show regular humans that microchips were for more than… computing. Ironically the game didn't even need real microchips. The developers would all go on to do fun things. Bushnell founded Chuck E. Cheese with some of his cresis-mode cash. Once it was clear that the Atari consoles were done you could get iterations of Pong for the Sega Genesis, the Playstation, and even the Nintendo DS. It's floated around the computer world in various forms for a long, long time. The game is simple. The game is loved. Every time I see it I can't help but think about bell bottoms. It launched industries. And we're lucky to have had it. Just like I'm lucky to have had you as a listener today. Thank you so much for choosing to spend some time with us. We're so lucky to have you.

In this bonus episode of the Alta podcast, recorded on March 21, 2019 at Books Inc’s Opera Plaza location, we discuss the many complicated legacies of the late Steve Jobs with three Silicon Valley mainstays who worked with and knew him well. Our panelists include Andy Hertzfeld, who was a member of the original Apple Macintosh development team in the 1980s, Tom Zito, who penned the recent Alta article on Steve Jobs that inspired this event, and who first met Jobs in 1977 while working for the Washington Post, and Al Alcorn, who among other things created the Pong video game, and first hired an 18-year-old Steve Jobs at Atari. Along with moderator Blaise Zerega, Alta’s Managing Editor, the panel recollects their time with Jobs and debates the many legacies of this man who changed the way we communicate

In this episode, we explore the seedy side of the video game business, including the rise of Atari corporation and how it helped create a work culture that so many silicon valley companies today are trying to fix. This episode is the second in a three-part series. The overarching goal of this set of shows is to explore the rise of video games and to explain the impact they’ve had on the sociology of the modern world. In Falken's Maze technologist and former international relations professor Jason Thomas explores the intersection of technology, history, and culture. Created for listeners who wistfully long for the 80s but want to understand the complexities of today, this podcast demystifies and explains the world's most compelling technologies and events through 80's movies, music, and television. This is where history, tech, and retro pop collide. If you enjoyed the show, tell a friend, leave a review, click some stars!! Find us online at www.falkenspodcast.com. References: Cool Cops, Hot Show (Time Magazine, Sept. 1985) Hamster Vice Miami Vice Theme by Jan Hammer First-Hand:The Development of Pong: Early Days of Atari and the Video Game Industry by Allan Alcorn Atari Company and Its Downfall Once Upon Atari by Howard Warshaw Nolan Bushnell Interview - The Glory Days of Atari Game Developers Conference Statement on Pioneer Award Nolan Bushnell Apology Macho ‘brogrammer’ culture still nudging women out of tech (Financial Times December 2018) Music: CBS Special Presentation Intro Street Dancing by Timecrawler 82 is Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (4.0) International license I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626 Ft: J Lang, Morusque Paint The Sky by Dysfunction_AL (c) copyright 2015 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Photo by Adam Birkett

This week Jeremy and Jeremiah have a candid chat with Al Alcorn, the legendary creator of the very first coin-op smash hit video game, Pong! Al shares some great stories of the origins of Pong and the first days at Atari. Don't miss this episode! Jeremy also continues the Mediajuice Live series in Behind the Curtain with a chat about shooting on location. And the guys chat about the Nintendo Labo announcements that just went public!Don't forget to head over to @MediajuiceTwitt and vote for this week's Button Masher's Poll: What is your favorite classic Nintendo accessory? Light Gun Power Glove Power Mat Don't forget to head over to Mediajuice.com for all things Mediajuice!

Internal commentary for the potential song title "Yar's Revenge Designer Howard Scott Warshaw Slam Dunks A Football" by The Flowers of Disgust appears here courtesy of The Flowers of Disgust: The football was innovative yet enigmatic. | HSW is in my view the most important pre-NES Era game designer from a creative standpoint, and I include Al Alcorn in this statement. | pre-NES or pre-Miyamoto? | Is there really a difference? I mean yes, I suppose you could date a so-called "Miyamoto Era" from the time he joined Nintendo in 1977, or maybe with his creation of Donkey Kong in 1981, but I really don't think this is what people normally think of when they think of Miyamoto's influence from a game design standpoint (Not to mention such a designation would completely ignore the meaningful contributions of Gunpei Yokoi, who was essentially Miyamoto's mentor on the project). While no serious person would claim Donkey Kong itself isn't historically significant, the game itself doesn't hold a candle to the likes of Super Mario Bros. or Zelda in terms of actual influence on the direction of video game design. In many areas DK is much more derivative than it is innovative, from its characters and plot (cribbed from King Kong and Popeye, among others) to its gameplay (which owes a lot more than is generally recognized to earlier titles such as Space Panic and Crazy Climber). What I think is actually the more important thing to recognize about Donkey Kong is the story of its development, from the last ditch effort to recoup the sunk costs of the Radar scope debacle to Hiroshi Yamauchi's decision to entrust NOA's future in the harebrained schemes of one low-level engineer -- and the lucky accident of its sucess. It's this spirit of throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks that continues to drive most of Nintendo's successes to this day. So in summary I would say that although Miyamoto's pre-NES work certainly represents an auspicious beginning to his career as a designer, he did not achieve greatness (nor his corresponding industry "rock star" status) until his later work for the NES/Famicom, which likewise did not become a true worldwide phenomenon until the successes of SMB and Zelda, among others. This is why I would argue that to say "Pre-Miyamoto" is essentially the same thing as saying "Pre-NES" from a periodizational perspective, which is the implicit perspective of all of our song titles and commentary. | Have you played "Space Panic"? That game SUUUUUUCKS! | No, but I did play Crazy Climber on an original cabinet last week, and the control scheme is pretty fascinating. There are two joysticks that have to be alternated simultaneously up and down to simulate (more or leass) the physical act of climbing. Takes some getting used to but it's really quite clever. | To me the important thing about Miyamoto isn't any particular game feature or innovation that he invented. The genius of Myamoto is really his ability to take an existing genre and carefully refine it so that it becomes more "fun". Hence, Donkey Kong is way more "fun" than Space Panic. Even though, through a certain narrow lens, Space Panic might be more "innovative", Donkey Kong is really a much more important game in the history of the genre. To go back to your original statement, I guess I think the central questions is: what do you mean by "from a creative standpoint"? I wonder if you aren't defining "creativity" a bit too narrowly when you dismiss Miyamoto's early arcade work. | Sure, that's probably a valid criticism. And I do agree with you in regards to Miyamoto's penchant for refining the innovations of others, and of course the "fun" factor remains something that is poorly understood to this day (On this particular point I would recommend Curtiss Murphy's excellent blog and podcast "Game Design Zen", especially his hugely insightful visual representation of what he and others term 'flow' which can be found in the post for episode 2). I just think if you're going to be so reductive as to say, "This here is 'The Miyamoto Era'" (and though you didn't use that exact term I think it's fair to say it's implied by your use of 'Pre-Miyamoto' as a delineator) then it makes far more sense to designate his work on the Family Computer as the herald of that era because, again, it was not until that point that he became an icon. It was not until that point that he did his most important, most innovative, and most influential work. It was not until that point that he fully emerged from the shadows of Yokoi et al. to finally wield complete control over what I would without hesitation call the Gesamtkunstwerk of SMB and Zelda. Donkey Kong is a landmark in the history of Nintendo, surely, but in the story of Miyamoto's development, it is mere prologue. | What?? | Please explain to which element(s) of the preceeding your query is referring. | Objectively speaking, I think the original Donkey Kong is probably more significant than Yar's Revenge in terms of it's impact, though admittedly, without defining precisely what we mean by 'significant', this is basically a nonsensical statement. With regards to fun, I think it's all well and good to explore the concept of "fun" on a objective/theoretical level. "Fun" may indeed be a wooly concept that, from a game-design perspective, is tricky to define in a purely reductive sense. HOWEVER we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that in our subjective experience as players-of-games, it is all too easy to identify when a game is "fun". One is reminded of the famous line by Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart, "I know it when I see it". Stewart of course, was referring to pornography, but it is equally applicable in this case. I can't tell you precisely what makes a game fun, but I know whether a game is fun or not when I play it. I will look this Curtiss Murphy gentleman though, as this does seem an interesting topic. | When did I ever say that Yar's Revenge was "more significant" than Donkey Kong "in terms of it's [sic] impact"? My original statement was focused solely on creativity of design, and did not reference DK at all. I freely concede that DK was more impactful than YR; I'm simply stating an opinion about Howard Scott Warshaw's artistic chops. At the risk of going off on a tangent, let's draw on, as an analogy, a comparison between Pong and Computer Space, Nolan Bushnell's prior effort from the previous year. Now I'm sure as hell not going to say Pong is poorly designed (the hallmark of good design often being simplicity, which is its own rabbit hole...), but what I will say is that Computer Space is a way more interesting game, at least considered intrinsically. While simple by today's standards, it failed essentially because it was designed and playtested exclusively by engineers and mathematicians, and hence was too confusing for the average n00b to grasp. I think there's room to argue which game is 'better' from a creative standpoint, but we should absolutely not make the mistake of saying Pong is artistically better than Computer Space specifically because of the former's relative success. Now, with regard to your rather confusing citation of Potter Stewart (who always makes me think of (Jimmy) Stewart's nemesis Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life), I'm not certain what point you are trying to get across. Potter Stewart's statement is generally not quoted earnestly even by anti-pornography activitsts these days; are you reappropriating it into the arena of fun in video games in an effort to genuinely endorse the concept of subconscious objective identification as a process, or are you making a wry, pithy critique of modern gamers' fickleness/proclivity to rush to judgement? I am reacting specifically to your statement "...in our subjective experience as players-of-games, it is all too easy to identify when a game is 'fun'." [Empahsis added]. It seems like you are implying in this first part of your argument that we are making a mistake when we rely on our gut instincts when engaging in video game criticism, but then you go on to, it would seem, essentially endorse the Potter Stewart approach immediately thereafter. Could you clarify, please? | To clarify, I am endorsing the view of "fun" as something that we should generally trust our guts on, even though it is difficult to define in a reductive sense. In that quote, I should not have said "all too easy", but rather just "really fucking easy". Likewise I think Potter's statement re:pornography is in most cases correct, though I'll concede that it really doesn't lend itself to any concrete legislation–certainly not any good legislation. Re: HSW, Yar's Revenge, Donkey Kong etc… I think essentially we are struggling with different ideas about what "creativity" is, what it means for something to be "important" and certainly what it means for something to be "important from a creative standpoint". You seem to be endorsing the view that a game can be "important from a creative standpoint" when it is interesting but shitty. If you think "creativity" is really just about doing something "original" or "new", being the "first" to do some particular thing, then I guess that's a reasonable statement to make. I tend to take a more holistic view of creativity myself, put more emphasis on the overall artistic vision, and the execution thereof. | And I'm not necessarily disagreeing with most of that, I'm simply drawing a distinction between creative success (or artistic success, if you prefer) and commercial success. Frankly, I don't know what you're talking about when refer to something being "interesting but shitty"; are you saying Yar's Revenge is shitty?? Or are you referring to Computer Space/Pong/Crazy Climber/Space Panic? I'd say Space Panic is the only one of those you could credibly claim to believe is shitty, but for the sake of argument I'd say that yes, something can be interesting even if it is shitty. However I do concede it most probably can't be "important from a creative standpoint", at least in the sense that I employ that phrase (that it has exerts a lasting influence on at least some significant subset of game design). In this sense I think it's laughable to say that Yar's Revenge is not significant. If you look at HSW's body of work it seems to be his most fondly remembered game (or at least tied with Raiders) and he is easily the most celebrated Atari designer from that time period. | Yars' Revenge is ok I guess. It's certainly quirky, and I could see how people might have found it fun. If we're talking about single-screen space shootin' games i'd definitely take Robotron 2084 over it any day of the week. "Raiders", OTOH, seems completely unplayable and cryptic. I think people probably like to talk about the importance of Raiders because (like "Adventure") it seems kinda like a proto-adventure-game or proto-metroidvania thing. Fair enough I guess. Again, for my part, I'm less concerned with who "came up with" these ideas "first", and I'm more interested in who made games that were actually fun to play. When I look at "Raiders" I see a game whose designer was over ambitious and didn't really understand the limitations of the platform for which he was designing… an interesting failure at best. That's better than an uninsteresting failure, but not exactly the hallmark of a great game-designer IMO. Again, if all you care about is who was first-to-market with some particular "innovation", then sure HSW is your man.| That's all well and good, and such reductionism would be fine if we could all agree on an objective classification of what constitutes "fun", which is in my esitmation a fool's errand. However, since we are prisoners of our own predilections in taste, we cannot make a consistent, quantifiable analysis of any game unless we make the effort to subsume our subjective reaction underneath at least a veneer of cold, logical, data-driven criticism. Of COURSE it matters that we find a game "fun", but without the wisdom that comes from patient, comparative study of the titles that comprise its various peers, antecedents and imitators, and without appraisal given to the personalities and forces behind its genesis, our analysis is doomed to be incomplete. I'm not by any means saying that innovation is the only important thing to focus on, but I am fascinated by it because I yearn to gain a deeper understanding of how things developed and where they are likely to go in the future. That's what keeps me getting up in the morning, at least from a video gaming standpoint. | I prefer to think of my "fun" benchmark as more holistic than reductive. | Sure, and Id preferto be having sex with Scarlet Johanson, but that doesn't mean it's the case. | Zing! | Agreed. I think we're done here. Today's strip

Leslie Berlin, the historian who oversees Stanford University's Silicon Valley Archives, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new book, "Troublemakers: How a Generation of Silicon Valley Upstarts Invented the Future." The book traces the rise of seven men and women who were pioneers of the tech industry in the 1970s and early 1980s, including ASK Group founder Sandy Kurtzig, Pong designer Al Alcorn and Apple's "adult supervision," Mike Markkula. Berlin says learning about their importance to the history of the tech industry is "like watching the Big Bang." She also talks about the challenges of preserving tech's history when some crucial documents may be stored in obsolete file formats; why the tech boom happened in Silicon Valley, and not some other part of the country; and why the risk of America's immigration laws becoming more restrictive is a great danger to the industry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Owen Rubin joins Tim Robertson again this week to discuss self-driving cars, Microsoft trying to trick people into upgrading to Windows 10, living in a simulated reality, Al Alcorn, and the best ways to speed up your Mac. This episode is sponsored by Macsales.com

Owen Rubin joins Tim Robertson again this week to discuss self-driving cars, Microsoft trying to trick people into upgrading to Windows 10, living in a simulated reality, Al Alcorn, and the best ways to speed up your Mac. This episode is sponsored by Macsales.com

Roger Hector, Atari’s Advanced Products Group Roger Hector started at Atari back in 1976.  As a creative designer, he was originally hired by Pete Takaishi (Industrial Design Manager), before working in the Art Department, and then finally for Al Alcorn.  He managed Atari's Advanced Products Group and helped create the Cosmos system before leaving to co-found Videa with Howard Delman and Ed Rotberg. This interview took place September 17, 2015. Teaser Quotes: “There’s a LOT of interesting stories!” “There was an old saying around there, somewhat cynical, but they said ‘hey, we could make money faster than we can piss it away’” “I think Atari was a place that deserved your fandom.” Links: Roger Hector interview for Gamasutra - http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3672/a_veteran_with_character_roger_.php?print=1 Roger Hector interview for 2600 Connection - http://www.2600connection.com/interviews/roger_hector/interview_roger_hector.html TopTrack Mobile App for Musicians developed by Roger - www.toptrackartist.com

Al Alcorn, Atari Employee #3   Welcome to Antic, the Atari 8-bit computer podcast.  I’m Randy Kindig and this is an interview-only episode of Antic.  My guest for this interview was employee #3 at Atari where he created the world's first commercially successful video game: Pong, Mr. Al Alcorn.  Al was a very influential figure in the early Atari and has a lot of great stories to share about those early days.  He tells us about Steve Jobs stealing employees from Atari, his opportunity to buy into Apple, why Atari got into the home computer business, a special meeting with IBM concerning Atari computers, and his thoughts about why Atari failed.  Al has a terrific sense of humor and I very much enjoyed talking with him.  I hope you enjoy it too.   Links   Al twitter   Al Alcorn at Wikipedia   Space Ghost Coast to Coast with Al   Al Alcorn Interview at IGN  

In this episode: Josh Blake playing Jake Ochmonek (a Ralph Macchio imitation on ALF), actress Randee Heller played the mother on ALF's "Macchio" and The Karate Kid's real Macchio, an IFOCE update (Joey Chestnut defeats Sonya Thomas again in the Nathan's 2013 Hot Dog Eating Contest), Larry David and J.B. Smoove in upcoming HBO film Clear History (2013), our review of This is the End (2013) starring the cast of Pineapple Express, why are cameo's featured in movie trailers?, our review of Man of Steel (2013) starring Henry Cavill, our short review of The Heat (2013) starring Sandra Bullock, using a RedBox machine, disappointing review of A Good Day to Diehard (2013) starring Bruce Willis, upcoming Annie remake (2014) starring Jamie Foxx, our get well wishes to Tim Curry, how get away with murder by using blood transfusions, were ice cream cones a bad invention?, life-size inflatable hamster balls for children, celebrity deaths (Slim Whitman, Bobby Blue Bland, James Gandolfini, and Dennis Farina), Blues Brothers video games, crowdfunding for a new World's Largest Pinball Museum in California, and more crowdfunding for the Seriously?! smartphone game by video game programming legends Roger Hector and Al Alcorn. 62 minutes - http://www.paunchstevenson.com

Tim and David discuss Pacific Rim, the business of hollywood films, feedback about Android, and a special interview with video game pioneer Roger Hector to discuss Seriously?!