Arcade trivia

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scotland
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Re: Arcade trivia

Postby scotland » March 24th, 2017, 12:00 pm

https://archive.org/details/ataricoinconnection

The internet archive has four years of Atari coin op newsletter. For instance, vol1 number 1 describes how to alter Tank to allow guideable shells. An interesting look back to late 70s arcades.

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scotland
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Re: Arcade trivia

Postby scotland » March 27th, 2017, 1:40 pm

What goes around comes around.

You've probably heard the tale that Nolin Bushnell may have kinda sort took the idea of Pong from Ralph Baer's original Odyssey unit game Table Tennis. What you may not have heard is that a few years later, Baer took an idea from an Atari arcade game, Touch Me, and made a handheld version, Simon. Simon was far more successful than Touch Me, just like Pong outshone Odyssey. The more successful games were also more polished, and sometimes that's what counts.

(Its also another place where a patent doesn't really signify invention. Baer and Bushnell had very different ideas about patents. By the way, Magnavox took Atari to court about Pong and won, but Baer seems to have gotten away with Simon without comment. It does seem like Atari had a trademark on the name "Touch Me" at one point)

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scotland
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Re: Arcade trivia

Postby scotland » April 18th, 2017, 11:07 pm

http://geekandsundry.com/the-arcade-classic-space-invaders-rolls-its-way-onto-the-table/

Got a yen for a solo dice version of Space Invaders! You may have to make your own sound effects.

An another note, a small joy in life is playing arcade Pac Man and someone commenting how long the game is taking.

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scotland
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Re: Arcade trivia

Postby scotland » June 2nd, 2017, 6:56 am

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DBRHBp4UMAEdsy_.jpg (74.28 KiB) Viewed 1153 times


A great photo of George Lucas himself trying out a cockpit Star Wars arcade game, by Atari, released in 1983. It has color vector graphics, fantastic yoke controller, and awesome gameplay.

This game is #4 on the list of most popular coin-op games of all time.

That list is:
1. Pac-Man
2. Galaga
3. Donkey Kong
4. Star Wars
5. Ms Pac-Man
6. Dig Dug
7. Asteroids
8. Defender
9. Tron
10. Tie - Tempest and Centipede
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Star_wars_gameplay.png
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matmico399
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Re: Arcade trivia

Postby matmico399 » June 2nd, 2017, 10:04 am

That is a fun game. I bet George was pretty impressed. I have the full game on a demo disc for the GC for Rogue Sqadron III. I'd wanted it for years until I finally found it late last year. I bet George was a lot more impressed with this than Spielberg was with E.T. :D


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