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Did You Know???

Fun Facts about Atari

• Pac-Man was originally called Puck Man but Namco changed the name due to the fact that they thought Americans would change the four-letter word.

• Myth has it hat Atari expected E.T. to be such a popular game that they produced more cartridges than there were systems. When the game failed they supposedly buried millions of copies of E.T. in a desert landfill. The truth is Atari actually made 6 million E.T. cartrdiges and there were 20 million systems out. According to a former chief engineer at Atari there were more E.T. cartridges then there were VCS's in active use. By the time E.T. came out the VCS was 6 years old. According to Ray Kassar, president of Atari in 1983, the story about burying E.T. and Pac-Man cartridges in the desert is an "absolute lie." He claims they were dumped in discount stores. One ex-Atari vice president stated "Bullshit! They drove 14 freight trucks onto New Mexico, dug a pit, dumped millions of cartridges, drove a stram roller over them, then poured cement on top."

• In the 70's, a feud erupted between Atari and Namco over the game Breakout that ended up in court.  Atari sent an executive to smooth relations with Namco, but he was not supposed to sign any deals.  By this time Namco had grown immensely in Asia, largely due to Breakout.  Namco began developing their own games.  Impressed by the amount of new games, the Atari executive signed a contract for $1 million in exchange for rights to future games.  The executive was almost fired.  One of these future games was Pac-Man.  Atari passed on the rights to Pac-Man and it went on to Midway.  Atari felt the game was too simple.

• Nolan Bushell, Atari founder, originally named the company Syzygy (the sun, moon and earth in total eclipse).

• Atari was founded with $500 and sold four years later for $28 million.

• Gravitar was one of Atari's worst-selling games.  They eventually took the game program out and converted them into Black Widow.

• Rick Mauer, programmer of Space Invaders, reportedly got $11,000 for the cartridge that grossed more than $100 million.

• Atari gave code names to all their systems.  The VCS was "Stella."  The 400 computer was "Candy."  The 800 was "Colleen" and the 5200 was "Pam."  Supposedly, with the exception of Stella, all were named for well-endowed Atari employees.

• Steve Jobs, President of Apple Computers, began his career at Atari.

• Missle Command is a game created in the 1980's during the "nuclear war scare."  It is about the United States defending itself from Soviet nuclear missles.  The creator refused to make it an offensive game.  Therefore, one just defends his cities.  There is intentionally no ending because the creator had a moral; there is no winner in nuclear war.

These Atari facts have been submitted by Video Game Exchange located at 3008 E. Hammer Ln. #119 in Stockton.