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Rowan L edited this page May 22, 2026 · 1 revision

Nolan Bushnell's '70s tech incubator ushered [video game]s into [arcade]s (with Computer Space and then notably Pong, then later the [Atari Games] division) and homes (starting with the [Atari 2600], later enjoying some controversy with [Tengen] making unauthorized carts for other companies' systems), with other divisions and spin-offs introducing [Atari 8-bit] home computers (with their ATASCII character set) and later the [Atari ST] in homes and music studios, as part of a dramatic divorce between [Commodore] and its iconic CEO Jack Tramiel. All that plus the bananapants [Atari Video Music] visualiser and an [aalib] photo booth!

Named after a Go move, an entire generation of Silicon Valley tech and games companies were very careful to ensure that their name came slightly before Atari's in the phone book (notably [Apple] -- whose founders [Steves Jobs] and [Wozniak] worked at Atari making [Breakout] -- [Activision], Accolade, Acclaim and Absolute.) Its boom and bust circa 1983 following merger into Warner Bros. was dramatic and catastrophic. Bushnell pivoted to his next venture, Chuck E. Cheese's, and the brand hung on for long time (invoked in eg. [Blade Runner]) as Gen-X nostalgia that refused to die. The company currently holding its name (or "wearing its skin" as Jason Scott would have it) seems to have some game.

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