David Barnes is one of those rare people that, if you ever met, you would never forget. He has worked for IBM for a number of years, appeared in IBM commercials, and he was a self-described “OS/2 Evangelist”. He now has some kind of lead position with IBM and their Web 2.0 initiatives. Without this guy, there is no telling how far OS/2 would’ve gone. OS/2 went far, but not by IBM’s standards. If it was a smaller company, OS/2 would be considered a phenomenal success.
Everyone has at least half an idea of how I feel about Coleco (That is, if you already read about Donkey Kong for the Atari 2600). Well, of course, Coleco made the Colecovision, which was a pretty good video game system, I must admit. At the time, it blew everything away. It had the better graphics, sound, and gameplay than the Atari 2600 (DUH!), the Intellivision, and the Atari 5200. Coleco also brought a new idea to the table: the Colecovision Expansion Module. Read the rest of this entry »
We’ve just passed the Gary’s birthday, which was May 19th, 1942. He would be 70 years old if he was still alive today. While everyone, or at least most everyone, knows the names Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and, to a lesser extent, Larry Ellison, Gary is known by a relatively smaller audience. Although he was a millionaire, he never had a fraction of the wealth of the aforementioned entrepreneurs. I know that I have poked fun at Gary in the past, but that criticism is unfounded. I was one of those who accused him of throwing away a fortune. I realize now, after reading many accounts from credible sources, that Gary wasn’t entirely to blame for the fact that Intergalactic Digital Research wasn’t the company that Microsoft became. Gary invented DOS. Without him, we may not have seen any of the other people rise to prominence. It seems like Gary’s lawyer may have had more to do with IBM’s failed negation than Gary himself. What about the fact that Gary flew for hours in his plane while IBM waited on the ground to meet him? It appears to be mostly folklore by people who love to make up stories. Peter Norton, a person for whom I have a deep respect, was one of those people. He even wrote it in one of his books. One of my college professors even said that Gary lost the IBM business because he decided to go fishing that day. I somehow missed that in all of the research that I’ve done on the subject.
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In my opinion, the video game revolution started by these three games: Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong. Space Invaders was revolutionary because it was the first and best of its kind. Pac-Man was the first full-feature color video game introducing a main character. Donkey Kong was revolutionary because it was the first to have multiple levels that played differently. While Atari scooped up Space Invaders and Pac-Man, there was no doubt that they were ready to pursue Donkey Kong as well. However, Coleco was finishing up their state of the art video game system, and needed the edge that only a name game like Donkey Kong could give. Coleco won the war, paying a measly $100,000 for rights to produce the Donkey Kong game for home systems. With little development time, Coleco produced a version of Donkey Kong for the Colecovision, Intellivision, and the Atari 2600.
Okay, so this is extremely old news, but it is still interesting nonetheless. The latest suspect, L.D. Cooper, seems to be the best suspect so far (or at least, recently). His last name and the niece’s story, which was backed up by her mother, seems pretty solid. However, since there is no hard evidence (fingerprints or DNA), it can only be speculation.
So, you are Atari, the biggest computer game manufacturer on the planet. Everything you touch turns to gold. You are backed by a well-funded parent company of Warner Brothers. But, competition is heating up. You have several people who want the business that you have worked so hard to keep. You’ve got to make the games that people want. It’s 1981 and people want a home version of Pac-Man. Especially, now that it is nearing in on the Christmas season, and the people have a choice to make as far what kind of game system that they want to buy. Well, always aimed to please, Atari buys the rights to produce the home version of Pac-Man for their famed Atari 2600. If you’re one of the executives at Atari, how would you choose to handle the development of this prize?
Okay, to the two people that remember me, hello!! I’ve decided that I’m tired of all of the pretenders having fun while I’m stuck with many years of past accolades. That’s why I’ve decided to return. I love to write, and I hope you love to read. I will be spending time over the next couple of weeks working on new content. In the mean time, please fell free to see what my site last looked like seven years ago before it went bankrupt.
Click here to see the old website.
