Nolan Bushnell is back at Atari! [Archive]

Pantechnicon

04-19-2010, 05:17 PM

The company that is now named Atari has absolutely nothing to do with the company Bushnell started. And I don't mean that in the sense that it's changed radically over the years - I mean that Infogrames has never had the slightest thing to do with the Atari of yore aside from the name.

QFT. I've made it my practice to distinguish the two corporate entities by pronouncing the name with a French accent whenever in reference to Infogrames cum Atari ("ahtah-REE").

Still, I'd be lying if I said this news didn't hold some appeal for me to revive that old Atari magic. But until the Atari name and IP are 1) back in American majority-owned hands and maybe 2) making consoles again, such gestures as hiring Bushnell are only symbolic at the very most.

Flashback2012

04-19-2010, 06:07 PM

It's finally time for Chuck E. Cheese: The Video Game!

Seriously though, that's cool that he's back at the company he started. We owe a lot to this guy and what he's done for our favorite hobby.

Here ya go...
http://www.ufointeractivegames.com/details.asp?k=2469&p=nds

http://www.ufointeractivegames.com/games/lg/cecds_3dbox277.gif

Cobra Commander

04-19-2010, 06:10 PM

otoko

04-19-2010, 06:14 PM

But until the Atari name and IP are 1) back in American majority-owned hands and maybe 2) making consoles again Hmm interesting thought... I figure I'd be on board for a modern or retro niche based Atari system.

Bojay1997

04-19-2010, 07:08 PM

That's cool and all, but does it really matter? Can this guy even wrap his mind around the idea of a modern video game? Sure he's done some great things before, but things have changed in the last 30 years.

Sadly, this appears to be the case. After Atari and CEC, he basically spent the next 30 years drifting from one venture to another, leaving a lot of half baked and failing businesses in his wake. Last I heard, his restaurant/interactive bar venture uWink was struggling to keep their last remaining location open. His concepts for on-line and other modern games looked fairly amaterish. I suspect the rest of the video game world left him behind decades ago. I respect what he created with Atari, but this move will almost certainly not bring anything new to either Atari/Infogrames or the classic community.

BHvrd

04-19-2010, 07:14 PM

Well it has been stated by Bushnel himself that he likes the new "motion" technologies. So I would expect to see him pushing towards that.

Warlords on Natal is quite an intriguing idea if I do say so myself.

Purkeynator

04-20-2010, 09:33 PM

I was always kinda interested in the guy since he comes from my hometown of Clearfield, Ut. Its kinda funny but apparently he got his start working at our local amusement park named "Lagoon" that my wife and I go to every summer. He was one of those guys that tries to guess your weight. Also my wife worked at the local Air Force base in a tool crib with an 80 year old lady who knew Nolan when he lived here locally. Small world........

Ed Oscuro

04-20-2010, 11:03 PM

It seems fine to me that somebody who inherently understood the value of games as games (I never thought I'd hear myself saying this as I've given non-arcade Atari games short shrift) and not as "interactive movies" which I'm becoming less and less fond of as the years go on. If he has to take things back to the "stone ages" to make them fun again, so be it.

In all seriousness, though, I don't think he's going to do much to change contemporary corporate gaming development and culture. Young people still make games. He will likely have some ideas to push in the right direction though.

Emperor Megas

04-21-2010, 01:25 AM

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/161774-nolan-worms-his-way-on-to-atari-board/

Can't say that everyone shares you guys' enthusiasm for the man.

goldenegg

04-21-2010, 03:07 AM

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/161774-nolan-worms-his-way-on-to-atari-board/

Can't say that everyone shares you guys' enthusiasm for the man.

Rightfully so! If anyone knows the real history of what went on at Atari, they'd feel the same way.

tom

04-21-2010, 03:50 AM

Bojay1997

04-21-2010, 11:53 AM

They just presuming on AA, who's to know if Ted even speaks the truth. All big wig corperates are liars, you just gotta live with it. There's one guy saying he's interviewing all these guys for some books, and he's actually believeing they are telling the truth.

Anyway, good to know Nolan back at Atari, now all he's gotta do is to re-start the coin-up industry for USA.

The two people conducting the interviews are two of the most respected historians in Atari collecting and have been personally responsible for the preservation of most of Atari's history. If it was just one former employee saying these things, it might be different, but many, many people have said the same things and I believe Bushnell's poor business track record speaks for itself.

tom

04-21-2010, 12:53 PM

The two people conducting the interviews are two of the most respected historians in Atari collecting and have been personally responsible for the preservation of most of Atari's history. If it was just one former employee saying these things, it might be different, but many, many people have said the same things and I believe Bushnell's poor business track record speaks for itself.

So, Ted might still lie to them, no difference.
Or, how can we believe those two people? Are they respected historians? Says who? You? See what I mean, no-one can be sure

hbkprm

04-21-2010, 12:57 PM

just listen to creeng death
its all devine intervention

Emperor Megas

04-21-2010, 01:19 PM

So, Ted might still lie to them, no difference.
Or, how can we believe those two people? Are they respected historians? Says who? You? See what I mean, no-one can be sureI suppose you could take that attitude about almost anything. But in the end, what's the likelihood of them being wrong? I'm not saying if they are or aren't, I don't really follow the Atari legacy, but it just seems like that there are Bushnell loyalists who have less reason to be than people have to believe these guys' accounts of the man. The Bushnell defense almost seems like blind loyalty/admiration, based mainly on an affinity for the former Atari brand.

Bojay1997

04-21-2010, 01:30 PM

So, Ted might still lie to them, no difference.
Or, how can we believe those two people? Are they respected historians? Says who? You? See what I mean, no-one can be sure

Look, I don't know you or how long you have been in the collecting community, but Curt Vendel who is one of the two has maintained the most extensive historical site for Atari on the web for almost a decade now. His site is atarimuseum.com. While I haven't always agreed with Curt, there is no disputing that he owns the single largest collecting of internal Atari documents and items anywhere in the world. He also has access to and has interviewed just about everyone who had anything to do with Atari. He also worked with Nolan Bushnell for a while. As if that's not enough, he was also the project manager for the Atari Flashback consoles which where sold by Atari in the last few years. So, yes, I think he knows what he's talking about.

tom

04-21-2010, 01:56 PM

Good for you

otaku

04-21-2010, 02:41 PM

I can't say one way or the other how I feel about this because I'm unsure but I'm interested in seeing what happens and I hope its good stuff not bad.

boatofcar

04-21-2010, 05:02 PM

Sadly, this appears to be the case. After Atari and CEC, he basically spent the next 30 years drifting from one venture to another, leaving a lot of half baked and failing businesses in his wake. Last I heard, his restaurant/interactive bar venture uWink was struggling to keep their last remaining location open. His concepts for on-line and other modern games looked fairly amaterish. I suspect the rest of the video game world left him behind decades ago. I respect what he created with Atari, but this move will almost certainly not bring anything new to either Atari/Infogrames or the classic community.

This. Count me in with the rest of the anti-Bushnell guys. He had two or three great ideas 30 years ago that made him a mint, and hasn't done anything worthwhile sense. Anytime he talks about videogames, he can't help but regard the games he helped make famous as the pinnacle. He's always struck me as a self-aggrandizing, arrogant tool.

PingvinBlueJeans

04-21-2010, 07:56 PM

I suppose you could take that attitude about almost anything...

Look, I don't know you or how long you have been in the collecting community...
Save it. Don't feed the troll.

Dr. Dib

04-21-2010, 08:43 PM

Megas, I've got to say that Atariage topic was an interesting read. I look forward to when their book finally does get released as most of my knowledge comes from Zap!:The Rise and Fall of Atari and the short bits in Game Over, which is still a great book.

Anyway, it does seem like this may just be the best PR move Atari will ever make. In this age where nostalgia is king they may be able to use it to their advantage, even if the stuff they make sucks.

One thing I'm curious about though is if that Atari Porn video they mentioned is real or just a joke. Google just points me to the AVGN's Atari Porn.

digitpress Jim

04-22-2010, 12:09 AM

Fantastic news! Welcome back Nolan!

Digitpress Jim

Jim Combs
Video Game Saga
Founder
www.videogamesaga.com

Emperor Megas

04-22-2010, 12:19 AM

Fantastic news!I'm pretty neutral in this, but I'd like to ask, why is this "fantastic news"? Seriously, what do you who are pro-Bushnell feel that he's going to bring to the table exactly? Moreover, do any of you actually care about the Atari brand anymore? Again, I'm just trying to understand what all of the excitement and fanfare is about.

Ed Oscuro

04-22-2010, 12:35 AM

Having read through some of that AA thread...lol @ Bushnell, just lol.

tom

04-22-2010, 03:24 AM

Look, I don't know you or how long you have been in the collecting community, but Curt Vendel who is one of the two has maintained the most extensive historical site for Atari on the web for almost a decade now. His site is atarimuseum.com. While I haven't always agreed with Curt, there is no disputing that he owns the single largest collecting of internal Atari documents and items anywhere in the world. He also has access to and has interviewed just about everyone who had anything to do with Atari. He also worked with Nolan Bushnell for a while. As if that's not enough, he was also the project manager for the Atari Flashback consoles which where sold by Atari in the last few years. So, yes, I think he knows what he's talking about.

Well, since someone accused me of trolling (Usually I say it takes one to know one):

So, since you are easily impressed by people who have been in the collecting community for a long time.......I started a successful Atari ST/8bit/VCS fanzine in 1987 (running for 6 years), I contributed to the DP fanzine in the early 90s, I also contributed to The 2600 Connection (and many, many more fanzines) and I have in the past written for numerous gaming magazines. And wow, I had my first Atari website in mid-90s.

Further, you stated...Curt interviewed just about everyone...he does NOT know they were telling the truth, and you (especially you) cannot know this either.

But, if someone runs a website, and designed a P&P, makes him god in your eyes....so be it.

.

Ed Oscuro

04-22-2010, 04:02 AM

So what? Writing a book requires being a journalist, not a whore to memory; running a fanzine does not make you an investigative reporter with unerring judgments. I know it might be hard to accept Mr. Bushnell could have done some wrongs, but the case here sounds pretty solid.

Tom, I suggest you take a look through that thread, or even read the book before you start going through your usual motions against something you haven't even read and thus can't comment intelligently on.

The guy has done his homework. He has talked not just to the detractors (whose accounts all jive) but also to Mr. Bushnell, who had confirmed key pieces of their new research, such as having pushed out his cofounder.

Either you didn't read the parts of that thread where Curt talks about his interviews with the other founder and the ten other early employees all agreeing, about Bushnell not being able to keep his story straight, and you hadn't heard about Bushnell driving most everything he's done into the ground (I didn't realize about Chuck E. Cheese, lol @ that), or you're just unwilling to accept new ideas when they butt up against your prejudices.

So which is it - are you sloppy, are you lying, or are you just being stupid as we have come to expect from you? It's got to be one or the other; you have this pattern of being close-minded about facts.

PingvinBlueJeans

04-22-2010, 11:44 AM

Well, since someone accused me of trolling (Usually I say it takes one to know one):
Funny shit coming from you, Holzer.

Why don't you come over to AtariAge and discuss it with Curt then? Oh yeah, that's right...you were banned for being a trolling dipshit!

Tom, I suggest you take a look through that thread, or even read the book before you start going through your usual motions against something you haven't even read and thus can't comment intelligently on.
He's a troll...he isn't interested in commenting intelligently. Being an asshole in general was probably enough to get him banned from AA, but not satisfied with that, he decided to start creating sock puppet accounts to back up his idiotic opinions and start more trouble. Naturally he was caught and banned.

Remember that tom? ;)

What a loser. LOL

PingvinBlueJeans

04-22-2010, 11:56 AM

By the way, here's that recent interview people have referred to where Bushnell talks of his 'involvement' with the Missile Command coin-op:

http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/missile-command/atari-founder-revisits-roots-with-missile-command/1390303

Bushnell was long gone by the time MC was in development, but he remembers playing it in his office. Right. :bullshit:

Emperor Megas

04-22-2010, 12:02 PM

Funny shit coming from you, Holzer.

Why don't you come over to AtariAge and discuss it with Curt then? Oh yeah, that's right...you were banned for being a trolling dipshit!

He's a troll...he isn't interested in commenting intelligently. Being an asshole in general was probably enough to get him banned from AA, but not satisfied with that, he decided to start creating sock puppet accounts to back up his idiotic opinions and start more trouble. Naturally he was caught and banned.

Remember that tom? ;)

What a loser. LOLWow, damn.

BTW - I'm still genuinely interested in why people who are excited or pleased with his appointment feel that way.

PingvinBlueJeans

04-22-2010, 12:09 PM

BTW - I'm still genuinely interested in why people who are excited or pleased with his appointment feel that way.
Simply misdirected nostalgia, I suspect. If I didn't know anything about Bushnell or the things he's done, I'd probably feel the same way.

People just don't know any better. Read that interview I posted above. The clown who interviewed Bushnell obviously doesn't even know enough to call him out on blatant lies and stories that are totally fabricated.

Jorpho

04-22-2010, 12:16 PM

BTW - I'm still genuinely interested in why people who are excited or pleased with his appointment feel that way.It's understandable. The time during which this man became involved in the video game industry via a company named Atari is associated with new, sweeping, transformational developments. Now he is becoming involved in the video game industry again via a different company named Atari.

Apparently it is easy to lose sight of the fact that these are very different times and that there may not have been a causal relationship between this man and those developments.

tom

04-22-2010, 12:44 PM

Funny shit coming from you, Holzer.

Why don't you come over to AtariAge and discuss it with Curt then? Oh yeah, that's right...you were banned for being a trolling dipshit!

He's a troll...he isn't interested in commenting intelligently. Being an asshole in general was probably enough to get him banned from AA, but not satisfied with that, he decided to start creating sock puppet accounts to back up his idiotic opinions and start more trouble. Naturally he was caught and banned.

Remember that tom? ;)

What a loser. LOL

First, thanks for remembering my last name and my antics on AA, I must be very important to you!

Was he banned...or wasn't he? Anyway, second, I'd have to agree with you there....that was some FUNNY shit.

BTW, resorting to abuse is the first (and last) sign of defeat....(that's the best you can do? Who's the intelligent one here, obviously me, and not you)

tom

04-22-2010, 01:21 PM

So what? Writing a book requires being a journalist, .

Does it? Please tell this to David Beckham, Victoria Beckham, Katie Price (aka Jordan) and such ilk.

Ed, I'd suggest you research properly and find out how many people on this planet are writing books without any knowledge of journalism, before trying to post something of small intelligence.

tom

04-22-2010, 03:08 PM

Read it on AA, Curt is nothing more than a trolling Nolan basher, yawn.

and the other guy is like, totally in love with Curt, always agreeing...

Jorpho

04-22-2010, 03:42 PM

Does it? Please tell this to David Beckham, Victoria Beckham, Katie Price (aka Jordan) and such ilk.The obvious response there is, do you think those people actually wrote the books with their names on them?

Astrocade

04-22-2010, 03:49 PM

Nolan Bushnell is the reason we're all here right now. Whether you love him or hate him, he was THE man behind Atari, and Atari was THE deciding catalyst for the home videogame movement. Al Alcorn, Steve Jobs, Ted Dabney, et. al- yeah, those guys were all important players in the piece as well. But Bushnell was the guy that brought it all together, and to pretend for even one second that he was just a cog in the machine is to reveal one's ignorance regarding the history of videogaming.

Bushnell is not a saint however. And he has helped to foster a persona that is built on equal parts fact and fiction. But I tire of reading "inside stories" by people with an axe to grind over someone that cheated them or screwed them over thirty years ago. Boo-hoo. He's sitting on the Board of Directors over at Atari/IG and you're pissing and moaning on a website where your "star status" is not questioned. You shook hands with Bushnell one time or you helped to program the third dungeon on the seventh level of "Patty-Cake-Surprise" back in '83- so fucking what?

I ask these sore losers the same thing they ask of Bushnell- what have YOU done in the last thirty years? Edit a fanzine? Sink thousands of dollars into your collection? Big fucking whoop. You're no more an authority on the subject than anyone else here who has read the Steve Kent book.

Reading over that thread at Atari Age reminds me of why I don't frequent those boards anymore. A bunch of whiny-ass nerds with way too much time on their hands bitching about how they were "screwed over" in some way or fashion. Get over it. All of your subsequent failures in life can not be attributed to Nolan Bushnell or anyone else but you.

Love him or hate him, Bushnell is the reason we're all here today. There's three guys you should thank every time you boot up a console- Ralph Baer, Nolan Busnell and Al Alcorn. Everyone else was just a supporting character, including these pitiful "journalists" with an axe to grind over something Nolan Bushnell probably never did in the first place.

You don't have to worship at his altar, nor should you overestimate his importance to the world of gaming. But to pretend that gaming culture would even remotely have developed to the point to which we have arrived at today WITHOUT Nolan Bushnell... don't kid yourself.

jb143

04-22-2010, 03:59 PM

After reading over this thread I have only 1 question to ask. Is there a pic(or animated gif) of Captain Picard face-palming while eating popcorn?

Emperor Megas

04-22-2010, 04:09 PM

But to pretend that gaming culture would even remotely have developed to the point to which we have arrived at today WITHOUT Nolan Bushnell... don't kid yourself.You don't actually believe that, do you? That if Nolan Bushnell was never born that video games wouldn't be as popular today? Because the industry couldn't possible have developed with someone else at the reins several decades ago? IDK, that sounds like some Dr. Emmet Brown type shit, man. It sounds like you're kidding yourself.

Astrocade

04-22-2010, 04:29 PM

You don't actually believe that, do you? That if Nolan Bushnell was never born that video games wouldn't be as popular today? Because the industry couldn't possible have developed with someone else at the reins several decades ago? IDK, that sounds like some Dr. Emmet Brown type shit, man. It sounds like you're kidding yourself.

Of course I do. The same way in which I don't think cars would be where they are today if it wasn't for Henry Ford or aviation would have developed as it did had the Wright Brothers never existed. Someone MAY have streamlined automobile production one day. Someone MIGHT have built a working airplane some time between then and now... but they didn't.

Nolan Bushnell did it. That's not wishful thinking, brother, that's history. I don't give two shits either way about Nolan Bushnell, but he's a freaking pioneer in his field. Why people refute FACT in favor of personal misgivings about someone they don't even know, I'll never understand.

Hitler was a dick, but I really don't see anyone denying that he created the Volkswagon...

Bojay1997

04-22-2010, 05:27 PM

Of course I do. The same way in which I don't think cars would be where they are today if it wasn't for Henry Ford or aviation would have developed as it did had the Wright Brothers never existed. Someone MAY have streamlined automobile production one day. Someone MIGHT have built a working airplane some time between then and now... but they didn't.

Nolan Bushnell did it. That's not wishful thinking, brother, that's history. I don't give two shits either way about Nolan Bushnell, but he's a freaking pioneer in his field. Why people refute FACT in favor of personal misgivings about someone they don't even know, I'll never understand.

Hitler was a dick, but I really don't see anyone denying that he created the Volkswagon...

All of that is pure speculation. Perhaps cars would have been safer or aviation more advanced if someone other than Henry Ford and the Wright Brothers came along. Just because someone did something doesn't mean that others wouldn't have if the first to do something never was born. Maybe video games would have been even more inventive or had a larger appeal if someone other than Bushnell had been involved early on.

Your reference to Hitler is perhaps the most offensive thing I have read on these boards. That "man" destroyed much of Europe and killed 50 million people. He was a lot worse than a "dick". He also didn't create the Volkswagen. That was Ferdinand Porsche.

tom

04-22-2010, 05:35 PM

The obvious response there is, do you think those people actually wrote the books with their names on them?

Does it make a difference? I think not.

Astrocade

04-22-2010, 06:01 PM

All of that is pure speculation. Perhaps cars would have been safer or aviation more advanced if someone other than Henry Ford and the Wright Brothers came along. Just because someone did something doesn't mean that others wouldn't have if the first to do something never was born. Maybe video games would have been even more inventive or had a larger appeal if someone other than Bushnell had been involved early on.

Your reference to Hitler is perhaps the most offensive thing I have read on these boards. That "man" destroyed much of Europe and killed 50 million people. He was a lot worse than a "dick". He also didn't create the Volkswagen. That was Ferdinand Porsche.

LOL- only on DP will someone claim that the Wright Brothers inventing the airplane and Henry Ford modernizing the automobile is "pure speculation". :hail:

As for my Hitler quote, if you found that offensive then I recommend staying off teh interwebs. Hitler played the same role in developing the Volkswagen that Bushnell played in developing the Atari. Neither one (the car or the console) would exist without the creator. You can downplay their involvement all you want, but the fact still stands that you shouldn't deny each of their contributions based simply on your own personal dislikes/grudges.

Ed Oscuro

04-22-2010, 06:32 PM

Does it? Please tell this to David Beckham, Victoria Beckham, Katie Price (aka Jordan) and such ilk.

Ed, I'd suggest you research properly and find out how many people on this planet are writing books without any knowledge of journalism, before trying to post something of small intelligence.
Good job on having scratched out a copysheet back in the day, those are Pulitzer-prizewinning credentials right there.

To put an American perspective on it, you claiming that having written a fanzine (they are called FANzines and not PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISM for a reason) makes you more credible than somebody who has directly interviewed ALL the players involved (rather than just copying what you see in Atari Age or on TV)...

...would be a bit like somebody telling Bob Woodward he was wrong about Watergate because they supported Richard Nixon's political campaigns back in the 1940s.

Do you just accept everything somebody tells you because they are "the authority?" Clearly you do. We already went down the Nazi route; I'm not going there again, but you ought to take a hint. Doing real historical research demands being skeptical instead of bathing in false memories and lies swallowed whole.

In any case we already knew you're just a tough-talking a blowhard coward who, as usual, isn't worth two seconds of anybody's time.

How you continue to evade being banned is a mystery to me.

In any case - good book, will certainly be looking to get a copy, and of course I'll also be interested to see if Mr. Bushnell has anything to say; it's his right after all (though he has had that chance and squandered it).

Bojay1997

04-22-2010, 06:43 PM

LOL- only on DP will someone claim that the Wright Brothers inventing the airplane and Henry Ford modernizing the automobile is "pure speculation". :hail:

As for my Hitler quote, if you found that offensive then I recommend staying off teh interwebs. Hitler played the same role in developing the Volkswagen that Bushnell played in developing the Atari. Neither one (the car or the console) would exist without the creator. You can downplay their involvement all you want, but the fact still stands that you shouldn't deny each of their contributions based simply on your own personal dislikes/grudges.

Your information about Volkswagen is a straight up lie. The company and the car designs were around for many years before Hitler took power. Porsche started designing vehicles for Daimler Mercedes in 1906. Volkswagen benefitted financially from German government money in the 1930s and certainly designed a number of military vehicles as well, but that doesn't change the fact that the products and designs for what became the Beetle already existed and would have existed whether Hitler came to power or not.

tom

04-22-2010, 06:44 PM

Ed Oscuro

04-22-2010, 06:49 PM

Do you just accept everything somebody tells you because they are "the authority?" Clearly you do. .Not me, PingBluejeans though, you got the wrong man here, convince him. To him, Curt IS the authority.
Good job screwing up a simple quote. Striking attention to detail. This is exactly why we ought not trust you over people who have cross-referenced their quotes, going back and forth between the warring parties to make sure they aren't being biased.

Some guy who can't even keep a copy and paste straight is definitely not going to top that.

Bushnell isn't satan, nobody's saying that; but he's not a god capable of no wrong, either. In fact, being reminded of his long string of failures (which naturally wouldn't be important running a fanzine) just confirms that he's only human - but also bad at (or for) business.

tom

04-22-2010, 06:52 PM

Good job .

Thank you very much.

Astrocade

04-22-2010, 06:58 PM

Your information about Volkswagen is a straight up lie. The company and the car designs were around for many years before Hitler took power. Porsche started designing vehicles for Daimler Mercedes in 1906. Volkswagen benefitted financially from German government money in the 1930s and certainly designed a number of military vehicles as well, but that doesn't change the fact that the products and designs for what became the Beetle already existed and would have existed whether Hitler came to power or not.

OK, you win. I now inhabit your bizarre fantasy world in which things didn't happen the way that they actually did. Hitler had no hand in the development of the VW. Henry Ford was some guy that no one has ever heard of. Nolan Bushnell had nothing to do with developing video games. :lovin:

I'm growing kind of bored with this topic anyway, and it's obvious that when presented with fact that you can't refute, you just make shit up to suit your agenda. If Nolan Bushnell really was the tool that the two or three guys in this thread claim him to be, it seems there would be some evidence for your argument instead of "He was a mean butthole! NYAH!" :)

Here's something else for you to refute: the sky is blue. Discuss. :bareass:

Ed Oscuro

04-22-2010, 07:19 PM

Hitler was almost as good as getting Volkswagens to the people as Bushnell was running a business.

Hitler may have sketched something in 1932 that looked a bit like a teardrop, but cars with a teardrop, low-drag design were appearing at least as early as 1934 in other countries. These designs probably influenced Ferdinand Porsche as much as the rather mysterious Hitler sketch, since they were actual vehicles praised throughout Europe. Even if they were not influences on Porsche, they were contemporary, successful designs that may have taken off like the Bug if only had there been more focus on cost-effectiveness (which of course Hitler was right to emphasize).

I don't want to get all "Hitler made a basic mistake!" (like the art critics) but the proportions of the sketch (which I think sports the traditional Hitler handiwork) seem too back-heavy to blame on artistic proportion. The vents for the rear engine and the obvious luggage compartment in the front are good touches, but it seems mostly cosmetic. Nice sketch but it actually had to be done, and cars out by 1934 already had proportions closer to the Bug - and then there is the matter of the legendary Ferdinand Porsche actually laying down the blueprint lines.

Of course, the Nazis had everybody pay into a fund for Volkswagens before and during the war, a fund that seems to have been lost during or after the war.

Emperor Megas

04-22-2010, 08:04 PM

LOL- only on DP will someone claim that the Wright Brothers inventing the airplane and Henry Ford modernizing the automobile is "pure speculation". :hail:I thought that he was saying that it's pure speculation to suggest that these things wouldn't have progressed at the same (or perhaps a lesser or greater rate) had they not been done by the those particular people. I don't think he was saying that the Wrights and Ford didn't do what was mentioned, but rather, that it doesn't mean it wouldn't have happened anyway if they weren't the ones who did.

To say they none of us would be 'here' playing video games if it weren't for Bushnell, or any small group of individuals, isn't fact; it's speculation. There's really no way to prove something like that; you'd need a flux capacitor or something.

But all of this is beside the (my) point. I'm still wondering exactly why the pro-Bushnell camp feels that his appointment at Atari is "fantastic, great, wonderful, etc.". I don't think anyone here who's expressed delight of this news has touched on that yet.

Astrocade

04-22-2010, 08:23 PM

I thought that he was saying that it's pure speculation to suggest that these things wouldn't have progressed at the same (or perhaps a lesser or greater rate) had they not been done by the those particular people. I don't think he was saying that the Wrights and Ford didn't do what was mentioned, but rather, that it doesn't mean it wouldn't have happened anyway if they weren't the ones who did.

To say they none of us would be 'here' playing video games if it weren't for Bushnell, or any small group of individuals, isn't fact; it's speculation. There's really no way to prove something like that; you'd need a flux capacitor or something.

Well, that's kind of my whole point. We are all sitting here playing video games, and video games have evolved from an actual history that includes, for better or worse, contributions from Nolan Bushnell. To say that someone else might have done what Nolan Bushnell accomplished is pure speculation, and it's a weak and irrelevant basis for denying the accomplishments that the man actually achieved.

Taking the Ford example once more, the crux of the anti-Bushnell camp's argument rests on fantasy. Had Henry Ford never existed, someone may or may not have accomplished what he did. But because Henry Ford was a flawed man, it is still not permissible to deny his contribution to the world of engineering. You can't invent history (as Bushnell himself is wont to do) based simply on the observation that someone doesn't *deserve* to be acknowledged because they may or may not be an asshole. Saying that Bushnell had absolutely nothing to do with Atari or videogaming is as big a lie as Bushnell saying he had never heard of Ralph Baer or been to that fateful trade show.

But all of this is beside the (my) point. I'm still wondering exactly why the pro-Bushnell camp feels that his appointment at Atari is "fantastic, great, wonderful, etc.". I don't think anyone here who's expressed delight of this news has touched on that yet.

I agree with you there. I don't know exactly why his current position has sparked so much controversy pro and con. I seriously doubt that he is going to revolutionize the world of gaming in any major capacity from here on out. If he was to take an idea like the Flashback and make an honest to goodness NEW Atari console that didn't suck- well, I'd pay tickets to see that show. I strongly feel that this was all a big glad-handing PR stunt.

Jorpho

04-22-2010, 09:03 PM

Voliko

04-22-2010, 09:22 PM

It's simple to see, that it is all about the name.

jb143

04-22-2010, 10:40 PM

LOL- only on DP will someone claim that the Wright Brothers inventing the airplane and Henry Ford modernizing the automobile is "pure speculation". :hail:

Well, depending on how you interpret airplane, there were plenty of people competing for the title of the first around the same time of the Wright Brothers. I'm inclined to agree with both of you though. Of course we have no idea how things would have turned out if any of the key players (of anything) had not been present. Chaos theory would suggest that it would be much much different. Could be for the best, could be for the worse, there's really no point in trying to guess.