Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- timelines:technology_dirty_laundry [2016/12/30 07:56] – agarbedrogi
+++ timelines:technology_dirty_laundry [2024/02/18 03:10] (current) – better put Honeywell's purchase first agarbedrogi
@@ Line 10: / Line 10: @@
 **IOTL**: Spielberg did suggest imitating Pac-Man for the //E.T.// movie, but Warshaw instead imagined an innovative adaptation of the film - whose gameplay was so frustrating and obtuse that after strong initial sales, it quickly became a commercial failure, and led Atari to bury unsold cartridges in a New Mexico landfill. //E.T.// is also deemed one of the worst games ever.
 ----
-The Atari  “5200 SuperSystem” is pulled from the home videogame market following slow sales. To fill the gap, Atari releases the Atari 2600 “E.T. Edition” for $99. The “E.T. Edition” is a cosmetic redesign of the venerable 2600 in black plastic, emblazoned with the movie’s trademark glowing fingers logo and signed by director Steven Spielberg. It comes with two paddles, two classic joysticks, and six game cartridges: Combat, Breakout, Real Sports Baseball, Raiders of the Lost Ark, the all-new Dig Dug, and, of course, E.T.
+The Atari  “5200 SuperSystem” is pulled from the home videogame market following slow sales. To fill the gap, Atari releases the Atari 2600 “E.T. Edition” for $99. The “E.T. Edition” is a cosmetic redesign of the venerable 2600 in black plastic, emblazoned with the movie’s trademark glowing fingers logo and signed by director Steven Spielberg. It comes with two paddles, two classic joysticks, and six game cartridges: //Combat, Breakout, Real Sports Baseball, Raiders of the Lost Ark//, the all-new //Dig Dug//, and, of course, //E.T.//
 **IOTL**: The 5200 never had the success of the 2600, being troublesome, lacking backwards compatibility with the predecessor, and facing a market about to burst. "E.T." edition is based on the Japan-only Atari 2800.
+----
+Facing [[timelines:film_dirty_laundry|financial losses from the movie division]] and not wanting to shift their focus to electronics, Warner Communications announces Atari is for sale. Defense and electronics conglomerate Honeywell, Inc. for $6 billion in cash and Honeywell stock, along with $125 million in loan forgiveness for funds borrowed by Warner from Atari. Honeywell would fire Kassar and elevate Steve Mayer to CEO of the new Atari, but otherwise left most of Atari's core employees in place.
+**IOTL**: Atari's crippled reputation and financial losses lead to restructuring and eventual sale by Warner Communications.  In July 1984, Warner sold the home computing and game console divisions of Atari to Jack Tramiel, the recently ousted founder of Commodore, under the name Atari Corporation for $240 million in stocks under the new company. Warner retained the arcade division, continuing it under the name Atari Games and eventually selling it to Namco in 1985. Warner also sold Ataritel to Mitsubishi. Kassar had been forced to resign from Atari one year prior, over mounting allegations of illegal insider trading activity. In December 1982, Kassar had sold 5,000 shares of stock in Warner Communications only 23 minutes before a much lower than expected fourth quarter earnings report would cause Warner stock to drop nearly 40% in value in the following days.
 ----
 Atari gives up on releasing the almost finished 1200XL, and instead makes a "Commodore 64 killer", the 800XLP. Steve Mayer, who had recently been assigned by Warner to oversee Atari’s ‎combined Computer and Video Game Hardware divisions, redesigns the 1200XL to incoporate many pieces of his prototypes, and power it with a copy of the Motorola 6502 that powers the C64, made by Western Design Center, whom Warner purchases. Released in 1983, the “Professional Computer”  800XLP would go on to sell 2 million units.
@@ Line 28: / Line 34: @@
 **IOTL**: Atari still released two more consoles, the handheld Lynx and the home one Jaguar, before leaving the hardware market. Meninsky left Atari to join a start-up doing high-end computer graphics run by Martin Newell, and after starting a computer contracting business, decided to go to law school and now works as a lawyer.
 ----
-Facing [[timelines:film_dirty_laundry|financial losses from the movie division]] and not wanting to shift their focus to electronics, Warner Communications announces Atari is for sale. Defense and electronics conglomerate Honeywell, Inc. for $6 billion in cash and Honeywell stock, along with $125 million in loan forgiveness for funds borrowed by Warner from Atari. Honeywell would fire Kassar and elevate Steve Mayer to CEO of the new Atari, but otherwise left most of Atari's core employees in place.
+Once Meninsky leaves, Chris Crawford  is the head of Atari's in-house entertainment software division, creating hits like //M.U.L.E., Eastern Front (1941), Legionnaire, Elect the President ’84//, and //Balance of Power//. The software company's fortunes lead to the acquisition of InfoCom, whose designer Brian Moriarty rises up to the point he is AtariSoft CEO when the company has its initial public offering in 1986, helped by Goldman Sachs and raising millions of dollars, while at the same time the upstart software company Microsoft had its IPO held back by regulatory concerns.
+**IOTL**: Crawford left Atari after the video game crash of 1983, doing freelance work - including //Balance of Power//, which came out for the Macintosh in 1985 - and founding the Game Developers Conference before withdrawing from the industry in 1993. //M.U.L.E.// was made for the Atari 8-bit family, but by Electronic Arts, while the 1984 update of //President Elect// came out for the Commodore 64. Moriarty became a well-regarded designer for InfoCom, whose financial troubles led to an acquisition by Activision in 1986, and had left before they were shut down in 1989, creating //Loom// for LucasArts. Microsoft was the one with Goldman Sachs backing whose 1986 IPO was really successful in spite of concerns of "gun jumping" and "illegal touting".
-**IOTL**: Atari's crippled reputation and financial losses lead to restructuring and eventual sale by Warner Communications.  In July 1984, Warner sold the home computing and game console divisions of Atari to Jack Tramiel, the recently ousted founder of Commodore, under the name Atari Corporation for $240 million in stocks under the new company. Warner retained the arcade division, continuing it under the name Atari Games and eventually selling it to Namco in 1985. Warner also sold Ataritel to Mitsubishi. Kassar had been forced to resign from Atari one year prior, over mounting allegations of illegal insider trading activity. In December 1982, Kassar had sold 5,000 shares of stock in Warner Communications only 23 minutes before a much lower than expected fourth quarter earnings report would cause Warner stock to drop nearly 40% in value in the following days.
 ----
@@ Line 42: / Line 48: @@
 **IOTL**: Mattel planned to release the Intellivision III, a more powerful console with a price above $200, for Christmas 1983. The company canceled the console after the ColecoVision beat the Atari 5200 in the market for higher-performance consoles, and after home computers became as inexpensive as game consoles. Valeski still purchased the electronics arm that struggled following the 1983 crash, and the INTV System III was only a cosmetically changed Intellivision.
+----
+Apple is a considerably lesser player in the computer market: they've had two high-profile flops with the Apple III and the Lisa, and the powerful Macintosh is countered by the cheaper alternative that is the Atari PC-2.
+**IOTL**: Apple kept afloat with the IIc and IIgs, powered with the 65C02 and 65C816 chips from WDC. In spite of being isolated and overshadowed by the IBM-PC, Apple had sold 280,000 Macintoshes in its first year.
 ----
 Texas Instruments, Timex-Sinclair, Coleco, Tandy-Radio Shack, and the IBM PCjr leave the personal computer market, in what is called the "Home Computer Market Crash of 1984."
-**IOTL**: Texas Instruments did abandon the PC market due to the price wars with Commodore, but the others remained strong through the 1980s. In contrast, the video game market which was flooded with similar consoles and games entered a crisis\recession, the Video Game crash of 1983, with many hardware and software makers folding or leaving the market. Console gaming only saw a resurgence by the hands of the Japanese, whose market was not very affected. The leading company was Nintendo...
+**IOTL**: Texas Instruments did abandon the PC market due to the price wars with Commodore. The PCjr was released in 1984, and cancelled the following year various design and implementation decisions led to commercial failure. The other companies remained strong through the 1980s. In contrast, the video game market which was flooded with similar consoles and games entered a crisis\recession, the Video Game crash of 1983, with many hardware and software makers folding or leaving the market. Console gaming only saw a resurgence by the hands of the Japanese, whose market was not very affected. The leading company was Nintendo...
 ----
@@ Line 63: / Line 73: @@
 ----
-In 1986, Atari is preparing to spread its computer businesses worldwide, with the Atari PC-2 getting variants for Japan - the Nintendo Bizcom - and France - the Bull 1000, created in connection with France’s Groupe Bull.
+In 1986, Atari is preparing to spread its computer businesses worldwide, with the Atari PC-2 getting a variant in France with the Bull 1000, created in connection with France’s Groupe Bull...
 **IOTL**: Bull was a Honeywell partner in their computer business, until the Americans started losing enough money to fully sell Honeywell Information Systems to the French in 1986.
+----
+...and Japan, the Nintendo Bizcom. One of the computer's first releases is the video game //Metroid//, which the company later ports to the Atari Nintendo and the PC-2, taking advantage of the FeRAM save files.
+**IOTL**: Nintendo has been long adamant in keeping their series only in their consoles (before the smartphone boom led to //Miitomo//, //Pokémon Go// and //Super Mario Run//). //Metroid// was released for the Famicom Disk System, a peripheral adding a 112K disk drive to the console. Given the FDS was never released internationally, //Metroid// had the NES version on a cartridge depending on save codes.
 ----
 Softwares showcased at the 1986 CES included various Atari PC-2 programs by Electronic Arts and Hippopotamus Software, a new UNIX-based operating system by Optimized Systems Software, and the arcade port //[[timelines:sports_dirty_laundry|Evander Holyfield’s]] Punch-Out!!// for the Atari Nintendo, which was shown next to a 2600 port by Axiom.
 **IOTL**: EA didn't release all their Atari ST programs, and neither did Hippopotamus - with the latter even having various vaporware as the company didn't last. OSS never received the Unix license IOTL, obviously, but they did write several Atari OSes, including OS/A+ and DOS XL, that were command-line driven. //Punch-Out// was only ported to the NES in 1987 as //Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!//.