10 THINGS YOU PROBABALLY DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT ATARI
Filed By :: Justin J. Scott
Institute For Advanced Atari Gaming Studies
September 29, 2002

You're probably thinking "... oh sure, ten things I don't know about Atari? Hmm, let me guess.... the name Atari came from the game GO which happened to be Nolan's favorite game of all time? Or maybe that Syzygy was the first name for Atari Inc. ?" Well my friends, these are ten things that are for the most part, not the same-old, same-old common knowledge. After working for a few years with some contacts from within Atari and other related organizations, we have unintentionally gathered up a plethora of interesting side notes in the book of Atari History, and it's about time we blew the dust off our files and made these public. I have compiled ten short stories below documenting small events in Atari's history. Some of the listed stories may be familiar to you, but I'm placing my money on the likelihood that you will have learned something new about Atari after having read this article.

Okay kids, here we go.

1.) Ray Kassar, former CEO of Atari during the Warner years, is best known for his political downfall in which he was involved in an insider trading scandal, selling off all of his Atari stock just hours before Atari announced quarterly losses in the millions, and was subsequently ousted in September 1983 with James Morgan taking his place. Kassar is also known as the "true" father of Activision, as he effectively pissed off the would-be future Activision staff, blowing off repetitive requests to include the game program's author's name on the cartridge and packaging by stating "you are no more important to that game than the person on the assembly line putting it together" and referred to Atari's programmers as "high-strung prima donnas."However, Kassar is also well known by his contemporaries as an extremely flamboyant homosexual outside of the workplace. While his lifestyle was of no real interest within the confines of Atari's offices, he was well known to make grand flamboyant entrances to work, including being chauffeured in from his San Francisco estate to Atari's Sunnyvale facility on a daily basis via a stretch limousine, all on the company's dime.

2.) The name "Yar" in "Yar's Revenge" was derived from the same Ray Kassar as mentioned above, who was in charge of Atari under Warner Communications Corporation. RAY backwards is YAR. This was created intentionally by Yar's creator, Howard Scott Warshaw.

3.) Chuck -E- Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre was the brainchild of Dr. Gene Landrum, Ph.D., the man behind the development and implimentation of the Atari Home Consumer Division, and marketing genius of the Atari 2600 VCS launch in 1977. Originally, Nolan had envisioned Chuck -E- Cheese's to be a burger and shake joint, however Dr. Landrum felt that "Pizza was the way to go, no doubt about it" as a family could mill around a pizza, and share a pitcher of root beer, something a burger and shake joint would not provide for. The end result, Landrum made gaming and entertainment history. Dr. Gene Landrum is also credited with the design of the Chuck -E- Cheese tokens, including placing "In Pizza We Trust" on the face.

4.) Sam Tramiel, son of Atari owner Jack Tramiel, once intentionally left the Chairman of Froggo Games to sit in the lobby of Atari headquarters for almost six hours on one occasion in 1988. Having scheduled an appointment to meet with Tramiel, the Froggo chief executive showed up in a timely manor to discuss the development of new games for the Atari 7800 and checked in with the receptionist at the front desk. Tramiel allegedly told his secretary "Tell him I'm busy. He's going to be waiting a long time." The gentleman was even denied a glass of water after waiting several hours to meet with Tramiel. By the time he made it in to meet with Sam, it was late in the day and sources report that he only spent fifteen minutes listening to Tramiel list numerous reasons why the 7800 was not a viable system to produce for, and how it was morally wrong to make video games, before eventually being dismissed by Tramiel, and heading on home for the evening.

5.) Pong was originally supposed to be a simple game of Tennis, featuring a stick figure of an athlete holding a racquet in place of the simple line that we know of as the paddle. During the development of the game, Al Alcorn had developed pong to the extent of a complete game, minus the detailed player with the racquet Nolan and Al liked the game so much the way it was, they just left it. Who knows how successful Pong would have been, had there not been two stick-like paddles, but two stick-like tennis players in their place.

6.) While Atari (under Bushnell) and Warner Communications were still flirting around with the possibility of the sale of Atari to Warner, Nolan's policy had logically been to make Atari as presentable as possible to Warner during their visits to the Atari facility in California. Part of this policy had been to "hide" the main Atari staff, who at that time were basically hippies complete with beards, sandals, and a joint behind their ear, who were all working for a company that was run more like a hippie commune, than a corporation. This obviously would have been detrimental to the sale of Atari had Warner seen the true goings-on at Atari in the early days. However, on one occasion, Nolan received a surprise phone call from one of the Warner executives who happened to be near by on an unrelated outing with some other Warner people from Manhattan, who wanted to stop by the Atari facility to take a look around to get a glimpse of the new technology and the production facility. Nolan panicked, as all of the assembly line workers were dressed down and rather unpresentable by Warner standards, and also happened to be freely smoking marijuana on the job. With only minutes to "clean up," the Atari employees put out their marijuana cigarettes and managed to crawl into incomplete coin-op cabinets, essentially hiding out for forty-five minutes while the Warner clan browsed around the Atari facility. According to one ex-Atari employee who was witness to this "Those Warner guys didn't suspect a thing. Nolan was like a big kid pulling one over on his parents."

7.) The standard operating system which came packaged on all Atari ST/TT computers, known simply as TOS, was always said to have stood for "The Operating System" when in fact the Tramiels had named the new OS after themselves, as the "Tramiel Operating System." Why they chose the path to conspire to hide this fact is unknown. (Naming an operating system after its creators does not seem all that out of line.) It is also believed that the "ST" in the Atari ST lineage of computers was chosen as the product name, not actually to refer to "SixTeen" in the 16-Bit computer, but actually to Sam Tramiels initials, S.T. (The ST/TT line has always been said to stand for SixTeen/ThirtyTwo for the 16-Bit and 32-Bit computer line.) While this remains speculation, two good sources close to the Tramiels say that they had a tendency to do things like this, and that it was well known that ST stood for Sam Tramiel, TT for an immediate relative, and TOS for "Tramiel Operating System." I guess we will never know...

8.) SNK, (Shin Nihon Kiaku Corporation) which is best known for their Neo Geo line of arcade and home gaming products, was based just yards across the street from Atari Corporation in Sunnyvale, California. On many occasions during the early 1990's SNK and Atari had worked together on a few interesting undisclosed projects. It is believed that the mysterious Atari MIRAI mockup game system was the ultimate product of this union, possibly being the "Neo Geo for the masses" while being marketed under the more familiar Atari brand name. The MIRAI featured XEGS-like styling and a massive cartridge port which could easily swallow a Neo-Geo sized cartridge.

9.) According to MTV Networks, Tom Green's favorite video game is "Frogger" for the Atari 2600. He actually owns an original coin-op machine of the same title in his personal collection. (On a related note, it was said by CTV, a Canadian television network, that during their short-lived marriage, Tom Green and Drew Barrymore would spend their Friday nights playing E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial on Tom's old Atari 2600. Wife Drew Barrymore of course famous for her part as "Gertie" in the classic film).

10.) The drug abuse at Atari was more rampant than most realize or care to admit. During the early days of Atari, a few of the higher-up staff members had affairs with some rather serious drugs including cocaine, hard acid, and Quaaludes, all while on the clock and on the company's dime. Apple founder Steve Jobs (who was an employee at Atari at the time and responsible for Breakout) was late to work several; times and was known to show up to work high on acid. In later years of Atari, it is believed that one particular member of the Tramiel clan would hold short meetings with a high-end drug supplier in his office and consume lines of cocaine within that same privacy. This issue was kept quite quiet within the family while the gentleman attended a rehab facility in Los Angeles sometime during the early 1990's. Many believe that the relationship between Atari and drug usage stopped with the flirtation of marijuana and free-spirited atmosphere of the Atari creative team in the late 1970's. This was certainly not the case.