Atari was a business icon in
the early eighties. It was one of the most
recognised brand names in the world, one the fastest
growing companies, the company with the most sought after
engineers and programmers, the company with the hottest
products, and ultimately, the company which had as much to
do with its own downfall as the market it helped to
create.
Today, Atari is just a logo on
another companies gaming products. There are no
Atari "employees", there are no offices or manufacturing
plants, just a room somewhere with the remnants of its
patents and properties, now owned by the French software
publisher Infogrames.
Atari spawned an entire
industry, today worth more than $15 Billion annually.
It created some of the most notable arcade games and home
video game systems, it even tried to take on IBM and Apple
in the computer market. Today, most kids haven't
even heard of Atari, preferring to talk excitedly about
Mario from Nintendo, or their hopes of getting a Sony or
Microsoft games console for Christmas.
Atari is now, unfortunately,
just part of history. Atari left the scene without
much fanfare, with little or no mention of its fall in the
media, and with much of its former glory tainted by the
rise of its competitors.
So, even if your first game
was played on a 2600 or a Nintendo, or your first letter
was type-written on a 40 Column TV screen or an LCD monitor, we
hope you enjoy some of the more topical articles and news
clippings we have collected for you here.
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