I only have vague memories of the world before Atari. Mostly what I remember is how amazed adults around me were with our new, magical box that turned our television into an interactive gaming experience. For the first time in most people’s lives they were able to control the images on their television. The Atari […]
In my late 20s I began wearing cargo shorts, not because I liked them but because I needed the pockets. Along with my wallet and keys, I needed a pocket for my cell phone, a pocket for my Palm Pilot, a pocket for my digital camera, a pocket for my mp3 player, and, sometimes, a […]
The second (of two) books Jordan Mechner self-published is another set of his own hand-written journals, this time covering the development of Prince of Persia and its sequel, Prince of Persia 2. The journal begins as Karateka has become the #1 best selling game on the Apple II. Not only does Mechner make 15% royalty […]
Reading a non-fiction book and knowing things about the author that haven’t happened yet is an interesting experience. The Making of Karateka is a collection of hand-written journals captured by Jordan Mechner that span from 1982-1985. The first few entries set the scene of Mechner’s life. In the beginning of the journal, Mechner is a […]
I don’t find myself regularly in a lot of exotic cities, so my list of what they smell like is going to be meager and unimpressive. That’s fine, because we were all going to think less of me when this article is over anyway. Denver smells like dust. Rochester smells like a fish fry. Vegas […]
I was eight-years-old in 1981 when Yars’ Revenge was released for the Atari 2600 console. At that time, Yars’ seemed a radical departure from most other available titles. Unlike the other games I owned at that time (Combat, Space Invaders, Basketball), the goal of Yars’ Revenge isn’t immediately discernible by simply looking at the playfield. […]
Before any of us had heard of Nintendo, we had Atari. If you were a kid in the late 1970s or early 1980s, you either owned an Atari 2600, were friends with someone who did, or were a weird booger-eater that nobody cared about anyway. Those of us with fond memories of the Atari 2600 […]
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