Who is the creator of atari

The game used a vector display that produced fluid animations with low-cost hardware. More than 30 years later, that bit of Atari-derived inspiration lives on: Many car navigation systems today still use a triangle with a slightly inverted base as a symbol for your car, and it comes directly from Asteroids. It most notably created a line of successful electronic pets called Petsters and an interactive teddy named A. It was a lot to manage, and he often found himself bouncing from one company to the next throughout the day, poking his head in to offer ideas.

The Catalyst firm Androbot landed firmly in the center of that cultural movement, and Bushnell promised big things. The startup planned to do all this at a time when the typical microprocessor ran at under 2 MHz and when 64KB of memory was cutting edge.

Calof remembers Bushnell taking the stage, asking a B. They soon realized that their ambitions were exceeding reality. Even today, no firm is yet capable of creating a practical robotic butler—much less one that could be mass produced and sold to consumers, as Androbot planned to do.

Meanwhile, the firm had to bridge the revenue gap with a scaled-back product called Topo, which was bascially a glorified Logo turtle in the flesh. It hooked up to an Apple II computer, and it would move based on your commands.

Otherwise, it did nothing, but Bushnell continued to stoke the robot hype to fever pitch. But he violated it with Androbot. As Bushnell sunk more of his dwindling fortune into Androbot, he saw a light at the end of the tunnel. Merrill Lynch offered to underwrite an Androbot public stock offering. If Catalyst could sell Androbot, Bushnell could get his money back and carry on as usual. But the plan hit a huge snag in the summer of So they withdrew the IPO, and Bushnell was devastated.

In , Bushnell had another very bad year. While he was busy scurrying from one project to the next, one of his most promising business ventures, Pizza Time Theatre, ran into trouble.

The chain had overextended itself, building too many franchise locations to be profitable. In March , Pizza Time filed for bankruptcy and ended up being acquired by its principal competitor. Once Androbot sucked my cash, it was hard to keep it afloat. In , Bushnell resigned all of his Catalyst firm chairmanships except one: The toy company Axlon, where he consolidated his business interests and personal attention.

Before long, Odak left Catalyst, followed by Calof and Anderson. Catalyst was no more. As long as the firms sold to larger companies—even if they did not sell profitable products themselves—the ultimate business goal was achieved.

So how well did Catalyst do on its investments? According to Bushnell and Calof, seven out of the 14 major Catalyst firms ended up making money for their investors. Two broke even. And six ended up as losses. Etak started an industry. Axlon went public and was later sold to Hasbro.

In the years since Catalyst shut down, Bushnell has been unrelentingly busy. Why should I do it? His frequent startup hopping has left industry observers dazed—and maybe slightly jaded—about the potential for Bushnell to actually bring any of these technologies to life. After all, he dreams big, sells hard, and appears to believe his own hype.

Everything lined up, and it made it easy. His relaxed management style rubbed off on employees who left Atari to form other companies, including a young engineer named Steve Jobs.

The oft-forgotten third Apple founder, Ronald Wayne, was also an Atari alum. What keeps Bushnell going, after experiencing decades of both stunning heights and painful setbacks? AWS Deloitte Genpact. Events Innovation Festival. Follow us:. Breaking News Close. View this post on Instagram.

You may also like. From the same country. On the same subject. More stories. By using this website, you agree with our use of cookies to improve its performance and enhance your user experience. More info in our Cookies policy page. Breakout was one of the most popular games in the long history of the Atari Jobs in turn asked his friend Steve Wozniak to do it. Space Invaders, developed by Taito and then published by Midway, was a major arcade hit following its release in The Atari version of the game proved even more successful, leading to a major up-tick in the sales of Atari systems.

Atari first introduced Video Pinball in as a dedicated console able to play seven different video games. In it was released for the Atari Some people complained that the controls were too difficult to use. CHM Revolution. Exhibition Computer Games 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15