Friday, April 23, 2010

8-Bit Rocket Rocks It -- and Nolan Bushnell Returns

For a slightly more Atari-centric perspective on the world of retro gaming and computing, be sure to check out the good folks at 8-Bit Rocket.  They run a quality site with lots of worthwhile content and news, and the proprietors know Flash a heckuva lot better than I do. 

In catching up on the world of Atari there, I was pleased to hear (even if only for nostalgia's sake) that founder Nolan Bushnell is reportedly returning as a member of that fabled company's board of directors.  I'm sure it's not at all the same company he sold to Warner Communications back in the day -- it's been acquired, dissolved, split up and reconstituted at least 256 times now.  But I can't help hoping that Bushnell will restore grand old undocumented and possibly urban-legendary Atari traditions like playing Go in the corporate hot tubs, testing new games in seedy little bars, and smoking weed in the software engineering department.  It's not his first return, if memory serves -- I believe he designed an Atari 2600 game during Atari's late 1980's "red box era" -- but it's still cool to know he's going to be involved in some capacity.

If that all works out, there's still hope for the restoration of Chuck E. Cheese's derby and the return of the Androbot. 

Eat THAT, Sir Galaxy. 

What are you laughin' at, 2-XL?

1 comment:

  1. Dale,

    Thanks for the shout-out too! Sure, we might now more about Flash, but you know a millions times more than us about comedy writing, and every one of your posts shows a keen grasp of writing for the audience. We could only hope to one day be as good as you.

    Nice mention of 2XL. My friend up the street had one of those. She also was the first person with a 2600. The 2XL was fascinating for the time. I was a bit surprised that it never caught-on more widely.

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