7 ms·
Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production
- vegabook 8mo agoThe periscope style vector CRTs use in the arcade Battlezone were a claustrophobia and panic-inducing experience. Glowy unpixellated 3d, narrow field of vision. Unforgettably cool.
- intrasight 8mo agoI worked in a restaurant in 81 while in HS. Next door was a convenience store that had Defender and Battlezone. I think I spent half of what I made on those two games for a few weeks. I would sneak out for a game. An addiction. I can still hear those Battlezone sounds in my head 45 years later.
- JoeDaDude 8mo agoJust to get your nostalgia juices flowing again, someone recreated the Defender sound engine in the browser. https://www.zapspace.net/defender_sound/ https://www.zapspace.net/defender_sound/
- battlezoen26 8mo agoI believe these are AI-generated photos, and perhaps content. Look at the back of Dave Compton’s shirt carefully, and you’ll notice that the left side starts to have garbled text. It’s very impressive, though. If I’m wrong, and these are real, then I’m very interested why Dave was wearing that shirt. Back in the day, it wouldn’t have been normal to have a custom shirt like that with different font sizes with your own name on the back stating what you’re doing in an obscure way.
- jeffbee 8mo agoHaving some shirts screen-printed for your employees strikes me as a totally normal workplace behavior.
- coldpie 8mo agoI don't think that's likely, claiming forged historical footage is real would be a very stupid way to torch one's reputation in a niche field. But it is a bit concerning that the author doesn't declare the source of the video. Especially since they're claiming it hasn't been put online before.
- sam345 8mo agoI agree with the normalcy comment re screen printing. But the video does seem too high resolution from what I would expect. And why doesn't author discoose the source or a reason video was taken. Odd that there's very little chatter between employees but they were in front of a camera. Otherwise very interesting video. We loved battlezone.Way cooler than any other game at the time.
- Forgeties79 8mo ago> But the video does seem too high resolution from what I would expect. Completely depends on what they were shooting on, the state of the media, the scanning methods used, any post-processing, etc. At first glance this does not look AI generated to me but hey, could be wrong
- kwertyoowiyop 8mo agoIt seems exactly like what you’d get from a decent “prosumer” video camera then.
- ErroneousBosh 8mo agoWhich has kind of always been the lower end of the ENG market ;-)
- LocalH 8mo ago
- iamflimflam1 8mo agoFun fact - Atari threatened to sue me for my “clone” of Battlezone. https://youtu.be/bf7Ert1wkg4 https://youtu.be/bf7Ert1wkg4
- videotopia 8mo agoThat's hilarious. God bless the old Atari who wanted to sue the world. The irony now of course is that Atari no longer own Battlezone's IP. Rebellion managed to grab it when Atari went bankrupt in 2013.
- badmonkey0001 8mo ago15 years ago... They had just released a remake in 2008 for the Xbox, so the IP was certainly fresh in their minds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlezone_(2008_video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlezone_(2008_video_game) Did they eventually drop the threat or did something else happen?
- iamflimflam1 8mo agoI removed my app from the US App Store and all was good.
- kwertyoowiyop 8mo agoWhat a nice time capsule. All praise to the cameraman for doing long steady shots and not replacing the audio with music or commentary.
- Nemi 8mo agoIt makes me wonder if this is B-roll footage for a news piece.
- dylan604 8mo agoFrom the first graph, "The footage was captured by a CBS news team"
- videotopia 8mo agoIndeed.
- joezydeco 8mo agoSimilar footage from the era, taken at Bally/Midway during production of Ms Pac-Man. https://youtu.be/62s_BIYg5Gs https://youtu.be/62s_BIYg5Gs
- ck2 8mo agoAre there any articles on how vector graphics were developed for arcade games? I vaguely remember there was also one home game console that attempted vector graphics but cannot remember the name Was fascinated with it at the time but with only access to a TRS-80 such things were impossible to learn back then
- joezydeco 8mo agoA really good start is Jed Margolin's website. He was a key engineer in Atari's vector hardware and software through the classic era. https://www.jmargolin.com/ https://www.jmargolin.com/
- Luc 8mo ago> home game console that attempted vector graphics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vectrex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vectrex
- msarnoff 8mo agoRetro Game Mechanics Explained has a video about how the Asteroids vector generator worked and was coded for: https://youtu.be/smStEPSRKBs?si=k_0u3NKCxCqZBc6w https://youtu.be/smStEPSRKBs?si=k_0u3NKCxCqZBc6w Battlezone and later 3D games used different circuitry that generated vectors with analog circuitry and used a “math box” coprocessor based on Am2901 bit slice ALUs to help with the 3D math.
- Throaway1982 8mo agoI had that vector based tank game for the early 90's pc
- mycall 8mo ago> Atari’s primary coin-op manufacturing and headquarters facility was located at 1265 Borregas Ave, Sunnyvale, CA 94089 during the key 1976–1984 period. Another critical site in the immediate area was 1196 Borregas Avenue, used during the subsequent Tramiel era I don't think these buildings exist anymore.
- Throaway1982 8mo agoTamriel does get itself sundered pretty often
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- nullify88 8mo agoI was a huge fan of the Activision remake, and the Battlezone 2 sequel. The mixture of FPS and RTS was really appealing to me. I had to beg my parents for an ATI Rage LT Pro AGP 8MB card to play the sequel.
- natas 8mo agoit was nice when things were made in the USA.
- guidedlight 8mo agoIt wasn’t that long ago, for reference the original Xbox was made in the USA. https://youtu.be/YeQrQYFVlXA https://youtu.be/YeQrQYFVlXA Edit: This is factually incorrect. Apologies.
- buzzert 8mo agoActually, the description of that video says the production line was in Hungary. But there was still a lot of electronics manufacturing and assembly in the US during the early 2000's as well, including iPods and iMacs.
- guidedlight 8mo agoOh you’re right.
- somat 8mo agoValve did final assembly for the steam controllers in the US. Not sure if that counts or not. It was shortly after the portal 2 launch and they did a slick video of the process with portal music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCgnWqoP4MM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCgnWqoP4MM
- Throaway1982 8mo agolabour is the #1 cost of most businesses
- hoyd 8mo agoThis is what the internet is about, finding blogs and stumbling over pages like this with such content. Thanks!