Atari had been in the process of manufacturing another vector game, Lunar Lander, but demand for Asteroids was so high " that several hundred Asteroids games were shipped in Lunar Lander cabinets.

The Atari 7800 version was a launch title and featured co-operative play, it was the built in game on the European Atari 7800 release.

( This package was released for the PC a year earlier under the title Atari: 80 Classic Games in One.

The Atari ST was part of the 16 / 32 bit generation of home computers, based on the Motorola 68000 CPU noted for 128 kB of RAM or more, a graphical user interface, and 3½ " microfloppy disks as storage.

His replacement was Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell.

The Atari 5200 SuperSystem, commonly known as the Atari 5200, is a video game console that was introduced in 1982 by Atari Inc. as a higher end complementary console for the popular Atari 2600.

The 5200 was based on Atari Inc .' s existing 400 / 800 computers and the internal hardware was almost identical, although software was not directly compatible between the two systems.

The 360-degree non-centering joystick was touted as offering more control than the eight-way joystick controller offered with the Atari 2600.

Atari's management decided to enter this market, and the new technology was repackaged into the Atari 400 and 800, hitting the market in 1979.

In its prototype stage, the Atari 5200 was originally called the " Atari Video System X-Advanced Video Computer System ", and was codenamed " Pam " after a female employee at Atari Inc.

Atari Inc. released the Pro-Line Trak-Ball controller for the system, which was used primarily for gaming titles such as Centipede or Missile Command.

Although the Atari 5200's internal design was extensively based on that of the 400 / 800 home computers, the differences were sufficient that games designed for one would not run directly on the other.

The Atari demos were also heavily influenced by C64 demos.

The game design was heavily influenced by Adventure for the Atari 2600, and contained references to that as well as many other popular games of the day.

Not surprisingly, they did not like the game and found it too difficult, so Atari decided not to heavily distribute the game.

Most games are clones of famous NES, C64 or Atari 2600 titles, with heavily dropped graphics.

His initial idea involved hitting a ball in a way similar to miniature golf, but Atari was unenthusiastic.

In the same year, Atari produced RoadBlasters, a driving game that also involved a bit of shooting.

Steve Wozniak, who had earlier been involved with Atari in the development of the original version of Breakout, set as an internal goal in the design of the Apple II computer to be able to faithfully reproduce that game, using only BASIC instructions.

Note that unlike the Atari 2600's Television Interface Adapter and the Commodore 64's VIC-II, the VDC cannot tell the program which two sprites have collided, just that individual sprites have been involved in a collision.

In addition to direct involvement with all the breakout Atari products, such as the Atari 2600, Alcorn was involved at some of the historic meetings of Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs ( at that time an Atari employee ) presenting their Apple I prototype.

After Alcorn left Atari in 1981, he consulted to many fledging companies in Silicon Valley, especially involved in the startups of Catalyst Technologies, one of the first technology company incubators, created by Nolan Bushnell and other ex-Atari leaders.

OSS was involved with other projects, such as a modified BASIC and DOS for the Atari 7800 game system, Personal Pascal and Personal Prolog for the Atari ST, and others.

Before the video game crash of 1983, General Computer was involved in video games, both arcade games and cartridge games for the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200.

In 2004, Asteroids ( Including both the Atari 2600 port and the arcade original, along with Asteroids Deluxe ) were included as part of Atari Anthology for both Xbox and PlayStation 2, using Digital Eclipse's emulation technology.

Development of the Amiga began in 1982 with Jay Miner, developer of the Atari 800 chip set, as the principal hardware designer of Amiga Corporation.

Atari 5200 system with controller, game cartridges and packaging

Atari decided to re-enter the games market with a design that closely matched their original 1978 specifications.

While it touted superior graphics to the 2600 and Mattel's Intellivision, the system was initially incompatible with the 2600s expansive library of games, and some market analysts have speculated that this hurt its sales especially since an Atari 2600 cartridge adapter had been released for the Intellivision II.

) This lack of new games was due in part to a lack of funding, with Atari continuing to develop most of its games for the saturated 2600 market.

It had simple digital joysticks and was almost fully backward-compatible with the Atari 2600, the first console to have backward compatibility without the use of additional modules.

They justified this relatively low ranking ( though higher than every other Atari console save the 2600 ) with the summary statement: " Its delayed release, its cancelled peripherals, and a lack of financial backing from the company's new owners all combined to ensure that Atari 7800 would never see any success beyond being a sexier way of playing Atari 2600 titles.

Atari 7800 System ( PAL system with Joypad controller )

11 titles were developed and sold by three third-party companies under their own labels for the 7800 ( Absolute Entertainment, Activision, and Froggo ) with the rest published by Atari themselves.

Following the debate over Custer's Revenge, an Atari 2600 VCS title with adult themes, Atari had concerns over similar adult titles finding their way onto the 7800 and displaying adult graphics on the significantly improved graphics of the MARIA chip.

The 7800's compatibility with the Atari 2600 is made possible by including many of the same chips used in the Atari 2600.

The Atari 7800 came bundled with the Atari Proline Joystick a two button controller with a joystick for movement.

In response to criticism over ergonomic issues in the 7800 ’ s Pro-Line controllers, Atari later released joypad controllers with European 7800s, which were similar in style to controllers found on Nintendo and Sega Systems.

Unlike the NES or Sega Master System, there were few add-on peripherals for the 7800, though its backwards compatibility feature allowed it to be compatible with most Atari 2600 peripherals.

The most notable exception was the XG-1 lightgun, which came bundled with the Atari XE Game System.

Most of the top publishers in the gaming world ( or their American subsidiaries ) are members of ESA, including Atari, Capcom, Disney Interactive Studios, Eidos Interactive, Electronic Arts, Konami, Microsoft, Midway Games, Namco Bandai Games, Nintendo, Sega, Sony Computer Entertainment, Square Enix, Take-Two Interactive, THQ, Ubisoft and WildTangent.