Atari eventually obtained a line of credit from Wells Fargo that it used to expand its facilities to house an assembly line.

Atari acquired a new factory through funding obtained by venture capitalist Don Valentine.

There were two releases, both sanctioned by Atari and Bridgestone Multimedia ( who had obtained the rights to the Starpath library some time ago ): the first release ( a limited number not-for-profit release ) also included the previously unreleased Atari prototype, Polo by Carol Shaw, and the second release included the Supercharger prototypes Meteroid ( an early version of Suicide Mission ) and Excalibur ( an early version of Dragonstomper ), as well as a number of homebrew games by permission of their respective authors, and the song Atari 2600 by Splitsville, fully licensed from the band.

In 2002, an aspiring game designer, tester for Atari, and longtime fan of the game obtained the title's trademark and began work on a sequel aptly titled River City Ransom 2.

Tengen ( an Atari Games subsidiary ) took a different tactic: the corporation obtained a description of the code in the lockout chip from the United States Patent and Trademark Office by claiming that it was required to defend against present infringement claims in a legal case.

Coleco's software approach was to license arcade games that Atari had not.

After hearing about the game's success, Bushnell decided there would be more profit for Atari to manufacture the game rather than license it, but the interest of Bally and Midway had already been piqued.

Would-be renegade publishers could not publish for each other's lines, as Atari, Coleco and Mattel had done, because in order for the cartridge to work in the NES, the cartridge had to contain the appropriate key chip for the lock inside the console, and the publisher had to also acknowledge its license to Nintendo in the copyright notices.

Neverwinter Nights was originally to be published by Interplay, but the company lost the license of the game to Atari and part of their Dungeons & Dragons license, to BioWare.

After selling their D & D license to Atari, BioWare developed Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire.

Debts inherited from Atari Japan would take Nakamura two years to pay off, but the deal had also secured for him an exclusive license to distribute Atari's games in Japan for ten years.

Namco America existed mainly to license Namco's games to companies such as Atari and Midway Games for distribution in the U. S.

The European versions of the game were manufactured by Atari under license and used single side PAL discs manufactured by Philips ( not metal backed ).

Nintendo successfully used this grant to squeeze its rival Atari out of the market, as Atari had sought to market Tetris based on the original ( invalid ) license.

It was also sold as " Kung Fu Superkicks " when the license for the use of the name ' Chuck Norris ' expired. The game was produced for the Commodore 64, Commodore VIC-20, Atari 2600, and Colecovision as part of Xonox's double-ender cartridge line ( cartridges with two games and two connectors that were flipped over depending on which one the user wanted to play ).

Meanwhile, Atari got the license for computer versions of Donkey Kong and released it for the Atari 400 / 800.

This version of the game was cartridge-based, and thus not a violation of Nintendo's license with Atari ; still, Greenberg complied.

Many of these additions were collected by the newly formed Lead Pursuit, who arranged an official license of the original code base from its new owners, Atari.

A company called Lead Pursuit which has been formed around many known names of the Falcon modding community has gained a license from Atari to continue Falcon 4. 0 development.

Current license owner is Atari.

The Spanish company Topo Soft developed a side-scrolling Gremlins 2: The New Batch video game for Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, MSX, Amstrad CPC and the ZX Spectrum, distributed by Erbe Software in Spain and by Elite abroad, being the first time a Spanish video game company got an exclusive license from a Hollywood movie to make a videogame.

After seeing the game run on an Atari ST, programmer Ed Logg petitioned Atari Games to license it, and approached Stein.

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.

Atari also used the game for its other late ' 90s and 2000s anthology series.

In 2001, Infogrames released Atari Anniversary Edition for the Sega Dreamcast and PC compatibles which included emulated versions of Asteroids and other classics.

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.

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

This would eliminate the need for more ports on the back of the machine, and allowed for the elimination of expansion slots for supporting more complex devices ( the Atari 8-bit family used a similar solution, known as SIO ).

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.

Namco Bandai has purchased a 34 % stake in Atari Europe on May 14, 2009, paving the way for its acquisition from Infogrames.

Atari has had significant financial issues for several years now, posting losses in the tens of millions since 2005.

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.

It also has changes in the cartridge port address lines to allow for the Atari 2600 adapter released that year.

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.

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.

Second, the Atari 5200 ( the original intended successor to the Atari 2600 VCS ) had been widely criticized for not being able to play Atari 2600 VCS games without an adapter.

The Atari ST is a home computer released by Atari Corporation in June 1985.

Much of the technology in the Atari 8-bit family of home computer systems were originally developed as a second-generation games console intended to replace the 2600.

Powering the system was an Atari SALLY 6502 ( Atari's slightly custom 6502, sometimes described as a " 6502C ") processor running at 1. 79 MHz, similar to the processor found in home computers ( Atari 8-bit, Apple II, Commodore 64 ) and other consoles ( Atari 5200 and Nintendo Entertainment System ).

When emulators of 1980s video game consoles began to appear on home computers in the late 1990s, the Atari 7800 was one of the last to be emulated.

Soon after, BBS software was being written for all of the major home computer systems of the late 1970s era-the Apple II, Atari, Commodore and TRS-80 being some of the most popular.

After several on-again / off-again talks with Atari in May and June 1984, Tramiel had secured his funding and bought Atari's Consumer Division ( which included the console and home computer departments ) in July.

Mature versions of the Commodore, SWTPC, Atari and Apple home computer systems all featured a disk operating system ( actually called ' DOS ' in the case of the Commodore 64 ( CBM DOS ), Atari 800 ( Atari DOS ), and Apple II machines ( Apple DOS )), as did ( at the other end of the hardware spectrum, and much earlier ) IBM's System / 360, 370 and ( later ) 390 series of mainframes ( e. g., DOS / 360: Disk Operating System / 360 and DOS / VSE: Disk Operating System / Virtual Storage Extended ).

With the Z-machine, Infocom was able to release most of their games for most popular home computers of the day simultaneously — the Apple II family, Atari 800, IBM PC compatibles, Amstrad CPC / PCW ( one disc worked on both machines ), Commodore 64, Commodore Plus / 4, Commodore 128, Kaypro CP / M, Texas Instruments TI-99 / 4A, the Mac, Atari ST, the Commodore Amiga and the Radio Shack TRS-80.

By the mid-1980s, falling production cost made the 68000 viable for use in personal and home computers, starting with the Apple Lisa and Macintosh, and followed by the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, and Sharp X68000.

The 65xx family most notably included the 6502, used in several home computers such as the Commodore PET and VIC-20, the Apple II, and the Atari 800.

Measured from the introduction of the arcade hardware in 1990 to the release of the last official home cartridge in 2004, the Neo Geo enjoyed a market lifespan of fourteen years, making it the second longest-lived arcade or home console system ever produced ( after Atari 2600 ).

There are many similarities-both in overall functionality and in the division of functionality into the three component chips-between the OCS chipset and the much earlier and simpler chipset of the Atari 8-bit family of home computers, consisting of the ANTIC, GTIA and POKEY chips ; both chipsets were conceptually designed by Jay Miner, which explains the similarity.

During the 1975 Christmas season, Atari released a home version of Pong exclusively through Sears retail stores.

In 1974, Atari engineer Harold Lee proposed a home version of Pong that would connect to a television: Home Pong.

Shortly after The Texas Chain Saw Massacre established itself as a success on home video in 1982, Wizard Video released a mass-market video game adaptation for the Atari 2600.

* The Atari home computer video game Star Raiders, first released in 1979, responds to unknown keyboard commands with the status message " WHAT ' S WRONG?