Atari Inc.

What Hacker News says

1. timbit42Apr 2023
   Hackers by Steven Levy

   Valley of Genius: The Unrecorded History of Silicon Valley

   On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore (Brian Bagnall)

   Commodore: A Company on the Edge (Brian Bagnall)

   Commodore: The Amiga Years (Brian Bagnall)

   Commodore: The Final Years (Brian Bagnall)

   Commodore: The Inside Story by David Pleasance

   Back Into The Storm (Bil Herd's time at Commodore)

   The Future Was Here (Commodore Amiga)

   Atari Inc.: Business is Fun by Goldberg and Vendel

   Sophistication and Simplicity: The Life and Times of the Apple II computer

   iWoz (Steve Wozniak)

   BREAK OUT: How the Apple II Launched the PC Gaming Industry

   The New Apple II User's Guide by David Finnigan

   CoCo: The Colorful History of Tandy's Underdog Computer

   Priming the Pump: How TRS-80 Enthusiasts Helped Spark the PC Revolution

   Show morethread
2. jccalhounMay 2021
   In addition to the books mentioned here, I would also suggest Atari Inc. Business is Fun which is a super well researched book about the early days of Atari. They were going to write a second one but one of the coauthors died last year so I don't know if work continues on it or not.
   thread
3. baneDec 2016
   Business is Fun (Vendel, Goldberg) is part one of hopefully a multipart, incredibly researched, history of the company.

   https://www.amazon.com/Atari-Inc-Business-Curt-Vendel/dp/098...

   The ANTIC podcast also has some absolutely incredible interviews with folks form the era: https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/

   "Racing the Beam" is a more technical analysis of some of the early Atari platform development for the VCS/2600. This platform was Atari's cash cow and they failed to really pivot away from it. https://www.amazon.com/Racing-Beam-Computer-Platform-Studies...

   These are probably good starting points.

   Show morethread
4. baneJul 2015
   I've been really interested in early-80s to present PC history recently. There's actually a fair amount archived on it, but you'll sometimes have to approach things from the point of view of a historian rather than just a reader of history. My recent bent has been studying Atari, but there's lots of other resources available if you look. For whatever reason, videogames seem to have the lions share of work being done right now. I'd say that the archival and research phase is currently happening right now, with histories finally starting to be really written.

   For anybody interested in business (like the HN readership) I really recommend studying not only about the history of Apple, but the history of its early competitor Atari. Equally as interesting and represents a kind of alternate universe where the Google of its time failed spectacularly. The reasons why are complex and very informative, especially the Tramiel years.

   Some samples:

   There's not many books looking back, but there are a few and they're quite good:

   http://www.amazon.com/The-Future-Was-Here-Commodore/dp/02620...

   http://www.amazon.com/Atari-Inc-Business-Complete-History-eb...

   http://www.amazon.com/Edge-Spectacular-Rise-Fall-Commodore/d...

   http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Walter-Isaacson/dp/14516485...

   Classic magazines:

   https://archive.org/details/computermagazines

   There's also plenty of old shows both archived, and made more recently, some with a stunning number of important interviews

   https://archive.org/details/computerchronicles

   https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Dr+Sparkle...

   https://archive.org/details/thescreensavers

   https://www.youtube.com/user/MrGameSack

   https://www.youtube.com/user/tezzaNZ

   https://www.youtube.com/user/blacklily8

   And there's a vast retrogaming/retrocomputing podcasting phenomenon going on right now, often with even more amazing interviews

   http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/

   http://www.retronauts.com/

   and a larger list https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8544576

   What's nice is that this all happened recently enough that you can actually go to the primary sources and read/listen/talk with these events as they happened, but can now look back informed by decades of the aftereffects.

   Show morethread
5. baneOct 2014
   An absolutely great book on Atari from formation to breakup is "Atari inc. Business is fun" which includes scans of old advertisements and even contracts from the time period.
   thread
6. lordfritoApr 2025
   I'm endlessly fascinated by the stories that come out about the execs dealings during that period. How they were offered and passed on being the American distributor for the NES (all because the exec saw Donkey Kong running on a Coleco Adam at CES). [0] And how they funded but f'ed up the deal with the Amiga chipset (it should have been theirs but Commodore stole it at the 11'th hour). [1] Or how they were illegally bypassing DRAM price controls in the Tramiel era (the illegal $$$ is the main reason Atari stayed afloat after the disastrous Federated Group purchase). [2] The list goes on and on.

   I'm under the impression that there's a lot of real dirty stuff that's been swept under the rug, maybe now lost to time, as many of the execs are no longer with us. A lot is documented in the book "Atari: Business if Fun". [3] A shame that the follow up book "Atari: Business is War" will likely never be finished. [4]

   [0] https://www.timeextension.com/features/flashback-remember-wh...

   [1] https://www.nostalgianerd.com/the-amiga-story/

   [2] https://forums.atariage.com/topic/207245-secret-atari-dram-r...

   [3] https://www.amazon.com/Atari-Inc-Business-Curt-Vendel/dp/098...

   [4] https://forums.atariage.com/topic/227211-atari-corp-business...

   Show morethread