Atari Coin-op Archive Footage(arcadeblogger.com)
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Atari Coin-op Archive Footage
https://arcadeblogger.com/2019/12/26/atari-coin-op-archive-footage/
5 comments
Interesting that they did 100% incoming part inspection on their ICs going into the arcade machines. I’m not sure if ICs were less reliable then, or they just built a higher quality product.
That semi-automatic pick and place was neat.
That semi-automatic pick and place was neat.
They also had a much higher part count in their systems than is common today, so even a low rate of bad parts would result in a lot of malfunctioning systems.
Mobile phones and computers today have a pretty high IC count.
I mean, an arcade board is pretty big, but the parts density is also pretty low.
I mean, an arcade board is pretty big, but the parts density is also pretty low.
You might be surprised. Modern electronics are highly integrated; a modern smartphone is probably no more than a few dozen ICs. Vintage arcade hardware tended to rely heavily on discrete logic; even a simpler game like Asteroids had somewhere around a hundred ICs on its main board.
I'm no stranger to 74xx. ;)
iPhone X has 72 integrated circuits on the main board, and quite a few more on other assemblies.
I agree that Asteroids has approximately 100. We're really not too far apart in device count.
Then when you look at, say, pin count, there's no contest at all.
iPhone X has 72 integrated circuits on the main board, and quite a few more on other assemblies.
I agree that Asteroids has approximately 100. We're really not too far apart in device count.
Then when you look at, say, pin count, there's no contest at all.
> Interesting that they did 100% incoming part inspection on their ICs going into the arcade machines. I’m not sure if ICs were less reliable then, or they just built a higher quality product.
If memory serves, it was a little of column A, and a little of column B.
If memory serves, it was a little of column A, and a little of column B.
The recently-departed Chuck Peddle [1], designer of the MOS 6502, caused me to fall down a wiki hole for a bit and I learned that IC failure rates, right off production back in the 1970's, was something surprisingly dismal like... 70% were good? Can't find the original article but it illustrated that a LOT of silicon was melted back down and reused until MOS Tech came along, refined some of the processes to increase reliability and the industry followed behind.
Edit: found it... [2] tl;dr: MOS's advancements resulted in IC production success rates of 70% or more, and were markedly worse before (lows of a 30% success rate would still be considered profitable or successful).
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21847718
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology#Mask_fixing
Edit: found it... [2] tl;dr: MOS's advancements resulted in IC production success rates of 70% or more, and were markedly worse before (lows of a 30% success rate would still be considered profitable or successful).
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21847718
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology#Mask_fixing
Dig dug made $2 million a console in 1982 dollars. $2 million! That would be fantastic today. $5.25 million in 2018 dollars. That was a staggering amount of money. Assuming a console today might cost a couple thousand to manufacture, imagine if you made $1 million after designing and programming a game per console sold. That was a golden age in many ways.
I did not know that Silicon Valley had that nickname even back in 1980. (About 9:30 in first video)
The Computer History Museum has a blog post -- https://computerhistory.org/blog/who-named-silicon-valley/ -- where they try to identify the origin of the nickname, which dates an in-print occurrence back to 1971, and probable use in the mid-to-late 60s.
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The Chubby Checker recorded Dig Dug song is a terrific find.
> Players want detail, movement, three dimensional effects, color & color changes, unexpected events, faster games with more realistic & dynamic sound
Good basic principles for any game developer, from the 1980s to the 2020s