Re: Nolan Bushnell on ZDTV

A better question might be "did Nolan EVER design ANYTHING"? He had a talent
for being in the right place at the right time and around the right people to
get things done, but I always got the impression that he was nothing more than a
management type that made his fame on the backs of others.

Too harsh? Perhaps. But it always seemed to me that the man wouldn't even have
been capable of connecting power and ground to a 7400 let alone actually doing
anything with the gates.

I mean it's always been "Nolan Bushnell invented the video game" and "Nolan
Bushnell invented Chuck E. Cheese" and "Nolan Bushnell started Androbot" and
"Nolan Bushnell will save coin-op through Sente". I just never was able to
stomach it all. Granted the man has a talent of connecting people that want to
invest money with engineers that can get the job done AND provide a vision of
how to tie it all together, but where is Androbot and Sente now? And Chuck E.
Cheese went bankrupt years ago and was bought by Showbiz Pizza. Atari even
almost bit the dust at a couple of points.

The man does have a talent for starting things but always manages to escape
before they blow up. And for that he's supposed to be our hero? You can have
him!

(Sorry about all that, guys, that rant has been a VERY long time coming.)

jwelser@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu wrote:

> On Thu, 6 Jan 2000, John Robertson wrote:
>
> > This is not very vector, is it? Lets try and force this back on topic: Did
> > Nolan design any Vector games?
> >
>
> That's probably a tough call. If memory serves, I think a lot of
> the early Atari Vector work was done by Howard Delman, and a few other
> guys who's names I'm not positive of (I want to say Harry Jenkins, Roger
> Hector, and Ed Rotberg, but I'm probably including/forgetting somebody
> that shouldn't/should be there) in "transition Atari," but after Atari was
> owned by Warner. However it's unclear what, if any, impact Nolan had on
> these guys (Delman, at least, was hired by Nolan.)
>
> "Zap: The Rise and Fall of Atari" talks about Atari Vector games
> a little bit...
>
> Joe

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