Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System (Platform Studies) Read online

  Racing the Beam

  Platform Studies

  Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort, editors

  Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System, Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost, 2009

  Racing the Beam

  The Atari Video Computer System

  Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost

  The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England

  © 2009 Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

  For information about special quantity discounts, please email [email protected] This book was set in Filosofi a and Helvetica Neue by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong.

  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Montfort, Nick.

  Racing the beam : the Atari video computer system / Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost.

  p. cm

  —

  (Platform

  studies)

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-0-262-01257-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Video games—Equipment and supplies.

  2. Atari 2600 (Video game console) 3. Computer games—Programming. 4. Video games—

  United States—History. I. Bogost, Ian. II. Title.

  TK6681.M65

  2009

  794.8—dc22

  2008029410

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Contents

  Series Foreword vii

  Acknowledgments ix

  Timeline xi

  1 Stella 1

  2 Combat 19

  3 Adventure 43

  4 Pac-Man 65

  5 Yars’ Revenge 81

  6 Pitfall! 99

  7

  Star Wars: The Empire

  Strikes Back 119

  8 After

  the

  Crash 137

  Afterword on Platform Studies 145

  Notes 151

  Bibliography 159

  Index 169

  Series Foreword

  How can someone create a breakthrough game for a mobile phone or a

  compelling work of art for an immersive 3D environment without under-

  standing that the mobile phone and the 3D environment are different

  sorts of computing platforms? The best artists, writers, programmers,

  and designers are well aware of how certain platforms facilitate certain

  types of computational expression and innovation. Likewise, computer

  science and engineering has long considered how underlying computing

  systems can be analyzed and improved. As important as scientifi c and

  engineering approaches are, and as signifi cant as work by creative artists has been, there is also much to be learned from the sustained, intensive,

  humanistic study of digital media. We believe it is time for those of us in the humanities to seriously consider the lowest level of computing systems and to understand how these systems relate to culture and creativity.

  The Platform Studies book series has been established to promote

  the investigation of underlying computing systems and how they enable,

  constrain, shape, and support the creative work that is done on them. The

  series investigates the foundations of digital media: the computing

  systems, both hardware and software, that developers and users depend

  upon for artistic, literary, gaming, and other creative development. Books in the series certainly vary in their approaches, but they all also share

  certain features:

  •

  a focus on a single platform or a closely related family of platforms

  •

  technical rigor and in-depth investigation of how computing tech-

  nologies work

  •

  an awareness of and discussion of how computing platforms exist in

  a context of culture and society, being developed based on cultural

  concepts and then contributing to culture in a variety of ways—for

  instance, by affecting how people perceive computing

  [viii]

  Acknowledgments

  We are very grateful for all of the work that was done by the original developers of the Atari VCS and by the programmers of cartridges for that

  system. We also thank those who replied to our questions about game

  development on the system and emulation of the system: Bill Bracy, Rex

  Bradford, David Crane, Jeff Vavasour, and Howard Scott Warshaw.

  Thanks to those who helped us to formulate these ideas about the

  Atari VCS and about platform studies, including Kyle Buza, Chris Craw-

  ford, Mark Guzdial, D. Fox Harrell, Steven E. Jones, Matthew G. Kirschen-

  baum, Jane McGonigal, Jill Walker Rettberg, and Jim Whitehead.

  We greatly appreciate the work that Roger Bellin and Dexter Palmer

  did in organizing the Form, Culture, and Video Game Criticism confer-

  ence at Princeton University on 6 March 2004. This conference prompted

  the fi rst scholarship leading to this book. Thanks also to students in Ian Bogost’s Videogame Design and Analysis class on the Atari VCS (Georgia

  Tech, Spring 2007): Michael Biggs, Sarah Clark, Rob Fitzpatrick, Mark

  Nelson, Nirmal Patel, Wes St. John, and Josh Teitelbaum. Thanks as well

  to Peter Stallybrass and the participants in his History of Material Texts Workshop at the University of Pennsylvania.

  We greatly appreciate the work of modern-day Atari VCS program-

  mers and analysts, which has made our study of the system easier and has

  allowed us to continue to enjoy the console in new ways. Particular thanks go to the moderators and contributors to the AtariAge forums.

  A shout-out goes to the bloggers and readers of Grand Text Auto, where much useful discussion of the Atari VCS has transpired.

  We also want to thank those at the MIT Press who helped make this

  book possible—particularly Doug Sery. Our thanks also go to the anony-

  mous reviewers who provided valuable comments at the request of the

  MIT Press.

  [x]

  Timeline

  1972 Atari’s

  arcade

  Pong by Al Alcorn

  1975 Kee

  Games’s

  arcade

  Tank by Steve Bristow and Lyle Rains

  1975 Atari’s

  Home Pong by Al Alcorn, Bob Brown, and Harold Lee

  1977 Atari

  VCS

  released

  1977 Atari’s

  VCS

  Combat by Larry Wagner and Joe Decuir

  1978 Atari’s

  VCS

  Slot Racers by Warren Robinett

  1978 Atari’s

  VCS

  Adventure by Warren Robinett

  1978 Namco’s

  arcade

  Space Invaders by Tomohiro Nishikado

  1979 Activision

  founded

  1979

  Intellivision released by Mattel

  1980 Cinematronics’s

  arcade

  Star Castle by Tim Skelly

  1980 Namco’s

  arcade

>   Pac-Man by Toru Iwatani

  1980 Atari’s

  VCS

  Space Invaders by Rick Maurer

  1981 Atari’s

  VCS

  Pac-Man by Tod Frye

  1981 Atari’s

  VCS

  Asteroids by Brad Stewart

  1981 Atari’s

  VCS

  Yars’ Revenge by Howard Scott Warshaw

  1981 Imagic

  founded

  1982

  Atari 5200 introduced; Atari VCS renamed “Atari 2600”

  1982 Activision’s

  VCS

  Pitfall! by David Crane

  1982 Atari’s

  VCS

  Raiders of the Lost Ark by Howard Scott Warshaw

  1982 Atari’s

  VCS

  E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial by Howard Scott Warshaw

  1982

  Parker Brothers’ VCS Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back by Rex

  Bradford

  [xii]

  Stella

  1

  When someone creates a computer artifact like a video game, a digital

  artwork, or a work of electronic literature, what type of process is this?

  Here’s one idea: it is a creative act that is similar in many ways to writing a poem or taking a photograph, except that in this case, the creator doesn’t use words one after another on paper or light bent through an aperture.

  This type of inscription or exposure doesn’t happen—so what exactly does

  happen?

  The creator of a computer work might design circuits and solder

  chips. Or, this author might write instructions for the integrated circuits and microprocessors of a particular computer, or write software in a high-level programming language, or create 3D models to be added to a virtual

  world, or edit digital video for embedding in a Web site.

  The same question could be asked of the critic who interacts with such

  a work. What does a creator, historian, researcher, student, or other user do when experiencing a creative computer artifact? An encounter with

  such a work could involve trying to understand the social and cultural

  contexts in which it came to exist. It might also involve interpreting its representational qualities—what it means and how it produces that

  meaning. Alternatively, a study might involve looking at the methods of

  this work’s construction, or the code itself, or even the hardware and

  physical form of the machines on which it is used.

  All of these levels of computational creativity are connected. Fortu-

  nately for those of us who are interested in such uses of the computer,

  there have already been many studies of digital media dealing with the

  reception and operation of computer programs, with their interfaces, and with their forms and functions. But studies have seldom delved into the

  code of these programs, and they have almost never investigated the plat-

  forms that are the basis of creative computing.1 Serious and in-depth

  consideration of circuits, chips, peripherals, and how they are integrated and used is a largely unexplored territory for both critic and creator.

  Platforms have been around for decades, though, right underneath

  our video games, digital art, electronic literature, and other forms of

  expressive computing. Digital media researchers are starting to see that

  code is a way to learn more about how computers are used in culture, but

  there have been few attempts to go even deeper, to investigate the basic

  hardware and software systems upon which programming takes place, the

  ones that are the foundation for computational expression. This book

  begins to do this—to develop a critical approach to computational

  platforms.

  We hope this will be one of several considerations of this low level of

  digital media, part of a family of approaches called “platform studies.”

  Studies in this fi eld will, we hope, investigate the relationships between platforms—the hardware and software design of standardized computing

  systems—and infl uential creative works that have been produced on those

  platforms.

  Types of Platforms

  The Atari Video Computer System (or VCS, a system also known by

  its product number, 2600) is a well-defi ned example of a platform.

  A platform in its purest form is an abstraction, a particular standard

  or specifi cation before any particular implementation of it. To be used

  by people and to take part in our culture directly, a platform must

  take material form, as the Atari VCS certainly did. This can be done by

  means of the chips, boards, peripherals, controllers, and other compo-

  nents that make up the hardware of a physical computer system. The

  platforms that are most clearly encapsulated are those that are sold as a

  complete hardware system in a packaged form, ready to accept media such

  as cartridges. The Atari VCS is a very simple, elegant, and infl uential

  platform of this sort.

  In other cases, a platform includes an operating system. It is often

  useful to think of a programming language or environment on top of an

  operating system as a platform, too. Whatever the programmer takes for

  granted when developing, and whatever, from another side, the user is

  required to have working in order to use particular software, is the plat-

  [2]

  form. In general, platforms are layered—from hardware through operating system and into other software layers—and they relate to modular

  components, such as optional controllers and cards. Studies in computer

  science and engineering have addressed the question of how platforms

  are best developed and what is best encapsulated in the platform. Studies

  in digital media have addressed the cultural relevance of particular soft-

  ware that runs on platforms. But little work has been done on how the

  hardware and software of platforms infl uences, facilitates, or constrains particular forms of computational expression.

  When digital media creators choose a platform, they simplify devel-

  opment and delivery in many ways. For example, such authors need not

  construct an entirely new computer system before starting on a particular

  creative project. Likewise, users need not fashion or acquire completely

  new pieces of hardware before interacting with such a work. That said,

  work that is built for a platform is supported and constrained by what the chosen platform can do. Sometimes the infl uence is obvious: a monochrome platform can’t display color, for instance, and a videogame

  console without a keyboard can’t accept typed input. But there are more

  subtle ways that platforms infl uence creative production, due to the idioms of programming that a language supports or due to transistor-level decisions made in video and audio hardware. In addition to allowing certain

  developments and precluding others, platforms also function in more

  subtle ways to encourage and discourage different sorts of computer

  expression. In drawing raster graphics, there is a considerable difference between setting up one television scan line at a time as the Atari VCS

  demands, having a buffered display with support for tiles and sprites, or

  having some more elaborate system that includes a native 3D renderer.

  Such a difference can end up being much more important than simple

  statistics of screen resolution or color depth that are used as shorthand by fans and marketers.

  We offer here such a platform study, one that considers an
infl uential

  videogame system that helped introduce computing to a popular audience

  and to the home. Our approach is mainly informed by the history of

  material texts, programming, and computing systems. Other sorts of plat-

  form studies may emphasize different technical or cultural aspects, and

  may draw on different critical and theoretical approaches. To deal deeply

  with platforms and digital media, however, any study of this sort must

  be technically rigorous. The detailed analysis of hardware and code

  connects to the experience of developers who created software for a plat-

  form and users who interacted with and will interact with programs on

  that platform. Only the serious investigation of computing systems as

  1 Stella

  [3]

  specifi c machines can reveal the relationships between these systems and creativity, design, expression, and culture.

  Although it was not the fi rst home videogame console, the Atari VCS

  was the fi rst wildly popular one. It was affordable at the time, and it offered the fl exibility of interchangeable cartridges. The popularity of the Atari VCS—which was the dominant system for years and remained widely used

  for more than a decade—supported the creation of nearly one thousand

  games, many of which established techniques, mechanics, or entire

  genres that continue to thrive today on much more technologically

  advanced platforms. Although several companies fi elded consoles, by

  1981 the Atari VCS accounted for 75 percent of home videogame system

  sales.2 Indeed, the generic term for a videogame system in the early 1980s was “an Atari.” Yet, despite its undisputed place in the annals of popular culture, and despite having been the standard system for home video

  gaming for so many years, Atari’s fi rst cartridge-based system is an

  extremely curious computer.

  Cost concerns led to a remarkable hardware design, which infl uenced

  how software was written for the Atari VCS, which in turn infl uenced the

  video games created during and after the system’s reign. Given that it used a version of the very typical 6502 processor, which drove many computers

  and consoles, one might not guess that the Atari VCS was so atypical. But

  this processor interfaced with the display by means of a truly unique com-

  ponent, the Television Interface Adaptor, or TIA. A television picture is