Atari is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French holding company Atari SA. The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, California, United States in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, was a pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles, and home computers. The company's products, such as Pong and the Atari 2600, helped define the electronic entertainment industry from the 1970s to the mid-1980s.
The Atari 2600 is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System, it popularized microprocessor-based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridges, a format first used with the Fairchild Channel F in 1976. The VCS was bundled with two joystick controllers, a conjoined pair of paddle controllers, and a game cartridge—initially Combat and later Pac-Man. Sears sold the system as the Tele-Games Video Arcade. Atari rebranded the VCS as the Atari 2600 in November 1982, alongside the release of the Atari 5200.
A factoid is either a false statement presented as a fact, or a true but brief or trivial item of news or information.
Webster's Dictionary is any of the US English language dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by Noah Webster (1758–1843), a US lexicographer, as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted the Webster's name in his honor. "Webster's" has since become a genericized trademark in the United States for US English dictionaries, and is widely used in dictionary titles.
Star Raiders is a space combat simulator video game created by Doug Neubauer and published in 1980 by Atari, Inc. Originally released for the Atari 400/800 computers, Star Raiders was later ported to the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, and Atari ST. The player assumes the role of a starship fighter pilot, who must protect starbases from invading forces called Zylons. Piloting and combat are shown in the 3D cockpit view, while a 2D galactic map shows the state of the Zylon invasion. Neubauer made the game in his spare time at Atari, inspired by contemporary media such as Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars, as well as the 1971 mainframe game Star Trek.
Merriam-Webster, Incorporated is an American company that publishes reference books and is mostly known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States.
There have been many human powered vehicles designed and constructed specifically for transporting loads since their earliest appearance in the 20th century. They are referred to variously depending on the number of wheels — typically two, three, or four — and by their specific use. Adjectives used to describe the tasks to which the bicycles, dicycles, tricycles, or quadracycles are put include cargo cycles, freight cycles, box cycles, carrier cycles, and so on. Sometimes they are also called cycletrucks, which uses a sense of the word 'truck' predating the automobile.
Solaris is a space combat video game for the Atari 2600 published in 1986 by Atari. The game involves a player seeking out the planet Solaris via their starship. To accomplish this, the player must navigate the galactic scanner to explore quadrants of a map. Doing so allows them to explore Federation planets to refuel their ship, and engage in combat with hostile aliens known as the Zylons.
Owing to the dominance of the Google search engine, to google has become a transitive verb. The neologism commonly refers to searching for information on the World Wide Web, typically using the Google search engine. The American Dialect Society chose it as the "most useful word of 2002". It was added to the Oxford English Dictionary on June 15, 2006, and to the eleventh edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary in July 2006.
Phoenix is a fixed shooter video game developed for arcades in Japan and released in 1980 by Taito. The player controls a space ship shooting at incoming enemies that fly from the top of the screen down towards the player's ship. There are five stages which repeat endlessly. The fifth is a fight against a large enemy spaceship, making Phoenix one of the first shooters with a boss battle, an element that would become common for the genre.
A safety bicycle is a type of bicycle that became very popular beginning in the late 1880s as an alternative to the penny-farthing and is now the most common type of bicycle. Early bicycles of this style were known as safety bicycles because they were noted for, and marketed as, being safer than the high wheelers they were replacing. Even though modern bicycles use a similar design, the term is rarely used today and is considered obsolete outside circles familiar with high wheelers.
Alien is a 1982 maze video game for the Atari 2600 published by Fox Video Games. The game has the player control a human moving through the hallways of a space ship avoiding the adult alien and destroying the small alien eggs.
Pitfall II: Lost Caverns is a video game developed by David Crane for the Atari 2600. It was released in 1984 by Activision. The player controls Pitfall Harry, who must explore in wilds of Peru to find the Raj Diamond, and rescue his niece Rhonda and their animal friend Quickclaw. The game world is populated by enemies and hazards that variously cause the player to lose points and return to a checkpoint.
The Atari Flashback is a line of dedicated video game consoles produced since 2004, currently designed, produced, published and marketed by AtGames under license from Atari SA. The Flashback consoles are "plug-and-play" versions of the 1970s Atari 2600 console with built-in games rather than using ROM cartridges. The latest home console model, Atari Flashback 12 Gold, was released in 2023 and has 130 games.
A dicycle is a vehicle with two parallel wheels, side by side, unlike single-track vehicles such as motorcycles and bicycles, which have two wheels inline. Originally used to refer to devices with large wheels and pedals, the term is now used in relation to powered self-balancing scooters with smaller wheels and no pedals such as the Segway PT and the self-balancing hoverboard.
Star Wars: Jedi Arena is a lightsaber battle video game written by Rex Bradford for the Atari 2600 and published by Parker Brothers in 1983. It is the first Star Wars video game to feature lightsabers. The goal of the game, based on one scene in the original Star Wars film, is to take out the opponent with the Seeker ball while defending oneself from incoming laser blasts using one's lightsaber.
Doug Neubauer is an American integrated circuit designer, video game designer, and programmer. Following graduation for Oregon State University and working at National Semiconductor, Neubauer worked at Atari, Inc. where he would develop the logic design on Atari's POKEY chip and designing and programming the video game Star Raiders (1980) both for the Atari 8-bit computer line. Star Raiders would go on to become one of the best-known games for Atari's 8-bit computers.
Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration is a 2022 video game compilation and interactive documentary developed by Digital Eclipse and published by Atari to commemorate the company's 50th anniversary. It is composed of newly shot interviews with former Atari employees, archival footage, emulated games from the company's catalog, and six new games inspired by various Atari games. It was released for Atari VCS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on November 11, 2022.
