The Atari Museum's Rarest & Coolest Exhibits

The Atari Museum is a collection of rare Atari history - including prototypes, schematics, code, paperwork and other fascinating historical oddities and one-offs relating to Atari's 50+ year history of retro gaming and retro computing. So join me as I tell the story of how this valuable website - run by the late, great Curt Vendel - has been restored and preserved, and explore some of the treasures within.
Also hear some of the stories from behind the scenes at Cyan Engineering - Allan Alcorn, Ron Miller, Nolan Bushnell, Owen Rubin and more!
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Relevant Links:
Official Atari Museum Mirror: atarimuseum.ctrl-alt-rees.com
Zafinn Books: zafinnbooks.com
Atari Inc. Business Is Fun Book: / atari-inc-business-is-fun
Featured Items:
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More Info / Credits:
ctrl-alt-rees.com/2023-06-22-...
VIP Superfan Steves:
Action Retro: / actionretro
Arthur Ludwiczak
BitterBlitter
Endzs
Gary Pinkett
Has Beard, Plays Games: / blcollier
James Rodgers
Justin D. Morgan: / jdmcs
Karl Bate
Kevin Leah
Laurent
Mark 'Kurbeco' Simpson
MarkCentral
Mr Lurch: / mrlurchsthings
Naoki Saito: / naokisaito
Ronnie Graham
ScarlettMarseille: / smarseille
Steve's Tech Shed: / stevestechshed
stween
Vanessaira: / @vanessaira-retro
Socials:
Official ctrl-alt-rees Discord: / discord
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Royalty-Free Music From Epidemic Sound: www.epidemicsound.com:
Intro: Giants’ Nest - Tiny Things
Gavin Luke - Feeling Alright
Cornelio - Feriado
ELFL - Arcade Romance
Jules Gaia - Midnight Swing
Matt Large - Coffeehouse By Large
Jules Gaia - Two Steps Back
Outro: Yomoti - Before Chill
Chapters:
00:00 Intro - Curt’s Story & Flashback Consoles
02:11 Atari History & The Atari Museum
04:19 CX-2000 / CX-2500 / VAL Atari 2600 Prototype
05:50 Super Breakout & Space Invaders Handheld Games - Atari Electronic Games Division
06:51 Cosmos & Spector Holographic Handheld Games
08:51 Atari MindLink Mind Control
10:48 ATARITEL - Atari Phoney & Telectra Phones
13:55 Kermit The Robot
15:38 Further Reading & Information
#atari #museum #retrogaming

[@tschak909]

Curt and I were close friends. I miss him terribly. I had just talked with him, a week before, and he was ecstatic about my work on FujiNet, wanting to play with the beta unit, once it was ready, and he was also working on restoring the 1090 expansion chassis, all of the cards that were made for it, and the 1060 Sweet Pea Z80 module, we had planned to talk the next weekend. Damn it. He was also working on repairing my GRiDCASE 1537 TEMPEST laptop, which was NSA surplus. It had proven impossible to get schematics, because they had been classified, so Curt reconstructed schematics from scratch, tracing the board and extrapolating from the components outward. I still need to get that 1537 back from his estate... -Thomas Cherryhomes

[@Rockythefishman]

I was shocked when he passed, 53 is no age at all to pass. Makes you think, dont put things off. You might run out of time before you even know it

[@ctrlaltrees]

Absolutely. 👍

[@JimLeonard]

I very much appreciate all of the production work you put into this video, from the tight script to the video and photo inserts. It must have taken many hours, and it's reflected in the quality of the output. Excellent work. As a historian myself, I also appreciate the work you're putting into reconstructing Curt's works. Usually thankless work, so: Thank you.

[@Ra-zor]

Great work! It does show just how easily some great sites on the internet you think will be around for a long time to come could suddenly cease to be literally overnight. Great on going preservation of this site 👍

[@tschak909]

Correction on the Flashback 1: While Curt did do the hardware work (and yes, correctly noted based on a NOAC), the software work was done by a small team out of Japan, who, yes, did the ports in roughly 10 weeks. He would later (March 2019) attempt to engage them again to make the code for the pQube sold BLAZE Atari mini-arcades, but they weren't available, so he asked me to do the work. I didn't have the cycles, so I recommended him to a friend of mine, while I provided additional help and helped my friend get familiar with NES internals.

[@RetroHackShack]

Great video, Rees! Also, perfect timing since my Atari VCS technical video goes up tomorrow 😊 We must be running on the same wavelength.

[@RichardTroupe]

Excellent work Rees! A very interesting look at some of the forward-thinking prototypes as well!

[@WhatHoSnorkers]

That was a lovely vid! Cheeky of Mr Bushnell! )

[@technickuk]

Wow, didn't know about the video phone or telectra. Both seem really ahead of their time.

[@AnzacPT]

I remember the news about Curt. it was really sad. hopefully the book sequel will eventually come out, Marty seemed to be trying to do the best he could. i also hope all the information can be recovered. please do more videos like this.

[@redleader7988]

Thanks for your work on salvaging the Atari Museum website, and releasing the Github repo. If we could get an image file of that server's hard drive, I'm sure it would be cracked in no time. Would love to see another video on this subject.

[@dazealex]

Brilliant. Best Atari channel on KZbin!

[@ctrlaltrees]

Oh, thankyou so much, that's very kind of you to say. 🙂

[@urmie]

I followed Curt on the AtariAge forums since he was working on the 7800 XM add-on. Seemed like a great guy, very smart. Gone too soon.

[@atariexplorer1545]

Thank you for this well produced video and the kind words about Curt Vendel. Keep up the great work Rees 🙂

[@joebadger]

I'm not an "Atari guy" but I recognise what a loss it would be to lose such a trove of history. Well done on your efforts to preserve this.

[@RetroHQ]

I had no idea Karl was involved with that side of things along with Kurt! He's a really good guy! I've contributed a few bits for the Lynx book, etc. Those books are *really* well put together, I have a few. :)

[@tejp5101]

Kermit's hair looks like a merkin. Thank you for that!

[@RetrogradeScene]

Great video I love the history around all these weird abandoned off shoots of tech.

[@esenterre]

Great video! I love that! And it's no common history we find elsewhere! 👍

[@VincentGroenewold]

Lovely history I knew nothing about! Thanks!

[@datassetteuser356]

Very nice, some great stuff here I had no idea about, like for example the robot. Thanks! 👍

[@macmacintouch2189]

Great Video. Please more of this „obscure“ history 🙂

[@coffeecuparcade]

A very interesting episode in Atari history. It's amazing that to this day I can still fire up my 2600 and have a great time. Legendary games from a time period that was just exploding with new ideas. I miss that era.

[@nlx78]

@0:56 Infogrames....hands down the publisher I played most in 1 year with my neighbour when we were probably 10-ish. On an Amiga playing North & South, the 2 player civil war game. The in between games/missions were fun with the train robbers, but most of all the battlefield where he always kicked my ass. I blamed it on me not having the game at home (we had a PC then, bouncing babies/paratrooper/summer and winter- olympics were the games I beat him on my own 'turf')

[@nickfiore2068]

Thank you so much!! I have been scouring the internet for other solutions, and found wayback machine not working, so haven't been able to check whats left. Hopefully they will be able to restore the original site, but until then thank you!!

[@ViewpointProd]

Absolutely Incredible doccumentation and presentation! Subbed!

[@metronome8471]

Personally I think it would be cool if Atari mentioned Curt in their museum themed title Atari Mania.

[@leesmithsworkshop]

Great video as always. The moon is calling....

[@NorthWay_no]

The AMY chip has always fascinated me since I found out about it. Was it finalized and released by an outside company? Are there any in existence?

[@CurtisOvard]

This was awesome. 🎉

[@force4200]

Nice about the Atari now we would like som Amiga :) keep up the good work.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Haha, thanks! The Amiga isn't really my area of expertise and there are already some great channels out there covering it, but I'll certainly be getting my A600 out again at some point in future...

[@MQsto]

Amiga... Now, wasn't that one of the better knock-offs of the all-time great Atari ST?! :-P

[@redleader7988]

...it all started at Atari

[@force4200]

@@redleader7988 commodore started 1958 and atari 1972 ;) but Astari was cupple of month before Amiga on the 8bit version. I love both and have both of the modells Atari 520 520st 1040st Amiga 500 600 1200 2000 3000 4000 and c64 128 128d Im an collector ;) Have a nice day we sould not argue about Amiga and Atari we are all Retro the new garbage is what we sould hate :). Sorry for my english i am from Sweden hope you understand :)

[@exxosuk]

It's a great shame about Curt. I was talking to him for a short time many years back as he claimed he had the Atari ST chipset schematics. Though if he did have them, they are likely lost with other stuff :(

[@peterbush3972]

yes

[@adelestevens]

Regarding the 3D "holographic" games systems. Could anybody please , please! Confirm that in the early 80s, there was a 3D projection sit-down cabinet of 3D space invaders? I remember chucking lots of 10p pieces in a machine in Blackpool pleasure beach (for those that know , it was near the rib shack further down the ally from the river caves ride). The game was a sit inside cab with a projection onto a planet surface, and the "invaders "(in colour) marched from the horizon, getting closer and dropping the usual "bombs" on the shields whichbwere lined up into tgw distance. Play was with a "Star Wars" type control (maybe an Atari connection), and play had a fixed target reticule in the centre of the screen and "steered" the rest of the projected image into the reticule to shoot and obtain the "kill".

[@ToomsDotDk]

do you have access to the pc, unless the device is encrypted then an password is not an issue

[@dragonheadthing]

Yeah! The data should still be safe on the drive!

[@alexandermirdzveli3200]

Usually, I learn almost nothing new while watching Retro channels. This time, however, I felt like a little child admiring a brave new world.

[@NesNyt]

Let me guess an atari