Geek Gestalt

Last month, some of Silicon Valley's biggest names showed up at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., for the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64.

What no one I heard mentioned, despite the presence of Pong designer Al Alcorn, was that October marked the 30th anniversary of what may have been an even more influential video game machine, the Atari 2600.

Now, over at GameSpy, Marty Goldberg has spun for us the story of the creation of that iconic console.

The Atari 2600 turned 30 in October. Now, GameSpy is telling the story behind the groundbreaking video game console.

(Credit: Wikipedia)

And when I say iconic, I do mean it. After all, who doesn't recognize the 2600's signature joystick, that particularly ugly black thing with the circle of orange around the middle and a bright orange button? See?

Goldberg's story begins in the summer of 1975 with the release of the Sears home version of Pong. From there, Goldberg weaves a tale of the history of the 2600 that begins with the search for the machine's microprocessor and goes on from there.

This is actually a three-part series, and parts two and three have yet to run.

But for anyone with a serious interest in the history of video games and video game technology, this is a must-read.

Tetris for Nintendo's Gameboy may well be the best video game of all time.

(Credit: Nintendo)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--I was waiting to talk to Steve Wozniak last night at the 25th anniversary celebration for the Commodore 64 when I overheard him say his favorite video game of all time was Tetris for the Gameboy.

My eyes practically lit up when I heard that because, in a lot of ways, I have to agree.

In fact, as I told him a couple minutes later when I went up to talk to him, one of the things I made sure to do before I left for my Road Trip around the American Southwest this summer was go on eBay to buy a used Gameboy, just so that I could play that version of Tetris while I was traveling.

Woz seemed a little surprised that I agreed with him, but then he enthusiastically told me that, actually, it wasn't just the normal version of Gameboy Tetris that he loved. Specifically, he said, it was the version for the Gameboy Light, a rare version of the machine distributed only in Japan that has a backlit screen suitable for play on long plane rides.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak at the 25th anniversary celebration for the Commodore 64 on Monday night. Woz said his favorite video game of all time was Tetris for the Gameboy Lite.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

Not only that, he said, but he'd just been thinking about going on eBay to try to find one of the machines and the Tetris cartridge for it. So this morning, I noticed a Gameboy Lite available for sale on Craigslist, and I sent it to Woz. Apparently, though, it didn't come with Tetris. Bummer.

For me, the Gameboy Tetris was fantastic because the game is so amazingly simple, yet addictive. And that actual version just works so well on that machine. It feels good in your hands; it looks good on the screen; it makes a really satisfying sound when you score a tetris (clearing four lines at once) and the scoring system was just about right.

One of the funny things about Tetris is that there are innumerable versions of it, and they all seem to work a little bit different.

Perhaps my second favorite version was a version for Windows I used to play back in the days when I was a technical support "specialist" for Borland in the early '90s. I realized that Tetris was the kind of game that really requires only your subconscious brain. And I know this because I used to play while I was on support calls. And, believe it or not, the more intense the call and the more involved I was in it, the better my Tetris score. I kid you not.

Anyway, this all got us to thinking: What is your favorite video game of all time, and why? If you have a thought on this, please feel free to post into the comments section.

The Commodore 64 may be the best-selling computer of all time. The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., celebrated the C64's 25th anniversary Monday night.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--I don't want to date myself, but when I was in high school, one of the things I remember was that, among the geeks like myself who hung out in the computer lab, a bit of a culture war was under way.

No, it wasn't Macs versus Windows. But Apple was a player in this battle.

In fact, it was the Commodore 64 versus the Apple IIe, and while the school had a collection of Apples in the lab that all of us had to use, those of us who had C64s felt like we we owned the superior computer.

Maybe it was because the machine seemed pluckier. More accessible to the common man. Easier to use. Better looking. Whatever. We knew we were right. Those Apple owners were stuck-up elitists.

I suppose today some people probably feel the same about the Mac versus Windows stand-off, and, well, once again, as a Mac user this time, I'm on the right side of the fence.

But Monday, it was all about the Commodore 64, as hundreds of Silicon Valley's best and brightest came out to the Computer History Museum here to celebrate the machine's 25th anniversary.

It's hard to believe it's been that long. But I can still remember the day when my dad and I went to the local Long's to pick up my new C64. It was one of the happiest days of high school I can remember.

Over the years, I put that computer through its paces. I played endless games on it. I wrote BASIC programs. I word processed. I connected to my local BBS and illegally downloaded copied games. And so much more. That machine and I were like best friends.

I must not have been the only one because it turns out that the C64 may well be the best-selling computer of all time.

At the 25th anniversary celebration for the Commodore 64 in Mountain View, Calif. Monday night, Commodore founder Jack Tramiel was on hand for a rare public appearance.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

At the celebration Monday night, Commodore founder Jack Tramiel, who was the guest of honor during what I'm told was a very rare public appearance, told the gathered crowd that the C64 sold between 20 million and 30 million units, a staggering number.

So given the presence of luminaries like Tramiel, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Pong designer Al Alcorn and many others, I decided to ask some of them if they agreed that there had been a culture war during the early '80s, with C64, Apple IIe and, to a lesser extent, Atari 800 devotees carving out their sides in a pitched battle of self-righteous geekery.

I got to spend a little time talking with Tramiel and I first asked him what was different about people who bought C64s and those who ponied up for the Apple IIe.

"The only difference was the price," Tramiel said. "Because it seems that in this country, if you sell something cheaper, it couldn't be as good. If it's more expensive, and it's the same product, that must be a better product. That didn't stop me. I still wanted to sell it for a low price. If a person pays three times as much for a computer, he has to be proud of it, because he paid for it."

Fair enough. But does he agree that there was a culture war, maybe even one akin to today's Mac/Windows split?

Not really, Tramiel suggested. In fact, how could there be a culture war when one platform has 95 percent of the users, he asked. Never mind that Mac users are probably infinitely more passionate about their machines than Windows users.

So, since Tramiel didn't buy my premise, I decided to give Wozniak a try.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was on hand at the Computer History Museum to help celebrate the Commodore 64's 25th anniversary.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

Woz didn't seem to buy it either. In fact, his position was that, secretly, most C64 users really fancied themselves Apple IIe users.

"I talked to young people," Woz said, "and a lot of Commodore 64 users (told me they) would have gotten an Apple II if they could afford it."

He added that users felt they could learn more from the Apple's open system, while the C64's closed architecture offered only a cheaper price.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that these two didn't acknowledge the culture war the way I did. After all, they were unabashed partisans. But if you read between the lines of their comments, you can see that I'm right. Tramiel bashed the price of the Apple; Wozniak said everybody really wanted an Apple.

Atari engineer Al Alcorn, who designed 'Pong,' speaking at the 25th anniversary celebration for the Commodore 64.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

But, there was still an evening of celebration at hand, and I decided to press on with checking out the scene.

One thing I hadn't expected was that a lot of former Commodore employees had come out to be with their kind, and to talk to Tramiel, who they mostly hadn't seen in years.

I ended up talking with Bil Herd, who worked for Commodore from 1983 to 1986, and who was the lead designer of the company's consumer group. He said he had designed the Commodore 128, as well as several other of the company's machines.

Herd explained that he had gotten lucky as a high school dropout who just happened to know how electrons worked and had landed his job at Commodore.

He said that he worked his butt off while under Tramiel's tutelage and that one thing he remembered about his time there was, "You learned not to give excuses. You learned to just get it down."

Herd said he had come here Monday from his home in New Jersey just because he wanted a chance to see Tramiel again.

"You just don't get Jack out in public," Herd said.

He began to reminisce about his time at the company and smiled as he recalled how Tramiel had come up with the idea to give consumers $100 off a Commodore 64 if they traded in their existing computer.

"It got thousands of the competition off the street," Herd said. "We had a warehouse full of the competition's (machines)."

And what did they do with those old computers?

"I used a Sinclair as a doorstop," Herd laughed.

Later, the several hundred attendees filed into the museum's auditorium for a panel discussion moderated by New York Times reporter John Markoff.

New York Times reporter John Markoff interviewing Commodore founder Jack Tramiel on stage during the 25th anniversary celebration of the Commodore 64

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

And Markoff seemed to prompt the panelists--Tramiel, Wozniak, former IBM PC developer William Lowe and former Commodore International vice president of technology Adam Chowaniec--to answer the question of whether there might just have been a culture war after all.

Most didn't seem to want to bite.

But then, at last, one final nugget from Tramiel, riffing on the fact that the Apple IIe cost more than three times as much as the Commodore 64: "We made machines for the masses, (Apple) made machines for the classes."

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak talking to Commodore founder Jack Tramiel. It was the first time the two had met.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--"Hi, we've never met before."

With those words to Commodore founder Jack Tramiel on Monday evening, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak ended what may be one of the most improbable non-relationships in the history of computers.

It's hard to imagine how Woz and Tramiel could have possibly not ever met before, given that the two were such important figures in the early years of personal computers. With Woz's Apple II and Apple IIe and Tramiel's Commodore Vic-20 and Commodore 64 dominating the personal computer age of the early 1980s--along with the Atari 800--there are probably more people who have used those machines today than could ever be counted.

Yet, despite their prominence, the two had never met. Amazing.

They came face to face at the 25th anniversary celebration of the Commodore 64 at the Computer History Museum here.

And they proceeded to have the kind of conversation that any two computer geeks would have, talking about chips and processors and the like.

But as a witness, and a user of their respective computers way back in the day, it's still mind-boggling to me that in the tight-knit world of personal computing, Woz and Tramiel had never met.

Better late than never, I suppose.