Atari Chronolgy

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Atari Chronolgy

June 27th 1972 Nolan Bushnell founds Atari, Inc. and Pong the world's first electronic video game is created and sold initially as a coin operated arcade system

October 1976, Nolan Bushnell sells Atari to Warner Communications, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers Inc, for $28 Million.

1977's Atari markets the Atari Video Computer System (2600)

January 1979 Atari unveils its first computers during the Winter Consumer Electronics Show

1982 Atari 5200 released

1983 Nintendo's founder approaches Atari Inc with an offer of licensed rights to produce the Famicom (NES) system in the US which is promtly turned down!

1983 to 1984 Atari works on the development of the Atari 7800

1984 Atari, Inc. is split into the arcade division Atari Games Corp which remains under Warner Brothers ownership (majority owned by Warner, part is sold to Namco which they later sell back to Warner) , and the home console division (and rights to all former Atari software titles) which is sold by Warner Brothers to Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore computers He reorganizes the company and calls it Atari Corporation and an initial public offering of Atari Corp stock follows.

1985 Atari corporation releases the ST computer as the new owners of Atari Corp want to pursue the Computer market more actively

1986 After Nintendo and Sega control most of the home video game market Atari Corporation finally releases the 7800 which had been created nearly two years ago.

1989 or 1990? Atari Corporation along with Sega of America lead the US justice Department to investigate alleged anti trust activities of Nintendo. The result of this investigation was that Nintendo had to drop its exclusivity requirement on third party developers for its systems. Competition flourished as third party software developers could now work freely on any platform.

1990-1991 Atari corporation introduces the TT line of computers

1991? Atari releases the Atari Portfolio a portable palmtop computer. This type of computer was used in the movie Terminator 2 to get money from an ATM and to break into parts of Cyberdyne systems.

1993 Atari corporation releases the Falcon computer systems, their last computer

1993 Atari corporaton releases the Jaguar

September 1994 litigation over patent violations with Sega Enterprise is settled and Sega agrees to purchase newly issued Atari stock for $40 million and give $50 million for patent rights violations and future rights to use the patents

February 12, 1996, Atari Corporation entered into a merger agreement with JT Storage, Inc (JTS) a maker of hard drive components

1998 JTS sells all Atari Corporation assets to Hasbro for $5 million and subsequently Atari becomes a part of Hasbro's Interactive games division

March 29, 1996 Atari Games Corp (Time Warner Interactive Software) is sold by Time Warner to Midway Games

February 20, 1999 JTS files for Chapter 7 Bankrupcy Protection

May 14, 1999 Hasbro publically makes the Jaguar an open system platform technology allowing software developers and hobbyists to fully and freely create their own games for the systems without a license or fear of violating patents. This also encourages reverse engeeering and the creation of new software fully utlizing its hardware capabilities without the need for any license from Hasbro.

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