
What does Atari mean? - jmstfv
https://japanthis.com/2013/04/09/what-does-atari-mean/
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resoluteteeth
Atari is also a term from the game go. Based on the Atari logo it is obvious
that this is the source of the name (the logo resembles the simplest atari
configuration in go), and wikipedia confirms this:

> Before Atari's incorporation, Bushnell considered various terms from the
> game go, eventually choosing atari, referencing a position in the game when
> a group of stones is imminently in danger of being taken by one's opponent.

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MichaelGG
Can you link to the Atari logo that looks like this? I can only find the 3
lines "mountain/A" logo.

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resoluteteeth
That's the logo I meant. I mean it's not an exact depiction of the position in
go, but I had imaged that the three lines were an abstracted representation of
three black stones on three sides of a white stone that's not depicted in the
logo.

Actually it seems like this is just a coincidence though (and it wasn't
supposed to represent a mountain either):

> Opperman designed it with two things in mind: the first was that the overall
> silhouette was to look like the letter A, matching that of the company,
> while the second was that its three "prongs" were based on Atari's first hit
> game, Pong.

[http://kotaku.com/5864035/the-glory-of-ataris-original-
logo](http://kotaku.com/5864035/the-glory-of-ataris-original-logo)

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jasonkostempski
Who's Marky Star, why are people asking him what Atari means, and, if he
doesn't know the answer, why did he make a post about it?

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quirkafleeg
A nice short, informative article on this from 1981:

    
    
        Bushnell and Dabney submitted the list to the 
        Office of the California Secretary of State.  
        A few weeks later, their incorporation papers 
        came back; the Office of the Secretary had 
        selected their second choice, ATARI.
    

[http://www.atarimania.com/faq-atari-400-800-xl-xe-how-did-
at...](http://www.atarimania.com/faq-atari-400-800-xl-xe-how-did-atari-get-
its-name_91.html)

~~~
grzm
It was likely submitted because someone thought it was interesting. It got to
the front page because other HN members thought it was interesting as well.

You've provided another useful resource, which is great! (Thanks!) Your lead-
in distracts greatly from the resource. Leaving that out detracts nothing from
your comment while avoiding gratuitous negativity.

Edit to add: I appreciate your edit. It's a great addition to this thread!

~~~
quirkafleeg
You're right. Although I really wasn't intending negativity, I think it's good
to have a reminder now and again to just stick to a point, and that some
remarks probably aren't worth making and don't contribute anything. Thanks.

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ajmurmann
Mh, I had always assumed it was inspired by the term from the Go board game:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Go_terms#Atari](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Go_terms#Atari)

~~~
VonGuard
It absolutely was. Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, went on to found another
company called Sente [
[http://senseis.xmp.net/?Sente](http://senseis.xmp.net/?Sente) ].

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kabdib
Useless article; the name was _not_ chosen at random. There were a number of
candidates, they decided to go with Atari. The Fuji logo was a separate
decision.

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hkmurakami
My god I've been bilingual my whole life and this never occurred to me
(because the intonations make the words sound quite different).

~~~
jacquesm
This happens to me _all the time_ with song texts and band names. At some
point they suddenly flip from a stream-of-samples to a meaning and I realize
I've been missing something for years (sometimes for decades). Very strange
phenomenon.

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jwatte
It's when a group of stones is in danger of being captured in the game of Go,
by only having one remaining liberty.

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Lanthanide
Well, there's yet another meaning for it in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf
countries; "video game console". It became a genericized trademark for those
who grew up in the 1980s. The phrase "Hey, did you get that new Atari, the
SNES?" somehow made sense here back in the day.

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jonbarker
Bushnell plays go. Atari is a go term meaning approximately "almost dead".

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chvid
I always thought it was Japanese for "check" in the game of chess?

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gizmo686
I can't speak to chess, but it is the word for "stones are about to be
captured" in the game of go. Its the English word for this as well (most go
terms in English are taken from Japanese).

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glandium
« the Japanese word 当たり atari which means something like “hit” or “strike” or
“to be right.” »

I'm going to be pedantic here, but that's what you would translate it in
english in some contexts, not what it means (and I am, in fact, incapable of
translating its meaning ; there's a dimension of contact in it, but that's not
entirely that either).

~~~
stonemetal
To add to that the wikipedia page claims : "In Japanese, atari (当たり, あたり, or
アタリ) is the nominalized form of ataru (当たる, あたる, or アタル) (verb), meaning "to
hit the target" or "to receive something fortuitously". The word 'atari' is
used in Japanese when a prediction comes true or when someone wins a lottery."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Go_terms#Atari](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Go_terms#Atari)

