
Ted Dabney, a Founder of Atari and a Creator of Pong, Has Died - NaOH
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/obituaries/ted-dabney-dead-atari-pong.html
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sehugg
There was an excellent article by Benj Edwards about Computer Space and
Dabney's contribution to video game history, including the invention of the
"slipping counter" circuit that moved onscren objects on this game and Pong:
[https://www.technologizer.com/2011/12/11/computer-space-
and-...](https://www.technologizer.com/2011/12/11/computer-space-and-the-dawn-
of-the-arcade-video-game/)

 _“Nolan came to me one time and he said, ‘On a TV set, when you turn the
vertical hold on the TV, the picture will go up, and if you turn it the other
way, it goes down. Why does it do that?’ I explained it to him. It was the
difference between the sync and the picture timing. He said, ‘Could we do that
with some control?’ I said, ‘Yeah, we probably can, but we’d have to do it
digitally, because analog would not be linear. '”_

~~~
sehugg
The Atari 2600 has this same kind of circuit for its two 8x1 sprites and two
1x1 missiles, at least for the horizontal motion part (HMOVE). To save
silicon, it uses a polynomial counter / LFSR instead of 4-bit counter ICs.

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danso
> _Although Mr. Dabney was overshadowed within the video game industry by Mr.
> Bushnell’s charm and business savvy, his legacy is now being revisited._

> _“He was the guy that could actually make it work,” said Dustin Hansen, a
> game developer and the author of a book on video game history called “Game
> On!” “Where the circuit hits the board, he’s the guy.”_

Dabney sounds like Woz to Bushnell's Steve Jobs. As much as I liked reading
about Jobs, during his life and after, I never got through his posthumous
biography. But I think I finished "iWoz" the day after I bought it.

~~~
abritinthebay
That’s partially because Jobs biography is awfully written and was such a
waste of The access the author had.

Woz’s is easy to read.

~~~
sumedh
> That’s partially because Jobs biography is awfully written

What was so awful about it?

~~~
danso
Not the parent commenter, but my problem with "Jobs" was not the writing, but
that Steve Jobs as a character was very hard to understand, after many
chapters in the book. His personality and actions were just so _erratic_ that
I felt I was reading a bio about 4 different people named "Steve Jobs".

I don't know if I can blame it on the author though, because the early
chapters were great -- it's what got me interested in reading more about Woz
in the first place. What's ironic to me is that the "Jobs" biographer (Walter
Isaacson) had full access to Jobs even in his last days. Of anyone who wrote
about Jobs, Isaacson probably had the most exposure to all the sides of Jobs
and might have the truest depiction of Jobs, erratic persona and all. It just
wasn't interesting to read.

In contrast, "Bad Blood", the new book about Theranos by John Carreyrou, the
WSJ reporter who exposed Theranos, has a thorough and entertaining depiction
of Elizabeth Holmes, even though she has refused every of his interview
requests. The info about her comes completely from second hand sources. I
don't mention Holmes in the context of Jobs to imply that Jobs (for all his
warts) was anywhere near the same level of asshole that Holmes seems to be.
But Carreyrou frequently mentions Holmes -- not just because she worshipped
Jobs -- but because everyone tells Carreyrou how Holmes had the similar
superpower of reality-distortion. Reading "Bad Blood" is like reading a book
about Jobs and Apple, if Jobs and Apple were a complete scam that never
actually created anything.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Interesting. I wonder if that highlights a human flaw, that we prefer a story
with a coherent narrative to one that accurately chronicles human complexity
and irrationality.

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alister
> _“A computer was too slow to do anything at video speeds anyway. So once Ted
> had invented his motion circuit, this trick, you didn’t need the computer
> anymore.”_

I'm surprised to learn that Pong had no computer, no microcontroller, no
software! Just analog and digital circuits.

~~~
djsumdog
There was a Gamers exhibition that went through Melbourne and Wellington where
you could play older versions of Pong and Asteroids, among tons and tons of
other games old and new.

One of the amazing things about retro arcade games like Asteroids was just how
clear and precise all those vector graphics were. When they're being drawn
with analog circuitry with those perfect darks and brights, you get a really
immersive world from a very simple concept. It was really amazing.

~~~
kabdib
To be clear, the Asteroids era arcade units had microprocessors (Atari coin-op
engineers tended to use 6502s then), in addition to a boardful of glorious
digital and analog stuff to drive the vector display.

~~~
joezydeco
You'll definitely want to read Jed Margolin's "The Secret Life of Vector
Generators"

[http://www.jmargolin.com/vgens/vgens.htm](http://www.jmargolin.com/vgens/vgens.htm)

And "The Secret Life of XY Monitors"

[http://www.jmargolin.com/xy/xymon.htm](http://www.jmargolin.com/xy/xymon.htm)

(Jed was an Atari engineer during the vector era and beyond)

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js2
The Computer History Museum interviewed Dabney in 2012:

[http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/201...](http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2012/10/102746459-05-01-acc.pdf)

(29 page PDF.)

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Lotus123
RIP

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zebraflask
A loss.

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MikkoFinell
With no disrespect to Dabney, but these kinds of obituaries make HN kind of
morbid in my opinion.

