

10 Years of Atari/Atari Games VaxMail - quadfour
http://www.textfiles.com/games/ATARIMAIL/

======
jf
This archive has been a personal reminder to watch what I say in all digital
communication. Even if I think that my post is "internal only" or "private",
it can still end up online.

I say this because one of these files has an email that my dad wrote nearly 30
years ago. I'm willing to bet that my dad had no idea that the email he was
writing would be read by his son, who would be slightly embarrassed at the
fact he was writing in ALL CAPS, and wishing that his dad had used a little
more tact in what he was saying.

(The email I'm referring to is in "vax84.txt" search for "THE FUTURE AT
ATARI")

~~~
allenbrunson
Are you just now discovering this stuff? Because I read all these emails on
Jed's website, way back in 2001 or so.

(side note: this page has his last name as Margolis, when it is really
Margolin)

~~~
jf
I've known about this archive for quite a while.

------
keyle
It completely amazes me how nothing has changed. The only difference from
Today's email is that those vax mails were usually longer, more polite, and
full of nostalgia.

Take baby announcements emails for example. They're identical word for word as
today's. I always thought people recently got better at writing those. But no,
the pattern was established back then and, shockingly, we haven't changed the
way we're making babies, or changed standards in describing a healthy birth.

Back then, and still today, you could guess the person's personality by
his/her emails.

Also, back then, they were trying to improve productivity as a constant
struggle, just as we do today. Interestingly, nothing has improved much in
that field. It's still a rat race. Everybody recognizes the loss of
productivity in large businesses, and there seems to be no real fix.

~~~
columbo
> more polite

I know you are correct in 99.9% of all situations as email used to be taken
more professionally. ...but I did find this little gem in there, it made me
laugh and reminded me on how so little has changed in
software/process/delivery over the last thirty years.

    
    
    		From:	KIM::LOGG            1-FEB-1984 09:54  
    		To:	@SYS$MAIL:JUNK
    		Subj:	More on FXL letter (or the second biweekly Jeff Boscole letter)
    		...
    		The only reason I was given why the cart was to be released within
    		a week of the meeting was to have ONE week worth of sales for the first
    		quarter.  WHAT A SHITTY, GOD DAMNED, FUCKING CSDKFHAS FHLAVFHJ EXCUSE!!!!
    		What ever happened to quality which the name ATARI is supposed to represent?
    		Where was VCS management??  I would hope that someone would stand up and
    		say "THE GAME IS NOT READY.  WE WILL RELEASE IT WHEN IT IS DONE!!"  Who 
    		are they trying to make look good?

------
T-hawk
Yes, there are some gems in here, nestled among the chaff of new VAX commands
and building operational schedules. I found this bit amazing, from vax84:

    
    
      This brings up one of many problems with games of skill that
      include monetary payoffs ... As an example, consider a
      multi-player space war type game where you win money by eliminating other
      players and receiving what they have won so far.  The house percentage
      could be falling into the sun.  What do you suppose would happen out in
      the parking lot if you overheard the guy in the next console scream "I just
      got a ship worth $10,000!" and you had just been about to return that
      much to your home base before some turkey blew you out of the sky...
    

Rusty foresaw EVE Online twenty years ahead of time.

------
columbo
Absolutely fascinating, I found the collapse emails really telling, this is a
long one: <http://www.textfiles.com/games/ATARIMAIL/vax84.txt>

    
    
    		From:	KIM::FRANUSIC       23-MAR-1984 15:02  
    		To:	@SYS$MAIL:JUNK
    		Subj:	THE FUTURE AT ATARI
    
    
    		LATELY THERE'S BEEN SOME CONFUSION OVER THE "ORGANIZATIONAL
    		ADJUSTMENTS" THAT WE'VE BEEN EXPERIENCING HERE AT ATARI.
    		LET'S PUT IT ALL INTO PERSPECTIVE ...
    
    		AT THE END OF 1983, ATARI ANNOUNCED LOSSES OF OVER 500 MILLION
    		DOLLARS.  THERE WAS SOME TALK THAT THESE LOSSES WERE ACTUALLY
    		CARRIED ON THE BOOKS OVER SEVERAL PRECEDING QUARTERS, AND THAT
    		MR. MORGAN WAS SIMPLY GIVEN A FRESH START.  THE FACT REMAINS
    		THAT ATARI HAS BEEN, AND STILL IS, LOSING AN ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF
    		MONEY, ENOUGH TO MAKE ANY COCAINE IMPORTER'S HEAD SPIN.
    
    		THE HOME COMPUTER MARKET HAS FALLEN FLAT ON IT'S FACE.
    		PEOPLE FINALLY REALIZED THAT THEY DIDN'T NEED A HOME COMPUTER
    		FOR ANYTHING EXCEPT PLAYING GAMES.  MOST OF THE PERCIEVED NEED
    		FOR A HOME COMPUTER COULD ONLY BE ATTRIBUTED TO MARKETING HYPE.
    

I edited out the rest... was taking up too much space on the hacker board

------
artursapek
I love their early version of crontab.

    
    
          Find out what is todays date, ala 830717 (1983, 7'th month, 17'th day)
        as well as what day of the week it is (Sunday) and the standard three letter
        abbreviation (coincidently the first three letters of the long name) (Sun in this case).  The proper spelling for Wed is WEDNESDAY, by the way.
    
          Look for each of the following and do the appropriate thing (execute
        the command file or type the text file):
    
          'weekday'.com	! as in "SUNDAY"
          'weekday'.day	! SUNDAY.DAY will be typed
          'dow'.com	! SUN.COM will be executed
          'dow'.day	! SUN.DAY will be typed
          'date'.com	! 830717.com, remember?
          'date'.day	! this gets typed
          daily.com	! every day (7 days a week, not 5)
          daily.day	! this one too

------
kabdib
Wow, lots of memories there (1984-ish, anyway).

You'll notice a bunch of people leaving after July 84, which is when the
Tramiels took over. Coin-op remained with Warner. About a week into the split,
there was an email sent out with the subject "Look! Two companies joined by a
single computer network!" which caused the Tramiel Atari to be dropped from
the net within a couple of hours.

------
abstractwater
Interesting to see that those missives show really good grammar, spelling and
formatting for the most part, differently from today's standards where
orthography has somehow become optional. Even for educated people in this
field.

------
activepeanut
Was I wrong to expect Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak's name to be in there
somewhere?

~~~
joezydeco
Jobs and Wozniak were full time at Apple 6 or 7 years before these emails.
Seems like a long shot.

------
kevinburke
Didn't click on any of the links. It's creepy to read other people's emails

~~~
kabdib
This looks a dump of some internal mailing lists. I didn't see any "private"
email. You'll see that a bunch of phone numbers and addresses had been
scrubbed, too.

I'd agree that it's probably more creepy if you never worked there.

~~~
_delirium
I would feel a bit misled if most of the internal mailing lists I've been on
were ever made public. I suppose it depends on the size, though. I've been on
research-group mailing lists of ~10 people, and that would _really_ feel like
a breach of confidence, to release to the world at large emails that were
intended for a relatively small circle of colleagues. On the other hand, if
someone made a 200-person mailing list's archives public, then I would
probably not be as annoyed.

------
drudru11
so fricking awesome

