"Atari's Greatest Hits" for iPad: worst idea ever?

$14.99 for Basic Math?!? Sign me up!

I've commented before on iPad mania, which has seized this nation like swine flu. I've used an iPad before, and I must admit that I'm not a fan. There are aspects of it that I like: it's very sexy, it's light, with fantastic battery life. But I'm a nerd, and one of the classic symptoms of being a nerd is the ineffable desire to tinker with things. Apple's desire to prevent its users from tinkering with the iPad in any way is suspiciously paranoid, and reeks of censorship. How seriously would we take the Honda Corporation if they told us we could only use their cars on Honda-approved roads?

A case in point is Atari's Greatest Hits, just released by Atari for the iPad. The idea sounds great in theory: 100 of the best classic Atari 2600 and arcade games ever made, packed in one free app! Sounds great, right? What they don't tell you, however, is that while the app itself may be free to download, the games cost a buck apiece, or you can download all 100 for $14.99. Can anyone say bait-and-switch? As if that isn't bad enough, the games are slow and buggy, and controlling them accurately with the iPad's baffling touch-screen was a Sysiphean task. I thought it was impossible to ruin a classic like Yar's Revenge, but thanks to Atari's Greatest Hits, I couldn't even get past the first two levels before the damn thing froze and I gave up.

The especially infuriating thing about Atari's Greatest Hits is that I can download thousands of Atari games online and fire them up on any computer with an emulator - all without paying a dime. But Apple doesn't allow any apps other than those available on its App Store to be used on the iPad. This begs the question: why would I fork over my hard-earned money on a $400 iPad that forces me to pay fifteen bucks for a piss-poor version of a game I can play for free on an eMachines PC that's half the price?

What's even worse is that the current entity known as "Atari" has no connection to the original Atari Corporation, which went bankrupt in 1996. The Atari name, logo, and related trademarks have been bounced around for years between companies like JTS and Hasbro before its purchase by Infogrames, a French video game publisher. If Atari's Greatest Hits is any evidence, the folks at Atari clearly hired some hack programming firm to slap a bunch of old trademarks together as quickly and cheaply as possible for a quick buck. It breaks my heart that these classic games, which are the result of many hours of work by a great many very talented programmers and artists, are now being milked like a cow by people who clearly have no appreciation for how special they are to so many people.


It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and everyone has to make money somehow; the video game industry is no exception to this. But there's no excuse for a product as shoddy and joyless as Atari's Greatest Hits.  And frankly, the iPad's kind of silly, too.

The Replica-1: All the low-tech fun, without going bankrupt

I've been inspired by the success of Apple's iPad 2, which recently enjoyed the most successful first week's sales of any technology product in history. In honor of this, I'm typing this week's post on an iPad borrowed from Oberlin College's library. My stiff, untrained fingers are havign a bit of trouble with the onscreen keyboard, so forgive me if the occasional syntax error slips in. (This keyboard is by far my biggest gripe with this thing: I'll take an IBM Model M over this shit any day.)

Frankly, I'd much rather be typing this week's post on one of these puppies:

Its power supply is a hamster on a treadmill.

This gorgeous wooden computer is the Apple I, Apple Computer's very first product, released way back in April 1976. They were handbuilt by Steve Wozniack in his parents' garage in Palo Alto, CA, and sold via mail-order for $666.66 (about the price of a MacBook Pro in today's money). Only around 40 survive today; when they are sold, they typically change hands for astronomical sums of money. One working Apple I sold last year for $213,000. That's roughly $26,000 for every kilobyte of memory. Quite a nice chunk of change just to play Breakout!

Luckily for us mere mortals, the wonder of modern CPU technology means you don't have to mortgage your house to afford an Apple I. Thanks to Vince Briel, super-nerd deluxe and owner of Briel Computers, you can now own the Replica 1, a faithful recreation of the Apple I, for less than $200.

Like the original, the Replica 1 is sold either pre-assembled or as a kit. It does not include a keyboard or monitor, but it does include a USB interface for saving programs on a modern computer, replacing the original Apple I tape interface. Functionally, the Replica 1 is an exact copy of Apple's model, but it uses a greatly simplified motherboard layout and dramatically improved DC power supply for faster performance and lower power consumption.

If an Apple I doesn't suit your fancy, Briel also sells kits and pre-assembled replicas of other obsolete classics, like the legendary Altair 8080. The Replica 1, however, is the only one of Vince's products that's officially approved by Steve Wozniack himself. This is a suprising and welcome move from the Apple founder; if only more Silicon Valley multi-billionaires released the plans for their early computers to fans! (Homemade Atari 400, anyone?)

I recommend the Replica 1 as a gift for the aging computer nerd in your life. In fact, if anyone out there in internet-land would like to spare two hundred bucks and send me a kit in the mail, I'd be happy to do a full review right here on This Old Box. (And, of course, I'd be happy to repay you with sexual favors.)