Join us at The National Museum of Computing to mark the 50th anniversary of Atari with a day of retro gaming!
We’re celebrating 50 years of Atari - one of the world’s most important and influential computer games makers with a day of gaming, guests and prizes on September 17.
Atari was more than a best-selling brand of video game maker and manufacturer of personal computers: Atari transformed popular culture.
With consoles like the 2600 and the ST personal computer, Atari put gaming in people’s homes across the UK with hundreds of tiles including Space Invaders and Pac-Man still played today!
On September 17 we have a trio of treats for you in celebration of this.
You are invited to participate in our Atari games tournament, playing some classic titles on original hardware from our museum’s collection with prizes for top scorers!
You will experience joystick, keyboard and cockpit gaming:
Space Invaders, Yar's Revenge, Centipede
Atari 2600, Atari 800, Atari ST
Race Drivin’ - cockpit game that left the keyboard behind with early 3D rendering and features to simulate vehicle handling.
And more...
Second: winners will be announced for our competition: Atari art reimagined - a summer-long challenge for artists of all ages to redesign their favourite Atari games art cover.
Prizes include £50 of vouchers for either art supplies or game.co.uk, the chance for their design to appear on one of our museum’s T-shirts or tote bags, and to win signed copies of the fabulous Art of Atari and Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon signed by author Tim Lapetino.
Finally, you’ll have the opportunity to hear from some of those behind Atari’s success with our two guest speakers:
Kevin Hayes, former managing director of Atari Ireland responsible for all the Atari arcade games sold and played across the UK and Europe. Kevin, who was also a vice president of manufacturing for Atari games and vice president of operations at the head office in California, will take you inside the Atari phenomena.
Kay Savetz - co-host of Antic: The Atari 8-bit Podcast. Kay will introduce you to some of the games and applications authors who made up the Atari Program Exchange – a first-of-its-kind system from Atari to sell programs for the ST developed by fans and followers. Kay has interviewed 400 developers who were members of APX.
This is an in-person and an online occasion. You can attend in person at our museum, where you will be invited to sit in on the discussions, participate in the games tournament.
Full schedule for the day is:
10:30: Museum opens
10:30-12:30: Visitors invited to explore the Museum and participate in the Atari games tournament
12:30-13:15: Refreshments - tea, coffee, juice, water and biscuits
13:15-15:30: Visitors invited to explore the Museum and join or rejoin the retro Atari games tournament.
15:00: Winners of Atari Art re-imagined competition announced
15:30-16:15: Live Q&A with Kevin Hayes
16:30 – 17:15: Live Q&A Kay Savetz
17:15 17:30: Winners of the Atari games tournament announced
Refreshments - tea, coffee, juice, water and biscuits - served throughout
