Let’s start with something really sobering. Pac-Man came out 42 years ago. This would be the equivalent of talking about technology from World War II when I was in high school. We have to admit that tech has come a long, long way, but it’s amazing that there’s still anything technological to talk about from 1982.
Pac-Man for arcade was certainly addictive, but for most folks there was a limit to how much you could play. Play cost a quarter, equal to about a dollar today. Unless you were really good at the game, it was rare for one quarter to last more than five minutes. So, you were paying $12 an hour in today’s money just to play Pac-Man. Plus you had to be standing the whole time and the whole thing wasn’t very ergonomic. You couldn’t pause the game, either.
That’s why home video consoles like the original Atari Video Computer System became so popular. Yes, the cartridges cost up to $40 (about $160 in today’s dollars.) But that entitled you to more or less unlimited play, with the ability to pause and rest your hands.
The launch of Atari 2600 Pac-Man
By 1982, the Atari Video Computer System was rechristened Atari 2600, and the company released its most anticipated cartridge ever: Pac-Man. Although critics hated it, folks kept buying, making it the most successful home video game cartridge in history up to that point. If you were around back then, you either had this game or you knew someone who did, and you borrowed it from them.
The Pac-Man experience at home wasn’t exactly great, even by the standards of the day. But gameplay was just as addictive. Given the limitations of the hardware, it was actually pretty darn good. Keep in mind that the picture above takes up about as much space as the original code used to produce it. Most Microsoft Word documents take up more space than the original Pac-Man code for Atari.
Could it have been better?
There’s no doubt based on accounts from the time that Atari rushed the game into production. With a few more months, and taking into account tech advancements that were happening quickly, it could have been a lot better. Ms. Pac-Man, which didn’t come out much later, looks and plays considerably better. So the point is proven.
But it’s not often people get a second chance at history. It seems that in this case though, they did.
YouTuber pojr brings us this story of a coder who, in 2015, created a version of Pac-Man that could run on the original 2600 hardware and looked infinitely better.
This new version preserves sound, gameplay, layout, and even the animations between levels from the original arcade version. Because I’m not sure what the copyright situation would be here, I won’t link to the ROM, but I will say that it’s easy to find if you search.
Why would someone do this?
You have to give it to someone who is still coding for 40 year old hardware. I’ve read other stories of new games for this ancient console, and the company who owns the Atari name is even releasing a new cartridge themselves. To willingly work within the limitations of such primitive hardware has to be incredibly hard, and some people choose to do it. My hat’s off to them.
Now if only I could figure out how to get past the spider in Atari 2600 Centipede. Ah, well.
