Talk:Allan Alcorn

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qt: "In addition to direct involvement with all the breakout Atari products, such as the Atari 2600, Alcorn was involved at some of the historic meetings of Steve Wozniak (at that time an Atari employee) and Steve Jobs presenting their Apple I prototype." Q: Was Steve Wozniak ever an Atari employee? (Cohen mentions that Steve Jobs was, but doesn't mention that Wozniak was.)

A: I believe that Wozniak was never an employee of Atari, though Jobs was. Johnlogic 12:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's correct, though you missquoted the statement - the article has the (at that time an Atari employee) after Jobs, not Wozniak. When they came up with the Apple I, after offering it to HP because Woz worked there and had to, they offered it to various others as well including Atari. Atari at that time decided not to take them up on it but did forward them to some investors including Don Valentine and Mike Markkula. I think the confusion comes from Woz hanging around with Jobs at Atari all the time, and doing the prototype work for Breakout. --Marty Goldberg 15:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be some conflict on Wikipedia regarding who co-founded Atari. The page on Nolan Bushnell cites that Atari was founded by Bushnell and Ted Dabney, after which they hired Al Alcorn as Atari's first employee. Yet, the page on Atari implies that Alcorn was hired at Syzygy (Bushnell and Dabney's 1971 company). Johnlogic 12:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's no confusion. The company's working name was Syzygy until they went to incorporate it, couldn't use it for well known reasons and renamed it Atari. Al was hired and started working on PONG before the name change. So both statements are logically correct, one just using a different context (viewing Syzygy and Atari as one in the same, which would be accurate). On an interesting side note, when I talked to Ted, he mentioned Syzygy was being used since about '69 when they were designing Computer Space and shopping it around. --Marty Goldberg 15:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]