Talk:Breakout (video game)

message: Two of the references contradict on the level of Wozniak's share, $350 or $375. 4 says:
 He pays Wozniak his share of $375 from the original $750
While 3 says:
 Jobs received a $5,000 bonus and told Woz it was only $700 and gave Steve Wozniak his '50%'... $350.
Which was it? Does Wozniak's book iWoz give specifics on this?
Also, does Woz's book corroborate this statement:
 Years later this truth would come out and it would add to the already increasing friction between the two which eventually lead to Steve Wozniak quitting Apple.
-Kadri
:$350, which is half of $700.  Likewise, the references are there to corroborate the full story of the item not being used, not just the ammount.   Also, look again at the numbered references - iWoz is one of them.  --Marty Goldberg 12:20, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Wozniak's share

message: Could someone please separate these clones into shareware vs. closed-source freeware vs. open-source? Seahen 01:40, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, they were removed because they have no business in the article per the Wikipedia  WikiProject Computer and video games guides and viewpoints of regular project contributors, as well as the regular Wikipedia link guidelines.  Wikipedia is not a link farm, and certainly not a collection of "wannabe's", which do not illustrate the actual game being discussed in the article.  It's an Atari game, so it puzzles me why someone would question the official online Atari presentation of the game as the standard reference.  The fact that Atari is one of several contractors I sometimes do work for has no bearing on the issue, any more than you being an anonymous contributor does.  And lastly you are incorrect - the "official" Atari one is Java based not shockwave, and is cross platform.  The licensed one is shockwave.  --Marty Goldberg 05:44, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Once again, a collection of homebrew clones has no business here and does not illustrate the article.  For people interested in playing it there's links to two versions officially put out by Atari, the creator of the game.  You want a listing of "play-alikes", that's what google is for.  Wikipedia is not a link farm.  --Marty Goldberg 21:58, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: External links: Clones

message: There was an extremely complicated version of this game where the player was actually in a spaceship which ahd been warped to some alternate reality.  The breakout paddle could be upgraded to include lasers, a longer surface, and a warp feature.  I only ever saw this game in an arcade, not ever for home version.  Anyone recall the name? -195.229.242.88 00:50, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Arkanoid, by Taito.--64.229.26.175 09:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Arkanoid was available on the Amiga. -- 96.247.231.243 (talk) 04:00, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Complicated version

message: It seems the set of seven Pong variants called 'Take 7' by Fun Games predated Breakout by one year. Have a look at the final variant in the bottom right corner: http://www.arcadeflyers.com/?page=flyer&id=2502&image=2 Looks to me like Breakout was a carbon copy turned 90 degrees. Other sources confirm the date of 'Take 7: http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=&game_id=10022 http://www.arcade-history.com/index.php?page=detail&id=4275 http://www.cityofberwyn.com/bronzeage/ (scroll down on that last source to the section on 1975). I think this is quite appropriate to be mentioned in this article, no? I looked quite extensively and I could not find any other games so identical before Bust Out, although both Clean Sweep by Ramtek in 1974 and TV Pinball by Exidy in 1975 have some similarities.--64.229.26.175 09:34, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, actually this game was a clone of Breakout.  From Steve Bristow, the co-designer (with Nolan) of the game concept: "Fun games was started by some guys who left Atari coin op when we were in Los Gatos.  They were sued for stealing parts from the stockroom and designs from Atari, and lost the suit.   Breakout was in production in coin op before they did this.  I testified in the suit.  The copyright notice on a coin op Breakout listed los gatos as the company location and we moved to sunnyvale before 1976."  This would also fit in to why all their games (all four) were clones of Atari games from the time. They were shut down in 1976 because of the suit.  --Marty Goldberg 17:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, this is very good information, because it looked pretty damning. Just so you know, I am the same person questioning the $5000 story above, so it's not like I am a Steve Jobs partisan. If Breakout *were* a carbon copy, that would be pretty damning on him (since he claimed he originated the Breakout concept in The First Quarter). I just really don't think any of the different figures claimed by the Atari principals should be treated as fact. I have also seen $1000 by the way instead of $5000, but that was earlier days; now they seem to have standardised their story more. This retelling process itself is suspicious -- and it doesn't meet the standard of evidence I expect from an encyclopedia.--65.95.120.130 10:09, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Breakout a clone of Take 7's 'Bust Out' ? 

message: Considering the stuff that I discovered above and the conflicting accounts over the years, does anybody object to qualifying the $5000 figure as only one story and the insertion of references to the other figures that have been quoted by other people involved over the years? I know I can go ahead and change it and see what happens, but I'm not in any hurry. I figure anyone who is passionate about "$5000 is the truth" will probably read the talk page anyway.--65.94.156.78 13:13, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does anybody object to qualifying the '$5000' figure? 

message: I've been doing a lot of work on the development section, and have no idea who Steve Bristow is. I can't find any information on him. What did he do? What books is he mentioned in? --Teggles 07:17, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: One of the lead engineers at Atari, 2nd only to Alcorn.  Quite well known actually, and partnered with Nolan regularly on ideas during that time. Also the creator of several classic Atari games including Quadrapong, Tank, and others.  Simple google search turns up tons of info, and no need for the melodrama. --Marty Goldberg 08:20, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Melodrama? I don't think anyone other than this Atari fanboy could find that in Teggles' comment. -- 96.247.231.243 (talk) 04:09, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who the hell is Steve Bristow? 

message: This article needs to be moved so "Breakout" can be the disambig page. There's at least one thing on the disambig list that's clearly more notable than this game, so it makes no sense to give this pride of place. Everyking (talk) 10:04, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If you're talking about the Miley Cyrus album, that's highly debatable and extremely subjective.  How is a minor pop-album by a the current tween star (there's a long list of previous tween stars - see New Kids On The Block, Spice Girls, Hillary Duff, etc. etc.) more notable? Its certainly notable enough to be on Wikipedia, but likewise Wikipedia is not a reflection of current minor (I.E. only relative to a specific segment) pop-trends.  Its an encyclopedia.  --Marty Goldberg (talk) 15:27, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is just a video game, and I see no evidence that it attained the same level of popularity or recognition as the album. Everyking (talk) 17:18, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Please see the Influences section.  It created and defined an entire genre of games in the video game industry, inspired the creation of the Apple II computer, Space Invaders, and continues to be among the most cloned games in the industry (including versions of which appearing in every Apple product) just after Pong.  I see no evidence that a tween pop album has had anywhere near the same influence in the Music industry.  In fact, the article entry for that album says very little about any sort of prominence or influence in the industry. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 17:55, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sure it was influential, but surely we can at least agree that 99.9% of the people who enter "Breakout" into their search box right now are going to be looking for the album, and surely you can acknowledge that this game is not so much more notable that it warrants preferential treatment. If the basic title is not a disambig, then whatever the subject is at that basic title should be  overwhelmingly more notable than anything else with the same name. I propose that we link people straight to a disambig page, instead of making them click on the link at the top of this article and then click the link of the disambig page. Everyking (talk) 18:02, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Your comment was in regards to questioning its recognition.  As far as "99.9" of people looking for Miley's album, that's extremely doubtful, and even if its enjoying a popularity spike in a search, that is temporary at best and shouldn't lead Wikipedia.  The reason Breakout was used as the main element in the search, is because it simply was the most notable use of the word out of all the items on the Breakout disambig page.  I didn't create the current disambig preferential treatment, nor the Breakout page - it existed in this notability format for some time.  That said, I can concur on moving it on the basis of not giving any Breakout named item preferential treatment and directing to a general disambig page. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 18:11, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what we were arguing about, then, but thanks. Everyking (talk) 03:54, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

text: At this point in time, google results for breakout don't yield Miley Cyrus until page 5 ... which was quite predictable. -- 96.247.231.243 (talk) 04:18, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Need to move article

message: In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :) 
* "DotEaters" :
** Player 2 Stage 1: The Coin Eaters
** The Dot Eaters - Coin-op Video Game History
* "UHVF" :
** Kent, Stevn: "The Ultimate History of Video Games", pages 71–73.  Three Rivers, 2001.  ISBN 0-7615-3643-4
** Kent, Steven: The Ultimate History of Video Games, pages 71-73. Three Rivers, 2001.  ISBN 0-7615-3643-4
* "ArcadeHistory" :
** Arcade History: Breakout
** breakout at arcade-history: video games, pinballs, slot machines, etc
* "iWoz" :
** Wozniak, Steven: "iWoz", a: pages 147–148, b: page 180. W. W. Norton, 2006. ISBN 13:978-0-393-06143-7
** Wozniak, Steven: iWoz, pages 147-148. W. W. Norton, 2006. ISBN 978-0-393-06143-7
DumZiBoT (talk) 05:43, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bot report : Found duplicate references ! 

message: Gamasutra.com article that might be a useful reference to those seeking detailed information on the underpinnings of Breakout and Arkanoid-style games.
Breaking Down Breakout, System and Level  Design of Breakout-style Games, gamasutra.com 2007  Also cited in this entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakout_clone  Brooklyngamer (talk) 20:17, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additional resource for article readers? 

message: When was the Windows version released? 2fort5r (talk) 19:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Windows

message: An interest in Atari arcade games brought me to this page but I was surprised to see the history section was not about Atari Breakout but mostly about some failed prototype that was never adopted. Why is this failure so important to Atari history?68.149.247.130 (talk) 22:06, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Surprising history section. 

message: :
:	•.	^ Letters – General Questions Answered, Woz.org 
:
Nothing, no reference to money/re: Breakout
:
:	•.	^ a b Wozniak, Steven: "iWoz", a: pages 147–148, b: page 180. W. W. Norton, 2006. ISBN 13:978-0-393-06143-7
:
no reference to $5,000  only "Half of $700"
:
:	•.	^ a b Player 2 Stage 1: The Coin Eaters
:
:Dead link
:
:	•.	^ a b Arcade History: Breakout
:
Cites Kent Steven's book "The Ultimate History of Video Games"
:
:	•.	^ Classic Gaming: A Complete History of Breakout
:
No references, could be citing Wiki for all we know.
:
:I also checked Walter Isaacson's book "Steve Jobs" and this is all what I could find:
:
:“There’s a chance that my memory is all wrong and messed up,” Wozniak told me, but after a pause he reconsidered. “But no. I remember the details of this one, the $350 check.” - page 165 Steve Jobs
:
:So that leaves: Steven Kent's book "The Ultimate History of Videogames" and the fact is:  'The numbers are ALL over the place!' From Page 72-73
:: Below is the excerpt from that book:
::
::Wozniak was able to remove more than 50 chips from Breakout, but his de- sign was too tight. Noone could figure out how he did it, and the manufacturing plant could not reproduce it. In the end, Alcorn had to assign another engineer to build a version of Breakout that was more easily replicated. The final game had about 100 chips.
::Bushnell and Alcorn disagree on some ofthe details concerning Steve Jobs's bonus. Bushnell remembers offering Jobs $100 for each chip he removed. He claims Wozniak removed 50 chips and Jobs received a $5,000 bonus. Alcorn says that Jobs was told to reduce the design to a maximum of50 chips and that he would receive $1,000 for every chip he removed beyond that mark. According to Alcorn, Jobs pocketed a $30,000 bonus.
::Alcorn and Bushnell both agree, however, that Jobs misled Wozniak about the amount that he received. Jobs told Wozniak that the bonus was only one- tenth of what Bushnell actually paid.Ithink we've got an order of magnitude problem here. jobs misled Wozniak, but jobs got five grand and Woz got half of $500. I
::mean the macro-numbers are right, as it was told. I'm just saying that the denominator, the dollars per chip, is off.
::-Nolan Bushnell
::And Nolan says, "For every chip less than 50 ,'II give you $1,000 cash bonus." Now jobs didn't use the money for his own personal gain. He put it into Apple. But still, the fact that Wozniak's best friend lied to him broke him up. That was the beginning of the end of the friendship between Woz and jobs.
::-AI Alcorn
::According to Silicon Valley legend, Steve Wozniak discovered that he'd been misled many years later, while flying on a business trip and reading a biogra- phy about Jobs. Nolan Bushnell says that the legend is not true.
::You want to know the real story? Woz was up here to a Sunday afternoon picnic at our house. We were talking and I asked, "What did you do with that $5,000?"
::He says, "What?" He was visibly upset. Wozniak's tender. Imean, he's really a good guy.
::-Nolan Bushnell
::Wozniak says that both stories are true. He first discovered Jobs's deception on the plane and he did later ask Bushnell for details at his house.
::I got $375, and I've never really known how much Steve got. He told me he was giving me 50 percent, and' know he got more than $750. I knew he believed that it was fine to buy something for $60 and sell it for $6,000 if you could do it. , just didn't think he would do it to his best friend.
::-Steve Wozniak
:
:
Summary:  The numbers range (Jobs cut) from $5,000 to $30,000 (Al Alcorn).  Wozniak does make reference to getting paid $375 in Steven Kent's book. Fire in the Valley the number is $350, but the amount Jobs kept is all over the place. 
Interesting sidenote, 
:*Years later, Steve Jobs claimed that he had developed the concept for Breakout. When asked about it, Nolan Bushnell simply responded, "Perhaps he did." - page 71 of "The Ultimate History of Videogames":
Claimsfour (talk) 18:07, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The concept was developed by Nolan and Steve Bristow, that's already well established. They're the ones who gave the project to Jobs. Ultimate History of Video Games is not a great resource, well known for a lot of incorrect information that wasn't properly fact checked. Woz designed the proto game, Jobs wire wrapped it and presented it as his own. Jobs wasn't an engineer, he was just a service tech and had zero ability to engineer a full game. Already directly interviewed Bristow, Alcorn, and Woz in depth about it, including why their proto wasn't used. Again, a lot of material already well repeated in published interviews as well. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 18:19, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  '''I decided to check up all the wiki reference links,  this is what I came up with:''' 

message: Some sources say they got it down from 50 to 45 chips, then elsewhere it says they needed 42 Transistor–transistor logic chips.  "by designing the board with as few chips as possible, he also reduced the number of TTL (transistor-transistor logic) chips to 42."  Did the breadboard prototype chips differ than the TTL chips?  Dream Focus 16:27, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  are Transistor–transistor logic chips the same as the chips Jobs and Woz used? 

message: I noticed this line in the lead section, and it just doesn't seem to fit the style of the article. Would this be close to something like fancruft, or is it legitimate for this article? (Sorry if this seems obvious, but I'm kind of new here.) Radioactivated (talk) 22:06, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Good catch. It's not strictly cruft, but it's unsourced & undated, plus wrongly placed (if it goes in at all, it should be in the "re-releases" somewhere). You can change that yourself; that's what a wiki's about. :D And welcome.  TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 03:18, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Emulator" Line 

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message: It is a great game though I have not played it this is why I made this why can't people play it on Google it's not fair this beautiful game cannot be sure the people who don't want to go to the outlet and especially in this time of covid-19 20 21 so far covid-19 most people stay at home they can't go to the arcade so please as you hear this just I just want you to make so that people can play it on Google unless they will not be able to play this beautiful game called Atari breakdown breakout I mean Atari breakout. 41.217.50.194 (talk) 12:10, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Play it on Google 

message: The redirect Breakout (video game has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached.  Utopes (talk / cont) 01:33, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  "[[:Breakout (video game]]" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]]