CompuServe Messages

You are mistaken. 🙂 Sprites originated in custom game machines at arcade vendors – of which Atari was certainly one, but not the first, nor were they typically first with any technology. They mostly modified what was out there. Vector game hardware is a good example – Asteroids, Omega Race… then Atari. Bally-Midway had sprite based game hardware before Atari ever woke up. Pacman and other similar hardware are good examples of true sprite-oriented computers. Of course they had main bitplane display hardware as well, but sprites were key to many of the moderately early arcade games. (I used to be a Bally/Midway games programmer, y'know…) –Ben …via AutoPilot