NBA Jam (2)
Lisa Smith was very surprised by this sudden news. Her son got inspiration from observing a random basketball court somewhere in Brooklyn.
"Come on Simon don't leave me hanging like that. Explain what arcade game you are planning." She said, while pulling Simon back next to her.
"Well, I gave a task to Dennis and Tanja, my acting CEOs of Atari, to acquire the Los Angeles Lakers in the next few months. There recent feedback is quite positive. I believe the process will be finished within the next 1-2 months.
When seeing the basketball game today, I realized that there wasn't really a sports game yet, completely licensed by the official sports league. So, I want to create a basketball arcade game licensed by the NBA. If I manage to acquire the Lakers and produce an influential and profitable arcade game, my position within the NBA will be very high in the future." Simon explained his train of thought very calmly to Lisa.
"Of course, the technical difficulties of producing a high-level basketball arcade will be very high, which will increase the necessary technical investment a lot. But I am sure Atari will be able to use those patents and new techniques in their future games as well. In this way we will be able to create a lot of wealth for Atari, way more than the 10 million $ I invested today. And all of it thanks to the inspiration of Howard Schultz. Now you tell me, was the action today worth it or not?"
This question stumped Lisa for a while, because even though her son received inspiration from Howard, there still was no need for the following 10 million investment, just to show Howard his world and leave an everlasting impression on the young man. But seeing the confidence of her youngest son, she didn't want to keep voicing any negative opinions.
After receiving the answer she wished for, Lisa decided to leave after spending some more time with Simon and asking some questions about his daily life and his relationship. Overall, she was very happy with the development of her son in the last year.
When the door finally closed Simon could finally breathe a sigh of relief. He was really scared his mother would keep questioning him. He couldn't just say:
"Well, Howard Schultz will become one of the greatest CEOs of his time, 10 million $ is nothing compared to such a capable subordinate."
He would probably be forced into a hospital if he answered like this. Luckily for him his investment wasn't totally wasted, so his mother didn't decide to pursue his actions any further. The luxury items he bought today, wouldn't lose their value in the future, they might even rise in worth, because of their rarity.
When he finally calmed down on his favorite sofa, the development of NBA Jam went through his head. Writing the code wasn't all that problematic, but Atari would indeed need a lot of improvements to their arcade architecture. He slowly recalled the technical setup needed to run NBA Jam smoothly.
The developer of NBA Jam in his previous life, Midway Games, built their own hardware just for their game Mortal Kombat in 1992. This hardware was that exceptional, it would be used in NBA Jam a year later and given its own name, T-Unit.
A T-Unit is made of two boards. The largest one is where game logic and graphics happen.
The other board is less complex in comparison but manage to perform a lot anyway. Dedicated to audio, it is not only capable to play music via FM synthesis but also digitized sound playback.
The sound board is connected to the power supply and to the graphic board, mounted beside it. There was a huge passive heat sink on its upper left corner.
Together the two boards account for more than two hundred chips, resistances, and EPROMs. But the amazing thing about stuff from the 90s is that it is occasionally documented. And in the case of NBA Jam, it is beautifully documented.
Simon benefited a lot from this clear documentation, because he was able to produce every single detail of this arcade machine, produced nearly two decades in his future, to help Atari built the peak of the arcade games a lot earlier.
He started to write down all the details that both Steve Wozniak and Gunpei Yokoi would need to produce this legendary game, whether software or hardware. He even wrote to hardest part of the code himself, to make life easier for Steve Wozniak and his team. The game was developed with a technical lead of nearly two decades. Simon couldn't expect his technical team to completely reproduce it without his help. And even then, he himself might be restricted by the technical environment.
But Simon was very confident that by this time next year, Atari would produce a generational game, completely breaking what should be possible in the early 70s. This would catapult them at the forefront of game developers in the 70s, a lead nearly impossible to close without investing at least five years in development by their potential rivals in the future.
In the next five days Simon kept himself locked into his apartment, only taking some time of when he was going on a walk with his girlfriend in Central Park, right next to his location.
He spent this time writing down all the hardware and software requirements, he wrote down the code for the game itself and finally did some of the art design for the game.
When he called for a meeting at Atari Headquarters and demanded every high-level manager to attend, the company instantly went into a tense atmosphere. The conference room was full of people on March 24th, 1971. Everybody was patiently waiting for their boss to arrive. From time to time they threw questioning looks at Dennis Watson and Tanja Crawford, but both of them were a little confused as well. They guessed it has something to do with the upcoming acquisition of the Los Angeles Lakers.