SPACE Newsletter

NEWSLETTER for February 2013 President’s Corner by Michael Current February 2013 January 21, 2013 turned out to be a milestone date in the long history of Atari. While most people would assume that Atari went bankrupt in the 1980s or 1990s, or both, the fact always was, Atari never actually went bankrupt, the rights just kept getting sold from one owner to the next. Well, we can no longer say Atari never went bankrupt. On January 21 Atari Interactive (the holding entity owning most of the rights to the classic Atari intellectual properties), Atari SA (previously known as Infogrames, and the French owners of Atari Interactive), and Atari Inc. (The USA unit of Atari SA) all filed for bankruptcy protection. In the coming weeks the Atari name and logo and classic properties are expected to be sold to new owners once again. Who knows what will happen next? We'll be watching! Hopefully I'll have time this month to make more significant headway on the often-stalled SPACE newsletter digitization project. Going back in time, month by month, I've made it back through March 1987 as of this writing. Visit space.atari.org to bring back old memories! Thanks, keep using that Atari, and come to your next SPACE meeting, Friday February 8, 2013. **********************************************

Treasurer's Report by Greg Leitner For January 2013 The January meeting got me to thinking about the weather and what to do if we had to cancel a meeting. I have the keys so I am the only member that has to show up to let anyone else who comes into the building. I would like to get everyone's email addresses so that I could inform you if I couldn't make it to open the doors. Glen will get the e-mail address of all new or renewing SPACE members as they come due. This came to me as I left for the January meeting in dense fog and I thought

by the time I would be coming home the visibility would be near zero. Luckily it got a little colder and the fog lifted and there was no problem at all on my return. I hope the rest of you found the same especially Michael who had to go back to Wisconsin after the meeting. We had six members present for the January meeting and it was a very entertaining meeting. Like Michael indicated there is always something new to learn about our Atari's even though we thought we new it all. I am glad to hear that I am not the only one put off by the cartridge slot on the back of the 130XE. I find the position of the slot absolutely stupid as I have to fumble around trying to find the connection every time I want to plug a cartridge in. I called the Falcon Heights Center and asked about the billing for 2012 and found out that the person who took care of the billing had been replaced. The new person is behind but will be getting the bill out soon. At least they know that we are up front about the rent. Here is how the Club looks as of the new year. Beginning balance as of January 1, 2013

627.05

Receipts for the January SPACE meeting: Doms

15.00

Expenses for the January SPACE meeting: Web-site for January 2013 Web-site fee for the year

10.00 11.49

Total expenses for January

21.49

Ending balance as of January 31, 2013:

620.56

We are okay for the time being, but after we get the bill for the rent ($300.00) we will be short about $200.00 to pay for the projected expenses for 2013. If all currrent members renew this year on time we will make up about $150.00 of the $200.00 needed. It should be no problem making up the difference with our Dom sales. So it looks like we will get by another year in 2013 but who knows what will happen in 2014. Things can change with a phone call or e-mail saying they have a load of Atari stuff they wold like to donate to the Club and that could change everything. So let's stay positive and have a great New Year, and I will see you all next month, February 8, 2013. **********************************************

Secretary's Report By Steve Peck For January 2013

Happy New Year! Twelve years into the twenty-first century already (yes, twelve, since the new century really began in the year 2001). Wow! What a milestone… OK. Enough of that. On with the report. The meeting commenced at exactly 7:30 PM. We had a lot of fun with Lance's preview of yet another movie from Black Cat Theater. Which one, you ask? Well, you had to be there to know that. But, it's going to be released soon and it will be spectacular and over the top. We also talked about the Kickstarter proposal that Greg's son, Tony, came up with an idea about. Although the idea is still alive, it's a great idea that I believe should come to fruition. Let's hope we can brainstorm on this some more, because I am good about that. The meeting adjourned at around 8:17 PM. Well, that concludes the Secretary's Report. Thanks for reading. In the words of the great Stan Lee… EXCELSIOR! ******************************************** From: Michael Current [michael@mcurrent.name] Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2013 9:55 AM Subject: Atari++ 1.71 Atari++ 1.71 Posted Wed Jan 16, 2013 9:50 AM Hi folks, a new release of Atari++, the portable atari emulator for Linux and windows has been released here in the download section - as usual, you find there the Linux sources and a compiled version for 32-bit Windows. This release is how 1.70 should have been, but wasn't due to time constraints. Lots of fixes left over from 1.70 are now integrated, and regressions have been fixed: - The ANTIC logic to roll over an instruction to the next scan was partially broken and also rolled a "Jump on Vertical Blank" over, breaking some games that played tricks with the DMA control register. - The new CPU logic to fetch the wrong interrupt vector (NMI instead of IRQ) was partially broken and forgot to fetch the right high-bit, potentially breaking code.

- The 65C02 BRK instruction was emulated incorrectly. The NMOS version worked fine, and continues to work fine. - 1.70 had, as indicated, a regression for late writes on Antic CHARCTL that broke at least one game ("Summer Games"). The corresponding logic has been re-done in a much cleaner way and is now part of 1.71. - Pokey lo-byte timer registers in a 16-bit timer pair did not underrun to 255 correctly. In fact, the timer emulation was partially re-done and should now do correctly, including the relative offset of low and high-timer on a STIMER resynchronization. - GTIA priority logic for player 4 on top of playfield 0/1 was broken in one priority selection, which got fixed now. - Player/missile retriggering was partially incorrect. This has been fixed now. - Player/missile resizing was, as stated, experimental in 1.70 and is now implemented correctly. - On-line player/missile shape changes are now experimentally supported. - The ANTIC/CPU WSYNC logic was partially broken as it does not block writes, only reads - the mechanism is a different one. Note that this only holds for the NMOS version. The CMOS version works correctly. This is also emulated. - The NMI/IRQ reaction times were short by one cycle. They are now 7 cycles as indicated. - GTIA mode 80 on top of a low-res screen created a wrong color for the PF3:BK pixel combination. This got fixed. - GTIA VDelay support was partially broken. Actually, the P/M DMA engine was redesigned for this release and should now work correctly. - Alsa sound support was broken on some hardware. For some Alsa drivers, audio hardware reacts allergic when trying to fill more samples into the available buffer, stalling the main program. The updated Alsa sound support rounds the samples written to the Alsa buffer to entire fragment sizes avoiding this problem. The SDL or Oss/HQOss drivers were not affected, though in general Alsa is preferably. Anti-News: (or, what does not yet work): - P/M shape changes are currently supported experimentally until I get hands on real hardware. - P/M shift-register disable tricks with PSIZE=2 are currently not supported. - Writes to GTIA color or priority registers are not delayed and happen immediately. The same goes to many other registers in Pokey, Antic and PIA. - Antic DMACtrl in-line adjustment tricks are not supported, neither any HScroll adjustments to disable the DMA-stop. - Bus noise picked up by GTIA if GRACTL is enabled but DMACTL is disabled is currently not emulated correctly. - Bus noise picked up by ANTIC on the right side of wide playfield screens is currently not emulated at all (and neither visible if it would). - The POKEY soft-reset cylce is currently not emulated completely. - Bit-banging serial output is currently not emulated at all. http://www.xl-project.com/ ********************************************

From: Michael Current [michael@mcurrent.name] Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 9:30 PM Subject: Atari S.A. and its U.S. entities coordinate to request filings for Book 6 procedures in France and Chapter 11 protection in the United States Atari S.A. and its U.S. entities coordinate to request filings for Book 6 procedures in France and Chapter 11 protection in the United States Paris, France – January 21st, 2013. The Company has been informed by its main shareholder and sole lender, BlueBay, that no solution has been found to date for the sale of its holdings in the Company, and that it is not in a position to continue to support the Company, as the two funds invested in the Company (The BlueBay Value Recovery (Master) Fund Limited, and The BlueBay Multi-Strategy (Master) Fund Limited, which together hold c. 29% of the shares and voting rights in the Company on an non-diluted basis and c. 64% on a fully diluted basis) are in liquidation. The Company takes note of the fact that, since BlueBay announced its intentions to sell its position in October 2010 and to be repaid on its outstanding credit line, no investor has been willing to replace them as reference shareholder and principal creditor, because of the French listing, limited free float, the complicated nature of the Company’s capital structure and the difficult economic and sector operating environment. Despite the Company recording positive current operating income for FY11 and FY12, and having reduced on and off-balance sheet liabilities by approximately € 130 million, with only working capital liabilities and € 21 million owed to Bluebay, the Company has been starved for funds and unable to finance its continued growth. With the BlueBay credit facility becoming due on March 31st, 2013, and the strain on cash resources experienced by the Group due to adverse trading conditions and limited development funds, management has resolved that it needed to file for Chapter 11 protection in the United States for the US entities of the Atari group, which has been done with immediate effect as of today. Atari SA and Atari Europe SAS have also filed for related procedures before the French courts pursuant to Book 6 of the French Commercial Code. The Board of the Company has been informed and unanimously supports this line of action. The U.S. entities expect to effectuate, within the next 90 to 120 days, the sale or restructuring, under Section 363 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, of all or most of their assets. The U.S. companies have had approval to obtain $5 million in debtorin-possession financing from one or more affiliates of Tenor Capital, a firm specializing in distressed lending and transactions. During the Chapter 11 proceedings, the companies will conduct business as usual. As part of the legal process, Mr. Robert Mattes, Group CFO, has stepped down from his Group functions and will remain CFO of the U.S. entities. Mrs. Laurence Betito, Financial Controller of Atari

SA, will take over the role of CFO of Atari SA. Jim Wilson, CEO of Atari explains: “In light of the current situation with BlueBay, we have decided to take what we think is the best decision to protect the Company and its shareholders. Through these ongoing procedures, and especially the auction process in the US, we will seek to maximize the proceeds in the best interest of the Company and all of its shareholders”. In order to ensure equality of access to information and prevent any risk of transactions which would not respect this principle, the Company has requested the suspension of trading of its shares and other financial instruments on the Euronext Paris market of NYSE Euronext. The Company will notify the market of the next steps relating to these procedures. About Atari, SA Atari (www.atari.com) is a multi-platform, global interactive entertainment and licensing company. The original innovator of video gaming, founded in 1972, Atari owns and/or manages a portfolio of more than 200 games and franchises, including world renowned brands like Asteroids®, Centipede®, Missile Command®, Pong®, Test Drive®, Backyard Sports® and RollerCoaster Tycoon®. Atari capitalizes on these powerful properties by delivering compelling games online (i.e. browser, Facebook® and digital download), on smartphones and tablets and other connected devices. The Company also develops and distributes interactive entertainment for video game consoles from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony. As a licensor, Atari extends its brand and franchises into other media, merchandising and publishing categories. For more information: www.atari.com ******************************************** From: Michael Current [michael@mcurrent.name] Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 4:03 PM Subject: Atari Files For Chapter 11 To Separate From French Parent Atari Files For Chapter 11 To Separate From French Parent Iconic Brand Seeks to Restructure and Secure Independent Capital for Future Growth NEW YORK, Jan. 21, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Atari Inc., Atari Interactive Inc., Humongous, Inc. and California US Holdings, Inc. (collectively, the "Companies") filed petitions for relief under chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. With this move, the U.S.based Atari operations seek to separate from the structural financial encumbrances of their French parent holding company, Atari S.A. (formerly Infogrames S.A.) and secure independent capital for future growth, primarily in the areas of digital and mobile games. Within the next 90-120 days, the Companies expect to effectuate a sale of all, or substantially all, of their assets in a "sale free and clear" under section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code or to confirm plans of reorganization that accomplish substantially the same result. These assets include not only

one of the most widely recognized brand logos, which is familiar to 90% of Americans, according to a recent survey, but also legendary game titles including Pong®, Asteroids®, Centipede®, Missile Command®, Battlezone® and Tempest®. Other recognized brands include Test Drive®, Backyard Sports® and Humongous®. Under current management, Atari Inc. has shifted its business from traditional retail games to digital games and licensing with an increased focus on developing mobile games based on some of Atari's most iconic and enduring franchises. With these moves, the company has added new revenue models, including digital download and advertising. As a result, Atari Inc. has become a growth engine for Atari S.A., which in turn has reported consecutive annual profits in 2011 and 2012. The company has recently launched a slew of chart-topping titles for iOS and Android mobile platforms, including Atari® Greatest Hits, Outlaw™, Breakout® and Asteroids Gunner®. The company has previously announced upcoming mobile and tablet games based upon the popular Rollercoaster Tycoon® franchise and Atari® Casino. The Chapter 11 process constitutes the most strategic option for Atari's U.S. operations, as they look to preserve their inherent value and unlock revenue potential unrealized while under the control of Atari S.A. During this period, the company expects to conduct its normal business operations. The U.S. companies are also seeking approval to obtain $5.25 million in debtor-in-possession financing from one or more funds managed by Tenor Capital Management, a firm specializing in convertible arbitrage and special situations. Each unit has filed a number of traditional "first-day" pleadings, which are intended to minimize any disruption of their day-to-day operations. Peter S. Partee, Sr. and Michael P. Richman of Hunton & Williams LLP are proposed to serve as lead counsel for the U.S. companies in their respective Chapter 11 cases. About Atari Atari (www.atari.com) is a multi-platform, global interactive entertainment and licensing company. Atari owns and/or manages a portfolio of more than 200 games and franchises, including world renowned brands like Asteroids®, Centipede®, Missile Command®, Pong®, Test Drive®, Backyard Sports®, and Rollercoaster Tycoon®. Atari capitalizes on these powerful properties by delivering compelling games online (i.e. browser and digital download), on smartphones and tablets and other connected devices. The Company also develops and distributes interactive entertainment for video game consoles from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony. As a licensor, Atari extends its brand and franchises into other media, merchandising and publishing categories. SOURCE Atari, Inc. ********************************************

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