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Important steps in Atari's history

1972   'Atari Inc.' founded by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. The arcade game 'Pong' becomes a big hit.
1973   Ted Dabney sells his half of Atari Inc. to Nolan Bushnell.
1974   Joe Keenan is made President of Atari Inc.
1975   Atari Inc. releases 'Home Pong'.
1976   Atari Inc. sold by Bushnell to Warner Inc. for $28,000,000.
1977   Atari Inc. releases the Atari 'VCS', the world's most successful video-game-system.
1978   Atari Corp. launches its home computer division, Bushnell leaves Atari.
1979   Atari releases the '400' and '800' line of home computers.
1980   Atari Inc. posts record sales. $2 billion profits annually. Atari occupies 80 offices
in Sunnyvale, CA.
1981   Atari Inc. announces the '5200 Super System'.
1982   Atari releases the Atari '5200 Super System'. The Atari 'VCS' is renamed to Atari '2600'.
1983   Atari replaces the '400' / '800' / '1200XL' line of home computers with the '600XL' and the '800XL'. Atari Inc. faces record losses of $536,000,000, (up to $2,000,000 daily).
1984   Warner divides Atari Inc. The home division ('Atari Corp'.) is sold to Jack Tramiel.
The '5200' is cancelled.
1985   Atari Corp. releases the 'Atari ST' home computer series and replaces the '600XL' and
'800XL' home computers with the '65XE' and the '130XE' computers.
1986   Atari Corp. releases the Atari '7800' console.
1987   Atari Corp. announces the 'XE Game System' ('XEGS').
1988   Atari Corp. announces the signing of Nolan Bushnell to develop games for the Atari VCS.
1989   Atari Corp. releases the Atari 'Lynx', the world's first color hand-held video game system;
but only in New York and Los Angeles. Atari releases the Atari 'Portfolio', the smallest IBM-compatible computer.
1990   Atari releases the 'Lynx' nationwide.
1991   Rumours about the 'Panther', a 32bit video-game-console by Atari; project stopped;
64bit-project announced, called 'Jaguar'; 'Lynx II' released.
1992   Atari announces the 'Jaguar' to be released in 1993.
1993   'Atari Games' becomes 'Time-Warner Interactive'. Atari Corp. releases the Atari 'Jaguar 64', the world's first 64-bit home video game system.
1994   Atari Corp. stops supporting the 'Lynx'.
1995   Atari Corp. releases the 'Jaguar CD'.
1996   Atari Corp. merges with JTS Corporation, a small manufacturer of hard disk drives for
personal computers. Time-Warner Interactive (Atari Games) sold to WMS.
1997   All Atari-operations are stopped at JTS.
1998   Hasbro acquires the rights to Atari Corp.'s name and properties from JTS Corporation
for $5,000,000 in cash!
1999   Hasbro declares the Jaguar as an 'open' system; Atari is reborn as their new home video
game label.
2000   'Infogrames' acquires rights to the 'Atari' label by purchasing Hasbro Interactive, including
all of Hasbro's rights to the Atari name and all of its properties, for $95,000,000 in Infogrames stock and $5,000,000 in cash.
2003   On May 7th, Infogrames changes its name to 'Atari'.

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