Patents Assigned to Atari Games
  • Patent number: 4875459
    Abstract: A Gattling-like gun provides for manual control of the rate of firing of projectiles in the form of balls. The balls are fed through two successive nip regions formed by pinch rollers. The first is manually controlled by a crank to vary the rate of firing. Balls delivered from the first nip region are fired at high speed by a fast rotating, fixed speed second pinch roller. The gun fires balls at round targets supported on rotating carousels. Dislodged targets roll to the front of an enclosure for dispensing to the player. The balls are separated and fed by an Archimides' spiral to a feed tube connected to the gun.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 11, 1987
    Date of Patent: October 24, 1989
    Assignee: 501 Atari Games
    Inventors: Daniel N. Van Elderen, Gerald J. Lichac
  • Patent number: 4807886
    Abstract: A Gattling-gun-like amusement game provides for manual control of the rate of firing and dispensing of dislodged targets as prizes to the player. The gun fires balls at round targets supported on rotating carousels. Dislodged targets roll to the front of an enclosure for dispensing to the player. The balls are separated and fed by an Archimedes' spiral to a feed tube connected to the gun. A sensor is used with controls to limit the number of balls provided to a player. The balls are fed through two successive nip regions formed by pinch rollers. The first is manually controlled by a crank to vary the rate of firing. Balls delivered from the first nip region are fired at high speed by a fast rotating, fixed speed second pinch roller.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 11, 1987
    Date of Patent: February 28, 1989
    Assignee: Atari Games
    Inventors: Daniel N. Van Elderen, Gerald J. Lichac
  • Patent number: 4738451
    Abstract: A multi-player, multi-character video game where the game rules force the players to cooperate in negotiating the maze at least until the characters reach a portion of the maze where a specific objective is located. Certain limited resources to change the attributes of the characters or to increase their longevity are displayed in a maze. The players may compete to obtain possession of these limited resources when the characters have cooperated in their movements sufficiently to move to the location of the limited resources. Cooperation among the characters is forced by forcing all characters active in the game to remain visible in the displayed window. Players may enter the game at any time, and they may leave the game at any time without affecting the status of the game or the status of the other characters in the game. All active players may simultaneously, independently control their characters so long as they do not attempt to move their characters outside the currently displayed window.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 20, 1986
    Date of Patent: April 19, 1988
    Assignee: Atari Games Corporation
    Inventor: George E. Logg