Atari Inc. – Business Is Fun co-author Marty Goldberg will be presenting a never before seen documentary from 1973 at the Midwest Gaming Classic, Games Computers Play. Filmed by several UC Berkeley School of Journalism students during early 1973 in the San Francisco Bay Area, this film offers an unprecedented look at ground zero for arcade video games. Showing behind the scenes footage of Atari when it was first starting out along with the original Stanford AI Lab Spacewar! setup covered in Rolling Stone around the time, it remained unseen and virtually lost for decades. Discovered in one of Ralph Baer’s storage lockers by pong-story.com owner David Winter several years ago, this is the first public showing of this one of a kind film – the very first video game documentary!
This will be followed by a screening of Jeff Von Ward’s The Space Invaders: In Search of Lost Time. A unique look at today’s fans of classic arcade games who are looking to preserve and in many cases recreate the glory days of arcades in their own basements and homes. This film will take you inside America’s hidden game rooms and into the hearts and minds of those who have made it their mission to enthusiastically preserve these important cultural touchstones.