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Gamephemera: Super Breakout (Atari 400/800)

September 6, 2006 By Glenn Turner

Gamephemera is an intermittent look at the documentation, paperwork and sundry other bits that were lovingly crafted to accompany the publishing of a video game.

There's a lot to love about this Atari 400/800 manual, although there's significantly less once you turn the cover. This one is small, even smaller than last week's Space Invaders manual, however it does enlighten us on the name of the hardest Super Breakout level: cavity. Now doesn't that make you shake in your combat boots?

Wallpaper
This cover art is available as a desktop wallpaper in the following resolutions*:
1680x1050 | 1280x1024 | 1024x768 | 800x600

While this cover may not be as exceptionally detailed as some, it has a certain stylistic panache that I simply can't ignore. It's as if they let Bill Sienkiewicz loose to interpret a ball bouncing against a brick, and then had an additional editor to ensure he didn't make it dirty. It's simple, clean, but still exquisitely executed, although I wish I could tell you just who painted the cover since I can't make out that signature.

Just be glad the cover wasn't a rampaging convict breaking through a wall, okay? Although who knows where Sienkiewicz would spin that. Also, the manual does contain a rather intriguing diagraming of Super Breakout's paddle angle bouncebacks as the levels advance:

Super Breakout Diagram

For more information, feel free to download a scanned version of the manual that I've compiled:

Download the Super Breakout manual (PDF - 3.5MB)

* Thanks go out to csweasel from our forum for the desktop wallpaper idea!

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3 comments for ‘Gamephemera: Super Breakout (Atari 400/800)’

#1 Soup Sep 7, 2006 09:11am

mmm... balls on bricks. I gues I'm not surprised there isn't any documentation on the sweet spot to make the ball go directly up. I could only ever get it to do so very rarely by chance. That didn't keep me from trying many times, mind you.

#2 csweasel Sep 7, 2006 09:51am

Really nice. I agree that part of what makes this game artwork great is the effort put into interpreting such abstract and stark games into visuals that are much much more. The art also seems to bring humans into games where there's none to be seen (examples off the top of my head from the 2600 manuals: Missile Command, Warlords, Checkers, etc.).

It makes you want to *be* those people, because it looks so exciting and fun. If you have it there (I found images of it on ebay), check out the manual for the BASIC programming language for the 400/800. The guy's got the desk all layed out with his Atari, tape drive, a cup of coffee, manual/notebook propped up in his lap. And the real kicker: what we can only assume is his Dad standing over the kid's shoulder wearing a Mr. Rogers sweater and tie.

Who doesn't want to have some father-son bonding experience over tinkering with the computer? That goes way beyond "here's a cartridge and a syntax reference". Brilliant stuff.

#3 Glenn Turner Sep 11, 2006 06:07pm

csweasel wrote:
It makes you want to *be* those people, because it looks so exciting and fun. If you have it there (I found images of it on ebay), check out the manual for the BASIC programming language for the 400/800. The guy's got the desk all layed out with his Atari, tape drive, a cup of coffee, manual/notebook propped up in his lap. And the real kicker: what we can only assume is his Dad standing over the kid's shoulder wearing a Mr. Rogers sweater and tie.

Wow, that's seriously impressive. At first I had in mind an image like those from the Adam SmartBASIC manual but the Atari BASIC manual is much more engaging. Like you said, it puts the focus more on the human element, and I think that's why many of these covers really succeed.

Now if only the Atari 400/800 hardware manuals were as interesting as the software manuals!