Technology

The Tempest arcade game was created by the video game developer, Atari, Inc. They were responsible for one of the first games available, Pong. They used a Read-only Memory (ROM) chip as the main form of storing the software for the game. A ROM chip is meant to store all the code for the game and cannot be altered once inserted into the game. This means that once the code is made and put into the game they cannot add updates or new levels to the game. Most of the arcade games in this era used ROM chips to write the code for the game. Atari ran into some problems because of these chips. When the game first came out there were a few bugs in the game that allowed players to get 255 extra lives, 40 free points, and other advantages. Atari corrected the issue and future shipped arcade machines did not have this problem. 

Originally, ROM chips and other forms of holding memory were used in computers. It was not until Atari made the game Pong, that other developers saw the potential of the chips. Companies like Apple (founded 1976) and Microsoft (founded 1975) were on the rise around the release of Tempest, which allowed for many bright programmers to become interested in computers and eventually video game development. Due to the emerging interest in computers, companies like Atari were able to pick employees from a growing field of programmers to create their games. 

Tempest was founded around the era of the rapid evolving computer and video game scene. The growing market evolved very fast and companies always needed to be on top of their game to deliver the next best thing to their consumers. This was the problem with Tempest, because the ROM chips were unable to be updated unless they recalled all their arcade machines. On top of that, they were unable to break into the home console market because of how the controls of the game were made. All of these technological advances which helped produce a masterful game, eventually were the cause of the game’s downfall.