Orbit

Orbit
Developer: Atari, Inc. Publisher: Atari, Inc. Platform: Arcade (custom) Released in US: November 1978 Released in EU: November 1978 This game has hidden developer credits. This game has unused graphics.

Orbit is a clone of Spacewar!, the first digital computer game. Only now you're charged to play it. Hooray!

Unused Graphic

Present in the same graphics ROM as the font is a leftover from an earlier Atari game, Sprint 2. This would suggest that Orbit was based off the same hardware, especially since Sprint 2 also had a two-player Versus mode.

Programmer Initials

Stored	Rotated

Present in the same graphics ROM as the object graphics, these initials (L.R., O.R., L.Y., M.H., and P.M.) are those of people who worked on the game and were around in Atari's early arcade days:

• Lyle Rains
• Owen Rubin
• (unknown who L.Y. is)
• Morgan Hoff
• Paul Mancuso

According to Rubin, the initials would be displayed if a special sequence was entered on the game's number pad. Unfortunately, close examination of the game's code reveals that this sequence is not present. Given that Atari had a thing against crediting their game programmers/designers/etc., a practice seemingly enforced by parent company Warner and certainly by then-new Atari CEO Ray Kassar (which eventually resulted in some of said employees founding Activision), it's very possible that the special sequence was discovered and removed, with the initials left in on the grounds that there was absolutely no other way consumers would be able to see these.

Atari certainly showed them.

(Source: Digitpress)