Jawbreaker

Ported to the Apple II in 1981 and Harris's different take on the game for the Atari 2600 was released the following year. Legal issues resulted in the 2600 port being the template for subsequent versions—for the Commodore 64 and TI-99/4A—and sold confusingly as both Jawbreaker and Jawbreaker II.

• Title — Jawbreaker • Publisher — On-Line Systems Tigervision (2600) • Programmer — Atari 8-bit, 2600 John Harris Apple II Olaf Lubeck • Released — Atari 8-bit, Apple II 2600October 1982 Commodore 64 • Genre — Maze • Modes — Single-player • Platforms — Atari 8-bit, Apple II, Atari 2600, Commodore 64

• Illustration — Atari 2600 gameplay In 1982, the initial Atari 800 version of Jawbreaker was so faithful to Pac-Man that the game (carelessly leaked by Harris himself) was assumed to be from Atari, Inc. (licensee for Pac-Mans home rights) itself. When one of these early copies found its way to Atari, they reached out to On-Line's Ken Williams. Attempts at a deal fell apart due to culture clashes between Atari and On-Line, particularly Williams and Harris. Williams instructed Harris to alter the artwork for the game to have a dental theme. Atari unsuccessfully sought an injunction against the sale of Jawbreaker and Gobbler, another On-Line computer game, which Atari claimed unduly resembled Pac-Man, and cited early leaked copies. Williams denied Atari's claim but was uncertain of the outcome, stating "If this opens the door to other programmers ripping off my software, what happened here was a bad thing".

Because of technical limitations, Atari 2600 Jawbreaker is not a Pac-Man clone and is different than the Atari 8-bit game. A rough sketch of the 2600 game was used as the basis for new computer versions from programmers other than Harris. The new game was, confusingly, sold as both Jawbreaker and Jawbreaker II and was not as successful as the original.