Hardware updates over the years...

[leech]

Anyone else find it odd that the Atari 8bit line of computers really didn't see any substantial upgrades in all its iterations? Like the C64 got a new 80 column mode with the C128 (IIRC), and of course you have the ST -> STe -> TT -> Falcon, and Amiga OCS -> ECS -> AGA.

 

Outside of more memory, I think the XL line brought BASIC built in and some OS updates, and I think a newer GTIA (if I recall) but isn't that about it? I guess if the 5200 is considered in the line, it got Analog controllers, but none of the others did (most likely due to the controller issues).

 

Tramiels just repackaged them all, instead of including the POKEY in the 7800, they just kept on with the XE line.

 

Kind of odd, since I think the Atari 8bit line is possibly one of the longest computer lines ran, right?

[+Nezgar]

The 7800 hardware was designed, manufactured and delivered to Atari's warehouses where there was a small release in 84, but was cancelled due to the sale of Atari. They sat in warehouses for a few years after the Tramiels acquired Atari, until they were officially released 2 years later. The Tramiels had no involvement in their design - just selling the existing inventory later.

The remaining 8-bits XL inventory and then newly produced XE hardware was mostly just an avenue to cash flow during development the ST. The Tramiels had no interest in investing in really furthering the architecture much. Production of XE's and peripherals continued to help sell remaining inventory of software mostly, and take advantage of the IP library they had access to.

 

Tramiel era Atari did produce an official means to an 80 column display, albeit as a slow external peripheral, the XEP-80.

 

The tramiels really should have gotten the 7800 on the market ASAP instead of sitting on them for 2 years, giving Nintendo a huge lead... But I can understand the financial pressure and organizational disarray they were in, they probably didn't even know what they had in their warehouses for a while lol.

[Gunstar]

I don't think C128's 80-column counts since it's only for the CP/M side of the machine, not the C64. We can do the same thing with our Atari 8-bits with ATR-8000 or Indus GT and clones CP/M. Apple didn't really get any upgrades for the Apple II, besides memory until the Apple IIGS. As far as I can remember, only the Coco 3 RadioShack/Tandy computer got real upgrades. The main issue is/was backward compatibility that people expect if it's supposed to be in the same computer line. Also, new upgrades were rarely used by commercial software anyway, because the software houses wanted maximum user bases to sell software too, so they had to make sure the software worked with older systems too. That's why XL and XE owners saw the majority of new software still being 48K, because software houses didn't want to leave 800 users out, they wanted their money too! EVERYBODY pretty much just re-packaged 8-bit hardware with no substantial upgrades until they moved away from their 8-bit lines to 16-bit. Yes, Atari and Apple were pretty much the two longest running 8-bit lines, world-wide, both being manufactured and sold somewhere in the world until about 1992 or 1993.

 

http://atari.boards.net/thread/2876/long-life-popular-computer-line

 

The IIGS was really a 16-bit computer and older software, IIRC, mostly had to be patched to work, the same is true with the TT, Falcon and 32-bit Amigas, they were the next "bit" generations and often needed older software from the ST or 16-bit Amiga's to be patched too, AFAIK, which wasn't done by the manufacturers, but end users.

Edited January 10, 2019 by Gunstar

[leech]

The 7800 hardware was designed, manufactured and delivered to Atari's warehouses where there was a small release in 84, but was cancelled due to the sale of Atari. They sat in warehouses for a few years after the Tramiels acquired Atari, until they were officially released 2 years later. The Tramiels had no involvement in their design - just selling the existing inventory later.

 

The remaining 8-bits XL inventory and then newly produced XE hardware was mostly just an avenue to cash flow during development the ST. The Tramiels had no interest in investing in really furthering the architecture much. Production of XE's and peripherals continued to help sell remaining inventory of software mostly, and take advantage of the IP library they had access to.

 

Tramiel era Atari did produce an official means to an 80 column display, albeit as a slow external peripheral, the XEP-80.

 

The tramiels really should have gotten the 7800 on the market ASAP instead of sitting on them for 2 years, giving Nintendo a huge lead... But I can understand the financial pressure and organizational disarray they were in, they probably didn't even know what they had in their warehouses for a while lol.

Oh yeah, I knew that about the 7800. What I meant was Atari Inc (Pre-Tramiels) should have made them with the Pokey built in, since clearly they had a lot laying around.

 

Funny thing is, the Tramiels still did a 'refresh' with new cases in the XE lines, and building molds and such are quite expensive, so even them trying to use the 8bit line to fund the development of the ST is kind of weird when they could have just kept selling XLs. Not sure what the naming scheme would have been for a 128k XL machine, but I would have loved to have seen one. I sort of regret not upgrading my old 800XL instead of the 130XE (especially in my current set up where the cartridge being in the back is problematic due to space).

 

From various stories I've read/heard, wasn't the 7800 initially delayed because Jack wanted to just be doing computers, and not muck around with gaming consoles (something he'd never dealt with at Commodore)

[+slx]

All the ideas Atari had (like the 1400/1450) were pulled by the Tramiels. I always thought a built-in BASIC XL would have been a logical path but that would not have fit into the rock-bottom pricing strategy and the C64 sold very well with a crappy BASIC as during the later 8-bit years programming had IMHO become less important to the average teenage user who could get enough pirated software to keep him entertained. (That‘s based on my observation of the ‚2nd generation‘ of users I met bitd, those who got computers 2-3 years after the early adopters.)

 

Other than that the system was tied to the TV frequency quite tightly which made speed increases difficult. Plus it would have had to be backward compatible somehow.

 

OTOH progress was so steep that many users simply did not care for backward compatibility and would switch to a better system just as they had switched to the Atari from some early b/w computer. If you listen to the ANTIC interviews there‘s a lot of ‚system switchers‘.

 

 

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[Rybags]

C= 128 has 80 column available in 128 mode though the machine was somewhat lacking in software for 128 mode.

 

Sad fact is it seems even the late to the party outsold Atari with 5.7 million units.

 

Amy would have been a significant upgrade if they'd had gotten it to work. But yeah, even something like dual Pokey might have been a worthwhile substitute.

 

Another worthwhile upgrade could have been something like a 3.6 or 7.2 MHz 65816 though it'd have been costly to develop and probably eat into ST sales. And somewhat like the Apple IIgs would probably have been judged as irrelevant.

[xrbrevin]

Atari were developing a 65XE'M' that had a new sound chip. It go to working prototype stage and the music ability was said to be phenomenal for its day.

Sadly the project was discontinued as the 16-bit line was of more importance.

If i remember rightly, the sub-contracted team who developed it were taken to court by Atari and were unable to continue the project

 

just found a link:

http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8bits/xe/xe_protos/65xem.html

[+kheller2]

Atari had a lot of technology improvements in chips (combining multiple chips into one), etc that never saw the light of day.. nor did any of the newer floppy units. So, as you say there wasn't much of a feature improvement to the 8bits over the years.. but you could say the same thing about the Amiga in general. Also, as I recall the C128 was a hard sell for the engineers to get management to approve ... yet the C16/+4 seemed easier. Commodore really lost their way, as did Atari.

 

And this leads me back to the design of the Apple II and how many people took advantage of the expansion slots. It seems if you don't first release something that is intended to be expanded upon, it isn't going to happen.

[shoestring]

 

 

Also, as I recall the C128 was a hard sell for the engineers to get management to approve .

 

Bil Herd and his team started working on the C128 without telling management, they needed a product to fill the gap whilst the Amiga was still being finished. Commodore only had so many chips and the C128 needed a hell of lot of them compared to the TED machine, so that might explain the hard sell. It still didn't do too bad having sold almost 6 million units.

 

The Apple II design was great. Build a machine a simple as possible and leave it up to the user how he or she wants to expand it.

[Rybags]

Amy - 37,000 transistors. Funny that, probably double the amount of the remainder of the original chipset + 6502 and PIA combined.

[AtariNerd]

Pretty much anything capable of competing in the business market against Big Blue, with expandability, developed in the late 70s, like an Apple - almost! - was going to be in a difficult position to also compete with the influx of low-cost boxes, post '81/'82-ish. It would take pretty deep pockets and an almost impossible amount of pre-anticipation and insight onto the market. I'm curious though, technically, presuming there was a fictitious company, call it Commappatari and considerations of cost, say like RAM. weren't an influence in design, would it have been technically possible to develop a single or paired graphics-chip solution, capable of 525/640 x 200 /240i n 1-bit, 320/256/ x 240/200 in 2-bit, 160/256 x 200/240 in 4-bit, in 77-81 ,on the processes of the day? Might need to restrict the pipe-lines, limiting them to those specific resolutions/color-depths, forego sprites and might need a dedicated monitor for the higher-resolution modes, but it seems possible, if somewhat sluggish on a 2MHZ system. Maybe it would require a 68000, instead of a lowly 6502? I can imagine a scenario where a company started in the business sector , fairly competitively with a dedicate chip-set like that on-board, as the base spec, instead of the mess required on the PC or a relatively more-costly card, while still maintaining expandability, while being able to employ the same base tech, a few years later, having amortized the costs, in a lower-cost design for the home market. A theoretical best of worlds, capable of doing much work and play, in two different markets.