Joey Kay

Great stuff! My burning question is whether or not the spelling error on the Hobo box art (tresspassing with the X through the erroneous S) was on purpose, or someone realised the error late in the process and just crossed out the S as a cover for the mistake.

Can you refer us to where to read this memo?

This thread is a lotta lotta fun. In retrospect, I kinda wonder why I bought a 130XE over an XEGS when they cost the same. For as little as I used that extra 64k, it would have been a better value proposition to get a light gun and the games over the extra memory. Also, while taste is obviously personal, Atari really nailed the XEGS from both a design standpoint and a packaging standpoint. Can't find a link offhand, but the design won some award at (I think) the 1987 International Toy Fair. Anyhow, it really was all about the marketing for this 12-year-old. I was buying a computer, not another game machine. Got a few years of great fun out of my 130XE (and still pull it out from time-to-time), that is until Dad bought a Tandy 1000TL/2.

No kidding. Did find this 2019 real estate listing of the second floor of "Unit 1" though it occupied Units 1 and 2 IIRC. At least we can get a peek inside of what might have been... https://images1.loopnet.com/d2/Rqp-d_kBn_6jtwII1qqCPiUyTOY5Tr6B2rPBE_Yrcek/document.pdf

This isn't true. Atarian wasn't cancelled due to the Spring 1990 editorial and subsequent staff shake-up. Atarian was cancelled in fall 1989. The unpaid printing bill led to the critical Spring 1990 Explorer editorial. The editorial (appears to have) led to Explorer's pause and shake up. It resumed publication in January 1991 and continued until 1993. I'm not trying to flame, I'm just curious about what transpired. I was an Explorer subscriber and would pick up Atarian from the newsstand. So far the only evidence we have is the unpublished Spring 1990 Atari Explorer editorial I linked to earlier. So again, I'll put out the open ask. Anyone have any links?

Analog stopped publishing in December 1989, and a quick word search of their last two issues reveals no results for "Explorer."

Interesting. Not sure if this is the editorial you refer to, or if there was something else at play in addition, as this doesn't quite match the events outlined above. https://archive.org/details/1990AtariExplorerSpringEditorial/mode/1up Nonetheless, I'd be interested in learning more about the end of Atarian... anybody have any other links? I recall calling Atari Explorer magazine in early 1990 asking where my issue was, and getting a rather oblique response.

Looks a lot like Plutos - shame that game never saw release in the day.

Apologies for a 19-year-old necrobump. Regarding "Why Pole Position II" as the pack-in, I've read over the years in several reliable media reports from the day that Nintendo was originally planning to use F1-Race as its pack-in. Maybe it even was for a while - somebody please correct me if I'm wrong. Not sure if that was in reaction to Atari Inc packing in PPII on the 7800, or if Atari Inc was packing in PPII in reaction to Nintendo. Or maybe it's just a gigantic coincidence. But here's something interesting, and apologies if this has been pointed out before... It appears that in 1988, Atari was planning on switching its North American pack-in to Asteroids, and switch to joypads as standard issue, according to this promotional pack from the 1988 summer CES: http://www.atarimania.com/documents/atari-the-winning-package-1988.pdf This helps explain the production run of PPII carts. Though it then makes you wonder if a switch to pack-in Asteroids was due to a mistaken run of unsellable PPII carts? Still a lot of questions, but certainly some clarification. The more you know...!

Woolco is where I purchased my 1050 drive, Silent Service, and the Print Shop Graphics Library, all in 1989. That said, the stock had been there for quite some time… The 1050 croaked maybe four months after I bought it. Took it back to the store (out of warranty), they sent it to Atari Canada, and I received an XF551 as replacement. Always appreciated that gesture. Always found it odd Woolco didn’t ever stock the 7800 or XEGS, at least the store in my hood, but stocked the 8-bit computers.

Okay... this is a ridiculous necrobump. Ages ago Dan Boris solved the mystery of what triggers an Instant Replay on Food Fight. See: Now I'm wondering what triggers an "Almost Made It!" Instant Replay. Anybody looked into this?

We don't have to take x=usr(1536) word's for it... ask Jack himself.

How about that... "shatter the myth" TV spots, too.

Oh. Em. Gee...

Hmm... not so sure about those claims. “For 1987, Nintendo of America had sales of $750 million out of a $1.1 billion market... Competitors Atari Corp., with about 16 percent of the market, and Tonka Co.’s Sega, with about 10 percent” see https://apnews.com/article/7caaeee0a2e3bb442cab12f441974a13 Meanwhile, for 1987 Atari themselves only claimed 20% of the market. See https://www.nintendotimes.com/1988/06/02/nolan-bushnells-company-to-develop-games-for-atari-2600/