GasMonkey

I have heard the book on Commodore does a good job of discussing the antics at the company. While Atari Benefited from Jack's departure, Commodore lost out. Joysticks huh... that's a good idea. I was also thinking of adding a page on peripherals.

I was wondering if there is an Atari ST emulator out there that works on Intel Macs.

I would not normally post this here, but I know many of you also have Amigas. After creating the VintageAtari.com site, I set out to create http://VintageAmiga.com. It does not compare to AtariAge in any way, but for those of you who enjoy the Amiga as well, it might take you down memory lane.

I always thought of Commodore and Atari was being each other's red-headed step sibling: after all, they both had the same father.

He may be many of those things, but then again, Tramiel was not that well liked either... businesses operated differrently back then I think -- times are different.

Try to keep this to 8-bit machines only Jupiter Lander is one of mine.

Games! Never used an Amiga. Never seen one in person before actually.... I used mine for pretty much everything: Gaming, presentations, reports, music sampling... they were incredible machines

Baer was the Chief Engineer and Manager of the Equipment Design Division at Sanders Associates. He built a two-player video game using a standard television set where two dots chased each other around the screen. This may not seem like much, but sots bouncing round the screen was the basis for most video games for the next seven years. After Bear demonstrated the device to the company's director of R&D Herbert Campman, funding was approved. In 1967, they brought Bill Harrison on board and added a light gun was constructed from a toy rifle. With Bill Rusch joining the project, development speed up with the end result being a third machine-controlled dot that was used to create a ping-pong game. With additional funding, even more games were built for the console. Baer had the idea of selling the product to Cable TV companies that could transmit static images as game backgrounds. However, the Cable TV industry was slumping and the idea went nowhere. Development continued on the unit for a few more years. The prototype had two controllers, a light gun and sixteen switches that selected the game to be played. These first generation games were actually built into the unit. Baer eventually signed with Magnavox in 1969 with the prototype being released as the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972, some 21 years after the concept was imagined. The Magnavox Odyssey was with a combination of analogue and digital circuitry. While there has been some disagreement over where the unit is digital or not, it is the first game console and it does have a considerable amount of digital circuitry.

Keep in mind that the Macs did not have multitasking until OS X came out, before that they used task switching at best. I'd say teh Atari ST and Amiga had better OSs. The Amiga had pre-emptive multitasking, but it did not have any memory management, which caused some apps to take down the whole system. Also, the Atari STs had built in Midi -- something the Amigas never had. Odd that they never added that as it is one of the things that had the Sts sell very well. I think the Apple IIs would have gone far if it was not for the Mac. It's amazing as the Mac almost never happened after the Lisa failed so badly. So true that each platform did have its strengths. If Commodore had teamed up with Newtek, I think that might have made a difference.

Some would say marketing makes the best computer and experience would back this up. However, this is an argument that is rather boring and lack emotion. From power, graphics, sound and other aspects, what do you consider to be the best 16-bit computer/model ever made? The price wars from the early 80s reduced the number of entrants into this category and saw the further rise of the Intel-based, or Wintel systems -- boo... However, true pioneering was still in the non-wintel world.

I always felt the best meant power, graphics, sound: the whole package. Usually when all areas were good or great, the whole system was better for it. The Amiga taught us that custom chips were the way to go. Today most systems are segregated: separate video cards and sound with little to know help from the processor. The Atari 800 was simply the best in my mind: but it needed better marketing -- the product itself was far better than the C64.

I am surprised not to get any responses from this one. Both were great machines and it's too bad they competed against each other rather than big blue. Come on, there must be a few of you out there that remember these days.

I would have to agree! The Odyssey is a good example of this. It's too bad Nolan did not stay in the business. I look to Gates as a business hero, but there is no imagination there -- no spark. It's too bad the most boring of the technologies fromt eh 80s endured, the Mac excluded of course.

Thanks, I actually thought they made a few of them for public release. Most articles I found on the 1400XL were not clear or seemed hearsay...

Hands down, it has to be the 800XL.