DoctorSpuds Reviews Things

I know...Apple and Oranges but Altirra emulator works great.

I say that because you want to play 5200 games and already you aren't using real equipment so....

I don't care what anyone ever says about the 5200.
I have had several over the years and I thought it was awesome at the time.
I used to wipe out pacman and space dungeon.
I used the quirkiness of the controllers to my advantage.  It just took some getting used too.
What you get now is 20 something youtubers want to crap all over these machines just because WIKI says so and without doing the research.
 

Edited August 14, 2019 by Mike Harris

2 hours ago, Mike Harris said:

I know...Apple and Oranges but Altirra emulator works great.

 

I don't care what anyone ever says about the 5200.
I have had several over the years and I thought it was awesome at the time.
I used to wipe out pacman and space dungeon.
I used the quirkiness of the controllers to my advantage.  It just took some getting used too.
What you get now is 20 something youtubers want to crap all over these machines just because WIKI says so and without doing the research.
 

 

I would only use an emulator to get screenshots for a review otherwise I prefer to use actual hardware, and I'm really only going this route because I already have an 800 that I was neglecting and playing on actual hardware just feels so much better.  

 

As for the hate the 5200 gets I think much of it is unjustified, it is a good solid machine with its only handicap being the controllers and their notorious reliability issues. My best guess is that most of the people who discount the 5200 as a hunk of junk probably watched that one AVGN video from ten years ago and called it a day and have never actually played on one themselves.

 

 

My friend actually won an Atari 600 from MacDonald's and I got to play with it.

It did 100% NOTHING so I never gave the Atari line a second thought.
Come to find out that you needed actual software to run the thing.
Back then the only experience we had with the Atari was the 2600.

Is an 800XL, 65XE or 130XE + a SIO2SD really much more expensive than a 5200 + either an AtariMax cart or a bunch of original cartridges? In particular the latter sounds expensive to me. Also the fact that the 5200 only existed in NTSC version with its combined power and video output device would make it less of a choice for European users, though of course you'd want an NTSC 8-bit computer to fully enjoy those 5200 conversions anyway.

2 hours ago, carlsson said:

Is an 800XL, 65XE or 130XE + a SIO2SD really much more expensive than a 5200 + either an AtariMax cart or a bunch of original cartridges? In particular the latter sounds expensive to me. Also the fact that the 5200 only existed in NTSC version with its combined power and video output device would make it less of a choice for European users, though of course you'd want an NTSC 8-bit computer to fully enjoy those 5200 conversions anyway.

 

It's actually more expensive, way more expensive, but you get far more for your money than if you just bought a 5200 and all the extras. This workaround does work on all atari 8-bit computers though, you don't need anything XEX compatible since you can force compatibility in the SIO2SD drive. I only really came up with this because I already had an 8-bit and really didn't want to pay for a working 5200 controller. And there's the added benefit of using any controller you want as well.