Joey Kay

Under 50 bucks! The fun IS back!

Notice the differences in Q-Bert himself, the ball, and the cube orientation. Well... let's be realistic here. At least you could play Q-Bert on the Colecovision!!! With Warner's craptacular (albeit well-translated) line-up of fossilized rehashes for the 7800's 1984 launch, there was nothing really better on the 7800 in terms of originality/gameplay than what was already on the Coleco. How the hell do you launch a new system entirely with five-year-old games? I guess there was Desert Falcon, but Zaxxon with a bird hardly constitutes new thinking. It's no wonder Atari was dumped by Warner in exchange for promissary notes from Jack Tramiel. Looking at the brain-damaged 7800 launch plan, clearly Atari management went from smoking weed in the 70s to smoking copious amounts of crack by mid-80s.

That's what they said about Kevin Costner before The Postman and Waterworld...

I distinctly remembering reading the total numbers in documents Atari filed back in 96 when they merged with JTS. In fact, I think I read them through some link on the Atari.com Jagwire site... Anyhow, the numbers at AHS click with my memory - while the actual number escapes me now, I still remember that it was around the 300k mark.

Atari was notorious under Tramiel for announcing production capacities, yet almost never announcing total production numbers to date (for obvious reasons of low sales). I suspect the 80,000 figure was never lived up to.

That game totally rocked. I had it for my Tandy 1000 and lost HOURS to it. I always appreciated how Sierra took advantage of the extra powers of the Tandy series of computers (the powers that they hijacked from the PCjr, IIRC) Looking forward to the website!

I don't know if it was sold separately, but I do know that Bug Hunt was also the pack-in with the standalone XEGS Light Gun.

Altair 8800 ALL THE WAY!!! Unless we throw in the TRS-80. Actually, I don't mind these types of threads. I think the "7800 vs. NES" threads have been done to death over the few years I've read these boards. This is kind of an interesting twist - beats the hell out of ANOTHER conversation about how the 7800 could have done Super Mario...

I think a few games were with the box that was glued shut and had the little flaps to close the top in lieu of shrinkwrapping (ie - my copy of Robotron 2084 is like this).

Any idea where one could find pictures of the various boxes Atari used to package the 7800. I've seen the original packaging, the 87-88-89 packaging, and the UK packaging, but I've also read about a redesigned smaller box for the 7800 late in its lifecycle. Any idea where one could find this?

Wow... Bug Hunt needs 64k??? Just what is all that code for?

Yep... good old Atari Canada. They were a VERY WELL run company, believe it or not. I have stacks of old Atari magazines, newsletters, etc, and Atari Canada was always doing innovative promotions with relative success. Among their clever marketing efforts, they had a great promo back in about 1989 or 1990 where you could trade in your 8 bit - straight across, I believe - for a 520ST. This was done on the eve of the STe, so a great way to maintain a user base and dump what could quickly become unsaleable stock.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Atari Canada wasn't formed until the Tramiel era. Didn't Irwin Toys distribute Atari's games in Canada? Can't say who distributed the computers. And yes, I never saw a 5200 in Canada. I did, however, see both 7800 and XEGS stuff in Toy City.

Hey... Doing some research on the US Patent database for a work project, and got sidelined with a search for "Atari". Anyhow, among the interesting things on here is the "ornamental design" of the 2600. Check it out! Atari VCS Patent Database Entry All in all, nothing new to see on this site, but interesting none-the-less.

What...? Warner overproducing Atari products??? What kind of outrageous thinking is that!

Whoah! Mystery (pretty much) solved. Thanks for that!

It was actually "Pick a Fight After School". I have the ad here, but my jurassic scanner doesn't work with Windows XP. Curses!

Okay... I'm too lazy to search, but was there not a member on AA forums a few years back who had the Atari Corp. signs from Atari Chicago in the late 80s?

I'll add to the chorus of what great memories I have of playing this game with my sister back in the early '80s. Not the best Activision title, but good sound, good colours, and easy gameplay for video game neophytes (like Grandma). However, it doesn't hold a candle to games like Oink! Keystone Kapers, River Raid, etc... That's one thing I really appreciated about Activision... great games that weren't all "space" games. Activision games had much more creative storylines than the Atari releases during the early 80s.

Interesting thought... it would have made a nice and timely accessory to the Lynx, and showed Atari's commitment to the video game market while the company had a bit more presence in general... plus an introduction during the Genesis/SNES era would have spawned a lot of articles in magazine comparing the three... much like the XEGS, SMS, and NES comparisons often seen in the press in the mid-80s. The poor Jag was stuck between the popularity of the Genesis and SNES and excitement of the looming N64 and Playstation. I think it was a poor choice to only have Atari as credible player in video game industry through the Lynx from 1990 - 1993. Handhelds strike me as a second game machine, much like a "second car", and without console presence, that probably hurt the Lynx. Having said that, I don't know how well Atari could have supported two consoles software-wise during that time. The only time of real gaming software excitment for Tramiel Atari seemed to be in 1988, but that was at the peak of cashflow into the company post-Warner. They were doing close to half a billion a year in sales during the late 80s. Atari's financial state was turning pretty grim by the early 90s. But, as pointed out, 1990 or so would have been a great time to scoop some third-party developers. So what was lacking at Atari could possibly have been made up by the third-parties. I always enjoy speculation on the Panther... another interesting Atari what-could-have-been.

Hmmm... maybe that's it. Don't know what they were advertising, then. Wish that I could find a scan of that catalogue somewhere. I always cut out and saved the Atari sections, but that was it...

And on this point, I would add that that this would probably be due to the tile graphics of the NES. Something different and new. And let's be honest, the NES had a way better appearance on TV largely due to the RCA outs - none of that crappy interference like the 7800 suffered.

While I'm in an agreeable mood, I also agree with this statement. The 5200 was a leap over the 2600... the NES was a leap over the 5200... but the 7800 just didn't seem to be a leap over the 5200. Perhaps a standing long-jump, but I wouldn't call it a leap. It's clearly a lot better (a good comparison point for technical ability is 8-bit Desert Falcon vs. 7800 Desert Falcon or 5200 Xevious Proto vs. 7800 Xevious) but it just never struck me as amazingly better in layman's eyes... Mind you, some more innovative early 7800 titles would have helped.

I thought that the Sega Master System had 128 kb of memory... can't seem to find a straight answer about this online. I say this because I the Atari 7800 catalogue from 1987 said "The State of the Art Video Game System"; meanwhile, in the Canadian Sears catalogue from 1988, the Sega Master System page had a headline that said "128 Kilobytes... Beyound State of the Art". I always thought this was a purposeful slight against the 7800 (and perhaps even the XE, as the same 1987 Atari Catalogue boasted the 64kb in the XEGS). Regardless, I agree with DracisBack's point. The RAM was really a moot point except in the eyes of marketing departments.

How does any of this apply to the original question - did Jack Kill atari pre-1984? This whole thread is wayyyyy off track.