cryinglion

A casino game would have been good. A reason to take advantage of four ports with four players! The could've sold various carts to complete a series: Poker, blackjack, roulette, etc.

Curt Vandel (who also posts on this site) has a pic on Atarimuseum.com website that he maintains. In it, it has a prototype pic of this kind of joystick. Check it out! Click "self center joystick" link here... Self center joystock

I did the aluminum for trick. It works for a while, but sometimes the foil moves around. I thought about using a soldering iron and melting some solder onto the surface of the tiny magnet in the rubber button to create a nice metal surface. But the trick would have to be that solder would have to be flat and not come out like a ball. The thing is, I only have two controllers and don't want to risk permanent damage. Now if I had six.....hmm! You could also try the pencil eraser trick and clean off the surface of the flex 9 circuit.

NOW THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! Would've been so much better, and and I bet Atari would have seriously cashed in if they did it right (just like this way) from the beginning (along with better marketing)! Thanks Curt!

Cool pics. My first one also was the four port model. That was the one I ended up selling. I don't understand why Atari didn't take advantage of having the four ports in the first place. I'm not aware of any supporting games (not to say that there isn't). Four player casino games would have been good.

Actually, I know what you mean. There was a time when I had no system at all, but a bunch of friends on the street. One friend had an Atari 2600. It was a treat to play it when I could (provided he would let me have a turn). I had begged my dad to get me one for Christmas. When he finally did, this friend of mine ended up getting a ColecoVision. I did end up with over 50 games for the system in the end. But, during this time I would drool over the ColecoVision...of course I would play it when he let me have a turn. I finally ended up getting the ColecoVision as I stated in the beginning of this post. By this time, all my friends had moved away. I was bored, and my only faithful friend at the time was the Coleco (what a nerd!). When games were hard to find (boy what a difference the internet makes), I purchased the Atari 5200 as previously mentioned. So now I had both "Super-Systems"...until the Coleco broke, and I sold the Atari. Didn't care much at the time because I ended up with a Nintendo NES. Flash forward 20 years, and I rebult my collections for both systems and then some.

What was your first experience with a 5200 system? My first experience was when I purchased the system at the tail-end of it's original existence. At the time, it was right when the video game crash had happened. Toys 'R Us was starting to dump it's inventory for a cheap price. I had purchased a ColecoVision not too long before this. Trying to find Coleco games and hardware began to be tougher. I had the expansion modules and a decent collection of games (mostly purchased from a local video rental store). I had a greater experience with the Atari 2600 and I figured "why not?". So, my first 5200 was a 4-port model. I ended up with around 15 games before I ended up selling it. Flash forward 20 years, and I purchased a 2-port version and rebuilt my collection (and yes, I own two ColecoVision's now).

What they should've done was re-design the Atari 400 computer shell to me more attractive looking, and promote it as the new home console. Upgrade the existing Atari 2600 controller to have another button on the right for a seperate function. And repackage the software (carts) with new style boxes/labels (like they did with XEGS). This way there would be no need to modify existing programming for the software, consumers would have that familiar feel in a joystick, and Atari could expand it with EXISTING components like disk/tape drives and printers to grow. No need to start from scratch...and already beat Coleco right from the start (although Coleco killed themselves with the ADAM anyway).

Yes I do have a 5200. Besides, I was only talking about the "standard issue" controllers. Not the third party type. And not the "recent" fixes that you may be talking about. If you want to include that, then even our computer emulators (the keyboard) have better control.

There could be many reasons as to why Coleco didn't market games in the 5200. Donkey Kong & Donkey Kong JR would have to be really well done, and that may overshadow Coleco's own system version. Atari Computer's versions in my opion rival the ColecoVision version, and in some ways are better than Coleco's version as far as content. And we know that the 5200 is really a modified version of the Atari computer. So to make a crappy version would truly show Coleco's attempt to make itself look good. Although any Coleco port to the 5200 would suck due to Atari's own 5200 controllers anyway.

I thought the DK & DKjr versions for the Adam computer were not officially released because of the rights to the computer versions of these games belonging to Atari. I read somewhere that at an early gaming expo, Coleco was showing off the capabilities of the Adam by doing the demo of DK. At the same time, reps for Atari and Nintendo were in talks about Atari selling Nintendo's upcoming system in the U.S. and when the Atari rep saw the Adam demo, they were pissed and the Nintendo deal fell through. See link from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleco_Adam

My opinion? Rather several... 1. Poor marketing. Sort of like Sega. The Genesis was a huge success because of the heavy ads and software support. However, the much more powerful Dreamcast had limited success when Sega did the opposite. 2. They focused more on the Atari 2600 system. They should have dropped support for it within a year of the release of the 5200, and focused heavy on the new system developments (keyboards, disk drives, self-published hits). 3. The system should have been made smaller in size, self-centering controllers right off the bat, built-in 2600 adaptor. 4. More games that made use of the keypad (Casino?), more third party support (imagine Coleco making games for the system as well?) I'm sure there are others. The 5200 had so much potential. Just poor decisions by Atari.

A Cloak & Dagger machine at FunSpot in New Hampshire. If you've never been there, it has three floors of family entertainment (bowling, ticket machines, indoor mini golf, and a whole floor dedicated to classic 80's video arcade machines!!!!). The website is: www.funspotnh.com The picture is from my camera phone. I believe it is an actual original cloak & dagger machine.

I'd say yes fo sure. This is one of those systems that I think would have improved with age had it not been for the video game crash of 83-84. Atari would have had the time to create the "self-centering" joystick, ad maybe down the road a disk drive to expand the capabilities. The 5200 is like the "middle brother" of the three brothers (2600, 5200, 7800). You can't stand him sometimes, but you love him enough to hold onto and take care of. A clean working system is very much worth it!