Curt Vendel

Well, depends on how you want to label the "First Pong".... the first home video game that had a Pong-like game play is the Magnavox Odyssey 1 in 1972. If you mean the first video game to be called Pong and was sold or licensed by Atari, then your talking about PONG in Christmas 1975. 150,000 were made under the Sears Pong name with white tops around the knobs and the 50,000 official Atari Pongs by Atari themselves. Curt

Marty, Actually, the whole "Information Appliance" perspective and idea came from Irvin Gould who came over with a group of managers from Control Data Corporation to Atari. It was based only their push for such a device that caused the redesign of the Atari 1200XL from 1981-1982 into its closed box design. Not realizing that people wanted a box to grow with, they thought of computers as disposable and that a user would simply buy a new one once they outgrew the old one... they were venturing into unknown terrority in marketing which is true, but they could've easily looked at the Apple userbase to see that users were hungering with for expansion capabilities, not a limited architecture.... the other side of the sword was that marketing did not like 3rd parties hanging periperhals off of the Atari computers and many times they tried to have the 850 interface canceled since it used industry standard peripherals... there was a great deal of contention in the HCD over which way to market the machines, plus there was some internal sabotage by its President Roger Baderscher who was canceling higher end products for the home computer line, all the while having a new high end 80186 computer initially designed within Atari based on a project called the A300 which was the original 1200XL design.... Baderscher would leave Atari in late 82' with several marketing people, and engineers and form Mindset who's computer rivaled all other IBM systems in graphics and design... however they never marketed it properly and quickly ran into problems by 1985 and were bought up by JVC who used the systems in-house until the early 1990's.... Curt The Atari History Museum

Hi, Best solution is a very small dab of silicon adhesive - clear. You can get that from Lowe's, or Home Depot. It will bond very well with both the smooth plastic and the underside of the metal label and should last for years.... other adhesives don't bond very well since the plastic surface is so smooth and the metal doesn't bond well with rubber cement, and many other super glues. You'll find the silicon works best, just watch not to use few much otherwise it can get a bit messy. Curt

Label doesn't look legit, the color is off and looks just too clean and new, also look at the corners, you have to look closely, but they don't look production press cut, but more like someone with a razor hand cut the curves on the corners.... the round labels are also an oddity too, just doesn't look or feel right IMHO... Curt The Atari History Museum

Actually if you want a Hard Drive for the Atari 800, you have 2 options that are new and now available, one is the SIO2IDE interface which I have licensed for sale here in the US from MMsoft, I'm finalizing a design to go inside of an SF disk drive case and for 800 users who want a color/style matching look, I can put together a system into an Atari 810 disk drive case with a piece of ABS plastic covering over the front. The other option for those looking for more speed is Sijmen's MYIDE interface, I was originally doing a design to use Compact Flash cards, but space contains on the expansion board are making this a tough proposition, however I have finished up and having a run of MYIDE800 OS Board replacement boards with an IDE header on them, you just run the cable out of the back of the top cover of the 800 and connect it to an External IDE drive and your ready to go. Curt

Oh, BTW: Zanza: The link to that Auction is not for a Heavy Sixer. That is the 2nd revision 6 switch 2600, the bottom is not an original Heavy sixer piece, thats where most of the weight is front, the bottom is thick and solid. Maxime's link to the Sears Telegames console is a Sears version Heavy Sixer, a repackage licensed for sale in Sears retail outlets as Sears had previously done in Christmas 1975 when they sold 150,000 Atari Pongs, most of which had white around the paddle controls for the Sears version of Pong. Curt

You really have to love the original Atari consumer hardware from 77-79, the original Atari 2600 Heavy-Sixer and the Atari 400 & 800 home computers..... Nice, solid and always heavy. Nice, good, solid feel, you gotta love it. Funny, the Xbox weighs a ton, but seems flimsy, yet pick up a Sunnyvale Heavy Sixer and it looks and feels like you could put a dent into a Mac truck before you'd even so much as chip the 2600 :-) They don't make'm like that anymore :-) Curt

You will find that there are Tawain heavy-sixers floating around, they are in fact legit.... you see Atari produced the first runs of 2600's in Sunnyvale which proved to be too expensive... In 1979 Atari opened ATMC: Atari Tawain Manufacturing Company and most of remaining inventory of parts for the 2600's were shipped out to Tawain, including the older Heavy sixer pieces which were built out until the inventory was used up, then they went to the lower cost parts and ramped into full production. Just a little note regarding the original Atari 2600 cases... they did not fit perfectly and the tops had to be muscled into place, according to Brad Saville who managed assembly operations, he said "The assembly line workers acquired a technique of banging the tops into place with their hands to make the pieces fit" Apparently the tops would get slightly warped and the bottom cases had little room for error, so a little nudging was required for the initial assembly :-) Atari would later open other plants such as one at "Wongs" who interesting enough was producing plastic owls at the time before assembling products for Atari. Also going back to ATMC, at one point the offices were terrorized by the local organized crime faction and were hit up for "Protection Money" according to Rich Kreigers notes (Rich was the manager of ATMC) which it was owned by Atari.... Rich's wife donated an extensive amount of photo's and his personal diaries, Karl and I are working on putting together an entire section on the history of ATMC to be published up onto the Atari History Site, will make announcements in the coming weeks. Curt The Atari History Site

Well, this is supposed to go public into an announcement this weekend on the Atari History Site and I've already let Albert take a sneak preview, but this thread is picking up nicely.... its really great to hear everyones views and inputs and its also to see the opinions of those who were original owners vs those who are recent collectors just now experiencing both consoles. Just as a reminder, it is the Atari 5200's 20th anniversary this year and hopefully some more interesting topics and conversations about the system, its successful sides and downfalls will continue throughout the year. So... below please find a link to a new section of 8 never before seen since 82-83 commercials for the Atari 5200: http://www.atarimuseum.com/movies/videogam...ommercials.html Enjoy everyone and lets keep the 5200 topics and threads rolling!!!! Curt

I too admit, I was quite envious of the Colecovision when it came out. I still remember the night I got the 5200, it was one of the very first shipped and the rubber boots around the joysticks was the much earlier, very thing type. After only 3 hours a playing various games I noticed the rubber boot on one joystick was starting to tear slightly.... All I could remember thinking was "This is an Atari product?!?!?" It made no sense since Atari always symbolized high quality and the best of the best.... I was quite envious of the various peripherals Coleco was making and one of the things I had always liked about Coleco's 2600 carts... they were white plastic and looked different and oh so cool.... especially in the ads with all the carts stacked up and spiral turned. Coleco knew how to market!!! Curt The Atari History Museum http://www.atarimuseum.com

The artwork was drawn by Regan Cheng, Regan was one of the only industrial designers who could draw in people to give real perspective of size of machines, he loved to draw those women, he definitely had a good eye for lines and design and for women :-) Regan later on designed the 5200 case, 1200XL, Ataritel designs, the Star Raiders touch pad, the kids controller, the 5200 switchbox and so much more. Curt

Lately I've had the opportunity to pick up the 5200's arch-nemesis the Colecovision and I've got a fair amount of titles and some interesting things: Controllers: Everyone bitches and moans about the 5200 controllers. Well the fire buttons are definitely bad, they should never have been so small or rubbery, bad choice. The Coleco controllers don't seem to fair any better then the 5200's in comfort and the short stalk is not as comfortable to use as the 5200 joystick. One thing that definitely is a major plus is the pause button the 5200 controller. Now, the Colecovision did outnumber the 5200 in peripherals, certainly the Super Action Controllers were cool, the Driving Controller was great and a major missing item from Atari's periperhal lineup. However while both Colecovision and the 5200 had trakball controllers, the Colecovision is a bit of a kludge to have to get going and a bit of a pain. While the 5200 trakball simply plugged in and you were ready to go, the Coleco roller controller is a pain to have to connect into the coleco power supply, you had to plug the controllers into the ports inside the controller and locked in after messing with the cords a few times, then you connected it up to the console, phew..... how annoying is that? Not lets talk games.... While Colecovision touted itself as bringing home The Arcade Experience, the arcade titles (with the exception of Donkey Kong, jr. and Zaxxon) are mostly forgotten, or lackluster titles and didn't have much in the way of graphics and sound. While many complained that the 5200 had just rehashed 2600 games, lets face it, Pac Man, Centipede, Defender and so forth rocked!!! Space Invaders lost a lot in the translation.... lets look at Star Raiders, Space Dungeon and others Whoa!!! These games were amazing. Expansion Hands down, the Colecovision ruled at Expansion, with its 2600 module and upgrade to the Coleco ADAM, Coleco put a lot of thought into where they wanted the Colecovision to go. Atari's 5200 had an expansion connector, but it seemed more like a token gesture then a well thought out path for expansion. Instead of putting all of the lines of the cartridge port out to the expansion bus plus additional lines for video input/output and so forth, the port should've also been put on the side of the 5200 and then thin wedges could be added to the side of the 5200 keeping its lines and look. The 2600 adapter was an example of nonsense to package a whole 2600 into a plastic case and have it sticking out of the 5200 like that. So while Colecovision was certainly from a marking standby really catching people's attention, in a real hands down, direct side by side comparision, the 5200 really is the SUPER of the two Systems. So, lets hear others commments and personal views, feelings and stories. Curt The Atari Museum http://www.atarimuseum.com

Cafeman.... looking spectacular, glad your polling for what users want.... maybe Infogrames should try that and make games that gamers want, it would be nice to see.... Glad to see everyone wants the square retained, maybe a 3d version perhaps??? You should also try to keep all the other objects true to form, though I think most would hopefully agree that the ducks (errr ummm, I meant Dragons) could use a newer look, but perhaps still along the same lines, perhaps you may want to ask Warren Robinette for his view on what a more hi-res dragon would look like if he had done a version for the 5200??? Couldn't hurt to ask him, plus I would ask him to perhaps devise a new "dot" easter egg to find??? Be nice to have his blessing and input on the game, kinda bridges the gap :-) Curt The Atari History Site www.atarimuseum.com

Well, I remember playing arcade games at the local roller rinks when I was like 8-9, they used to have a long row of games on the side near the concession stands.... I got the chance to play an Atari 2600 with Adventure at a friend of a friends house acrss from Jr High School freshman year and Adventure just blew my mind, it was like the game was thinking and stuff, the bat and the dragons actually chasing after the square was just mindboggling, I was hooked!!! Well, I asked for an Atari for bday but got one of those crappy Radio Shack all-in-one game systems and needless to say was NOT happy, but Christmas came along and with it came not only an Atari 2600 but Activision skiing as well.... man I can remember having all my friends over ever night until like 8pm when my mother would chase everyone out for the night and we would be playing skiing and having a ball on my little b&w 13" TV.... then other kids got Atari's too and we started to bring carts into school and was swap them for the night or a weekend and try out each others games... I remember my friend Greg and I were curious about what was inside of a cartridge and we poked a screwdriver in and the lid pushed back, we were 1/2 expecting to see a tape reel inside (naive little kids we were) and then only seeing the green "wood" with gold pins and then seeing the same thing on the very Activision skiing cart too, we were baffled.... so now it was time to open up the mysterious 2600 and look inside.... not much to look at, but wow how cool!!! :-) Well, that was a fun trip down memory lane, thanks for starting this thread! Curt The Atari History Site

Well, 2 years ago I flew out to California and spent several days with my friend and former Atari employee Gary Rubio. We took photo's of nearly every Atari building, using a copy of a facilities map given to my by Lynn Kapotich who worked in Atari's Operations department I created an Interactive Map of Atari buildings, I still need to go back and finish it, but its got some great photo's of many of Atari's lesser known buildings. Plus included with some of the photo's are some interesting stories related to each building: Interactive Map of Atari Buildings Enjoy! Curt The Atari History Site

While building Atari 7800 High Score carts, I used Atari 2600 Combat cartridges as the cases for the 7800 HSC's.... So I've opened over 100 of these carts and had the opportunity to examine the many variations of the combat PCB's which were in several Rev 0 styles, colors and all have Atari © 78 on them... So, we all know that the Atari 2600 was released and sold in 77' so it would be interesting to see if anyone has ever run across an Atari 2600 cartridge PCB that actually has © 77 on them as I've yet to see one and it would certainly be nice to see a photo of one. Curt Vendel The Atari History Site

The Atari 3200 was Sylvia, the 10bit replacement for the Atari 2600 system. It was too difficult to program on (like the 2600 was a walk in the park! :-) and the system was shelved. PAM was the Atari 5200 Supersystem would which follow a year later... since it was a redressed Atari 400, it would be simpler to program on, plus with minimal effort two versions of the game (1 for the supersystem and 1 for the home computers) could be produced with less overhead, cost and time. Curt

Matt, Your close. Starting with the 600XL & 800XL forward Basic was built in. The Atari 400 & 800 did not have built in basic. Originally the Atari 800 came packaged with Basic and a Basic Manual, this was later removed and sold seperately. With no cart you would go to the builtin Memo Pad... most thought it was useless, but I have to say, many times when no pen and paper were handy and I was on the phone with someone and needed to jot down some notes real quick, it was great to just turn on the 800 and have Memo Pad right there. The Atari 1200XL did not have Built in Basic either, also Memo Pad was replaced with the Rainbow Fuji animation. The Prototype Atari 600 (not 600XL) in the brown case also does not have built-in basic. So with the 600/800XL's Built-in Basic was included. The 65/130XE's also had it built in and the XEGS with the keyboard installed would come up with Basic (if no keyboard, then Missle Command) Curt

Gamecube is a remarkle "little" and I do mean little system, I'm astounded at the tiny size of this thing. I have NEVER been a Nintendo console advocate, I've disliked their consoles and games since 85' and with the exception of buying a GB color to play some classics on and then buying a GBA which still does not have a semi-decent 3rd party backlighting kit yet and I'm a little disappointed only in that drawback.... I finally picked one up, the Gamecube is great, well constructed design, I am pleased with the stock controller, tankfully Nintendo dropped that horrid N64 controller. The new Gamecube controller is similar to the older SNES controller with a LOT of enhancements in feel, weight and control. Its a good solid piece of HW all around. I've heard that the drive is actually a scaled back DVD player and Nintendo is supposedly doing a large GC system in Japan with a full sized DVD player onboard to play actual DVD's, sounds interesting. Star Wars Rogue Leader has got me hooked, great game, the visuals, audio and perspectives of view are great, a true Must-Have game for the console.... I guess I had always steered away from Nintendo due to its 8-14 year old line up of 99% of its games, but I asked my wife to get me Luigi's Mansion and its a really fun game, I like the little Gameboy Horror tracker you keep with you and the sounds have the lineage all the way back to Super Mario Brothers which is a smart thing to see Nintendo do with their games. Whew, ok enough typing, time for some more videogames!!!..... later! Curt

Albert, Well I can't say any bad about Halo, but Gotham racing project is nothing more then a the same racing game on the Dreamcast, the graphics are better, but its not much different. Air Force Delta I'm not at all happy with, I've played far better, in fact I'd take Sega Afterburner over this game Oddworld is a total trip, what was originally going to be Xbox's launch title, took second place, but only because Halo rocks!!! :-) Curt

Marty, I believe what Glenn is saying (Glenn correct me if I'm wrong) is that the original design of the Atari computers was as follows: The Atari 800 was originally designed with an expansion bus slot architecture and the Serial I/O port was original intended ONLY for the cassette drive. Atari had a lot of fears of FCC denial when going for review on its systems and several changes took place: Only Memory & OS would reside as Bus cards The system would be incased in 2mm thick aluminum. The SIO port drivers were expanded with a resident boot handler to call for a disk drive to boot and load its Disk OS into memory, P: handler for printer was added into ROM. In order for devices to talk along the SIO bus that had to have a 65xx series CPU to control and intelligent controller to talk on the bus. In 1980 the Atari 850 was designed, this device had its device drivers onboard and would automatically load them into the 800's memory upon boot up if no disk drive was present, if a disk drive was present, it would boot up first, the 850 would handle printing, but in order to activate the use its 4 RS232 Serial ports you needed to have on your boot diskette an autorun.sys file containing a handler that would call out onto the SIO bus and manually activate the 850 driver download. Atari would later use this very same auto-loading technology in its Atari 1030 Direct Connect 300 baud modem which would do the exact same thing: if no drive was present it would autoload its terminal software right into the Atari memory. If a disk drive was present you needed to load software from a diskette... later releases of the Atari 1030 included a diskette with several terminal packages on it, one even had drop down menu's (Oasis I believe?) It was this idea of autoloading devices that spurred Atari's "Closed Box" design of the 1200XL, management decided that EVERYTHING would hang off of the SIO bus and could load their drivers into upper memory. In the earlier design documents of "Sweet 16" the Atari 1200XL (aka 1000X) and the "Sweet 8" the Atari 600XL (aka 1000 or NYLiz) there were specifications for a newer SIO bus with 2 additional lines for autopowering up peripherals, so when you turned on your XL computer, all of your peripherals would automatically power up, neat idea, but never implemented, too bad, it would've been a cool feature. I have some extensive doc's on the original designs of the XL line of computers, I will post them up this weekend, also on the website for those who haven't seen it yet is a 5 part series of AVI video's for a 6 1/2 minute promo presentation on the Atari 1200XL "The Best Home Computer" as the promo is titled. Curt The Atari History Site: Online Museum

I completely agree.... I've never been into the first person shooters before, but Halo is astounding, the humorous little aliens, the mysterious sections underneath the monolith and the planet are a lot of fun, plus all the cool "toys" you get to use :-) I watched the demo of Azurik and it looks great, my wife got it for me for Christmas, haven't tried it yet, but I'm looking forward to playing it. What has got to be one of the funniest and fun to play games on Xbox is Cell Damage... it looks like a Cartoon Network "Dexter's Lab" meets Howard Stern motif and the character remarks, action and carnage are hilarious, a good multiplayer game. At first I was quite skeptical of Xbox recycled Dreamcast controller design, while the DC controllers were comfortable for the most part, I found my hands fatiguing far too quickly compared to other controllers, so when I examined the Xbox DC-wannabe controller and notice first off how heavy it was I thought "this controller is going to be the worst yet" insofar as gameplay. However the Xbox controllers have a good solid feel to them and while the cluster of action buttons are a bit close, I found that you eventually start to just roll your thumb around to each one which is most likely what MS was shooting for (no phun intended) So all in all, MS seems to have assembled a nice system and the launch software is quite impressive with Halo certainly being the feather in the Xbox cap... now lets see someone Port Linux to it, get a USB keyboard & Mouse onto that bad boy so it can also be used to surf the web from the living room :-) Curt

Wow!!! Hey Dave, great to see your still around, lost touch with you a long time ago, but glad to see yours still lurking and participating... While your mentioning all the great products, your leaving out another of your lesser known but equally amazing products and thats the "Integrator" which was a fantastic OS replacement board for the Atari 800, mostly for use by Corvus HD users, but just the fact that it had its own management menu that popped up when you booted up with SELECT held down, you could set up whether you wanted an SIO disk drive to boot, a particular partition on the Corvus HD to boot or a Ramdisk to boot and then it would save those settings in nvram, great device!!! Curt

Since those are items still being sold by the very few remaining all Atari dealers, noone has posted them up on the web which has been good in respect to allowing places like B&C and Best to make a few dollars on sales of remaining inventory. I've been emailed many times about posting such things and I've politely explained what I mentioned above. Curt The Atari Museum

Man you just made my Monday morning!!!! The guys in the office are gonna flip when they see this, as it is everyone is always coming over to my desk to see and play the video games I have on my laptop, wait till they see this and yeah Glenn your right, the graphics on this game are simply the best yet, Scott.... find the easter eggs dude!!! I'm sure something hiding in their and if anyone is gonna find them, it'll be you! :-) Thanks AA for a wonderful contributution to the community and extra thanks to the rom holders generosity in allowing you guys to release it! Curt Atari History Museum