kool kitty89

6V is definitely too low, it'll run but the color will be off (very desaturated) and I'm not sure what else (sound maybe). It runs fine at 7.5 V though, and works at 12 V too. (not sure if that's good for the regulator though) Our first 2600 lacked a PSU and sat around for years (I think my mom got it at a garage sale before I was born) and I finally got a universal supply and hooed it up, unsure of the voltage I used the lowest it would work it properly (7.5v). I had it working fine for a couple years then it stopped working and apparently took out a couple carts with it (combat and circius atari), at least one of the main chips was burned out (either RIOT or the CPU had a chunck of insulation literally popped off), and the V regulator was burned out, we replaced that before finding out about the chips, tested with ones from another Atari and it works fine otherwise. (those socketed chips are easy to swap) Thinking back, the tip of the universal PSU must have gotten put on backwards (reversed polarity) and there's no fuse or diode to protect against this unfortunately...

Huh, I was wonering what those circular ashtray looking moldings were for inside the case (it's definitely in the heavy sixer, I can't remember if it's in the light case as well, though it would make sence if it was absent as there would be no reason to keep it in the redesign) I'd though it was to help secure the RF cable inside the case, but I couldn't understand why there were two... Well, obviously the 4-switcher was a later redesign, but I think the original comment pertained to all the extra space in the original models (toward the front and sides in particular) The reason for the 4-switcher being the same size is due to the fact they used basicly the same case design. (I assume to save money on tooling)

Understandeable, but they were certainly in a better position than Tramiel, even a relatively limited ad campaign by warner would have been massive compared to what Atari Corp. could afford at the time. (in addition to lacking the resourses and connections Warner had, as you say, they'd just taken on all that debt) Also do you think making the 7800 available through mail order durring the time when retailers were rather dubious about video games, would have been a feasible alternative? (from a cost standpoint, selling them directly through mail order probably wouldn't be much different for the consumer as while you've got the shipping costs, there's no profit going to the retailers)

I doubt that would be practical, in terms of an actual port. You could probably do a sonic themed game that would be similar in some ways, but it would have to be progremmed quite differently. (and making detailed backgrounds would be more difficult) Of course there's Scrapyard Dog as an example, but while that compares in some ways, the background detal is still a bit less I think. (some have suggested that this could be solved with enough RAM added for a framebuffer, though for practical purposes I'd think this woould be limited to the 160x120 resolution mode) In terms of an actual port of the original game it'd probably be a lot easier to do on the NES given the similar graphics architecture. The 5200/A8-bit line would be more proactical as well in that respect. As cool as some of the features on MARIA are, it's not very good for porting contemporary tilemap+sprite based games to. Had they gotten enough support the 7800 would be great for exclusive games and ports of some games, and others that could be licenced as well but would need to basicly be rewritten due to the differences in the 7800's architecture. (as I understand it) Still, had they gotten the interest, being different wouldn't have been much of an issue, and indeed thare are plenty of advantages with the 7800 architecture, it's more flexible, but lacks some of the hard coded features (like sprites and scrolling backgrounds) which put it at a disadvantage for some of the common genres. (though for vertical scrolling it wouldn't be at a disadvantage) Still it would be the only home system around capable of handling large numbers of moving objects without flicker, so in addition to Robotron (and other arcade games like Sinistar), it would be good for shmups with large numbers of enemies on screen (particularly vertically scrolling which wasn't a hardware feature of contemporary competitors), and it could handle psudo 3D scaling type games well additionally. (Ballblazer) Can you immagine how Space Harrier or Afterburner could have been on the system? And in non-sidescrolling genres like advanture games, it wouldn't be at a disadvantage either. (or games that jumpped from screen to screen rather than scroling, like pitfall or many other Atari 2600 games) A game like Zelda shouldn't be a problem in that respect.

With warner having a stake in it, do you think it would have been possible to negotiate for them to handel (or suplement) advertizing for Atari corp. (which is often sited as a major limiting factor for them)?

That's a trickey end of things, if you own one (or even several) versions of a game, it's still not technically legal to "obtain" an "unofficial" copy of a version of said game on another platform, even if it's from the same developer. (though often other developers have the job to reprogram the game) And how about something that's a relatively legitimate problem (not just some enthusiast that has to play/beat every version of a game), but has a game for a platform, but no longer has a working platform to play it on, or the media it'sself is broken. (in the case of broken media it should be perfectly lega to download the program) However, let's say I've got a funky Win 9x (or god forbit win 3.1) game that won't work on modern windows, has issues with 9x emulators, and has no patch availble. But there's a DOS version available that works well through emulation (DOSBox, or VDMSound for XP or older OS's), not to mention a MAC version (if you've got one). Do you download one of those versions, or go out an find one and pay for the product again? (which you might even be downgrading from the 9x version) Of course the game may be available on a commonly (and reliably/authentically) emulated console, or a port from that console in the first place (like many Sega PC games, which ofen have problems, at least in my experience) Do you get the rom immages for the Genesis versions of said game(s), of shell out more money for a more modern port available in a compilation for a platform you own? Or what if you've got a bunch of movies on laserdisc but no working player... (go out any try to find a working player?) Or you've got the hardware but want the convience of emulation, it's not very practical to have rom dumping hardware so host sites are necessary for even legal users. (same or old games on other obsolete media like 5.25" FD, sure external 3.5 inchers are common, but 5 1/4"?) Even for CD's there can be issues with emulating from a PC CD drive (I've had some issues with streaming audio in particular with Sega CD games), so you could either rip the disc, convert all the CD-DA to standard .mp3 and also create an .iso of the main portion (except for simpler games that just have a single ROM .bin file for the game). Or you could find a downoad of the program already converted to such. I think betas of historical, unreleased (unfinished/unreleased) games should be dumped, and honesly I think they should be shared for people to enjoy, particularly something impressive like Phase Zero. Additionally, if unfinished games are made public (leaked), homebrewers have the opertunity to complete them. (Star Fox 2 being an example) Wouldn't it be cool if Phase Zero got completed? (or developed/expanded past its current form) vs This is what I've found strangely fascinating about the Jaguar scene. On the one hand you have regular homebrew/scene type people doing their software & hardware things & expecting nothing in return other than a thank-you & a smile because they are doing what they like doing. On the other hand you have this kind of attitude where, you know, this shit is hard, I need remuneration. -kZa I should clarify a bit, I'm not personally a programmer (at least not yet, I didn't even decide to major in comp sci until recently), though I've considdered homebrewing (probably not for the Jag ) as a possible future hobby. (I'll have to see how that works out. ) I don't own a Jag either (I would considder it if it hadn't gotten so damn expensive recently, too bad I didn't get into this stuff 3-4 years ago...), I'm kind of a general retro games/electronics fan/nerd. (well, history in general too) I totally respect Gorf's opinion though, especially for new games designed from the ground up. Though cool homebrew ports are nice too, which would not be legal to sell anyway, still there are some games that would be cool to see on some of these neglected systems. (like that Space Harrier one for the A8-bit, or Wolfenstein 3D for the 32x) It would seem rather eccentric to me though to put so much work into something so impratical to profit from, though getting at least some monetary retribution would be understandable. Honestly though, it would make more sense to do this stuff solely as a hobby and get payment for any actual costs for a solid product, then releasing it freely after a certan amount has been regained. Then again, I could see frustration from people buying a product only to have it later released in digital form, though It's kind of the same as buying a repro cart for a rom immage that's widely availble. (though unofficial repros are technically illegal as well, but I still think that's a cool thing for unreleased games, like Star Fox 2, MM Wily Wars in the US, NWC, and DarXide would be cool to see too, owning/selling Betas is often just as illegal as those were supposed to be returned/destroyed) On the topic of developers however, if they really wanted to recoup some of their labors, they could make the games available to other platforms, this is where a good emulator would come in. Port it to PC in digital form, or on disc (far cheaper than cart, and Jag CD would probably be pretty attractive comparatively if it wasn't so excessively rare). You could use a modified version of an umulator included (intagrated in a single executable) with the game and set it up to launch automatically, futhermore you could have the game encrypted (and use a propritary modified version of the emu) to circumvent distribution of the bare "rom" immage. (though smart hackers could still get around this, I'd immagine it would be toughter than ripping a game from a cartridge, of course the latter requires phyical resourses/hardware the former would not) In the Sega world, I know there's Pier Solar, that's pretty significant and they're doing a downright professional job, though I'm not sure if any of the developers are actually making very much money from it. (given that the price is equivlent to the average new game, and relatively small scale production at high quality, it would seem that they wouldn't be making too much more than breaking even, probably significantly more than production/distrubution costs, but I doubt anywhere near the value of the development work) Still $35 (with shipping, complete box and manual) is pretty nice, plus there's a $50 deluxe vspecial edition that added a companion CD that added in-game CD audio from the Sega CD. Of course the Genesis/Mega Drive is a much more realistic system to do this for given the wide popularity (and continued support of clone hardware), being the most popular syste of it's era in Europe (the location of some of the main developers of PS) and lacking the lockout issues of the SNES. (not to mention the hastle it would be to get permission from Nintendo, being notoriously tight abou this sort of thing)

Yeah, and it was designed to be low cost in the first place (probably the most cut-down Yamaha FM synth chip available), though any small cost can be significant. Granted the backligt was probably the biggest expense, but I suppoe they had to draw the line somewhere. Could have been a nice feature to considder putting in a true successor to the GG, had they developed one. Several people already expressed they feel the backlight is a critical feature (at least for the lynx), but I really think having color is a pretty big advantage alone over the monochrome GB, an advantage lasting until 1998. (and, of course, backlit screens are prectically invisible in bright light/sunlight, where the GB thrives, and any unlit reflective backed LCD screen will as well) In addition to cost, the backlit screens added somewhat to bulk (which alone would increase cost somewhat), and much more significantly, it sucked a ton of power (power hungry flouro tube), it probably cut battery life in 1/2, at the very least. At least they should have offered non-lit screens "lite" versions of these. (cheaper and probably a bit more compact) Given the battery life, they may have become more popular. I'll bet a big reason Nentendo went so long without a backlight was largely due to the power hungry nature of commonly available lighting mechanisms availble as well as the added cost. Hence, when they finally came out with the GBA SP, it still only had a "sidelit" screen using side mounted LED's with diffusers. Not until the very late models with the SP+ did they have true backlighting.

Is it sealed with glue, with flaps, or are there lips to the edges on the box. (which would allow you to open it without altering the box, inless of course the lop is taped shut) Yeah, better take it out and play with it or it'll start getting jealous and frustrated, and it'll star plotting maliciously against the other consoles... and have the voice of Kelsey Grammer.

Not a problem for ours, since broadcast went digital and we had (somewhat) older TV's we've got didital tuners hooked up through composite so the RF/Antenna jack is now unused. (anyone with a cable box -with composite output- should be in the same boat) Anyway you could probably use a splitter (in reverse) to connect both, the game console won't do anything when it's off and it'll only do anythin on one channel anyway. We've also got an old cable switch box, similar to the manual game switch boxes (but with only co-ax jacks no RCA) which doen't have the quality issues of many game switches, of course you'll need an RCA to coaxial adaptor to connect it. (inless you've got a co-ax tip spliced onto the endo of your RF cable

The 6-switcher is better in terms of looks and praticality. I actually prefer the look of the Vader 2600 to the 4-switch Woody. The Jr is sleek, but it would have been nice if they'd moved the controller ports to the front... (and the difficulty switches to the top) I guess they had to keep things the same as they were using a similar board as the vader model, though I suppose they could have had cables for the controller ports running from the back of the board to the front, but that wouldn't be good for cost. I think it would have been neat if they'd switched to a modified version of the 2700's case design when they went to the cheaper board. (it apears the 2700 had membrane buttons, which would be good cost-wise as well) The controller ports were on the (right) side, which is still a bit more convienent than the back. A nice sleek, updated apearance for it. (not to knock the six switcher )

The lack of emulators and other tools open to other systems has had a huge negative impact on the Jag community. And the Jag community itself is largely responsible for the incessant shouting down and derailment of such efforts over the years. And as long as a 'handful of individuals' is allowed to set a hive mind tone (which oh so often has been the case), or continue to endlessly rant - nothing is likely to change. That really is a shame. This is really rediculous, if anything something like the Jag (bing so uncommon compared to other platforms, and granted with many of it's games available on other platforms as well, but it's still nice to play the originals, like T2k or Rayman). Project tempest isn't bad, but could have been a lot better. And IMO there's no reason whatsoever for collectors to get mad at casual emulators, inless they're hoarding thir stuff to sell it later on, wich would suck. Making emulation available for average people (but the kind with enough money and interest to drive up the prices) could help keep things more reasonable for real collectors. Then again, it wouldn't really stop the rediculous people collecting as a status symbol... (though if emulation became more common, it may watter down BS elitists like that, and deturr them from doing such) There's no reason people should be into homebrewing on old systems to make money; it should be as a cumunity interest of likeminded people interested in a group hobby. Any cost should be paid if they want to produce the thing and release it. This latter bit is perfectly reasonable and it's understandable for cart based games produced in relatively small numbers to be fairly costly, but by no means should such groups expect significant monetary profit from this,,, (more break even for production+distribution and development tools/costs, which is rather costly in low production count as I mentioned, but probably nowhere near getting paid for time spent doing development)

That's kind of an odd picture on the box; it clearly has 4 switches, but the base looks like that of a heavy sixer. (very thic, rounded, and less diagonal slab sides) Hmm... Also, it's packaged with Combat, right? IIRC they didn't switch to pac man until the "vader" model 2600. Anyway, if it's got tape or other stuff sealing the box, I wouldn't open it, as you'd have to damage the box. Otherwise, just for curiosity's sake, I'd carefully open it just to look at what's inside, then repackage it the way it was. (without taking any ties off the wires or such) But with the large viriety of 2600's available, you should easily find an opened one, but given your collection, I'd assume you already have a playable 2600, so the only reason to open it would be for the aformentioned curiosity's sake. I'm not sure what a boxed 4-switcher would be worth, but at least it could go to some preservation scociety/museum. Honestly, I'd rather have a Six Switch model anyway (if nothing els the convienently placed difficulty switches), though light Sixers seem to be very common, looking around ebay awhile back, it seems that the majority on there are the light sixers anyway (or close to it).

That sounds very reasonable, and in any case it's not like there aren't homebrews being produced in hard copy similarly sold on other old consoles. (the 2600 seems pretty active, and others like the 7800 somewhat as well) And given the much haigher availability of those consoles (especially the 2600) compared to the Jag, if anything there should be more focus on protected those developers. I fully agree that piracy of modern (currently in print new) games is bad, particulalry for these small private groups who put a lot of work and resourses into the stuff. (compared to old games that continue to be sold in compilations/digital form, thus not abandonware, but have no association with the original developers or programmers)

Well, legaly speaking I don't think the programmers of the original games have much to do with it, or even the original owners of the game's copywrights, but rather the current holder of said rights. Many of the original companies sell off the rights or go defunct, absorbed, etc, in some cases the transfer of the rights to the software become no longer clear or are no longer privately owned either. (in the last 2 cases this would constitute "abandonware") On the other hand, many of the old games are still owned by modern companies and some are occasionally sold in compilation form on other platforms (or things like the Flashback), but this still doesn't mean they have any legal relation to the programmers of said games. (though there are, of course exceptions to this) Now, for more recent, homebrew, or other projects, that's a different issue, as they're done in small groups and it's often these programmers selling the product directly. Anyway, it's more of a moral decision for many, though if one owns an actual copy of a game, there's no reason they shouldn't use emulation sofware with downloaded copies of ROMs. And I see no reason why doing so on the Jag (let alone Jag CD) would be any more taboo than older systems. From a logical standpoint, it makes far more sense to do it on the Jag as the games/hardware a re far less available than 7800, A-8-bit, 5200, not to mention the extremely avialable (and affordable) 2600. With only a couple 100,000 produced and increasing cost and demand in the last couple years, it's not something that's easy to find deal on like some others, and the Jag CD, man that had only something like 20,000 produced, now that's not something very practical to collect except for the really hard core, with the price skyrocketing, and (like other early disc based consoles) there are some hardware relaibility problems. (no too dificult to repear for the techically able, but not very practical for the average collector) Of course this is for hardware mostly, not software (many Jag games aren't that hard to find, except for some particulalrly uncommon and ones in high demand), so you could still pirate games on real hardware, though you'd need a flash cart to do so for most games. There are also homebrewers who are just doing this as a hobby/for fun (actually I'd think this is the vast majority) and don't have the resourses or interest to devote the time/work to making actual carts, and feel comfortable sharing their work freely, in which case emulation would be fine, and the only proactical way for the average fan t play games on a cartridge based system. Even with a flash cart you'd need to be able to download the software. There are plenty of examples of this in the 2600/7800/8-bit computers. (and several I'm aware of for others, apart form "rom hacks", though translations of unreleased games are nice) The other cases for emulating roms/disc images are for translated versions of games never released in that format, or very poorly converted and/or heavily altered/censored (like many SNES/NES games), or games that were never released at all, possibly unfinished. Star Fox 2 is a shining example, wich was unreleased, but fan completed and patched with full translations and removal of almost all bugs of the beta; it's this game that started me on emulating several years ago (though as far as SNES goes, over 90% of the games I have downloaded, I also currently own in hard copy). Another would be Phase Zero on the Jaguar CD, wich is a very impresssive game technically speaking. I'll stae again, doing so isn't necessarily "right" or legal (though in some cases it may be legitimate "abandonware"), and I'm not trying to take sides here, just stating some of my oppinions and some information on the matter as far I understand it.

There were a couple ports of games on the Sega CD, though these didn't necessarily have anything to do with the Deal, there was the unreleased Soul Star game. Of course there were plenty of game that were originally released for the Sega CD (especially the FMV ones) that got ported over to the 3DO. (not to mention other platforms like PC) It would have been cool to see an enhanced version of something like Silpheed on the Jag CD though. (another non-sega produced game, but in that case an exclusive, inless you count the very different original 1980's home computer versions)

Yeah, but strong marketing and public intrest would sway this, and at worst they could resort to mail order to supplement initially limited retailers. Also check out Curt Vendel's take on this: Two questions: How would they have dealt with the angry retail channel that hated "video games" and hated the name "Atari" because of the crash of 1983? How would the public have warmed up to better looking versions of the same old games? That is a point, Nintendo's Famicom (Jp NES) was released in 1983; though Nintendo would still have to deal with modifications to bring it over (asthetics and FCC compliance) not to mention still geitting into the market aganst Atari. (attention wise, ie lots of advertizing and hype leading up to the release) Nearly all the American console developers were out of business by 1985. That leaves Computer software makers, and the Japanese. The Japanese would tend to stick with their own (with the possible exception of Namco); what would Atari have done to attract computer software makers? Activision would be a biggie, as well as other newer companies popping up (and computer developers as well, and don't forget European ones) Anyway, at least it would detur Nintendo's preditory licencing tactics. (even Japanese companies would still start to take interest in an alternate project -at least for those regions, rather than such a restricting contract -in addition to the exclusivity, there was the 2 games/year limit) Yeah, definitely, but as to the 7800 being released even earlier than Warner planned (ie instead of the 5200), that really wouldn't be too practical given the timline of other things and the development time GCC had. (and even then they were rushing) But in that vein, you could invision a 5200 that was more like the 7800 (or 3200 for that matter), with simpler controllers, more compact size, lower cost, and 2600 compatibility. Take the 8-bit computer hadware, work on creating a very compact and integrated board including (possibly modified/cost reduced) 8-bit hardware (GTIA/POKEY 6502C etc) in addition to the TIA, RIOT, and alternate 1.19 MHz mode for the CPU and maybe even strip it down to 8 KB instead of 16 (if that would be acceptable). Additionally, switch to the larger cartridge addresing of the 5200 (32 kB instead of 8 kB on the 8-bits) using the same carts as the 2600 but with more pins connected like with the 7800 and use simpler controllers, like the mock-ups/protos shown of the 3200's. (similar to the 5200's I beleive analog as well, but only with 2 action buttons like the 7800). Of course this is completely off of the main topic.

Umm... Ballblazer was initially released for the Atari 8-bit computers as well as the 5200 in 1984 uder Warner, years before the XE line (let alone the XEGS) even existed. Given the timeline, I really think an "STGS" (ST Gaming System) would have been a much better idea, advanced enough to be seperate from the 7800 and act as a possible successor.

Weren't there proposed ports of some Sonic games to the Jaguar. (I seem to remember about Sonic CD being proposed for the Jag CD).

Thanks for that, I had gotten the wrong impression, was the delay/ period he put Atari on hold in late 1983 a necessary part of trying to assess all the problems and attmpting to fix them? I'd also gotten the impression that Morgan was interested in focusing on the gaming portions of the company rather than the computers, was this true or am I missinformed again. (did he have anything to do with the Sierra/Gaza 68000 computer projects getting shelved?)

Yeah, though I thnik it shows more what you can do with tracker on a little 4 (3.58) MHz Z80 and a bit of RAM for samples (that one was with Spectrum 48K), the sound chip is just being used as a DAC (as he mentioned, even the beeper could be used instead) doing the rest in software with the CPU; so the Genesis should be capable of that stuff too through the channel 6 DAC of the YM2612, though the Z80 only has direct access to 8 kB (32 K of main RAM is accessible through bankswitching, but that'a a bit cumbersome), of course you could expand things by using the 68k instead, working with the main 64 kB of work RAM. (though this would be of limited utility in an actual game, unlike using the dedicated Z80; I'd immagine the Atari ST would have been in a similar situation) Still, there is some nice music using some limited samples (particularly drums) with the 2612 DAC on the Genesis. With the Lynx, you could probably do some nice synth work for a demo using the resourses available. (i's got the 4 8-bit DAC's available to use and 64K of main RAM) THat would be something interesting to see, if only from a technical standpoint.

Atarifever, I see what you're saying, but the 3rd parties could have been significant; other than the odd arcade game, there's the American (and European) 3rd parties to cosidder, plus ther's a chance with some Japanese ones as well (doubtful for exclusive but possibly for some multiplatform stuff, games that his almost every console like Street Fighter II). Companies like Activision, iMagic, and later on Acclaim and maybe others like Midway. (maybe a budget gaming company like Codemasters as well) Also considder what Tengen was putting out arround the time in addition to some Atari arcade games, there were some licenced (by the owners not Nintendo) ports like Rolling Thunder and After Burner. (they could probably get some other Sega Arcase titles too; Space Harries had been practically everwhere -incliding the Famicom, Atari ST and Amiga and the 7800 should have been good for these psudo 3D type scaling/scrolling games) Note, I was referring to both the 7800's possibilities and the 16-bit console's as well, in general. And an important note opposed to the 2600 (where Warner actually had tried to shut down 3rd parties), they could institute licencing fees for games released on their console, allwing money to be made that way (and also allow cutting the hardwar prices in favor of mking profits on 1rst/2md party software and 3rd party licences) Of course, some companies could coose to create a bypass for the 7800's security system and release unlicenced games. (like was done on the NES frequently) You could further deter this with some kind of symbolic licencing feature on "officual Atari licenced products" like Nintendo's "Official Seal of Quality" and a distinctive cartridge design to immidiately differenciate "official" and unlicenced carts, of course this is a bit gimicky, and not necessarily accurate (you could still have quality unlicenced games and poor "official" ones) but that's marketing.

Well I understand that, but really I don't find that a particulalry plausible thing to simplify, in such a scenario the most reasonable outcome is a more even competition of Sega and nintendo in the US, or at least a biger portion relative to Nintendo (overall market depending on how much control Atari held though I think it's reasonable to assume it'd be less than what Nintendo had with the NES). By the time the Genesis came around (assuming the same or similar leadership from Katz -to a limited extent- and subsequently Kalinske with the actions taken in marketing with the Genesis to really make it competitive) Sega could have been the same big contender it was. Assuming Nintendo (and Sega) also still had better access to some of the prominant Japanese developers over Atari there would be that advantage as well. (With nothing else changed Nintendo would still be the strongest in Japan) With a fairer market in the late '80s and early '90s there's also possible considderations of the TG-16, though with the feirce competition and same limited marketing stratege NEC employed historically, it probably wouldn't do too much better. And, again, prior to Genesis in the US Sega had significant success with the Master System in Europe (and later Brazil, though that type of market is under somewhat different circumstances). While this system did rather poorly in the US and Japan anyway, so there's no reason Sega would have dropped out there. (inless you tink the 7800 would be so strong as to push the SMS out of Europe) I would agree with that, in the 2600's case it does have its limitations and peculiarities (as well as numerous flaws that can be taken advantage of to do things not initially intended for the hardware) and while it's tough in some respects to some slightly later contemporaries (of course Atari's own 8-bit line would have improvements -that was one of the main goals for that hardware), there's not much earlier to compare it to... The 7800 was a bit odd compared to standard sprite based systems at the time, but as you mention if it had gotten some interest this could be overcome (at least for exclusives -porting some games would still be rather difficult), and of course expansion module possibilities were there too to address some shortcomings. (I ammagine adding a POKEY cart to address that -maybe later integrating it as well could have opened things up more than the in-every cart sound-chip solution) Such an enhancement passthrough cart may have been practical to add other things as well, like maybe a little additional RAM. (again, some actual game carts added this, I beleive one used 16 kB) On the 16-bit/68000 derivative there were certainly several options for starting with that. As I mentioned there's Atari's previous Sierra design, though there was a propostion that cropped up in another discussion I read awhile back involving MARIA. (actually it was pertaining to the ST, but still applicable here) Basicly having MARIA implemented in a 68000 mashine (perhaps with some enhancements as well), now running with this you could also possibly even continue backwards compatibility at a reasonable cost. (particularly with an Atari 2600 on a chip ASIC utilized, and making use of the necessary 6502 as a coprocessor, possibly as the sound controller like was done with the Z80 on the Genesis; I'm not sure how you'd want to organize RAM in such a system however) OTOH, for compatibility purposes it may have been more practical to use a fast 65C02 with extended addressing (like the TG-16 used) or a 65816. (like the SNES used) Or even more what-if, continue some of this over to the computer side and design a sussccessor to the 8-bit line that was also backwards compatible. (of course with the Sierra design you'd probably drop this, but a possible computer including MARIA and either a 68k+6502, or a faster 65xx chip, would be an interesting considderation, doing this could also keep the computer side of things more seperate from the consoles -rather than blur things with something compatible with both -though the 7800 computer may not have been a bad move; other examples like the Adam and XEGS sow poor examples -granted eah circumstance is unique) Perhaps, but first thing with these is the automatic assumption that Atari would pick up these projects from Epyx and Flare (though it did make a fair amount of sense given Atari was really the only active game console company outside of Japan -particularly in a scenario whre they were more successful). After that you could make other possibilities, like if the Lynx had been more like the Lynx II, had they had dev tools for more than just the Amiga (like ones for Atari's own contemporary computers or maybe another common platform like the PC -though I'm not sure how that would go over), otherwise the Lynx was a very nice machine to develop for AFIK and with Atari now being strong in the gamining market it could have had a lot of development support. (and many, many more games, and more that really puhed the machine. One more idea is an additional low-cost kind of "lynx lite" that could be more compact, possibly use fewer batteries, and lack the backlight (in favor of a simple reflective backing, possibly with some inexpensive simple sidelighting -swithcable). Well yeah, had Sega played thier cards right they may have gotten a deal with Microsoft (I beleive Microsoft had been interested in an outright partnership, or acquiring with Sega), note of course that that OS thing with the Dreamcast was just an additional implementation of Win CE compatible with the DC, all on software (included on disc for any games using it, nothing on-board the console). Anyway, with proper negotiation perhaps they could have worked something out to form some kind of partnership, allowing the Dreamcast to hang in a bit longer w.out MS competition, then launch the Xbox as a joint project with Sega endorsement and branding -or dual branding, advantageous as at least in part consumers were a bit wary of a non-Japanese product like that, and in particular it could go over better in Japan with a local brand like that. (perhaps with some hardware enhancements/alterations and a lower launch price due to the later entry) This could even be of interest to those in Japanese Sega management pushing to leave hardware; make an agreement to support and endorce the product, but have all the hadware production/development handled by MS with Sega just handling their own Software (exclusive for the system, possibly with some PC ports -which they'd already done previously through Sega PC) Of course Sega could continue it's arcade buisness as well, hell even in RL sega had an arcade board (Chihiro) that was basicly an Xbox.

Nintendo's move with the NES in the US was rather risky as well, they were rather small and, with as much as the'd invested in it, would have taken quite a hit if it had flopped. Sega's success and the rather extenceive (and risky) moves made that allowed their success with the Genesis were in large part due to decisions made by Tom Kalinske (as well as some things, namely the competitive "in your face" marketing started previously by Michael Katz) that allowed them to break through Nintendo's tight grip on the market. They may have more or less bet Atari's future with it, but that's hardly "the farm" for the Tramiels (plenty of assets to fally back on), of course the successful Sega lawsoits helped thing later on for Atari, allwong them to make out well when they dumped it. I'm not sure the Dreamcast is that clear-cut, sure the issues experienced by consumers through the Saturn era in the US hurt things, but a bigger part of that (contininuing through Dreamcast) was internal problems between SoA and SoJ (starting with some decisiond made on SoJ's side ~late '93, seeminly fuely in part by frustration with the US's success compared to rather mediocre performace of the Genesis in Japan -as well as other complex factors), cutting Dreamcast when they did may very well have hurt them more than following through, at least with SC as the final console, of course SoJ management had been pusing for a move to software fo a while, and success in Japan vs US/EU was again rather like the Genesis era. (given the limited success of Microsoft and Nintendo in this period, who knows how Sega could have compared, they may have hung on aganst these 2 behind Sony, maybe even gotted the lead to 2nd)

Do you thik Kassar's leaving and the subsequent transition to his replacemtn had any (or significant) impact on the severity of the crash in '83, would he have handeled things any better? (at least he was in there long inough to see some of the previous mistakes and there were several issues with the transition itsself like delays) Either redusing the severity of the crash, starting to make important improvments to address their previous mistakes, or addressing issues durring the crash more quickly and effectively (maybe pushing the computers more as well but getting the 7800 going -finally addressing many of consumers compaints, could have helped improve things too -of course in conjunction with Warner's marketing/advertizing capabilities)

Yeah, my dad met the Tramiel familay years ago and got a similar impression. I wasn't trying to antagonize Tramiel in my statements I was just expressing my thoughts on possibilities (who knows what would have happened at Atari if Warner hadn't split it up, depending on how things wen it could have ended up recovering or bankrupt, Warner management seemed to fainally be recognizing some of its mistakes so who knows how things could have gone) Anyway, my only point about Tramiel in my previous statements was that it was unfortunate tha he didn't find out about Atari's 68000 computer projects. It's my understanding he didn't know about them and hence the personell involved were among those let go. Then again, had he know those projects may have turned out to be impractical for his goal (from what I've read at least the Sierra project should have fit fairly well though), if they were too expensive it would make sense to drop them in favor of the progressing ST design. Still, regardless of this, I think introducing the XEGS was a bad move, the XE was a fine way to finish off the 8-bit line, maybe some alternate choices in some areas, but good machines as I understand. Lunching one as a gaming system on top of the 7800 wasn't a good move though. Paking gaming accesories in with 65XE as a budget gaming computer may have been a good idea, but not a directly competing product with the 7800. (otoh had they repackaged a cut-down ST as a gaming system around the same time that could have been a good idea, as it could conceivably be the next-gen successor to the 7800 and not in direct competition) Um, I don't think the whole Nintendo thesis on revitalizing the market is necessarily true, particularly in the sense that N's success prompted the re-release of the 7800. I'd been back and forth on this topic but this recent bit of info seemed to convince me rather definitively: So Tramiel's Atari had already gotten back on the market (albeit with the 2600) before Nintendo had made an official launch, and well before their big success. (even the 7800 and Sega's MS launched before N really made an imprint on the market) The only really limiting thaing was that Tramiel's company didn't have anywhere near the resourses to invest on marketing that Warner had (or Nintendo, and later Sega were doing), so going was much slower. (assuming Warner Atari had somehow managed to pull through and get things together, they could conceivably have had much more rapid market penetration and had fairer competion in the market -actually if they could force Nintendo to forgo their preditory licencing deals it would have given Sega more of a chance too) By stolen technology are you referring to Pong? (ie the Ralph Baer/Magnavox dispute) Or are you referring to Computer Space (which had someresemblance to Space War, then again so did numerous others like Asteroids, and computer space was raster based -I beleive the first comercially successful "video game" in that sense) In either case (though I suppose the Pong one is more significant), it woud only be a stollen idea not the tech itsself as they still had to develop their own hardware. (and besides, there are significant diferences in Pong from the Magnavox tennis game, largely including refinements that make it far more playable) On a similar note Tramiel (or rather in collaberation with Shiraz Shivji) could be accused of stealing the ST design from Commodore (which he was actually accused of sued by Commodore), but I don't feel that's really a correct or fair statement either. From several refrences I've read the ST chipset wasn't designed until after Tramiel and Shiji left Commodore anyway. (though I suppose it could have been derived from doccuments they'ed taken from Commodore when they left) This is kind of a roundabout discussion I'm making, but it seems a bit of a shame that Tramiel didn't stay at Commodore, their biggest success had beeen with him and it seems pretty much what they did afterward was run with the Amiga design and eventually langish -attempting to switch to video game hardware toward the end, rather like Atari with the Jaguar, though they were less successful than Atari even was with that and ended rather sadly. (given that this would mean no competing ST vs Commodore Amiga they could have had a bigger chunck of the market as well, giving a better chance to stay in there particularly with a good niche, hmm)