Sample (wavetable) Synthesis on the ST through the YM2149

[Sample (wavetable) Synthesis on the ST through the YM2149]

I was wondering what kind of things could have been done with this, I was aware previously of the YM(or AY) sound chip being able to play 8-bit samples fairly easily, but wasn't sure what could beachieved (obviously it would require a fair bit of CPU reasourse to do anything other than straight sample playback). I hadn't even really considdered synth work through this, but then I found this:

(on the ZX Spectrum in Tracker)

As well as a few other examples thereafter, another good one being:

 

That's using close to 100% of the system's power but given the ST has a lot more resourses than the old Spectrum, could it have been doing useful things while doing synth work as well (like having such music in a game).

 

I hadn't noticed another thread mentioning this when I searched, so if it's already been discussed sorry, and could someone point it out?

[had the 7800 launched in 1984....]

Interesting points there.

 

I was thinking about one of the points sometimes mentioned in the Atari/Nintendo negotiations, Atari being dubious of Nintendo's controller design. Anyway, that deal wasn't going anywhere either way, but Atari did know of the different controller design, so they could have picked up on it. (thechnically the Vectrex had a similar layout and was a bit earlier, albeit with an analog thumbstick instead of a directional pad)

Anyway, they could have seen this, and despit being reserved about the design, it's possible Atari could have tested it as an optional controller for the 2600 or 7800 to see how the public responded.

 

Just a thought, and somthing that really isn't critical (at least initially), of course the European veriation of the 7800 shipped with the Joypad (don't think it was available aftermarket in the US), and I think some versions of the 2600 Jr. shipped with it in other regions as well, but it would be nice to have a head star with it, or at least test the idea for themselves.

[Multi-system Famiclones]

The lines on the NES2 (toploader) is from RF noise, there's no composite output (standard) and the RF sheilding for the video is lacking compared to the toaster, the lines are toatally different in these cases, and could be present with the toaster as well if you've got a TV that's really good with composite (I'd ammagine one with comb filters would show them). I'm pretty sure they're part of the original hardware but are hidden by blurring of the composite signal, they're more visible on the clones due to the better composite video encoder.

[What if...]

Not sure what you mean by US. The Genesis had QUITE a long life in North America, selling from 1989 to 1997. I remember Atari and 3DO crowing about how "the 16-bit market was in decline" in 1994 and yet the Super NES and Genesis were outselling them many, many, many, many times over ... and the (weaker) Genesis outliving both.

 

Well by '97 the manufacturing rights had been sold, the Genesis 3 was produced by Majesco (using the same general layout as TecToy, which was manufactuing it slightly earlier and I beleive is still producing variations of their Mega Drive in SA), what I menat was cutting off development/software support, but members Japanese management had wanted to cut support completely with the release of the Saturn (which made absolutely no sense outside of Japanese markets), but US/EU managment managed to delay this. (this also resulted in the CD and 32x being discontinued sooner and the Saturnin release being rushed, though there are a variety of factors there)

I seem to remember that Sega of Europe was still selling Mega Drive hardware until 1998. (which would be the latest for an actual Sega branch to support it)

 

Of course there was still some 3rd party titles released later on, and developers continuing to work on the older system (particularly multiplatform games that were on the SNES as well, and especially EU developers), and of course there were seperate developments in SA, particularly involving TecToy (including the 1998 "Duke Nukem 3D" "port"), but that's a bit of a different market.

 

But Sega was really a mess around '94 (and for a while later), especially with miscominication between the Japanese and US branches and many failed attemps of the US presenting alternatives to the Saturn leading up to this. (including the SGI MIPS chipset -N64, and an offer to team up with Sony on the PlayStation)

[Atari Lynx was superior over GameBoy.]

The Gameboy did seem like it should've had some kind of light to it similar to how the old whirst watches were made at that time. Of course watches back then didn't have the type of back light it have today but they did have a small light where you could press a button and it lights a yellowish night light. The Gameboy looked like that kind of portable system until you paid for it and played.

 

Umm, how about this:

 

 

Yeah, that's more like a modern watch light and it came out in '97. They should have used some kind of sidlightng like earlier LCD watches, particularly if they used a couple LED's (many of those watches used little incandescent bulbs which used substancially more power and will eventually burn out)

 

Of course they did endo up more or less doing this with the GBA SP years later... (granted with diffusers to better approximate real backligining and elliminate glare)

 

There were of course lighting accessories as well, I've got a couple for the GBP (which can be forced on the GBC as well), basicly a clip on device with a maginifying lense and 2 lights that shine onto the screen, a bit awkward and requiring seperate batteries, but for what it's worth it works fairly well. (still, onboard switchable lighting of a similar type should have been relatively cheap and simple, while limited in quality, it would provide a bit of an advantage in dim lighting and for the time it should be decent)

 

True enough... It seem like Tim Follin could make a crap tune chip sound like a full fledge keyboard workstation. That was a bad dude.

 

Yeah, and I recently found this:

0_0 I wonder if anthing similar has been done on the ST... (same chip after all, but much more resourses)

[What were the 2600's capabilities originally intended as?]

No offense to Nolan Bushnell, but I think if he was in charge the 2600 would have been abandoned within a few years of its arrival. It wouldn't have gotten the chance to become huge like it did. After all, Ray Kassar was the one bet on the 2600 and continued to support it until the crash of '83. The 2600 would likely have been replaced by the 800 computer, which probably wouldn't have been a computer. Instead it would have been the next generation dedicated console.

 

I kind of see what you're saying, and either way Bushnell would have gone nowhere with the 2600 w/out more funding (ie Warner), but focusing too strongly on the 2600 is part of what contributed to the crash itsself. I don't know wether he would have forgone the computers (maybe in slightly different form, but given the circumstances it would seem natural), but having a real replacement for the 2600 in a timely fassion could have changed things. (even Warner had planned on the 3200 for 1981 but that fell through and resulted in the 5200 later on)

 

Bushnell has also be critisized for lack of practical buisness sence (especially financially), with Atari being on the verge of bankruptcy on several occasions, par of which was a generous amount of development work, something that Warner cut back on (and also was less flexible with employees, leading to many leaving). So it's two sided, running things he may have cost Warner more money, but then again, there may have been compromises, and additionally it would have been advantageous to avoid employees leaving and forming independent development companies (like Activision) as they couldn't make money through licencing. And on the development side of things, who knows, I'm not sure if he'd have taken direction away from the home computer market of kept the 2 seperate areas going. (there were several interesting 68000 designs going on which were shelved at the last minute, though these may have continued had Kassar not left as well)

 

This is all a bit off topic, but there's Kassar to considder as well, he'd had his share of mistakes, but it apears he may have understood the situation Atari was entering prior to leaving in '83, so who knows if he'd have been able to better cope with things had he stayed. It seems pretty certain though, that the transition from Kassar to Morgan was detrimental, and additionally came at a very bad time (with the market unstable on the verge of the crash). It's my understanding that when Morgan came in he virtually put everyting on hold while he reviewed things, greatly hindering sales in the holiday season of '83 (both in terms of the game systems and computers, and opening the market for Commodore).

[Its 1993, you're in charge of the Jag, what do you do?]

Actually, there were licensing fees involved to put games on the 3DO, they were around $3 a disc, much much lower than the purported fees applied by the rest of the industry at the time.

 

Thanks for that, I was wondering what the whole story was there; still with a relatively low licence fee (which I assume was to attract developers) that would certainly have been part of the reason for the expensive price for the system.

[Atari Panther prototype website with system prototype photos]

Sorry, I totaly missread that post, for some reason I thought it was still in context of the Blossom...

 

Anyway, the OTIS sound chip had been planned for the unit (and I've read that dev units supported it -though didn't include it), but it had been elliminated from the final design in favor of some FM synthesis chip apparently. (still, it's still notable as part of the initial design)

[What if...]

The comment on the SNES's CPU is somewhat incorrect, the 65816 was much more cycle efficient than the 68000. From the figures I've seen, a 3.58 MHz 816 was rated for 1.5 MIPS while an 8 MHz 68k is rated for 1 MIPS, however the SNES was practically limited to 2.68 MHz in many instances (using slower/cheaper ROM at the slower bus speed), so that would be very close to an 8 MHz 68k.

However many SNES games weren't optimized for the architecture, particularly ports from 68k machines (it was the dominant processor in Arcade machines, as well as being used in several home computers) so it ran slower in these cases. Also it was on an 8-bit data bus opposed to the 68k's 16-bit bus so it needed faster RAM/ROM to acheive the same bandwidth. One other advantage, an probably a significant reason for Nintendo choosing it, was that it was available to be licenced (Nintendo used a custom licenced version) while thy'd have had to purchase a 68000. (other possibilities were early plans for NES compatibility -at very least it allowed the same controller interface logic and a common architecture for developers -though the 68k architecture was extremely common as well)

 

 

The biggest thing in the artical I don't buy us the thought of Sega going 3rd party right after the SMS. Sega hadn't done well in Japan or the US against Nintendo (though with Atari splitting the market and keeping thins "fair" they could have done better, as could NEC), but they were quite successful in Europe (I beleive beating the NES overall in popularity there, especially in the UK, adding to Success of the Mega Drive) The computer gaming market (particularly the 8-bitters) lasted a long time over these and would be difficult to overtake, even in the 16-bit era the Amiga and ST were popular platoforms though the Megadrive and SNES did win in that period. (the Sega console by a fair margin, and would have been better had support not been cut short by Japan -same was true for the US)

South America (esp Brazil) was also a very strong and long lasting market for the Master System (I think TecToy is still producing varyations of it, or was only a couple years ago)

 

SO I don't See Sega dropping out of the Hardware market. One problem they had in the US was lack of strong marketing techniques, Japan failed at marketing it here and Tonka didn't do much better. Michael Katz got things rolling with a competitive ad campaign (Genisis Does what Nintendon't) but it was still rather slow going (500k Genesis units in ~6 month wasn't bad considering though, but he didn't meet SoJ's demands so he was replaced). In '91 Tom Kalinske took over as SoA president and took Katz's start "to the nest level" so to speed, continuing the competitive "in your face" marketing while dropping the price to $150 and adding Sonic as the new pack-in (something Japanese management was shocked by but trused him with it anyway -though honestly I don't see how they couldn't see the paralle with Nintendo's SMB pack-in with the NES). It was at this time that the Genesis really started Taking off, and by 1993 was the market leader. (though it wasn't to last long)

 

 

Anyway I think Atari could have been more competitive, but some of these things don't really fit. (especially the Sega issue, which would change several things down the line in your reasoning)

 

Also don;t even mention the Panther, it would have been a joke (in it's current form) compared to the Genesis or SNES, not to mention Atari;s own 16-bit console. (I think their previous Sierra 68000 computer project could be a good starting point for this, assuming the plans for the Amiga fell through -which would seem likely with Amiga joining with Commodore -regardless of wether Tramiel acquired Atari)

 

 

Of course this artical also assumes Atai had found some way of dealing with the money they were bleeding around this time. Even if the 7800 was a hit, it would probably take a while to get moving given the state of things (build in public popularity and regain retailer support). The 2600 Jr. should help things too (not to mention the 8-bit computer sales, but I think these were relatively modest), and offering their products through mail order may help to address the initial lack of retailer/distributor support.

Had they finished the Sierra/Gaza projects and relesed the computers to the market as well, that should have helped things too, particularly while the game console market is reestablished.

 

Back to the bleeding mone issue though... there would be several options for Warner (rather than dumping it like they did), they could absorb the damages (being such a large company) while Atari gets things back together, or they could make major cut backs to streamline things down to acceptable levels (but more carefully than Tramiel did as he lost some major development teams like tose of the Gaza, Sierra, and AMY projects), or a combination of both. (a balance of both measure would probably be the best option, but they should try to avoid loosing important staff -prominent programmers, engineers etc -to avoid losses of future oppertunities for hardware development and 1st party software)

 

From the projects I've read about it would seem like some things to keep would be the Sierra/Gaza 68000 designs (and possibly use the Sierra design to create a new console later on), keep the 7800, and release the 2600 Jr. (and possibly continue with the "JAN" 2600-on-a-chip ASIC -also useful for the 7800) as well as continuing support for the 8-bit line; not sure if they should have gone the route with the XE or continue with the XL line (they could keep those and add one with 128 kB as well). There's also possibilities of expanding the 7800, instead of including sound chips on-cart (even the Gumby), and with the unit already in production, they could introduce a POKY add-on cart to make it a one-time purchase (possibly with other features like added RAM, but POKEY would be the big part), and later the POKEY could be incorporated into a revised board and a cut-down (cheaper) sound-only POKEY in a smaller package could be used.

Introducing the 7800 joypads as standard in the US should be another considderation as well. (probably keeping other joysticks available seperately as well, including the proline controllers and CX-40) More peripherals for the 7800 would be nice too, like an arcade stick. (not to mention the planned keyboard attachment and high-score cartridge -I think the laserdisc idea is best dropped though)

[What were the 2600's capabilities originally intended as?]

8 bits = 8 pixels wide.

 

1 bit = 1 pixel wide.

 

This has nothing to do with color.

 

Note that "pixels" on the 2600 can be 1, 2, 4, or sometimes 8 units wide.

 

Ah, sorry about that, my mistake. Thanks for clarifying things.

 

No. Tramiel released the 2600 Jr. in fall of '85 before the NES was test marketed (and in fact had started work on resurrecting it long before that), and was already starting to promote the 7800 in early January of '86 at the Winter CES. It's pure conjecture to state it was because of the NES, and I don't know where that rumor started (though I know its been repeated a lot). The NES was tested in an extremely limited market in New York, then in LA/San Diego in Feb. of '86, and then on to a national market that summer. The NES didn't become the success it was (and that everyone remembers it for) until later.

 

As Mike Katz put it in an interview that summer - "last fall, with no advertising or promotional effort on our part, we sold plenty of 2600s. We could have sold hundreds of thousands more if we had the production capacity. It proved to us that the industry is alive and well."

 

In fact it was because of all three companies (including Sega's debut of the Master System at the June show) that the buzz started up again that summer.

 

Huh, that's interesting, I'd thought the Jr. was released alog with the 7800, granted even then the NES argument wouldn't be really successful until later still as you mention. (and the NES had it's full release close to Tramiel's 7800 anyway) I noticed that even the 7800 Wikipedia makes refrence to this (the 2600 '85 Christmas sales) Siting this: http://tnca.myrmid.com/art9.htm

 

I'd also read that part of the reason the 7800 was delayed was that Tramiel was playing hardball with GCC on the price and things took a while to settle and get worked out.

[Atari Panther prototype website with system prototype photos]

So you could say that panther has a bit of commodore and sinclair in the system....hence the split personality

 

Umm I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at, the Transputer blossom had nothing to do with the Panther other than members of the engineering team. Flare designed the Panther along with the previousl Konix Multisystem and later Jaguar.

[Its 1993, you're in charge of the Jag, what do you do?]

Sign a deal with sega and reverse engineer the saturn/dreamcast (bearing in mind that atari/sega were already sort of in bed together)

 

I'm not quite sure where you're going with this one, are you saying Atari should have been direct partners with Sega, producing hardware clones under their own brand? (with their own policies on software etc; this could have worked OK with decent buisness sense if they could stay seperate form Japanese management -which was a major issue with SoA from ~1994 onwards.)

Still, the Saturn was far from Ideal hardware either, but I suppose it could have been better. (Stollar's leadership of Sega in this period certainly didn't help, so maybe this would work)

 

License the jaggie hardware to third parties (so that more people can buy it and guarantee better 3rd party software support)

This is an interesting thought, assuming Atari still had the wrights for software licencing it would be a good idea too, though 3rd party manufacturers would want to make a profit as well so I'm not sure how this would effect the overall price. In any case it would be better than the 3DO which did this but also attempted to make money mainly from hardware (no licencing royalties for 3rd parties as I understand it), hence the high price (in addition to some of the costly hardware used -for the time) It meant they couldn't cut the price of the hardware and make money from software. (many contemporary companies breaking even or even taking losses on hardware sales in favor of sofware profits)

 

Sign a deal with sony before they tried bedhopping with the big N (keeping them out of the market)

 

I'm not sure what you mean here. Sony made the deal with Nintendo for the CD add-on (plus Sony's own "Play Station") in the late 1980s and Nintendo broke the partnership in '91. (Sony subsequently continuing the design, later abandoning it in 1993 in favor of newer hardware which became the PlayStation. So I don't see what Atari could do in '93 in this respect.

However, Sony had been looking for partners to distribute the product with, Sega of America had approached them interested in such a deal and both were very interested but Sega of Japan immediately vetoed it. So it's possibe that Atari could have formed a partnership here too (like the Sega one above), though I'm not sure how interested Sony would have been, with Atari's repution being a bit weak in the gaming scene (of course still with strong historical presence with the public, but nothing like Sega).

[What if...]

I think one problem is that the Sega Master system would do better if Nintendo didn't have lock down on developers. It is the strongest machine in some ways - with 16 colours/pixel

 

Yeah, the only thing weak about that system is the sound chip (except for the YM2413 in Japanese models), rather simple; of course the 7800's was limited onboard as well. And interesting not on all Atari systems from around the time is a large master color palette, the 2600 had 128 colors to choose from and 7800 had 256 colors to choose from. (compared to 16 colors on the Colecovision, Intellivision, and C64 a 64 color palette on the Master System, and 56 colors of the NES -the latter figure vaires as some of the shades -in particular some grays- are nearly identical and are thus not counted)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video...nsoles_palettes

[had the 7800 launched in 1984....]

I was thinking about the interleaving issue again (it came up in another discussion I was reading) and was wondering if it would become practical if the RAm was clocked faster. Or is the 7800's SRAM already running as fast as is practical? (withought excessive cost) Or then again, would MARIA still be the limiting factor, still being more limited with interleaving implimented. (for interleaving to work would the RAM need to be clocked faster than MARIA? I'm still limited in my understanding of this but would it work with the RAM runnig at MARIA+CPU speed ie 8.95 MHz with the 6502 only accessing every 5th cycle?)

[Lynx I or Lynx II?]

Well, let's see, the PSP is the only portable system that hurts my eyes (both the phat and slim hurt my eyes), and the Game Boy (yes I am going there) forgot what color was for about, oh, several years. Oh, yeah, so did the SuperVision. No color there either. None of the older systems hurt my eyes at all, though.

 

Number of portables? Too many. I have way too many.

 

The Gameboy and GG aldo had worse motion blur than the Lynx, though both featured higher vertical resolutions. I still prefer the original gameboy to the pocket though, better "color" (shade) contrast in spite of the blur. The GBC was certianly late to the party... They should have had that at least 2 years earlier. (technically speaking there wasn't anything advanced about it that should have delayed the system either)

[Multi-system Famiclones]

GN Twin has awful sound, especially compared to the FC 3 Plus:

[Atari Panther prototype website with system prototype photos]

As I mentioned, kskunk posted in another discussion, that the OTIS sound system had been abandoned, all prototype games/demos using FM synthesis instead.

 

Yes the blossom is from the Transputer Workstation, in that same discussion I proposed a gaming system that had used the blossom (or other portions of the ATW) but this was rejected on several accounts. The Atari Falcon hardware would have been a much better starting point for a game system in this respect. (though by that time you're geting rather close to the Jag's release, though practically it could have been released around the same time the Panther practically could in 1992)

 

Here's the discussion I'm referring to:

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...68#entry1750868

 

On the blossom/transputer specifically here:

That does bring an interesting thought though, a console using a (cut-down, cost reduced) blossom card would have been interesting, I don't know how well it would have worked in combination with a 68000 though.

 

Blossom was only impressive because it used wide buses and expensive chips, which allowed it to do 24-bit color at high resolutions for its time. This is not the foundation of a good console system. For example, it had no support for parallax scrolling or sprites, which were standard in the Genesis and SNES.

[How much of a difference the 7800 would have if the XEGS didn't exist?]

Well, based on other things I read on those projects (the 68k computers), Warner management (presumably after Kassar left) had alread cancelled development of these despite already reaching the prototype stages, as they wanted to shift focus back toward the game market. (I beleive this was just before the crash really hit, otherewise these projects may have been a possible saving grace for Atari amidst the drowning video game market -granted Warner-Atari's own management issues were related to the problems leading up to the crash in the first place...)

 

On the lo-end/high-en issue, most companies tend to have one aging console (which would become the low-end one) and a new sysem (effectively a high-end one). With Atari at the time it was the 2600 and 7800 (though the 2600 was really aging by this point and should have had a proper successor years earlier, but this gets into the 5200 debacle and several other issues). In any case, as I mentioned, you'd be phasing out the 2600 in favor of the 7800, with a new console moving into place as the "main" system.

The XEGS of course makes no sense here as it's hardware is already old with advantages and disadvantages compared to the 7800, but technically more or less in direct parallel competition technologically.

 

I think one thing with Tramiel's changes was that rather drastic measures had to be taken quickly to address the massive losses Atari was taking, hence all the downsizing. In particular, a lot of this was done additionally as Tramiel had planned to simply use Atari as a brand for his new projects (mainly the ST design in the works), so Atari's projects wouldn't be primary. With hindsight it would seem tha he could have done this much more strategically and possibly taken advantage of these undicovered projects that fit very well with his line of interest. (the gaming stuff would still probably be about the same, but I'd immagine he'd have been a lot more careful with some of those development teams had he known about these projects)

Honestly, they may have been enough to persuade him to take those ideas over the ST project (wich was still a work in progress), assuming of course that these chipsets fit his low cost+high performace goals. (Sierra would seem closest to this, and judging by some writing on them, though vague, they would seem to be superior to the Amiga, or a very least, the ST design, especially if AMY was to be part of them)

[Atari Panther prototype website with system prototype photos]

Did you ever find out more inforation on the games supposedly ported from the Panther to the Jag?

[Its 1993, you're in charge of the Jag, what do you do?]

If the GPU/DSP hardware bugs were fixed and both processors could run from main memory the tools would have been ok - The C compiler did work for generating GPU code, and GDB would have targeted the gpu instructions set and registers instead of any 68xxx. Tools would have matched what everyone else supplied at product launch.

 

I missed this earlier, but couldn't both RISC's already run in main? I know there was a (mininformed) statement from Atari to developers that the GPU couldn't, but I believe Gorf showed that this can be done.

[Genesis HDMI Hack]

Do they have a female scart to male composite?

 

What would be the point rather than using a standard composite A/V cable? (all you're doing is sending the composite signal through the SCART cable -which supports composiet as well as RGB, component, and several other formats plus audio- and then using a cable to adapt it to standard RCA jacks -you wouldn't be adapting RGB to composite, it's all passive circuitry in there -hell an S-Video to composite adaptor has more in it -a single capacitor)

 

Anyway, you wouldn't be getting sterio out of a M1's SCART cable anyway as that's only available through the headphone jack.

[Multi-system Famiclones]

I've heard that the vertical lines visible are artifacts present in the original hardware as well, but invisible due to the lower quality (blurrier) composite signal, this should be present on the RGB output playchoice 10 as well, but those had a different Vidio processor as well (the video encoder is integral, the satandard PPU outputs composite, thus a custom one had to be made for the arcade machines) If anyone's modified the NES with S-Video thes should be visible as well. (again, this would be trickier as you'd need to filter the comp signal the NES natively outputs -I don't think seperate luma and chroma signals are available on the PPU's pins)

 

Anyway, the highest quality one I've heard of is the FC 3 Plus, the only real issues over some others is propritary controllers (though the same interface logic is used as the NES/SNES), and Genesis controllers are completely useless even though the same connectors are used. (without modding the system to accept the Genesis logic)

 

I beleive it hass full compatibility with SNES and NES games (at least as much as the twin, and I beleive enhancement chips work as well, at leas the Super FX series does, and I'd assume the more common SA-1 chip as well -and several others that don't make use of the extra cart pins -though the SFX-2 doesn't seem to use thes either-despite featuring them they work without needing them connected)

 

The defining feature of the FC 3 is Genesis compatibility, I beleive with all standard genesis games (and others w/out region coding), but Virtua Racing, and add-ons won't work. (PBC, 32x, CD)

This is probably the best modern Genesis/MD clone out there (and like many others, including Yobo's previous ones, it uses an ASIC identical to the TECTOY one used on their consoles and the Genesis 3, which is similar to the SEGA ASIC of the final version of the mode 2 Genesis)

The main difference is the sound, it' perfect, no distortion or glitches as with previous clones (including Yobo's) as well as the TECTOY versions, Genesis 3, and some Genesis 2's (early 2's and the final M1 had poor sound quality). All of the audio problems are due to use of a poor mixing circuit which the FC 3 plus seems to have corrected. (the sound seems as good, or close to the early M1 genesis which is know for it's audio clarity; also similar to the corrected version of the M2's or an early M2 with an audio mod)

[Atari Panther prototype website with system prototype photos]

I was talking about this with Kskunk awhile back, and while he agrees with curt's assessment about the system being a "horible peice of junk" he said Curt must have misspoken with the comments about the Atari ST and blossom video card. The only thing similar to the ST is the CPU (a 16 MHz 68000, same as the STe's at 2x speed, normal speed ST was 8 MHz), and there was noting to do with the Blossom card in the Panther design. (other than the same engineering tem working on both -and the Jag)

 

According to kskunk, the Panther used the "panther" object processor, a predicessor to the Jaguar's with some additional features, but also much more limitations (and less flexibility). The "OTIS" sound chip apears to have been dropped from the final design, and the system has only 32 kB of shared SRAM (used by both the 68k and "Panther" OP), fast SRAm was required to acheive the necessary bandwidth on a 32-bit data bus. (of which the 68k would only have 16-bits of access and the OP would be hogging much of the time) The Jaguar resolved this problem by using a 64-bit data bus with DRAM to acheive the necessary memory bandwidth.

 

Overall it was a very limited design and would additionally have been very difficult to port to; dumping it to focus on the Jaguar was a very good idea. (the sooner they did so the better; had the Panther been foregone entirely and the Jag gotten more resourses early on, it may have been a bit more complete, and polished by the time it was released...)

[How much of a difference the 7800 would have if the XEGS didn't exist?]

To support XEGS, Atari directed resources away from the 7800 and 2600jr across all facets of the company.

 

Supporting the XE 65/130 line as a replacement for the XL wasn't a bad Idea, but repacking it as the XEGS was, especially as it was a bit of a confusing move for both consumers and distrubutors. (besides the competition with the 7800, it was always in a gray area between being a gaming system and a computer) Besides that, it was a bit bulkier than the keyboard console 65/130 and I think the price point was similar to these. (which were around $100 at this point, at least for the 65)

 

If anything they should have offered a gaming pack option for the XE line, but marketed with "computer games" rather than "video games" to avoid direct competiton, and push more in that portion of the market.

 

If they wanted to introduce a new system it should have been a new, advansed system, under Tramiel (unknowing of the previous Atari projects) it would have been an ST derivative (stripped to minimum RAM -ie 128 kB- and minimal bios -possibly just for a lockout feature, with some audio enhancement over the limited YM2149, maybe an FM synth chip). This would be in a fairly seperate market compared to the 7800, being a more expensive and advanced "next gen" console. 1987/88 would be a perfect time to launch it as these were the most successful years for the 7800 and would allow time for a proper trasition as the 7800 declined in '89/90.

You could phase out the 2600 Jr as the budget system, the 7800 gradually taking its place while the new "STGS" would have time to build up steam.

 

The "STGS" really wouldn't have direct competition in the US until mis '89 with the TG-16, and that wasn't particularly successful, then there's the Genesis, but that didn't really pick up until 1991, though it was doing decently well in 1990; still there'd be 2 years for Atari's system to penetrate the market ahead of drect competition. There's the computer market that could compete of course, particularly the Amiga, but (at least in the US) this is treated rather seperately, and other than the C64 nothing from the period compared to the saturation of the game console market, pluss the biggest contemporary compeditor -the Amiga- wasn't particularly successful in the US along with the ST. (in Europe it was another story, as with Game systems as well, home computers blending a bit more; later this happened to a certain extent in the US with PC's becoming better gaming machines, but the most pronounced examples of this didn't occur until the mid-late '90s)

 

Another thought to note however, would be Commodore's response to such a move; would they have pushed a stripped-down Amiga game console in response? (technically the original ST lacked some ability as a gaming system, notably the lack of a blitter or other graphical hardware capabilities -meaning the CPU had to take up more time with this in software -along with more limited color capabilities; and sound, though the aformentioned FM synth chip could address this to some degree)

[How much of a difference the 7800 would have if the XEGS didn't exist?]

Not only with what I stated, with the advancements that Atari were always wanting to make during its early heyday, a newer, more advanced system would have inevitably been released by 1988/89. With that, knowing how Atari liked using existing processors, they would have probably utilized a M68000 series processor to release a decent 16bit console that would have given Sega a run for their money in the 16bit era. The Jaguar would have been an obvious given as to how its development started around 1989, anyway. On top of that, the Lynx would have probably been a stronger competitor to the Game Boy because Atari would have had the faith of developers on their side by that time.

 

As for marketing and such, with quality games, and displays using Kiosks, Atari would have easily been able to regain shelf space. Consumer demand usually dictates what distributors will carry. If Atari would have released the 7800 in 1984, Nintendo would not have been able to use their 2 year contractual agreement on new releases as Atari would have already ended up with most of them on their 3rd party roster. Nintendo would have been forced to compete naturally. Sega would have also been given a bigger chance, as well. The 8bit industry would have boomed with a three way competition for supremecy. With that, we would very well have seen a technological battle with faster, stronger, more capable systems on the market long before they did with the current market at that time.

 

I don't blame the programmers and developers for the failure of the 7800. I blame the business sense of the Tramiel family. There is a reason why they were drummed out of the very company they started. The death of Atari in the early 90's is a prime example of it.

 

This is interesting, and the points about bouncing back through consumer intrest are certainly valid, but this would have to occur quickly for Atari (under Warner) to alleviate its financial problems, and would still probably have to cut back expences and drop a bunch of employees. (of course Warner was big enough to absorb a bit of the losses, but with Atari's state, they still would need to make changes) Of course, they could still push their 8-bit computers in the midst of the crash, but that would only be a limited help given the feirce competition there as well.

 

On the 16-bit system idea, had Warner stayed, theyd have the rights to the Amiga as a game console (and after a waiting period, rights to manufacture their own version of the full computer), a stripped-down Amiga would have make an excellent competitor for the New gen consoles and had the potential for a good head start as well. Of course (before Tramiel had even acquired Atari) Amiga had joined up with Commodore and paid off the Atari loan so there would be a legal dispute surrounding this had Warner Atari stayed. (as it was, this was used by Tramiel as grounds to counter sue against Commodore's calims of stealingcompany property in developing the ST -which ended up being settled)

 

Under Tramiel there was the possibility for an ST derived console, though it was a bit weaker than the Amiga in many respects as a gaming machine (some things could be addressed reasonably well, like an FM synth chip for additional sound capabilities).

 

As for Atari itsself, Warner had been supporting a number of advanced computer designs, but had later abandoned them to foucus more on the video game market: http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/16bit...s/hf-sierra.htm

http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/computers.html

 

The most prominent one IMO would be 68000 powered Sierra (there was also the dual 68k "Gaza" workstation), which would seem quite advanced, designed for high-end audio-video capabilities (I beleive this was one of the planned applications for the AMY audio synthesis chip), in addition to (at least on the surface) apearing to be quite competitive (or possibly superior to) the Amiga design (not to mention the ST) and could have made a good console design too. (assuming it wasn't too expensive)

 

Had such a computer design been ready for market durring the crash, this could have been a possible boost for them to get through the slump in gaming and build up intrest again. (and later use this computer design as the basis for their next-gen console, succeding the 7800, say around 1987)

 

 

As I understand it, Tramiel hadn't been aware of these previous projects when he acquired Atari, and the design teams for several of these projects (including Sierra, Gaza, and AMY -the latter to develop seperately, but failed without the designers), neither had he initially known of the Amiga deal with Warner. Had he known of these designs, particularly Sierra, it's possible that the ST design could have been dropped in favor of them, or portions of the ST design and previous atari designs could have been combined. (prior to being shelved, both the Sierra and Gaza projects had been prototyped and were further along than the ST design when Tramiel took over; I'm not sure about AMY, though I beleive part of the difficulty Tramil had with it was converting it to be used with the 8-bit line rather the 68k system it had been intended for)