Lynxpro

Super Mario Bros., Excite Bike, Duck Hunt, Hogan's Alley, and even the original version of Punch Out! were all Nintendo arcade ports. When I was playing the emulator on my friend's Wii, I couldn't believe how bad Rampage and Double Dragon were on the 7800. I don't remember them being that bad back in the day but the sound was atrocious [due to the lack of the Pokey chip] and I can't imagine the graphics were better than the NES versions [although in fairness, there was no 2 player mode on the NES for DD]. Even Xenophobe was a rather bad port too [i don't remember the Lynx version being bad]. If I recall, Xenophobe was published by Atari but DD and Rampage were published by Activision. 7800 splash screen (I forgot what the XEGS looks like at boot) and/or is that a Commodore 1702 monitor? Too bad Atari didn't have their own composite monitors. Or monitors that supported both RGB and composite. Surprised they didn't! BTW: they sure do have that XEGS parked unnaturally close to the monitors. Where are the cables?? My money says a different Atari system is responsible for that display. lol You mean XEGS carts didn't have the same splash screen as the 7800 titles? If that's the case, I'm rather surprised the Tramiels didn't "recycle" it. Wasn't there an Atari [Corp.] branded composite monitor in Europe? That's actually something that surprised me about Atari Inc. during the 400/800/XL days...why they were so content to have Atari 8-bit owners buy composite monitors from Commodore and Philips which were both competitors [Commodore computers and Magnavox Odyssey, etc.]. To think Atari Corp. later discussed marketing Atari branded television sets around the time they started selling Atari branded calculators. As for the 2600 vs. 7800 argument, I think it would be fitting to suggest that Atari should've continued selling the 2600 as long as they could but not allocate precious development dollars on titles for it at the expense of the 7800. As for 7800 vs. XEGS development dollars, unless I am mistaken, there wasn't much development dollars necessary to take already existing Atari 8-bit disk based games and "convert" them to cartridge versions. In fact, that might be one of the reasons why Atari was gung-ho about the XEGS; they got to recycle and repackage content whereas converting those very same titles to the 7800 would have been another expense. Furthermore, this is probably why the Tramiels opted to cancel the 7800's expansion port...they probably concluded that if a consumer wanted a computer keyboard they should just buy the XEGS. That seems like a sure fit considering their hyped - at the time - logic of color coding anything with the 8-bit computer line in red and products related to the Atari ST line were to be colored blue. They actually thought this would differentiate products successfully in mass market outlets and they actually bragged about this in Atari Explorer magazine [although I think Antic/STart ridiculed it] that such retailers wouldn't need to have knowledgeable sales staff because of it. Regarding left over 8-bit parts as the reason for the XEGS, perhaps Atari had leftover custom and RAM chips that had been allocated for the 65XE that wasn't selling so well at the time and they opted to repackage that with the redesigned mobo for the XEGS. The other reason for the XEGS was to shore up the Atari 8-bit line to increase the user base since software publishers were looking for any excuse to dump the Atari 8-bit line because of the alleged rampant piracy on the platform [even if there were far more C64 owners who were software pirates]...

I meant the actual takeover of the company. Had Warner retained the company and James Morgan as CEO, the 7800 would've been released much sooner, all the later "Atari Games" arcade titles would've been exclusive, and Atari Inc. would've been more eager to include the Pokey chip in the 7800 carts and would've been more liberal about memory size in them. But for all of that, we can thank Rupert Murdoch and his hostile takeover attempts of Warner Communications which caused Warner to panic and sell Atari for a fire sale in order to take the pressure off Warner's stock price.

Now they'll just write off what Marty and others have been saying as "revisionist history." This is why the internet is actually a step backwards in human evolution. The original view of the Tramiels (that they wanted to focus on computers only, that they released the 7800 too late because they didn't like consoles, etc) was based on nothing at all. No fact checking, no documentation, etc. In fact, it wasn't even based on logic (why would a businessman buy a company known for videogame consoles, with three consoles ready to be sold, with games ready to be produced, and with stock of some of it sitting in warehouses) and then plan to not sell consoles for no reason? It defies logic that the idea has persisted so long when you think about it. The new view that Marty and Curt have demonstrated is based on hours of interviews, checking company business and sales reports, and internal communications within Atari. Because the internet breeds stupidity, this new view is called "revisionist," while the illogical one based on nothing at all is believed to be the truth. I think our species is about two decades away from climbing back into the trees. The "computers only" perception came from the press. All during the ST's launch, the press kept on stressing that Atari Corp. was "now a computer company" and supposedly directly coming from Jack's mouth. The coverage didn't change until 1986 after the NES was considered a success and then you have magazines like Compute! stating that the Tramiels then decided to get back into video games. The Tramiels themselves didn't seem to do much to correct this "narrative" that the press created and us owners latched onto since it conveniently explained all the missteps that Atari Corp. took over the years. It also doesn't help that even in interviews today, Jack Tramiel seems rather dismissive of video games. That was evident in the Computer History Museum's session on the Commodore 64's anniversary from a few years back, not to mention Commodore's own advertising campaigns for the 64 back in the day.

As an ST owner, I think the biggest screw up they committed was skipping the 68020. I remember Sig Hartmann commenting on how disappointed they [Atari Corp.] were in the chip's multitasking abilities circa 1986/87 and even saying as much not only in Atari Explorer but also at the user's group meetings he'd appear at. Even then, that was startling to me since Motorola finished the 68020 back in 1984. Regardless, their "disappointment" delayed them releasing a high-end line and the TT030 was shipped too late in the ballgame against the Amiga wares and the creeping cheap PC clone onslaught. The STe came out way too late and it still did not match the Amiga's graphics abilities. Even as a staunch ST owner at the time, that was pretty embarrassing.

The reason for the XEGS was to shore up the 8-bit computer line. At the time, software publishers were furious with software piracy and they were looking to make an example by cutting out an entire platform. While the [anecdotal] majority of software piracy was being committed by Commodore 64 owners, publishers couldn't cut that platform out so they instead were targeting the Atari 8-bit platform. Atari Corp. was doing its best to save the line until the ST became cheap enough to come in at the 8-bit's price point so they opted to repackage the 65XE as a game system [XEGS] and prove to the publishers that going the game cartridge route was the best way to defeat disk based software pirates despite the higher cost of producing cartridges versus floppy disks. If I recall, even John Skrutch said much the same in an interview in Atari Explorer back then.

I'd say the biggest contribution to the 7800's failure was the Tramiel takeover of Atari, but I'll get back to that. *The lack of the Pokey chip standard. Last week I got to play a bunch of my old 7800 games on a friend's hacked Wii and it is apparent the sound is bad in the majority of the titles. The Pokey chip should have been built into the system from the start. Sure, Atari Inc. probably would've shipped a lot of carts with the Pokey chip included - unlike the Tramiels - but that would've still left quite a few titles with audio inferior to the 5200/XL versions. *As stated above, the 7800 should've shipped with more than 4K RAM standard. The Maria chip could've really cut loose with more RAM. 16K should've been a given but 32K or more would've rocked. Can anyone imagine what could've been done had it shipped with 64K? It would've truly lived up to its moniker as the "Pro System". *After the popularity of Gauntlet in the arcades, an Atari Inc. shipped 7800 should've been upgraded with 4 joystick ports. Now back to the Tramiels... *They wouldn't include the Pokey chip on a lot of 7800 games. *They restricted the cart size when the competition [sega especially] was bragging about shipping 4Meg (megabit) games. *They failed to understand how consumers would naturally assume all Atari [Games] arcade titles would appear on the 7800 only to be greatly disappointed in 1987 when those modern Atari arcade titles began appearing on the NES by the mysterious company named "Tengen". The Tramiels and their animosity with the management of the Atari Games Corp. helped cement the failure of the 7800. I can tell you I was incredibly upset with them when I learned the companies were separate and they allowed this to happen because they were too cheap to buy the company in 1984 with an extra $10 million in promissory notes. *Continuing, had Atari Corp. gained exclusivity on the Atari Games titles, the 7800 would've been a clearcut success. Imagine how many 7800s would've sold had Gauntlet been the console pack-in... *Removal of the Expansion port. Sure, the NES never exploited their expansion port but the removal of it on the 7800 was ridiculous. *Product presentation. It was embarrassing how cheap the Tramiels were when it came to the 7800 cartridges. Labels and the manuals in black & white? Really? Marketing 101 failure. *Failure to quickly relaunch an "Atari Club". Nintendo had copied the older "Atari Age" with their "Nintendo Power" magazine/club but it took Atari Corp. until 1987/1988 to (re)launch an Atari club despite more than myself bugging them to do so since 1986. *The light gun fiasco. Like others, I had "Crossbow" but it was nearly impossible to buy the light gun for it. It was odd having to buy an XEGS branded light gun for it and many dealers [Toys R Us, Atari's own Federated] didn't even offer it to begin with separate from the XEGS. Even more baffling was that some Commodore dealers were selling the very same XEGS Light Gun without any Atari branding on it. I could go on but work beckons.

What games do they even have there any more? We're coming up on nearly 25 years later since CEC started moving away from arcade games. Man, I remember when it was wall-to-wall arcade games everywhere at CEC. At least it was that way at the multiple locations here in Sac. I remember hearing from a friend who had moved from the Bay Area that at least one of the CEC's there was 2 story but I don't know if that was true or not. The only arcade/pizza parlor that I remember being an actual rival to the CEC experience was Pistol Pete's Pizza in the Southwest. It still felt like a pale imitator. I never liked Show Biz. And before CEC, I remember Pizza and Pipes but that place was annoying to the ears... I remember my dad hoisting me up to play Sea Wolf there. Sorry for interrupting the thread for a flashback I didn't find him creepy. I even had one of the stuffed Chuck E. Cheeses. We'd go monthly to CEC back then and I had my birthday party there every year from 6-12 years. Of course, we also went to Shakey's and Round Table Pizza. IMHO, even back then - prior to the ShowBiz takeover - CEC/PTT had better pizza than Pizza Hut so I really don't understand all the negative comments against the pizza quality.

That seems rather one-sided to me. Sure, I'm a biased Atari fan - and I admit that - but if one watches the various interviews Mr. Baer has given this past decade, it seems like he is bitter and still believes Atari (Nolan, Al, etc.) ripped him off. I am referring to interviews that he gave to G4 - Icons - and the Discovery Channel, not to mention interviews given on various websites. Perhaps that's the way they were edited/cut or perhaps the interviewers were deliberately leading him into giving such answers but that's the impression viewers and readers will make in a lot of cases. As a viewer of these programs - albeit biased as I am - I would not fault Nolan & Co. for behaving as such. I see no reason why they should be the only ones expected of taking the high road in public. Maybe a group hug is in order between the two groups at the next expo. Maybe they can all agree to share their disdain for some other former competitor, like the Intellivision folks!

Considering how negative this thread was overall, can we have it closed down and replaced with a new one linked to the actual news story? After all, why would any of the "big names" want to continue posting and replying to messages in here?

Before this thread is closed, I want to address this...especially for the posts that were highly critical of the pizza's quality at Chuck E. Cheese back in the day. I loved Chuck E. Cheese back in the day. I had my birthday parties there from the age of 6 to 12, and I think my family generally went there once a month, especially after church services. I don't recall ever having a bad tasting combo pizza there. And during that time, on more than one occasion, I ate at Pizza Hut and I thought the taste of their pizza was completely inferior. Sure, taste wise, the Chuck E. Cheese pizza* may not have been an equal to Round Table Pizza, but what is? So thank you, Mr. Bushnell, for giving us Chuck E. Cheese in addition to Atari. I owe a lot of my great childhood memories to you... and Mr. Lucas. [Well, and my parents too, of course!]. Hmmm. My parents bought me my 2600 - err, excuse me, VCS - for my 6th birthday. For my 12th, it was a 7800 [although my grandmother bought one for her house the month of the product launch]. 86 was a good year...got a 1040ST too... *Come to think of it, I'd rate Chuck E. Cheese pizza close to Shakey's Pizza at the time...

Quick! Someone alert Ray Kasser and tell him to stop admiring his fine art collection for a moment and jump online because this is an important thread... Then again, he might be too busy working on the next revolutionary breakthrough in towel design to get involved so let's not disturb him. Since [former] President Bush has been brought up, can I make a suggestion about not bringing up "politics of personal destruction" in terms of alleged affairs that have nothing to do with anything here really? It was the swingin' 70s for Zoroaster's sake... Besides, who doesn't pass up on the opportunities that wealth brings? Player haters, literally.

Typing a quick response from an iPhone can do that...

Curt, I can agree with just about all of that. BTW, I liked your parts in the BBS Documentary from a few years back quite a bit. Of course, you did have home field advantage since you were one of the people representing the Atari computer user experience... I'm not sure I can agree with the part about the Tramiel "fast turn around" part. The ST was finished pretty fast if counting only from the point TTL bought up the Atari Consumer assets but if counting Shivji's (sic) prior work at Commodore, not so much... Mr. Bushnell, if that's really you, thanks for posting. I am curious about what you were going to post in response to my comments earlier. I'll explain mine. A few months back on a different thread on this board, I predicted that Time Warner would ultimately purchase "Atari"/Infogrames based upon the fact that they can't seem to keep their hands off "Atari" [based upon how often what was once the Atari Games Corporation had bounced back and forth between them and other companies, and all that IP is now back with them following their acquisition of the remnants of Midway in December 2009]. If Time Warner were to acquire "Atari"/Infogrames, then they could rename their "Warner Bros. Interactive" division with the more cherished corporate name. And if that's really you, I would like to ask a question about the film in development. While DiCaprio is a major star and box office draw, don't you think the actor Ed Quinn [formerly of SyFy's Eureka] would be a better match to portray you on-screen? Perhaps DiCaprio would be better as Al Alcorn....

That would be me. See, I don't h8 Murdoch for Fox News [love Red Eye, actually], I h8 him for what his actions did to Atari, not to mention his POS company NDS and their sub-standard DVRs he forced upon DirecTV - ending the arrangement with TiVo - until John Malone ended Murdoch's majority stake in DirecTV a couple of years ago. Then again, Murdoch gave the world the Page 3 Girls so maybe that makes up for some of his actions.

Even if everything said about Nolan is true, I'll take him over Jack Tramiel *any* day. The whole MOS acquisition by Commodore seems slimy to me from the accusations that have been made by some and there wouldn't have ever been any Commodore computers had Chuck Peddle not convinced Jack that calculators were a dead-end. There is a difference. Atari's Pong was a massive improvement over Baer's lame game. MS-DOS was not an improvement over CP/M. Microsoft BASIC was not better than DEC's. And Windows has never been better than Mac OS or in the earlier times TOS, Amiga OS, or OS/2. Microsoft just sucks and has retarded the computer industry from its inception. The one good thing Microsoft did was MSDN, and that idea came directly from Atari's APX.

I certinaly agree with what Curt and Marty said. Having said that, Atari is doing so badly right now, I can't see this movie HURTING them anymore then they allready are! I said it before... "Atari" will once again become owned by [Time] Warner once its Warner Bros. Interactive purchases the remnants of this company - just like it did with Midway, owners of the former Atari Games Corp.'s IP - sometime between now and 2011. That's my prediction.

From what I've read online of interviews with Manny Gerard, Warner avoided activities that could be construed as monopolistic. You are right about oligopolistic; that describes Hollywood [film and music industries] and that is what Warner was/is comfortable with. In truth, Atari could've squashed Activision for patent infringement but they played it safe by going after Activision over asserting their first games were done when they had been employed at Atari. It seems to me they just went for an easy settlement to squeeze some royalties out of them without ever crossing the line that could invoke the Sherman laws. I can't answer that. Were any of the chips that made it into Atari game systems and computers actually manufactured by MOS? I was under the impression that Atari had others build them yet bought cartridge ROMs from them. Warner Atari should've cut off MOS once the VIC-20 hit the market; same with Apple.

Supposedly TIA was reverse engineered and produced by a chip vendor for Coleco, the same one GCC ended up using for the 7800 incidentally. (based on an interview from the GCC guys several years ago, they ended up using the same clone TIA for the 7800, or at least some early/preproduction models) Unless the TIA clone was composed of discrete components mimicking TIA, I don't see how Coleco would have gotten out of that. And I'd think even a TTL/discrete component clone of TIA would be patent infringing. I was viewing The Dot Eater's website and they claimed that Atari sued Coleco for $350 million for patent infringement [over the 2600 adapter and the Gemini] and Coleco counter-sued for $550 million claiming Atari was in violation of U.S. [ahem, Sherman] antitrust laws. They state both sides settled and Atari ended up earning royalties from each sale of the adapter and the Gemini. I believe Warner played it way too safe. They should've gutted Coleco in the courts and aggressively defended against the antitrust allegations. Sure, Atari had 75% - 90% of the market, but it could be argued that they were a natural monopoly that didn't abuse its power. After all, Atari didn't seem to require Activision or other third-party companies to exclusively support the 2600 and 5200 nor delayed them from licensing their titles to other companies for 2 years like what Nintendo did thereafter, nor did Atari require those companies to purchase finished cartridges from Atari directly. Atari wasn't buying up all the memory chips they could to screw their competitors as they had previously done under Bushnell. Atari didn't even own their own fab plants. The only areas that Atari could've got in trouble was with the exclusive title licensing they purchased from the other arcade companies but Coleco also did the same thing. Perhaps one of the reasons why Atari launched "AtariSoft" was to mitigate antitrust concerns, although I had always read before that it was due to market analysts putting pressure on Warner to transform Atari into a software company and get out of the hardware business. If anyone should've been sued back then on antitrust grounds, it should've been Commodore over MOS. Then again, the 6502 was licensed to other companies to produce so perhaps Commodore could've escaped such legal actions...

You described it exactly as what happened to me yesterday. I'm fine when the thing spins and lands on the losing spots but when it lands on a winning spot and then jumps to the losing spot, that I have a problem with.

I'm curious if anyone on the board has "won" the contest, either by winning a Flashback 2+ or some of the other prizes... Yesterday, I was rather dismayed when the contest needle landed and stopped on the Atari clothing, only to "magically" jump to the losing spot thereafter. Glitchy Flash...how I hope Apple slays it.

Since this thread originally had to do with "things" we wished the 5200 had, I'd say "a lower starting MSRP" plus standard 2600 compatibility. That is what kept my parents from buying one even though my dad and I both wanted it.

I just checked Costco's US website and that turned up nada...

Coleco, at least, was sued. But they'd used all off-the-shelf components instead of the proprietary chips in the 2600, and so a judge found for the defendant (Coleco). Atari probably could've/should've sued Coleco and Mattel for patent infringement at the very least. Neither of these companies could pull the same stunts today with the DMCA in place.

I'm going to get flamed for this probably but if I recall from "Game Over", its actually the exact opposite effect. The ColecoVision 2600 adapter didn't increase 2600 cart sales but it was a selling point for people to move to the ColecoVision [from the 2600] instead of moving to the Atari 5200 or it encouraged people new to consoles to buy the ColecoVision because if they really needed to play 2600 games they'd buy an adapter. An Atari marketed "ColecoVision" adapter would've been a selling point to get people to buy a 5200 because then they could play 5200 games, ColecoVision games [with the adapter], and 2600 games [with the adapter]. However, I doubt Warner would've allowed Atari to market such a thing because Warner had more to lose from a damaging massive lawsuit than Coleco did.

Well, there was Bug Hunt with Atari's version of a light gun. Came packed with the XEGS. Not nearly as fun as Duck Hunt. They could've dug up the arcade Atari gun game from the 70s that Duck Hunt seems to resemble, but then everyone would've [still] claimed they copied Nintendo...