jlanier

This could help. Unfortunately he uses bus notation for all the power rails in his schematics so it makes tracing definitive connections impossible; you have to look around for all the possible references and they're easy to miss. But I appreciate it for sure, thanks!

If you have genuine Atari 1400 schematics, that would be great - I would love to get a copy of those.

Yes to the first question; second question I can't answer yet. The unit definitely has a 1400 motherboard (rather than a 1450XL combo board), and as such has a 7-pin DIN instead of the 8-pin DIN used on the 1450XLD (less current draw meant the extra ground line wasn't necessary). Plugging an 800XL supply into this would leave the -5V line open or shunted to ground (depending on whether the shield line was open or not), and the 12V line would get 5V instead. Seems unlikely that would cause any damage, but I don't have schematics for the 1400 board so I'm only guessing. If anything, I'd think it would possibly stress the modem, since I'm guessing that's the only thing that actually needs the 12V/-5V. It will be some time before I have a chance to construct a proper power supply and test and repair the 1400XL, if necessary. If anyone's curious I can post the results but it will be awhile. Many moons will pass before I have time to get back to this...

Wow - Eduardo emailed me an hour ago, asking for shipping address confirmation. Was beginning to think I'd really been forgotten, but it looks like he really might be near the end of the first run. Fingers crossed...

You shouldn't assume XavierGames planned on selling the second unit. For example, I ordered 3 and intended to use all 3 of them; two were intended as gifts for people I know who are also into retro gaming. I too have no games and am concerned that by the time I get the units they will be pointless.

Well, please allow me to clarify it for you then! The big deal, for me, is that I ordered 3 units in the first run in Sept. 2012, and on page 37 of this thread, on May 10, 2013, Eduardo personally said all SGMs from the first run would be shipped out by Monday, May 13, 2013. That was clearly a misstatement, because a few posts down he mentions that the nameplate issue was still not resolved, and he had no timeframe for resolving it. So when he said "I will be shipping all remaining SGMs this Monday" he could not have possibly meant that he was completing the first run because any of us who opted to wait for the final nameplate would not be getting theirs because the issue was still open. The end result was that I never received my units. Eduardo never communicated with me directly after that date, so I have no way of knowing if the units were shipped or not. If they got lost in shipping (which happens way more often than I like), I'd never know, because Eduardo won't return emails and won't confirm which units were shipped. The nameplate excuse has been used often to explain why those of us who remain without our units from the first run never got them, but that doesn't explain the existence of a second run or the Opcode eBay auctions. I can't believe we would be expected to wait another year or more just because of nameplates; at some point it wouldn't make any sense to keep those previously paid customers waiting. And if you were a perfectionist and wanted to get the labels perfect, would you really start a second run without resolving the label problem first, knowing full well you had outstanding prepaid orders that were unfulfilled? Does that really actually make sense to anyone? Regarding prepayment; that's perfectly OK for something like this. Eduardo could not have made a profit off of such a small production run; these units were basically sold at cost. In my mind this is sort of like a kickstarter situation; I was investing in the SGM in the hopes it would see the light of day. If the project failed and I lost my money, well - it's a lot of money but I'd actually not be bothered by that too much. The big deal - the part that hurts - is most of them DID ship, but I didn't get mine, and to make matters worse I have no way of figuring out why, or whether or not they were lost in shipping. It's like being invited to a party but then being given the wrong address. It's just not cool. It also puts other new customers off, which isn't good for Eduardo, or the future of the SGM. I hope Eduardo is OK - he's always been nice to me (back when he returned my emails) and I wish him well just like you do. But please don't post things like "this isn't a big deal" or "there's no problem here". There may not be a problem for you, and if so, well then good for you! But this is the Opcode forum and so it's the only place most of us will ever have a chance to get our issues resolved, so please have some consideration for those of us who are currently locked out of the SGM party.

Like I said before, I don't mind the waiting, and I have a lot of patience, but when I miss out on buying the games than use the unit, that makes me unhappy. It's also a bit of a kick in the head to see a second run happen when the first one was never finished, and then to see more units up on eBay when the first and second runs were not finished. Any of those eBay units could have been used to fill the outstanding prepaid orders. If an eBay sale was necessary to raise funds, I would have backed it 100%, if only there had been some communication and feedback regarding the status of my orders. For all I know, Eduardo has lost my order and is ignoring my emails because he doesn't remember that I already sent him $270 back in 2012. I've tried emailing him many times with no response. I've done business with Opcode before the SGM and up until the SGM, I've always received my orders in what I would consider a reasonable amount of time. I don't think Eduardo would have shipped as many as he did if he wasn't serious about it, so I don't think this is a take-the-money-and-run situation. However, the long absence is at this point difficult to rationalize, and there are apparently enough people like myself who prepaid and didn't receive anything who would appreciate some response. It's also a bit alarming to see that some people who received their SGMs as they trickle out, had them show up unannounced, no tracking #, no shipping information. If Eduardo is not tracking these shipments and not telling anyone when they are mailed out, for all I know mine could have been sent a year ago and lost by UPS or USPS and I'd never know, because Eduardo won't reply to my emails and won't confirm whether or not my order was actually processed. This is made more alarming by earlier comments in the thread where it was implied that all the first-run orders had been shipped out. Clearly, they weren't, or if they were, they did not all make it to the recipients. Without communication from Opcode, it would be impossible at this point to claim insurance on any lost shipments this far gone. My main point here, is that communication is key. People need to know when their orders shipped, when to expect them, and they need to be trackable and insured. Without communication it is impossible to verify shipment or delivery. Like atarilovesyou said, people here are very forgiving and patient, and a little communication will go a long way towards reconciling any problems. Going dark is not good; it will really scare off future buyers which is why, like I said earlier, the future of the SGM is really at stake here even for those who received them already. If we want to see more games on the SGM, then we need to see regular communication from Opcode. I don't think that is asking too much; I'm not even asking for a firm date here, just a commitment to communicate and be responsible with shipping and tracking of some reasonably expensive items.

Yes, prepayment was a requirement to preorder. I would assume everyone who was on the list prepaid just like I did. I'm in the same position kneehighspy is in: I haven't ordered any SGM games because if I never get the unit, what's the point? I'm also afraid that 1) if I don't get the units soon, there will not be any SGM games left to purchase to use with it, 2) the enthusiasts making SGM games are likely to stop making them since the market is not big enough to make more (not that it was ever big to start with). I know how hobbies like this go - I've been behind on my own personal projects due to life, work, etc. - and I don't mind the waiting, but I'm just afraid the whole SGM project is not going to end well if we don't hear from Eduardo soon.

Eduardo, if you are out there, please reply! I'd really like to know if my order is still being processed; I still have not received any of my 3 SGMs I ordered from the first run in 2012. Please just drop me a line to let me know what's going on; any reply would be appreciated. I'm really sad because I haven't ordered any SGM games, I wanted to wait to make sure I had the unit before buying the games. Thanks.

I prepaid for 3 SGMs in the first run on September 28, 2012. I have not received any of them; also I have not received any emails directly from Eduardo since his confirmation of my order on October 1, 2012. Did receive one more email from Opcode on April 18, 2013, asking if I wanted to wait for the final nameplate, to which I replied "yes", and another email from Opcode on December 21, 2013 announcing the special limited edition of the second run. No further replies from Opcode or Eduardo since then, either in email or in the forums. Eduardo, if you are out there, please reply! I'm willing to wait - I understand this is a hobby, I'd like to just make sure I'm still on the list and didn't get lost. Hope all is well.

Hi Eduardo, welcome back! When you get a moment, could you please comment on the status of the nameplate and the plan for those of us who opted to wait for the final nameplate? Also if you could confirm my order, that would also be great, thanks!

Well, thanks for the info, ColecoDan. It helps tremendously just knowing that people who were waiting for labels didn't get theirs, so I'm obviously not alone in this, and Eduardo probably has us on a separate list. That was not obvious from reading the thread, at least not to me - maybe I missed something. I had read most of it up until April but I've been in crunch mode for the last 6 months and haven't kept up with the thread. Looks like it just might be unlucky timing for me trying to communicate with Eduardo; if he's been gone that long he might not have caught up on email yet. I think I'm going to consider just buying some SGM games on faith since I don't want to miss out. I'd still like to see Eduardo show up again in this thread though, just for some confirmation. I also want to make sure I get in on the orders for the Opcode-brand SGM games that I'm interested in as well, and I don't think he's even started accepting pre-orders for those yet, right?

OK, I just read from page 37 on, and none of my questions are answered. * I never got any emails from OpCode after the one asking about the nameplate. * As Eduardo asked back in April on this very thread, I sent emails to opcode indicating I had not received my SGMs. * Eduardo said he'd contacted everyone on the list since then, and anyone who had already ordered but not received an email should contact him again. I did. * As I said above, I sent 3 emails: one in April, one in June, and one in July. I got no response to any of them. * I see lots of talk about problems with labels, but this contradicts the statement that all first-run preorders had been mailed out. I was in the first run, and I did opt to wait for a label. So where does that put the status of my order? I saw nothing in the thread that answers my question here. * My name was NOT in the list of people Eduardo posted that he had not been able to contact. So either he thought he HAD been able to contact me, even though he didn't, or somehow I got dropped off the list. To be clear, I'm not upset, just concerned. Eduardo is a nice guy, I know he's busy (I've been in crunch mode myself the last 6 months), life happens, and if I have to wait longer so be it. It's just really scary to see phrases like 'all first-run orders have been mailed out' when you know you paid for 3 of them and you don't have any confirmation that your order has been processed. I'd ideally like to get a response from Eduardo but in case email is not working for whatever reason, I'm asking here in the forums because I know he will eventually read this thread, and I don't know of any other way to contact him. I've followed his instructions to the letter but I've never gotten any response after April so I don't know what else to do.

Sorry if this has already been answered elsewhere - I don't have time to read this entire thread - but I have been trying for some time to contact Eduardo with no success. I had ordered 3 SGMs quite some time ago, and should have been part of the first run, yet I have not received any of them. I know I'm in the OpCode database because I got all the emails including the one asking if I wanted to wait for the nameplate or not (which I said yes, I did). After seeing here that they were released, I sent an email to Eduardo asking how long I'd have to wait to get all 3 with nameplates. I got no reply. I've previously communicated with Eduardo before with no problem, but recently I've emailed him in April, June, and July - basically once a month - and have still got no response. If I still have to wait for the nameplates, then I guess I will just have to deal with that, but I'm really nervous that I am not getting any replies anymore from Eduardo. Also, I've been holding off on buying any SGM games because without the hardware, what's the point? I feel like I'm missing the opportunity to buy some of the limited run SGM games because of this. Now there is talk of another run but I was supposed to be in the first run and never got my units, so I'd really like to know what's happening. My questions are: Does anyone who knows Eduardo know what is going on, if he's just unavailable, sick, out of the country, on vacation, etc.? Do any of you who were in run 1 who opted to wait for nameplates actually receive your SGM yet? Have any others from the first run still not received their SGM units or am I alone in this? Does anyone know when Eduardo is planning to finish shipping all of the units from the first run order (which I was definitely in, I ordered these in Oct 2012)? Eduardo, if you're reading this, did you get my emails, and can you please comment on the status of my order? Any info would be helpful. Thanks.

They're not failures at all. They also bear almost no resemblance to a PC architecture, i.e. they are not open hardware platforms. Put another way: the more randomly configurable a console is, the less support developers are willing to give to all possible combinations of the hardware. Having locked down memory size, cpu, and graphics is a good thing for console development, not a bad thing. Expandable features historically do nothing to help the platform, and ultimately dilute it. Simple example: Sega CD+32x = fail. Great hardware, amusing to stack them up on top of each other, not appealing in the least from a developer's standpoint.

1) Console market is already too diluted. 2) PC-style consoles = always fail. 3) New consoles right around the corner with better specs already happening. 4) Atari not in hardware business anymore, no point. Future market success lies in software, not hardware.

I have listened to him. I also am capable of forming my own opinions. My replies have been polite and civil, and I have made no attempt to malign anyone else or deny them of their own opinion. I also don't see how one person being "vetted", or me being a "newbie", should or would change my subjective opinions; sorry, but I don't see the connection... I didn't shoot myself in the foot at all. If he's familiar with the book then he should be able to understand my point of view much easier, even if he doesn't agree with my conclusions. It's a good book and I don't regret recommending it in the least. If he contributed to it, I applaud him; I feel we need more books written with that level of detail applied to tech history. You realize that Hasbro did not sell their entire company to Infogramme...? They sold a wholly owned subsidiary, Hasbro Interactive, and all of the Atari-related IP and assets. To paraphrase your own statement: Only a division (IP and assets) were purchased, not the entire Hasbro empire. So please pardon me, but it seems very similar from my perspective. Of course I am biased because I was directly involved in that - I was there at the time. But this is digressing; the reason I brought it up in the first place was merely to point out that I have some personal experience "not being hired" and it felt just like being fired to me. I'm sorry if that doesn't help you relate to my perspective, but to each his own... I offer my most sincere and humble apologies if I have offended you. I assure you that was never my intent. I have great respect for history and historians. However, I am shocked and dismayed that you are asserting that my subjective opinion would, by definition, be insulting to you. I have not at any point attempted to impersonate a historian, nor have I declared my statements as objective. I've very CLEARLY stated, multiple times, that this is my own opinion formed from my own sources and experiences, and anyone is totally free to disagree with anything I've said. This is not some sort of cop-out on my part: I only ever intended to offer up a subjective opinion to a subjective question in a public forum. Surely you see that opinions are an important part of history, and during your research I'm certain you encountered a lot of them. I hope you didn't find them offensive and I would hope you'd give me the same kindness by allowing me my own opinions. I don't even disagree with most of your facts; it's just that I have a different perspective and therefore a different conclusion. Historians have a higher bar to meet than I do, but this topic isn't objective. This is like trying to compare real journalism with editorialism. Neither one invalidates the other, and it isn't remotely fair to compare the two, because they serve totally different purposes. You seem very intent about trying to put me on the defensive. Again, I don't understand why? What have I ever done to you? You don't even know me, and I don't know you. But, neither of us need to know each other to form perfectly valid opinions. This poll was about the 7800's reason for failure, which is a 100% subjective topic, and I gave a 100% subjective reply. Objectivity was never required nor implied in the topic of this thread. If it had been my response would have been different, in fact I probably wouldn't have bothered to reply. Now, as a historian, I'm guessing that your focus is to research facts, and context, and put as much accurate information out there as possible to let people draw their own conclusions. So you have done; and I have drawn my conclusions. Apparently my conclusions are not the ones you would want drawn, and so you feel the need to berate me as a result. That doesn't serve you well, and it certainly doesn't make me any happier. Please, just chill out - there's just no reason to be that way. Although I am not a historian, nor would I ever pretend to be, I assure you I find history a fascinating subject, and I have great respect for it as a student. I'm fascinated most of all by how fluid it can be. If it were static, and facts were absolute, then history books wouldn't need to be constantly rewritten. Case in point: Try to argue about facts in American History with a British person. US students are taught about the American Revolution, but UK students are taught about the American Insurgency. So what is the fact there - did the US have a Revolution or an Insurgency? Can't be both... or can it? Like most facts, the answer is that without context, a fact can be misleading. It can be even more misleading with context. Verifying what someone has said, what they've written down, these are all very important parts of historical research, but they don't necessarily reveal truth. Real truth is the most elusive goal for any student of history. I'm saying this not because I'm trying to challenge your view, because I'm not. I'm saying this because I think that if reading subjective comments like those I've written so grossly offends you, then you are possibly going to be missing out on some context that you otherwise might discard. You don't have to agree with everyone to collect data and to absorb public opinion. The people you talk to don't have to be "right". I don't have to be "right". I could be totally wrong, and it wouldn't matter because even if I am completely, totally, 100% wrong, the method by which I came to my conclusion is every bit as historically important as context as any real facts would be, especially if I am not alone in my opinion. Again, I want to apologize if I have offended anyone. I think it's great that there are historians who care enough to apply themselves to game history, more power to Retro Rogue. But I will say that it is going to be difficult to change my opinion about things that I have personal or close personal information about; I think if any of you were in my position you'd probably feel as I do. I've been doing what I do long enough to know that there are many stories in the industry that will NEVER be told, and that's sort of the nature of the business. So I assure you, I respect the challenge of Rogue's task and acknowledge the difficulty of it, but I sincerely hope nobody would hate me - including Rogue - if I disagreed just because I don't come to the same conclusions that he did. What kind of world would it be if we all agreed on everything? Peace.

Multiple sources over a long period of time, many of whom had obvious bias. As I said, feel free to disagree. I didn't work there at the time and neither did you, apparently, but I've known people who did and I know there are always at least 2 sides to every story, sometimes more. That is not in dispute. This is where it starts to get subjective. By taking on Atari, by your own admission further down in your comment, the debt was taken on as well. IANAL, but part of reorganization would be reconciliation of debt owed. My understanding is that this was not a bankruptcy, therefore the debt could not be written off. It had to be paid, and the question is who owned the bill. Until the bill was paid, nobody had the rights to use any of the GCC technology. My sources indicated that there was a long period of argument over who owned the bill that added a considerable amount of delay. Depending on how you interpret that, it isn't even necessarily in conflict with your version of history. As I said, if it was profitable, Tramiel would sell it. His plan was to use current sales of video game hardware to kickstart a reboot of the computer division. At least that's what I was told. That doesn't mean he liked the idea of making game consoles, or that he saw Atari's future as a hybrid game/computer company. His future focus was clearly computers, not games. If he really believed in games, the Commodore Ultimax would have been more than a tiny footnote in Commodore's history. As a businessman, he would do what he felt he had to do to make money, but if you learn more about the man personally, you'll find that he was quite opinionated and quite ruthless in his decision making. This is a guy that hired an company to make an entire custom calculator chip at their cost expecting to make royalties on the product only to have Tramiel pull the rug out from under them by not buying a single chip - he only wanted to prove he could second-source a critical component to get a discount from his current vendor. So if he thought he could make money selling 7800s for a few years, of course he would. So you are telling me that between Warner Communications, Atari Corp, and GCC, nobody could work that out well before Spring '85, considering that the product was ready for launch in '84? I find that level of incompetence that would be required on the part of all 3 entities for that to be the case to be ludicrous. The fact is that contract was done, it was ready to roll in '84, the only missing piece in '84 was Warner Communications paying the final bill, which they decided to hold off on when they managed to find a buyer for Atari. And yes, Warner was looking for a buyer, but that doesn't mean Jack Tramiel wasn't also looking to buy. If he had not been forcefully ejected from Commodore (the official "he left Commodore" statement severely distorts the truth about that incident), do you seriously think he would have had any interest in Atari whatsoever? You seem to have a lot of information about Jack on the Atari side, but I think you need to look at Jack's Commodore history to get a full sense of the whole picture. That is a really strange comment, considering how much Commodore depended on their Japan division for some of their engineering, design and manufacturing. If he was worried about the Japanese so much why would he be working so closely with them? This, is truth. Not at all. Again, for precedent, look at his history with Commodore. See how many product lines were created and then dropped. Commodore certainly wasn't making calculators anymore at that point, were they? Jack was all about profit. With a certain amount of resources you can make a certain amount of product that generates a certain amount of revenue. Jack had no problem sliding engineers around from project to project if he thought he could make a bit more on project than another. If his computers ever got to the point where their ROI significantly exceeded that of the games division, he certainly would drop them like a hot potato. He had no more love for games than he had for calculators; he was a businessman, plain and simple. Absolutely true. Again, feel free to disagree - I'm actually not trying to argue, though it may seem that way. I'm trying to share my perspective, which has been informed over the years by many people beyond just journalists. I've known people who worked at Atari and I've heard their stories as well as read a lot of history, especially on the Tramiel empire. If you have not read it, I highly recommend reading Commodore: A Company On the Edge (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0973864966/ref=oh_details_o03_s01_i00). It will give you a lot of information from outside the Tramiel inner circle, from people who worked with the man and have some very interesting stories to tell about how he manages a company. Facts can certainly be incorrect, but how can perspective be incorrect? Perspective is by definition subjective. Huh? I made no mistake there - I cited Atari Corp when talking about Tramiel's era and Atari Inc and/or Warner Communications when talking about the former Atari. Go back and re-read my post if you don't believe me. Atari Inc. was split, and ceased to exist afterwards. The games division was retained and became Atari Games, a wholly owned subsidiary of Warner Communications. The rest was sold to Tramiel and became Atari Corp. My understanding of history is that Atari Inc. did NOT continue on for a time; in fact Tramiel was quite adamant, and had it written in as part of the deal, that the newly-formed Atari Games must always be referred to as Atari Games in whole, and could not enter the home game or computer markets. This is playing with semantics. At the end of the day, in plain simple terms, thousands were laid off at or near the point Atari Corp. was formed. Saying they were simply "not hired" instead of "laid off" is a bit of an insult to those people. Whether they were "laid off" by Warner or Tramiel is really quite irrelevant to the individual - they are equally unemployed either way you look at it. Jack was perfectly aware that anyone he didn't hire was going to get chopped. Having been personally "not hired" by Atari during Infogramme/Atari's buy-out of Hasbro/Atari, I know exactly what this feels like, and I'm telling you it is exactly the same thing. Yes, hemorrhaging millions of dollars made Atari a bit of a hot potato - I'm pretty sure Warner would have been happy to get rid of Atari any way possible at that point. Sure, that's what he *said*. What would you say if you were in his position at that point? He's a shrewd businessman; he's not going to trash the main income stream from his new company before he can even get his plan off the ground. Why would he do that!? Regardless of what he said, at that point Tramel Tech Ltd was like 90% done with the ST design but had no brand, manufacturing, marketing, or distribution channels. If there is any doubt at what Tramiel intended to do, and what his focus was, you don't have to look any farther than TTL. Were they making game systems? Nope, they were making computers. Did TTL have plans to make game systems? Nope. Did Jack Tramiel investigate or mention video gaming as any part of his business plan for TTL, or were any of the companies TTL contacted to investigate partnerships with video games companies? Nope. I stand by my opinion, subjective though it may be, and I think history has more than enough circumstantial as well as anecdotal evidence to back me up on this. Like I said before, if you really want to know what Jack thought you'd have to ask him and hope for an honest answer, but he's dead now, so the only way to measure this is by analyzing his actions rather than his words. That's what I've done in the above paragraphs; I invite others to do the same. Leonard is a nicer guy than Jack, but he's still very biased. A lot of his comments have also been proven to be factually incorrect. Here's a quote from Leonard Tramiel on the 7800: "The 7800 was basically a 2600 with some things put into hardware that were done in software on the 2600. It was still quite a limited machine." Hmm. Really, does this sound like a well-informed source for 7800 information?

Agreed that this is a possibility. I've seen tin solder whiskers (evil!), smoke-cicles, solder splash leftover from manufacturing, and even plating and shavings and dust from metallic screws, joints, and gears inside the devices themselves that can flake off onto the mainboard. I've also seen plenty of disgusting things too gross to mention inside of broken gear. But good lord. I've never seen bugs that could crap metal deposits. I seriously hope you are joking about that... Anyway golden ax has a good point - it certainly couldn't hurt to clean the board. A swipe of a cloth or blast from an air cleaner isn't usually sufficient to dislodge that sort of debris. Chemical board cleaner plus some careful brushing would be best, especially if the offending bit of metal were trapped in residual flux or wedged in underneath the back of an SMD pin. A good magnifier would be worth inspecting the entire VDP2 area; if there were detritus on the board you should be able to see it under magnification. Still, I would lay money on it being silicon failure. I'd be happy to be wrong about that, but I've seen chip failure far more often than shorted out parts. Chips don't last forever, especially newer chips that are more susceptible to electromigration.

I don't believe this is repairable. Cleaning contacts is pointless; you aren't seeing signal noise. you are seeing bad pixel data. The video is not being encoded correctly for the background tile graphics; IMHO, this looks like a classic case of VDP2 hardware failure. Note that the VDP1 (polygon hardware) graphics look correct, only the VDP2 (2D tile hardware) graphics are corrupted. Either there is a bad trace or joint connected to the VDP2, or the VDP2 has failed, or possibly VDP2 RAM has failed but that seems less likely since the corruption would usually be greater. The VDP2 is surface mount and custom, I don't think you won't be able to easily get that repaired. If you're lucky you might be able to swap the board if you can find a replacement.

That's how the numeric keypad works, nothing new there. Also the RIOT datasheets cover configurable I/O; most PIO-type chips support bidirectional I/O.

I remember it differently. I will certainly give Tramiel credit for taking a company losing millions per month at the time and stopping the losses, but when you look at what he did to make that happen, and the changes it had on the staff and the company - this was a colossal change. The Tramiel Atari (Atari Corp.) was in my opinion a reboot. The first thing they did was lay off more than 1000 workers and halt production on everything for an evaluation period. The main focus of the new Atari was to be computers (Tramiel was quoted saying this himself, this should not be in contention). Now you will see lots of people arguing in favor of Tramiel saying he never meant to kill consoles, you will also see arguments saying he wanted to kill consoles. If you want to get beyond subjective you'd have to ask the man himself, but he's dead now, so all we have to go on are his words and his actions. It helps if you read up on the history of the man, how and why he was ousted from Commodore, and how he runs businesses. To Jack Tramiel, business was war. He was out to make money, pure and simple; he would certainly sell consoles if it were profitable but he knew the bigger money in the long term was PCs, and that is the space he wanted to focus on. Which, one could argue, he did quite rapidly, given the quick turnaround of the ST design. Anyway, in 1985 Atari was just starting to sell the new systems but they were still losing money, so there was another second round of layoffs. The new Atari did not turn around overnight. He also instituted pay cuts for the people who were not layed off. This happened even as the money was coming in from sales of the new systems, the 2600 Jr, and eventually the 7800. Were employees or stockholders rewarded when money finally started coming in, when, as you say, the ST was taking off in Europe? No, Tramiel took the money and bought Federated Electronics chain, which history regards as a costly mistake. I don't recall the exact losses but I think I remember reports saying that the chain's net worth was misrepresented by many tens of millions of dollars. This was a huge blow to a small company like Atari. One also has to wonder why, if you have to get to the point of buying your own electronics chain to sell your own products, why anyone would think that would be sustainable in the long run. If you can't convince the likes of Target and Wal-Mart to sell your goods, you certainly aren't going to be able to out-compete them in the global retail space just by buying your own stores. Really bad idea, can't imagine what he was thinking when he did this. My guess is "power without the price" dug its own grave; computer stores of the day were not interested in selling discount computers. they left that to Target, etc. Tramiel was used to competing in that retail space with Commodore, but the ST computers were not appropriate for discount sales. They fit into a niche that didn't exist. I guess he thought he could create the market from thin air with Federated. This is all from memory, so sure, I might have repeated information that was wrong from the source,.or misremembered the exact details. What I remember most was that I was an active Atari fanatic at that time, and I was eagerly awaiting the release of the 7800, and was crushed when the news reports indicated that it had been shelved. You can find interviews with Leonard Tramiel where he claims that GCC blew almost a year haggling over contracts. You can find comments from ex-GCC employees that will tell you that the Tramiels were haggling with Warner over who was stuck with the bill. Either way you look at it, the hardware was delayed and it was a costly delay. If Tramiel had believed in the 7800 as much as the ST, I'm certain he could have torn through any issues in shorter than 9 months. That's just a ludicrous amount of bureaucracy to expect me to believe in. And that was just for the hardware - not the software. I also remember reading the Atari news frequently during that period. More layoffs, more cuts, more product delays... There was a point where I actually expected the company to fall apart. The ST undoubtedly saved the day - eventually, and to a point - but Atari Corp. never reached the scale nor greatness of Atari Inc. IMHO. It was a much smaller operation, with much less talent; almost everything was outsourced rather than engineered in-house. Gone were the days of Atari R&D where amazing tech was created in-house. Feel free to disagree with anything I've said here. of course. Obviously I have bias like anyone would and I know my interpretation of events is based on what information I was fed at the time as it happened. I've always been really annoyed that Warner did such a poor job of managing Atari, and that they gave up on them so quickly. IMHO, Tramiel era Atari turned Atari into Commodore at a point where Commodore was turning into Amiga. In essence, a discount computer company making cheap items, the sort you'd see in a mail order catalog. One look at the build quality differences between the XL and XE 8-bit series is enough to underscore my point. The slogan "power without the price" says it all, and then some, because it also meant "power without quality", "power without support", and "power without warranty". Ask any ST owner who had to "fix" their Tramiel-era machines by doing the 6-inch drop, or any 130XE owner how many times their keyboards have failed or stuck. Please don't misunderstand - I am a huge Atari fan - but I will always have bitterness towards the Tramiels because I feel that they took one of my favorite computer companies and forever cheapened it. I have multiple Ataris, and all of my pre-Tramiel gear works as well today as when I bought it (that includes 2600s, 400s, 800s, and 800XLs). I also have a couple 130XEs that are basically doorstops and two Lynxes that don't work. The only functioning Tramiel-era Atari gear I have is my collection of 7800s (which is technically pre-Tramiel, in a way, especially since one is an EP unit) and my Jaguar stuff. Maybe I've just been "lucky" and I'm the only one with Tramiel-era gear failure. Maybe that biases me more against Tramiel than it should. I'm off topic so I should clearly shut myself up now. Sorry if I offended anyone, but hopefully I've at least some people to not take Atari history for granted. Don't listen to me, do your own research if you weren't around back then, or even if you were and you missed the gory details at the time. My opinion is that the 7800 was an awesome piece of hardware made by some very talented people, that was the unfortunate victim of Tramiel-era bureaucracy and lack of vision on the part of Atari Corp. I think these flaws in Atari Corp. were systemic and affected the remaining hardware we saw up to the point where Atari faded away as a footnote within a disk storage company until the Infogramme reboot. I don't think that it is fair to compare the 7800 in terms of software library to any other platform because the 7800 never really got off the ground, it had so few games made in total for it. The crucial point I want to make regardless of whether or not you agree with any points I made about the history, is that there was a period of opportunity in North America and Europe that was key between 1984 and 1985, where NOTHING HAPPENED. American console gamers were desperate for cool new games and there were none. No developers would touch existing platforms after the crash, which was a shame because, for example, the ColecoVision had a lot of life left in it yet. The Nintendo was nowhere to be seen except in Japan. Atari, the king of consoles to that point, was silent after the Tramiel acquisition. No other console vendors stepped forth. One has to wonder what would have happened if some competitor to Nintendo had arrived during that key period from mid 1984 to mid 1985? One year could have made a big difference.

No, your version of history is not correct, sorry. At the point Tramiel took over Atari, the 7800 was the #1 project that was going to turn the company around. There was an outstanding contractual obligation from Warner Atari to GCC for their development costs for software and hardware (read: bill, they were owed money for their services). Tramiel, in typical Tramiel fashion, decided he wasn't going to pay the bill. Read up on the history of Commodore if you want to know more about Jack Tramiel's business philosophy of lying and sticking suppliers with unpaid bills. Anyway, GCC eventually forced Tramiel to pay them something just to "go away". The 7800 was dead on arrival as far as Tramiel was concerned; he bought Atari to exact revenge on Commodore in the computer market, he had no interest in consoles whatsoever. Much later on, the 7800 project was resurrected when it became apparent that it could be a profitable endeavor at a time when Atari was falling behind in the computer space. The tech was done, Atari had the rights to the hardware, and the initial software lineup still existed - they just had to roll it into production and start pumping out additional games. It was nothing ever more than a toy as far as Tramiel was concerned. Atari did not aggressively pursue 3rd party development, which was a huge mistake, one they would later repeat with the Jaguar. Don't know who you are talking to here - I have not seen any fanboyism in this thread so far. I'm a huge fan of the 7800 but I lived through that era as an active gamer and I remember exactly how things went down and in what order. The NES definitely deserves some credit for restoring the game industry post-crash; sure, it could have been done by Atari or someone else but it wasn't, and that's just how history unfolded. Hindsight is 20-20; I remember at the time financial pundits were laughing at Nintendo because they claimed video games were clearly just a fad that was going away, and Nintendo was doomed. How wrong they turned out to be! Again, it's all down to software. The crash didn't happen because people were tired of video games; the crash happened because people were tired of video games that sucked. Nintendo was the first company to publish all games for their own hardware, requiring approval (remember the Nintendo seal?). That made a huge difference in the average quality of software for the platform.

Some corrections are in order here: * The NES was not launched worldwide in 1983. The Famicom was only released in Japan in 1983; the NES was not released in North America until near the end of 1985, Europe until near the end of 1986, and Australia in 1987. So, there was a period of at least 2 years where some other competitor could have stepped up everywhere but Japan. * The 7800 was not launched in 1984, it only had a limited test marketing. Less than 5000 units were believed to have been produced for the initial test run, and I think only a fraction of those were actually sold. * A large chunk of the 7800 library was written for the 1984 intended launch. These games were sorely out-of-date by the time the system got a formal launch in 1987. * The 'restrictions' on 7800 cart development were not part of the original plan. Decisions like not allowing new games to have super RAM were made by Jack Tramiel, who was a complete cheapskate. The original design certainly intended to eventually support bank mappers, more RAM, and better sound as the price of chips dropped, just like the NES. The system was designed to have a long life, but Tramiel crippled it. He never believed in consoles, he was just looking to turn a fast buck during a dull period when it became obvious that consoles were not, in fact, dead after all. * Tramiel was also responsible for shelving the 7800 in the first place; it was the first thing he did when he took over Atari.

I think 8th lutz has steered this thread away from your original question, which was did the 7800 fail because of its hardware. As myself and others have pointed out, there were no major hardware flaws or limitations in the 7800 that had anything to do with its perceived 'failure'. A platform succeeds when it has support from software developers that make games that people want to play. As I said before, the golden rule applies. You can have awesome hardware and still fail due to lack of good software; history is littered with consoles that were technically superior (Neo Geo, 3DO, Jaguar) that still failed due to lack of popular software support. You can also have a platform like the Wii where the technology is secondary to the software, and have a great success. Nintendo was smart enough to figure out the value of the software side of the equation very early on in the console wars, while other vendors (Atari included) were still trying to have hardware wars. My opinion is that a platform's success or failure will always be driven primarily by the software, not the hardware. I can tell you as a developer myself that your comment about 'if developers could produce a game and have it on the NES with better sound, why not do that instead of the 7800' is way off base. I guarantee you that was never a reason. Developers (3rd party developers at least) target the platforms that make the most money; that is the beginning and the end of it. For example, when EA made the decision to drop support for the DreamCast because they felt the market was getting too fragmented to be profitable, they effectively killed the DreamCast by not supporting it. There was no reason for the PlayStation to win that war, but when EA picked the winner and the loser, as the biggest software provider they effectively decided who won the war. Who had the best hardware, who got to market first - all irrelevant. What matters is, what platform has the cool games people want to play? That is what consumers use to decide which platform to buy. And developers choose the most popular platforms to develop for, because they provide the best return on investment. The popularity of a console is also going to be heavily influenced by the quality of first-party support, i.e. what games are exclusive to that platform, and this requires the console provider to support their own platform with excellent unique games and marketing. Platforms that don't have this will fail.