Phredreeke

While I don't have any personal experience with them, my understanding is that most french TVs are dual standard. You might have to do a composite mod on the console though.

I don't think it's fair to count Donkey Kong GB, as it was released a decade after the other versions. I would say Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC both got good versions of Donkey Kong. Most disappointing would be Donkey Kong for Intellivision. The system can do better as shown by Carl Mueller's version.

FDDs weren't uncommon but tape was the dominant format.

I'm not british but from my understanding the BBC Micro wasn't popular in homes because of its high pricepoint, although it was the de facto school computer (due to the support of the public broadcaster which it gets its name from) In homes the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC were more common. Tape was the dominant medium for 8-bit computers in Europe. Most games on C64 and Amstrad CPC were released on disk as well. Very few games were released as cartridge.

Demon Attack is actually a good example of the strength and weaknesses of the two systems. The Intellivision version has a background which would be impossible to draw on the Atari 2600. Meanwhile the aliens don't look as good due to the Intellivision being limited to 8 single-colored sprites on the screen total with no ability of updating sprites mid-screen.

7800 graphics isn't really like any other system. 7800 uses the same sound hardware as the 2600. There's an audio input pin on the cartridge connector though, so you can add an external sound chip on a cartridge (the XM does this, so does the games Ballblazer and Commando)

Also testing on a 7800 helps you spot bugs specific for that system (someone more knowledgable about the 2600 and 7800 may step in and explain it better but certain 2600 games are incompatible with the 7800. worse, the compatibility differs depending on when the system was made so a game that gives a black or rolling picture may run fine on another console)

Intellivision actually has two computer adapters. The extremely rare original keyboard component and the later ECS

I would say the Intellivision (not counting Coleco games) is more consistent while at their best the Atari 2600 beats it.

Avoid deviating from the standard number of scanlines, that is 262 for NTSC and 312 for PAL.

I believe that was M Network/Mattel Electronics. Remember that Activision designed their own games, while games (not all but many) by other developers were originally arcade games and the programmer were forced to use flickering to make something resembling the original.

Well, the most obvious upgrade would be replacing the 6507 with a 6502, as in the 5200, 7800 and 8-bit computers. Adding a second TIA wouldn't accomplish much besides increasing the number of sound channels, as the chip don't have any feature to "lock" to an external video signal.. Do take a look at the Atari 8-bit computers, while not backwards compatible they are pretty much the logical progression of the Atari 2600 hardware.

Then you have to remove Pauline. What about also ditching the lives counter, then you can use the ball object to add a second color (although it would be very coarse)

You can do Composite and S-video mods, however you cannot do the "stereo" mod. S-video is the best possible option for 8-bit Ataris as the video chip itself output in that format (technically it outputs chroma along with a series of binary signals that when mixed with the proper resistors make up the luminance part of an S-video signal)

That's exactly how Boulder Dash® works! Only, not two colours on alternating lines, but three colours on 3 lines. It works for all systems, not just PAL. Cheers A With NTSC, if you alternate two colors the TV still shows those colors and you're relying on the eyes/brain of the viewer to interpret it as one color. With PAL the TV got a delay line that blends the color with the previous line, so if you alternate two colors of the same luminance they appear as a single color. SECAM got a delay line too but it works in a different way. I don't know what R-Y and B-Y values the 2600 SECAM chip use for its colors, but I'm thinking that if alternating colors it would use the R-Y value of one color and the B-Y value of the other, potentially yielding a new color (this would not work in an emulator, it would need a SECAM 2600 with a SECAM decoder to work)

Something just struck my mind. On PAL systems it's possible to generate additional colors by displaying two colors on alternating lines. Could something similar be done with SECAM on the 2600?

Probably cause during the original 400/800 series run computers were still too expensive for the average consumer. During the XE series the system started to show its age as well as face competition from 3rd generation video games such as the NES.

Reality check: An Intellivision adapter would require you to slaughter an Intellivision console for parts. Now, if you already have an intellivision, why go through the trouble making an adapter?

The Xbox 360 has a 12x speed DVD drive. For comparison the PS2 has a 4x speed drive.

BD doesn't need to spin as fast, since the data is packed more densely.

Also don't forget that the Xbox 360 spins the disc very fast compared to other systems.

Are you just doing graphics or are you going to program it as well?

I think without Activision and other 3rd party developers the Atari 2600 would have died sooner. Activision pushed the hardware in a way Atari themselves didn't, which forced Atari to step up their game to compete. I doubt we would have seen anything more advanced than Space Invaders without them. Not to mention NES games wouldn't run without a lockout chip, which Nintendo had patented. Unlicensed developers had to make "lockout killers", except for Tengen who just copied the lockout chip (followed by a lawsuit against them) No, new console hardware is generally sold at loss. The console manufacturers make money on selling their own games, and on licensing fees for third party developers.

IIRC PAL to NTSC is harder than the other way around, as PAL has a longer VBLANK period. There's no region lockout though so a PAL game will work on an NTSC 2600, but chances are your TV wont be able to sync to it, and if it does the colors will be wrong.

To be picky (I'm a bit of a SEGA fanboy), the Sega Master System was more of an evolution of the previous Sega hardware (think going from Game Boy to Game Boy Color) than a cutdown version of the sega computers (which already existed, it was called the SG-1000) The step up from SG-1000 to SMS was fairly large. I don't think the 5200 would been able to compete. Remember that there wasn't just the SMS and NES, there were several 8-bit computers as well (the most successful being ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64, which european developers supported into the early 90s) Also getting 3rd party support for the Atari 7800 would have been even more difficult by selling an incompatible system (5200) in Europe instead (although in the end it didn't make a difference, with all 7800 games being developed in america)