Lodmot

Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, they're definitely not the same, lol.

Didn't actually see this last part until now. Mind pointing out where the differences are? I checked those two pictures pretty thoroughly and the standoffs/screw holes/etc. seemed to match right up. Not saying you're wrong, but I'm just curious where you're seeing those differences.

Yeah, it's very possible that's all it was. I just used the other over-head picture of the clear shell because that was the most clear picture I could find of the insides. o w o

Man, dude..... the fucking "Coleco Chameleon"... That was horrible. At least the Atari VCS seems like it could still be a real thing... It will suck like a steaming pile of goat shit, sure, but I'm 60% confident I'll get a final product delivered to my doorstep around Christmas time... That's more than anyone can say about the Chameleon, lol.

I noticed that too about the missing 2nd blue switch. I'm still curious what that's actually going to be for. Best I could tell, it seems like when the whole unit is together, that switch would be accessible through one of the vent holes. It's probably just a reset switch though, lol. On a side note-- hardware is fun as balls. xD

That was actually back in June, during E3. o: Original article here: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/atari-vcs-raspberry-pi-gaming-desktop-pc,39647.html

Yeah, I agree the fan is placed in a funny spot. Not sure why they went with that decision...

Did another comparison between two images this morning, one of the motherboard pic and another picture from Tom's Hardware, when they took pictures of that see-through version of the case. Comparing the two side by side, I can clearly tell that all the holes and components line up with each other in the two shots. So I guess this can be a confidence-builder for those of us that did back it. The overall layout actually makes sense when you see it this way, and you can tell that the motherboard was definitely designed for the casing. There's a fan in that "big space" where we thought the RAM should go-- so the RAM has to be on the underside of the board. The best theory I can come up with is, if you look on the Indiegogo page, both the 400 and 800 models are listed as being "upgradeable" for their RAM. Having the RAM on the bottom actually makes a lot of sense in that regard, because the underside of this motherboard would be the bottom side of the console's casing, and there's probably going to be a removable panel to give you easy access to the RAM (hopefully). That.... would actually be pretty neat, from a hardware standpoint... Does it change my opinion about the company behind this project or the notion that it would fail? Nope, not at all. xD This is just merely some observations I was able to make just now.

This is probably a waste of time (I know), but just for fun... I've been analyzing the picture of that board very closely in Gimp, and I'm trying to see whether those indents to the left of the CPU are the underside of where the RAM is on the back... It's really hard to tell, but those indents seem to be lined up neatly vertically, so it's possible I suppose... If that is indeed a working motherboard, and if Atari would've just posted a fucking VIDEO rather than giving us one vague picture to go off of, a lot of the speculation on that "prototype board" would be completely unnecessary. But once again, leave it to Atari to be exponentially vague.

Dude, is that Jackie Gleason? xD omg

Yeah... I'm still baffled that they just simply don't even care, lol. It's like their actual mission statement WAS to destroy the Atari brand in the first place. It's pretty ridiculous...

In fairness to @Tidus79001, I've connected my gaming laptop to my TV on a few different occasions-- it's still remarkable how awkward it actually is trying to find room for the laptop to comfortably sit on an entertainment unit without hanging over the edge, since a laptop often is a bit wide in its length and width. Also, the HDMI port and power adapter are almost always on the side, making things even more awkward in terms of cable management... And then mucking about with the power settings in Windows so the laptop screen doesn't take over as the primary screen, or the thing doesn't suspend on you, and so on... The Atari VCS, while still going to be a spectacular failure and deserves all the ridiculing it's getting, is at least an interesting piece of hardware and is also purposefully designed as a device for your TV. I actually like the idea of a gaming PC in a console form-factor (and I've said this before). It's just that a more competent company needs to do it and actually market the damn thing better. I personally think it would've been cool to see Sega try this, especially since in recent years Sega have been focusing more on PC anyway.

Dude I'd actually be really fascinated to watch a documentary of the behind-the-scenes of making the new Atari VCS. That would be quite a story to hear. xD

I guess Atari never really had a problem with Rob-- just with Feargal. o 3 o

I actually just kinda came back from a long break from here too, but that's because I had just had a honeymoon with my Sega Genesis Mini-- a beautiful device made by my #1 favorite video game company that is in fact a real console.... even if it is just a mini.... STILL-- It's brand new Sega hardware, made by Sega!

Honestly dude, I've been driven to the point where I don't really care about this thing anymore... I've long ago accepted that I might not even see anything at my doorstep this December. My $400 or whatever the hell it was is gone now. But, if I do get some kind of product-- then it will be a pleasant surprise. And it will be a nifty little gadget I can mess around with and customize to my own liking and use case.

Come on guys, we can make it to 1000! o u o

Imagine if in an alternate timeline, Tommy Tallarico was actually the founder of the Atari VCS, and he led the project to success? o w o

I think so. They should have never made it an indiegogo campaign to begin with, because clearly they don't know how a crowdfunding platform is usually supposed to work. It would've made more sense to just set up a "pre-order" page right on atarivcs.com and call it a day. By trying to get the "community involved", all they did was impose on themselves the responsibility of having to give us regular updates (which they clearly never wanted to do).

Actually I was wondering about this too-- what's their testing/QA procedure for this thing? They need to make sure these consoles don't set on fire when people plug them in/start doing heavy gaming on them (or what would constitute as "heavy gaming" on an AMD Ryzen).

Hell, you don't even need to obtain games really. There's a number of websites that have built-in browser emulators where you can just literally play the games for free directly in your browser. Lol. And, they're compatible with gamepads too.

Tried to, but it's just a tad too far away from where the camera took the picture. Really wish they gave us more than one picture (or better yet, a video...).

100%. No thought process behind the marketing for this thing whatsoever. A better idea would've been to market this as an entry-level gaming PC for people that are used to console-gaming on their TV. Forget "AtariOS" and just ship it with either a copy of Linux, or Windows 10, and include a controller with it.

Totally agree. It's as if Atari was locked in a 4-wall room with no access to the outside world or the internet, and they absolutely never heard our requests. The whole operation with this "iteration" of Atari is just bizarre. The hardware itself looks relatively neat, but that's about it... Everything else about the product is just wrong. The company is completely mismanaged, the product is mis-marketed, and they ignore everyone's feedback. It's probably a family-owned operation that happened to get the opportunity to buy the Atari brand, and they're just riding off the name at this point.