kenjennings

The divisions competed against each other and hurt each other in the long run. The arcade division made out the best in the kids' unnecessary squabbling. Dual (or quad) pokey would have been an easy upgrade of the 8-bit line, but it was only made for the arcade systems. Why go to the trouble and unnecessary expense of changing custom hardware register addresses on the 5200 (making it not directly compatible with the 8-bit computers) other than due to a Not-Invented-Here mentality? The computer division was beat up from above and below when the three of them could have been cooperating instead. One small good thing is that at least being inside the same company meant the consoles and the 8-bits got arcade ports before other companies' platforms.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9SF589v6Zs While the ZX Spectrum has a lot of color on screen, the rainbow is just one color. I don't think a single color register/DLI enhanced rainbow would be a disaster. On some platforms the rainbow is quite obviously text blocks/cells that are sometimes partially erased by other moving objects on the screen.

Thet uses up all the playfield colors on the rainbow. Don't need to use them all. Use some dithering. In the comparison video I saw it appears the C64 makes 5 "color" rainbows using three colors and dithering.

Organizing the company as three major divisions that competed against each other instead of cooperating. Motivating the best software and hardware engineers to leave. Years of hiring far too many useless, overpaid vice presidents instead of good technical people. I think the person described as CEO made these things so, or was capable of controlling these things and did not. So the verdict is Kryptonite.

There is a "Let's Compare" video on youtube showing about a dozen platforms. Some forgo decent representation of a rainbow altogether, so I don't think a scrolling vertical rainbow would be unpleasant. In fact it would mark it as uniquely atari 8-bit. I did not see any horizontal scrolling in any of the play levels, but the video did not show the complete game. Asuming this is a strictly vertical scroller, then this makes it easier to use a lot of moving DLIs to boost playfield and P/M colors.

In Milwaukee in the early 80s I knew two others besides myself in high school with Atari 8-bits. One person with a TRS-80 -- he was envied for owning multiple floppy drives and all the peripherials. One person with a VIC-20. A couple people with Apples. In 1980 the High School had a lab filled with Apple II computers, and one Pet. By 1984 the Pet was gone. When the C64 came out several friends who did not have computers got a c64, but nobody who was already a computer owner switched to the C64. I remember at least one of those C64 owners always has a computer, or disk drive, or printer in for service repair. Who had the Broken Hardware Of The Week Award was a running joke. Later in the Air Force (87-93) I had an several Amigas. In Germany the Amiga was everywhere. Never met anyone with a ST in Germany or the US.

I remember reading a print article about this. I think it was in Amazing Computing...? Never saw this video before. Cool stuff. Great comments in the video: "PC architecture was as bad then as it is now" -- heh. It's still pretty bad. "...tell your friends which personal computer is rated for mission critical use in the United States space program."

Thanks Bill, have they told you an actual release date and what stores, like Walgreens, Rite-Aid, Toys R Us or Wal-Mart, just so we know when to start looking for Atari Flashback 4s locally? No release date, but definitely by November. If I get an exact date, I'll let you know. Retailers should include Amazon, Urban Outfitters, Hastings, 7th Avenue, Bed Bath & Beyond, the AtGames Website, Wal-Mart, Target, etc. I'm not sure if every retailer will carry every product, though. Most likely most will only have the console, and Amazon and the AtGames Website will have the extra controllers. I guess we'll see. Well the Atari Flashback 3 was first at Rite-Aid, then Walgreens, Dollar General and Toys R Us late last year, but not in Wal-Mart until 2012. I just looked on Amazon and they are accepting preorders for $59.99 and claim it wil be released November 13, 2012. (That probably means it will show up on eBay for $99.99 Buy It Now on Nov 14th.)

I built the "Cheep Talk" from the plans in Analog that used the SPO256-AL2. It stopped making sounds a while ago... i may have fried the chip. When I went looking for a replacement a couple years ago I couldn't find any place in the US that actually had one.

Eastern Front was a killer. War games are not my forte or the reality of the simulation is that it was impossible for the Germans to win. The best ending I could manage was get one unit to the nearest Russian city and then keep the key pressed for end of turn to give the computer as little time as possible to calculate its turn (aka cheating). Still, it was the same as losing. War is heck.

The first time I read about television specs some decades ago it was explained that the letters N.T.S.C. really mean: Never Twice the Same Color. :-)

This is the first time I've seen this topic. Is this case idea going anywhere? I have a 1200 now, so I'd like one case, please.

6502 has only a 256 byte hardware stack right? Figure an average of three arguments passed by value (1 or 2 bytes each) or by address (2 bytes each) and then a return address. That's in the general neighborhood of 30+ levels... still likely difficult to reach in a real world situations (without running Microsoft Windows .

This should fit my modded 800 perfectly!! That has some really rough-looking plastic joints. (Your copy of photoshop needs the sandpaper plugin.)

I think the best "floppy" drive is no floppy drive at all. My vote is for SIO2SD or SIO2PC. Currently in the middle of backing up all the floppy disks to ATR files, so the floppy drives can be disposed on eBay.

Does this allow toggling between 6502 and the 6809?? It looks like a direct replacement. The original protos show both CPUs. Being able to switch back and forth would be much more desirable.

Technical stuff...? There's the 3-part ACE Video Visit with Chris Crawford discussing the Atari 8-bit graphics and sound. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Chris+Crawford+Atari%2C+playlist

My two devices arrived today . THANKS!!! (and my kid likes all those pretty, Greek postage stamps, too.)

Cool. Haven't seen a 3B2 running since I was in the Air Force back in 1987.

Sign me up for 2 Incognito boards. I also PM'd you. THANKS!

That also would not deter anyone with technical skills very long. Most of the people still using Ataris probably have the skills to figure out how to remove it. The fact is even the most complex copy protection does not stop copying. However, it can encourage people not to buy at all. If I can't back it up conveniently then I won't buy it. (That counts for Atari 800s, Windows, and Linux.) That said, I don't care about boxes and fancy artwork on labels. If it's new and worth playing I'm good for $10 to $15 for a image to flash to an AtariMax cart or .xex/.atr file.

What databases are we discussing?

Does the Atari 2600 with the BASIC Programming cartridge and keyboard controllers count as a computer? I exhausted all the possibilities of the language/cartridge over a weekend. Then the Atari 800 came out and I spent a year saving everything from my paper route to buy one. Had only a tape drive for years. A floppy disk drive cost way too much back then. There's nothing like saving to tape to teach patience and the importance of multiple backups.

Nope. I had learned on Atari BASIC on the 800 and graduated to 6502 assembly with Mac/65. By the time I upgraded to the Amiga I had been doing C and UNIX at work for a few years, and never had a need for BASIC on the Amiga. Programming on the Amiga was done with SAS/C and ARexx.

OOPs. Delete Me Please. These are not the droids you're looking for. You can go about your business.