New GTIA chips!

[New GTIA chips!]

 

Put another way, don't you think a 6 foot by 6 foot print is going to be a bit hard to read at 16"x24"? There *was* a reason they printed it so large in the first place.

 

 

 

Aha! My bad, I assumed (which one should never do!) that it was a 6x6 inch print he was talking about

 

Of course, once it has been scanned and stitched nicely at at least 300dpi, you could make some nice copies of the image, a poster a lot of people would like to hang on their wall for sure.

 

Karl

[New GTIA chips!]

There's not enough resolution in today's best cameras to manage that feat.

 

If he takes a picture of a 6'x6' print with a 12MP camera (4000x3000 resolution), it means the resulting image will be 42dpi. That's assuming the lens isn't the limiting factor, which is a huge assumption.

 

To get up 200dpi he'd need a 276MP camera. To get up to 300dpi he'd need a 622MP camera.

 

So either way, using a camera or scanner, he's going to be stitching. Scanning is less error prone route.

 

 

Not sure that's accurate,

 

Most print houses assume 300dpi minimum for most applications (the human eye doesn't see much more than about 250dpi). Anything larger consumes memory size and is only beneficial for truly large print jobs or to display exceptional accuracy. A typical 10MP camera can throw out an image easily at 3600 x 2400, and if you were to print that image out at say 16 x 24, the resulting dpi works out at around 325dpi.

 

DPI is referenced from the 72-points-per-inch standard set by the printing industry - the fact that the camera market keeps pushing up the reference of mega-pixels = more quality is to some degree accuarte, but does not mean that you need the type of MP camera you have mentioned above to print larger ouput effectively (not even hubble has that type of power!).

 

If you scan the image at 300dpi and stitch the results together (always best done manually because each scan is going to have light and colour changes), the image will be larger, but still 300dpi.

 

Karl

[FPGA Lynx]

Steady on there Marty ,

 

I don't think the guy meant Curt was just lining his pockets with the money from unsuspecting retro geeks!, but that Atari saw the potential of retro consoles at that time.

 

 

Karl, good to see you posting again.

 

I wasn't suggesting he was stating that. He made a comment about Atari Inc. as if it designed and released the FB and FB2, which suggested to me he had no idea it was Curt that designed them and was Curt who had to work hard to get Atari to release it. Hence my response correcting him on the origin of said consoles, and why Curt was never involved in a "cash in" scheme.

 

Atari Inc. saw squat in potential at the time, they were treating the retro properties as a red headed step child (no offense to you Irish) that they didn't know what to do with. Curt had to keep on them about getting some new hardware out, and used his involvement as an adviser on some of the other plug and plays to push the FB. He was given the go-ahead the last minute on the FB with no real time and told there would be no 2 if he didn't get the 1 out in their time constraints.

 

Perhaps when the economies of the world begin to pick up again, Atari will manage to fund a new FB project and get fully behind the thing - I think the market is always ripe for these type of niche products, but you really need the parent company fully behind you to exploit the investment and get the right product to market, and not something half-baked which ruins consumer confidence for any future products.

 

Perhaps. But in the same token, they're never fully behind anything until they continually "test waters". We have some great ideas in the pipeline that are being worked on, but first thing is first.

 

I've never seen an FB in the flesh, but best of luck with the new FB's, I know we'd like to see them in Europe some day too!

 

Karl

 

That wasn't our fault. Blame some management no longer with the company. That's all I can say.

 

 

Marty,

 

Yes, been busy recently, but always check by!

 

Curt's passion definately pushed the FB to its physical release, and its the passion of many Atari fans that see projects through - just look at some of the great products released here through AA. I remember the FB days and the hair-pulling time Curt and you guys had with the suits at Atari (although it pains me to call any of these rebranded content providers Atari), but at least some of the vision got to be realised with FB2.

 

I was thinking, if "Atari" took the Atari properties one step further and brought the experience to say XBLive etc, and without the obvisous real-world challenges for a second (funding, dev, etc) have something like the PS2 Activision Anthology where you enter your period-piece living room, select an Atari console (from VCS all the way to say Lynx or even Jag), pick a game from your library (which you can further build upon) and play your emulated game. Moving on from there, tie-in an FB3 or FB4 promotion and get the products into the stores and into the main-stream market place. The physical product could differ in many ways from the software version (other titles built-in, physical cartridge/joy/expansion slot etc). We can dream right

 

As for "red-headed" Irish people (and I am one of them, although I think its really more like "Auburn"!), we also have a shitty temper, so go easy on the analogies cowboy!

 

Keep up the good work Marty,

 

Karl

[FPGA Lynx]

I'm grand, although we've just had another bruising national budget yesterday

 

I'm sure the Tramiels tried to off-load as much as they could before the eventual Hasbro sale! There is potential in the TV game systems, and those Jakks games are always on sale in this country, so they must be selling decent numbers.

 

I recall talking to one of our U.S. bigwigs at Gateway Corp. around '96 and they were discussing purchasing Amiga (like a lot of companies at the time), and he mentioned they had had some brief discussions with Atari. Gateway was really just sounding out what Atari had on the table and the annual royalties were only bringing in around $1.5 Million, Gateway were looking for intellectual properties at the time, especially anything that could be adapted to shave royalties off the PC systems it sold. The Amiga sale was similar and actually had properties that enabled a couple of Compaq (HP) royalties to be shelved due to some of the patents it had. When that deal was done, it was small change and nobody really knew what to do with it. Due to outside pressure and the range of items the Amiga sale brought, a small division was set-up to look more into the oppotunities, which eventually came to zilch (apart from a new OS). I had the Amiga system mock-up in my Marketing store-room right up until I left, wish I had taken it with me

 

Karl

[FPGA Lynx]

Just throwing two cents out here...

 

Have you considered talking to Atari, Inc? Perhaps they would give some kind of "help" in regards to pushing this as a "Flashback 3" sort of project. I love the idea of seeing a new Atari console on the market. I know the Flashback systems can be seen as "new consoles" but they were not really put out to do anything other than cash in on retro gaming.

 

Excuse me? What a load of crap. Curt didn't design the FB's as a way to "cash in on retro gaming". Rather to get new Atari hardware on the market. And management at Atari had to be dragged kicking and screaming in to it - you have no idea how many hoops had to be jumped through and continue to be jumped through to try and get the portable and actual FB3 on the market.

 

 

Steady on there Marty ,

 

I don't think the guy meant Curt was just lining his pockets with the money from unsuspecting retro geeks!, but that Atari saw the potential of retro consoles at that time. Everything comes back into style as a past generation sees the nostalgia of something from their childhood, and younger consumers get a chance to relive the times and products their parents talked about, the FB launched at such a time when Jakks etc, all saw the right market conditions.

 

Perhaps when the economies of the world begin to pick up again, Atari will manage to fund a new FB project and get fully behind the thing - I think the market is always ripe for these type of niche products, but you really need the parent company fully behind you to exploit the investment and get the right product to market, and not something half-baked which ruins consumer confidence for any future products.

 

I've never seen an FB in the flesh, but best of luck with the new FB's, I know we'd like to see them in Europe some day too!

 

Karl

[Any Commodore 64 "Experts" out there?]

Nice Joystick,

 

Not sure if the CBM "CX-40" was just a sample or produced in another territory, but it looks nice. The offical CBM controller was a wedge shaped thingy with the button placed top-middle if memory serves me right.

 

I'd agree with the Rybags and give the Lemon 64 forums a shout, they'll be nuts for one!

 

Karl

[XE was a faliure, I thought it should have been marketed better + joypad!]

If more of us had chosen the Amiga, it might have survived like the Mac did.

 

Yeah, and if we had all chosen Atari ST's, Lynxs', Jaguars', TT's, Atari "might" have survived too

 

I've never bought a system because I was "loyal" to it, although I have a particular fondeness for Atari because it was my first... But my first car was a Renault 5 (Le Car!) and although I've had many different brands of car over the years, I am currently back driving a Renault all these years later, but its not due to brand loyalty (something I can't say for my computer which is not an Atari unfortunately!). It comes down to specs and price and even sometimes the overall design, couple that with a personal emotion you get when you just like something more than something else.

 

I enjoyed the Amiga and the ST. I also enjoyed the Archimedes systems and some other niche systems over the years, but all these computers had pros and cons and many of the manufacturers are no longer with us. I used my Amiga primarily for DPaint and the ST for DTP (ASM and some MIDI apps), and even with my ST Bias, I knew the ST could not compete with the Amiga on so many levels, but at the same time the Amiga had issues as well.

 

We could debate the "what if's" until the cows come home - bottom line and to get back on topic, the XE(GS) was a great design and apparently the focus groups loved it. The machine actually sold out, and for the Tramiels, that was the whole idea.

 

Karl

[XE was a faliure, I thought it should have been marketed better + joypad!]

IMHO, the ST failed in part because it alienated the existing Atari userbase by not being an upgrade across all areas. A8 users would be upgrading to 16-bit computing, but sacrificing a sound voice and having a more restricted color palette, and no hardware sprites. The Amiga was the true heir apparent but required Atari users to cross over into enemy territory to support. 16-bit computing was also very expensive in the mid 80s. Even the ST at its cheaper pricepoint was a big leap up in price vs. the A8 or C=64. Many A8ers like myself just stuck with the A8 and became pissed off at Tramiel Atari's neglect. So Tramiel Atari was pretty bad at bringing in new users to the fold. They won over some musicians with the MIDI, and got some europeans interested in the ST, but that was about it.

 

The ST Failed??? The ST saved the company in the long run, with sales of 8-Bit systems and old Warner inventory supplying cash to keep the company afloat early on. You can't build a new computer just for your current user base, and the ST wasn't just about games (sound, sprites etc). The ST was a new machine and the 8-Bit line continued to be supported right up to 1991, you wouldn't have had any A8 support UNLESS the ST was a success for the company.

 

Karl

[XE was a faliure, I thought it should have been marketed better + joypad!]

Sticking a NES stylee joypad in an xegs would have killed the system even earlier, after all the 7800 came packed with an nes type joypad and we all know how that system faired

 

I was told or heard that the xegs was Atari worst perfprming gaming system (by sales figures)

 

Just to clarify, the 7800 only came with the Atari Joypads in Europe AFAIK.

 

The XEGS was a well thought out design and concept, and was the perfect platform to consume older stock inventory Atari still had of 8-Bit parts. It actually sold out with the 7800 in 1987, and did very well in the UK and Australia.

 

I don't think the 8-Bit platform was important to Atari by the late 80's in any case, but people still bought it!

 

Karl

[Rare Lynx Kiosk]

Here are some images of my Lynx kiosk for anyone who has not seen one before. I don't think Atari made many. The top half is made of 2 separate heavy plastic units: the top (or logo banner), and the triangle post with a list of the all of the software titles that were available at the time. The base is built much like an arcade machine, or the Jaguar Kiosk; made of heavy particle board and covered in full color box art protected by thick clear plastic. The right side has a small lock and opens up for storage. The unit supports 2 lynx units in the shape of a triangle. When placed back to back with another kiosk it would form full square and support four player COMLYNX play.

 

We had a few of the 4-Player versions in the Dublin stores I worked for back in the day, the only difference being the steel pole had circular holes througout and was coloured the same gray as the wooden stand. I always thought they should have had lighting LYNX headers and additional speakers set inside them to amplify the Lynx sound and grab more attention in the store

 

Karl

[A few Atari Flyers Wanted :-)]

Flyers wanted update #3:

 

1 - APB

2 - Gauntlet (2P and 4P) and Gauntlet II

3 - Pacmania

4 - Cyberball

5 - Toobin'

6 - Vindicators

7 - Skull & Crossbones

8 - Superpong

9 - Atari C.A.T.

10 - Supersprint (colour version)

11 - Vs. RBI Baseball

12 - Any of the Atari Arcade Ad's as seen in Game Meter/Game Room/Variety/Cash Box etc would be of interest.

 

Also need Rampart Flyer if anyone can help.

 

Ok, so over the last couple of months I have slowly located some of the remaining flyers (thanks to all of you who contacted me). I've only got a few more to get, so any help, especially with Gauntlet, would be great.

 

Please PM me if you can help me obtain the remaining flyers Its for a VERY good cause (of which, I will expand upon very soon at AA).

 

Best regards,

 

Karl

[Jack Tramiel - Sinner or Saint]

BTW, I don't think Intel had anything to do with the PPC

 

 

But you know something....they are not only still around, they are still the giant

they have always been.

 

 

They controlled their market correctly and have always stuck to their roadmaps and weathered the storm. A few lessons Atari could have taken onboard was looking at how Intel manage their business model. Anybody here who has worked closely with them know how professional they can be.

 

And... Apple eventually made the switch too...

 

Karl

[Jack Tramiel - Sinner or Saint]

(Doh! Sorry this double post, Mods please delete if required).

 

(Example of how easy it is to make dumb mistakes :-) )

[Jack Tramiel - Sinner or Saint]

I'm not voting

 

I will just say though, it's interesting that just after tramiel left commodore, commodore started going downhill (especially after they got the amiga), yet when tramiel bought out Atari, whilst i accept that atari was already loosing some market share, tramiel did nothing to staunch it or stop losing market share

 

Perhaps if tramiel didn't try and get idea's above his station while at commodore, commodore might have been more of a competitor to the PC then Apple...or there again, commodore might have gone under a lot quicker then they did

 

In reference to James D comments on the motorola 68k familly and motorola's continuation in that market, he'd obviosuly forgot the 88k family which were basically a RISC version(s) of the 68k family and ofcourse the PPC (designed in partnership with IBM and Intel) can also trace it's design roots back to the 68k family

 

 

I've made my position on this topic many times before :-)

 

Many of you may be a little hazy on the history of Atari... But without going into all the details, Warner made as many, if not more, bad decisions as the Tramiel family did.

 

Nobody runs a company perfectly and yes, profit is king. There isn't much love in business, but there is always dedication and hard work involved.

 

Looking back at things at Atari after they have happened and making uneducated or even disrespectful comments on events just muddies the history.

 

I'll just say this... The Tramiels ran Atari longer than Bushnell or Warner and no matter what your feelings towards any of the key decision makers are today, we have a great legacy of systems to remember and to enjoy to this day. Sure, we could fix all the problems at Atari if we had a crystal ball :-)

 

BTW, I don't think Intel had anything to do with the PPC

 

Merry Christmas one and all... and don't pay Casio another cent for those Lynx LCD's... there too bloody expensive Sam! (Yes Jack).

 

Karl

[A few Atari Flyers Wanted :-)]

4 - Cyberball

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/1989-ATARI-CYBERBALL-O...1QQcmdZViewItem

 

That's for Cyberball 2072 unfortunately :-(

 

Thanks for looking out though

 

Karl

[A few Atari Flyers Wanted :-)]

I've got a few older ones...

 

Asteroids, Missile Command and Battlezone...

 

 

Hi SoundGammon,

 

Really appreciate your reply and help, but I only need the ones listed.

 

Thanks again,

 

Karl

[Atari Arcade Flyers - Help :-)]

Flyers wanted PLEASE!

 

1 - Gauntlet (2P and 4P) and Gauntlet II

2 - Pacmania

3 - Cyberball

4 - Toobin'

5 - Vindicators

6 - Superpong

7 - Atari C.A.T.

8 - Supersprint (colour version)

 

Misc. - Any of the Atari Arcade Ad's as seen in Game Room/Variety/Cash Box etc would be of interest.

 

Please PM me if you can help me obtain the above items.

 

Thanks for reading guys.

 

Karl

[A few Atari Flyers Wanted :-)]

B U M P....

[Favorite Computers based on industrial design]

Great topic!

 

Without voicing my bias towards Atari's industrial design, the following machines would be next on my favourites list:

 

1) Digital (DEC) Rainbow 100 (and Professional)

Solid build, beautiful styling right down to the disk drives.

 

2) Digital (DEC) VT-100

A absolute icon in terminal design to this day

 

3) Apple Mac (and some variants such as SE etc)

Another icon in design and simplicity

 

4) Commodore C-65 (Proto)

Nice looking machine

 

5) Sony Hit-Bit range

Lovely 80's design from Sony, some with soft round edges and others with sharp industrial angles

 

6) Sony e-Villa

Ill-fated product, but clever design

 

Oh, I have to mention the ST Book, one of the cutest portables of its age

 

Karl

[ULTIMATE BRAIN GAMES PROTOTYPE FOUND!OMG!]

Nice find...

 

but...

 

Its a real shame most of us don't have the right "status" to view a few images though

 

This has always been a bugbear of mine; either you share your Atari finds with the wider community or you don't.

 

Everything we find at the Atari Museum is shared at some point when we have the time to do so, and there is no "status" you must reach to view or use our Atari history

 

Perhaps somebody can post a few images here???

 

Karl

[Atari Corp. Lynx POP Displays]

You're right... I'm not an UBER collector! LOL

 

 

So, your just serious then :-)

 

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=uber

 

Karl

[Atari Corp. Lynx POP Displays]

Thanks for the replies so far guys,

 

This message is really going out to the "serious collectors" out there because I know they must have a few of the Lynx POP items

 

Daryl Still is at nVidia now, and its a while since I spoke to him (he got a nice bottle of 25 year old whiskey from me the last time we spoke!) but I must try and drop him a line again.

 

I use to work for the Irish CBM/Atari distributor and I can definately say without a shadow of a doubt that any and all POP material is well gone at this stage

 

Anyway, perhaps something will turn up soon - I know there are some lurkers at AA

 

best,

 

Karl

 

 

For the 'serious collectors'

Hmm.. last time I looked quite a few of us were serious collectors.

 

Hopefully you find what you are looking for. I would be interested in seeing some of those items as well.

 

EricDeLee,

 

Your definately "serious" then

 

So, I should perhaps rephrase that the message is aimed at those "quite a few" who collect Lynx items and are uber-serious Lynx collectors and who have mega-serious Lynx collections just might have what I'm looking for

 

Karl

[Atari Corp. Lynx POP Displays]

Thanks for the replies so far guys,

 

This message is really going out to the "serious collectors" out there because I know they must have a few of the Lynx POP items

 

Daryl Still is at nVidia now, and its a while since I spoke to him (he got a nice bottle of 25 year old whiskey from me the last time we spoke!) but I must try and drop him a line again.

 

I use to work for the Irish CBM/Atari distributor and I can definately say without a shadow of a doubt that any and all POP material is well gone at this stage

 

Anyway, perhaps something will turn up soon - I know there are some lurkers at AA

 

best,

 

Karl

[Atari Corp. Lynx POP Displays]

Hi Guys,

 

Can you contact me (PM) if you have any Lynx POP displays such as the POP Lynx Batman with little red light display, or standard counter-top Lynx demo unit. Also, any real-world photos of the Lynx in store back in the good old days.

 

Looking for images/photos only.

 

Many thanks,

 

Karl

[A few Atari Flyers Wanted :-)]

Flyers wanted update #2:

 

1 - APB

2 - Gauntlet (2P and 4P) and Gauntlet II

3 - Pacmania

4 - Cyberball

5 - Toobin'

6 - Vindicators

7 - Skull & Crossbones

8 - Superpong

9 - Atari C.A.T.

10 - Supersprint (colour version)

11 - Vs. RBI Baseball

12 - Any of the Atari Arcade Ad's as seen in Game Room/Variety/Cash Box etc would be of interest.

 

Damn! I thought I had most of these done and dusted when I purchased a few of the flyers above and they went missing in the post I got a full refund and nobody was to blame but the postal service, but I really need a dig out if you can supply any of the above.

 

Please PM me if you can help me obtain the remaining flyers Its for a VERY good cause!

 

Best regards,

 

Karl