jaybird3rd

The XGS sounded much more exciting before its release, when it was touted as a system that you can build completely by yourself using loose parts and a blank board. From a quick look at the website, it now seems to have been "dumbed down" considerably: a premade board that you can snap peripherals into and program from a PC. That isn't any more exciting to me than building an inexpensive PC. The Atari hardware was much more interesting, and I'd love to see complete new clones made, but I'm afraid the cost is still too prohibitive. I do like supercat's idea of designing new systems around Atari's original chips, though. More than anything else, I'd really love to see someone design an improved motherboard for the 7800, integrating a POKEY socket and composite video and a standard power supply jack and more onboard RAM. If a new case is too expensive, the board could be sold by itself as an upgrade, which a 7800 owner could install inside the original case and populate with the original 7800 chips.

You're welcome, and I wouldn't think of it.

This post and this post by Curt in the "7800 Signature Series" thread should give you a good idea.

The 2600 was already obsolete long before the C64 came out. Atari's death was more of a suicide than anything else: they failed to retain their best hardware and software engineers and coasted with the 2600 for far too long. Without the Activision/Imagic guys, they couldn't keep up with their competition in creating compelling games, and without Jay Miner and his group, they didn't have the expertise to develop the next generation of video game console technology. They couldn't even effectively leverage the technology they already had; the 5200 (a repackaging of the 400/800) was so ill-conceived that Atari never developed another video game console in-house.

I almost called the 7800 a "superset" of the 2600 instead of an "upgrade," and it probably would have been a better choice of words. The 7800 had everything the 2600 architecture had and added a graphics coprocessor and extra RAM on top of it, and I was thinking of that as an "upgrade" of the 2600 architecture in much the same way that the 32X was an "upgrade" of the Genesis. But the 7800 was a single unit where the 32X was an add-on module, so I can see why the word "upgrade" isn't applicable.

Well, it could hardly do worse than the "professionals" who have picked up the Atari name and then driven it into the ground time and time again. Good riddance to Infogrames. Their use of the Atari name to sell their crummy licensed games, and that stunt they pulled with their craptacular "Basic Fun" keychains, cancels out any sympathy they might have gotten from me. However ... I think that a company that is dedicated to classic video games could have a lot of success with the Atari properties. I'm envisioning something like a combination of INTV Corp. of the 1980s and Intellivision Productions of today. It could continue to produce authentic Atari systems in the form of TV-games like the Flashbacks (and without Infogrames meddling with the designs this time!), as well as emulation compilations for modern platforms. If such a company could be small enough and could keep its overhead relatively low, I don't see why its earnings from those two things alone wouldn't be enough to keep it afloat and profitable. It could even do things like manufacture Atari-licensed merchandise and new "Collector's Editions" of popular or rare Atari games, and sponsor the development of some new games to help flesh out the classic libraries and to feed the buyers of reprogrammable systems like the FB3. I bet it could work, and I'm sure it would all cost a whole lot less than Infogrames' Marc Ecko license, too!

Well, even Atari admitted (in one of their ST ads) that they were a "terrible marketing company."

Is the irony inherent in the above comment lost on everyone but me?Cheers A Nope.

Some more information from Infogrames' press release: Doesn't sound like good news to me.

That's what I figure. Atari was still using a lot of POKEYs at the time the 7800 was released, in their 8-bit computers as well as coin-ops, and they must not have wanted to bother with making a pin-reduced version. It is a pity that GCC's initial plans to integrate improved sound into MARIA didn't work out. I believe they were in the process of designing a new, low-cost sound chip specifically for the 7800 (which they called "Gumby" as opposed to Atari's "Pokey"), but that never made it into production either.

Just a quick update: I stopped by my local Wal-Mart (in northeast Alabama) yesterday afternoon and visited the TV-games aisle for the first time since I started this thread. It doesn't look like the keychain games are selling at all: there seemed to be just as many sitting on the shelf as there were three weeks ago. Meanwhile, there were only two FB2 consoles left in stock, and somebody walked off with one of them before I left.

Bushnell had a lot to do with the 2600 (Atari was still his company when it was developed), and the 7800 is essentially an upgrade of the 2600 that retains backward-compatibility. Plus, he was involved in creating new 2600 games for Atari at Axlon that were marketed to 7800 owners. It's a somewhat tenuous link, to be sure, but I can see the argument for putting his name on the case.

I don't see any harm in using it, as long as it's taken care of; it's just a stock 7800 board inside and that's easy enough to replace. Just as long as it stays FAR away from these guys!

The only software I'm aware of that TI released for free distribution (but didn't release into the public domain) was the prototype software for the unreleased 99/8. This was posted on the TI Online User Group a couple years ago: I remember seeing a bunch of C&D letters and e-mails from the author of this letter to distributors of 99/4A software, so they're obviously still interested in protecting those properties. I can't see them ever doing anything with them, though; there's probably nobody left at TI that was involved with the 99/4A, and TI would probably just as soon forget it ever existed.

Another issue is that, if "Atari" were to produce a new system with a cartridge slot that is compatible with the original, they would be inundated with calls from people who tried to jam a 25-year-old, maggot-infested 2600 cartridge into the slot and couldn't get it working (or broke the console). They're not going to want to support software that they didn't even sell, which is probably why Curt's original FB3 spec included a "cartridge slot" that was pin-compatible with the original but in a different form factor. But I agree ... the economics of the modern PnP TV-game market won't allow a high-end piece of hardware like a 7800 reproduction console. People are used to a much smaller and simpler piece of hardware that has a bunch of games built-in, and companies don't want authenticity as much as they want dirt-cheap hardware and software that they can slap together quickly and make a good profit on (just look at those nasty "Basic Fun" keychains from "Atari" for a perfect example of that). I still think a 7800 repro would be a wonderful thing, but I'm not sure how O'Shea's or anyone else could profitably sell enough of them in today's world for it to be a viable endeavor.

I don't know, but I don't think his history pages had been updated in about five years. It had to be a LOT of work to put them together, and even more work to keep them up-to-date, and I figure he's just decided to focus on other interests/concerns instead. I noticed they were gone a couple months ago; fortunately, I had already saved text copies for my own reference.

Twenty-six hundred. I still think it should be obvious.

Welcome to the tragic world of the 7800. Many of the later titles were also done on other systems, and the 7800 versions seemed almost like afterthoughts that nobody really put much effort into. I'm glad that homebrewers are finally starting to care about the system and are developing games that show what it can really do.

I've heard him say "VCS" and "2600" depending on the context. Actually, with his midwest accent, it's more like "twenny-six hunderd," but you get the idea.

PM sent!

Awesome!!! I noticed after my post that you were correcting the letters, which are way too far apart in the font (particularly the "ATA"). Again, VERY nice job!

I really like the new designs with the port labels, Guitarman! I'm especially fond of the second and third designs, and I'd be hard-pressed to vote for just one if it came down to it! Regarding the Atari logo, the "SF Atarian System" font is the TrueType Atari font that is most commonly used. The "ATARI" letters are really close, but they and the Fuji logo itself are spaced and tapered differently than the originals that Atari used, and it's just one of those things that leaps out at me when I see it. Perhaps a side-by-side comparison would demonstrate this. Here is the Tramiel-style logo as rendered by "SF Atarian System": And here is the Atari original (which I scanned from my 130XE manual and cleaned up a bit): See the difference in the size and shape of the legs? The Fuji is much "stronger" in the original. Both of these logos are monochrome PNG files, and I scanned the original at 600DPI for maximum detail. I don't know what's involved in incorporating the original logo into the design and vectorizing it and applying the same emboss filter, but that's the logo I'd love to see on the MIO. Again, it's a minor issue and I'm not trying to be picky; I just want to see the same kind of attention to detail on the outside of the case that Ken and company has given to the internal design.

Looks good to me, Ken! One minor issue ... the font that was used to create that Atari logo doesn't make a very good Fuji (the left and right legs don't look quite right). It would be great if that could be fixed before the design is finalized. I've got some scans that I took from some original Atari literature that I'll have to dig out, although I might need some help with converting it to the correct vectorized format as I don't have PhotoShop. I think I also have some scans of the Tramiel-era logo (with the Fuji to the left of the "ATARI" instead of on top of it), which I think might be an even better fit for this design.

Pancake Boy!

Those keychain games are "sweet"? Well, so is drinking antifreeze, but that's nauseating and vomit-inducing too.