OldAtarian

I remember when these things were rare as hen's teeth now there's a few sellers from S. America selling them on ebay and they seem to have them new in box and in quantity. Did some sort of secret warehouse stash turn up down there?

Why wouldn't the VCS adapter with on the 4 port system? I never heard that before.

1. Atari kept the VCS in production WAY past it's expiration date which cut into the sales of Atari's future consoles. There should have been a reasonable overlap during the 5200 period but we shouldn't have seen VCS consoles still on store shelves in 1992. Atari should have been encouraging customers to buy it's new machines, not it's old one. It's called planned obsolescence and businesses have been doing it for a hundred years or more but that was apparently lost on Atari. 2. Atari, apparently, didn't spend enough time actually playtesting the controllers. When complaints started rolling in a new controller should have been put out to replace the defective ones immediately instead of them trying to tiptoe around the issue. The spectre of the rotten controllers haunts the 5200 to this day. 3. Atari didn't spend any money obtaining new licenses and kept rehashing their old VCS games to death on every new console they released. The Jaguar was the only system that wasn't dominated by 5-10 year old arcade titles. 4. When Colecovision hit the market Atari had a strong competitor with good, and more importantly, fresh games that they hadn't counted on. The 5200 was intended to better the specs of the Intellivision which itself was already getting old. Colecovision wasn't even on Atari's radar until it was too late. 5. Too many consoles, too many games. There were too many companies competing for a slice of the pie which led to the big crash of 83. Choice is good, but when you have too many choices the pie is divided up into too many pieces and nobody makes any money. The poor quality of some games during that time period also spooked a lot of people from buying games and retailers from carrying them. Anyone with a computer and an EPROM burner could make a game cart, leading to the market being flooded with crap. After the crash they probably felt it wasn't worth keeping the 5200 around (but apparently they felt the outdated VCS was worth keeping around, for another 9 years, ironically since it was the deluge of crap games being dumped onto the market for it that was a major contributor to the crash. Tsk.) 6. Home computers were stealing the limelight from dedicated game consoles. Prices were falling and home computers could do more than play games. They had more memory and better graphics than the consoles of the day so manufacturers switched their focus to them leading to all the many different home computers that came out of the 80's, some were pretty good and others were a disaster. Atari stood to make more focusing on it's computer line than it's game consoles. Most 5200 games had 400/800 equivalents that looked and played just as well anyway so I guess it was thought that ditching the 5200 and pushing the A8 in it's place made more sense than keeping it around.

Since the 5200 is pretty much an Atari 400, I wondered if anyone had ever tried modding the VCS adapter for the 5200 to work with an A8? Would this even be possible? (I hope I've just started the wheels turning in some of you mad geniuses)

Doesn't someone now sell a pretty much bulletproof rebuild kit for the 5200 controllers?

The three black boxes stacked on top of each other all say Digital F/X Digital Master EX on them. I'll have to dig the little black box out of storage for a better description. Edit: Ooohh. I managed to dig out a manual for the Digital F/X stuff and the little black box is what interfaces the 3 bigger boxes to the ST through the cartridge port. I still have no idea how to really use this stuff once I have the time to set it up, though. Anyone care to teach me? (Can I use a Roland MT32 with this stuff?)

Never had that issue, but once upon a time in my decadent youth, I had a Coup DeVille with a 500 motor in it. Even in that big, heavy tank of a vehicle, it pulled and ran good. Not much for mileage though...what memories! I almost bought a 76 Coupe DeVille once but it had a blown rear main seal and poured oil everywhere. It wouldn't have been worth the cost to pull the motor just to replace a $5 seal. My dad had a 77 Olds Vista Cruiser that he bought from a friend of mine who put a 425 Cadillac engine in it.

How about a Guncon? Has anyone tried modding one of those for Atari use?

What drive mechs are known to have been used in 810 drives? Did they ever use the Tandon TM100?

No way is that worth what he is asking. I have always questioned the wisdom of placing a floppy drive inside a CRT case. There would have to be some heavy RF shielding in there separating the drive from the CRT to ensure reliable floppy operation. I wouldn't trust my files on any disc that's been in that drive. Apparently not a lot of other Atari users trusted the PS3000 any more than I did since so few seem to have been sold. That doesn't necessarily make them valuable, though. A bad idea from 25 years ago is still a bad idea today.

Has anyone opened these up and found out what makes them tick? Can they be interchanged if you have the right plug ends?

I understand . I still have fun with my VIC 20,C64,Atari 800XL,TI99/4A etc... from a collectors view point I have the room and the Aquarius would be a nice addition but from a practical standpoint I can't see the exorbitant price for what i'm getting cause we ain't talking Faberge Eggs here yeah seems mattel was trying to cash in on the computer revolution of the early 80's but didnt bring a good hand to the table... it probly could have gotten a decent following if they did things a little different, but like most of that era, they didnt... and to complete a collection of an 80's era computers, finding one would be a good addition, but its not uncommon to find them at garage sales, second hand stores etc, so high prices arnt warrented, especially considering the limited appeal of them, and low number of collectors for the platform... sloopy. If they'd repackaged the Intellivision with more memory and the ability to use peripherals it would have been a much better machine than the Aquarius and would have had a huge software library available from day 1. Most of the heavy work had already been done. They had the Intellivision and the keyboard attachment that they could have combined into a single unit then all they'd need is a way to interface with peripherals. Even Coleco managed to turn the Colecovision into a computer. Mattel could have easily done the same.

Is it true stereo, though, or just two POKEYs playing the same voice through two speakers? It's not the same thing as stereo. The POKEYs would have to be capable of independent operation for that.

That must be fun, considering the 7500 motherboard runs at 50 MHz. Putting a 1GHz G4 into a 7500 seems a little like shoehorning a 500 horsepower engine into a Yugo. Can't imagine that G4 upgrade was cheap, either. How did you get 1GB of RAM into it? I've never heard of anyone getting over 512MB before. With these http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Upgrades.cfm?sort=pop&model=31&type=Memory&TI=0025&shoupgrds=Show+Upgrades 1gb in a 7500 is nothing, though, you can get up to 1.5gb in a 9500/9600. And you obviously never saw the issue of Hot Rod magazine where they put a 500ci Cadillac engine into a Chevette.

i owned an aquarius many a moon ago, and it makes the original mac look 'open' and expandable... even the poke command was limited to the screen memory portion of ram... probly like the 400, there was a decent machine inside screaming to be rid of its shackles and let out, but unlike the 400, it didnt have a higher end model to show the potential within... i wouldnt own one for any price, but for someone who knows (or is willing to learn) its secrets, it would probly make a usable computer... sloopy. From what I read the Aquarius was supposed to built by the same company that developed Intellivision technology but you wouldn't know it from how utterly useless it is even compared to an Intellivision with keyboard attachment. At least with an Intellivision you had an abundance of game carts you could play. The Aquarius even used a different style cart and not much was ultimately released for it. It's abilities as both a computer and a gaming platform were laughable. A 2600 with a Compumate was probably a better computer.

Both seem to be completely dead. The power LEDs come on but nothing else happens and I've used multiple power supplies that I know are functional with other machines I have.

He messaged me about it but his location is a little farther away than I would normally consider traveling. I might still give him a try, though, if nobody else steps forward.

You all have to be kidding. $50 a good price for a 600XL?!? Please. You can't even run DOS in 16k can you? You might as well get a XEGS if all you're going to do is play cartridge games with it. The memory expansions for the 600XL are too few and far between to make it worth it to even buy a 600XL as anything but a novelty.

Alex can put in the socket needed to do that if you've got something like an AdSpeed or T-series accelerator to do it with. He's socketed a couple of ST's for me. Oh so they can't put in a 16mhz 68000 and change the clocks to 16mhz? If you are simply asking if that *can* be done, then the answer is yes. Ralcool over at AtariForums has a thread on it. You should check it out there. Now, can Alex at ATY do this mod? I'm not sure - best to go right to the source and ask him directly. Do you have a link? I went to three different places that call themselves Atariforums and none of them has a ralcool as a registered user.

Is there one? If not we should start one.

I'm going to have to agree with the above, wholeheartedly. The composite/RF thing sounds good in theory, but in practice it sucks an egg. There is **NOTHING** like the crispness of an Atari SC1224 monitor. If the ST could be coaxed into S-video or component video, then there might be a chance. As I am one of the less-technical people here (I don't know jack-shit), I wonder as to the feasibility of such a connection. Technical-types, please chime in. Until then, get an SC1224. While the Atari monitors are still somewhat readily available, it's not really a good option unless you have money to waste. Shipping is probably going to be in the $50+ range and that puts almost any price way over what they are actually worth. Those guys selling them for $200 on ebay are on crack. You'd need to be able to find one locally.

It had a limited test market in the New York area in Christmas '85, which did not go well. The reports on the test marketing from January '86 CES stated retailers in NY considered it a failure. Likewise, that's not a mass marketing, that did not occur until the national launch in the second half of '86 as stated. As you stated, which I certainly agree with, "a limited test run doesn't count as being released in my book". Think you might have misread his question... Madaracs - Good catch. Matt - yes, the NES was test marketed in '86 as well. After the '85 New York one there was an Feb '86 Los Angeles testing, and then a slow transition to testing in a few other major cities (Chicago, etc.) leading up to the national launch. According to Gamespy, the national launch was in Feb 86 so when was this LA test launch of yours? "After test-marketing in the New York City area in late fall, the system was released nationwide in February, 1986."

You might not like their numbering convention, but Mac OS X 10.2 (circa 2002) is a VERY different beast than Mac OS X 10.6 (current). You will find that there are roughly 18 months or so between 0.1 increments of Mac OS X, and all them are significant. The "minor versions" are the 0.0.x versions (e.g. 10.6.3), and those minor versions are supported for the hardware on which they originally delivered the major version (10.6, in this example). I'm not asking you to like Mac OS X, but I think it is worthwhile to keep the facts straight. Ok, even with what you said, you are saying that every 18 months the hardware is essentially being bricked, maybe 3 years at most. That is a serious problem considering how much you paying as a premium to have Mac products. Also, there are the constant hardware changes that literally send your investment to zero (or very close) as the coolness factor wears off. I am not saying PCs aren't like this either, but the rate is much slower and the replacement costs are far less, even for higher end machines. My Powermac 7500 from 1995 runs OS X Leopard. It has a 1ghz G4, 1GB RAM and a Radeon 9200 video card. What's your 1995 DOS/Windows box doing now?

Ah crap. I should have known. It always happens when I link an image. It always gets blocked. Have to find another one now. Let's see how long this one lasts

The 5200 was actually a repackaged 400! You can easily get 5200 games to run on a 400/800 just by changing a few memory references as some of the locations were changed or used for different things in the 5200.