Stella'sGhost

True story: I opened up an ET cart in 1983 because I wanted to know why it was making such an odd noise and to my surprise a tiny Steven Speilberg jumped out and slapped me on the nose, then he jumped back in and closed the door.

Greetings. I really loved FLASHBACK on my Genesis, but I didn't know it had come out for the Jag... is the Atari version as good as I think it is? It looks really good at any rate.... probably identical to the sega version but with better graphics no doubt?

Very funny I say, I used to do a similar thing at work, but not with atari characters, I should have though, damn it. I like how in the last frame you sort of wrap it up with a character that has nothing really to do with the joke...but he kinda does in an odd kind of way.... I am reading too much into this.

That D-town demo is awesome, runs fine on my G3, but I have an ATI card in there I don't think,those 3D demos are FLASH, they are probably DIRECTOR 8.5 movies, same company, totally different apps. Adventure in Flash is done beautifully!! Love it.

People aren't going to rush out and by a new gaming system just because the graphics are better: one, if it's a new system, that's just a given, and two, people are going to buy a new gaming console because they WANT one (XBox with it's poor sales/ho-hum games, anyone?). Even though I liked a buddy's Colecovision a lot, a lot of the arcade ports ran a lot slower, were easier and a bit boring as compared to the originals, like Looping and Space Panic, even though I liked the latter a lot. By the way, is that the Microvision Pinball in your new icon? That's so cool!! I used to have one, but sold it and it's games at a garage sale...one of my few video game regrets, as I was a young lad who didn't know any better back then... Yes I know what you mean, I remember seeing Colecovision and liking the graphics but I was not convinced that it had better games than the 2600... but I was pretty young too, I don't think I noticed any difference really, I just knew Atari and thought Atari was the best, brand name loyalty even as I was just turning 13. How old are you?? I also remember seeing the Bally Astrocade and thought it was interesting but the console seemed so flimsy and ugly that I just passed on it. I didn't know anyone who had a colecovision, though I did like its graphics and I saw some really good games, better than the 2600, but it wasn't cheap and I didn't have a job, I was only a kid! However if I had really wanted one I would have gotten one for my birthday, but instead I got a computer. Intellivison was nice, but here in Canada it was EXPENSIVE and so were the games and even as a young kid I remember thinking that the graphics on it was pretty good but the games were not good at all, the kind of games I wanted to play anways (not sports) thats the impression I got. I also didn't like the controllers, that I DO remember well. But in the end, during the 1980's I never did buy another system, not even the NES, I just stuck with Atari because I liked its games and later Sega, and I had a Texas Instruments computer, which by the way had better graphics than the 2600 and the atari 800 but only had a few good games. Yes... that is the MicroVision Pinball, good eye... too bad you sold it.

I think so too. I think so too, which is why if the 7800 had been released earlier with a better sound chip and full support Nintendo would not have gotten such a hold on the market over here. But its all about price - cost - time... sucks in the end! The 7800 could have been a much better machine had they spent the time to make it right, even the 5200 could have been better but its typical Atari mentality - such as the 2600jr - "lets milk it till its dry boys.", I also think Atari was spreading itself too thin with their 3 departments... focus on video games thats what they should have done. Its all water under the bridge or chips under the silicon?, but it's still interesting to look back and see where things went wrong and right.

Paul, thats the ticket! It's up to you! You must make Pitfall III, I have forseen it, you have the power, it is your destiny.....

Sorry. No its not. But this one ^ is !!

You know who has the worst labels?? M-Network!....

... sure, its a good system, but it's graphics are not much better than the 2600 and its basically the same as an atari 800 computer, meanwhile Colecovision had better graphics, the only reason the 5200 was selling so well was that it had the name ATARI, but Atari didn't even support their own product. It is evident by the 6 million coleco units sold in just 2 years that people also wanted better graphics, even though we all say that gameplay is more important, back in those days graphics were just as important because this was all new to everyone and we were impressed by higher resolution, better sound and more colors.... The 7800 could have competed with Colecovision on that level, and any other system out there. Aracde ports for the 7800 would have been that much better than those on the 5200 without alienating the large 2600 games and fanbase. By the time the 7800 came out the NES was already taking over.... * oh, I made a mistake, earlier I posted that coleco had 100 sprites, it actually had 32.... still, more than the 2600 but the 7800 had many more sprites at any rate.

I know why, cause they see all of this stuff as junk. Many of the employees that work at the places I frequent have no idea what this stuff is, at least thats the impression I get. Once a woman working at the cash recognized the Atari XEGS I had found on a back shelf (mint!), a rare find in my parts, but she thought it was a typewriter and that it was probably only a few years old... I told her that this was a actually an uncommon computer from the late 1980's ... an Atari, she blinked and didn't seem to know what Atari was. Another time a rather pretty girl who worked there recognized the atari carts I had found in a box and she remembered playing atari when she was younger, but she thought no one played the old Atari anymore. I said, sure, people like me are still into this stuff, I suddenly felt like a giant geek. Another time I saw a Venture for 18$... the horror, the horror.... I've told this one before, so what. Another time I saw a bunch of kids at a flea market looking at nes games, meanwhile I was looking through a box of atari games. Well these kids looked over at me and they started to look at me and gazing into my box and one of them asked me "what are those for?" I said, "these are games, like those nes games but for the Atari vcs." The kid looks at them and makes a weird face, "whats Atari?"..... the horror the horror...

The thing is XBOX is very impressive, designed for the hard core gamer, with hard core specs. The PS2 is powerfull, designed for both the hard core gamer and just about any one into video games. Gamecube is not as powerfull but its also cheaper, everymans video game system, but its also high quality, typical Nintendo. As usual who cares, in the end its the games that count, I can think of several amazingly great games for GENESIS that are better than many PS2 games, and so far I see great games for all systems... but sony has the most, and Nintendo has a history of making great games... XBOX is too new to see whats going to happen but Im sure some wicked games are coming. Dont forget GameBoy Advance, there are some great games for that system, and its only 32 bit!! At any rate, getting back to the Atari thing, I think that if they had released the 7800 in 1984 and scrapped the stupid 5200, (and they could have) things may have worked out better for Atari. They should have put all their efforts into the 7800 and its games and accessories but instead they focused on the home computer market, and the 5200 and the 2600jr??? ...meanwhile Coleco Vision had a far superior graphics chip than the 2600 which allowed for 100 sprites and more colors (same chip in the TI computers) the 7800 could have easily competed with it but Atari was still pushing their outdated systems, all the while losing their lead in the home video game market. By the time they realized this Nintendo and Sega had surpassed them and the 7800 was released too late. The 7800 should have saved Atari..... Thats what I think, even though this is all common knowledge now a days. So if the 7800 had worked out and this may had led them down another path, do you guys/gals think Atari would still be here in the console market today?????

That show rules! I feel old, I used to watch it when it was NEW. Actually playing an Atari with no cart inserted is more fun than playing an Atari with Pacman inserted. I've noticed whenever I show someone the atari and they either have never played it or haven't seen one in 17 years, they always hold the joysticks wrong!!

If you have more than 1000 posts... you are and or might have these reasons: 10. bored 9. extremely bored 8. divorced 7. too fat to move away from the computer 6. in a trance like state 5. in love with Albert 4. every time you post you get 1$ 3. have to get the last word in every time 2. have 1 or 2 friends, and they are all on-line 1. waiting to see what # of posts you need before it resets itself like a speedometer.

I see your point, the packaging does look authentic in the pictures, it looks great actually! And I would agree that this was not made to please hard-core gamers.

That sucks, that's a good site and the guy who runs is seems like a cool fellow. Where I registerd my site name, they automatically renew it unless I tell them not to

Aside from getting some impressive graphics out of the atari, I'm impressed with some of the Artificial Intelligence on alot of these games. I do some game programming in Lingo -(which is one of the Highest level languages out there!) and I always find the most challenging aspect of game programming is the game play itself, key to this it seems to me is how complex the A-I of the game, the bad guys, the space ships, the "world" that the game is in..... its amazing how a simple sub routine can give a bad guy some really cool A-I, and on many Atari games the A-I is top-notch, state of the art, brilliant stuff!! So its all about A-I! Aint it?? I'm pretty much a self-taught programmer so I'm no expert - and I don't know assembly but I can appreciate it!

I remember some threads about this as well, It's a good idea to have paddle games seperate from joystick games, but I still don't get why they put Circus Atari, Volleyball and Olympics on there, these are, in comparison to so many other excellent games, pretty lame games. Who cares about packaging if what's indside sucks? Isn't this the oldest mistake in electronics and software design? And its true, I'll be buying one of those anyways, I can't pass up anything Atari.

Are those the actual games in this thing? They are all good games of course, but of all the games out there why Volley Ball, Circus Atari and Video Olympics? Memory constraints? Or just really bad desicion making? Didn't the company at least poll retro gamers to find out what Atari games they would most like to see in this? I guess not. I'm sorry but the fact that they put in Circus Atari, Volleyball and Video Olympics just says to me that those guys are out of touch and well, what could have been something cool is in fact something not so cool.

Still a stupid name.

Sounds like its not as good as we had hoped, I'll have to check it out anyways. I'm sure any homebrewer could make it right, and I hope they do.

Atari's destiny was to be a pioneer, looking back now you can see that. Atari belongs to the distant world of 8 bit technology, but that was such an interesting time and Atari's impact on the future of video games and the home console market was so huge that it can never really die now can it?... :wink: I think Nintendo had as much to do with killing Atari as Atari had to do with killing itself.

If he gets this thing to work, how will we be able to use it? WIll we have to design our own "computer" to play the BINS or does it use carts? I guess one could build a very compact version of a 2600 with this, would it work with a small LCD screen? I remember this Lopez guy. This sounds interesting, but very complicated....

NO, its analog. Vibrating joystick? This sounds like a cool idea, and it sounds easy to do on the hardware side of it. Well everyone already said their piece in regards to Rich1972's post but I'll add my own 56 cents. Rich, I see where you are coming from, but I think that out of all the people who still have an Atari 2600, probably only a tiny percentage are capable of and or interested in and actually have made some kind of mod to it. There are probably several hundred thousand 2600 units world wide in working order right now, so many millions were made, and were stored away where they could last for a hell of along time. Uh, yeah, don't point your telecsope to the stars, what for? we all know they are made of cheese. Yeah, once we mod all of the 20 million joysticks made by Atari then what are we gonna do? I for one will eat a giant bowl of donuts. I dont' think that a "modder" or home brewer's motivation for doing what they do is because they are obessed with the power and tech of the new systems, in fact I think that is far from the mark. They grew up with the Atari and now that they are older can finally understand how these old game "computers" work and take on the challenge of writing their own Atari game, or improve a joystick, as even I have done, its a tough challenge too, its all a learning experience, and its fun. (also many of these tech/electronic/programmers are kinda goofy and like to take things apart and can't put them back together - or is that just me?) I have my original atari 2600 VCS from 1983 that my folks gave me, I won't touch that one, not because its rare, because it isn't, but because THEY gave it to me and its the one I grew up playing on since I was 14. But I have another one that I would mess around with, sure! How else are you going to learn about this stuff??? I would if I could! but I can't so for now I'll just dream of a Giant Bowl of Dounts.

Based on this thread, http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15056 the new console will be called: 5200+7800=12400 I give you the Atari 12400 Video Game System..... Stupid name! or maybe its 2600+5200+7800=15600... still a stupid name.