TankedThomas

Nope, saw the whole lot and it was hilarious, but didn't think that particular photo was shared. Judging by the reactions to my post, I assume it WAS posted and I just forgot. I'm often reading through this thread half-asleep though, so... oh well. It's still amusing, at least.

Curious if you end up getting it today. Mighty Ape says they're in stock on Monday. And if anyone is curious: it's way too expensive to import one from NZ. Don't even consider it. Been following this thing since it was first on Indiegogo but I've got to say I'm not super-impressed. The keyboard is the main selling point over the Mini, and though it looks good, it's a rubber dome keyboard with cheap and nasty-quality keycaps which will inevitably wear out quickly. It seems RGL/Kosch really cheaped out on this product. The Mechboard64, whilst costing more (primarily due to how it's made i.e. small batches at a time, by hand), is far better. They should have made a cheap mechanical board with Gateron yellow switches instead. Wouldn't have cost much more (unless their profit margins are huge), and it would have been so much better. Then they could have sold separate keycap sets for keyboard nerds (like me) too. Also not impressed with their handling of the GPL for Vice. If anyone's curious, this is a good run-down for the Mini, and I'm sure the same applies here: https://vice-emu.pokefinder.org/index.php/Hall_of_Shame#THEC64 I'm thinking I should just get myself an original C64. You can get a nice one for about the same price over here anyway. Been wanting one for a long time now but never got around to buying one. Anyway, one of the better videos I've come across (most are crap and undetailed) is this one, if only for a look at the innards: Case looks nice, but considering the low quality of the keycaps (forgot the type of plastic and such they used but it's not good stuff at all), I'm hesitant about the case's quality too.

I don't think anyone ever posted this but I found this on one of the subreddits the other day. Apologies if it's been posted before, but it's funny as hell either way. That face says it all. On a different subject, I came across this the other day, and it's some seriously cult-like behaviour that bothers me. Maybe it's just because I've watched some stuff on cults lately, but this sounds really off. Now they do: Fred's gonna dab on all us haters with his tacoman. Couldn't fine one with a quick search, but according to Google, the VCS is synonymous anyway, so...

Good God, that guy is crazy. That actually looks pretty cool. The question is whether or not it'll be on the VCS. It says it works on "SteamOS + Linux" (I think that's the normal "it works on Linux" thing on Steam, if I remember correctly), so it should run on the VCS... but are they actually putting it on Atari's store? There are a lot of questions here and no good answers. Still, if THIS is one of their big titles... it's already available months in advance on Steam... My guess would be the AMD development board we know they had. If not, it was probably some crappy PC they bought on eBay or at a flea market just for E3.

Nope, Curt said there's another one coming up. He said it was being filed a couple of weeks ago but we still haven't heard anything. Curious. I don't want to hound him (after all, it's not like he can publicly tell us anything anyway), but it'd be the best damn Christmas present if we get to see it within the next week!

Keep in mind that it is difficult (but not impossible) to install Windows on an external drive, so you will NEED an NVMe SSD, which will obviously cost more. Though you can crappy Microsoft or Logitech keyboard and mouse sets for about $10, but regardless... it's a mess. And if you buy the cheaper VCS, Windows 10 will choke with just 4GB of RAM, so good luck playing games on it, unless you've always wanted a $300 Solitaire machine. I'd love one too. I'm planning to make my own VCS, but I can't 3D model diddly squat. Now software, that's a bit of a different story... But you'll have to wait. 😉 Not sure I'll beat Atari to release, but I'll do it better.

I... huh... What? This guy's mad. They all are. There's so much wrong here. The Nintendo thing alone is baffling. Yes, the Wii U was a mess (fun system, good games, terrible hardware and marketing), the Switch has its fair share of problems, and despite owning almost every Nintendo console bar a few Game Boy (Advance) and (3)DS(i) revisions, I refuse to buy a Switch and have countless issues with Nintendo as of late. And yet his statement about the Wii U is still just a mess. I guess Nintendo just wasn't good enough to compete with Atari's Very Crude Scam almost six years before Atari made it (and a year before Fred was crowned king of Tacoland)! Also, old Infogrames titles: about a dollar each on Steam/GOG right now, sometimes cheaper when on sale or on other sites. Don't buy a VCS for that, morons.

I think the fairest way to put it would be that Sega is a decent publisher these days, but a crap developer. Sonic Forces doesn't hold a candle to Sonic Mania, but then you've got things like the Yakuza games. Sega's really all over the damn place these days. If it counts, the best part is the Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter. I don't even like Twitter, but those guys are funny.

It won't be. It's not even a console. It's a glorified mini PC. I recommend you go buy a 2600 or a Flashback (Flashback 9 lets you use SD cards to load more games onto it) or even a Retron 77. Play some real Atari games, see what it's actually about, and ignore this nonsensical nonsense. The correct answer for top ten Atari games is: Adventure Adventure Adventure Adventure Adventure Adventure Adventure Adventure Adventure Adventure Now, will someone please make a mod of Adventure with tacos?

I care so little that I hadn't noticed this for over a week. Apparently telling idiots the truth is heresy. But then again, we already knew that. 🤡 Still, this took WAY longer to happen than I thought it would, and I've been shitting up their threads for weeks.

Ah, whoops, I missed that, so thanks for the summary. Interesting that they'd even go that route though. For starters, if it's Debian-based, most (if not all) of their OS has to legally be made public. Locking it down seems pointless. And it's not like locking it down will prevent piracy when there's nothing to pirate in the first place. Ironically, if it were just a Raspberry Pi, it should be possible to wire one up. With the VCS, it hasn't been designed for a cartridge port as far as we know, so it's probably not possible without making some kind of external USB cartridge reader (and really, nobody with the skills to do that is going to bother making it solely for the VCS). Some nut on reddit was arguing that the VCS can emulate PS1 and some other consoles from around that era better than the Pi4. Assuming it's even stable enough to run its OS... I thought people wanted this because it's Atari, not PlayStation? If you want to play PlayStation, go buy one of those. All of them are cheaper than a VCS...

I was going to but it doesn't seem noteworthy. The case is too small to internalise it, and it's better than having a giant growth at the very end because then you have to fight for space on your power strip or wall sockets. It's rather bland and ugly, but it's probably the least offensive thing they've shown us yet.

Assuming you're referring to what Rob Wyatt said previously, I made a(nother) lengthy post about it the other day - the description sounded like Secure Boot, at least to me, so it shouldn't be read-only. Besides, to make an encrypted and/or read-only system that you can still download games on would, at the very least, require separate partitions for root and home. Maybe they'll do that but I bet Atari's too lazy. I know there are other ways to do it but I doubt they'll go to the same lengths as companies like Microsoft or Sony (that'd cost too much, for starters). Guess we'll see, but I'm betting Secure Boot is the absolute most they'll do. If that. On topic: @Tommy Tallarico and @Flojomojo need to get tacos together to mend their relationship instead of filing for divorce. Someone arrange this! The tacos, not an arranged marriage. Okay, I'll stop. But tacos though.

Called it, it's Debian (but then so did everyone else). There are already better games than Atari have (i.e. nothing) available for free on Linux. Sure, there are plenty of clones of old games (including old Atari games), but there are also lots of open-source originals. One that appears at the top of most distro package lists is 0 A.D. ("0ad"), which is basically an Age of Empires clone still somewhat early in development, but from what I played, it's quite good. That's one game. There are tons more like that on Linux. Why even bother selling games at that point? Also, why install a second OS when you could just us the Atari OS (or, better yet, replace it)? If it's because of the UI... that's not really a hurdle. You can replace that with relative ease, or install another alongside it. Now watch as this is quite literally Debian with an Atari logo. I doubt they're going to do much more than that. And I look forward to seeing which open-source licenses they break in the process (undoubtedly many). Keep in mind that there are Linux distros with more maintainers and bigger communities than Atari SA and the VCS which still don't have (enough) global mirrors for fast downloads/updates, so considering this, I have my doubts Atari will do much of anything. They'll probably rent a single server for a year (two at best), then get rid of it once their paid year is up (granted, you don't have to pay yearly for servers, but it's a fairly standard price, and I don't see them wasting money on a longer lease since it'll be dead by 2021, if not before).

Admittedly, I have my doubts too, but as of now, I'm quite keen to buy an Amico. I hope it does succeed. I'm just not so sure there are enough people who care. And don't get me wrong, I agree on a lot of your points about modern gaming (especially how the majority of mobile games are just aggressively monetised, manipulative BS), but at least from where I'm sitting, people are too obsessed with streaming services and garbage social media to often care about these things, and will buy whichever big console is a success next (probably the next Xbox, assuming Microsoft and Sony are still taking turns at being the greediest scumbag company). Anyway, I need to pop over to the Amico thread later and pick your brain more. Not sure how much more you can say about the hardware right now but I'm very curious. Do you REALLY want to be friends with the Werner Bros. and Looney Lucas? Nah, we've known for a while but it was always poorly communicated, as @Lodmot said. If I remember correctly though, it's meant to be a 32GB eMMC NAND max, so... you'll get about 25GB or so for your games. But yes, I believe it's standard M.2 size, best I can tell from their photos. Personally, I'd recommend sticking to Samsung or Western Digital drives. Some of the cheaper ones like Adata aren't as reliable (though if it's not for important information, it should be fine). External might be fine if it were USB 3.1, but they're calling it USB 3.0 (the 1606G supports up to 3.1). This could be them confusing the (admittedly confusing mess of) names, but if it's the slower one... Ouch. Speaking of which, I looked into the Ryzen 1606G more and... I was wrong. It's a 14nm Zen chip made by Global Foundries, NOT a 12nm Zen+ chip from TSMC. Even though it came out this year. From what little information I can find, it should theoretically get out-performed even by AMD's first generation of mobile Zen processors. Oh, and as far as IO goes, they've almost used up all potential ports for the CPU. That's how limited this thing is. It's not designed for this sort of use. All of which is obviously bad. News flash, I guess. Based on what Rob Wyatt said previously, it's more like a Mac, where it lacks a traditional bootloader, but supposedly you won't be able to even bring up boot device options like any other computer - according to information previously posted, it seems it'll bypass the internal OS when the M.2 is plugged in, and you'll need to remove it to boot Debi- I mean, Atari OS.

Right, but that's a LOT of wasted money, and they don't have a lot in the bank (plus only $3m from Indiegogo which they've allegedly blown over a year ago), so that would be an epic amount of waste for something that we're approximating will get maybe 2000 units produced for backers (and even if every backer ordered one - which they didn't - that's still only ~15k units). Do they really need 100 units to "test the build process"? Even if they somehow get to a proper retail release, I highly doubt they'll even make 100k units - do they really need to make 100 units to test them? As for developers, they didn't outright say they sent them units from the 100, but their wording suggests this is what was done (emphasis mine): The only explanation I can think of is that they had already made a second batch and shipped some of the first to their supposed development partners before testing either batch. But then if each batch is 100 units, wouldn't that me a minimum of 200 units made? Which makes even less sense. And for that matter, if they did indeed make more than one batch of EVT units... why? And yes, I agree they shouldn't send such a thing to backers. But again: Vega+. I'm expecting the same thing - some backers get units which suck, others get nothing, everyone loses. I want to be wrong, but it's not looking hopeful so far. I hope nobody (except the Werner Bros.) gets a crappy product, but if they didn't want that, they shouldn't have backed this dumpster fire.

I think they did but I forgot to watch it anyway, so thanks. Funny thing is one of the comments asks if they're reused routers, but you can actually run full Linux on most modern routers, so you may as well just do that instead of buying this thing. 😉 I'm still really stumped on the 100 units thing. Did they send out untested units to developers, only to recall them after testing? Shouldn't they have tested them as soon as they developed them? Did they actually make 100 or are they lying? Plenty of random Chinese manufacturers take photos of bulk inventory fresh of the production line - why not Atari? What would they even do with 100 pre-production units? They'd be lucky to have two developers, let alone ~100. This is irritating me. Give me real answers, dammit, Atari!

Long post time. Less pictures but better formatting this time. Just because. Translation: "The hardware is unfinished, and we have no software." In other words, they hadn't finished the hardware and paid a bunch of Chinese factory workers to figure out this shit for them (and, as we see later on, it seems even that isn't finished yet). I thought they said this was all sorted months ago? Now they're changing their tune. What are these "other details"? Definitely not those four horizontal lights on the front of the system - those aren't on the PCB, so they won't be in the final product. Yay false advertising! Another major red flag here: as they go onto show, even the jigs and such for "mass" production haven't even been made yet. There appear to be a couple of prototypes in the photos. The rest are all CAD mock-ups. In other words, they're still in the PLANNING phase for production. This is where we thought they were at least two months ago. There's absolutely no way these things will be mass produced by March at this rate. We'll come back to this. "Atari" keep mentioning what PowerA do to make their BS they've presented us with over the past two updates look more legitimate than it really is. Say what you want about PowerA, but they're still more professional than "Atari". As others have said, we still have no proof that there are 100 units built. Not to mention that making 100 units for pre-production of an unfinished and already-niche Linux PC is an odd choice and potentially a large waste of money. Keep this in mind - we'll come back to this too (I'm trying to go in the order of the article, but it's all over the damn place and they keep jumping back to previous points - I swear I wasn't the one who wrote this crap). Exactly as I was saying before - there are problems with the Ryzen Embedded processors, and their choice to use one has clearly been at least partially what caused all these delays. Their incompetence brought this upon themselves because they looked for the absolute cheapest viable solution instead of the most reliable but still low-cost solution. AMD's mobile chips would have been absolutely fine by comparison - they may not be amazing, but they work. Atari is clearly telling us that this chip is problematic. They know it, we know it, and now we know that they know it. They'd have you believe these two are related. Likely, the dev board wasn't an Embedded chip. If it was, well, AMD's hardware is obviously far more competent than anything Atari SA can make. If it wasn't, they're comparing apples and oranges. Either way, they're trying to say "it was working fine but we hit a snag!" when they should really be saying "AMD had no issues, but we caused some because we're incompetent". As I've been saying, this series of processors isn't well-documented. This proves it. If it was a somewhat major issue like this but AMD couldn't even be bothered to document it let alone fix it themselves, I think that speaks volumes as to the quality of these chips. Again, just because it can do 4K, that doesn't mean it should do 4K. Embedded processors aren't designed for game consoles, dammit. Here's the first of two things we're coming back to - the amount of units produced, and when. They claim that "several" "were already in the hands of our software development partners". But they claimed they only made 100 EVT units in November. And that, as far as we know, this "fix" happened in November. And this "fix" seems to be hardware-related (remember the guy manually soldering stuff? Yeah, I bet you anything that's why they had to "rework" every single unit). So putting aside the obvious question of WHO these partners are, WHEN did they get the VCS units, HOW long have they had them, and if they haven't even got basic quality control sorted out across the board (no pun intended), how the hell do they expect devs to use these things as dev kits? And more importantly, why would you even make pre-production units to send out as dev kits? That doesn't even make sense, and that's completely putting aside the fact that this is just a basic PC which any developer can already develop for using their existing hardware. It all seems quite fishy to me. There's a lot that doesn't add up here, and they've only really given us more questions rather than (satisfying) answers - unless, of course, your surname is Werner, but then again, those guys are clearly brain-dead cultists at this point. Before I move on, I found this to be... "cute": It was basically a footnote in an almost entirely unrelated Tom's Hardware article. Even if it wasn't, Tom's Hardware is crap these days. Either way, saying it was "highlighted" is being EXTREMELY generous. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-mini-pc-intel-nuc-ecosystem-Ryzen-embedded-R1000-V1000 Again, issues with the wireless card. We can see in one of the photos that it is indeed a plug-and-play solution as I mentioned previously: This should just work. This could be multiple issues - drivers (i.e. shitty/non-existent software), Ryzen Embedded (I don't know the extent of how craptastic they are, so it's possible), or just a poor PCB design. None of those options are a good look. It shouldn't have got to the factory with these issues. As for the controllers, still no proof that they work. Maybe they do. Maybe Atari actually paid someone for once. But so what if they DO work? There are a handful of them, there's zero evidence that they have the paddle functionality, and we've yet to see them working (without issue). Plus, I realise they're saying "NOTHING'S FINAL!" (is it ever?) but that woodgrain front isn't even close to the original look (and it appears to be some kind of vinyl stick-on instead of actual wood, so it's not like you couldn't just do that yourself and save $50). This is the other point I said I'd come back to (and will continue into the next quote as well). Now, it's not unheard of to make some little electrical changes here and there before final production, but the way they talk, this sounds like the factory is doing a LOT of legwork to change quite a hefty amount of the (poorly-designed) VCS PCB so that it actually, you know, works. Probably because Rob crapping out a single untested prototype wasn't enough for even him to know if it was a good design yet (assuming he knows what "good design" even is). Keep in mind that they still have the piss-poor laptop-style cooling solution where the fan isn't even on top of the damn CPU. Somehow, just maybe, I think Atari is going to find a way to have a shittier thermal design than Apple. And if you don't know, one of the things Apple is clearly worst at (at least when it comes to their MacBooks) is thermals. They're atrocious to unacceptable levels. This in and of itself doesn't seem all that bad... until you read the last sentence. Which sounds bad enough, until you see their images (you can look at the article for the rest): These are CAD drawings at best. At worst, they can't produce anything with this drawings. I'm not a CAD expert but they look like they should theoretically be workable as 3D-printable models. Even if that's the case... they're conceptualising their friggin' fixture designs for mass production. And to correct something I said earlier, there is only ONE physical prototype they have so far, which appears to be a block of wood that they a hole into (easy enough to do to the right shape in a factory like that). Now they're confirming that it WILL be months, not weeks. I guess it's still technically weeks. But also months. What a shock. They've still got at least one phase to go before mass production. Heck, what's the factory's definition of "parameters for a successful finished product"? That could mean anything. Maybe it means the light turns on. Exciting. And that's ignoring all the other things such as software, certification, and potential issues which could still arise (and given the plethora they've had so far, I'd say those are just a given). Even if they nailed ALL of those things (yeah right), they're still many, MANY months off from mass production. I truly do not believe they will have these in stores by the end of March (if ever). Frankly, I think it's impossible. And frankly, I know we've semi-joked about it, but at this point, I'm outright convinced that the units they've produced are what will be going to backers. Unfinished, as we can see and they have confirmed. Why make 100 units for pre-production otherwise? And out of all the backers, I doubt they got too many more for the console itself. Remember, a lot of them pledged $1 or for a controller or some such. I've said it before and I'll say it again: this is going to be Vega+ all over again. Just watch. (Do I really need to quote and respond to their last paragraph? You all know it's complete hogwash).

Just a few things I wanted to point out which we know: Technically, since it's just based on AMD's 12nm Zen+ revision of their 14nm Zen architecture, and this is offset by a year from their desktop chips (i.e. Zen was 2017, Zen+ was 2018, Zen 2 was 2019, but Embedded and Mobile are 2018 for Zen and 2019 for Zen+), this shouldn't matter as much, but I agree in general. Regardless, there's a reason it "hasn't been shaken down by the marketplace", which leads me to... There ARE issues with the AMD Embedded series of processors. I won't claim to be an expert (because, surprise, I'm not), but as was discussed a couple of months ago, even AMD doesn't have much support (nor documentation) for their Embedded chips. The 4K bug they mentioned? Undoubtedly, as you pointed out, just the tip of the iceberg. It appears that Ryzen Embedded is notorious for these sort of problems. Frankly, these processors just aren't designed for what Atari wants to use them for, and very few other companies have used them for a damn good reason. Sure, ASrock is making their own ITX PC with Ryzen Embedded, but as far as I'm concerned, that's also a bad investment (nothing against ASrock though but it's doubtful that box will be any good for much more than Netflix - so, the VCS audience). Keep in mind, they also said they had an issue getting Bluetooth and WiFi to work. Theoretically, that should be easy - their WiFi cards are separate pieces (surely not the most cost-effective method for an SOC PC, but Atari clearly doesn't care at this point). Unless they motherboard was poorly designed (which, to be fair, it sounds like it was), this would point to the processor being an issue. Though really, it could be multiple things, but the point is: RYZEN EMBEDDED IS UNRELIABLE. They should have picked a 2200G. Cheap, effective, not amazing but will do the job. Runs on the same architecture but actually proven hardware. Not happening. Intel is basically just standing in the corner pissing themselves at the moment. AMD's been walking all over them lately, and the only ones at fault for that are Intel. Though, Intel's mobile chips are still better than AMD's (for now - that will likely change next year), but it's too little, too late. Plus there are enough architectural changes that it would be financial suicide to change to Intel chips at this point. Anyway, shitty update is shitty (big surprise) - I'm going to break down at least some of what they said because they said a lot of stuff, told us some interesting things, but what they actually told us is quite different to what the fanboys think they told us, and that's important. Though it's hard to get exact specifications on the 1606G relative to other processors, we do know it's significantly less powerful than the 3200G, at least in the CPU department (though the GPU part probably has worse performance too). Point is, it won't even be in the same league as the 3200G. Hell, I doubt it's as powerful as last year's 2200G either. I'm STILL envious of those berry tacos. Absolutely mouth-watering...

Saw it in my inbox just now. Pretty cool. I like how it actually evolves over time to get crazier. I think I'd like to see it get even more hectic (almost like a bullet hell shooter), but it's a nest twist as-is. Not sure if you've covered this before, but if not, can you say who is developing it? I assume it's licensed from Atari SA, so... how on Earth did you guys get a new Breakout and yet they still can't even show us anything for the VCS? I probably skimmed over some of the details previously but it's certainly quite amusing. By the way, that woodgrain Amico looks stunning (so do the red and purple ones, but I can't afford three, dammit). I hope I can get one over here! Still skeptical about how well the Amico will do but love your passion, Tommy - here's going it's a success. Too bad Atari SA doesn't have the same passion (though AtariAge has it, and I think most people agree this site and community is the spiritual successor to the Atari of old). Yeah, they were advertising pretty much since the Amico reveal that it'd have Atari games. I'm not entirely sure how that works other than just licensing from Atari (presumably), but it sure is a slap in the face for the VCS (and deservedly so). I'd definitely be keen to see IPs they sold off show up on the Amico - that would indeed be funny.

Too bad the Amico isn't out THIS year. Would distract my family for Christmas instead of listening to all the talk of biblical crap. Maybe I'll just read them some Atari press releases instead. They're basically biblical texts at this point, at least for some.

I'm pretty sure Destructoid are about as relevant and quality as Atari SA. Which is to say they're not. They're almost worse than all the talking head videos because they keep generating controversies with political BS for clicks (though Polygon still has them beat on outrage farming). Your job is to talk about video games, not your ideological puritan world, you twats. Sorry, rant, but when these "mainstream" sites bring up something like the VCS, it always feels like a regurgitated footnote, reflecting the quality (or lack thereof) of their journalism. Once I get to the new Taco Bell, I'll be sure to oblige. I'll probably have to wait to upload images until after I spend three hours in the bathroom though.

5200 controller is probably the main one but that's not the system itself. Jaguar CD, perhaps? That thing seems to be dead half the time.

Yeah, that was my assumption - these units are being packed for shipment, and this garbage is what backers will receive. And this proved there's a market for new enclosures - Atari should have just made a mini-ITX-compatible PC case instead or, hell, a "modern" case for your old 2600 hardware. Or just make a modern 2600 clone. Or literally anything other than what they actually did (or did not) do. See, I'm not convinced they'll even make enough units for all the backers, let alone bothering with paid shills. I think we're going to end up with another Vega+ scenario, where just a handful of units ship and they're bloody horrendous. John Hancock did say he backed it so he could review it but advised others to avoid it, if I remember correctly (from one of his recent VCS videos). I saw that Intellivision demo get released (signed up to their mailing list just because), so I'm excited to try that out. I have to say, as someone who has no attachment to the Intellivision, I'm keen to by an Amico, if only to reward them for their on-point marketing and transparency. I'm not personally convinced the project will be at all successful, but I hope it is because Tommy Tallarico's passion and commitment is a breath of fresh air, especially compared to the stale wind ol' Fred has been passing in our direction for years now.

Nah, it'll be Fred's next big product announcement: Atari's Very Cool School. Mike will be your English teacher, Fred's the principal, someone will be teaching science and mathematics (legally, we can't say who yet, but they'll be there, we promise), and Rob was going to teach IT but he's decided he'd do better as a history teacher. The qualification you receive will be identical to one you can get in a cereal box, but this one has a Fuji logo on it so it's better. Gee, what gave it away? The part where they never reply to emails, or the part where they still don't even have a product, let alone the "quality" part? 😛