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7800 vs. Colecovision


SpaceDice2010

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what's the general opinion regarding a comparision of controllers?

 

Well in my experience the 7800 trounces the Colecovision's controller. The joystick just seems more finicky on the Colecovision, but I've never had problems using a 7800 stick. But both controllers get uncomfortable after a long gaming session, and generally for the same reasons.

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what's the general opinion regarding a comparision of controllers?

 

Well in my experience the 7800 trounces the Colecovision's controller. The joystick just seems more finicky on the Colecovision, but I've never had problems using a 7800 stick. But both controllers get uncomfortable after a long gaming session, and generally for the same reasons.

back when I had my 7800 I would use the old VCS joystick. I saw an AVGN video on YouTube where he uses a genesis controller with the Colecovision

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This comparision is quite unfair as Colecovision is console of the second generation while Atari 7800 is console of third generation. It is obvious that Atari 7800 is a much more powerful hardware. This however can not be true in terms of sound capabilities, as this is Atari 7800 weakest point, but in everything else Atari 7800 is simply better.

 

Colecovision vs Atari 5200 or XEGS would be a fair comparision.

 

I know others, including the Wikipedia patrol, might disagree with me here, but that part in bold isn't really correct. They are of different generations, that much is true, but I'd say ColecoVision is a console of the third generation, and 7800 a console of the fourth generation.

 

Why?

 

For one, Coleco quite plainly advertised their console as a "3rd generation" console. Secondly, it's main head-to-head competitor as far as public perception was concerned was the 5200, and the 5200 was the upgrade/successor model to the 2600 (2600 a console of the 2nd generation, so 5200 is a console of the 3rd). Now, I know some will argue and point to Atari PR calling it a "complimentary" model to 2600 not meant to "replace" it, analogous to being a "sports car" to 2600 or something along those lines, but the implication of the product was clear: Atari knew 2600 was long in the tooth, and that there were players that wanted to upgrade their experience. Atari wanted those players to upgrade to their hardware, not the hardware of other companies, so 5200 was to fill that role. Yes, they were keeping the 2600 alive and stilll were going to make games for it, but how is that any different from what Sega later did with Master System when Genesis/MegaDrive was around, or Nintendo with NES support when SNES was around (and SNES support when N64 was on market), or Sony continuing to manufacture and support PSone during the PS2 days, or PS2 into the PS3 "era". It's not really different at all. For those that want to upgrade to new experiences, the new gen hardware is on market regardless of if the old one is still on market and not being "replaced".

 

5200 also had the brunt of the advertising during that time. Atari shifted focus somewhat (commercials of the time, for instance, typically used footage of the 5200 versions rather than 2600 versions). Furthermore, 5200 was positioned at first to "compete" with Intellivision, but the tech they put into 5200 made it clear that they wanted to far surpass anything that Intellivision was capable of doing; they wanted to far surpass Intellivision. That's next gen right there in both ways people think of when they hear the term (upgrade/successor in tech, successor in marketing).

 

Plus, 7800 was designed to "correct" the mistakes of 5200 while offering players an upgrade over that model.

 

...I just went on a mini rant. Sorry.

 

Back on topic: not fair to compare them. ColecoVision vs. 5200 is a better comparison. And 5200 holds a bit of an edge in just about everything. The problem with 5200 at the time against ColecoVision was price and those godawful controllers. And the size of the thing. Plus, no wood paneling. ;)

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classifying generations is a funny thing. what is considered the second generation is very broad indeed, encompassing everything from the VCS to the 5200 and Colecovision. It's really like two generations... but can the 7800 really be considered a 3rd gen system? yes, it's graphics are on par with it's market contemporaries, the NES and SMS, but it originally debuted in 1984. What REALLY makes the 7800 a pre-crash system, in my opinion, are it's games, which are primarally arcade ports and other high-score affairs, along with remakes of some 2600 games. It doesn't fit in with the 3rd gen side-scrollers and adventure games, where the general focus was on beating the game and the various charectors had identities and back stories. plus the 7800 had a joystick.

 

just my two cents....

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classifying generations is a funny thing. what is considered the second generation is very broad indeed, encompassing everything from the VCS to the 5200 and Colecovision. It's really like two generations... but can the 7800 really be considered a 3rd gen system? yes, it's graphics are on par with it's market contemporaries, the NES and SMS, but it originally debuted in 1984.

 

While that may be true, NES (as Famicom) originally debuted in Japan in mid '83, then there was a recall (some issues with hardware) and it was re-released in that market in '84. Furthermore, even if we're going by the US release, NES was originally released in test markets in '85 in the US, with a nationwide release in '86. So NES's test market was only a year or so after the 7800 test market, with the original JP release happening before 7800's test market. Plus, SMS was released in '84 in Japan. Then you have to consider Nintendo was in negotiations with Atari to distribute the NES in North America in '83 as well (so Nintendo planned an earlier release in the NA market).

 

Regardless, they were head to head competitors. 7800 was positioned against NES and SMS in every way. Whether it suffered in comparison is beside the point.

 

What REALLY makes the 7800 a pre-crash system, in my opinion, are it's games, which are primarally arcade ports and other high-score affairs, along with remakes of some 2600 games. It doesn't fit in with the 3rd gen side-scrollers and adventure games, where the general focus was on beating the game and the various charectors had identities and back stories. plus the 7800 had a joystick.

 

Except you're forgetting that the NES launch title line up was made up of mainly arcade ports and other high score affairs, and SMS had that early emphasis as well (and, really, had that emphasis for longer due to Sega being mainly an arcade game company). The only game that fits the non-arcade style game that you're thinking of for the NES launch in the US was Super Mario Bros., as the rest were arcade in nature. On SMS, the games were mainly arcade ports early on.

 

It really wasn't until late '86 into '87 that those console style games started rolling out on NES (same for SMS). 7800 had the problem of no internal dev teams at Atari, and not enough money being spent on hiring teams to develop games. When we entered into '88 and '89, that's when games like Midnight Mutants and Scrapyard Dog started coming out.

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but can the 7800 really be considered a 3rd gen system? yes, it's graphics are on par with it's market contemporaries, the NES and SMS, but it originally debuted in 1984.

 

And the NES debuted in 1983 as the Famicom in Japan.

 

 

What REALLY makes the 7800 a pre-crash system, in my opinion, are it's games, which are primarally arcade ports and other high-score affairs, along with remakes of some 2600 games.

 

"Primarily" would suggest a majority. I think if you looked at the cohesive library you'd see it's a mix: computer titles; arcade ports from the early 1980s; NES style games; flight simulators etc.

 

 

It doesn't fit in with the 3rd gen side-scrollers and adventure games,

 

And yet it has them. Scrapyard Dog, Midnight Mutants, Alien Brigade, Dark Chambers, Commando, Ikari Warriors, Xenophobe, Fatal Run ...

 

 

 

plus the 7800 had a joystick.
And in europe a joypad. Just like the NES and SMS
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And in europe a joypad. Just like the NES and SMS

 

The joypad was a REALLY poor substitute for a gamepad. It sucked with the stick screwed in. It sucked with the stick screwed out. And whoever designed the ergonomics simply screwed up. It's as if they watched the early Nintendo commercials a dozen times and didn't pay any attention to how players actually held gamepads!

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Back on topic: not fair to compare them. ColecoVision vs. 5200 is a better comparison. And 5200 holds a bit of an edge in just about everything. The problem with 5200 at the time against ColecoVision was price and those godawful controllers. And the size of the thing. Plus, no wood paneling. ;)

And Atari's horrible mismanagement over everything at the time. The 5200 chipset should have been cheaper than the CV, but they had an unusually bulky motherboard, pushed for 4 controller ports when the 1200XL was cutting to 2, massively oversized plastic casing, and controllers that showed a similar mix of cut corners and lack of cost reduction. (once the controller issues became obvious, they easily could have corrected that after the fact with 8-way digital to analog sticks: similar form factor, but using simple switches and a couple pull-up resistors to make a pseudo-digital 8-way analog controller like the old gravis gamepad -that could have been offered as an accessory for existing users and pack in with newer models -the buttons were still a problem: should have been 1 button per side, still better than the colecovision or especially intellivision by a good margin though -vectrex is pretty nice, they did analog right too)

Atari owned the IP to the chipset, were already manufacturing the chips for their computers, but cut out PIA, so it should have been smaller/cheaper than the Atari 400, 1200, or even canceled 600, but it wasn't and the board was oddly larger than the 1200XL. (it was also a single bus design vs the dual bus CV, used less RAM -16k DRAM rather than 16k plus 1k SRAM -most CVs used 8k SRAM chips mirrored across 1k iirc, some might have used 2k chips though)

 

But in any case, the 5200 wasn't the problem, it was more a symptom of Warner/AInc's accumulating problems that had emerged earlier in 1982 and wouldn't be corrected until after Morgan came in in mid/late 1983. (and didn't start making real headway until early '84, but was showing exceptional promise at the time until Warner threw it away with the sloppy management of the split/liquidation of Atari Inc -vs the sale Morgan had expected and not been warned of any change in plans, even Tramiel was surprised; it was totally disorganized and poorly timed with utter confusion and a lot of waste that shouldn't have happened if Warner had been prudent and planned out the split formally -let alone if they'd stuck with Morgan's promising developments)

 

Atari had screwed up with the VCS (mainly flawed distribution leading to inflated market growth and demand figures), screwed up with the computers in several different areas and at different times, and certainly screwed up with the 5200 as well, but that's pretty far down the list relatively speaking.

Warner needed strong and capable leadership to set Atari straight and somehow cut through the bureaucratic dual management crap on top of that, and they needed that in mid 1982, but didn't get it until late 1983.

 

 

 

 

 

classifying generations is a funny thing. what is considered the second generation is very broad indeed, encompassing everything from the VCS to the 5200 and Colecovision. It's really like two generations... but can the 7800 really be considered a 3rd gen system? yes, it's graphics are on par with it's market contemporaries, the NES and SMS, but it originally debuted in 1984. What REALLY makes the 7800 a pre-crash system, in my opinion, are it's games, which are primarally arcade ports and other high-score affairs, along with remakes of some 2600 games. It doesn't fit in with the 3rd gen side-scrollers and adventure games, where the general focus was on beating the game and the various charectors had identities and back stories. plus the 7800 had a joystick.

 

just my two cents....

The Famicom was the EXACT same way, as was the SG-1000. ;)

 

The Famicom launched in 1983 with Donkey Kong and Mario Bros, and I think that's it. (part of the reason Warner's interest was lukewarm, Nintendo's flagship titles were already out on competing US systems) Almost all its early releases were arcade games, many of which were already out in the US. (same for the SG-1000 to a fair extent)

 

What separated the NES from the 7800 is it had been on the market for nearly 3 years by the time it hit the US (ie early 1996 when Nintendo started making headway, not the failed 1985 test market).

The 7800's launch lineup in 1984 was considerably better than what the Famicom had at launch, or quite possibly what the Famicom had in mid '84. (had the 7800 launched in '84, it almost certainly would have had a very strong back library and considerable userbase by the time Nintendo finally managed to break into the market)

 

 

As for generations, yes, they are a bit odd, but the CV and 5200 are in the middle: sort of between the 2nd and 3rd generations, either late 2nd gen or early 3rd gen. The 7800 and FC/NES are definitely 3rd gen, the SG-1000 by release date is 3rd gen, but by tech it's like the Colecovision. The Master System is closer to the 4th gen in some areas, but is definitely a 3rd gen system and shares many of the same limitations as the Colecovision and SG-1000. (same sound chip, same amount of video DRAM, same I/O port based CPU manually updating VRAM, same CPU speed, etc -but it's the graphics architecture that pushes it ahead, as with many consoles where the CPU didn't change but the system performance did dramatically, albeit that made the RAM limits mich tighter -4bpp vs 1bpp graphics, so a tileset on the SMS takes up 4x the space as on the SG-1000/CV and 2x that of the NES's 2bpp, and the same as the 4bpp graphics of PCE, SNES, and Genesis -though the tilemaps are larger on those 4th gen consoles)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Regardless, they were head to head competitors. 7800 was positioned against NES and SMS in every way. Whether it suffered in comparison is beside the point.

Not in every way really, and it hadn't ever been designed or intended as such by GCC, Warner, or Atari Inc, and not by Katz/Tramiel when they were gearing up for the launch in mid '85.

It only became such AFTER Nintendo and Sega entered the arena in early 1986. (Nintendo was not considered real competition until spring of '86 when they managed their first successful period with an expanded test market and the release of SMB as well as the core system "control deck" -albeit the latter had only been prevented from the '85 market by retailers insisting some sort of gimmick to make it "more" than just a video game console)

 

And even so, the 7800 WAS in a somewhat different market sector with a radically lower price point and aim to push the system as such. (especially since they lacked the funds to push big marketing or invest heavily in software at the time -that wouldn't change until ~87/88 when they started pulling free from the debt and becoming a fairly strong, stable, and profitable company)

 

 

 

And in europe a joypad. Just like the NES and SMS

 

The joypad was a REALLY poor substitute for a gamepad. It sucked with the stick screwed in. It sucked with the stick screwed out. And whoever designed the ergonomics simply screwed up. It's as if they watched the early Nintendo commercials a dozen times and didn't pay any attention to how players actually held gamepads!

Really? I haven't used one extensively, but it seemed to work pretty well when I tried a friend's out. The proline controllers may be a pain, but the gamepad/joypads seemed pretty decent. (didn't compare directly, but it seemed like they might be less sloppy than the SMS D-pad, and I liked the large buttons OK, though I prefer concave -more like the VCS or Genesis, NES's are concave but a bit too small IMO)

The position of the buttons and D-pad do seem a bit off though, like they were going for style over function. (not sure if I could get used to them, but if I can get used to playing with the Wii Classic Controller or PSX gamepads, I'm fairly confident I can manage the Atari ones)

 

 

In any case it should at least have been a good bit better than the prolines, though who knows why Atari never pushed for s simple hack of the VCS sticks for added buttons. (most convenient would be a smaller button next to the main fire button -preferably behind it- or offesting both buttons to be spaced slightly further from the corner and somewhat smaller than the normal VCS button -in any case, close enough to easily press with a single thumb or finger -depending how you hold it)

The VCS sticks aren't perfect, but they were at least good for a lot of things (superior to gamepads for some -albeit in part from the sheer quality of the switches), but it was more foolproof for sure: ie if it anint broke, don't fix it. (the only thing to "fix" was the number of buttons as such)

 

OTOH, they also could have gotten it fairly "right" had the 7800 controllers been more like a mix between the 5200 and 7800 prolines. (and maybe a bit more like the Aquarius/SG-1000 sticks . . . something close to the size of the 5200 controller with no keypad, 7800 proline type buttons, and a fully rubberized miniature version of the VCS stick in place of the hard plastic analog stick, perhaps with the cool aluminum plate of the prolines) Or more simply: scale down the prolines a bit and replace the knob with a moderately scaled down (perhaps a further shortened stock) version of the CX-40's stick. (and make it looser than the stock CX-40, let alone proline, more like a "broken in" CX-40 or one with a missing hex disc. ;))

Even a full-sized, virtually unmodified VCS stick would have been OK (but not ideal IMO), but just put into a different form factor easily held by one hand (also pushing the buttons) while the 2nd uses the stick. Without scaling it down, it would be tougher for little kids though. (also more important to have the "loose" boot/stick)

Edited by kool kitty89
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Colecovision's 32 1-of-16 color, 16x16 pixel hardware sprites were a nice feature for kids like me who programmed ADAM and for homebrewers today. Achieving that much spriteage on 7800 or A8 requires a lot more dedication and hard work. Colecovision's 16 color graphics has limits tied to its 8x8 tiles, and these are far less tricky (and capable) than the tricks used with MARIA or A8 IIRC. Colecovision graphics reminds me of NES but without scrolling or 4 color sprites - adequate for static background arcade ports of the day, and simple to program.

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Colecovision's 32 1-of-16 color, 16x16 pixel hardware sprites were a nice feature for kids like me who programmed ADAM and for homebrewers today. Achieving that much spriteage on 7800 or A8 requires a lot more dedication and hard work. Colecovision's 16 color graphics has limits tied to its 8x8 tiles, and these are far less tricky (and capable) than the tricks used with MARIA or A8 IIRC. Colecovision graphics reminds me of NES but without scrolling or 4 color sprites - adequate for static background arcade ports of the day, and simple to program.

Yes, but achieving more than 4 sprites (let alone more colored sprites) is impossible on the CV, you'd have to resort to flicker, character movements, or software sprites suing a pseudo framebuffer set-up.

 

The 7800 allows 12 color sprites, many per scanline (not sure how many) and no hard limit as far as on-screen goes. (then again, you could reload sprites mid-screen on the CV to go beyond the hardware multiplexed 32, and for the A8 you have to software multiplex sprites for more than pixel wide sprites -I think DLLs help with that like raster interrupts do on the C64 except a bit more convenient)

 

No hardware scrolling either, but I think I'll stop there since the technical side of this comparison has already been done to death many times.

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Colecovision's 32 1-of-16 color, 16x16 pixel hardware sprites were a nice feature for kids like me who programmed ADAM and for homebrewers today. Achieving that much spriteage on 7800 or A8 requires a lot more dedication and hard work.

 

The Colecovision is severely out gunned by MARIA's ability to put sprites on the screen. MARIA can have around twenty 16x16, 4 colour sprites per scan line (with a horizontal resolution of 160 pixels) without flickering or using a sprite multiplexor. If you drop the colour depth to 1BPP and increase the resolution to 320 horizontally its around 29 sprites or so.

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One thing I wish had happened with the Colecovision is that more post-crash programmers looked at it. It seemed weird that it didn't really continue in some fashion whereas the 2600 and Intellivision did. INTV even had COMMANDO on it.

 

Would have been neat to see post-crash programmers trying to push it, using bankswitched cartridges, mapper chips etc.

 

Always liked what Ed was doing with it in modern times:

 

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I like the 7800's euro joypads. In my opinion they are the best you could get from Atari (until Jaguar)...

 

Given the quality of Atari sticks after the CX-40, that's not saying much.

 

Hmm, I never heard anyone complain about the CX-78 pads... But sure if that's your opinion, I won't change it :) . I like them very much and prefer them over my other favorites (competition pro, sega master system pad and elite multi function 2002).

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I thought the joypad was a REALLY poor substitute for a gamepad. IMO, sucked with the stick screwed in. I didn't like it with the stick screwed out. And I felt whoever designed the ergonomics simply screwed up.

 

Fixed that for you.

 

I didn't think they were cream of the crop myself, but I felt that about all Atari controllers really ... regardless of system.

Edited by DracIsBack
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Don't get me wrong, guys. I have a joypad and I generally like it. It's a hellva lot better than the 7800 sticks. It also works well for 2600 games.

 

But put it up against just about any other gamepad (NES/SMS/TG16/MD/etc.) and it just isn't very good. And that's considering that the NES gamepad was about as basic (and painful!) as you can get.

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hey drac is that CV1 on the colecovision? it looks better than the NES version.

 

Ed was working on an expansion module and it's an early demo on that, I think. Don't think the module adds capabilities but does as RAM memory.

 

One thing Opcode is amazing at is artwork. Even with the limits he's got, he churns out nicely polished games.

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Ok let me start by saying that I'm totally uninterested in whether 7800 or CV is "better" because no such conclusion can be reached. In terms of graphics output quality, 7800 seems to be a superset of CV. In terms of games that actually hit the market at the time, there were things 7800 was better at, and things CV was better at. Most typically, 7800 games had better scrolling and more colors, and CV games had higher resolution and better sound. The 7800 was never really commercially exploited to anywhere near its limits, so probably 7800 homebrew can and will blow away CV (has it already? I haven't been following that scene.)

 

Yes, but achieving more than 4 sprites (let alone more colored sprites) is impossible on the CV, you'd have to resort to flicker, character movements, or software sprites suing a pseudo framebuffer set-up.

 

Did you mean to say "more than 4 sprites per scanline?" Like NES and A8, CV had the capacity for lots of sprites overall, but few per scanline. I haven't seen a 7800 game with sprite flicker yet, and I haven't seen a CV game with double-wide pixels yet either...

 

then again, you could reload sprites mid-screen on the CV to go beyond the hardware multiplexed 32

 

Really? I've been assuming for years that CV was very bad at mid-screen tricks. Can you point me at some commercial games that did them? I'm eager to learn about those tricks...

Edited by bmcnett
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Colecovision's 32 1-of-16 color, 16x16 pixel hardware sprites were a nice feature for kids like me who programmed ADAM and for homebrewers today. Achieving that much spriteage on 7800 or A8 requires a lot more dedication and hard work.

 

The Colecovision is severely out gunned by MARIA's ability to put sprites on the screen. MARIA can have around twenty 16x16, 4 colour sprites per scan line (with a horizontal resolution of 160 pixels) without flickering or using a sprite multiplexor. If you drop the colour depth to 1BPP and increase the resolution to 320 horizontally its around 29 sprites or so.

 

Yes, of course MARIA can do much, much better graphics than Colecovision. In case my quote above wasn't clear, I'll rephrase it: To a child in the 1980s or an unskilled homebrewer today, getting 32 16x16 1-color sprites to move around on screen could hardly be simpler on Colecovision/ADAM. A skilled game programmer then or today would prefer the 7800, because it can produce so much nicer-looking results. Unskilled people (like me at age 12) might not cope with 7800's learning curve.

 

Ease of programming may have had some impact on the cost of game development for both platforms, but this is hard to quantify even if one knows a lot about game marketing of the era, which I definitely do not. From personal experience with PS2 development, people sure get motivated to climb that learning curve when a console has a dominant share of the market, which IIRC neither 7800 or Colecovision ever had.

Edited by bmcnett
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hey drac is that CV1 on the colecovision? it looks better than the NES version.

 

Ed was working on an expansion module and it's an early demo on that, I think. Don't think the module adds capabilities but does as RAM memory.

 

One thing Opcode is amazing at is artwork. Even with the limits he's got, he churns out nicely polished games.

 

Looking at the video - that CV1 isn't running on the Colecovision chipset, but a completely different graphics chip ( with hardware scrolling )

 

It would be pretty amazing if the original CV could do that :)

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