Alternate Atari History

[JJohnson]

Considering you brought in 'ASSTR', you brought in snark first.  Your comment was neither helpful nor kind.

[+x=usr(1536)]

2 minutes ago, JJohnson said:

Considering you brought in 'ASSTR', you brought in snark first.

We could always crosspost this thread to ASSTR and let the folks there determine if I was right or wrong.

2 minutes ago, JJohnson said:

Your comment was neither helpful nor kind.

Neither is this one.

 

 

If you can't take even the slightest bit of criticism, your ego will not survive as a writer.  And from what you're showing here, your skin is way too thin to be able to cope with that.

 

By the way, there are at least three threads on this exact subject taking place right now.  Had you bothered to look around, you would have found them.  You might even have participated in them, and learned something relevant to the research you claim to be undertaking.  But, nope, it's easier just to have everyone else dump it into your lap for you.

 

Your turn!

[MrTrust]

I'm really puzzled as to what the point of this exercise is.  What's your basis for thinking any of these things would have real consequences on how things shook out ultimately?

 

I've already beaten this horse to death in other threads, but by the time Castlevania and Megaman came out, the NES had already outsold the SMS and 7800 10:1.  So we imagine Nintendo not being able to enforce exclusivity agreements.  Why would they bother to port the game to consoles nobody was buying anyway?  What if the 5200 joystick had a centering spring?  It would be nice, I guess.  And?  What else do you want one to say?  Do we have any reason to believe this had any causal connection to the poor sales of the machine other than people bitching about the joysticks on the internet?

 

But what about this or that architecture improvement on X console?  Well, what was the best-selling console in the US prior to 1986?  The 2600.  It sold more than the Colecovision, Intellivision, 5200, and whatever other technically superior machine was on the market.  The NES hits in '86, and then it becomes the best-selling console despite being appreciably technically inferior to the SMS.  What reason do we have to believe these hardware features have any connection to Atari's fate in any meaningful way?

 

What kinds of games might we have gotten out of the consoles as you described them?  Who knows?  Unless Atari had an entirely different approach to corporate organization and game design than they actually did, we'd probably have gotten nicer versions of the same games we did get.

 

What would have changed their fortunes?  Have Super Mario Bros., that is, have a massive best-seller that people have to buy your hardware in order to play.  Then repeat that to a lesser extent 10 or 12 times over the course of 5 years.  What might that game have been for Atari?  Who could say?  What we do know is nothing they had in the works or on paper was going to be it.

 

But, yes, you could imagine such a game, but you could imagine it on any hardware configuration.  Tetris has sold forty five squintillion copies and you can practically play that on an abacus.

[pacman000]

6 hours ago, JJohnson said:

As for the 7800, it can come out later, sure, but it most certainly needs tilemaps, better sprites, smooth scrolling horizontally, diagonally, and vertically, the full better sound (not 1977 sound, geez), and a way to get more third party support.

I agree with the sound, but not the tile maps; a series of large sprites/graphics blocks can create a scrolling screen, & they’re more versatile than a modified character display. Didn’t SNK & Sega rely on similar technology for their  arcade games even in the 90’s?
 

 Didn’t the 7800 had smooth scrolling games? I thought there were even a few with parallax scrolling.

 

But, if you’re writing a book, why does it matter? Fantasy is fantasy. I still say poor business decisions are the cause of Atari’s downfall, not poor technology.

 

Also, if memory serves, the 2600 wasn’t even supposed to have cartridges; it was supposed to be the basis for a few next gen Pong systems; programming games was easier than engineering games. Atari wasn’t the only company trying that; the Odyssey 2 was supposed to have a series of built-in games; MOS Technologies developed a series of Microcontrollers for use in Pong systems; Epoch designed their pong systems around an NEC microcontroller. 
 

Atari decided to add a cart slot after seeing another system which which either used carts to select games or had Pong-chips in each cart; Magnavox decided to give the O2 a cart slot after seeing Atari’s work; MOS Technology’s microcontrollers would get used, but in cartridges, for the Coleco Telstar Arcade; EPOCH realized they could sell more games if they moved the microcontroller to a cart, since cartridges saved space.
 

Fantasy is fine; but you seem to be ignoring how the systems were developed. The engineers didn’t have the advantage of hindsight; they were responding to the problems of their day, not the problems we know they’d face 2 years after their designs hit the market.

 

(Hope this isn’t too harsh; it’s not meant to be.)

Edited April 29, 2021 by pacman000

[Mikebloke]

8 hours ago, JJohnson said:

 

Your post did stomp on my parade, but not as badly as others (RJ, toiletunes, Billy Beans, x=usr(1536)) who didn't even take the time or courtesy to either consider my post seriously rather than snarkily/sarcastically reply, or just scroll past it to avoid being rude.  There is a lot of alternate history on alternatehistory.com, Harry Turtledove's novels, the Man in the High Castle, etc, so I do enjoy speculating on what might have been.  It's an interesting thought experiment.

I appreciate that and I've dabbled in that kind of stuff myself. There is different ways of writing it or outlook of course, just like any type of fiction. I think your outlook was very utopian in thinking more = better (performance wise, absolutely) = more desirable = longer lasting (not necessarily the case once realism sets in, cost or production and parts in this situation). 

 

Please forgive the offense, I intended to be more critique than critical, but it depends what style you are going for, you asked for realistic expectations and what form of styled games those consoles would come with. I think you are right that potentially it would have come with arcade closer games, I'm just not sure it would have been economicly viable. One of the things about the gaming industry was that the odyssey and the fairchild, while innovative, did not make huge financial success points, and odyssey2 only went as far as it did thanks the Philips buyout. It may well have been that the odyssey2 on price point would have sold comparatively better than an upgraded 2600, which may have led to different battlegrounds in the US. However, I don't think Ataris success was going to stop sega or Nintendo joining the battle and they had already been leaning towards the home video console market before major inroads of US consoles in Japan. 

 

Sometimes looking for the butterfly effect on the other elements is what makes for an engaging alt history, as success never necessarily leads to further success. 

 

Good luck with however you take it forward. 

[RJ]

I bet the OP is super fun at parties.

[RJ]

Hmmm now where did I leave that "Lighten up, Frsncis" meme?

[CPUWIZ]

6 minutes ago, RJ said:

Hmmm now where did I leave that "Lighten up, Francis" meme?

 

[youxia]

12 hours ago, JJohnson said:

I'm writing a book, which I take seriously.

You're saying this in a tone which assumes that everyone here should care about it. If you really are writing a book then all the best to you, but you should be aware that trying to use it as an argument sounds at best pompous. Everyone and their granny is "writing a book", or at least can claim so on the internet, so it's really nothing special.

 

The reason for jokes and mocking replies could well be the fact that there are bazillion "alternative timeline", what-if  threads on this board. Many of them were started as pure trolling, and even the well-intentioned ones more often than not descend into flame wars and absurd arguments. So perhaps some of us could be excused for being a little bit exasperated with them, and having a laugh instead of a "serious discussion".

[CPUWIZ]

I agree, lighten up, "alternate timelines" and "serious discussion" do not go so well together with a lot of old farts.  Especially sarcastic, cynical bastards, like me. ?

 

 

[MrTrust]

1 hour ago, youxia said:

Many of them were started as pure trolling, and even the well-intentioned ones more often than not descend into flame wars and absurd arguments.

 

You say this as if it's just an entropic certitude, but if any thread "descends" into such a state, someone's responsible for the initial push.

 

100% of the time, recently, I've noticed the opening salvo is launched by all the old farts, and then when the target doesn't politely cave and go away, they start braying about how the person they just gratuitously insulted is going to get the thread locked or start a flame war.  Then, when confronted with the fact that they're the ones who introduced all the asshole behavior in the fist place, you get "lighten up, francis".

 

Said my bit; not interested in a debate on the issue.  Don't bother.   Don't apologoze for the thread, @JJohnson.  The people complaining about the thread being a problem are 100% the people causing the problem.  And they all know who they are, and they're the exact ones doing it in the other threads, too.  Just ignore it and watch how fast it stops.

 

 

[JJohnson]

9 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

 

You say this as if it's just an entropic certitude, but if any thread "descends" into such a state, someone's responsible for the initial push.

 

100% of the time, recently, I've noticed the opening salvo is launched by all the old farts, and then when the target doesn't politely cave and go away, they start braying about how the person they just gratuitously insulted is going to get the thread locked or start a flame war.  Then, when confronted with the fact that they're the ones who introduced all the asshole behavior in the fist place, you get "lighten up, francis".

 

Said my bit; not interested in a debate on the issue.  Don't bother.   Don't apologize for the thread, @JJohnson.  The people complaining about the thread being a problem are 100% the people causing the problem.  And they all know who they are, and they're the exact ones doing it in the other threads, too.  Just ignore it and watch how fast it stops.

 

 

Spot on.  Hope you have a great day.

[JJohnson]

1 hour ago, youxia said:

You're saying this in a tone which assumes that everyone here should care about it. If you really are writing a book then all the best to you, but you should be aware that trying to use it as an argument sounds at best pompous. Everyone and their granny is "writing a book", or at least can claim so on the internet, so it's really nothing special.

 

The reason for jokes and mocking replies could well be the fact that there are bazillion "alternative timeline", what-if  threads on this board. Many of them were started as pure trolling, and even the well-intentioned ones more often than not descend into flame wars and absurd arguments. So perhaps some of us could be excused for being a little bit exasperated with them, and having a laugh instead of a "serious discussion".

That first sentence is an assumption.  No one has to care about anything I do; and if not, they can choose to scroll past and ignore the post, rather than leave something non-constructive.  I've already written about 350 pages-worth so far, including random obscurities like 'free silver' from the late 19th century, so it is also not attempting to sound pompous, which is also an assumption, rather than assuming someone means well until proven otherwise.  Tone can be difficult to gather in the written word, but I generally tend to give the benefit of the doubt rather than have a nihilistic and negative assumption when reading posts until the text shows otherwise.

 

I've not read or searched for any other possible 'what if' threads, which is why I posted attempting to get some helpful responses, rather than sarcastic or snarky or dismissive responses.  A few posters here were quite helpful, which is appreciated.  I have fond memories of Atari growing up which is why I was trying to write it into my story, and I assumed other people on this forum were also nostalgic and would be helpful and respectful.  That could be the mistake I made, especially with a few people I saw.

[+x=usr(1536)]

4 minutes ago, JJohnson said:

I've not read or searched for any other possible 'what if' threads

In a nutshell, this is the fundamental mistake that you made.

 

It's surprising that you've been here for two years yet have not managed to figure out that reading other threads and searching for them to find information you're looking for is a survival skill that applies not only here but also elsewhere.

 

Best of luck!

[8th lutz]

13 hours ago, JJohnson said:

As for the 7800, it can come out later, sure, but it most certainly needs tilemaps, better sprites, smooth scrolling horizontally, diagonally, and vertically, the full better sound (not 1977 sound, geez), and a way to get more third party support.

The Atari 7800 did have scrolling games and there are scrolling homebrew games to this day. I'm giving you the names of the homebrew and prototype 7800 games.

 

The 7800 prototype game Toki  is a scrolling game and there is youtube videos on it. You can not play Toki though due to the rom not being released to the public.  Plutos and Sirius are prototype games that are scrolling shooters.

 

Failsafe does scrolling in its game also. Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest has parallax scrolling. Dragon's Havoc is a horizontal shooter that its last bin was released in February this year, but I believe its not completed.  

[Billy Beans]

2 hours ago, CPUWIZ said:

I agree, lighten up, "alternate timelines" and "serious discussion" do not go so well together with a lot of old farts.  Especially sarcastic, cynical bastards, like me. ?

 

 

Dead horses don't have much life in them.

[pacman000]

Scrolling segment from Tower Toppler:

 

 

Scrapyard Dog:

 

Scrapyard Dog - Atari 7800 - YouTube

 

Desert Falcon:

 

Desert Falcon (Atari 7800) - YouTube

 

I know the mere presence of scrolling games isn't enough to say that scrolling was easy, but it is enough to say that scrolling games were possible.

 

What is scrolling anyways? How does it work? The graphics system moves a collection of pixels from one end of the screen to another. Seems to me you could do that with graphics blocks as easily as you could with a tile map, & graphics blocks sound more versatile; you're not stuck arranging everything on a grid.

Edited April 29, 2021 by pacman000

[CPUWIZ]

24 minutes ago, Billy Beans said:

Dead horses don't have much life in them.

 

Right, let's talk about Doc Brown changing the 7800.  My bad.

 

[zzip]

15 hours ago, JJohnson said:

Interesting.  What was Coleco doing?  The Adam computer?

Colecovision was outselling the 5200,  Coleco had a path to play 2600 games before the 5200 did.   Atari seemed to conclude that the 5200 hardware was the problem,  but really it was the price (5200 was originally something like $100 more than Colecovision I believe),  and games.   Coleco included Donkey Kong which was the second hottest game of the era after Pac-Man,  Atari was including Super Breakout.

 

15 hours ago, JJohnson said:

The 7800, yeah, it can come out a little later, sure.  But it definitely needs better sprites, tilemaps, and better scrolling.  Comparing the same games between the NES and 7800 shows the NES looked better at the time, but I don't know if that were due to programmers not knowing how to program to the 7800's strengths, or if it were really that weak in comparison.

The resolution on NES was 256x240.   Most 7800 games ran at 160x200 resolution.   The 7800 is capable of 320x200, but that resolution had challenges to use, so most used the 160x200 instead.   That's why most NES games look better.   The 7800 was king of sprites for its time--   The 5200 had tilemaps and finescrolling, but it was weak on sprites.  Atari/GCC decided what was needed was a sprite chip that could produce unlimited sprites.   That's the 7800's main strength, unfortunately it falls short in other areas.

 

15 hours ago, JJohnson said:

The 5200 if it came out in an altered timeline definitely needs to fix the controller issue, size, price, but I think the tech inside it needs a little improvement for it to be worth the upgrade.  I just don't know what Atari could have reasonably done to make an upgrade.  Resolution?  Colors?  What would have been reasonable at the time, had Atari made better choices?

I think the 5200 capabilities were fine for 82.   Remember before it came out, we were playing games on VCS and Intellivision, and 5200 blew them away visually.   Vs Colecovision each had its share of strengths and weaknesses.   If you put the same games side-by-side on 5200 and Colecovision,  sometimes the Colecovision version comes out on top, sometimes the 5200 version does.  So they were reasonably matched.  

[zzip]

3 hours ago, youxia said:

You're saying this in a tone which assumes that everyone here should care about it. If you really are writing a book then all the best to you, but you should be aware that trying to use it as an argument sounds at best pompous. Everyone and their granny is "writing a book", or at least can claim so on the internet, so it's really nothing special.

 

The reason for jokes and mocking replies could well be the fact that there are bazillion "alternative timeline", what-if  threads on this board. Many of them were started as pure trolling, and even the well-intentioned ones more often than not descend into flame wars and absurd arguments. So perhaps some of us could be excused for being a little bit exasperated with them, and having a laugh instead of a "serious discussion".

There's also an "Ignore this topic" button at the top right of this thread if you truly don't care or are sick of the topic.

 

I don't understand why people complain about threads existing that they don't want to talk about.   Nobody is required to read or participate in every thread

[youxia]

1 hour ago, JJohnson said:

That first sentence is an assumption.  No one has to care about anything I do; and if not, they can choose to scroll past and ignore the post, rather than leave something non-constructive.  I've already written about 350 pages-worth so far, including random obscurities like 'free silver' from the late 19th century, so it is also not attempting to sound pompous, which is also an assumption, rather than assuming someone means well until proven otherwise.

You go on this irrelevant tangent as if not realising I was refering strictly to you using "but I'm a writer!" as some sort of reason why your thread is so important that it shouldn't not allow for a bunch of snarky jokes (even if there is a really good reason for their existence, as @MrTrust very well knows, what with being a major actor in one of these ridiculous threads).

 

Aslo, unless this is you first day on the internet, you should probably know its best to ignore trolls & haters such as myself, not bristle up and get defensive by banging on about publishing a book, and instead concentrate on the "constructive" & "respectful" contributions from the well-adjusted people.

[youxia]

15 minutes ago, zzip said:

There's also an "Ignore this topic" button at the top right of this thread if you truly don't care or are sick of the topic.

 

I don't understand why people complain about threads existing that they don't want to talk about.   Nobody is required to read or participate in every thread

I thought my meaning and purpose of mentioning all that was fairly obvious in teh context of this thread. Since you chose to ignore it and play the Captain Obvious card, let's just say you are complaining about people complaining. That's always a fun thing to do

[RJ]

OP- srsly don't go thru life so wound up, esp. over trivial matters. Stress contributes to poor health &/or death & life brings enough of it so don't manufacture any. 

 

[CPUWIZ]

43 minutes ago, RJ said:

OP- srsly don't go thru life so wound up, esp. over trivial matters.

 

Too late, much fun has been had with the report feature.   Man, it doesn't matter where you look anymore, everyone is just bitching and moaning 24/7.  Why do people torture themselves this way?  It is very simple, if you don't like people that disagree with you, or find your ideas silly, stay off the internet.

 

And to the OP, as a serious side note:

 

1.) What do you want to accomplish with your book?  If it is just for your enjoyment, I wish you the best of luck!

2.) Will you be super disappointed, when nobody buys it?  If you are in it for the money, you are in for a surprise.

3.) Will you visit critics at their home at night and stalk their families?   Just making sure, you sound like you are already on the edge.

 

 

[+Stephen]

1 hour ago, CPUWIZ said:

Too late, much fun has been had

Negged and reported for your negativity.  The nerve of some people.