SoundGammon Posted May 18, 2021 Share Posted May 18, 2021 I've always wondered why Imagic never made games for the 5200. They did Demon Attack and Atlantis for the 8-bits, which were converted to the 5200. Anyone ever ask the guys who worked there why? 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ryan Witmer Posted May 18, 2021 Share Posted May 18, 2021 Imagic games are great, and based on their Intellivision output I think they could have done some great stuff on the 5200. But forget about the games, what I really want to see is a 5200-size Imagic cart! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Climber Posted May 18, 2021 Share Posted May 18, 2021 1 hour ago, SoundGammon said: I've always wondered why Imagic never made games for the 5200. They did Demon Attack and Atlantis for the 8-bits, which were converted to the 5200. Anyone ever ask the guys who worked there why? This could be one of those "game crash era" debates... I mean, take Activision and maybe Parker bros out of the equation and there wasn't many 3rd party games period for the 5200... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeddyBear89 Posted May 18, 2021 Share Posted May 18, 2021 The question of the day award goes to SoundGammon! How come there are no 5200 Imagic games? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted May 18, 2021 Share Posted May 18, 2021 Imagic did produce a few games for the Atari 400/800 computers: in addition to Atlantis and Demon Attack, there were also (by way of the 1-2-3 pack) Wing War, Quick Step, and Laser Gates. It would have been relatively easy to produce 5200 versions as well, but perhaps they decided there wasn't enough of a market to release them—or, perhaps their own money troubles by that time prevented them from doing so. Someday I'd like to collect all five games into one album cartridge for the 5200. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGHMW Posted May 18, 2021 Share Posted May 18, 2021 (edited) 7 hours ago, jaybird3rd said: Imagic did produce a few games for the Atari 400/800 computers: in addition to Atlantis and Demon Attack, there were also (by way of the 1-2-3 pack) Wing War, Quick Step, and Laser Gates. It would have been relatively easy to produce 5200 versions as well, but perhaps they decided there wasn't enough of a market to release them—or, perhaps their own money troubles by that time prevented them from doing so. Someday I'd like to collect all five games into one album cartridge for the 5200. Well perhaps now would be the time to provide Big Sexy owners these games for them, and since Imagic wouldn't do it, maybe one of you guys can do it for them!!! @Wrathchild, or @tep392, are either of you guys up to it, do you feel kinda 5200 "sexy" (as in "Big Sexy") right about now??? This wasn't ME asking this time, this was our fellow Atarians, so please, for them, how about it!!! Laser Gates.xex Quick Step.xex Wing Wars.xex Edited May 18, 2021 by BIGHMW correct wrong punctuation mark 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGHMW Posted May 18, 2021 Share Posted May 18, 2021 I found the 5200 version of Laser Gates, so I am including that in this post. Laser Gates.bin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted May 18, 2021 Share Posted May 18, 2021 Now just to make a 3D pattern for an imagic 5200 cart shell. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo-Torch Posted May 19, 2021 Share Posted May 19, 2021 9 hours ago, jaybird3rd said: It would have been relatively easy to produce 5200 versions as well, but perhaps they decided there wasn't enough of a market to release them—or, perhaps their own money troubles by that time prevented them from doing so. But they were releasing new games for the Odyssey 2 in 1983, which had next to no market at that point. And they did pick up ColecoVision which was getting a few games as late as 1984. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted May 19, 2021 Share Posted May 19, 2021 The Odyssey2 may have had little market share in 1982/83 but it had a larger install base. More importantly it exceeded the one million units mark which was a cutoff for some publishers. If Atari hadn't cancelled the 5200 in 1984 it might have gotten more third party cartridges that year. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted May 19, 2021 Share Posted May 19, 2021 Maybe it was as simple as being redundant. The 5200 couldn't really do anything more or better than the 400/800. At least that's how us kids saw it back then. The analog controllers were a moot point even if they provided better control in some games. They were just so unreliable and overall frustrating. Back then I must have gone through 6 extra controllers. It seemed the side buttons were the first to go. @mr_me Indeed the million mark was a real turning point for publishers. At the same time, however, the industry was still very new. I would like to have seen a lower barrier of maybe 500,000. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reklen Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 They had plans to but went belly up at about the time the 5200 did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+playsoft Posted May 24, 2021 Share Posted May 24, 2021 Your mileage may vary with these quick conversions. Both were new to me, so no nostalgia and I can't get into playing either of them. I like that Wing Wars keeps everything very simple (no scrolling, basic P/Ms) but it does the job OK. I changed the controls so the second trigger launches a fireball, no need to hold the joystick down. There is some impressive programming in Quick Step where it changes colour registers on the fly each scanline so that every individual item of food has a totally independent colour. ww.bin qs.bin 5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGHMW Posted May 24, 2021 Share Posted May 24, 2021 Woke up, found this, Thanks Paul!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGHMW Posted May 24, 2021 Share Posted May 24, 2021 Little issue, involving the alternate fire button on my 7800 CX24 stick I use through Redemption, it seems not to work, I read the PDF of the 2600 game and know more about how to play it but is there a glitch or did my one and only fully-working CX24 stick I use as a digital alternative to the CX52 go out on me, must be those dreaded pop-o-matic fire buttons again, same thing that killed the others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+playsoft Posted May 24, 2021 Share Posted May 24, 2021 All I can say is it works fine for me with my CX52. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGHMW Posted May 24, 2021 Share Posted May 24, 2021 30 minutes ago, playsoft said: All I can say is it works fine for me with my CX52. cool, must be those dreaded pop-o-matic "contacts" on my 7800 stick, I'll try the CX52 instead, thanks Paul! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+playsoft Posted May 24, 2021 Share Posted May 24, 2021 38 minutes ago, BIGHMW said: cool, must be those dreaded pop-o-matic "contacts" on my 7800 stick, I'll try the CX52 instead, thanks Paul! Ray, you could always try another game which uses the alternate button and see whether that works. The instructions for the A8 version can be found here: Imagic 1-2-3.pdf (atarimania.com) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGHMW Posted May 24, 2021 Share Posted May 24, 2021 (for @playsoft, as I was unable to PM him) Dear Paul, Thanks for making Wing War and Quick Step for the 5200, but I DO have a special request in which is also somewhat 8-bit-to-5200 port-related. I am having a controller problem with the 5200 version of Asteroids, it seems like there just isn't enough 'dead zone' in it in order to separate going from one direction to another, she has tendencies of being "off-center" and has been known for not having the most stable of control like the 8-bit version does. I never have this problem with other similarly-controlled games (like Star Island, Megaoids, Delta Space Arena, and even Meteorites) in which seem to be more stable. I also know that if it really came down to which ONE system to own if I could only have one, it would be the 5200. With games like Ryan Witmer's brilliant IntelliDiscs, your terrific 8-bit-to-5200 conversion of Yar's Strike you did for us last year, as well as Tempest, Qix, Hangly-Man, Beef Drop, and the Mean Hamster Software titles among others it seems like it's a slam dunk to stick with Big Sexy. So for me to keep my 5200 running great, I just wanted to ask you to if maybe you can please fix the controller problem with Asteroids, I am including both the (somewhat faulty) 5200 port as well as the 8-bit original version and I hope that maybe you can fix the problem with the centering and with the over-sensitivity she has. She plays great except for the controller issue, once that's fixed then she would be PERFECT as she would've been the original pack-in game back in 1982 if not for the control issues. Thanks, and have a great week!!! Ray Jackson AtariAge user ID: BIGHMW Host of The Atari Report Asteroids.bin Asteroids.xex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bohoki Posted May 25, 2021 Share Posted May 25, 2021 i guess they didnt feel they sold enough units to make it worth while they made plenty of games for the c64 demon attack,moonsweeper,dragonfire,chopperhunt,nova blast Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+playsoft Posted May 25, 2021 Share Posted May 25, 2021 Ray, The Asteroids code keeps track of the lowest and highest values it reads from each POT. It splits this range into quarters so that a value in the first quarter is up/left and a value in the last quarter is down/right. The other 2 quarters form the dead zone, which is 50% of the range, which ought to be enough. A perfectly operating POT would give values in the range $00 to $E4. You probably won't get that but you want the range centred around the mid-point. The CX52 I have plugged in a the moment reads $0F/$CE/$09/$D7 when fully up/down/left/right. Run the attached cal.bin to see what values you are getting from your controller. cal.bin 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+playsoft Posted May 25, 2021 Share Posted May 25, 2021 10 hours ago, bohoki said: i guess they didnt feel they sold enough units to make it worth while they made plenty of games for the c64 demon attack,moonsweeper,dragonfire,chopperhunt,nova blast Yes it looks like Quick Step and Wing Wars were both written for cart but ended up on a compilation disk, so it seems they were cutting their losses on the Atari 8-bit computers. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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