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You have to understand that in the 80s, computers were a new market and there were a lot of consumers who had no idea why they would ever need one. The people buying computers as hobbies were mostly young, mostly male. For business, people were soon buying PCs even though they cost much more, because they ran the same applications the could in the office. Even the competition wasn't posting eye-popping numbers, Apple II's sold around 6 million total, the TI 99/4a sold 2.8 million. The C-64 ran away with everything with estimated sales of 12-17 million. It wasn't really until the internet came along that owning a computer became mainstream. Because Atari killed the 5200 off in less than two years to make way for the 7800. The 5200 never got a chance.

I'm in US

I think "second hole" indicates that it is a high-density disk, and they never worked properly in my double-density ST drive, maybe others will have other luck, but I'd recommend trying to find double density disks, if you can. Or skip floppies and go to a gotek drive.

Yeah there was definitely a "grass is always greener" feeling. ST might have been the 3rd most popular platform for a time, but that meant it still got a hell of lot of games. But I'd often notice the ones that didn't get ported and get the feeling of "being left out". Of course I never stopped to think about how Commodore 128 or Apple IIgs or CoCo3 users felt, they got many fewer ports. But I would get that feeling at time "oh I should have gotten a PC they get everything" or "I should have gotten an Amiga, everything is better on an Amiga- Amiga users keep telling me so" But then my friend got a Tandy 1000, and so I learned that just because you have a "PC compatible" doesn't mean it's fully PC Compatible, even if it meets the game's specs, and the games didn't run as well or look as good as the ST (at least in the 80s, around 1990 or so that started to shift in the PC's favor) And then I got a roommate with an Amiga and got to finally spend time with one. Noticed that there was very little actual difference in most games between the ST and Amiga versions, other than the sound was clearly better on Amiga and also noticed that the much vaunted multitasking features were nearly useless if you only had stock RAM and no hard drive. So I guess it took me awhile to realize that no system is perfect and my ST was doing just fine. I'll admit I never got too far in Heroes of the Lance, my party would die off shockingly quickly! And the controls were kinda sluggish, but hey the graphics were so pretty! For the Ultima games though, my friends got me into D&D around 84, and I became obsessed with it for awhile. Up to that time, I had never seen an RPG game on a computer, most games were arcade-style or something. I was reading Electronic Games magazines and there were these games being covered- Ultima II and III. I read the reviews of them, and it sounded like D&D in computer form. Must have! Only problem.. didn't have a disk drive for my Atari 800XL yet. Luckily soon after disk drive prices fell, and I got a paper route so I didn't have to beg my parents for things. So as soon as I got a disk drive, Ultima III was one of the first purchases. The graphics didn't bother me, they may have been crude Apple II graphics, but they were stylized and it was like a graph-paper D&D map come to life. The only thing that bothered me about Ultima III was it was repetitive and the map was smaller than I expected, so it kind of wore out its welcome by the time I finished it. Then Ultima IV came out that winter and it was so much better-- it was everything I'd wanted in a computer RPG at that time. I understand why they changed it for the NES, but those versions never sat well with me. I also don't like the way they tried to colorize the Amiga/ST versions of III & IV and only made them look worse. The early Ultima games may not have aged well, but they were perfect for the time and place and level of technology. Other games of the time tried to duplicate what they wee doing, but never quite so well.

I get "site can't be reached"

Just to give an example of how things are shifting: Ten years ago, the concept of "Big Tech" barely existed. People still generally had good feelings about these 'new' internet companies. Google Trends shows that the usage of the term "Big Tech" took off in 2020 after the pandemic I was a fan of Google when they started, but I thought their slogan "Don't Be Evil" was cringe. I predicted within twenty years they'd be seen as evil, and here we are

Supposedly that was the original plan. Allan It was the plan but IMO 1980 would have been way too early. The 2600 hadn't even reached its prime, a console based on the Atari computer chips would still be too expensive in '80

I think the way arcade games were licensed as home ports is at least part of why the 5200 was designed to be incompatible with 400/800 (cart wise) and didn't get a keyboard. Atari had rights to port Donkey Kong to computers, Coleco had the rights to port Donkey Kong to consoles. Atari kept their part of the bargain, but when they found Coleco Adam running Donkey Kong, Atari lost their shit, they sued, reamed out Nintendo, cancelled their NES deal, and so on. By the time of the XEGS, I'm guessing licensing was handled differently so it wouldn't be a problem.

If they can release arcade games in compilations, I don't think there's anything stopping them from putting them on carts, but nothing in the 2600+ specs suggests it will support that. It would have to be some other piece of hardware.

What if they just made a Jaguar controller for the VCS and ran BigPemu on that?

No Love for the "Sears Telegames Video Arcade?"

It better be a voice-enhanced version at that price. I want to hear the bald android girl say "Chicken! Fight Like A Robot!"

No different than if you yanked the cart out of the running system.. Well maybe slightly different if it tries to execute new code that's been inserted in it's place, you might get some interesting effects, but most likely the system just hangs but will be fine after a reset. I see your point though it's a little unprofessional on a legacy 2600 to hang the system to change games.

Yes I have done ASM and sprite coding I've never disassembled Pac-Man code, but if the sprite data is stored as displayed, then it makes no difference whether the eye is present or not, same amount of data required. However, if the Pac-man sprite had no eye, then the top and bottom could be mirrored, yes this would require a few more instructions to implement, but would require half the sprite data. however since the sprite is animated and faces two direction, it should lead to a net savings in rom size of a few bytes (ever byte counts) Either way, my point is there is no technical reason why the eye couldn't be removed. It's there only because Frye was taking liberties with the IP that Pac-man fans didn't ask for. Remember the reason Atari dropped their lawsuit against GCC and instead asked them to develop 2600 games was because they were desperate for developers. Atari's best developers kept leaving and starting new companies. The 2600 homebrew scene barely existed in the 90s when the Ebivision port came, nor did the modern tools people use today. Considering Frye's legacy is Pac-Man and the Swordquest series, both games that should have been great but were ultimately letdowns, I do question whether he was the right person to do the port. I understand this. But many of the changes I suggested are low effort. Changing maze colors, taking the eye out the sprite, change "boing boing" sounds to something else. These are all things that could have been done in an afternoon and not have a net cost on rom size.

It's the ultimate emulation box in a cool Atari case. It baffles me why people like limited-use devices like the 2600+ when VCS plays everything it can, and many things it can't. I guess people really like plugging in plastic cartridges!

We are used to younger Nintendo fans acting like videogames only started when NES released, and anything before that was the dark age when nothing of interest happened. So any Nintendo fan acknowledging Atari at all is a win, I suppose

You are going be like this guy in this old Atari commercial "I'm going to test everything!" "everything?"

Then I did it wrong, should look like PC game with CGA graphics

Nah it's way too colorful for that, a synthwave version of that game would look like this:

As far as I know, Godot can be used as well, or any other Linux development tool. I do remember Davpa saying the VCS was designed with Unity in mind, and I think there are a number of Unity-based games in the store, but I don't think developers are locked into that. But if your code is already on Unity, porting to something else will be a chore.

I always saw AVGN as a schtick, so the harshness was just part of the character.. You tune in for laughs, not accurate hardware reviews.

It depends how the sprite is stored, if they are mirroring parts of it or using some algorithm to generate it, it might require more space. But on the other hand, if they are doing any of that, then removing the eye should save space, since the top of the sprite could mirror the bottom. But the existing "boing boing" sounds aren't the simplest sound either, you have to play with volume to get that effect, I think you could get something more Pacman like with the same amount of code Other hacks and homebrews show that a better maze can be done on the 2600 in 4K. Yes you probably can't get it arcade-perfect on the 2600, but you can get a better maze than what we were presented with. This Ebivision version is 4K and was created over 20 years ago before many of the modern tools were developed. Now maybe the 1982 version wouldn't look quite like that, but it still could have been better than it was It could also be that Todd Frye wasn't the right person to work on it. The job that GCC did on Ms Pac-man and all their other 2600 arcade ports shows that having the right talent matters. Also part of the problem is management, since Pac-man was such a high-profile title, they should have given Frye the resources he needed. They probably should have splurged on an 8K rom to get it right instead of assuming it would sell on name alone.

The main disadvantage is the sprite capabilities vs something like the NES, also if 8-bit had large carts with extra hardware strapped on like NES got, I'm sure there would have been much more impressive games to go along with it. Otherwise, the 7800 has better sprite capabilities that would make it more competative with NES The Atari 8-bit homebrew scene shows what can be done when you push the hardware:

I'm sure they'll do another batch with how fast they keep selling

I wonder if the floppy ribbon cable is plugged-in backwards? That sounds like the kind of behavior you'd get a from a floppy drive when that happens