TOP 50 Tech Products of all time - dissed by PcWorld

[charliecron]

Well, the 2600 came in at number 13...but, they sure did diss Atari...

 

quote:

 

"Along with the original Pong, it remains the only truly important product that Atari ever released."

 

They didnt need to go there did they?!? They could have just let it be with the 2600 award but they just had to get that diss in there didnt they..bastards!

 

oh, forgot to add the link..

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130207-p...gy/article.html

Edited April 4, 2007 by charliecron

[puppetmark]

Its a shame people don't do any homework. My guess is that Mr. Null is just one more lifeless run of the mill shlub who has sold his sole to the devil that is microsoft! We could list all the things that Atari developed and others stole, but I doubt he has the cranial capacity to understand it. I mean how hard can it be to hide behind a pc and write about technology all day! Try coding in 6502 machine language or soldering RAM chips into a computer!

 

people like this are just brain washed idiots!!!

[dinosaur]

For goodness sake, Atari invented USB! (SIO)

 

and paged (expanded memory) before MicroSoft ever heard of it !

 

Christopher Null's ignorance of technological history is unbelieveable!

 

I counted at least five untruths in his article. Sad.

Edited April 4, 2007 by dinosaur

[Urchlay]

and paged (expanded memory) before MicroSoft ever heard of it !

 

Pretty sure Atari didn't invent this. It existed on mainframe/minicomputer architectures long before the XL/XE series came out...

 

Atari may have been the first to do it on a microcomputer though (when did the IBM PC line first start coming with more than 640K of RAM? Did the XL come out before the C-64? How about the Apple II series, did it have >64K before the XL?)

[carmel_andrews]

Urchlay.... your'e incorrect...Atari invented/pioneered the concept of 'bank switching' (i.e the means of switching in and out additional extra memory)

 

You obvious don't know the story behind the 2600 version of 'asteroids', although Atari did do another game before that, that also used 'bank switching' (i can't remember the name of it)

 

Atari also pioneered the concept of 'plug in' memory boards donkey's years b4 the STe/amiga and PC used that technology

 

Also, if you look at the Atari 800 at board level and also look at a modern PC, you'll notice similarities (i.e plug and play), i.e where the PC has slots for graphics/sound cards, Atari just hard wired the graphic/sound board to the main motherboard, also the 800 featured a CPU board, making it easier to replace faulty processors, just like the PC has a CPU slot...and ofcourse as someone already mentioned SIO (which ultimately lead to USB, infact, usb is a simplified but advanced version of Atari SIO)

[Rybags]

Bank switching and paged "Virtual Memory" are two entirely different things.

 

And in any case, Virtual Memory was in common use on mainframe and minicomputer systems in the 1970s, and had debuted decades before the PC ever saw it (Burroughs B5000 system in 1961).

 

 

As for the USB argument - Atari SIO, Commodores serial bus, and any number of legacy systems dating back to the 1950s have similarities.

[+pboland]

I think they could have just left off the last line on the Atari 2600 entry.

 

On a side note, I thought #20 was funny. here is a refresher

 

"20. Microsoft Windows 95 (1995)

 

Yes, we know that plenty of Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows 98 SE, and Windows 2000 fans exist, but Windows 95 first brought us long file names, legitimate multitasking, and a dramatically improved GUI, which arguably represents the brief and final moment in time that Windows actually looked better than a Mac. "

 

The reason I think this is funny is because I use to be a die hard PC guy. Mainly because of all the AutoCAD I use to do. When 95 came out I thought it was going to be the next big thing. Boy was I wrong. No joke, for every two hours I used my PC with win 95 it would crash. I had to spend 2 to 3 hours getting it working again. This happened for months. Just so people here don't think I am a total idiot, I used my PC for CAD, Audio editing, & Video editing. Apparently 95 could not handle all that intense (for the time) processing. Needless to say, my wife talked me in to getting a mac and I never looked back.

[FastRobPlus]

Its a shame people don't do any homework. My guess is that Mr. Null is just one more lifeless run of the mill shlub who has sold his sole to the devil that is microsoft! We could list all the things that Atari developed and others stole, but I doubt he has the cranial capacity to understand it. I mean how hard can it be to hide behind a pc and write about technology all day! Try coding in 6502 machine language or soldering RAM chips into a computer!

 

people like this are just brain washed idiots!!!

 

Um... yeah... just.... yeah....

 

Netscape Navigator (#1) the Apple II computer (#2) TiVo (#3), Napster (#4) Lotus 123 (#5)...

all in all, the cornerstones of Microsoft's vast empire...

 

*edit*

Oh, and I agree with most of the list. No Atari computer should be on there with the Apple II, the Mac, and the Amiga 1000. It's not even close.

Edited April 4, 2007 by FastRobPlus

[dinosaur]

Bank switching and paged "Virtual Memory" are two entirely different things.

 

And in any case, Virtual Memory was in common use on mainframe and minicomputer systems in the 1970s, and had debuted decades before the PC ever saw it (Burroughs B5000 system in 1961).

 

 

As for the USB argument - Atari SIO, Commodores serial bus, and any number of legacy systems dating back to the 1950s have similarities.

 

Rybags,I respect your expertice,but, to me, "bank-switched" and expanded memory are the same.

 

"Virtual memory" ,to me is when memory is swapped out to the hard drive.

[supercat]

Atari may have been the first to do it on a microcomputer though (when did the IBM PC line first start coming with more than 640K of RAM? Did the XL come out before the C-64? How about the Apple II series, did it have >64K before the XL?)

 

The Apple II specification called for expansion boards to bank in memory at $C800-$CFFF if desired. Interestingly, the standard does not specify what is supposed to trigger boards to bank their memory into that space, although board are required to bank themselves out in response to an access to $CFFF.

 

BTW, I wonder why soft switches aren't more widely used outside of the Apple II series? I used them in an embedded PC design and they're very nice from both a hardware and software perspective. Turning on an I/O port is far handier with:

  out 30h,al  ; Value in AL ignored!

than

  in  al,30h
 or  al,08h
 out 30h,al

Not only is the latter fewer instructions, but it also avoids any need to disturb AL.

[+DarkLord]

*edit*

Oh, and I agree with most of the list. No Atari computer should be on there with the Apple II, the Mac, and the Amiga 1000. It's not even close.

 

Well, I just can't stand it. I've owned and used several Amiga's as well as Atari computers

and I feel that at least 1 representative of the 8bit line deserves to be in there, and even

the ST line offered many "firsts" over other computers of the time...

 

I don't agree with a lot of that list....

Edited April 5, 2007 by DarkLord

[FastRobPlus]

*edit*

Oh, and I agree with most of the list. No Atari computer should be on there with the Apple II, the Mac, and the Amiga 1000. It's not even close.

 

Well, I just can't stand it. I've owned and used several Amiga's as well as Atari computers

and I feel that at least 1 representative of the 8bit line deserves to be in there, and even

the ST line offered many "firsts" over other computers of the time...

 

I don't agree with a lot of that list....

 

Well, look at it this way, Miner’s team did give Atari a suite of technologies that had pretty amazing potential when finalized in 1979. Atari made the 800 series of computers and eventually even made a next-gen video game system out of the Atari 8-bit chipset (several years too late.) These were all great things but to really have made a lasting impact Atari should have done a lot more with that technology early on.

 

Miner’s team at Amiga made the next iteration of this technology in the Amiga chipset, even going as far as to prototype a computer to show off what could potentially be done with it. Officially, this team has been quoted many times as downplaying the link between the A8 chipset and the Amiga chipset, but I strongly believe that this has more to do with the lawsuit than with reality.

 

-The Atari 8-bit chipset was an advanced suite of technologies intentioanlly designed to be used in a wide range of home computer, arcade game, and console game applications.

-The Amiga chipset was an advanced suite of technologies intentioanlly designed to be used in a wide range of professional computer, home computer, arcade game, and console game applications.

 

But look at what was done with these chipsets…

Miner said he had to fight to get the edge connector and 256k RAM expander slot on the Amiga 1000. The computer delivered by Commodore in 1985 was an Amiga in spirit, if only because Commodore did not have time to cost reduce it and move it away from its roots. In my mind, Commodore could only ever do what they knew how to do: cost reduce computers.

To their credit, they did release big-box expandable Amigas, but it took them time to get them right. Remember, the Lorraine had a full S100 form factor expansion bus and many other features when it was shown in ‘84. Selling Amiga to Commodore was not the beginning for Amiga, it was the beginning of the end for Amiga…

 

Would Atari have done better? No. They had their chance a full generation prior with the 8-bit chipset and they made the same mistakes. Granted, I think Atari can be forgiven because they were devoting the lion’s share of their resources into the Atari VCS. I can’t even imagine how I would have reacted if I had come out with a videogame system in 1977, fought for 2 years to finally see it take off, and just as it’s gaining some real steam, my hardware team says they have completed their new super-chipset and are ready to replace the VCS. I probably would have sat on the technology too, not really know how to use it without taking vital energy away from the VCS.

 

Commodore = bad (but I still remember them fondly)

Atari = worse (but I still remember them fondly)

Amiga = visionary (but never had a chance alone or aligned with either of the above companies)

 

The Amiga 1000 is the ultimate expression of the Miner’s Atari technology. Just don’t evangelize this back in 1985 when there is a critical lawsuit happening and Commodore/Miner have to PROVE that Amiga technology is totally alien to Atari, or risk Amiga dying altogether.