Atari ST vs Amiga?

[zzip]

as an ST owner, I had an inferiority complex about the Amiga.

 

At least until I had a college roommate with an Amiga 500, and we could use it side by side with my 1040STe. I was surprised how well the STe stood up.

 

Yes on paper the Amiga is better, and some games like Shadow of the Beast and Defender of the Crown blow away the ST versions. But I noticed that many games were virtually identical on both systems. But the real shock for me was the Amiga OS. It had a painful UI, at least that version on that model. I never thought GEM was a great UI, but I gained a new appreciation for its relative speed, almost instant boot up, and clean design after spending time using the Amiga 500.

 

So it seems each system excelled at a particular niche. The ST was better for productivity applications and musicians, the Amiga was the best system for multimedia applications and games.

[leech]

I've got to ask this, since it's bugged me since I had read all about it a few years ago.

 

Most of us now know that pretty much the Atari 8-bit line grew into the Amiga, and most of the same engineers that worked at Commodore on the 64 and Vic-20 were the ones who built the Atari ST.

 

But how many of you knew that back then? How many were younger like me and convinced their parents to buy an ST after having the 800XL because Atari was awesome? A friend of mine had gone the other route and went from a C64 to an A500.

 

Probably most of us did that (I know brand loyalty was indeed mentioned earlier in the thread). But it'd be interesting to know if some of you were just 'Jay Miner' fans and went 2600 -> A8 -> Amiga (maybe Lynx since it was made by some of the Amiga dudes as well?). Let's face it, by the time the XE/ST days, Atari simply wasn't the same as the one that was beloved from 2600-XL days.

[zzip]

I've got to ask this, since it's bugged me since I had read all about it a few years ago.

 

Most of us now know that pretty much the Atari 8-bit line grew into the Amiga, and most of the same engineers that worked at Commodore on the 64 and Vic-20 were the ones who built the Atari ST.

 

But how many of you knew that back then? How many were younger like me and convinced their parents to buy an ST after having the 800XL because Atari was awesome? A friend of mine had gone the other route and went from a C64 to an A500.

 

Probably most of us did that (I know brand loyalty was indeed mentioned earlier in the thread). But it'd be interesting to know if some of you were just 'Jay Miner' fans and went 2600 -> A8 -> Amiga (maybe Lynx since it was made by some of the Amiga dudes as well?). Let's face it, by the time the XE/ST days, Atari simply wasn't the same as the one that was beloved from 2600-XL days.

 

I knew. I mean I didn't know the full stories, just the bits and pieces that I read in magazines at the time.

 

I had read that some guy named Jay Miner created the Amiga chips, and he worked on the Atari 800 before that.

I knew that Jack Tramiel bought Atari and he used to run Commodore.

I also knew that Atari tried to sue Amiga for breach of contract over the Amiga chips, and that Amiga had made "joyboards", a Wii-fit style 2600 controller. (My friend had one)

 

But I didn't know much more than that. I had no idea about the planned 1850XLD that would have used Amiga chips.

 

And I agree that Atari changed drastically under Tramiel. For one, they didn't have the same marketing muscle that Warner had. Also Tramiel threw the company into disarray for awhile-- (1984-85) for instance, my Atari Service Center couldn't get the replacement parts I needed because Atari wouldn't even answer their calls. Also I noticed that many big games/apps were suddenly not getting Atari 8-bit ports around 85, as developers took a wait-and-see attitude. Magazines were casting doubt on Atari's future or Tramiels ability to deliver the new computer he was working on.

 

But then XE and ST did come out and that changed things for awhile. But the Tramiel Atari did have a habit of announcing peripherals and then taking forever to deliver (like XEP-80, the double-sided 8-bit disk drive, the ST Blitter chip, etc).

 

For game consoles, under Warner Atari stayed cutting edge. Under Tramiel, it seemed more about cashing-in on Atari's past glories (2600 jr, XEGS, delayed too long 7800) rather than developing new hardware to stay competitive with Sega and Nintendo.

Edited January 26, 2017 by zzip

[leech]

Yeah, Tramiels pretty much murdered Atari. By that I mean when they bought them, they went through and did 5 min interviews with everyone and if the project they were working on didn't sound cool enough to them, the person got the ax. I'm trying to remember the numbers, but there were huge layoffs.

 

I didn't really buy that many magazines in the 80s, either because I was too young to care, or because there were so few that were here in the US, and most of those were imports so cost twice as much as they should have, at least in the ST days.

[Goochman]

Yeah, Tramiels pretty much murdered Atari. By that I mean when they bought them, they went through and did 5 min interviews with everyone and if the project they were working on didn't sound cool enough to them, the person got the ax. I'm trying to remember the numbers, but there were huge layoffs.

 

I didn't really buy that many magazines in the 80s, either because I was too young to care, or because there were so few that were here in the US, and most of those were imports so cost twice as much as they should have, at least in the ST days.

 

I think you can find this in the books. Warner technically fired everyone. Tramiel interviewed many to "re-hire" them to the new Atari Corp.

[leech]

Hmm, I think it was some video I watched recently on youtube that had said it was the Tramiels, after they had acquired Atari that basically said Yay or Nay for people, but it's quite possible you're (or the books) is correct in this.

 

There is the whole E.T. fiasco that can be placed squarely on Warner...

[zzip]

Hmm, I think it was some video I watched recently on youtube that had said it was the Tramiels, after they had acquired Atari that basically said Yay or Nay for people, but it's quite possible you're (or the books) is correct in this.

 

There is the whole E.T. fiasco that can be placed squarely on Warner...

 

I've read different accounts of things that happened there.

 

With regards to the 7800, one version of the story has it that Tramiel was hell-bent against selling video games and cancelled it, saying they were a computer company now.

 

Another version was that GCC (developers of 7800) had not gotten paid by Warner and held up the project until Tramiel finally paid them to get it over with

[leech]

Interesting, I had only heard that the 7800 was delayed for 2 years, and that it was mostly due to what you said about the Tramiels only wanting to sell computers. But with hiw Atari was known for not paying developers on time... I have read that about far too many different Atari projects for me to doubt that. The JagVR for one.

 

I have never owned a 5200 or 7800. I think I own or have owned every other system released by them at one point or another. Now the oldest one I have is an 800. 2600 I am okay with emulating, the 5200 was pretty much the 8bit with terrible controllers, and it seems the 7800 didn't get a whole lot of support.

[D.Daniels]

I personally love both machines so the debate is of no interest imho. You make a good point though! I wasn't expecting this to explode into a 15 year old debate; I should have known better.

 

I love both too (I had an ST) but I would describe the Amiga as more like a PS4 Pro compared to a PS4, they were very close hardware wise, but the Amiga had the extra horse power in graphics and sound.

Edited January 26, 2017 by D.Daniels

[Goochman]

 

I've read different accounts of things that happened there.

 

With regards to the 7800, one version of the story has it that Tramiel was hell-bent against selling video games and cancelled it, saying they were a computer company now.

 

Another version was that GCC (developers of 7800) had not gotten paid by Warner and held up the project until Tramiel finally paid them to get it over with

 

 

Again in the book that Curt and Marty put together IIRC Tramiel wasnt against video games - he hired Katz to actually run a group around it. There was a disagreement on if the 7800 was part of the Warner transaction and part of that was Tramiel insisting the 7800 bills were not his but Warners.

[kimchipenguin]

And I agree that Atari changed drastically under Tramiel. For one, they didn't have the same marketing muscle that Warner had. Also Tramiel threw the company into disarray for awhile-- (1984-85) for instance, my Atari Service Center couldn't get the replacement parts I needed because Atari wouldn't even answer their calls. Also I noticed that many big games/apps were suddenly not getting Atari 8-bit ports around 85, as developers took a wait-and-see attitude. Magazines were casting doubt on Atari's future or Tramiels ability to deliver the new computer he was working on.

 

For game consoles, under Warner Atari stayed cutting edge. Under Tramiel, it seemed more about cashing-in on Atari's past glories (2600 jr, XEGS, delayed too long 7800) rather than developing new hardware to stay competitive with Sega and Nintendo.

 

Atari was already in disarray well before Jack Tramiel bought parts of the company. Warner did the layoffs, Tramiel re-hired a few people. Remember that the home division lost money and Tramiel had to get the company back on track as soon as possible. He didn't have the financial resources to lose money for a couple of years. The 2600 was ageing, the 7800 didn't have a good game library and the 8-bit computers were losing market share to the C64. Plus, Tramiel's company was already working on the ST before buying Atari.

 

Also, Atari under Warner was hardly cutting edge. The 7800 should've been released instead of the 5200, they treated their internal developers badly and the XL series appeared too late.

 

With regards to the 7800, one version of the story has it that Tramiel was hell-bent against selling video games and cancelled it, saying they were a computer company now.

Another version was that GCC (developers of 7800) had not gotten paid by Warner and held up the project until Tramiel finally paid them to get it over with

 

 

There isn't one version of the story and another. The first one is a myth that has been spread by too many people. Tramiel did sell video games (with a profit) and sold the ST as a games machine in a few markets (mostly UK). They also developed new games for both the 2600 and 7800. Unfortunately, Tramiel-Atari didn't have an arcade unit or large internal game development teams like Sega had or the support by Japanese game developers.

 

Read the book. Vendel and Goldmann talked with many people who worked at Atari.

[D.Daniels]

 

Atari was already in disarray well before Jack Tramiel bought parts of the company. Warner did the layoffs, Tramiel re-hired a few people. Remember that the home division lost money and Tramiel had to get the company back on track as soon as possible. He didn't have the financial resources to lose money for a couple of years. The 2600 was ageing, the 7800 didn't have a good game library and the 8-bit computers were losing market share to the C64. Plus, Tramiel's company was already working on the ST before buying Atari.

 

Also, Atari under Warner was hardly cutting edge. The 7800 should've been released instead of the 5200, they treated their internal developers badly and the XL series appeared too late.

 

 

There isn't one version of the story and another. The first one is a myth that has been spread by too many people. Tramiel did sell video games (with a profit) and sold the ST as a games machine in a few markets (mostly UK). They also developed new games for both the 2600 and 7800. Unfortunately, Tramiel-Atari didn't have an arcade unit or large internal game development teams like Sega had or the support by Japanese game developers.

 

Read the book. Vendel and Goldmann talked with many people who worked at Atari.

 

Also one daft decision was selling off the arcade division or if they had to, not redeeming exclusive rights over software, because the Amiga got outsourced Gauntlet and such Atari ports. Jack should have at least made exclusive ST versions of Gauntlet and such produced by Atari games themselves. But then again, you had Atari games (Tengen) porting Sega games to the Nes, and Sega licensing their games to be ported to the PC engine, while promoting the Master System, so go figure

Edited January 28, 2017 by D.Daniels

[leech]

Eh? Gauntlet specifically was never commercially released for the Amiga, though I recall a while back someone ported it, along with Joust. Gauntlet 2 on the otherhand did come out for both.

 

If they had gotten an arcade exlusive deal with Atari Games, they certainly would have been better off. Though, with the exception of Stun runner and a few others, I can't think of any really successful arcade games coming out of Atari after that time. Everyone wanted to play Street Fighter 2.

 

Here is a thought to this conversation... we all argue about how the first systems were compared to each other. What about the last of the line? Would you compare the Falcon to an A1200? I think price wise, the Falcon was somewhere between an A4000 and A1200, which spec wise, it more or less was as well, but again, the Falcon was much too late, as was the AGA machines, but at least the Falcon can do chunky

[D.Daniels]

Eh? Gauntlet specifically was never commercially released for the Amiga, though I recall a while back someone ported it, along with Joust. Gauntlet 2 on the otherhand did come out for both.

 

If they had gotten an arcade exlusive deal with Atari Games, they certainly would have been better off. Though, with the exception of Stun runner and a few others, I can't think of any really successful arcade games coming out of Atari after that time. Everyone wanted to play Street Fighter 2.

 

Here is a thought to this conversation... we all argue about how the first systems were compared to each other. What about the last of the line? Would you compare the Falcon to an A1200? I think price wise, the Falcon was somewhere between an A4000 and A1200, which spec wise, it more or less was as well, but again, the Falcon was much too late, as was the AGA machines, but at least the Falcon can do chunky

 

 

 

The 1200 or A4000 probably was a better choice than the Falcon because from what I remember, the Amiga was still supported even until the mid 90's, the ST had lost a lot of support around 92/93, and that probably followed on with the Falcon.

Edited January 29, 2017 by D.Daniels

[+DarkLord]

I always felt that I was getting a lot more "bang for the buck", when talking

about the A1200 vs the Falcon.

 

http://atarimusic.exxoshost.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=263:the-falcon030-vs-the-amiga1200&catid=60:atari-hardware&Itemid=214

 

http://www.stformat.com/news/news-450.html

 

I've owned both machines. The quality of construction goes to the Falcon IMHO. The Falcon feels much more solid than the A1200. I loathed the on/off switch

on the Amiga being on the power brick on the floor. Ugh.

 

Overall software library would have to go to the Amiga, for sheer volume/support, I'd reckon.

[Lynxpro]

 

 

Again in the book that Curt and Marty put together IIRC Tramiel wasnt against video games - he hired Katz to actually run a group around it. There was a disagreement on if the 7800 was part of the Warner transaction and part of that was Tramiel insisting the 7800 bills were not his but Warners.

 

This may end up in Curt and Marty's book on Atari Corp but Michael Katz's interview with the Antic 8-bit Podcast talked about some of the conditions he made before coming aboard with Atari Corp.

 

Not only did he want to market video games but also electronic games/toys. This is why Atari Corp's "video game" division was named "Atari Entertainment Electronics". [they certainly couldn't use "Atari Games" since the real Atari Inc Remnant was using that name] during his tenure.

 

He wanted to market a Lazer Tag competitor. Some engineers at Bally Midway had created one and Katz apparently negotiated the exclusive licensing deal only to have Jack Tramiel kill it despite him promising not to interfere.

 

Jack Tramiel is apparently responsible for nixing the Atari Corp/Sega licensing deal that would've had Atari Corp market the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis in North America. Tramiel apparently complained about the royalties Sega was demanding and he stated he didn't need the Genesis because they already had the XE Game System [unclear if Katz actually meant the real XE Game System or was mistakenly confusing it with the rumored ST Game System that never happened].

 

After all of that, Katz retired after his Atari Corp stock options matured, went on vacation, and then was hired by Sega of America to spearhead the North American launch of the Sega Genesis. And the rest is history...

[D.Daniels]

 

This may end up in Curt and Marty's book on Atari Corp but Michael Katz's interview with the Antic 8-bit Podcast talked about some of the conditions he made before coming aboard with Atari Corp.

 

Not only did he want to market video games but also electronic games/toys. This is why Atari Corp's "video game" division was named "Atari Entertainment Electronics". [they certainly couldn't use "Atari Games" since the real Atari Inc Remnant was using that name] during his tenure.

 

He wanted to market a Lazer Tag competitor. Some engineers at Bally Midway had created one and Katz apparently negotiated the exclusive licensing deal only to have Jack Tramiel kill it despite him promising not to interfere.

 

Jack Tramiel is apparently responsible for nixing the Atari Corp/Sega licensing deal that would've had Atari Corp market the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis in North America. Tramiel apparently complained about the royalties Sega was demanding and he stated he didn't need the Genesis because they already had the XE Game System [unclear if Katz actually meant the real XE Game System or was mistakenly confusing it with the rumored ST Game System that never happened].

 

After all of that, Katz retired after his Atari Corp stock options matured, went on vacation, and then was hired by Sega of America to spearhead the North American launch of the Sega Genesis. And the rest is history...

 

I'm quite glad Jack Tramiel didn't get the MegaDrive/ Genesis even know being in the UK it may have not effected us, credit to him for the C64 but Sega were the best to manage it, even Atari were still sticking to 3 buttons in 1994 when Sega had moved on to 6

Edited February 3, 2017 by D.Daniels

[Lynxpro]

 

Also one daft decision was selling off the arcade division or if they had to, not redeeming exclusive rights over software, because the Amiga got outsourced Gauntlet and such Atari ports. Jack should have at least made exclusive ST versions of Gauntlet and such produced by Atari games themselves. But then again, you had Atari games (Tengen) porting Sega games to the Nes, and Sega licensing their games to be ported to the PC engine, while promoting the Master System, so go figure

 

There's conflicting stories. One of the conflicting stories is Warner offered Atari Coin to Tramiel for an extra $10 million and he passed on it. During the early days of Atari Corp, apparently ex-Atari Inc staff working for Tramiel were still working along with their ex-Atari Inc friends at Atari Games since in one of the buildings, it was split. They were apparently helping each other for awhile as if the chaos of July 1984 hadn't happened. Several Atari Games staff did end up with STs at least after they were released. Atari Corp and Atari Games had to sue each other to have a court decide which company owned various IPs due to the messy split Warner had caused in haste. They also didn't care for each other at least until their mutual hatred of the monopolist Nintendo brought them together at times [and was claimed to have been instigated by Steve Ross back at Warner since Warner continued to be a shareholder in both of the companies].

 

Tengen was the sub-brand Atari Games Corp created because they couldn't use the brand "Atari" for consumer products since Jack Tramiel's Atari Corp held those rights.

 

When Commodore crashed the party and bought Amiga to prevent Atari Inc from acquiring the company and the IP, they ruined two different deals. One deal was for Atari Inc's Consumer Division to release a 16-bit Game System for Christmas 1985 based upon the Amiga Lorraine chipset which was code named "Mickey". The other part of the deal was that Atari Coin [later known as "Atari Games"] was to have rights to the Amiga Lorraine chipset for arcade games. Atari Inc was originally prohibited from making a computer - or a computer upgrade - to the Amiga Lorraine for 1 full year had Amiga remained independent. Had Atari Inc actually acquired Amiga though, they could've released a computer based upon the chipset much quicker. Even if the sell-off would've still happened and Tramiel's Atari Corp happened, they could've folded their work on the ST into the Amiga project. Imagine GEM/TOS with the Amiga chipset plus MIDI.

 

What I'd like to have answered is why the Amiga cost so much to produce compared to the ST. It shouldn't have because Commodore had MOS build the custom chips; Atari Corp never had their own chip fab business so they always had to pay well above cost for their custom chips for the ST. In theory, the ST should've cost more than the Amiga. I guess Irving Gould was more concerned with short-term profit than market share...

[zzip]

 

This may end up in Curt and Marty's book on Atari Corp but Michael Katz's interview with the Antic 8-bit Podcast talked about some of the conditions he made before coming aboard with Atari Corp.

 

Not only did he want to market video games but also electronic games/toys. This is why Atari Corp's "video game" division was named "Atari Entertainment Electronics". [they certainly couldn't use "Atari Games" since the real Atari Inc Remnant was using that name] during his tenure.

 

He wanted to market a Lazer Tag competitor. Some engineers at Bally Midway had created one and Katz apparently negotiated the exclusive licensing deal only to have Jack Tramiel kill it despite him promising not to interfere.

 

Jack Tramiel is apparently responsible for nixing the Atari Corp/Sega licensing deal that would've had Atari Corp market the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis in North America. Tramiel apparently complained about the royalties Sega was demanding and he stated he didn't need the Genesis because they already had the XE Game System [unclear if Katz actually meant the real XE Game System or was mistakenly confusing it with the rumored ST Game System that never happened].

 

After all of that, Katz retired after his Atari Corp stock options matured, went on vacation, and then was hired by Sega of America to spearhead the North American launch of the Sega Genesis. And the rest is history...

 

Wow, So they had options on not only the NES, but the Genesis too?

 

It's tempting to say they blew it, but on the other hand, I have no confidence the Tramiel Atari could have even marketed them properly and they may not have been as popular as they were.

[zzip]

 

When Commodore crashed the party and bought Amiga to prevent Atari Inc from acquiring the company and the IP, they ruined two different deals. One deal was for Atari Inc's Consumer Division to release a 16-bit Game System for Christmas 1985 based upon the Amiga Lorraine chipset which was code named "Mickey". The other part of the deal was that Atari Coin [later known as "Atari Games"] was to have rights to the Amiga Lorraine chipset for arcade games. Atari Inc was originally prohibited from making a computer - or a computer upgrade - to the Amiga Lorraine for 1 full year had Amiga remained independent. Had Atari Inc actually acquired Amiga though, they could've released a computer based upon the chipset much quicker. Even if the sell-off would've still happened and Tramiel's Atari Corp happened, they could've folded their work on the ST into the Amiga project. Imagine GEM/TOS with the Amiga chipset plus MIDI.

 

I had always heard that the Amiga chipset was intended to be used in the 1850XLD. I find it hard to believe they would have released a new 16-bit game system in 1985 after (the planned) launching of the 7800 in 1984 and the 5200 in 82. Not just because too many system with too short life, but look how expensive 16-bit computers were in 85 -- $800 starting price for ST. A 16-bit console with custom Amiga chips seems like it would be $500 minimum

[Lynxpro]

Eh? Gauntlet specifically was never commercially released for the Amiga, though I recall a while back someone ported it, along with Joust. Gauntlet 2 on the otherhand did come out for both.

 

If they had gotten an arcade exlusive deal with Atari Games, they certainly would have been better off. Though, with the exception of Stun runner and a few others, I can't think of any really successful arcade games coming out of Atari after that time. Everyone wanted to play Street Fighter 2.

 

 

 

 

Gauntlet, Gauntlet II, Paperboy, 720 Degrees, Toobin', Marble Madness, Peter Pack Rat, Road Runner, A.P.B., Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Batman, Roadblasters, STUN Runner, Hydra, Pit Fighter, Primal Rage, Blasteroids, Hard Drivin', Race Drivin', Rampart, Xybots, Cyberball, Tournament Cyberball 2072, Cyberball 2072, , Tetris, Klax, Vindicators, Super Sprint, Championship Sprint, T-MEK, Skull & Crossbones, Area 51, Area 51 Site 4, Maximum Force, California Speed, Road Riot 4WD, the San Francisco Rush series, Steel Talons, etc. The Atari Games/Tengen library sold many Atari Lynxes and Sega Genesises in their day.

 

That's also not counting the Namco titles Atari Games also released: Pac-Mania, Rolling Thunder, RBI Baseball, etc.

[D.Daniels]

 

There's conflicting stories. One of the conflicting stories is Warner offered Atari Coin to Tramiel for an extra $10 million and he passed on it. During the early days of Atari Corp, apparently ex-Atari Inc staff working for Tramiel were still working along with their ex-Atari Inc friends at Atari Games since in one of the buildings, it was split. They were apparently helping each other for awhile as if the chaos of July 1984 hadn't happened. Several Atari Games staff did end up with STs at least after they were released. Atari Corp and Atari Games had to sue each other to have a court decide which company owned various IPs due to the messy split Warner had caused in haste. They also didn't care for each other at least until their mutual hatred of the monopolist Nintendo brought them together at times [and was claimed to have been instigated by Steve Ross back at Warner since Warner continued to be a shareholder in both of the companies].

 

Tengen was the sub-brand Atari Games Corp created because they couldn't use the brand "Atari" for consumer products since Jack Tramiel's Atari Corp held those rights.

 

When Commodore crashed the party and bought Amiga to prevent Atari Inc from acquiring the company and the IP, they ruined two different deals. One deal was for Atari Inc's Consumer Division to release a 16-bit Game System for Christmas 1985 based upon the Amiga Lorraine chipset which was code named "Mickey". The other part of the deal was that Atari Coin [later known as "Atari Games"] was to have rights to the Amiga Lorraine chipset for arcade games. Atari Inc was originally prohibited from making a computer - or a computer upgrade - to the Amiga Lorraine for 1 full year had Amiga remained independent. Had Atari Inc actually acquired Amiga though, they could've released a computer based upon the chipset much quicker. Even if the sell-off would've still happened and Tramiel's Atari Corp happened, they could've folded their work on the ST into the Amiga project. Imagine GEM/TOS with the Amiga chipset plus MIDI.

 

What I'd like to have answered is why the Amiga cost so much to produce compared to the ST. It shouldn't have because Commodore had MOS build the custom chips; Atari Corp never had their own chip fab business so they always had to pay well above cost for their custom chips for the ST. In theory, the ST should've cost more than the Amiga. I guess Irving Gould was more concerned with short-term profit than market share...

 

thanks for that, I love that kind of history, and didn't know that, I think the ST might have been cheaper as it was off the shelf parts, maybe Atari got a discount, where as at one point Atari were keeping Amiga afloat for a month (I think)

[Lynxpro]

 

Wow, So they had options on not only the NES, but the Genesis too?

 

It's tempting to say they blew it, but on the other hand, I have no confidence the Tramiel Atari could have even marketed them properly and they may not have been as popular as they were.

 

Atari Inc had negotiated for the Nintendo Famicom at Nintendo's insistence. Nintendo asked for an arm and a leg for it though. The majority of Atari's staff felt GCC's 7800 was superior to the Famicom, Ed Logg probably being one of the few in opposition to that assertion.

 

The whole deal fell apart after CES when Coleco showed Donkey Kong running on the ADAM and Ray Kassar was removed from Atari leadership due to the stock scandal.

Regardless, had Atari Inc survived and brought the 7800 to market in Christmas 1984, it would've pre-emotively blown away Nintendo. Nintendo ran into major opposition in 1985 from American retailers stuck with plenty of Atari 2600 compatible cartridges they wanted to sell. They were outright hostile to any system that wasn't 2600-compatible. They wanted the 7800.

Edited February 3, 2017 by Lynxpro

[Lynxpro]

 

I had always heard that the Amiga chipset was intended to be used in the 1850XLD. I find it hard to believe they would have released a new 16-bit game system in 1985 after (the planned) launching of the 7800 in 1984 and the 5200 in 82. Not just because too many system with too short life, but look how expensive 16-bit computers were in 85 -- $800 starting price for ST. A 16-bit console with custom Amiga chips seems like it would be $500 minimum

 

Nope. The Mickey wouldn't have cost $500. A Motorola 68000 at cost back then was between $4 - $8 per unit, with volume discounts for larger orders. The Mickey would've been strictly a gaming system and with 128K RAM. It was doable at about $299 then. Now the "1800XL" series would've been a full fledged 16-bit computer with the Amiga Lorraine chipset in it. Certainly. And at a much higher cost. When the Mickey came out in Christmas 1985, the 7800 would've dropped in price accordingly. It was totally doable. When Jack Tramiel came into town and he was negotiating with GCC to get the 7800 still released for Christmas 1984, GCC held everything up because they didn't want Atari Corp selling the 7800 console for $49.99 - $59.99 MSRP because it would've massively cut into their royalties. Atari Inc wouldn't have sold the 7800 that cheap for Christmas 1984. If I recall, their plan was to sell at $129 or so.

[leech]

I remember the advertisements for the 7800 to be on sale ate 49.99, though that may have been a year or two after release. Seriously fun times either way, when there were more competition and some truly inmovative hardware was coming out... theses days, wven the consoles are just some x86 hardware crammed into poorly cooled boxes. Wasn't it great when you didn't have to hear your computer / game console? I actually hate playing bloodborne because the PS4 fan howls every time I do.