Differences ATARI 800 XL/XE and ATARI 5200

[Lord-Chaos]

Hi,

 

what are the differences between ATARI 5200 and ATARI 800 XL/XE systems ?

 

Th 5200 was not released in Europe,so I don´t know much about it , but I´ve seen some (pirate) versions of 5200 games working on ATARI 800 XL.

 

Is the 5200 a real ATARI 800 XL or is the hardware different ?

 

Same sprites (4 player/4 missiles) ?

Capable of 256-color-mode ?

Same sound ?

 

Thimo

[DanBoris]

The hardware is pretty much the same as the 8-bits, same major chips (6502, GTIA, ANTIC, POKEY). The big differences are:

 

- The GTIA and POKEY are at different addresses and there is no PIA chip in the 5200.

- The 5200 joysticks are analog and are read like paddles on the 8-bit

- The keyboard scanning is used to read the controller keypads

- The 5200 has a very small bios that is mainly used for bootup, it doesn't provide any of the services that the 8-bit BIOS provides

 

 

You can get full details on the differences here:

 

http://atarihq.com/danb/files/52analog.txt

 

 

Dan