7800 was a good console.

[mcjakeqcool]

I'm posting a new topic saying the 7800 was a good console, anyone agree with me?

[kroogur]

Yes... yes I do. The 7800 had some good things going for it! Backwards compatibility, good graphics, pleasing shape and appearance. It was a decent system.

 

After seeing some of the later games and some of the unreleased ones you could see it was capable of decent graphics and gameplay.

[atarian63]

I'm posting a new topic saying the 7800 was a good console, anyone agree with me?

Same here I am playing it more than any other system now. Especially due to the great programmers here at Atariage releasing new titles!

[aftermac]

Yes. The 7800 has been my favorite console since my grandpa bought his (now mine) in the early 90's.

[108 Stars]

Quite a genereic topic for an Atari 7800 section.

[GroovyBee]

"is" not "was"

[mimo]

"is" not "was"

beat me to that one, I agree the 7800 IS a great system, and with all the recent home brew and hacks (and the stuff in the pipeline) it gets better and better and better

[108 Stars]

Maybe he means it is expired? Like food....does the 7800 have a "best-play-before 19xx"-sign?

[mcjakeqcool]

@kroogur

Same here, I'm hooked on the 7800, Ms Pacman is by far the best on the 7800, even Mario Bros is good!

[etschuetz]

This ties into my What if thread a bit. I made that thread because I truly feel that the Atari 7800 system was a forgotten pet that was later found and quickly put on display without proper grooming. It continues to show the potential it had. I am glad to see that there are those out there (here) that are continuing its legacy.

[Classic Pac]

I agree it was, the only reason it gained such a bad rep was only due to the games.

[Curt Vendel]

I was uniquely fortunate, a very good long time friend of mine - who is here on Atariage now, Joe Ventura used to work for a company out in Brooklyn called Distributors International and they received a large sample shipment of Atari 7800's from Atari and he was on his way out to pursue some other avenue's, so he picked up a fews units - and one for me, which happened to be a brand spanking new 1984 boxed system and 3 games - Asteroids, Centipede and Ms Pac Man and stopped by my house when I lived down in Staten Island and dropped it off to me. That was my first Atari 7800. I pride myself on only acquiring 1984 El Paso 7800's and I've got probably 7-8 of them now, plus a crystal 7800 with controllers.

 

The 7800 has always been my favorite of all of the game console systems.

 

 

Curt

[nathanallan]

Whenever I play Atari, it's on the 7800. Love it.

[DracIsBack]

I agree it was, the only reason it gained such a bad rep was only due to the games.

 

 

I think a lot of its rep is due to lack of promotion as well. Through the years, I've noticed that many people who are not Atarians either:

 

a) Don't know what it is and think a system with the word "Atari" must mean that it's a 2600 and dated compared to almost everything else. Even noticed this when people see my Jaguar. "in 1995 ... "OH MY GOD ATARI - that's sooooo ollld"

 

b) I think the 2600 compatibility often helps foster this too. With all the games marked as "for 2600 and 7800" and all the 7800's in stores running 2600 games, I've seen a lot of posts in the forums where people assume that the 7800 *is* a 2600.

 

There's also the issue of people assuming that it was much older than NES and re-released, like the 2600. Without arguing pros and cons of MARIA vs. PPU, reality is that NES was developed first as FAMICOM and the systems are in the same age range.

 

Agree: Between Groovy Bee, Kenfused, PacManPlus, Curt, Chad and the other homebrewers I think its starting to come into its own now!

Edited June 27, 2009 by DracIsBack

[108 Stars]

As I said, Inever played Atari 7800 or knew anyone who had one. The only thing I knew about the 7800 was in 1987/1988, when kids of my age (6 or 7 years) usually played Atari 2600..the Atari catalogues packed in the console box and games showed the thing and mentioned it can play 2600-games.

 

And many of the games really were available on both systems, adding to it´s lack of personality as a console of its own. The machine even looks like the 2600jr.

 

It was like a strange brother to the 2600, pretty much the same but nobody had it, and when no other kids have it, you don´t care about it either.

 

Really an obscure system to most people around here.

[phonedork]

I'm posting a new topic saying the 7800 was a good console, anyone agree with me?

 

Thats funny you would ask this question on a Atari 7800 forum.

[Rik]

I say it IS a decent system,and it would have been a FANTASTIC system if it had a pokey sound chip IN the console itself.I can live with the not so hot sound on some games that dont have a pokey inside the cartridge itself though.Atari sure had a knack at screwing an otherwise Fantastic product be it hardare or software.

[nathanallan]

I've been wondring, what can be done to it as a mod that can improve it? I'm thinking composite out would be great, but what else? How can it be improved?? There's a processor that makes the C64 run a bit smoother so what can be done for the 7800?

[gdement]

I've been wondring, what can be done to it as a mod that can improve it? I'm thinking composite out would be great, but what else? How can it be improved?? There's a processor that makes the C64 run a bit smoother so what can be done for the 7800?

Overclocking a 7800? Interesting idea.

Faster 6502's are certainly out there but I don't think any support the halt feature that the Atari depends on.

 

I think the clock is controlled by the Maria, as it contains the logic to set clock rate based on what address is active.

So overclocking the Maria should overclock everything. I'm skeptical that the Maria is any good for overclocking though. Might also screw up video sync.

 

You'd probably have to somehow overclock the 6502 while leaving Maria alone. If you managed that, I think the big question would be how fast can the cartridge ROMs keep up with?

[mcjakeqcool]

Shame Atari had'ent messed up with the 5200, and shame the game crash of '83 ravaged the video game market, because the 7800 could have been a sucsess.

[nathanallan]

I know it was exclusive, but I'd like to see the SMS Sonic the Hedgehog ported to the 7800.

[kool kitty89]

I know it was exclusive, but I'd like to see the SMS Sonic the Hedgehog ported to the 7800.

 

I doubt that would be practical, in terms of an actual port. You could probably do a sonic themed game that would be similar in some ways, but it would have to be progremmed quite differently. (and making detailed backgrounds would be more difficult) Of course there's Scrapyard Dog as an example, but while that compares in some ways, the background detal is still a bit less I think. (some have suggested that this could be solved with enough RAM added for a framebuffer, though for practical purposes I'd think this woould be limited to the 160x120 resolution mode)

 

In terms of an actual port of the original game it'd probably be a lot easier to do on the NES given the similar graphics architecture. The 5200/A8-bit line would be more proactical as well in that respect.

 

As cool as some of the features on MARIA are, it's not very good for porting contemporary tilemap+sprite based games to.

 

Had they gotten enough support the 7800 would be great for exclusive games and ports of some games, and others that could be licenced as well but would need to basicly be rewritten due to the differences in the 7800's architecture. (as I understand it) Still, had they gotten the interest, being different wouldn't have been much of an issue, and indeed thare are plenty of advantages with the 7800 architecture, it's more flexible, but lacks some of the hard coded features (like sprites and scrolling backgrounds) which put it at a disadvantage for some of the common genres. (though for vertical scrolling it wouldn't be at a disadvantage)

 

Still it would be the only home system around capable of handling large numbers of moving objects without flicker, so in addition to Robotron (and other arcade games like Sinistar), it would be good for shmups with large numbers of enemies on screen (particularly vertically scrolling which wasn't a hardware feature of contemporary competitors), and it could handle psudo 3D scaling type games well additionally. (Ballblazer) Can you immagine how Space Harrier or Afterburner could have been on the system?

 

And in non-sidescrolling genres like advanture games, it wouldn't be at a disadvantage either. (or games that jumpped from screen to screen rather than scroling, like pitfall or many other Atari 2600 games) A game like Zelda shouldn't be a problem in that respect.

Edited June 29, 2009 by kool kitty89

[GroovyBee]

@kool kitty89:

:lol: :lol: You've never actually programmed for the 7800 have you?

[etschuetz]

@kool kitty89:

:lol: :lol: You've never actually programmed for the 7800 have you?

 

This is something I like to stand by. I am not a programmer, even though I have the degree (just never got into it after I graduated college), but looking at the older NES games versus the Atari 7800 titles, I always felt they could have done that. The Atari 7800 was a capable system. For short comings, Atari could have created "add-ons" to update and compensate (not the best option really). Regardless, the 7800 was more capable of the games on the NES and SMS that people realize. The issue, from my understanding, was always the fact that the processor would be interupted due to the bus design, or something of that line. If that was not the issue, along with TIME for the developers to properly develop games, along with an extra year to push the system, i.e. release it in 84 instead of 86, we would have seen more games that looked like the other systems' games.

[DracIsBack]

Regardless, the 7800 was more capable of the games on the NES and SMS that people realize.

 

I think the issue is that the average non-programmer takes things to the extreme when a programmer explains the strengths and weaknesses.

 

I've seen quite a few people read through an explanation of how MARIA works and then later quote,

 

"I heard the 7800 can't scroll"

 

or

 

"I heard it can't do games like SUPER MARIO at at"

 

etc

 

A programmer doesn't look at the problem in a sense of "all or nothing" but some people who read their explanations do.