What if....Atari 8bit

[carmel_andrews]

Carmel.... seriously, where do you come up with this sh*t you piece together!?!?!?

 

 

......snip, if i am not taking things out of context

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trying to answer your post

 

 

Firstly...try looking at the title of the thread...doesn’t the first 2 words indicate ‘What if’...which unless i am much mistaken means exploring possbilities/ideas etc....not fact

Because i stated what if....I wanted to discuss possibilities and idea’s based on technology and product atari had or atari were still developing...and applying them to POSSIBLE real world practical scenarios...again i was NOT discussing FACT

 

And just incase you hadn’t noticed is...i used Terms like ‘Perhaps Atari could and should have’....or atari could and should have...again in the context of taking whatever they were doing and applying it to POSSIBLE real world practical scenarios...again i was not discussing fact

 

Now, i seem to remember a particular thread (7800 section i recall) where certain poster(s) where trying to disrespect you in someway, I seem to recall mentioning that perhaps they should review their attitude towards you and the work you do for the atari community and here you are not only misinterpreting not only my post and the title and subject heading of the thread, but also disrespecting me and at the same time or throwing everything i said in regards to you in that particular thread, back in my face

Perhaps next time I will be a bit more careful when someone decides to jump on your case or disrespect you or something

[carmel_andrews]

Carmel.... seriously, where do you come up with this sh*t you piece together!?!?!?

 

 

......snip, if i am not taking things out of context

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trying to answer your post

 

 

Firstly...try looking at the title of the thread...doesn’t the first 2 words indicate ‘What if’...which unless i am much mistaken means exploring possbilities/ideas etc....not fact

Because i stated what if....I wanted to discuss possibilities and idea’s based on technology and product atari had or atari were still developing...and applying them to POSSIBLE real world practical scenarios...again i was NOT discussing FACT

 

And just incase you hadn’t noticed is...i used Terms like ‘Perhaps Atari could and should have’....or atari could and should have...again in the context of taking whatever they were doing and applying it to POSSIBLE real world practical scenarios...again i was not discussing fact

 

Now, i seem to remember a particular thread (7800 section i recall) where certain poster(s) where trying to disrespect you in someway, I seem to recall mentioning that perhaps they should review their attitude towards you and the work you do for the atari community and here you are not only misinterpreting not only my post and the title and subject heading of the thread, but also disrespecting me and at the same time or throwing everything i said in regards to you in that particular thread, back in my face

Perhaps next time I will be a bit more careful when someone decides to jump on your case or disrespect you or something

[mos6507]

What Atari needed to do is take the 800 as a base specification and IMPROVE the sound and graphics

 

To do that would require Atari to have in-house R&D that actually understood how the chipset worked so they could extend upon it. They didn't have that. Not by a longshot. They shot themselves in the foot by losing Jay Miner's team in the first place. The only thing that passed for R&D since then were various attempts to repackage, cost-reduce, and add peripherals to the existing chipsets. The brain-trust was simply not there. It was there in coinop, but not in consumer.

 

I just got done watching some making-of-Amiga videos on Youtube and the people behind the Amiga claim that Atari nickle and dimed Amiga and that's why they went to Commodore. To make matters worse, they claim that Atari only wanted the machine, but did not want the Amiga workforce. The idea that Atari would pass up an opportunity to bring Jay back in is inexcusable.

 

I don't see how any preferred alternate reality for Atari would propose that Atari lose the Amiga and do something on its own.

 

However I don't agree the ST was a failure, there was such little 8 bit demand from the public compatibility was not a big issue, and if you compare it to the Mac it was a better machine with a better OS. Less cheap keyboard would have helped a lot but as a games machine with no sprites/good sound/hardware scrolling/blitter the ST was living on borrowed time as a games machine, which is a shame because as a business machine it was fantastic and writing friendly GEM programs using FAST Basic was a sinch

 

Once you get into the Tramiel era it's a comedy of errors on so many levels. There was no way Atari would regain its former glory with those guys at the helm.

[Rybags]

They could have made the ST a worthy Amiga competitor from the onset, but it probably would have delayed it by a year... by then the battle would have been over anyway.

[Retro Rogue]

I just got done watching some making-of-Amiga videos on Youtube and the people behind the Amiga claim that Atari nickle and dimed Amiga and that's why they went to Commodore. To make matters worse, they claim that Atari only wanted the machine, but did not want the Amiga workforce. The idea that Atari would pass up an opportunity to bring Jay back in is inexcusable.

 

 

Unfortauntely, as usual, the source of that (mis)information in the Youtube video is RJ again during one of his speeches. He's the "they" and he's confusing several different things, further adding to the continued issues with the history of that time period. First and foremost, he constantly melds the line between Tramiel/TTL, Atari Inc., and Atari Corp. The visit with the price haggling of a $1 and dropping and the replacement of the staff was actually with Tramiel, and that spring while they were actively looking for more investors. Additionally, it was *before* Tramiel had anything to do with anything Atari. He was still under TTL and looking for possible technology to use. The meetings lasted about a week and went nowhere because of his lowballing and open desire to get rid of everyone. Tramiel moved on and Amiga moved on. And Tramiel knew nothing about Atari Inc.'s loan and technology deal with Amiga, and in fact didn't find out until after the purchase and during the review period - after his people were already being sued by Commodore.

 

Likewise, the discussions on the loan from Atari Inc. was in late '83, not '84. Atari Inc. didn't pass up any oppotunity - Jay didn't want to come back from the beginning. He didn't even want to approach Atari Inc. in the first place. However, they were the ones with the deepest pockets at the time and the most connections they could use.

 

It was sad not to see Joe Decuir anywhere in that video series either, someone who was integral in the early Amiga hardware design and a close partner and friend to Jay. Unfortunately he was still laying low at the time of that filming - he was in the unique position of being back at Atari (working on the XL expansion bus cards) during the buyout and the legal melee that ensued.

[mos6507]

Unfortauntely, as usual, the source of that (mis)information in the Youtube video is RJ again during one of his speeches.

 

Why is it you can have so many Amiga people in one place like that and nobody sees fit to correct him? That is a vintage interview from before Jay passed away so the memories can't be that faded. I don't get it.

[Retro Rogue]

Unfortauntely, as usual, the source of that (mis)information in the Youtube video is RJ again during one of his speeches.

 

Why is it you can have so many Amiga people in one place like that and nobody sees fit to correct him? That is a vintage interview from before Jay passed away so the memories can't be that faded. I don't get it.

 

I don't recall seeing anyone up on stage except him, those were two different things interspliced - a private roundable, and RJ doing an entertaining speech on a stage. They didn't talk about any of that during the roundtable with all the Amigan's there. And luckily we have paperwork (which Curt has a lot of of course - such as the one of the agreements up on his site which was clearly signed in November of '83, contradicting one of RJ's statements as I stated), plans, documents and people from all sides to interview and crossreference with. And it was corrected in the Commodore history book as well. RJ seems to be the primary source of that misinformation, mostly due to his hatred for the Tramiels. And honestly, I recall one interview with Jay done towards the end of his life where he contradicts himself and matters of record stating some of RJ's material as well - but I've only run across that one.

 

Very specifically, Leonard was the one who discovered the deal via the cashed (cancelled) check (which he still has) at the end of July, as he was one of the prime people reviewing projects, assets, etc. (During the period where they shut down all projects to evalue what they wanted to continue with and what they didn't). The day after the announcement of Jack buying Consumer (chiefly for the manufacturing and distribution), Commodore launches a suit against Shiraz and several other engineers for theft of trade secrets and gets an injunction on any computer development, and then gets an extension on the injunction -

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/14/business...?sec=&spon=

Their main thing was (and something that was later confirmed by one of Shiraz's co-workers and that also appears in the Commodore book), that Tramiel's new computer was based on work done while at Commodore. In full crescendo, Commodore also announced their intention to buy Amiga during the same time which was finally approved by the board that August. Leonard finds the check later that month, Jack uses the null deal to file a countersuit of sorts back at Commodore by going after their new prize posession and putting a chokehold on them like they were trying to do to him. His general counsel (Leonard Schreiber, also the former general counsel for Commodore), lead the suit. It was pure luck that the check and deal material were found as well - when people say stuff was walking out the door, it wasn't just protos and other material. It was paperwork, etc. as well. And there was even vandalism on the mainframe with people purposely deleting emails, directories, and material before Tramiel took over the consumer properties as well. Something luckily Curt was able to identify because of some earlier backup tapes.

 

I don't fault RJ for his dislike of someone, he's perfectly entitled to.

Edited August 1, 2009 by wgungfu

[carmel_andrews]

Atari....A nice idea for the first few years after NB left....Once all the people who built atari during the NB and NB/WC transition period left (say 1982)...Atari was on a course it would never recover from...going down down down (marketshare, quality of product/technology. respect and lack of vision/focus)

 

Perhaps if tramiel had been smart, he'd have not have closed down R&D but streamlined and kept some of the people that created the technology and got them to work that tech for the european/UK market only, kept the existing product lines (incl. the 5200 and 7800) and put that part of atari to work in europe/UK only (possibly even merging both sections together, i.e. R&D and the old consumer divsion), where it faced less competition and just focused on the ST and focus the ST as an application machine...i.e. cad/cam/DTV,DTP and High end printing, Music, SME business solutions like an accounting and office suite of programs and similar non games apps for the US market...As soon as the ST established itself in the US, replicate that established market in the euro/uk markets as a trade up for Atari's existing product lines, and by then whatever technology of R&D had been implemented by atari's existing product lines in europe/uk and was an established product in it's own right, try and replicate that products success in the US

[frenchman]

Tramiel's did right the the ST though. The ST did very well in UK, Germany and France, even when the A500 came along.

[peteym5]

Getting back to the 8-bit line. If Jay Miner and his team stayed, maybe we would have seen further developments with the chips and probably why they were not improved for the XL/XE line. I am sure if they stayed, there probably be a few more additions to the chipsets. I read they left because they wanted to start developing the chipset that ended up in the Amiga, based on a 16bit architecture. Many people left Atari after Warner took over because of the way Ray Kassar ran the company. Programmers left to form Activision. Engineers left to form Amiga corporation. Warner did not let Nolan Bushnell stay in control, things might have been better if he did.

[Curt Vendel]

Glenn,

 

The problem with what was told is a mix of RJ and Jay misremembering. Atari (Atari under Warner) had already fronted Amiga $500,000 to complete the development of the chipset in exchange for its use. What RJ is referring to is a meeting with Jack Tramiel who visited Amiga, among other companies - like Mindset, and Jack flat out said he wanted the chipset, not the engineers or the company as a whole. They went to Commodore because several days before the June 30th deadline to deliver the chipset to Atari, they got wind that Tramiel was buying Atari and scrambled to find someone else to buy Amiga - which wound up being Commodore. Commodore repaid the $500,000 to Amiga to give to Atari instead of the chipset - what I still deem a direct violation of the contract (if Atari hadn't of funded Amiga to finish the chipset, by June 30, 1984 there never would've been a chipset or company for Commodore to have bought in the first place.)

 

This came from my discussions with both Dave Needles and Joe Decuir.

 

 

 

Curt

 

 

What Atari needed to do is take the 800 as a base specification and IMPROVE the sound and graphics

 

To do that would require Atari to have in-house R&D that actually understood how the chipset worked so they could extend upon it. They didn't have that. Not by a longshot. They shot themselves in the foot by losing Jay Miner's team in the first place. The only thing that passed for R&D since then were various attempts to repackage, cost-reduce, and add peripherals to the existing chipsets. The brain-trust was simply not there. It was there in coinop, but not in consumer.

 

I just got done watching some making-of-Amiga videos on Youtube and the people behind the Amiga claim that Atari nickle and dimed Amiga and that's why they went to Commodore. To make matters worse, they claim that Atari only wanted the machine, but did not want the Amiga workforce. The idea that Atari would pass up an opportunity to bring Jay back in is inexcusable.

 

I don't see how any preferred alternate reality for Atari would propose that Atari lose the Amiga and do something on its own.

 

However I don't agree the ST was a failure, there was such little 8 bit demand from the public compatibility was not a big issue, and if you compare it to the Mac it was a better machine with a better OS. Less cheap keyboard would have helped a lot but as a games machine with no sprites/good sound/hardware scrolling/blitter the ST was living on borrowed time as a games machine, which is a shame because as a business machine it was fantastic and writing friendly GEM programs using FAST Basic was a sinch

 

Once you get into the Tramiel era it's a comedy of errors on so many levels. There was no way Atari would regain its former glory with those guys at the helm.

[Curt Vendel]

I have spent years tracking down anyone who will tell me the final settlement of the Aug 13, 1984 lawsuit filed by Atari against Commodore/Amiga. It was settled in 1987. I've spoken with as many Atari lawyers as I could track down and no one seems to (or wants to - the statute of limitations long expired, they could speak up now) want to reveal the out of court sealed settlement. That I am sure would reveal an enormous about on the contriversy.

 

 

 

Curt

 

 

 

Unfortauntely, as usual, the source of that (mis)information in the Youtube video is RJ again during one of his speeches.

 

Why is it you can have so many Amiga people in one place like that and nobody sees fit to correct him? That is a vintage interview from before Jay passed away so the memories can't be that faded. I don't get it.

 

I don't recall seeing anyone up on stage except him, those were two different things interspliced - a private roundable, and RJ doing an entertaining speech on a stage. They didn't talk about any of that during the roundtable with all the Amigan's there. And luckily we have paperwork (which Curt has a lot of of course - such as the one of the agreements up on his site which was clearly signed in November of '83, contradicting one of RJ's statements as I stated), plans, documents and people from all sides to interview and crossreference with. And it was corrected in the Commodore history book as well. RJ seems to be the primary source of that misinformation, mostly due to his hatred for the Tramiels. And honestly, I recall one interview with Jay done towards the end of his life where he contradicts himself and matters of record stating some of RJ's material as well - but I've only run across that one.

 

Very specifically, Leonard was the one who discovered the deal via the cashed (cancelled) check (which he still has) at the end of July, as he was one of the prime people reviewing projects, assets, etc. (During the period where they shut down all projects to evalue what they wanted to continue with and what they didn't). The day after the announcement of Jack buying Consumer (chiefly for the manufacturing and distribution), Commodore launches a suit against Shiraz and several other engineers for theft of trade secrets and gets an injunction on any computer development, and then gets an extension on the injunction -

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/14/business...?sec=&spon=

Their main thing was (and something that was later confirmed by one of Shiraz's co-workers and that also appears in the Commodore book), that Tramiel's new computer was based on work done while at Commodore. In full crescendo, Commodore also announced their intention to buy Amiga during the same time which was finally approved by the board that August. Leonard finds the check later that month, Jack uses the null deal to file a countersuit of sorts back at Commodore by going after their new prize posession and putting a chokehold on them like they were trying to do to him. His general counsel (Leonard Schreiber, also the former general counsel for Commodore), lead the suit. It was pure luck that the check and deal material were found as well - when people say stuff was walking out the door, it wasn't just protos and other material. It was paperwork, etc. as well. And there was even vandalism on the mainframe with people purposely deleting emails, directories, and material before Tramiel took over the consumer properties as well. Something luckily Curt was able to identify because of some earlier backup tapes.

 

I don't fault RJ for his dislike of someone, he's perfectly entitled to.

[carmel_andrews]

I doubt very much that an amiga'ised ST based on any settlement between atari and commodore would have helped the ST anyway because you would have still the problem of software houses writing for the base machine (the standard ST)

 

After all the STe, when it was released hardly got any support (i.e 3rd parties doing STe specific programs), the reason being because A- Everyone was writing to the base ST....B- Atari were also still selling the ST as well as the STe (bad mistake if you are trying to get software support for the new machine) C- STe was not selling in the sort of numbers that made software companies interested in supporting the STe...Additionally atari made the big mistake (at least in UK/europe anyway) of reintroducing the standard ST at a lower priced package in 1992...not a good idea if you're still trying to get any STe specific software in the market

[dwhyte]

I doubt very much that an amiga'ised ST based on any settlement between atari and commodore would have helped the ST anyway because you would have still the problem of software houses writing for the base machine (the standard ST)

 

After all the STe, when it was released hardly got any support (i.e 3rd parties doing STe specific programs), the reason being because A- Everyone was writing to the base ST....B- Atari were also still selling the ST as well as the STe (bad mistake if you are trying to get software support for the new machine) C- STe was not selling in the sort of numbers that made software companies interested in supporting the STe...Additionally atari made the big mistake (at least in UK/europe anyway) of reintroducing the standard ST at a lower priced package in 1992...not a good idea if you're still trying to get any STe specific software in the market

 

LMFAO... Your odd method of speculation never ceases to amuse me...

[carmel_andrews]

LMFAO... Your odd method of speculation never ceases to amuse me...

 

 

 

 

 

Where?

[Retro Rogue]

I have spent years tracking down anyone who will tell me the final settlement of the Aug 13, 1984 lawsuit filed by Atari against Commodore/Amiga. It was settled in 1987. I've spoken with as many Atari lawyers as I could track down and no one seems to (or wants to - the statute of limitations long expired, they could speak up now) want to reveal the out of court sealed settlement. That I am sure would reveal an enormous about on the contriversy.

 

 

 

Curt

 

 

Yah, its a shame Leonard Schreiber died in '99, he could have filled everything in nicely. Might have to go at it from somebody on the Commodore side.

[kool kitty89]

What Atari needed to do is take the 800 as a base specification and IMPROVE the sound and graphics

 

To do that would require Atari to have in-house R&D that actually understood how the chipset worked so they could extend upon it. They didn't have that. Not by a longshot. They shot themselves in the foot by losing Jay Miner's team in the first place. The only thing that passed for R&D since then were various attempts to repackage, cost-reduce, and add peripherals to the existing chipsets. The brain-trust was simply not there. It was there in coinop, but not in consumer.

 

Umm, did you miss the comments about Gaza and Sierra and Curt's on the Silver & Gold and Rainbow chipsets in development? I commented that what I've read is relatively vague on specifics, but Atarimuseum's short summary seems to imply the machines were quire capable, the rub would have been in terms of cost, which I have no idea on. (though the dual CPU layout of Gaza would tend to point away from this) Perhaps Curt could shed more light on this. (and he already mentioned he'll be shedding new light on a 8-bit compatible high-end unit called "Omni")

 

Here's his prevuous post I referred to: (main points in bold)

Carmel.... seriously, where do you come up with this sh*t you piece together!?!?!?

 

 

Internally several projects were already in the works or done and presented, but Warner Management canned because it went against what they felt Atari should've been doing. There was no "all eggs in one basket" approach re: the Amiga/Lorraine.

 

Atari had several chips (Silver&Gold, Rainbow&Amy) and projects like the 68000 based notebook computer and other projects, Atari R&D was already working on extremely advanced replacements. Something I haven't yet revealed is a project called "Omni" and once I've finished collecting some final data and materials, I'll present it, but it was a bridging system - highly advanced, but backwards compatible with the 800.

 

What was wrong with the next step from the 800 was Atari was keenly focused on cost reduction, not creating new products - the VCS and the Atari 800 chipset, from there forward, nothing new was released based on new chipsets of enhancements until 1984 with the Atari ProSystem and the MARIA, a chipset developed by a 3rd party no less.

 

Atari had high end, high priced systems which were doing well, they should further improved the designs and went upward after the Apple ][ and IBM PC markets which were possible to compete against in 1982, and left Commodore to be a low end bottom feeder line.

 

 

 

Also Curt,

Lastly - the Atari 5200 in and of itself was a major design mistake, for very little cost, the Atari 400 should've just been repackaged into a new set of plastics, combo joysticks such as the 2700, but hardwired could've been designed for it, they could've changed the cartridge pinouts and added some additional lines for external video/audio through the cartridge port, heck, maybe even ran the SIO lines up through the cartridge port and this way the new pin layouts and size wouldn't have allowed Atari 800 carts to be used in it, or vice-versa. There would've been a new high end home console, no major design investments, no worries about having to have coders work on a game console game and then have to re-write it to the home computers, they could be done in one shot and just time different release dates, given each platform an exclusive of a title for a few months and then for big sales games for the holidays, release them at the same time. There was never a reason to have gone through the convoluted nonsense of the Atari 5200 design the way it was done, period.

What about backwards compatibility?

Edited August 1, 2009 by kool kitty89

[Curt Vendel]

OKay, so your going to try using that kind of excuse...

 

Well then, if you are hypothetical in your post, then on each question or statement you should be starting with "What if" or "Theoretically" otherwise, your wording and tone sounds like you are stating fact, not thinking of possible what if senario's. As you can see by the thread, as with most threads, then tend to tangent a bit, sometimes going totally off the original topic title, so you cannot just fallback and say "Well I did call the topic What If" That's just not acceptable and honestly Carmel, this is not your first transgression of warping and distorting Atari history, injecting an almost Bizarro-World Atari timeline mixed with real events, your own suppositions, guesses and fantasies and making the whole discussion sound like fact. I've watched many, many of your postings that were more wishful thinking then historical fact and ignored them until now, I finally had enough. I have spent over 20 years pouring over documents over and over again, trying to correct, clarify and expand on history, quite frankly, going back and even correcting my very own early novice-historian mistakes from the past and its been a very long road to get to where things are today. Please do not distort what is factual with your own version of what you wish was factual. Remember, each day, there are new people who don't know much about Atari and when they look for guidance and information, the last thing they need to do is follow the pied piper of misinformation.

 

 

Curt

 

 

Carmel.... seriously, where do you come up with this sh*t you piece together!?!?!?

 

 

......snip, if i am not taking things out of context

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trying to answer your post

 

 

Firstly...try looking at the title of the thread...doesn’t the first 2 words indicate ‘What if’...which unless i am much mistaken means exploring possbilities/ideas etc....not fact

Because i stated what if....I wanted to discuss possibilities and idea’s based on technology and product atari had or atari were still developing...and applying them to POSSIBLE real world practical scenarios...again i was NOT discussing FACT

 

And just incase you hadn’t noticed is...i used Terms like ‘Perhaps Atari could and should have’....or atarai could and should have...again in the context of taking whatever they were doing and applying it to POSSIBLE real world practical scenarios...again i was not discussing fact

 

Now, i seem to remember a particular thread (7800 section i recall) where certain poster(s) where trying to disrespect you in someway, I seem to recall mentioning that perhaps they should review their attitude towards you and the work you do for the atari community and here you are not only misinterpreting not only my post and the title and subject heading of the thread, but also disrespecting me and at the same time or throwing everything i said in regards to you in that particular thread, back in my face

Perhaps next time I will be a bit more careful when someone decides to jump on your case or disrespect you or something

[Curt Vendel]

Expand on your question please, what about backwards compatibilty? With what system and so forth??? Please be a little bit more specific, thanks.

 

 

 

Curt

 

 

 

What Atari needed to do is take the 800 as a base specification and IMPROVE the sound and graphics

 

To do that would require Atari to have in-house R&D that actually understood how the chipset worked so they could extend upon it. They didn't have that. Not by a longshot. They shot themselves in the foot by losing Jay Miner's team in the first place. The only thing that passed for R&D since then were various attempts to repackage, cost-reduce, and add peripherals to the existing chipsets. The brain-trust was simply not there. It was there in coinop, but not in consumer.

 

Umm, did you miss the comments about Gaza and Sierra and Curt's on the Silver & Gold and Rainbow chipsets in development? I commented that what I've read is relatively vague on specifics, but Atarimuseum's short summary seems to imply the machines were quire capable, the rub would have been in terms of cost, which I have no idea on. (though the dual CPU layout of Gaza would tend to point away from this) Perhaps Curt could shed more light on this. (and he already mentioned he'll be shedding new light on a 8-bit compatible high-end unit called "Omni")

 

Here's his prevuous post I referred to: (main points in bold)

Carmel.... seriously, where do you come up with this sh*t you piece together!?!?!?

 

 

Internally several projects were already in the works or done and presented, but Warner Management canned because it went against what they felt Atari should've been doing. There was no "all eggs in one basket" approach re: the Amiga/Lorraine.

 

Atari had several chips (Silver&Gold, Rainbow&Amy) and projects like the 68000 based notebook computer and other projects, Atari R&D was already working on extremely advanced replacements. Something I haven't yet revealed is a project called "Omni" and once I've finished collecting some final data and materials, I'll present it, but it was a bridging system - highly advanced, but backwards compatible with the 800.

 

What was wrong with the next step from the 800 was Atari was keenly focused on cost reduction, not creating new products - the VCS and the Atari 800 chipset, from there forward, nothing new was released based on new chipsets of enhancements until 1984 with the Atari ProSystem and the MARIA, a chipset developed by a 3rd party no less.

 

Atari had high end, high priced systems which were doing well, they should further improved the designs and went upward after the Apple ][ and IBM PC markets which were possible to compete against in 1982, and left Commodore to be a low end bottom feeder line.

 

 

 

Also Curt,

Lastly - the Atari 5200 in and of itself was a major design mistake, for very little cost, the Atari 400 should've just been repackaged into a new set of plastics, combo joysticks such as the 2700, but hardwired could've been designed for it, they could've changed the cartridge pinouts and added some additional lines for external video/audio through the cartridge port, heck, maybe even ran the SIO lines up through the cartridge port and this way the new pin layouts and size wouldn't have allowed Atari 800 carts to be used in it, or vice-versa. There would've been a new high end home console, no major design investments, no worries about having to have coders work on a game console game and then have to re-write it to the home computers, they could be done in one shot and just time different release dates, given each platform an exclusive of a title for a few months and then for big sales games for the holidays, release them at the same time. There was never a reason to have gone through the convoluted nonsense of the Atari 5200 design the way it was done, period.

What about backwards compatibility?

[kool kitty89]

Sorry, I meant in terms of 2600 compatbility for your proposed "2700" console (not the RC Stella, but the simpler 8-bit derived home console alternatve to the 5200)

[Curt Vendel]

I had stated, the 5200 design that Atari did was a major waste of time and resources.

 

In 1981 they should've just taken the 400, reduced it to a single board design, new console styled plastics, no keyboard. Perhaps just Power, Option, Select, Start on the console only. Used standard DB9 connectors and used the Atari 2700 controller designs - since they were a combo joystick/paddle together (later on a modified version was used on the Atari 2800 in fact) Redo the Atari 400 cartridge slot to make it wider and different then the Atari 400/800 carts, perhaps add external video/audio lines and maybe even bring the SIO port lines out through the cartridge slot as well.

 

This kind of design would've allowed for different types of expansion systems - like a disk drive or wafer drive for storage, a game system modem cartridge perhaps.

 

A "Computer Expansion" slot could've been put on the side of the case which would've just been a connector with the same pinouts as a standard Atari 400/800 keyboard cable used on the computers, and a detachable computer keyboard could've been made available as an add-on.

 

The system would be a repackaged Atari 400, so it would be compatible (software wise) with the Atari 400/800 computers, nothing to do with the Atari 2600, however, since you'd have external video/audio lines on the cartridge slot, the same type of adapter as the Atari CX-55 Atari 2600 adapter for the Atari 5200, could be made for this hybrid Atari 400 designed "5200" so you could have that as an option.

 

Now you'd sacrifice the joystick keypads and 360 degree controls, but given how well the Colecovision was accepted with its 8 way joystick, I think doing one better then the Intellivision 16 way controller with the Atari 5200's 360 speed sensitive design was unnecessary for a gaming public not ready for such a quantum leap in control abilities.

 

I think the 400 repackaged 5200 design however would have far more advantages over the original Atari 5200 design since it would be instantly software compatible with the existing base of titles for the 400/800 computers (16K) and still has the same graphics/sound as the original Atari 5200 design. Since you don't need to alter the memory map or hardware mapping, the SIO port through the cartridge slot would be sitting there, always ready to someone to just hook a disk drive or modem or other SIO device into it and have the software to run it in the same cartridge case as well.

 

I really feel, this would've been Atari's best route to have gone. With so little design investment, and it not requiring special software development, existing controllers would work with it, it would have an easy route to expansion modules, and this all could've been done and out the door for say a Holiday 1981 release, well ahead of Colecovision, Atari would've stayed very strong in the video game side and would've have strengthened its position further. There never would've been a controller debacle, they could've packed in better games with the console then "Super Breakout" and could've readied a slew of peripherals and expansion modules for it, further building its position.

 

That is the 5200 I would've wanted Atari to have released. Its a no brainer and I have to believe someone within Atari most likely contemplated this very design early on and then it perverted into an overblown new design due to competing factions within the Consumer and Computer Divisions.

 

 

Curt

 

 

Sorry, I meant in terms of 2600 compatbility for your proposed "2700" console (not the RC Stella, but the simpler 8-bit derived home console alternatve to the 5200)

[Curt Vendel]

Just to get an idea of what I am thinking in terms of a repackaged Atari 400, this modified image is simply an Atari 400, I removed the "bump" for the cartridge door since its unnecessary and going with a single board internal design for the motherboard. I covered over the keyboard area to omit it (just need to add Power, Option, Select, Start buttons on top) and I also need to just remove the side ports.

 

I copied the Atari 5200 cartridge port and silver band, pretty much, there you have it, an Atari 400 coverted to be a 5200 system. Now, to also resolve rivalry and inter-division bickering, Atari could've discontinued the Atari 400 and kept the Atari 800 and then introduced a upgraded design - perhaps the 1200, but hopefully the original Sweet-16 design and not the flawed 1200XL design.

 

By discontinuing the Atari 400, there is no direct competition between this hybrid 400-5200 system and the actual 400 system, Atari can tout this system as a game console that can also be upgraded to an introductory computer system capable of using all of Atari's existing peripherals and 16K programs. Home Computer would be happy since it will continue making money of peripherals and even on the software as well, so this should alleviate the inter-division friction which caused much of the problems within Atari's CED and HCD for so many years.

 

 

Who knows - What If Atari had taken this route, released THIS kind of 5200 design and choose to go with the Sweet 16 computer design, they would've avoided their massive black-eye's they took that year from the ill-fate 1200XL release and the issues that arose from the over-sophistication of the 5200 original design.

 

 

Curt

 

Edited August 2, 2009 by Curt Vendel

[atarian63]

The ST was the "Apple II" of 16bit machines.. 90% of it was standard "off the shelf" parts, rather than custom logic. The AMIGA was the real "next gen" ATARI.. You wanna talk about BIG mistakes... Loosing AMIGA Technologies and going with the ST instead.. heh. that has the be the absolute biggest ever..

To bad the "atari/Amiga" was saddled with that awful commodore o/s. A better analogy might be that the ST was the "pc" of that generation.Not as exciting but much more practical. Released first and cheaper.

[kskunk]

 

I love this image. It looks like a real prototype!

 

Only one downside: It's not black and huge like an SUV.

 

I think you make a good case for keeping software compatibility while preventing interoperability. It's pretty nice to have existing tools and devkits in the field before the design is even done.

 

Signature checking is another way to keep 3rd parties from wrecking the show like the 2600. That turned out to be the right way to deal with lock-out and I think Atari did it first. The NES's lock-out chips were expensive and brittle in comparison. And the 5200's rearranged memory map was only a minor barrier to 3rd parties and wasted the time of a lot of hardware and software developers.

 

- KS

Edited August 2, 2009 by kskunk

[Rybags]

Curt's idea sounds cool... I'd add a couple of things...

 

Trapdoor expansion port similar, albeit a bit larger than that used in the Amiga 500, to enable expanding the RAM.

 

Keys... yes, a few of them. Many games need Space and Esc. Maybe have a few function keys, and modify the OS to translate the keycodes to the popular vital keystrokes (CH, dec. 764). Wouldn't work with all games, but probably the majority.

That would mean many games would have still worked without need for another version.

 

It would also allow a more progressive upgrade path, e.g. you could add a tape deck or disk drive and be able to use the system without the full keyboard.