Do you think the 5200 could have been saved?

[NE146]

Software would have saved the console, as stated many times above.

 

Geeze can you imagine if Tempest, Super Pacman, Xevious, and other quality arcade ports made it to the 5200. The thing is, those were EXACTLY the kinds of titles I was expecting for the console, and they just never showed up. I'm talking about things that were just not really nicely possible on the 2600 but were still popular in the arcades at the time.

[+thegoldenband]

Geeze can you imagine if Tempest, Super Pacman, Xevious, and other quality arcade ports made it to the 5200. The thing is, those were EXACTLY the kinds of titles I was expecting for the console, and they just never showed up. I'm talking about things that were just not really nicely possible on the 2600 but were still popular in the arcades at the time.

I think Blaster would have wowed a lot of people had it come out. It certainly would have wowed me!

[atariksi]

Software would have saved the console, as stated many times above.

 

Geeze can you imagine if Tempest, Super Pacman, Xevious, and other quality arcade ports made it to the 5200. The thing is, those were EXACTLY the kinds of titles I was expecting for the console, and they just never showed up. I'm talking about things that were just not really nicely possible on the 2600 but were still popular in the arcades at the time.

 

Well, RAM expansion would have helped as well since that would have allowed for better games. How about Myst on A5200 using some 1MB banked cartridge and kernel-based color graphics.

[atariksi]

I like that solid metal bomb-calorimeter type shielding, but they needed to make that CPU card more accessible.

It's cool, but not cost effective. It hurts both in material/manufacturing costs and shipping/distribution costs. (due to weight)

...

It can be picked-up. Doesn't have to be shipped.

How else is it going to get from the factories to retailers/distributors if not shipped? Regardless, the manufacturing/materials cost is valid.

At least from stores it can be picked up. From factories, I don't think it would make it a big impact on price as they are shipped in bulk.

 

I also forgot to comment ont he CPU card: was that a feature of both the 400 and 800, or just the 800?

Both the 400 and 800 use the same CPU card. They are interchangeable.

 

Now, you have to resort to software driven modes to get 40+ colors/scanline in 160*200 but doing it in hardware would have been better. But interlace modes with Gr.9/10 look great and give a perceived 160*200*30 shaded imagery-- unachievable on any 8-bit machine at the time. Atari 5200 has problems with that mode in practical game situations only due to lack of RAM but can still do a small window in that mode like 160*100*30 or 128*128*30 or using ROM banking it can do the full-blown version.

Is the hadware lacking to do this due to ANTIC or GTIA? I thought it was ANTIC which handled all the bitmap information and such, I only have a general understandign of the chips, but it seems like GTIA's main limitation in that respect is just the number color registers. (working around that would require changing the color registers mid-line I'd assume -plus flicker/interlace creating more percieved colors due to persistance of vision)

 

I prefer A8 sprites since no need for vertical multiplexing and uniform DMA but a few more would have helped. Like 16 sprites with 8 players and 8 missiles and overlap mode gives more colors.

Does the A8 actually alow combining sprites like the amiga, so double the color depth, or only simple overlay. (that makes the difference between 2 and 3 color sprites -not counting transparent)

It works just like planar mode on Amiga. Two sprites are two bitplanes and by setting bit 5 of GPRIOR register, they give four different combinations.

 

Regarding resolution/interlacing, ANTIC does do 3 bpp every color clock. It's just suboptimal in that 3 of the 8 combinations are used for stuff that doesn't require to be done every color clock like VSYNC or Set High Res. So easily using same pin-compatible ANTIC/GTIA, you can have a 160*200*8 mode. High bit is taken from char memory area. This also means you can have 80*200*64 mode and more with overscan. Color registers are only 9 currently on GTIA but they used fixed palettes of 16 from 256/128 in Gr.9/11.

 

And as it stands right now, resolution is also enhanced with interlacing not just the amount of shades from 16->30. Here's some sample pictures (first one is GTIA 80*200*16, the other two are interlaced with Gr.9/10 at 160*200*30). Note how the image is smoother with interlacing (like TV does). Much better on NTSC at 30Hz and only minimal CPU overhead. The snapshots actually are from program also running digitized audio in the background at 11.025Khz.

[kool kitty89]

The 5200 was a grease fire. The controller design was an abomination, and the software library was uninspired. The pack-in was a joke...Super Breakout is a fine game, but not a system seller, especially without a paddle. Back-compatibility was far more important to people than Atari estimated, and they paid the price.

Hmm, didn't they later switch to pac-man. (albeit still problematic due to control -not as good as the 800 version, but even so, way better than on the 2600-Ms Pac Man is a bit of a different case though)

The poor thing never had a chance. I doubt true 400/800 compatibility could have saved it. If they wanted to play 400/800 games they had a 400/800 for that. They wanted their old 2600 games to work, and they wanted new games or superior arcade ports they'd never seen before, like Colecovision offered. The 5200 gave them neither. There just wasn't much software worth buying a 5200 to play. It's a sad testament to Atari's mismanagement that the best game on the 5200, Adventure 2, was a homebrew effort developed 20 years later by a talented hobbyist. Atari should have been developing games like that, 5200 exclusives that you had to play.

If it was 400/800 compatible, it would have been a different system entirely, such propositions generally imply more of an XEGS route (or XLGS given the time), something the A400 was originally intended as to some extent. It would also mean the controllers would be the standard joysticks. (or upgraded, compatible ones)

 

It's a shame. The 5200 was innovative. The four controller ports were ahead of their time, as was the idea of analog control and multiple button input. The 5200 is a case study of good ideas implemented in a terrible way.

The A400 and 800 had 4 joyports back in 1979... the Intellivision had multiple action buttons. (plus a keypad)

[atariksi]

The 5200 was a grease fire. The controller design was an abomination, and the software library was uninspired. The pack-in was a joke...Super Breakout is a fine game, but not a system seller, especially without a paddle. Back-compatibility was far more important to people than Atari estimated, and they paid the price.

Hmm, didn't they later switch to pac-man. (albeit still problematic due to control -not as good as the 800 version, but even so, way better than on the 2600-Ms Pac Man is a bit of a different case though)

The poor thing never had a chance. I doubt true 400/800 compatibility could have saved it. If they wanted to play 400/800 games they had a 400/800 for that. They wanted their old 2600 games to work, and they wanted new games or superior arcade ports they'd never seen before, like Colecovision offered. The 5200 gave them neither. There just wasn't much software worth buying a 5200 to play. It's a sad testament to Atari's mismanagement that the best game on the 5200, Adventure 2, was a homebrew effort developed 20 years later by a talented hobbyist. Atari should have been developing games like that, 5200 exclusives that you had to play.

If it was 400/800 compatible, it would have been a different system entirely, such propositions generally imply more of an XEGS route (or XLGS given the time), something the A400 was originally intended as to some extent. It would also mean the controllers would be the standard joysticks. (or upgraded, compatible ones)

 

It's a shame. The 5200 was innovative. The four controller ports were ahead of their time, as was the idea of analog control and multiple button input. The 5200 is a case study of good ideas implemented in a terrible way.

The A400 and 800 had 4 joyports back in 1979... the Intellivision had multiple action buttons. (plus a keypad)

 

I think the A5200 games are great (most of them), but controllers could have been better with current hardware or with PIA. I am not too fond of keypads being used during game play. Before game starts, for selecting stuff is fine.

[kool kitty89]

I think the A5200 games are great (most of them), but controllers could have been better with current hardware or with PIA. I am not too fond of keypads being used during game play. Before game starts, for selecting stuff is fine.

What about the way games like Star Raiders uses the keys? (or on the keyboard of the original computer platform)

 

It's probably a bit more convienient to have the keys on the controller than separate like the VCS, although they could have designed the controllers to lock on to the keypads the way keypads can with eachother. In fact, it might be good to allow joysticks to lock on to eachother as well, that would be prefect for robotron. (without PIA, at least one would have to be analog though -or at least use the pot lines)

 

Given the relatively few games which really needed the keypads, they'd probably be better of as accessories. (especially lock-on as above) The additional function keys alone would have been fine. (2 fire buttons plus 2-3 buttons for start/select/pause -reset isn't realy necessary)

 

 

I don't think the 5200 library was so bad, but I think it took a bit longer than it should to get soem of the better games out. (one that weren't on VCS, were poor on VCS, or decent on VCS but outstanding on 8-bit)

 

Even if they did go with analog sticks would have been OK if done differently; the Vectrex is a good contemporary example. If the stick had had a shorther throw (not necessarily shorter stock) and better centering (even a stiffer, tougher rubber boot if spring centering couldn't be arranged initially) could have gone a long way. Another thing that might have helpped is adding ridges to the edges such that the joystick was more naturally moved to 8-directions at maximum distance from center. (a bit like nintendo's analog sticks and perhaps like soem joysticks of early home computers -perhaps the O^2, though that has star shaped risges rather than the octagonal shape I was thinking of)

[tz101]

Atari should not have bailed, but staid the course. Also, controller ports should have been based on 2600 and backward compatible with CX40 sticks and paddles. Finally, innovative games that were never released on 5200 like Battlezone, I, Robot, Galaga, Crystal Castles, etc. Why would they even release Galaxian for it when Galaga had already wiped the floor with it at the arcades? Dumb decisions were made all over the place in those days (see Coleco Adam), but mostly due to Warner selling the company to somebody that did not know how to manage it. Hindsight is 20/20...

[kool kitty89]

Atari should not have bailed, but staid the course. Also, controller ports should have been based on 2600 and backward compatible with CX40 sticks and paddles. Finally, innovative games that were never released on 5200 like Battlezone, I, Robot, Galaga, Crystal Castles, etc. Why would they even release Galaxian for it when Galaga had already wiped the floor with it at the arcades? Dumb decisions were made all over the place in those days (see Coleco Adam), but mostly due to Warner selling the company to somebody that did not know how to manage it. Hindsight is 20/20...

To have the standard controller ports, they'd PIA or a simialr alternative (like RIOT -the obvious choice if one wanted to go towards VCS compatibility). Otherwise, you're a bit stuck.

 

As for staying the course, with improved controllers on the way (albeit without fully fixed fire buttons -shoudl ahev been like th epaddles or 7800, 2800 etc) and cost-reduced, more compaced revisions, it could have helped a good deal, along with a fair number of games emerging that were not on the 2600, or superior to the VCS counterparts at very least. (tempest would have been nice though)

 

Anyway, It's hard to tell what Atari Inc would have continued to do under Morgan, Warner selling to Tramiel put an end to a fair number of possibilites and hindered many that remained. (for a number of reasons) I think Morgan had planned to continue pushing foreward witht he 5200 as well as introducing the 7800, though I'm not exactly sure how they were planning on managing that. Honestly, by that point, with the 5200 already fairly established, it might have been better to not push the 7800 right away anyway, not yet solidifying the design either. (ie they could have still released it a bit later, but with added features -onboard POKEY and more RAM at very least)

 

With the general shift away from "video game systems/consoles/machines" in the midst of the crash, it would indeed have seemed a better route to push more with the home computers, but as has already been mentioned, they were screweing up with that for a while already, greatly reducing such an oppertunity to compete in the market the C64 soon owned.

[kool kitty89]

A couple more things, I missed that final comment about Tramiel... he certianly knew how to manage things in spite of many common claims to th econtrary. He may not have been as entertainment oriented as the previous management, but he didn't toss video game out the window either, otherwise there wouldn't have been efforts to finish the 2600 Jr. and get the 7800 out finally. (the truth about the latter has only become clear recently, and Atari museum should eventually get an update sometime soon to recognise that -it sems the delay with the 7800 had to do with a mess of who owned the rights to the 7800 as the contract was between GCC+Warner, not Atari Inc)

I'd definitely say Jack was a better manager than Warner had around '82, though Morgan is a bit of another story. However, the very action of spliting up atari and the corporate shuffling going on after TTL's acqusition of Atari consumer messed up a lot of stuff that was still going on under Morgan, many staff left, many projects were lost or fell apart due to loss of key staff, etc. (like the fully prototyped 16-bit computer projects which Tramiel's own RBP design was unfinished and a good deal more basic than Atari's own designs)

 

 

Another thing on the Joyports though. I'm not exactly sure how all the inputs on the 5200 are accepted, but with the same pinout of the VCS and 8-bits, you could almost manage what the 5200 has. It seems that a simple 4x4 matrix was used for the start/pause/reset +12 key inputs, but that's really wasefull to take up 8 pins for; if only 1 key is to be pushed at a time, 4 pins as binary (on/off) inputs would provide 16 possible combinations, exacly what the first 8-pins were used for on the 5200. (those total to 15 combinations, the 16th would need to be used as no input)

After that, on the standard atari joyports, you've got 5 more pins, gnd, 5V DC, fire, pot 1, and pot 2. The only problem now is that there's still one button lacking compared to the 5200, and I'm not sure how that could have been addressed. (of course, omitting the keypad -or limiting keys to 7 or fewer- would fix that problem)

This could make the atari paddles compatible witht he 5200, but not the joysticks. (they could possibly have catered to the 2600 touchpads as well, depending on how they arranged things -though with 4 ports with analog inputs and the standard keypads using the pot lines as part of the input matrix, it's not th emost efficient layout -all digital keypads would have been better, I'm honesly not sure why they didn't do that in the first place, same with the 5200 though, using 8 pins when 4 would do fine)

 

One question this raises though is: if there are 8 trigger inputs for the standard 5200, how does it manage that? The keys are read by pokey, granted, so no mystery there, but GTIA normally only reads 4 triger inputs, but there are 2 for each of the 4 controllers for 8 total, so does the 5200 use GTIA's 4 select lines and 4 trigger lines for the controller fire buttons?

[zylon]

It's a shame. The 5200 was innovative. The four controller ports were ahead of their time, as was the idea of analog control and multiple button input. The 5200 is a case study of good ideas implemented in a terrible way.

So was the Edsel, but I still drive one. Both had features that are only considered ahead of their time in retrospect.

[+Cafeman]

I tried to read this thread but it makes my eyes cross. The only thing I got from it was this:

... the best game on the 5200, Adventure 2, was a homebrew effort developed 20 years later by a talented hobbyist. Atari should have been developing games like that, 5200 exclusives that you had to play.

 

[JamesD]

The problems I see were:

 

1) Expensive to produce. The same problem the 400/800 had.

Other game systems were cheaper and had more games (2600).

 

2) Worst pack-in game for the time they could have possibly chosen.

If that was their choice, they should have at least used a cart with multiple games like older consoles.

 

3) Incompatibility with the 400/800.

The cart could have had more ROM but the hardware should have been at the same addresses.

The controller should have stuck with 400/800 compatibility.

Lets face it, that was the strong point of the machine and it should have played to it.

 

<edit>

I suppose they could have taken the XBOX approach and dumped the 2600.

Edited March 7, 2010 by JamesD

[atariksi]

I think the A5200 games are great (most of them), but controllers could have been better with current hardware or with PIA. I am not too fond of keypads being used during game play. Before game starts, for selecting stuff is fine.

What about the way games like Star Raiders uses the keys? (or on the keyboard of the original computer platform)

 

It's probably a bit more convienient to have the keys on the controller than separate like the VCS, although they could have designed the controllers to lock on to the keypads the way keypads can with eachother. In fact, it might be good to allow joysticks to lock on to eachother as well, that would be prefect for robotron. (without PIA, at least one would have to be analog though -or at least use the pot lines)

 

Given the relatively few games which really needed the keypads, they'd probably be better of as accessories. (especially lock-on as above) The additional function keys alone would have been fine. (2 fire buttons plus 2-3 buttons for start/select/pause -reset isn't realy necessary)

 

 

I don't think the 5200 library was so bad, but I think it took a bit longer than it should to get soem of the better games out. (one that weren't on VCS, were poor on VCS, or decent on VCS but outstanding on 8-bit)

 

Even if they did go with analog sticks would have been OK if done differently; the Vectrex is a good contemporary example. If the stick had had a shorther throw (not necessarily shorter stock) and better centering (even a stiffer, tougher rubber boot if spring centering couldn't be arranged initially) could have gone a long way. Another thing that might have helpped is adding ridges to the edges such that the joystick was more naturally moved to 8-directions at maximum distance from center. (a bit like nintendo's analog sticks and perhaps like soem joysticks of early home computers -perhaps the O^2, though that has star shaped risges rather than the octagonal shape I was thinking of)

 

Analog is inferior for programming and for using. Digital is more accurate and easier to program and use. They could have used the key Atari 2600 keyboard controller via the PIA as they do now on A800.

[atariksi]

A couple more things, I missed that final comment about Tramiel... he certianly knew how to manage things in spite of many common claims to th econtrary. He may not have been as entertainment oriented as the previous management, but he didn't toss video game out the window either, otherwise there wouldn't have been efforts to finish the 2600 Jr. and get the 7800 out finally. (the truth about the latter has only become clear recently, and Atari museum should eventually get an update sometime soon to recognise that -it sems the delay with the 7800 had to do with a mess of who owned the rights to the 7800 as the contract was between GCC+Warner, not Atari Inc)

I'd definitely say Jack was a better manager than Warner had around '82, though Morgan is a bit of another story. However, the very action of spliting up atari and the corporate shuffling going on after TTL's acqusition of Atari consumer messed up a lot of stuff that was still going on under Morgan, many staff left, many projects were lost or fell apart due to loss of key staff, etc. (like the fully prototyped 16-bit computer projects which Tramiel's own RBP design was unfinished and a good deal more basic than Atari's own designs)

 

 

Another thing on the Joyports though. I'm not exactly sure how all the inputs on the 5200 are accepted, but with the same pinout of the VCS and 8-bits, you could almost manage what the 5200 has. It seems that a simple 4x4 matrix was used for the start/pause/reset +12 key inputs, but that's really wasefull to take up 8 pins for; if only 1 key is to be pushed at a time, 4 pins as binary (on/off) inputs would provide 16 possible combinations, exacly what the first 8-pins were used for on the 5200. (those total to 15 combinations, the 16th would need to be used as no input)

After that, on the standard atari joyports, you've got 5 more pins, gnd, 5V DC, fire, pot 1, and pot 2. The only problem now is that there's still one button lacking compared to the 5200, and I'm not sure how that could have been addressed. (of course, omitting the keypad -or limiting keys to 7 or fewer- would fix that problem)

This could make the atari paddles compatible witht he 5200, but not the joysticks. (they could possibly have catered to the 2600 touchpads as well, depending on how they arranged things -though with 4 ports with analog inputs and the standard keypads using the pot lines as part of the input matrix, it's not th emost efficient layout -all digital keypads would have been better, I'm honesly not sure why they didn't do that in the first place, same with the 5200 though, using 8 pins when 4 would do fine)

 

One question this raises though is: if there are 8 trigger inputs for the standard 5200, how does it manage that? The keys are read by pokey, granted, so no mystery there, but GTIA normally only reads 4 triger inputs, but there are 2 for each of the 4 controllers for 8 total, so does the 5200 use GTIA's 4 select lines and 4 trigger lines for the controller fire buttons?

 

There's only one trigger per port on the A5200. The other button is a key read by POKEY. The POTs are also read by POKEY.

 

Tramiel didn't fit in into Atari-- Atari was concentrated on video games and he was more for cheap crap and shrewd business-type mentality. It's not just him though, there's so many businessmen selling crap out there and higher quality products get suppressed and people get fooled and accepting inferior products. And it snowballs once the profits start coming in and many people start writing software for crappy machines.

[atariksi]

The problems I see were:

 

1) Expensive to produce. The same problem the 400/800 had.

Other game systems were cheaper and had more games (2600).

 

2) Worst pack-in game for the time they could have possibly chosen.

If that was their choice, they should have at least used a cart with multiple games like older consoles.

...

I think multiple games on a cart wasn't around at that time due to reason (1) you stated, but I guess it could have been done.

 

3) Incompatibility with the 400/800.

The cart could have had more ROM but the hardware should have been at the same addresses.

The controller should have stuck with 400/800 compatibility.

Lets face it, that was the strong point of the machine and it should have played to it.

...

Yeah, "more compatibility" would be a better way to put it since the chips are register compatible except for missing PIA. Even parallel ports that plug into PCI slots are backward compatible with original PC parallel ports at 3bch although I/O port base address is different.

 

<edit>

I suppose they could have taken the XBOX approach and dumped the 2600.

 

That would have made things worse. A2600 was a good selling machine and compatibility with it would have helped but being incompatible, they should support it to maintain their loyal fanbase. Making modern consoles incompatible with previous ones is a money making scheme-- technology is so cheap nowadays they can easily maintain compatibility. PCs are the best example of compatbility. I can run 8088 code even on latest machine if I boot from DOS.

[kool kitty89]

2) Worst pack-in game for the time they could have possibly chosen.

There are a few others too. I don't think Space Invaders would have been much of a better choice either, in fact, that game is often sited as better on the VCS for the added features. At least it would have been a more popular game though, but the initial pack-in was poor regardless.

 

The cart could have had more ROM but the hardware should have been at the same addresses.

The controller should have stuck with 400/800 compatibility.

Lets face it, that was the strong point of the machine and it should have played to it.

Had they left PIA in (or replaced it with RIOT, as would likely occur if integrated VCS compatibility was preferred -and was planned for the sylvia/3200 design), the controllers could have been the same, or been enhanced as well, with a variety of routes to take for that.

 

I suppose they could have taken the XBOX approach and dumped the 2600.

Like Xbox...? I think you mean more like almost every significant game console ever created (with successor(s)), like NES, SNES, N64, master system (on MD via passthrough accessory only), Sega MD/Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast, and the list goes on. Sony was a big exception for this with the PSX to PS2, the other most notable exception (in terms of popularity) is the GB/GBC/GBA (and DS for GBA). then there's the 7800 and some PS3s, but that's pretty much it for major consoles with out of the box backwards compatibility.

It seems there are realtively few cases of backwards compatibility being included, and for the PS2, while it was signifcant, I doubt the compatibility feature made or broke that system. (same for the PS3)

 

In the 2600s case there are a few additional factors that cause problems: the VCS wasn't dropped to low-level priorety with the 5200's introduction (with other examples, the older console starts being phased out an dmoved into the lower end category, mainly the budget market), other problems were that Atari's own competitors did have adaptors, and in Coleco's case, before Atari even did for the 5200...

Plus, it probably would have helped to have the expansion port ont eh side or front so the VCS adaptor could have used that instead of the cartridge slot. (as Coleco's did)

 

Analog is inferior for programming and for using. Digital is more accurate and easier to program and use. They could have used the key Atari 2600 keyboard controller via the PIA as they do now on A800.

But if they used the same controller port pinouts, the VCS touchpads map to the pot lines if this is accurate: http://www.gamesx.com/controldata/2600.htm

 

Again, I'm not sure why they used that weird matrix array witht he pot lines which the 4 RIOT inouts would have worked fine for a 12 key pad. (or even 15 key) Same for the way the 5200 ports used a 4x4 input matrix to get 16 values when only 4 input lines were necessary to generate 16 values...

 

 

There's only one trigger per port on the A5200. The other button is a key read by POKEY. The POTs are also read by POKEY.

Is there a down side of using pokey to read trigger inputs? (slower than PIA or GTIA's digital inputs?)

[cryinglion]

Software would have saved the console, as stated many times above.

 

Geeze can you imagine if Tempest, Super Pacman, Xevious, and other quality arcade ports made it to the 5200. The thing is, those were EXACTLY the kinds of titles I was expecting for the console, and they just never showed up. I'm talking about things that were just not really nicely possible on the 2600 but were still popular in the arcades at the time.

 

A casino game would have been good. A reason to take advantage of four ports with four players! The could've sold various carts to complete a series: Poker, blackjack, roulette, etc.

[atariksi]

Analog is inferior for programming and for using. Digital is more accurate and easier to program and use. They could have used the key Atari 2600 keyboard controller via the PIA as they do now on A800.

But if they used the same controller port pinouts, the VCS touchpads map to the pot lines if this is accurate: http://www.gamesx.com/controldata/2600.htm

 

Again, I'm not sure why they used that weird matrix array witht he pot lines which the 4 RIOT inouts would have worked fine for a 12 key pad. (or even 15 key) Same for the way the 5200 ports used a 4x4 input matrix to get 16 values when only 4 input lines were necessary to generate 16 values...

...

They are using the POT lines as digital inputs, but that's slower to read than digital inputs. They added a resistor of 4.7K to +5V from the POT lines inside the touchpad so that it reads a value <5 on POT lines and when you press one of the 4 buttons they ground the line and thus give it a 228 reading. So you can read one of 4 buttons for each pot line and one of 4 buttons for the trigger line. Trigger line is already pull-up to +5V so it reads a "1" when nothing pressed and "0" when one of 4 buttons is pressed. By the way that website shows paddles using pin 9 as 2nd paddle; but it's 1st paddle and pin 5 is 2nd paddle. At least on Atari 800 that's the way it's read.

 

 

There's only one trigger per port on the A5200. The other button is a key read by POKEY. The POTs are also read by POKEY.

Is there a down side of using pokey to read trigger inputs? (slower than PIA or GTIA's digital inputs?)

 

You can read the SHIFT key via bit 3 of SKCTL. There's also a break key vector but a bit convoluted to use as a fast digital input pin. These are slower as at least on A800 the keyboard scanning is done at 15Khz whereas PIA can be read at any time via LDA 54016/54017.

[Chuck the Plant]

I appreciate the responses by cafeman, zylon, atariksi and kool kitty. You raised some really good points. I have a lot of affection for the 5200...it was a noble failure.

 

Just to clarify, I don't really like keypad controllers either, but they were on the right track with multiple action buttons, a pause feature and a general effort to add more input options for advanced games. I knew about the 400/800 having multiple inputs, but I didn't count them because they weren't pure consoles.

[+Allan]

People keep saying the 5200 was a failure. Will you please define what you mean by a 'failure'. It just doesn't make any sense. Atari sold a boat load of 5200s and carts. How is that a failure? If the 5200 failure that means everything else Atari made except for the 2600 was a failure.

 

Allan

[kool kitty89]

I'm not sure it was a total market failure, plus the crash and Warner selling off Atari consumer to TTL spelled then end of possible improved/cost reduced 5200 releases, so it's unclear whether things might have improved ot continued longer. (it would have been interesing to see how they'd have handeled having the 2600, 5200, and 7800 on the market simulataneously though)

 

If the 5200 indeed resulted in a net loss to the company and/or significantly tarnished the name, it could be considered a failur on those accounts, but I'm not sure of either of those.

 

However, one thing the 5200 did fail at was succeeding the 2600, but that was largely due to Atari Inc/Warner management not pulling back on the 2600, but continuing to focus resourses on the 2600. (if they couldn't control 3rd parties, they could at least pull back 1st part software support)

 

 

Whether it failed or or not is still separate from the number of problems it had: cost, software/pack-in (initally at least), size/bulk, controller functionality and durability, and lackof 2600 or 400/800 compatibility. (the latter being debatable, but beyond direct cartridge/game compatibility come controller port compatibility and general software and memory map compatibility -more than just that related to removing PIA too)

[jetset]

People keep saying the 5200 was a failure. Will you please define what you mean by a 'failure'. It just doesn't make any sense. Atari sold a boat load of 5200s and carts. How is that a failure? If the 5200 failure that means everything else Atari made except for the 2600 was a failure.

 

Allan

 

These threads always bring out the haters. Nothing new.

[+Allan]

However, one thing the 5200 did fail at was succeeding the 2600, but that was largely due to Atari Inc/Warner management not pulling back on the 2600, but continuing to focus resourses on the 2600. (if they couldn't control 3rd parties, they could at least pull back 1st part software support)

 

 

Whether it failed or or not is still separate from the number of problems it had: cost, software/pack-in (initally at least), size/bulk, controller functionality and durability, and lackof 2600 or 400/800 compatibility. (the latter being debatable, but beyond direct cartridge/game compatibility come controller port compatibility and general software and memory map compatibility -more than just that related to removing PIA too)

Let's see: The 2600 was released in 1977. The 5200 was released in fall of 82. The crash happened in '84. Of course the 5200 didn't sell as many as the 2600. You're above comment contradicts the whole '5200 was a failure', anyways.

 

As far as cost: please post some facts that this was a factor in effecting sales. Size? so if a system is to big it's a failure? Somebody better go tell Microsoft their X-Box was a failure. Durability? My Colecovisions and Intellivisions break just as much as the 5200. Yea, sure they made some big mistakes and yes it has it's flaws like all systems, but a failure? No. If you want to look at failures though, go talk about the Adam, which helped bankrupt Coleco. Not even the great Cabbage Patch could save Coleco.

 

Allan

[atariksi]

I appreciate the responses by cafeman, zylon, atariksi and kool kitty. You raised some really good points. I have a lot of affection for the 5200...it was a noble failure.

 

Just to clarify, I don't really like keypad controllers either, but they were on the right track with multiple action buttons, a pause feature and a general effort to add more input options for advanced games. I knew about the 400/800 having multiple inputs, but I didn't count them because they weren't pure consoles.

 

Anything that sells in the millions is not a failure. Whether it could have done better with more compatibility and PIA is another issue. And I don't like the multi-button stuff. It's too confusing; it's better to keep interfaces simple for humans just like the mouse. It's better to have one or two button mouse than a 10 button mouse. Same for joysticks especially for action-based fast shoot-em-up type games. Only few exceptions where you need so many buttons and in those cases, it's better to use keyboard or separate keypad rather than carry the extra baggage for all games. Just like imagery, if you only use 10 colors or b&w images mostly, it's useless to keep saving as 24-bit BMPs-- it's slower in loading/saving and hogs up more space. Similarly, if most games are fine with one or two buttons, no use in having 10+ buttons to confuse things. And analog is inferior to digital as already discussed.