Do you think the 5200 could have been saved?

[ledzep]

 

 

I've said that many times. I knew of nobody who complained about the controllers back in the day (save the fire buttons wearing out), and of all the gaming mags that reviewed the 5200, there were few, if any bad words about the joysticks being bad because they did not self center. I'm so tired of hearing how bad the 5200 controllers are, and I have no doubt these people are going by what they read on the internet. Sure they're not perfect. Frogger, Gorf...there's several games that are just borderline unplayable. The vast majority are just fine if you're halfway decent at playing videogames.

 

Totally agree, the fire buttons were poorly done. I remember my friend with the 5200 periodically going to Federated Stereo (was that the name?) and having his joysticks repaired. $10 if I remember that right. Anyway, I personally was always more miffed with 2600 games that were conversions of trackball games that used the joystick! What? Not only can I only move in 8 directions but there's no speed translation to it? This isn't chess, dammit, it's Missile Command!! Even their trackball controller really only functioned as a rolling joystick. I never understood that, they had paddles and driving controllers that translated my panicky movements to Breakout and Warlords and Indy 500, why not a real trackball, too? So I welcomed the 5200 joystick as finally something that would work both ways, as a joystick and a (touchy) trackball. And a paddle but that never really worked well for Super Breakout, at least I always sucked at that game with the joystick, the trackball wasn't much better, thank Crom for the two converted paddles I now have. I mean, seriously, it didn't take long for us to get so used to the joysticks that we could play Star Raiders without looking down at the overlay (didn't even put them on the keypads) and get the best scores. Love those controllers.

[Lynxpro]

and I will continue to reinterate - when compared to the Colecovision controllers, the Atari 5200 controllers were superior in tactile feel, control and comfort.

The short knob-like handle of the CV joystick is painful to use for even moderate periods of gameplay, the fire buttons on every controller I've used are way to strong/stiff and lead to fatigue and well can all see now in retrospect, upon opening both controllers, how cheaply and poorly the CV controllers were made and how they don't stand up to the test of time nearly as well as the 5200 controllers.

I would say the sore spot specifically on the 5200 controllers are the fire buttons, they should've been plastic, not rubber and they should've been like the 7800 controllers, an A button on one side and a B button on the other side.

 

 

In total agreement.

 

The one thing that makes me laugh about all of these threads is the "conventional wisdom" people have about the need to kill off the 2600 back in the day to consolidate support for the 5200. It doesn't dawn on people how insane that would've sounded back then from a business analyst's perspective. That would've been killing the golden goose around 1981. The "lockout chip" idea didn't really surface until 1983 and after the crash so that wouldn't have saved Atari or the 5200 before then. The business model did not exist. The idea of borrowing such an idea - at least authorized licensing - from the home video market wouldn't have been thought about either unless Curt & Co. found notes of such in Atari's old corporate documents. To my knowledge, the CV does not have a lockout either so nobody else in the industry apparently thought about that before the crash [and with it, the power of hindsight].

 

 

 

 

overinflation of the market, and oversaturation, clining to the 2600 too long is part of all that too. The thing was PAC Man was a bad screw-up, it's a double whammy with the overproduction of carts and poor quality though. (if it was really good quality, perhaps they'd have sold the lot) But things like ET and PAC man are just symptoms of the internal problems Atari/Warner had. Bunches of poor quality 3rd party titles probably were one of the lesser problems though. And, of course, Commodore's price war in the home computer market really acted as a catylist and heaved everything over the edge.

 

 

Don't forget crooked independent distributors to that mix back in 81.

 

Didn't Nintendo buy up Worlds of Wonder's distribution system in 1985/86?

 

 

 

Totally agree, the fire buttons were poorly done. I remember my friend with the 5200 periodically going to Federated Stereo (was that the name?) and having his joysticks repaired. $10 if I remember that right. Anyway, I personally was always more miffed with 2600 games that were conversions of trackball games that used the joystick! What? Not only can I only move in 8 directions but there's no speed translation to it? This isn't chess, dammit, it's Missile Command!! Even their trackball controller really only functioned as a rolling joystick. I never understood that, they had paddles and driving controllers that translated my panicky movements to Breakout and Warlords and Indy 500, why not a real trackball, too? So I welcomed the 5200 joystick as finally something that would work both ways, as a joystick and a (touchy) trackball. And a paddle but that never really worked well for Super Breakout, at least I always sucked at that game with the joystick, the trackball wasn't much better, thank Crom for the two converted paddles I now have. I mean, seriously, it didn't take long for us to get so used to the joysticks that we could play Star Raiders without looking down at the overlay (didn't even put them on the keypads) and get the best scores. Love those controllers.

 

 

Close. Federated Group, home of Fred Rated [aka Shadoe Stevens]. Atari Corp. actually bought Federated [and lost a good $200 million on it] after they started losing computer dealers following their decision to ship more product to Europe after the Reagan Administration's anti-dumping protections kicked in - in order to save Micron and other US memory manufacturers - on Japanese DRAM which caused memory chip prices to skyrocket in the US.

 

I loved shopping at Federated but the company cooked its books and didn't properly account for their cocaine acquisitions, from the sounds of it.

[kool kitty89]

Don't forget crooked independent distributors to that mix back in 81.

You mean ones given inflated/inaccurate figures to Warner/Atari?

 

Didn't Nintendo buy up Worlds of Wonder's distribution system in 1985/86?

From my understanding, they didn't buy up anything (Nintendo was really too small to do such then -probably why they never offered to take Atari off Warner's hands), but rather came to an agreement with WoW to get a tie-in deal for any retailers distributing WoW's products. (I'm not sure of the details of what WoW got in return) Regardless, that was a tactic used early on to help get Nintendo products into stores which were not only a bit shaky over selling video games, but from an unknown company to boot. (if Nintendo had the monetary resources to do it, I'd imagine they'd have readily taken Atari from Warner in '84 and used that brand and related infrastructure for distribution)

However it really wasn't until their full nationwide launch and release of SMB in 1986 that Nintendo really started getting somewhere in the US market. (prior to the full '86 launch, the NES library was pretty weak in general -I believe they relied heavily on the zapper and ROB as promotional gimmicks -the zapper persisting of course)

[Lynxpro]

Don't forget crooked independent distributors to that mix back in 81.

You mean ones given inflated/inaccurate figures to Warner/Atari?

 

 

Yes sir... The very distributors that would've been put out of business had Warner's own WEA Distribution System had not fought tooth-and-nail against distributing Atari cartridges all the way to after "the crash".

 

Of course, Warner Music and Time Warner Cable also damned the AOL/Time-Warner merger two decades later with larger disasterous consequences.

[kool kitty89]

Yes sir... The very distributors that would've been put out of business had Warner's own WEA Distribution System had not fought tooth-and-nail against distributing Atari cartridges all the way to after "the crash".

 

WEA?

Edited March 21, 2010 by kool kitty89

[atariksi]

And it's been pointed out that the Vectrex also had an analog controller and that system had some fun, great games. The key there, I think, is that most of its best games were? Yes, arcade ports. Very important back then when arcades were everywhere. And they found it easy to abandon the stick for buttons on many games.

The vectrex has a very different controller, it's almost a gamepad, though a bit big. (more like a scaled down arcade control board) But the button layout was simple, and reliable, and the joystick was small, short throw and self-centering.

Even with conrollers with broken centering springs, many games are still playable, but there are a few which really need a properly centering controller for precise movements.

 

People complain about the size of the 5200 console. The size? Who cares how big it is? You don't have to hold it while you're playing, you don't have to mount it on the TV screen, either. Seriously, complete this sentence - "If the Atari 5200 were half the size it would be a more fun game system because..." I can't think of any way that the console's size affects game play, the amount of games available for it, nothing.

You can't play it if you have no room to set it up in your entertainment system, on top of, or in front of your TV. It is a significant issue, and unlike a bulky VCR, you need access to the top for cartridges, so you cant put it on a shelf with limited clearance. On top of that, it make it less cost effective (materials cost, packaging, warehouse space, shelf space for retailers, etc).

...

Well, actually the controllers containing the Start/Pause/Reset help you set up the "big" 5200 console since you can just need access to the cartridge slot to swap cartridges and everything else is on the controller. Although I prefer the console having the console keys so joysticks are simpler, it does help in setting it up in a smaller space. You can even have a hole in the desk for the cartridge slot and still have lots of other stuff on your desk (extreme case). Also, if they had built-in the trackball into the console, that heavier bigger unit would have helped to keep things stable like an arcade controller. Just played Galaxian on A5200 w/Trackball and it's pretty good. Fire buttons are good but they should have made those start/pause/reset similar to the fire buttons (bigger and more springy).

 

More on controllers in the other thread.

[kool kitty89]

The one thing that makes me laugh about all of these threads is the "conventional wisdom" people have about the need to kill off the 2600 back in the day to consolidate support for the 5200. It doesn't dawn on people how insane that would've sounded back then from a business analyst's perspective. That would've been killing the golden goose around 1981.

Oversaturation of the 2600 was only part of the problem, but they shouldn't have discontinued the 2600 outright by the mid 80s. They should have slowed things down a bit sooner, simulataneously with releasing a new system (having the 2600 as the main system and 5200 as the deluxe/high-end/super system wasn't right, the successor should be the 2600 should have started shifting to the low-end/budget system).

In the most extreme case, you've probably got Nintendo's Famicom going from 1983 to 1990 before the Super Famicom came out, though the JP market is not the same as the North American one (or EU for that matter).

Sticking with he VCS too long was not the biggest problem though, but of course the whole bureaucratic mess that Atari Inc/Warner management was at the time combined with problems with inaccurate market figures from some distributors.

 

 

The "lockout chip" idea didn't really surface until 1983 and after the crash so that wouldn't have saved Atari or the 5200 before then. The business model did not exist. The idea of borrowing such an idea - at least authorized licensing - from the home video market wouldn't have been thought about either unless Curt & Co. found notes of such in Atari's old corporate documents. To my knowledge, the CV does not have a lockout either so nobody else in the industry apparently thought about that before the crash [and with it, the power of hindsight].

Hmm, Atari never implemented a lockout chip though, the 7800 ended up using a signed checksum in the game ROM which was required for the 7800 to boot in MARIA mode (not 2600 mode), but no specific lockout chip in the sense Nintendo used. I'm sure that video game compaies started trying to find ways of blocking unlicended developers though hardware soon after 3rd parties started publishing as such (and Atari lost the court case to Activision). As I recall, both Coleco ad Mattel worked on such and there was at least one active implementation in the hardware (I think on the Intellivision II), though it ended up being circumvented on newer 3rd party games rather quickly.

 

I believe Sega used a similar system for lockout on the SMS, Genesis, and GameGear, I'm not sure about Nintendo's other consoles though.

[Lynxpro]

Yes sir... The very distributors that would've been put out of business had Warner's own WEA Distribution System had not fought tooth-and-nail against distributing Atari cartridges all the way to after "the crash".

 

WEA?

 

 

Warner Music's legendary distribution system, commonly referred to as "WEA" for Warner-Elektra-Atlantic which were the three biggest labels of the division.

 

If you bought any 2600 cartridges from Tower Records, there should be a WEA sticker/label on the box just as they later slapped onto their CDs...

 

 

Hmm, Atari never implemented a lockout chip though, the 7800 ended up using a signed checksum in the game ROM which was required for the 7800 to boot in MARIA mode (not 2600 mode), but no specific lockout chip in the sense Nintendo used. I'm sure that video game compaies started trying to find ways of blocking unlicended developers though hardware soon after 3rd parties started publishing as such (and Atari lost the court case to Activision). As I recall, both Coleco ad Mattel worked on such and there was at least one active implementation in the hardware (I think on the Intellivision II), though it ended up being circumvented on newer 3rd party games rather quickly.

 

 

The irony being that the 7800 had the lock-out chip to keep companies from making [unauthorized] games for it since everybody wanted to make 2600 carts yet most later did not want to do the same for the 7800.

 

Had Atari had possession of RCA's patents on video game cartridges, Atari could've nailed all the unauthorized companies making carts for the 2600. Actually, that's speculation on my part. The only area that I'll give credit to the Tramiels is that they wielded those Atari Inc. patents fiercely against the competition. Atari Inc. should've done the same although perhaps since they had a default monopoly the Warner attorneys might have been worried about charges of them being an abusive monopoly.

[DracIsBack]

The irony being that the 7800 had the lock-out chip to keep companies from making [unauthorized] games for it since everybody wanted to make 2600 carts yet most later did not want to do the same for the 7800.

 

That, and they were barred from it because of Nintendo's exclusive contracts. They couldn't make a game for the NES (the market leader) and then release on any other system for a period of two years. Very different from today where many titles come out on multiple systems.

[kool kitty89]

That, and they were barred from it because of Nintendo's exclusive contracts. They couldn't make a game for the NES (the market leader) and then release on any other system for a period of two years. Very different from today where many titles come out on multiple systems.

 

Yep, and some companies got around that by creating/using subsidiary publishers. (albeit sometimes that was used exressly for releasing more NES games than the "quality limit" allowed, not for publishing for other systems) Still others decided to take the risk and go unlicenced, most used a simple voltage spiking circuit to glitch the lockout chip (something obviously not possible with the 7800 and others using similar ROM signature/checksums). Atari Games Corp. (Tengen) took a different, route of backwards enginneering the lockout chip, more costly, and ironically leading to a successful lawsuit on Nintendo's part. (I assume they avoided the voltage spiking system due to fears of damaging the hardware -and possibly being liable for such, though the only problem I've ever had with such games is video going out of sync on a ~5 year old Sanyo CRT -and I think going through a VCR solved that)

Edited March 23, 2010 by kool kitty89

[atariksi]

That, and they were barred from it because of Nintendo's exclusive contracts. They couldn't make a game for the NES (the market leader) and then release on any other system for a period of two years. Very different from today where many titles come out on multiple systems.

 

Yep, and some companies got around that by creating/using subsidiary publishers. (albeit sometimes that was used exressly for releasing more NES games than the "quality limit" allowed, not for publishing for other systems) Still others decided to take the risk and go unlicenced, most used a simple voltage spiking circuit to glitch the lockout chip (something obviously not possible with the 7800 and others using similar ROM signature/checksums). Atari Games Corp. (Tengen) took a different, route of backwards enginneering the lockout chip, more costly, and ironically leading to a successful lawsuit on Nintendo's part. (I assume they avoided the voltage spiking system due to fears of damaging the hardware -and possibly being liable for such, though the only problem I've ever had with such games is video going out of sync on a ~5 year old Sanyo CRT -and I think going through a VCR solved that)

 

There are always hackers that show up on a popular system to break all sorts of protection schemes. Even now I bought a Nintendo 64 from someone that came with some shark cartridge that allows you to cheat in games.

[Lynxpro]

The irony being that the 7800 had the lock-out chip to keep companies from making [unauthorized] games for it since everybody wanted to make 2600 carts yet most later did not want to do the same for the 7800.

 

That, and they were barred from it because of Nintendo's exclusive contracts. They couldn't make a game for the NES (the market leader) and then release on any other system for a period of two years. Very different from today where many titles come out on multiple systems.

 

 

Just for the record, I was aware of Nintendo's exclusive contracts - as should any Atari video game fan - but I wanted to make the statement on the irony of it all. Granted, had the 7800 been fully released in 1984 and the industry recovered, then its lock-out mechanism would've come in handy. Actually, it amazes me that Atari Inc. did not include one on the 5200 considering it was released in 1982 "long" after Activision and others started making carts for the 2600. That might've landed more royalties for them...

[kool kitty89]

There are always hackers that show up on a popular system to break all sorts of protection schemes. Even now I bought a Nintendo 64 from someone that came with some shark cartridge that allows you to cheat in games.

Hmm, I don't think cheating devises are quite the same case as circumventing a lockout system though. In nay case those devices go back way further than the N64, the Game Genie (designed by codemasters) was probably the most popular incarnation on the NES, SNES, and Genesis, but the earliest such device I think is the Action Replay for the C64, also appearing on the Amiga and almost every game system since the 80s. (probably the oldest and most diverse product line -though Game Shark and Game Genie seem to have been more popular on many consoles in the 90s)

 

One way some companies got around lockout was to simply use another game piggybacked for authentication. (like little red hood on the NES, or Noah's Ark 3D on the SNES -the only unlicensed commercial SNES game) I don't think there were any unlicensed releases on the N64 at all, or at least not during its lifetime. (not homebrew/hacks)

The obvious disadvantage of that route is the cost of including the female cartridge port and pass-through circuitry for the second cartridge.

 

 

Just for the record, I was aware of Nintendo's exclusive contracts - as should any Atari video game fan - but I wanted to make the statement on the irony of it all. Granted, had the 7800 been fully released in 1984 and the industry recovered, then its lock-out mechanism would've come in handy. Actually, it amazes me that Atari Inc. did not include one on the 5200 considering it was released in 1982 "long" after Activision and others started making carts for the 2600. That might've landed more royalties for them...

Yes, the 5200 should have had some proper type of lockout system, though I think the rearranged memory map was intended to hinder 3rd party developers. (that would obviously only work for a short time)

Had the 5200 featured some type of proper lockout mechanism (be it a dedicated IC or a signature like the 7800 used) that would definitely be a big counter argument for hypothetical discussions suggesting the 5200 should have been a fully functional low-end A8 (like the XEGS, and probably replacing the A400). In addition to that though, having security on the system may have prompted Warner to shift more towards the 5200 instead of continuing to focus mainly on the 2600 as they'd then have a platform blocking 3rd parties from the system allowing them to charge licensing fees on developers wishing to publish for the platform (the royalties you mention). The royalties could have helped drop the price of the base unit too.

Edited March 24, 2010 by kool kitty89

[Lynxpro]

Yes, the 5200 should have had some proper type of lockout system, though I think the rearranged memory map was intended to hinder 3rd party developers. (that would obviously only work for a short time)

Had the 5200 featured some type of proper lockout mechanism (be it a dedicated IC or a signature like the 7800 used) that would definitely be a big counter argument for hypothetical discussions suggesting the 5200 should have been a fully functional low-end A8 (like the XEGS, and probably replacing the A400). In addition to that though, having security on the system may have prompted Warner to shift more towards the 5200 instead of continuing to focus mainly on the 2600 as they'd then have a platform blocking 3rd parties from the system allowing them to charge licensing fees on developers wishing to publish for the platform (the royalties you mention). The royalties could have helped drop the price of the base unit too.

 

 

In hindsight, they probably should've brought the 5200 out sooner with a lockout chip plus backwards compatibility with the 2600. The 2600 took off in 79 with the Space Invaders port, but since the computers were also released in 79, perhaps the 5200 should've debuted in 1980. Atari could've aimed the 2600 at the low end - and continuously worked to cost reduce* it more - while aiming the 5200 with its lockout chip at the same buyers who were picking the Intellivision.

 

Oh what could have been...

 

 

 

*Then again, Warner wanted to make a profit on each 2600 sold instead of selling it for cost as Bushnell had suggested prior to his resignation/termination...

[kool kitty89]

That's kind of a blatant statement having having everything perfect and earlier would be better.

 

I'm not sure a locout system would have been forthcoming that early.

 

If they went for an optimized, backwards compatible solution, that's probably closer to the Sylvia design (in the works in '80/81), but that turned out to be taking too long so they went for the quick fix with the 5200, though it got screwed up for more reasons than just being rushed.

 

Had they made the A8 chipset to support VCS hardware in the first place (ir CTIA and GTIA have TIA compatibility modes), that would have made everything a lot simpler. As it was, they were trying to take a step back and do that with Sylvia (3200), creating an enhanced TIA with CTIA/GTIA like capabilities and coprocessor (possibly a standard ANTIC, not even a modified one). http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/156916-atari-ss1000-sylvia/

One odd thing about the Sylvia design though seems to be the use of SRAM rather than cheaper DRAM like the computers used, and only 2 kB to the 5200's 16 kB. (problematic for doing a lot of direct ports from the 8-bit, especially any using bitmap modes) 16 kB of DRAM should have been around the same cost as 2 kB of SRAM though. (and 8kB should have been cheaper -plenty of A8 games would cater to only 8kB as well, as the early 800 and 400 came with that amount stock)

 

Anyway, going the "quick" route with the stock A8 chipset and attempting native 2600 compatibility is a bit tricky if you want to maintain cost effectiveness. You could drop PIA and possibly POKEY, but you'd definitely need ANTIC+GTIA/CTIA and TIA+RIOT and Sally (6502C). Without POKEY you'd be stuck with roughly 7800 quality audio and you lose POKEY's I/O capabilities, so no keys or pots read by pokey, similar I/O limitations as the 7800. (which also means software pot reading, making paddle based games more problematic)

Or keep POKEY, have the sound (plus TIA), I/O, make porting from the A8 easier, but adding to cost.

[ledzep]

 

The one thing that makes me laugh about all of these threads is the "conventional wisdom" people have about the need to kill off the 2600 back in the day to consolidate support for the 5200. It doesn't dawn on people how insane that would've sounded back then from a business analyst's perspective. That would've been killing the golden goose around 1981.

 

It doesn't matter how insane that would've sounded back then from a business analyst's perspective. Obviously they were betting on the golden goose. That's partly what killed it but they couldn't have known that. This is a 20/20 hindsight discussion, isn't it? It's sort of like if someone were to say "If only I'd never accepted that $5 million cash prize then I could have avoided this unbroken series of terrible personal tragedies." But who, in his right mind, would throw away $5 million cash when he couldn't possibly have known beforehand that he would end up suffering a bunch of bad luck episodes specifically because of having it? Rhetorical, I know, but I think you get the idea.

 

The point is could the 5200 been saved and, I assume, how. It's like if you could go back in time and kill the 9/11 suicide pilots to prevent the attacks, would you? Great, now you're a multi-murderer who would probably be also accused of racially motivated hate crimes. Ya, you would know that it was the right thing to do and it prevented bad things from happening but to everyone else you're just a nut who did something totally unprovoked, you can't prove it was the best thing to do. Same with anyone who would have tried to sabotage (or at least weaken) the can't-miss Atari 2600. "What, do you hate money?" "No, you don't understand, if you guys don't abandon the 2600 then X happens which causes Y to happen which leads to Z..." "Get this clown out of my office!"

 

People have their reasons for doing dumb/crazy things. Who could not agree that not keeping Phil Jackson around as coach, when Michael Jordan said he would leave if Jackson wasn't still coach the next season, was one of the dumbest things that the Chicago Bulls could have done? Did the owner hate money and hate winning that bad? Obviously he had his reasons. I think they were dumb, short-sighted, selfish reasons but still, in his mind he did the right thing. For Atari it was simple, at that time it was more guaranteed money now by sticking with the 2600. But then you have to question why they'd bother sinking millions into developing and trying to sell anything else if they weren't going to support that new, better thing more than the aging 2600. If the 5200 wasn't worth it, don't make it. But they did make it so they have to explain why they would do that if money is all they cared about and they felt that the 2600 was, as you say, the golden goose.

[atariksi]

There are always hackers that show up on a popular system to break all sorts of protection schemes. Even now I bought a Nintendo 64 from someone that came with some shark cartridge that allows you to cheat in games.

Hmm, I don't think cheating devises are quite the same case as circumventing a lockout system though. In nay case those devices go back way further than the N64, the Game Genie (designed by codemasters) was probably the most popular incarnation on the NES, SNES, and Genesis, but the earliest such device I think is the Action Replay for the C64, also appearing on the Amiga and almost every game system since the 80s. (probably the oldest and most diverse product line -though Game Shark and Game Genie seem to have been more popular on many consoles in the 90s)

 

One way some companies got around lockout was to simply use another game piggybacked for authentication. (like little red hood on the NES, or Noah's Ark 3D on the SNES -the only unlicensed commercial SNES game) I don't think there were any unlicensed releases on the N64 at all, or at least not during its lifetime. (not homebrew/hacks)

The obvious disadvantage of that route is the cost of including the female cartridge port and pass-through circuitry for the second cartridge.

...

 

Cheat carts, anti-copy protection methods, anti-lock breaks, etc. all show that people will and do eventually break the methods so why waste the time/research for such things. And it makes the game/system harder to make and use. I have now three XBOX systems and the hard drives are completely unuseable because of some password protection they have and the XBOXes are not functioning so the parts are just paper weight. And for the hackers out there, they have the break-out chips but I'm not spending a dime more for these things. Only good thing for all these protection methods is from marketing point of view it gives you some time at the start.

[atariksi]

...

Anyway, going the "quick" route with the stock A8 chipset and attempting native 2600 compatibility is a bit tricky if you want to maintain cost effectiveness. You could drop PIA and possibly POKEY, but you'd definitely need ANTIC+GTIA/CTIA and TIA+RIOT and Sally (6502C). Without POKEY you'd be stuck with roughly 7800 quality audio and you lose POKEY's I/O capabilities, so no keys or pots read by pokey, similar I/O limitations as the 7800. (which also means software pot reading, making paddle based games more problematic)

Or keep POKEY, have the sound (plus TIA), I/O, make porting from the A8 easier, but adding to cost.

 

I don't see why they would want to drop PIA or POKEY nor any of the other custom chips. Those were in-house creations. They should have dropped the 6502C since that was manufactured by some 3rd party and then the A5200 would have been cheaper than dropping PIA. Ideally, they should have kept integrating previous generation custom chips into the next generation custom chips so all new machines are backward compatible with the old ones. So A7800 would have been one with Maria, ANTIC, GTIA, PIA, POKEY, TIA+RIOT, etc. whether integrated or separate. A good example is going from CTIA -> GTIA where everything was backward compatible.

 

Jay Miner and his engineers were smart enough to make ANTIC with its own instruction set so why not enhance that with more instructions or build a processor while you're at it. And even if you upgrade to 68K, as long as the custom chips are left intact, it should be easy to port over the application or write an emulator/simulator of previous machine. Of course, ideally you would want to keep the 6502C within the 68K machine as well.

[kool kitty89]

It doesn't matter how insane that would've sounded back then from a business analyst's perspective. Obviously they were betting on the golden goose. That's partly what killed it but they couldn't have known that. This is a 20/20 hindsight discussion, isn't it? It's sort of like if someone were to say "If only I'd never accepted that $5 million cash prize then I could have avoided this unbroken series of terrible personal tragedies." But who, in his right mind, would throw away $5 million cash when he couldn't possibly have known beforehand that he would end up suffering a bunch of bad luck episodes specifically because of having it? Rhetorical, I know, but I think you get the idea.

Actually, I was trying to look at it from at least a semi-resonable perspective of the time, and indeed there were signs of their problems by 1981 even. (Curt's been over this before) There's so many options that make more sense at the time, and indeed, Atari had been moving towards some of those with Sylvia before dropping that and going with the 5200. (which was more convoluted than necessary for a conversion of the 8-bit architecture to cut-down game system)

 

I already responded in more detial previously though, and I most definitely did not suggest dropping the VCS. (as it was, it remained profitably throught he late 80s as a budget system)

It's really too bad warner didn't notice any of the critical problems forming before they became almost irreparable, had Kassar left a year earlier and been replaced by Morgan (or someone similar), things would have been very different; or if warner had brought in someone else to asses their problems. (which should have been visible even without hindsight, the warning signs were there, but were just ignored)

 

Cheat carts, anti-copy protection methods, anti-lock breaks, etc.

Cheat devices are sometimes licenced by the hardware company of the pplatform though (like Sega did with the Game Genie)

 

all show that people will and do eventually break the methods so why waste the time/research for such things. And it makes the game/system harder to make and use. I have now three XBOX systems and the hard drives are completely unuseable because of some password protection they have and the XBOXes are not functioning so the parts are just paper weight. And for the hackers out there, they have the break-out chips but I'm not spending a dime more for these things. Only good thing for all these protection methods is from marketing point of view it gives you some time at the start.

So it's better to ignore security alltogether? Noot just piracy, of course (which can be addressed to some extent by legislation), but legitimate 3rd parties/royaltees. Without that it's damn hard to conform to the razor and blade model unless a huge chunk of software is first party. (and I don't think any has matched the ratio that Atari had for 1st to 3rd party sotware published)

It's not perfect, but lockout/security schemes definitely have an impact, look how relatively few unlicenced games there were on all platforms with such security. (not talking paracy, just unlicenced games)The NES had a few, but that itsself is in part due to Nintendo's PITA licencing contracts, the Genesis had fewer, and most following that even fewer if any. (again, unlicenced commercial games in th emain lifespan, not pirate copies of such games or later homebrew/hacks after it's "dead")

 

 

I don't see why they would want to drop PIA or POKEY nor any of the other custom chips.

For a cost minimized, 2600 compatible platform using avaialble hardware from the time. (so a bit like the 7800, but with CTIA/GTIA+ANTIC in place of MARIA)

 

Those were in-house creations. They should have dropped the 6502C since that was manufactured by some 3rd party and then the A5200 would have been cheaper than dropping PIA.

Huh? PIA is just a 6520 chip from MOS (or a licened version from another vendor), so why would that matter compared to RIOT? (and you'd need riot for VCS compatibility) POKEY is a custom chip, so no licencing fees, just the fab costs from the vendor, but that doesn't mean it doesn't add to the cost significantly, not just the cost of the chip, but the added manufacturing cost and board space required. Now, that's the same argument for omitting it on the 7800, but for 1981 or '82, TIA sound is much more reasonable than in '84, let alone '86. (especially with the plan to include POKEY on cart -even if later switching to a cheap alternative)

 

And what's that about the 6502C (Sally), use a common 6502 instead rather than the Atari-specific 6502C (which facilitated ellimination of some support hardware iirc, so more cost effective) Why would that be expressly available through MOS and not able to be licenced and produced by other vendors like various outher MOS chips. It's not a 65C02, of course, that didn't come until a good while later, and is unrelated to the Sally modification.

 

Ideally, they should have kept integrating previous generation custom chips into the next generation custom chips so all new machines are backward compatible with the old ones.

Yes, as I mentioned, designing CTIA to support TIA modes in the firs tplace would have solved a lot of problems. -Though in that case, omitting POKEY in the game system may still have been preferred. (the Sylvia/3200 prototype designs don't show POKEY, so it seems it was not a planned inclusion -though they could have been planning to incorporate some of POKEY's capabilities into the super TIA chip)

 

Jay Miner and his engineers were smart enough to make ANTIC with its own instruction set so why not enhance that with more instructions or build a processor while you're at it. And even if you upgrade to 68K, as long as the custom chips are left intact, it should be easy to port over the application or write an emulator/simulator of previous machine. Of course, ideally you would want to keep the 6502C within the 68K machine as well.

Now you're talking more about the 8-bit line in general (granted, that could have extened to future Atari console ventures as well), not the specifc topic about the 5200. Sure, enhancements could have been made to that line as well, but those would not likey be included in a 1981/82 console.

 

Besides, I thought Miner left before the A8 chipset was completed, he certianly designed the TIA, but I tought others handeled ANTIC, or at least CTIA. (namely George McLeod in the case of CTIA/GTIA) That might partially explain the lack of TIA incompatibility in CTIA, though more likely a lack of interest in including compatibility.

Edited March 25, 2010 by kool kitty89

[Lynxpro]

That's kind of a blatant statement having having everything perfect and earlier would be better.

 

I'm not sure a locout system would have been forthcoming that early.

 

 

 

When did Activision launch? 1979? That should've been on their mind once the Activision crew got going. I guess they thought they could just beat them in court. The Intellivision 2 seems to have enacted a "lockout" system the very next year after the 5200 was released...

 

 

One odd thing about the Sylvia design though seems to be the use of SRAM rather than cheaper DRAM like the computers used, and only 2 kB to the 5200's 16 kB. (problematic for doing a lot of direct ports from the 8-bit, especially any using bitmap modes) 16 kB of DRAM should have been around the same cost as 2 kB of SRAM though. (and 8kB should have been cheaper -plenty of A8 games would cater to only 8kB as well, as the early 800 and 400 came with that amount stock)

 

 

Just as the 7800 had less SRAM than the 5200's DRAM.

 

 

I don't see why they would want to drop PIA or POKEY nor any of the other custom chips. Those were in-house creations. They should have dropped the 6502C since that was manufactured by some 3rd party and then the A5200 would have been cheaper than dropping PIA. Ideally, they should have kept integrating previous generation custom chips into the next generation custom chips so all new machines are backward compatible with the old ones. So A7800 would have been one with Maria, ANTIC, GTIA, PIA, POKEY, TIA+RIOT, etc. whether integrated or separate. A good example is going from CTIA -> GTIA where everything was backward compatible.

 

 

Even if Atari had created its own CPU, they still would've contracted some other company to actually manufacture them since both Warner Atari and Tramiel Atari failed to buy a fab plant. Besides, Atari did use custom versions of 6502s so perhaps they owned some IP to it just as Microsoft owns IP related to the PowerPC derivative processor used by the Xbox 360 even though Microsoft does not fab them.

 

 

Jay Miner and his engineers were smart enough to make ANTIC with its own instruction set so why not enhance that with more instructions or build a processor while you're at it. And even if you upgrade to 68K, as long as the custom chips are left intact, it should be easy to port over the application or write an emulator/simulator of previous machine. Of course, ideally you would want to keep the 6502C within the 68K machine as well.

 

 

They didn't use enough custom silicon for the 2600 and thus Mattel and Coleco both were able to later clone the system and legally got away with it.

[kool kitty89]

When did Activision launch? 1979? That should've been on their mind once the Activision crew got going. I guess they thought they could just beat them in court. The Intellivision 2 seems to have enacted a "lockout" system the very next year after the 5200 was released...

Yeah, the loss of the lawsuit to Activision spurred other 3rd parties to emerge. It wouldn't have been after the unfavorable outcome of the litigation that Atari would have been prompted to look for alternate solutions (security). I'm not sure when those proceedings took place, but they must have completed by 1981. (when Imagic was formed) So that would give a pretty short period to work on an effective (and cost effective) mechanism for that.

The Intellivision's BIOS change was a very weak security measure and was very quickly overcome. One thing might be to make part of the mechanism patented or copyrighted (the latter for a specific signature code/checksum), so successful litigation might be brought against any publishers circumventing it. (I believe the Genesis's TMSS system checked for the code used for the SEGA logo in the boot screen -hence it being applied retroactively -with early models not having any lockout and at least one game not working on later versions -I think Populous)

 

 

Just as the 7800 had less SRAM than the 5200's DRAM.

Yes, but the 7800 might have needed the SRAM to work properly, or at least as efficiently as it did, while the 5200 and Sylvia were built upon the 8-bit architecture using DRAM already.

 

Even if Atari had created its own CPU, they still would've contracted some other company to actually manufacture them since both Warner Atari and Tramiel Atari failed to buy a fab plant. Besides, Atari did use custom versions of 6502s so perhaps they owned some IP to it just as Microsoft owns IP related to the PowerPC derivative processor used by the Xbox 360 even though Microsoft does not fab them.

The 6502C is the custom version Atari used as I mentioned and I see no cost advantage of using another 6502 derivative instead. (I'm not sure what atarisky was getting at since the A8's used the same CPU) Custom chips vs off the shelf (or licensed) components had a number of tradeoffs though: accepting design costs of custom chips and one time licensing fees you've got volume production of mass market components vs smaller numbers of custom components, one you pay more to a distributor for their profit, the other will only be cheaper if the custom chips are produced in huge volumes (granted, that's the case with a popular console). The big advantage with custom chips comes when you have your own fabrication company (or close associate), ie vertical integration as with CBM and MOS.

 

They didn't use enough custom silicon for the 2600 and thus Mattel and Coleco both were able to later clone the system and legally got away with it.

Nope, the heart of the VCS is TIA, an all custom Atari IC, Coleco reverse engineered that chip and apparently Atari couldn't sue over it (not sure how that isn't patent infringement though, unless TIA never got patented for some reason). If anything, the ColecoVision was extremely vulnerable to cloning due to it being composed entirely of off the shelf components, same with Sega's SG-1000. (like the IBM PC, all that really needed to be reverse engineered was the BIOS) I'm not sure about the intellivision though, it might use a custom display chip.

[Lynxpro]

The Intellivision's BIOS change was a very weak security measure and was very quickly overcome. One thing might be to make part of the mechanism patented or copyrighted (the latter for a specific signature code/checksum), so successful litigation might be brought against any publishers circumventing it. (I believe the Genesis's TMSS system checked for the code used for the SEGA logo in the boot screen -hence it being applied retroactively -with early models not having any lockout and at least one game not working on later versions -I think Populous)

 

 

If I'm not mistaken, I do not believe you could copyright code back then, which would've been another legal defense [for Atari versus cloners].

 

Atari Inc. should've been as aggressive - if not more so - than Atari Corp. was. Mattel and Coleco had to have violated Atari's patents since Nintendo and Sega certainly did later on.

 

 

The 6502C is the custom version Atari used as I mentioned and I see no cost advantage of using another 6502 derivative instead. (I'm not sure what atarisky was getting at since the A8's used the same CPU) Custom chips vs off the shelf (or licensed) components had a number of tradeoffs though: accepting design costs of custom chips and one time licensing fees you've got volume production of mass market components vs smaller numbers of custom components, one you pay more to a distributor for their profit, the other will only be cheaper if the custom chips are produced in huge volumes (granted, that's the case with a popular console). The big advantage with custom chips comes when you have your own fabrication company (or close associate), ie vertical integration as with CBM and MOS.

 

 

Speaking of vertical integration and economies-of-scale production, what other company used the 6510 version of the 6502 besides Commodore for the C64?

[kool kitty89]

If I'm not mistaken, I do not believe you could copyright code back then, which would've been another legal defense [for Atari versus cloners].

You could definitely copyright code by the mid 80s though, that's the main reason why Tengen lost the suit over the lockout chip.

However, if the code itsself couldn't be copyrighted, perhaps something associated with it could, like having the signature code used to generate the ATARI logo at star-up, as the logo was copyrighted (or at least a registered trademark), I think that's what SEGA did at one point. (though I think 3rd parties eventually managed to bypass that without having to display the logo)

 

Atari Inc. should've been as aggressive - if not more so - than Atari Corp. was. Mattel and Coleco had to have violated Atari's patents since Nintendo and Sega certainly did later on.

That's an interesting point and I'd be interested in knowing exactly the patents that were violated at Atari Corp. (I know it's not the controller ports sometimes suggested for SEGA, that's a myth, those ports and pinouts were common among most home computers and not even fully compatible in this case)

 

 

Speaking of vertical integration and economies-of-scale production, what other company used the 6510 version of the 6502 besides Commodore for the C64?

Did Commodore/MOS even offer it to the open market? (they didn't release SID to the open market, did they? -though there was a rare PC sound card with a SID onboard)

[Lynxpro]

You could definitely copyright code by the mid 80s though, that's the main reason why Tengen lost the suit over the lockout chip.

 

That was late 80s. The reason why I'm questioning this - especially from the late 70s and early 80s period - is because copyright on code didn't seem to be a strong enough legal protection considering Digital Research had more than enough proof to take Microsoft behind the wood shed since there was CP/M code present in QDOS/MS-DOS. Of course, maybe a lot of DRI not pursuing it had to do with the fear that IBM would intervene on behalf of Microsoft and essentially kill DRI with its massive patent portfolio.

 

 

That's an interesting point and I'd be interested in knowing exactly the patents that were violated at Atari Corp. (I know it's not the controller ports sometimes suggested for SEGA, that's a myth, those ports and pinouts were common among most home computers and not even fully compatible in this case)

 

 

They [Atari Corp.] hit Nintendo and Sega with their entire video game patent portfolio. They summarized the patents in the Annual Reports as covering such basic things such as a patent "to control character movement on a video screen", etc.

 

 

 

Did Commodore/MOS even offer it to the open market? (they didn't release SID to the open market, did they? -though there was a rare PC sound card with a SID onboard)

 

 

 

And if that was the case then the only way vertical integration paid off for Commodore would be if they had MOS bill them at cost and then it got cheaper with economies of scale of manufacturing the C64 in mass quantities. They probably would've done better had they stuck with a stock 6502 that everyone else was ordering from MOS unless the 6510 had some cost reduction that made it cheaper to manufacture [and knowing Commodore, that would explain things; if they could make the chip out of cardboard, they would've done it].

 

As for the SID, they probably sold it to other companies after they had transitioned mainly to the Amiga and PC clones.

Edited March 26, 2010 by Lynxpro

[atariksi]

It doesn't matter how insane that would've sounded back then from a business analyst's perspective. Obviously they were betting on the golden goose. That's partly what killed it but they couldn't have known that. This is a 20/20 hindsight discussion, isn't it? It's sort of like if someone were to say "If only I'd never accepted that $5 million cash prize then I could have avoided this unbroken series of terrible personal tragedies." But who, in his right mind, would throw away $5 million cash when he couldn't possibly have known beforehand that he would end up suffering a bunch of bad luck episodes specifically because of having it? Rhetorical, I know, but I think you get the idea.

Actually, I was trying to look at it from at least a semi-resonable perspective of the time, and indeed there were signs of their problems by 1981 even. (Curt's been over this before) There's so many options that make more sense at the time, and indeed, Atari had been moving towards some of those with Sylvia before dropping that and going with the 5200. (which was more convoluted than necessary for a conversion of the 8-bit architecture to cut-down game system)

 

I already responded in more detial previously though, and I most definitely did not suggest dropping the VCS. (as it was, it remained profitably throught he late 80s as a budget system)

It's really too bad warner didn't notice any of the critical problems forming before they became almost irreparable, had Kassar left a year earlier and been replaced by Morgan (or someone similar), things would have been very different; or if warner had brought in someone else to asses their problems. (which should have been visible even without hindsight, the warning signs were there, but were just ignored)

 

Cheat carts, anti-copy protection methods, anti-lock breaks, etc.

Cheat devices are sometimes licenced by the hardware company of the pplatform though (like Sega did with the Game Genie)

 

all show that people will and do eventually break the methods so why waste the time/research for such things. And it makes the game/system harder to make and use. I have now three XBOX systems and the hard drives are completely unuseable because of some password protection they have and the XBOXes are not functioning so the parts are just paper weight. And for the hackers out there, they have the break-out chips but I'm not spending a dime more for these things. Only good thing for all these protection methods is from marketing point of view it gives you some time at the start.

So it's better to ignore security alltogether? Noot just piracy, of course (which can be addressed to some extent by legislation), but legitimate 3rd parties/royaltees. Without that it's damn hard to conform to the razor and blade model unless a huge chunk of software is first party. (and I don't think any has matched the ratio that Atari had for 1st to 3rd party sotware published)

It's not perfect, but lockout/security schemes definitely have an impact, look how relatively few unlicenced games there were on all platforms with such security. (not talking paracy, just unlicenced games)The NES had a few, but that itsself is in part due to Nintendo's PITA licencing contracts, the Genesis had fewer, and most following that even fewer if any. (again, unlicenced commercial games in th emain lifespan, not pirate copies of such games or later homebrew/hacks after it's "dead")

 

 

I don't see why they would want to drop PIA or POKEY nor any of the other custom chips.

For a cost minimized, 2600 compatible platform using avaialble hardware from the time. (so a bit like the 7800, but with CTIA/GTIA+ANTIC in place of MARIA)

 

Those were in-house creations. They should have dropped the 6502C since that was manufactured by some 3rd party and then the A5200 would have been cheaper than dropping PIA.

Huh? PIA is just a 6520 chip from MOS (or a licened version from another vendor), so why would that matter compared to RIOT? (and you'd need riot for VCS compatibility) POKEY is a custom chip, so no licencing fees, just the fab costs from the vendor, but that doesn't mean it doesn't add to the cost significantly, not just the cost of the chip, but the added manufacturing cost and board space required. Now, that's the same argument for omitting it on the 7800, but for 1981 or '82, TIA sound is much more reasonable than in '84, let alone '86. (especially with the plan to include POKEY on cart -even if later switching to a cheap alternative)

 

And what's that about the 6502C (Sally), use a common 6502 instead rather than the Atari-specific 6502C (which facilitated ellimination of some support hardware iirc, so more cost effective) Why would that be expressly available through MOS and not able to be licenced and produced by other vendors like various outher MOS chips. It's not a 65C02, of course, that didn't come until a good while later, and is unrelated to the Sally modification.

 

Ideally, they should have kept integrating previous generation custom chips into the next generation custom chips so all new machines are backward compatible with the old ones.

Yes, as I mentioned, designing CTIA to support TIA modes in the firs tplace would have solved a lot of problems. -Though in that case, omitting POKEY in the game system may still have been preferred. (the Sylvia/3200 prototype designs don't show POKEY, so it seems it was not a planned inclusion -though they could have been planning to incorporate some of POKEY's capabilities into the super TIA chip)

 

Jay Miner and his engineers were smart enough to make ANTIC with its own instruction set so why not enhance that with more instructions or build a processor while you're at it. And even if you upgrade to 68K, as long as the custom chips are left intact, it should be easy to port over the application or write an emulator/simulator of previous machine. Of course, ideally you would want to keep the 6502C within the 68K machine as well.

Now you're talking more about the 8-bit line in general (granted, that could have extened to future Atari console ventures as well), not the specifc topic about the 5200. Sure, enhancements could have been made to that line as well, but those would not likey be included in a 1981/82 console.

 

Besides, I thought Miner left before the A8 chipset was completed, he certianly designed the TIA, but I tought others handeled ANTIC, or at least CTIA. (namely George McLeod in the case of CTIA/GTIA) That might partially explain the lack of TIA incompatibility in CTIA, though more likely a lack of interest in including compatibility.

 

Okay, PIA is different from the one currently available from WDC which they claim to be backward compatible; current one in Atari does input in output mode and is faster at switching between input and output modes. So I thought perhaps Atari had a hand in it. 6502C meanwhile I believe they told them to make it with HALT line.

 

One good reason why they may have dropped TIA compatibility with CTIA was because of chip space-- they must have wanted more capability than what they eventually put in. 37.5% of PMBASE memory is unused so if ANTIC used all of it, GTIA/CTIA would have to also deal with that-- extra sprites or color DMA.