7800 Atari Corp. Revival

[kool kitty89]

If the ColecoVision was such a solid home computer by itself, why did the Adam expansion only use the video out?

 

As Kitty mentioned, a computer add-on was not planned from the start. The CV was itself however, specifically designed as a general purpose computer used like a console vs. console specific hardware. I got that verbatim from one of the people at Nuvatec, the company charged with redesigning the system from the original proto done at Coleco. According to them, they wanted to do that specifically to aid in expandability. Hence what Kitty mentioned about the expansion port functionality as well.

 

For some reason, Coleco management made the decision that it would be more cost effective manufacturing wise to reproduce (the wheel (since the Adam is basically an expanded Colecovision on it's own) and kill two birds with one stone by simply producing the Adam in two formats, one with the video components and one without that can plug in to any existing Colecovision owner's console. (And I purposely said reproduce the wheel rather than reinvent to make a point).

Maybe that's what happened . . . without proper provisions for such expansion, they could have restricted the computer design beyond what they wanted (or increased complexity/development time -though the only real issue would have been bank switching for RAM expansion beyond the address range of the cart/expansion ports -iirc there's 32k on the cart slot and 20k mapped to the expansion port). Given what the homebrew expansion module is pushing, maybe it was more a development time issue than anything.

 

Video encoding hardware is rather trivial though, especially since many of the NTSC TI VDPs output composite video natively (I think all of Coleco's NTSC stuff did that -PAL used the Y'CbCr output with an external encoder), so the only added circuitry would have been a bit of buffering and the RF modulator.

 

It seems like Coleco passed up on a lot of attractive options short of taking on a full Adam to a CV, like: allowing a low-end computer expansion for the CV itself that catered more to the limits of that (with the full Adam being backwards compatible with that) and/or a trade-in/rebate option for CV owners to take advantage of for an Adam computer (for trade-ins, Coleco could have refurbished the consoles and sold them at reduced prices).

In any case they should have offered lower-end versions of the Adam in general, perhaps meshing directly with keybaord/RAM add-ons for the CV itself. (with the possible exception that the standalone lower-end computers had proper provisions for expansion to full ADAM memory/peripheral spec)

 

Coleco seemed to push too far with the full desktop bundle and lack lower-cost models with a good range of machines and peripherals (sort of like what happened with the MSX -and What Atari themselves had done to a fair extent with the A8 line, though they had various problems of their own that limited its success). Hell, with simpler standalone units, they probably could have avoided the quality/reliability issues seen with the Adam.

 

The massive competition on the market (especially the likes of the C64) would have made things tough in general, but Coleco did have the advantage of the Adam being fully backwards compatible with the Colecovision and had a reasonably good cost/performance ratio for the time. Given the video game crash, it should have given a good route for a parallel shift of the CV to computer -with potential to shift back to an emphasis on consoles when the market emerged from the crash in '85/86. (as it was, the Adam died before the CV's production was halted)

 

 

Were the Coleco* and Intellivision engineers stupid or otherwise simply incompetent?

 

Or it could have been management. But then hind site is always 20/20, and of course things would have wound up much different if you were running things.

Yep, I'll bet the 360's hardware flaws were much more due to management than any incompetence of the engineers designing it. (granted, the problems were exacerbated by quality control issues and the forced shift to lead-free solder, but the fundamental issues of the poor cooling/DVD drive position/etc were the real problems and do show significant signs of being rushed/forced by bureaucratic/management decisions -the fact it took so long to correct is also somewhat indicative of bureaucratic related issues)

[SpaceDice2010]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some facts -

 

At the summer CES 1983 show TI dropped the price of the TI to $99. Commodore announced a new price of $99 for the C64. Tramiel went one step further and announced that all software was 50% off and cut many peripherals in half as well. Rumor had it that the TI cost $125 to make and by announcing that Commodore's software was now 50% off and thus MUCH less than TI's. TI was faced with a serious problem. It wasn't long after that that TI pulled out of the market.

 

The VIC-20 most likely pushed TI to the extreme and Commodore forcing TI into a price war on software, which was heavily controlled by TI and the model in which it made profits, was the final straw.

 

But Tramiel's decision had a real negative affect on Commodore's profit during the Christmas season.

What's your source on that? It's these sort of claims that gave me the wrong idea before. I need to dig though my references again (and some previous discussions tying into this), but $99 for the C64 in 1983 doesn't make sense, the VIC for sure but not the C64.

 

After I had made similar comments a while back, I got corrected on the issue and pointed to some better references along with actual quotes on the market prices in the US and Europe at the time. The C64 didn't drop to $100 SRP until 1984 if not '85. (I'm pretty sure it wasn't $99/100 SRP until 1985 -again, short of any rebate offers)

 

Hell, this print ad points to $215 in 1984, so maybe they hadn't even dropped to $200 in 1983. http://home.insightbb.com/~kguenther6/com64sep84ad.jpg (I know they dropped below $300 in '83, but I'm not sure what they ended with as far as SRP goes -not with rebates)

 

I will find the two sources for you. Sorry I am just now reading your reply. (Must have missed it.) To clarify a bit, it came to $99 after the $100 rebate that was run during the holiday season that year. Tramiel wanted to crush TI and the best way to do it was via lowering the price on software, which TI needed at a certain price point to make money on selling the TI computer at such a loss.

[kool kitty89]

I will find the two sources for you. Sorry I am just now reading your reply. (Must have missed it.) To clarify a bit, it came to $99 after the $100 rebate that was run during the holiday season that year. Tramiel wanted to crush TI and the best way to do it was via lowering the price on software, which TI needed at a certain price point to make money on selling the TI computer at such a loss.

OK, that makes sense, close to $100 after the rebate offer. (there was a lot more info on prices in general brought up following the post you quoted -including references to the C64 being over $200 in early 1984 and between $170-200 by late that year. (when Atari Corp dropped the 800XL to $99 US SRP)

 

In either case it was a short-term thing that TI chose not to compete with. They had most/all of the technical advantages over CBM and then some (in terms of vertical integration and engineering resources they had a good bit more) and the only fundamental disadvantage of the TI99 was the rather costly (albeit in-house) CPU that also complicated expansion of program RAM. (vs the much lower cost Z80 implemented in sever successful designs with otherwise similar chipsets)

 

The other issues were all up to marketing and market model in general: one was CBM chose to push for lower cost designs and manufacturing in general (albeit the quality control issues did have negative impacts on CBM at times -PR and losses from returns under warranty), another was TI's odd decision to block 3rd party software development for a console-like market model, lack of RAM expansion (and only 256 bytes of CPU program memory) among other things.

Both would have had to make the trade-offs in the short run to sustain losses in the short run and things to offset that. (profits from other products/divisions or from software/peripherals for the systems being sold at a loss) Of course, the longer both played the game of selling at a loss, the longer both would suffer reduced profits and risked market saturation at sub-optimal margins. (whether they actually suffered net deficits would depend on just how big the losses were relative to net revenue and other expenses)

Hell, bring Atari into the picture and you've got more trade-offs on top of the definitive advantage of being a huge software publisher of the time such that selling hardware (even at a loss and without the advantage of vertical integration) could mean stronger software sales in general. (of course, Atari had other problems that put them in a weaker position to push such and other problems in general, especially by late 1983)

 

 

 

 

 

Back to the rebate offer in general: I wonder how CBM managed the hardware getting sent to them in return for the rebate. At very least, they could have sold them for scrap, but better would have been to scavenge them internally for usable components for their own products (various CPUs, RAM, I/O hardware, etc) and/or reselling the discrete components in general and optimizing that for the machines most commonly sent in and most useful component-wise. (hell, all those Timex 1000s they probably got would have come in handy for Z80s in the C128 -same for colcovisions) Any VIC-20s they got in could have been refurbished and resold directly too.

[SpaceDice2010]

You also have to keep in mind that prices on Commodore computers at the time were very fluid. Dealers actually paid more wholesale than consumers did at mass merchants. Jack really lost the trust of many dealers when he implemented this. The local dealer in the town that I lived in actually drove 90 miles and bought their C64 stock from one of the mass merchants. So, I think that is why you saw terms like "around $219" and "$170-$200" etc. when the price of the C64 was mentioned. It would be hard to say $199 at Kmart and $250 at your local dealer.

 

Anyways, TI did choose not to compete with it, but by Sept/Oct of that year they were out of the home computer business. While it is true that the TI was in the same price league as the VIC, I think it was Tramiel's aggressive actions on the C64 price cut (rebate) and the cutting of software and accessories up to 50% off that sealed the fate of the TI.

 

It's funny though, I never considered the TI in the same price league as the VIC. Sure, it was selling at about the same price, but when you added a disk drive, you were right in the same league as the C64. I always considered the TI and C64 to be in the same league. What was the cost of the TI disk drive and controller? I thought that was real expensive? And if memory serves me correct TI software was like $40 a cart?

 

I don't think the C64 was selling at a loss; but if I am not mistaken the TI was. I believe that Commodore felt it cost TI $125 to produce it's computer; while the C64 was under that price point.

 

I really wish that Brian Bagnall would give better info on his sources in his revised edition of On The Edge.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0973864966?ie=UTF8&tag=atariage&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0973864966

[SpaceDice2010]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to the rebate offer in general: I wonder how CBM managed the hardware getting sent to them in return for the rebate. At very least, they could have sold them for scrap, but better would have been to scavenge them internally for usable components for their own products (various CPUs, RAM, I/O hardware, etc) and/or reselling the discrete components in general and optimizing that for the machines most commonly sent in and most useful component-wise. (hell, all those Timex 1000s they probably got would have come in handy for Z80s in the C128 -same for colcovisions) Any VIC-20s they got in could have been refurbished and resold directly too.

 

I heard that the Timex 1000s made good doorstops.

[kool kitty89]

You also have to keep in mind that prices on Commodore computers at the time were very fluid. Dealers actually paid more wholesale than consumers did at mass merchants. Jack really lost the trust of many dealers when he implemented this. The local dealer in the town that I lived in actually drove 90 miles and bought their C64 stock from one of the mass merchants.

Paid more wholesales than consumers at retail before or after the rebate?

If after rebate, then that would be perfectly fair since consumers could likewise have been paying less than mass merchants were for wholesale, not just dealers. (consumers would also be paying less for rebates after buying from a dealer as well -just the same difference in the retail price in general)

 

That would be no different than any manufacturer rebates as such. (the manufacturer would be eating the losses from such rebates, not any retailers -be it dealers or department/discount stores, like Atari's Sears or Commodore's K-Mart)

 

It's funny though, I never considered the TI in the same price league as the VIC. Sure, it was selling at about the same price, but when you added a disk drive, you were right in the same league as the C64. I always considered the TI and C64 to be in the same league. What was the cost of the TI disk drive and controller? I thought that was real expensive? And if memory serves me correct TI software was like $40 a cart?

What about memory, a disk drive (or tape drive) is relatively useless without enough memory to work with, even if the system is mainly used for games. (and for non games, the fact that only 256 bytes of the 16.25 kB were for CPU program RAM vs dedicated graphics memory -for games, most data would be for graphics and thus you'd have the rough equivalent of an average 16k cart game) ROM carts were also huge detractors in the Euro market, but that's another topic. (disks werent big for 8-bits either)

 

It really needed more memory to be competitive as a "real" computer and the CPU was a hindrance there due to the need for fast memory. (albeit by the early 80s, faster DRAM grades should have been applicable and even SRAM would be getting cheaper -the VIC was using all SRAM after all, including all RAM expansion-)

Did the TI99 even have any RAM upgrade options?

 

As it was, a stock TI99 was little more useful than a stock 16k Atari 400 (actually less useful in many cases since that full 16k was usable for CPU work RAM and the relatively affordable option for an upgrade to 32k -and some nice 3rd party keyboard upgrades, though a shame Atari didn't offer them). Even the CoCo was more flexible/usable in many respects, though obviously weaker for games.

 

A more flexible/upgradable platform with a range of machines along with a market model open to 3rd party software would have helped things greatly. (strong advertising/marketing would have been important too)

 

 

 

I don't think the C64 was selling at a loss; but if I am not mistaken the TI was. I believe that Commodore felt it cost TI $125 to produce it's computer; while the C64 was under that price point.

That's odd since the TI was a generally simpler machine that had been in production longer. The only definitive component that was more expensive in the TI was the CPU (part of why Z80 based derivatives of the same chipset were more cost effective), but even then it had less RAM and similar vertical integration. (the only other difference would have been build quality)

 

And I meant selling at a loss after the rebate was taken into account.

 

I wonder what Jack Tramiel's plans were for moving on after winning the price war in '83. (other than pushing some of the things he did at Atari Corp)

 

 

 

 

It's interesting to think of Atari Inc in the context of selling at very low profits, or even at a loss since they had the investment in 1st party software to make a razor and blade model (even with open 3rd party development) attractive to promote stronger software sales and profit from that as they did with consoles. (even with the missed opportunities for vertical integration -buying out/merging with the likes of Synertek) That, and further cost reduction and consolidation (like with CGIA and beyond) on top of high capacity mass production could have meant catching up and going beyond the advantages of vertical integration. (various others on the market like the Apple II, CoCo, or TRS-80 for that matter, had lots of potential to be pushed in the low-cost role due to the simple design -especially with the Apple II's popularity, but that simply didn't happen -it did with the Spectrum in Europe, but not with any of the US contemporaries)

 

Of course, their problems across the board didn't put them in a very good competitive position in 1983 and the screw ups related to and exacerbating those problems (from consoles to computers to the arcade to general management) made that situation even less favorable. (the option for selling hardware at low prices/profits was a realistic possibility, but simultaneously pushing strong marketing would have been an issue and the collapse of the console market would have really hurt things)

The unfortunate timing for the shift to Morgan's management also played a big role obviously and his halt of operations in late '83 basically cost them the 1983 holiday sales season. (they really needed new management earlier than that and needed the sort of reform seen in early/mid 1984 back in '82/83)

 

Atari Corp did push some of those tight prices with the computers in late '84 with the $99 800XL and such, but regardless of loss or profits, they were in an even worse position after the mess split than Atari Inc had been in previously and lacked the ability to properly distribute the computers/software and the production capacity/inventory to really compete with the sales CBM was pushing at the time. (especially after Atari Inc missing opportunities to push big into the mass market in previous years -not to mention in Europe)

 

 

 

 

Back to the rebate offer in general: I wonder how CBM managed the hardware getting sent to them in return for the rebate. At very least, they could have sold them for scrap, but better would have been to scavenge them internally for usable components for their own products (various CPUs, RAM, I/O hardware, etc) and/or reselling the discrete components in general and optimizing that for the machines most commonly sent in and most useful component-wise. (hell, all those Timex 1000s they probably got would have come in handy for Z80s in the C128 -same for colcovisions) Any VIC-20s they got in could have been refurbished and resold directly too.

 

I heard that the Timex 1000s made good doorstops.

Yes, Sinclair's early computers were rather ironically shaped as such. (it was rather successful and realistically useful in Europe though and played a major role in building the foundation for the homebrew/budget software market -the Spectrum took that a step further and into mainstream of course)

 

It certainly would be interesting to know more details on just what CBM did with all the hardware they got via the rebate offer in '83.

Edited March 1, 2011 by kool kitty89

[SpaceDice2010]

Re: Pricing

 

Tramiel had a love-hate relationship with his dealers and royally pissed many of them off. Once he brought in the mass merchants the price many dealers paid from a distributor was more than what the dealer could have paid at his local Kmart etc. That was before the rebate.

[SpaceDice2010]

 

Did the TI99 even have any RAM upgrade options?

 

 

 

The TI was a very expandable computer once your forked over the cash for the expansion bay...

[kool kitty89]

Re: Pricing

 

Tramiel had a love-hate relationship with his dealers and royally pissed many of them off. Once he brought in the mass merchants the price many dealers paid from a distributor was more than what the dealer could have paid at his local Kmart etc. That was before the rebate.

Ah, OK, so it was more of an issue with the middle man (distributors) inflating the prices and CBM not offering direct sales/shipments to smaller distributors. (I assume the mass merchants were being supplied direct from Commodore)

 

How did that work out for Atari or others who were pushing things through mass merchants as well as dedicated dealers? (Atari namely with Sears with the computers, and I don't think they expanded that to many other retail chain department or even toy stores as such, at least prior to Atari Corp -though the 400/600XL had dropped to a price range in '82/83 where it was practical to be put into the Toy store entry level computer category and expand the market -the more widely available, the better you can market/sell it, especially since the 400 was originally supposed to be the entry level/gaming oriented model)

 

I wonder if pushing more for mass merchants would have given Atari more competitive prices as well. (it would depend how distribution was managed, of course)

 

 

Lack of wider distribution was part of what hurt Tandy's computer lines: neither offering them at proper dealers (especially for the "serious" computers) or at mass market retailers (department stores, toy stores, etc -especially Tory Stores for the CoCo). They exclusively offered those machines through Radio Shack iirc, maybe with mail order options as well.

 

 

 

 

Did the TI99 even have any RAM upgrade options?

 

 

 

The TI was a very expandable computer once your forked over the cash for the expansion bay...

They also had a lot of plug-in/piggyback sidecar expansion modules. There was a 32k expansion card (DRAM?) option, though I'm not sure if there was any more than that. Was that RAM only for storage (in place of ROM -for tape/disks to load into), or could it be directly accessed by the CPU at full speed like the scratchpad? (or at least accessed directly with wait states rather than having to go through I/O ports as with the VDP DRAM)

 

They really should have offered higher-end models with more built-in RAM, probably from the start with the TI-99/4A (ie the re-launch after the original TI-99/4). (or at very least they should have expanded scratchpad RAM to 2 kB -assuming it's SRAM, that would be 4 1kx4-bit chips- and especially do that on top of other expanded RAM if the latter had to be slow with wait states -let aloen accessed via I/O ports)

 

On top of having 16/32k internal memory console models and offering the bulky expansion box, they really should have offered a true desktop/tower model with the motherboard encased within a unit similar to the expansion bay along with expansion slots and a separate keyboard. (more like IBM)

 

Of course, the closed software model also cripple TI, otherwise doing the above could have meant serious competition with Apple and IBM as well as the likes of Commodore. (just need an 80 column text card, and you're close to directly competitive with the PC -with various advantages as well, obviously with the color graphics modes though only available though composite video -unless the YCbCr output was used with dedicated monitors or an RGB transcoder)

Edited March 2, 2011 by kool kitty89

[SpaceDice2010]

Re: Pricing

 

Tramiel had a love-hate relationship with his dealers and royally pissed many of them off. Once he brought in the mass merchants the price many dealers paid from a distributor was more than what the dealer could have paid at his local Kmart etc. That was before the rebate.

Ah, OK, so it was more of an issue with the middle man (distributors) inflating the prices and CBM not offering direct sales/shipments to smaller distributors. (I assume the mass merchants were being supplied direct from Commodore)

 

How did that work out for Atari or others who were pushing things through mass merchants as well as dedicated dealers? (Atari namely with Sears with the computers, and I don't think they expanded that to many other retail chain department or even toy stores as such, at least prior to Atari Corp -though the 400/600XL had dropped to a price range in '82/83 where it was practical to be put into the Toy store entry level computer category and expand the market -the more widely available, the better you can market/sell it, especially since the 400 was originally supposed to be the entry level/gaming oriented model)

 

I wonder if pushing more for mass merchants would have given Atari more competitive prices as well. (it would depend how distribution was managed, of course)

 

 

Lack of wider distribution was part of what hurt Tandy's computer lines: neither offering them at proper dealers (especially for the "serious" computers) or at mass market retailers (department stores, toy stores, etc -especially Tory Stores for the CoCo). They exclusively offered those machines through Radio Shack iirc, maybe with mail order options as well.

 

 

Pretty much. Tramiel was always messing around with his distribution network and didn't seem to care too much about the smaller computer dealers. The dealers got real upset with him when he dropped the Vic-20 on the mass merchants. For a short while the dealers breathed a sigh of relief when the c64 came out as they were told it was only going to be sold through them. That was until he dropped the price in the $400 range and handed it to the mass merchants.

 

As for Atari, I am pretty sure they had mass merchant distribution early on. I remember seeing the 400/800 (or at least the 400) in Zayre. The reason I can remember it is because of the utterly horrible way it was displayed. While all the software for the C64 was displayed in a glass case that you could actually see, the Atari software was tossed on shelves behind the counter. Those big boxes were just too damn big. And then there was an issue with the pricing - $50 was a lot of cash for a game.

[kool kitty89]

Pretty much. Tramiel was always messing around with his distribution network and didn't seem to care too much about the smaller computer dealers. The dealers got real upset with him when he dropped the Vic-20 on the mass merchants. For a short while the dealers breathed a sigh of relief when the c64 came out as they were told it was only going to be sold through them. That was until he dropped the price in the $400 range and handed it to the mass merchants.

A shame they couldn't balance things better with distributors as such, though it seems he managed better with Atari Corp. (though pushing ST stock off to Europe at the expense of US shortages probably frustrated US dealers -though it was a smart business move given Europe was the definitive market for the ST)

 

Ignoring mass merchants would have been stupid of course, so they would have needed to balance things better with the dedicated dealers rather than focusing on one or the other.

 

At least they didn't have the distribution problems that Atari Inc did (especially with the game market), and CBM managed to catch onto the specific demands of the European market much faster than Atari Inc. (I'm not sure Atari Inc ever got a good handle on understanding the Euro market before it was liquidated)

 

 

 

As for Atari, I am pretty sure they had mass merchant distribution early on. I remember seeing the 400/800 (or at least the 400) in Zayre. The reason I can remember it is because of the utterly horrible way it was displayed. While all the software for the C64 was displayed in a glass case that you could actually see, the Atari software was tossed on shelves behind the counter. Those big boxes were just too damn big. And then there was an issue with the pricing - $50 was a lot of cash for a game.

I'll bet Sears was a better example for store displays and such, but I haven't seen any actual examples of such for Atari Computers.

 

Was the $50 for cart games (obviously more expensive than disk, let alone tape), though I'd assume that would also be in the early 80s. (ROM prices dropped substantially in the mid 80s, especially making the -relatively- smaller cart games cheaper -more so with inflation taken into account)

 

A8 carts should have been close to the same prices of 5200 or Colecovision games. (or the larger 2600/Intellivision games -though I don't think either was commonly pushing 16k or more in the early 80s)

Edited March 3, 2011 by kool kitty89

[SpaceDice2010]

Sears was most likely the best. I am jut not sure the time frame at either Sears or the others for that matter. I know those big style boxes, the high price of the 400 membrane computer, and the high price of the software ($50) was just not meant for the mass retailers. Do you know if the Atari computer lines was advertised in the Wish Books? In Maine, I am pretty sure they are all sitting in my basement. (Don't ask why.) I do remember seeing the Atari line in Zayre at the same time as the Timex was on sale at $100. I also read after that the toy stores were selling Atari Computers before Atari Corp entered the picture. I need to verify that a bit with other sources.

 

Sorry for not getting back to you on the TI questions. Trying to answer as much as possible in the time I have. Will get caught up this weekend as I have some good reliable sources for TI information.

 

On another note after all these talks I went out and bought a TI system. It was one of those systems that I bought for something like $130 back in the day. Never did anything but play a handful of games on it as it was just too damn expensive to upgrade to do anything else with.

 

As for the example you gave of what TI should have done with the TI, in many ways it was actually done after the TI was killed by TI. A company released a card that went into the expansion box, used an IBM keyboard and mouse, had 80 column text, and upto 640k Ram.

http://www.mainbyte.com/ti99/geneve/g_flyer.html

http://www.thekeep.net/mcgill/images/101_0124.jpg

http://www.mainbyte.com/ti99/geneve_system.jpg

 

The TI is one of those computers that interests me. But then again I like to hack things.

 

I guess my perception of the Ti is that for some reason I can't ever seem to compare it in the same league as the Vic even though they shared the same price. The TI imho was like a Ferrari stuck in a traffic jam. That computer had lots of potential; but TI just made every mistake possible in marketing it.

[SpaceDice2010]

Btw, this was just crazy...

[SpaceDice2010]

 

 

Was the $50 for cart games (obviously more expensive than disk, let alone tape), though I'd assume that would also be in the early 80s. (ROM prices dropped substantially in the mid 80s, especially making the -relatively- smaller cart games cheaper -more so with inflation taken into account)

 

A8 carts should have been close to the same prices of 5200 or Colecovision games. (or the larger 2600/Intellivision games -though I don't think either was commonly pushing 16k or more in the early 80s)

 

Games. Pac Man was $50. I believe that I actually have some boxes with the stickers on them.

 

Dec 1983 - Pole Position - $49.95

http://www.atarimagazines.com/v2n9/Productreviews.html

 

Dec 1984 - Football - $49.95

http://www.atarimagazines.com/v3n8/productreviews.html

 

Since most of the retailers didn't carry many non Atari related games it was damn hard for Atari to compete with Commodore's prices. I know for me it was the high cost of the A800 and the high cost of the carts that basically made me get a C64. And later a C128.

[Lynxpro]

Btw, this was just crazy...

 

 

That was revolutionary. It predated the Nokia NGage's "sidetalking" by almost 20 years...

 

 

As for Sears, I remember seeing the 600XL and 800XL models there in their computer department... The department mainly consisted of the systems out on display but not connected to monitors or tvs... You could touch the keys but that was about it. I was lusting for an 800XL back in 84... And then they disappeared near 85. I remember the 520ST hitting Toys R Us before I saw it anywhere else.

Edited March 4, 2011 by Lynxpro

[kool kitty89]

The TI is one of those computers that interests me. But then again I like to hack things.

 

I guess my perception of the Ti is that for some reason I can't ever seem to compare it in the same league as the Vic even though they shared the same price. The TI imho was like a Ferrari stuck in a traffic jam. That computer had lots of potential; but TI just made every mistake possible in marketing it.

Yes, it did have potential, and, yes, they certainly screwed up marketing in spite of being a huge corporation with vertical integration. (NEC sort of did the same the same thing with the TG-16's marketing/management in the US -and not releasing it at all in Europe)

 

Given the hardware of the system, I think it would have done better if pushed more as a mid to high end machine with some emphasis on the business side. (having a commonly available 80 column text board would have been nice, or integrating it like the Apple IIe -they also could have invested in builing a highly competitive OS, perhaps with CP/M or PC-DOS compatible file/data format -and models with a full loadout of peripheral ports out of the box) For cusiness stuff, RGB (or Y'PbPr since that's what the 9928 used natively, or Y/C short of that) monitors would have been significant, or at least high quality composite/monochome monitors for the colorburst disabled modes. (iirc the 40 column text mode has colorburst disabled, otherwise that would be pretty weak -a good composite monitor with a pure luma signal input would allow RGB quality grayscale as you more or less got with CGA/Tandy/PCJr's grayscale modes when hooked to good composite monitors)

 

Offering a compatible low-end model made some sense too, but they definitely should have been pushing higher-end models from the start in 1981. (if not aiming differently back in '79 with the initial release of the 99/4)

 

 

The CPU is the biggest sticking point for it as a competitive low-end machine. It was in-house, but rather costly to manufacture (including the large package) and required high-speed RAM to avoid wait states. (granted, the 650x CPUs have some of the same issues, hence the commonly slow clock speeds used for many -especially without added logic to allow full single cycle memory accesses rather than 1/2 cycles and the use of fast page DRAM, though I'm not sure on the exact comparison with the 9900)

 

For a more low-cost oriented machine, the use of the Z80 with that chipset (as seen with many others -CV/Adam/Sord M5/Spectrvideo/MSX) was far more favorable in general (cheaper CPU without RAM speed limitations). Such a machine still could have pushed for higher-end stuff as well, but wouldn't have had the same power of TI's CPU. (though it would have had the advantage of using a very common architecture -and potential for CP/M to be used directly)

The MSX did just that with a range of machines (albeit a standard rather than one company) for an array of applications. (it also used a better sound chip than TI or some others)

 

In hindsight, using off the shelf or licensed Z80s in their computer from the start probably would have been a good move on TI's part and could have solved most/all of the fundamental hardware disadvantages of the system (other than having a technically less powerful CPU, at least if left at the same clock speed). Of course, that still wouldn't have mattered much if TI hadn't solved the marketing issues. (including the closed software model)

 

 

Btw, this was just crazy...

Yes, though it was good for 1 or 2 accessories. What would have been nice is a universally compatible module form factor that could thus be used both as single plug-in modules/carts or be plugged into an expansion box. (Tandy sort of did that for the CoCo's cartridge expansion port with a multi-pak expansion module -heh, I hadn't realized Tandy was using that term for cartridges prior to Nintendo's "Game Paks" )

The full expansion box was over the top too, they should have offered a lower-cost middleground option as well. (smaller, cheaper, simpler, retaining the sidecar direct plug-in form factor, etc)

 

Actually, that's one bad thing about the A8's PBI as well: it's a male connector and thus unattractive to use for the standard plug-in cards (obviously cards for the 1090XL would have been incompatible with the PBI directly), so a female slot that was also pin-compatible with normal expansion cards would have been preferable. (the ECI actually did that too -and reduced cost by piggybacking on the cart slot . . . the 1200XL probably should have done that, especially with the side mounted cart slot being more convenient for such add-ons than the rear mounted PBI -they also could have had high-end models with a full array of expansion slots built-in like the Apple II or PC)

 

The ST repeated that mistake too. (they should have had something more like the ECI or Apple, ISA, VIC/C64/Tandy cart slots, etc rather than just the basic ROM-only cart slot with even less flexibility than the 400's cart slot -they also should have had higher end desktop models with multiple expansion slots out of the box from day 1)

Edited March 4, 2011 by kool kitty89

[kool kitty89]

Games. Pac Man was $50. I believe that I actually have some boxes with the stickers on them.

Those are all ROM carts though, not disk/tape games. (any idea on the VIC or C64's cartridge prices for games of similar size? -ie 16k in this case)

 

Edit: or for that matter, how did 16k VCS, Intellivision, CV, or 5200 games cost?

 

Since most of the retailers didn't carry many non Atari related games it was damn hard for Atari to compete with Commodore's prices. I know for me it was the high cost of the A800 and the high cost of the carts that basically made me get a C64. And later a C128.

What about disks or tapes? (albeit the latter would have been quickly falling out of favor in the US in the early 80s in favor of disk)

 

That was one of the A8's biggest advantages too: MUCH faster disk load times (19.2k baud vs 2.4k for the normal loaders -and for fast loaders the A8still smoked the best cases of the C64 with up to 3x that default bitrate with 57.6 baud iirc -SIO's max bandwidth is about 128k baud).

 

Obviously that's one area that Atari missed on marketing. (imagine the adds they could have pushed depicting the horribly slow C64 disk speeds -actually slower than the CoCo or Speccy tape bitrates when at 2x speed mode, though CBM's default tape loaders were horribly slow as well at just 300 baud -Atari's weren't great either, but still twice that, albeit the hardware FSK decoder limited fastloaders on the A8 much more than the C64 -only really an issue in the tape-heavy Euro market)

 

 

Carts were best for entry level users with the 16k 400 or 600XL without RAM upgrades. (granted, you'd soon hit a wall where the cost of more RAM -32k without further modding on the 400- and a disk drive would be a much better investment than shelling out for carts -especially if you were buying new releases, plus there were quite a few disk exclusives) Or even with only 16k there was a fair amount of tape and disk software available.

 

The same was the case with the VIC 20 and TI99, entry level computers with limited RAM and heavy emphasis on cart based games rather than disk or tape. (you'd definitely need at least the 16k expansion on the VIC for any decent disk/tape game use)

 

 

 

The hardware costs are something Atari lagged at as well and then screwed up with the 1200XL when they finally got it out. (they should/could have pushed for an earlier redesign as soon as FCC Class B was established, or prior to that they could have pushed such single-board models in Europe -with no shielding at all- and in the US under class A for models used as dedicated computers with monitors rather than TVs -like the Apple II or TRS-80, though they'd have to tighten RFI constraints on those machines after class B was established -they also should have had an intermediate version of the 400 with a full keyboard and maybe monitor AV out)

Missing vertical integration was an issue, but there were a lot of other areas to address. (cost reduction and consolidation of the general hardware, upgradability, flexibility of a comprehensive range of machines, and then the marketing/software model in general -and catering to the specifics of the European market)

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for Sears, I remember seeing the 600XL and 800XL models there in their computer department... The department mainly consisted of the systems out on display but not connected to monitors or tvs... You could touch the keys but that was about it. I was lusting for an 800XL back in 84... And then they disappeared near 85. I remember the 520ST hitting Toys R Us before I saw it anywhere else.

I wonder if there would have been significant cost advantages if they'd stuck with the 800XL form factor rather than the XE redesign (the new motherboard and case would obviously have accrued R&D costs and required retooling -even if it was cheaper to make, that would only have really mattered if they pushed really high production volumes).

That, and changing the form factor and styling once again (and changing the name) probably made for a major marketing/consumer perception headache. (to reduce cost, maybe they could have consolidated the 800XL motherboard to fit in the 600XL's case when the 600XL was discontinued)

 

Given the relatively weak late 80s sales of the XE line, I can't imagine the volumes were high enough to really make the XE redesign worthwhile when all was said and done.

 

For that matter, if they were ever going to release a directly compatible A8 derived game system, it probably should have been ASAP in '84 or '85 and probably directly sharing one of the motherboards with the A8 computers, probably the 600XL. They probably should have used somewhat similar styling too (maybe heavier use of black to tie into the game console emphasis), but otherwise just cut it back to a slightly more compact case with no onboard keyboard and the connector for the keyboard matrix attaching to an external connector (like the DA-15 port of the XEGS) with a minimalistic membrane or chicklet keypad pack-in (including only the most used keys for games) and a full XL-type keyboard as an accessory using that same connector.

 

That especially would have made sense with the conflicts over the 7800, though I already mentioned that in some earlier discussions. (that, and you could argue they should have done that instead of the 5200 back in 1982 using the 600's motherboard design)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or IBM not using off the shelf parts for PC and partnering with DRI, or

 

 

Or IBM taking a 50% stake in Atari Inc. as Steve Ross was pressing them for...

Heh, there's your vertical integration.

 

Then again, they'd also be adding even more bureaucracy to the company. (I shudder to think what a wort case scenario would have been for Warner AND IBM management conflicts with Atari, especially given the mistakes/management issues IBM made on the consumer products side of things) You have examples like the PCJr, PS/2, OS/2, etc (many things having lots of potential but being screwed up in one way or another), in some cases taking longer to fail than others and still contributing to market standards. The PCJr was a pretty fast flop, but the Tandy 1000 is clearly more like what the PCJr should have been. ISA cards for normal PCs to add PCJr sound/video would also have been significant -possibly requiring a replacement BIOS for proper compatibility. (or developers having to cater to that with different software installation/configuration options)

 

It also probably would have made more sense if PCJr video had been directly EGA compatible for the CGA res modes, or if EGA had been directly derived from CGA using similar packed-pixel graphics and such and thus directly compatible with the PCJr's extended CGI by default. They also could have tacked PCJr video onto the EGA standard as CGA compatibility more or less was, but that's less cost effective for EGA. (then again, by the late 80s you had ASICs supporting CGA+EGA+Hercules anyway and the logic for TGA/PCJr video was directly built on CGA anyway -ATi's small Wonder series also included Plantronics Colorplus which was virtually identical in functionality to PCJr extended CGA) The lack of hardware scrolling with EGA was obviously a mistake as well, that and not allowing indexed 6-bit RGB in the lower res modes. (actually, with PCJr modes supported, they could have focused on those alone for catering to CGA monitors and put an emphasis on using the full 6-bit RGB for all EGA resolutions rather than catering to the CGA default palette for the 200 line modes)

 

The PS/2 line was just too proprietary and expensive at the wrong time. IBM tried to do what they could/should have put more emphasis on with the original PC at a time when they needed to be competing favorably on the terms of the clone market standards. (the PS/2s should have been more easily expandable using standard interfaces -including affordable 5.25" drives among other things- and on top of offering ISA slots -as the simplistic model 25 already did- they should have either made MCB cheap to license or pushed for something more like EISA and done the same license wise -EISA is reasonably close to MCB's performance, but keeps board clutter down and adds flexibility with any of those slots usable as 16-bit ISA slots as well)

Edited March 4, 2011 by kool kitty89

[SpaceDice2010]

 

Those are all ROM carts though, not disk/tape games. (any idea on the VIC or C64's cartridge prices for games of similar size? -ie 16k in this case)

 

Edit: or for that matter, how did 16k VCS, Intellivision, CV, or 5200 games cost?

 

 

 

They were all cheaper. In some cases way cheaper.

[+wood_jl]

Games. Pac Man was $50. I believe that I actually have some boxes with the stickers on them.

Those are all ROM carts though, not disk/tape games. (any idea on the VIC or C64's cartridge prices for games of similar size? -ie 16k in this case)

 

Edit: or for that matter, how did 16k VCS, Intellivision, CV, or 5200 games cost?

 

Since most of the retailers didn't carry many non Atari related games it was damn hard for Atari to compete with Commodore's prices. I know for me it was the high cost of the A800 and the high cost of the carts that basically made me get a C64. And later a C128.

What about disks or tapes? (albeit the latter would have been quickly falling out of favor in the US in the early 80s in favor of disk)

 

That was one of the A8's biggest advantages too: MUCH faster disk load times (19.2k baud vs 2.4k for the normal loaders -and for fast loaders the A8still smoked the best cases of the C64 with up to 3x that default bitrate with 57.6 baud iirc -SIO's max bandwidth is about 128k baud).

 

Obviously that's one area that Atari missed on marketing. (imagine the adds they could have pushed depicting the horribly slow C64 disk speeds -actually slower than the CoCo or Speccy tape bitrates when at 2x speed mode, though CBM's default tape loaders were horribly slow as well at just 300 baud -Atari's weren't great either, but still twice that, albeit the hardware FSK decoder limited fastloaders on the A8 much more than the C64 -only really an issue in the tape-heavy Euro market)

 

koolkitty: Don't waste your time arguing with schmucks. You're here to have a logical debate, dealing with facts and statistics, and your posts are good reading. This stooge is just here to argue about *his* choices and playing "I was right" and "I told you so." I've highlighted in red the operative phrase above. You're not even going to get a response from him, concerning the SIO specs you have posted above. SpaceDunce possesses neither the technical understanding (or even an interest in them) to debate you intelligently in such specifics, nor the masculine appendages to concede when you have raised a valid point. The proof is that in fact, SpaceDunce has already passed over your reply (see SpaceDunce post before this one but after your post I have quoted) and ignored your point, so you're wasting your time as he will continue to ignore any point you raise if it doesn't coincide with his choices. I'd suggest ignoring him. He's just here to argue, and basically to shit on Atari, and, evidently, finds sport in doing it on an Atari site like this. Unbecoming of an alleged "Harvard" alma mater, if you believe that... :lol: :lol: Here's an example of this juvenille, boorish, antagonistic behavior (but don't bump the thread ha ha):

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/177146-when-will-atari-go-bankrupt/

Edited March 5, 2011 by wood_jl

[kool kitty89]

 

Those are all ROM carts though, not disk/tape games. (any idea on the VIC or C64's cartridge prices for games of similar size? -ie 16k in this case)

 

Edit: or for that matter, how did 16k VCS, Intellivision, CV, or 5200 games cost?

 

 

 

They were all cheaper. In some cases way cheaper.

All of those, or just the Commodore cart/disk/tape examples? (ie all those consoles had cheaper prices for 16k carts than Atari's computers)

If that was the case, something was definitely wrong with Atari's marketing of the A8's software.

[SpaceDice2010]

 

Those are all ROM carts though, not disk/tape games. (any idea on the VIC or C64's cartridge prices for games of similar size? -ie 16k in this case)

 

Edit: or for that matter, how did 16k VCS, Intellivision, CV, or 5200 games cost?

 

 

 

They were all cheaper. In some cases way cheaper.

All of those, or just the Commodore cart/disk/tape examples? (ie all those consoles had cheaper prices for 16k carts than Atari's computers)

If that was the case, something was definitely wrong with Atari's marketing of the A8's software.

 

The C64 software was way cheaper as well. And then Tramiel cut the price in 1/2 on software at one point. I have ads that show Commodore's carts at $24.97 right after they launched; Rat Race, Kick Man (I wish I could find that game for another system), Seawolf, etc. I am pretty damn sure that I was paying no more than $30 at my local computer store for Commodore carts. Atari roms were priced at $50.

 

Keep in mind, that at that CES he dropped the prices of software in 1/2 most likely in part because he knew that TI was losing money on the computer and making it up in software.

 

Too bad Tramiel turned Nintendo down when he was offered the computer rights to some of their games while at Commodore.

 

TI pricing of carts I believe were on the high side as well. Let me see what I can find about them.

[kool kitty89]

Too bad Tramiel turned Nintendo down when he was offered the computer rights to some of their games while at Commodore.

You mean the same rights that Atari Inc ended up securing? (at least in part; I'm not sure on the details, but some seem to have been non exclusive licenses and -aside from Donkey Kong- also applied to Atari's consoles)

[SpaceDice2010]

Yeah. I would have to look at the details again. Not sure why he turned them down while at Commodore. Speculation was that he didn't want to hurt the deal with Bally at the time.

 

Anyone know any other system that has KickMan. (I miss playing that game.)

[Lynxpro]

Yeah. I would have to look at the details again. Not sure why he turned them down while at Commodore. Speculation was that he didn't want to hurt the deal with Bally at the time.

 

Anyone know any other system that has KickMan. (I miss playing that game.)

 

 

 

Could it be he held anti-Japanese views? And I don't mean to assert that as a slam either...the guy was a victim of the Axis Powers so I can't fault him or many other people of his generation for that possibility...

[kool kitty89]

Yeah. I would have to look at the details again. Not sure why he turned them down while at Commodore. Speculation was that he didn't want to hurt the deal with Bally at the time.

 

Anyone know any other system that has KickMan. (I miss playing that game.)

 

 

 

Could it be he held anti-Japanese views? And I don't mean to assert that as a slam either...the guy was a victim of the Axis Powers so I can't fault him or many other people of his generation for that possibility...

From what I've read on Tramiel (and comments made by him), his push against the Japanese came from their business practices and price dumping that he saw destroy (more or less) several US consumer product markets he was involved with. (typewriters, adding machines, and calculators -albeit TI is still a major player in the latter alongside Casio and such)

 

The same thing happened with DRAM and some other massed produced component markets being virtually destroyed in the US.

 

Though the video game market went to favor Japan for a different reason than price dumping as such, and that's mainly to do with Nintendo's initial success, the strong JP software market, and Nintendo's corresponding success in the west. (of course, Sony changed things again and came closer to dumping -though really just throwing its corporate weight around by selling at an unprecedented loss on top of heavy R&D and marketing budgets with plans to make that up in massive software sales, so more of a monopolistic approach on the razor and blade business model)

 

Had Nintendo had reasonable competition in Japan prior to (or during) the release of the Famicom, Nintendo wouldn't have been able to institute limited licensing agreements as such. (ie competition from Sega among others, or localized marketing of western consoles -it seems like the VCS was managed terribly in Japan under license and the 2800 was far too late, so Nintendo basically ended up in a position in Japan like Atari had in the late 70s US).

That, and strong competition when it came to western markets (namely Sega and Atari) would have split things and weakened Nintendo's ability to push such licensing contracts as well, even with the established position in Japan.

 

It's a shame that such competition has rarely surfaced in the video game markets. (you sort of have that now, but in a rather different market in general, and you had it with the 4th generation -NEC and Nintendo in Japan, Sega and Nintendo in the rest of the world -and in Europe with the NES/SMS/7800 and computers -albeit the 7800 was a relatively small player, but I think it still managed better overall market share than in the US)

Edited March 8, 2011 by kool kitty89