Is it possible to Make the 800XL Run Carts Only Without the PIA Chip?

[kool kitty89]

In theory the +5 Volts coming direct to a Pot input would charge very quickly so you could just use fast-scan mode, do POTGO then just wait several cycles.

 

You could probably even just read the ALLPOT register in the exact way you'd look at PORTA to get the stick values rather than having to interrogate each POT register.

 

Problem is you could do the directions by running the +5 V through what's normally the GND line to the joysticks but that'd screw up the TRIG inputs.

 

If you were going to that sort of trouble, you could probably multiplex 2 or more inputs per POT anyway, that'd free up capability to have multiple fire buttons.

The analog multiplexing thing is what I mentioned above for such possibilities. (several states per analog port rather than 2 -3 states per axis is what pseudo digital controller interfaces use on 2 axis analog ports, but you could reliably push it a lot further than that, but there'd eventually be a limit for practical accurate values being output -ie you'd want to space the analog values wide enough apart to avoid errors -and you'd also probably want to have a game prompt the user to calbrate the controller -like many DOS games do- to record the analog values being output from that specific controller)

 

 

All the POT inputs are voltage comparators that wait for a cap to charge to a certain point and then the POT timer is latched for that input. You only have to worry about charge time if the external capacitors are present. Otherwise, POTGO would clear all the input bits of ALLPOT and then they'd immediately latch for anything that was pulled up.

 

So, it basically becomes a latched input port (although latch on low would be more useful for joysticks since the common contact is GND). I think all channels eventually latch when the timer expires too.

If you were using a custom joystick pinout, being pulled high or low wouldn't matter so much as you'd have the pot lines pulled high and the GTIA lines pulled low as normal.

 

However, if you disabled/remove the analog circuitry external to POKEY, that would remove the POT reading abilities too unless you could toggle between analog and "digital" mode as such. (connecting or bypassing the caps depending on the switch position/mode)

 

 

Fast scan is less precise - where you might get jitter that jumps among 3 values in standard, in fast it would likely be closer to a dozen.

But in the context of wanting a true/false value it doesn't matter.

 

I imagine that in fast scan, the comparitor voltage would be scaled down, or maybe there's some sort of impedence that can be switched on and off for each POT.

Hmm, you mean accuracy, not precision, right (precision should always be 8-bits regardless)?

 

And if that's true, that would nix my thought on using fast pot scan for PCM recording (or at least you'd get fairly noisy PCM due to the errors), unless the external analog circuitry was modified for the higher speed mode specifically. (or if analog audio is inherently more stable than pots are, so you'd get far less "jitter" in any case)

 

 

 

 

According to one of the Atari's reference manual, fast pot scan (which is two scanlines) is inferior to slow pot scan. And ALLPOT can't be used since there's no account for three states (left, center, right) or (up, center, down).

Fast POT scan is only 7.85 kHz? (for some reason I was thinking it was 15.7 kHz)

Edited December 23, 2010 by kool kitty89

[Rybags]

228 cycles, so ~ 8 KHz.

 

It'd be OK for audio sampling if you only wanted 5-6 bit precision. But since the values don't go all the way to 255 you'd probably want to scale them with a table-lookup.

[phaeron]

I took a look at the pot related parts of the POKEY docs again, and it surprised me a couple of times.

 

First, ALLPOT is not a latch: it actually reads the comparators unlatched. It took me a while to find it in the schematic, but if you look closely at the bank of cells that represents the POT0-7 latches you'll see a ragged diagonal of Cell 8 blocks in the sea of Cell 1 blocks along with an extra register select signal snaking through the array. The latching action comes from the external capacitors charging up, and if those are removed or connected to both +5V/ground, then I presume you could read the pot lines through it (in fast pot mode).

 

Second, enabling fast pot mode has one other documented effect, which is to disable the dumping transistors that normally short the pot lines to ground when the pot scan is complete. I don't have paddles to confirm on real hardware, but this tells me that fast pot scan is useless with normal hardware because the capacitors will just charge up and stay that way, and then all fast pot scans will keep returning the lowest possible value. The problem is, I'm not sure how you would make this work even if you were designing hardware for it, with no way for external hardware to coordinate by detecting or initiating the start of the pot scan. You'd have to manually synchronize the 6502 writing to POTGO against whatever was providing the variable width pulses on the pot lines. Was this mode inspired by the 2600 TIA or something...?

[candle]

phaeron, there is a latch between cell 26 and first row (downside) of cell1/cell8 sea, so result is always stable for a given cpu cycle (no transitions in between)

 

also, if dumping transistors get disabled, and with assumption that there is standard paddle connected (1Mohm potentiometer) then time constant for this circuit is 0.047s - should pose no real problem

[phaeron]

phaeron, there is a latch between cell 26 and first row (downside) of cell1/cell8 sea, so result is always stable for a given cpu cycle (no transitions in between)

 

Oh, I meant latching in terms of bits in ALLPOT locking in a particular state. The part of the hardware manual that describes general pot operation implies that ALLPOT indicates when pot reading is complete, but that is not actually what it does or what the register description says. I might have to do some testing on this, because from what I see so far, the ALLPOT bits might actually drop as soon as the full scan completes.

 

also, if dumping transistors get disabled, and with assumption that there is standard paddle connected (1Mohm potentiometer) then time constant for this circuit is 0.047s - should pose no real problem

 

Right, but once the capacitors charge up past the logic threshold through the paddles, what's going to discharge them for the next scan?

[+wood_jl]

Pokey could be used with 2 digital sticks (fightin' words, I know) by tying them the to the paddle inputs and then seeing if they immediately latch after POTGO or not.

 

But PIA is what normally reads the stick directions. PORTA was used for ports 1&2, and PORTB for 3&4. When the XL's came out, PORTB was reassigned to system control duties. Atari was able to eliminate the PIA from the 5200 by making the joystick buttons work like a keyboard (except for the main fire button, which goes to GTIA), and using an analog stick. Pokey stands for Pots and Keys, so there you go.

 

Ah I see. It's Obviously More Trouble than it's worth. Thanks For the insight.

 

 

you do know Atari made such a thing... its called an 'Atari XE Game System' and works quite well...

 

I'm aware of that. The XEGS in my opinion was a POS. I prefer the 800XL.

 

 

so what were you planning?

 

and yes the XEGS has its issues, but overall not a bad machine...

 

sloopy.

 

You guys [obviously] are super-knowledgeable and out of my league. But, I'd still like to know what issues (why P.O.S.) the XEGS has? You're not talking strictly cosmetics, are you? Something wrong with the hardware?

[Rybags]

Nothing wrong with the hardware in the guts of the XEGS really although lack of monitor port is somewhat questionable.

 

What's wrong with the XEGS is that it's probably the ugliest machine Atari made after 1980, the keyboard cable is stupidly short which gives the machine a huge footprint and defeats the entire purpose of having a seperate keyboard in the first place. It's closed architecture is a step backward from most of the remaining XL/XE line.

Oh, and the keyboard action is mushy which gives it the title of worst "normal action" keyboard of any Atari.

 

ALLPOT - my understanding has always been that the individual bits trip once each threshold has been reached and the value in POTn is valid (no longer counting up).

I've not really done much in the way of testing that, and in fast-scan mode I've only really sampled unconnected POTs for the purpose of having a cheap cycle-counter.

[candle]

phaeron: capacitor cosnsist of parasitics resistance and inductance, there is no perfect capacitor so it will decay on its own, and most importantly, this is all nmos logic, driving current from current reservouar (that capacitor) and thus getting it decay to what it can mantain (from its high-imp power source)

 

since there are Schmitt triggered buffers, output will read "1" until voltage drops below Vil (0.8V for nmos), and then continues to be "0" until it reach 1.8-2V

it will be less accurate, but still should be somewhat usefull

[kool kitty89]

Nothing wrong with the hardware in the guts of the XEGS really although lack of monitor port is somewhat questionable.

 

What's wrong with the XEGS is that it's probably the ugliest machine Atari made after 1980, the keyboard cable is stupidly short which gives the machine a huge footprint and defeats the entire purpose of having a seperate keyboard in the first place. It's closed architecture is a step backward from most of the remaining XL/XE line.

Oh, and the keyboard action is mushy which gives it the title of worst "normal action" keyboard of any Atari.

I like the way it looks honestly, though the placement of the cart slot makes it a bit awkward as a desktop/tower configured unit regardless of the keyboard cable though it did make it more convenient to plug games in compared to the 65/130XE. (I wonder if the length of the cable has anything to do with sensitivity of using a direct parallel interface to POKEY rather than serial as with most external keyboards -it certainly contributed to the bulky cable and connector -then again there were similar parallel ports with quite reasonably long cables -joysticks, centronics/printer cables, etc) A coil cord would have been impractical due to the bulk though.

 

It was basically a 65XE (which lacked the ECI) in a different form factor and no monitor port, though it did have mono and composite video RCA jacks, so just no Y/C support. I'm not sure why they didn't just offer a gaming bundle version of the 65XE (would have been less confusing to market and streamlined production)... maybe they could have moved the cart slot for easier access. The 65XE (and 130XE) are really nice compact machines, though the keyboards are a bit funky. (not sure if they're any worse than the ST or better than the XEGS but from what I've seen/felt of the 130XE, it's pretty tolerable at least, unlike pure chiclet let alone membrane keyboards)

 

 

 

 

phaeron: capacitor cosnsist of parasitics resistance and inductance, there is no perfect capacitor so it will decay on its own, and most importantly, this is all nmos logic, driving current from current reservouar (that capacitor) and thus getting it decay to what it can mantain (from its high-imp power source)

 

since there are Schmitt triggered buffers, output will read "1" until voltage drops below Vil (0.8V for nmos), and then continues to be "0" until it reach 1.8-2V

it will be less accurate, but still should be somewhat usefull

Hmm, we're talking 7.85 kHz per scan here, so just over 127 microseconds, so how big of an error would it be in that context?

[sloopy]

Pokey could be used with 2 digital sticks (fightin' words, I know) by tying them the to the paddle inputs and then seeing if they immediately latch after POTGO or not.

 

But PIA is what normally reads the stick directions. PORTA was used for ports 1&2, and PORTB for 3&4. When the XL's came out, PORTB was reassigned to system control duties. Atari was able to eliminate the PIA from the 5200 by making the joystick buttons work like a keyboard (except for the main fire button, which goes to GTIA), and using an analog stick. Pokey stands for Pots and Keys, so there you go.

 

Ah I see. It's Obviously More Trouble than it's worth. Thanks For the insight.

 

 

you do know Atari made such a thing... its called an 'Atari XE Game System' and works quite well...

 

I'm aware of that. The XEGS in my opinion was a POS. I prefer the 800XL.

 

 

so what were you planning?

 

and yes the XEGS has its issues, but overall not a bad machine...

 

sloopy.

 

You guys [obviously] are super-knowledgeable and out of my league. But, I'd still like to know what issues (why P.O.S.) the XEGS has? You're not talking strictly cosmetics, are you? Something wrong with the hardware?

 

actually i like the XEGS, my only issues with it are its ram, expansion, and keyboard.

 

Ram is 64kx4 chips which i dont care much for because the next density up is 256kx4 which dont share many common pins, so an adaptor of significant sorts is needed.

 

Expansion port (i.e. PBI or ECI) is missing, and this was pretty much a standard thing on game machines by then.

 

Keyboard, like all XE's it is poor to sucks in feel, the console keys should have been replicated on the keyboard, and a maybe a longer cable would have been nice...

 

But I do find the OS/BASIC in a single ROM a good idea, and adding a 8K game to the open space a great idea, I am not a fan of Missle Command, and a game that better shows the machine capabilites would have been better...

 

Alot of people dont like the colors on the machine especially the pastel buttons, but pastels were very big at the time it was made, so its a reasonable thing to do...

 

sloopy.

[kool kitty89]

actually i like the XEGS, my only issues with it are its ram, expansion, and keyboard.

 

Ram is 64kx4 chips which i dont care much for because the next density up is 256kx4 which dont share many common pins, so an adaptor of significant sorts is needed.

 

Expansion port (i.e. PBI or ECI) is missing, and this was pretty much a standard thing on game machines by then.

Expansion was never a goal of the design (the ST restricted expansion heavily and it could have used it a good bit more -especially in place of the less useful cart port), it was intended as a low-end entry level consumer oriented computer/game machine from what I understand... though, again I'm not really sure why they couldn't just have a gaming bundle for the 65XE.

 

The 65XE also lacked the ECI, so it's pretty close to the XEGS all around other than having a monitor port rather than the RCA jacks. (the EU only 800XE had the ECI iirc) Of course, had they been interested in expansion, the ECI would have been retained and would have supported RAM expansion.

 

This is getting off topic, but by the time they released the XEGS, the A8 line was more or less dead anyway in terms of mainstream market/development interest (and it never caught on big in Europe, so lacked that source of late software as well -unlike the C64 or even Spectrum in Europe), and honestly, a cut-down and consolidated derivative of the ST probably would have been more worthwhile in the role of an entry level computer/game system in 1987. (let alone if they had a large enough supply of BLITTER chips to allow that to be added... or if sound was extended)

For that matter a 7800 computer add-on could have made more sense, but unlike a direct ST/A8 derivative, that would mean more R&D overhead. (they certainly wouldn't be going back to GCC for that... but such an add-on may have made far more sense for the market given the sales the 7800 was managing in '87 and '88 -the 2 strongest years where it sold about 3 million units in the US, though that tapered off rapidly in '89 and it sold under 100k in 1990, so '87 could have been a prime time to introduce such a product)

 

 

 

Keyboard, like all XE's it is poor to sucks in feel, the console keys should have been replicated on the keyboard, and a maybe a longer cable would have been nice...

 

But I do find the OS/BASIC in a single ROM a good idea, and adding a 8K game to the open space a great idea, I am not a fan of Missle Command, and a game that better shows the machine capabilites would have been better...

 

Alot of people dont like the colors on the machine especially the pastel buttons, but pastels were very big at the time it was made, so its a reasonable thing to do...

 

sloopy.

Hmm, thinking on the colors: it could have been pretty badass with 7800/Atari console style black/red/metallic styling, same for the XE computers for that matter. (actually the prototype 600 looks a bit cooler than the 600XL for that reason -all black top rather than the creme/beige upper option, or just all black (or mostly black) would have been cool. Atari continued to do that with the Jr and 7800 and Sega with the Master System. (among others later on -Sega's SG-100 line had been white/beige in Japan and they sort of went back to that in the mid/late 90s with some Saturn models and then the Dreamcast -the latter not just in Japan)

 

Black really does seem a pretty failsafe color for making sleek electronics/tech (especially with a dust-friendly matte/satin finish), but that didn't seem to catch on for the PC side of things until the mid/late 90s. (a major bonus of dark plastics is that they don't tend to discolor or brittle)

 

I mean the original 400 styled case could have looked pretty kick-ass in black styling for that matter (more so than the A8 due to the cool faceted molding)... and Curt sort of did a photoshop of that a while back. (actually a conversion to a hypothetical 400 styled console)

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/121484-why-did-atari-ditch-the-5200/page__st__250__p__1871880#entry1871880

[candle]

kool kitty89: binary (result is binary - signle bit binary)

 

pokey.pdf says:

 

There is ALLPOT register which allows the logic value of each pot line to be read by the CPU. The main use of ALLPOT is in the fast scan mode. This is done by:

1. Place Pokey in fast scan mode (SEE SKCTLS).
   
2. Write to POTGO address.
   
3. Wait four cycles of computer clock.
   
4. Now ALLPOT register can be read.
   

NOTE: This address (as well as fast scan mode) is useful only when the charging capacitors on P0 - P7 pads are removed, unless the pads are driven by buffer drivers.

Edited December 24, 2010 by candle

[sloopy]

actually i like the XEGS, my only issues with it are its ram, expansion, and keyboard.

 

Ram is 64kx4 chips which i dont care much for because the next density up is 256kx4 which dont share many common pins, so an adaptor of significant sorts is needed.

 

Expansion port (i.e. PBI or ECI) is missing, and this was pretty much a standard thing on game machines by then.

Expansion was never a goal of the design (the ST restricted expansion heavily and it could have used it a good bit more -especially in place of the less useful cart port), it was intended as a low-end entry level consumer oriented computer/game machine from what I understand... though, again I'm not really sure why they couldn't just have a gaming bundle for the 65XE.

 

The 65XE also lacked the ECI, so it's pretty close to the XEGS all around other than having a monitor port rather than the RCA jacks. (the EU only 800XE had the ECI iirc) Of course, had they been interested in expansion, the ECI would have been retained and would have supported RAM expansion.

 

This is getting off topic, but by the time they released the XEGS, the A8 line was more or less dead anyway in terms of mainstream market/development interest (and it never caught on big in Europe, so lacked that source of late software as well -unlike the C64 or even Spectrum in Europe), and honestly, a cut-down and consolidated derivative of the ST probably would have been more worthwhile in the role of an entry level computer/game system in 1987. (let alone if they had a large enough supply of BLITTER chips to allow that to be added... or if sound was extended)

For that matter a 7800 computer add-on could have made more sense, but unlike a direct ST/A8 derivative, that would mean more R&D overhead. (they certainly wouldn't be going back to GCC for that... but such an add-on may have made far more sense for the market given the sales the 7800 was managing in '87 and '88 -the 2 strongest years where it sold about 3 million units in the US, though that tapered off rapidly in '89 and it sold under 100k in 1990, so '87 could have been a prime time to introduce such a product)

 

No, the expansion port was not a design goal, but should have been. other game consoles of the time had them (NES, SNES, Genesis, etc)

 

Same with the 65XE in the US, this was a very foolish design, they should have done what was done in PAL countries where a 65XE is just a 130XE without ext ram. this would have saved them more money then the extra would cost, as instead of having to design, build, and maintain seperate case bottom, mobo, documentation (which could have been consolidated anyway, but wasnt), and packaging.

 

The ST was already a cost-cut computer, so making it into a console game machine would have probably worked where it used carts or a single internal drive with the kb as a optional add on... (but this is another can of worms i wont take further, or belong in this part of the forum).

 

and yes alot more could have been done with the 7800, but unfortunatly, the writing was on the wall and it wasnt...

 

Keyboard, like all XE's it is poor to sucks in feel, the console keys should have been replicated on the keyboard, and a maybe a longer cable would have been nice...

 

But I do find the OS/BASIC in a single ROM a good idea, and adding a 8K game to the open space a great idea, I am not a fan of Missle Command, and a game that better shows the machine capabilites would have been better...

 

Alot of people dont like the colors on the machine especially the pastel buttons, but pastels were very big at the time it was made, so its a reasonable thing to do...

 

sloopy.

Hmm, thinking on the colors: it could have been pretty badass with 7800/Atari console style black/red/metallic styling, same for the XE computers for that matter. (actually the prototype 600 looks a bit cooler than the 600XL for that reason -all black top rather than the creme/beige upper option, or just all black (or mostly black) would have been cool. Atari continued to do that with the Jr and 7800 and Sega with the Master System. (among others later on -Sega's SG-100 line had been white/beige in Japan and they sort of went back to that in the mid/late 90s with some Saturn models and then the Dreamcast -the latter not just in Japan)

 

Black really does seem a pretty failsafe color for making sleek electronics/tech (especially with a dust-friendly matte/satin finish), but that didn't seem to catch on for the PC side of things until the mid/late 90s. (a major bonus of dark plastics is that they don't tend to discolor or brittle)

 

I mean the original 400 styled case could have looked pretty kick-ass in black styling for that matter (more so than the A8 due to the cool faceted molding)... and Curt sort of did a photoshop of that a while back. (actually a conversion to a hypothetical 400 styled console)

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/121484-why-did-atari-ditch-the-5200/page__st__250__p__1871880#entry1871880

 

I would agree, a 5200/7800 design styling would have been best, but many companies use current pop culture for cues in designing consumer products. I also think the XEGS is more what the 5200 should have been, something alot more compatible with the computers, but for some reason Atari didnt see it that way, but then we also have the luxury of discussing this as hindsight, whereas they had to use foresight...

 

Black doesnt always make a timeless design either. The wood grain VCS I think is more a timeless design then the darth vader model, which I think is ugly looking.

 

PC cases were available in black since the early 90's but not until computers started to become more mainstream in mid-late 90's so they were more wide spread in the consumer market. but before that the main driving force was business, with a small section of hobbyist using PC's.

 

sloopy.

Edited December 24, 2010 by sloopy

[atariksi]

kool kitty89: binary (result is binary - signle bit binary)

 

pokey.pdf says:

 

There is ALLPOT register which allows the logic value of each pot line to be read by the CPU. The main use of ALLPOT is in the fast scan mode. This is done by:

1. Place Pokey in fast scan mode (SEE SKCTLS).
   
2. Write to POTGO address.
   
3. Wait four cycles of computer clock.
   
4. Now ALLPOT register can be read.
   

NOTE: This address (as well as fast scan mode) is useful only when the charging capacitors on P0 - P7 pads are removed, unless the pads are driven by buffer drivers.

 

Are those labeled P0..P7 on the motherboard as I may try removing them to see if they speed up the ALLPOT.

 

Currently, to read ALLPOT you would do something like the following (without involving OS):

 

10 POKE 54286,0:POKE 53775,7:REM use 3 here for slow pot scan

20 POKE 53771,0

30 IF PEEK(53768)<>0 then 30

40 X=PEEK(53760):Y=PEEK(53761)

[kool kitty89]

No, the expansion port was not a design goal, but should have been. other game consoles of the time had them (NES, SNES, Genesis, etc)

Yeah... though the same is true for the 65XE itself (given the consolidated configuration, I'd think the 65XE was actually cheaper to make than the XEGS+keyboard...) and again more so for the ST needing an expansion port...

In any case, by 1987, the writing was already on the wall for the A8s (on the mass consumer market at least), probably a fair bit earlier than that for that matter. (all the major mistakes/problems had already taken place before 1985)

 

Even the C64's market was weakening somewhat (the computer game market in general did for that matter... though in that respect it was more the console market coming back into full force in '86/87 -unlike Europe where computers were mainstream consumer game platforms throughout the 80s -and PCs didn't really hit that as competition with consoles in the US until the mid 90s)

 

The ST was already a cost-cut computer, so making it into a console game machine would have probably worked where it used carts or a single internal drive with the kb as a optional add on... (but this is another can of worms i wont take further, or belong in this part of the forum).

Right.

 

 

and yes alot more could have been done with the 7800, but unfortunatly, the writing was on the wall and it wasnt...

Less so than the A8... at least from what I understand, the 7800 was selling a hell of a lot better at the time than the A8 (or possibly even the ST in the US -though the ST certainyl brought more revenue overall) though less than the 2600. They did sell close to 4 million 7800s in the US alone (roughly 3 million in 1987 and 1988 alone) and that's official sales records after returns... with that and the (stronger) 2600 sales in the late 80s, Atari was still managing the 2nd place market position in the US though the end of the 80s, of course steadily falling behind Nintendo's fast growing position from late 1986 on. (they had more than double the market share of Sega up into 1989 from what I've seen)

The problems were marketing and software budget (especially early on) and 3rd party interest (as well as Ninteno's monopolistic blocking strategies), and Michael Katz did an amazing job under those limitations (interestingly he was strongly opposed to the XEGS -and also favored the 1988 Mega Drive distribution deal that Tramiel eventually turned down due to conflicting terms between himself and Dave Rosen). It makes me wonder how he'd have managed the Lynx among other things later on. (of course he'd taken a break from the business in '89... only to cut that short when he joined Sega late that year )

 

I would agree, a 5200/7800 design styling would have been best, but many companies use current pop culture for cues in designing consumer products. I also think the XEGS is more what the 5200 should have been, something alot more compatible with the computers, but for some reason Atari didnt see it that way, but then we also have the luxury of discussing this as hindsight, whereas they had to use foresight...

Well that's what Lenord Trameil thought too: "doing the 5200 right" but unfortunately that was many years too late... and for that matter, back when they did need it, they didn't need a new machine at all: the 400 was already aimed (or originally intended) as the "game machine" of the line and was priced very similarly to the 5200 in late 1982, and they could have quickly followed that with cost reduced incarnations with better expansion. (the original Atari 600 seems like it would have fit the bill)

 

OTOH, there's also merit in keeping the computer/console markets separated (market model differences among other things)... but unless Atari could have come up with a good lockout/security system to enforce licensing (as the 7800 added), that's a bit moot anyway (it they'd only make profits from hardware and 1st party software in either case without lockout)... but I think one other issue was some conflicts between the game and computer divisions (though that shouldn't have necessarily driven decisions made by upper management) and potential areas of cost reduction for a reworked A8 console (again a bit moot due to the 5200 not really being cost optimized anyway -an odd mix of expense and cut corners there too with the missing PIA and somewhat cheap;y made controllers vs the bulk/weight of the unit among other things), or OTOH there's potential for a backwards compatible successor for the VCS too. (which is what the 3200 was planned to be in '80/81 but canceled to speed up release to combat mounting competition... though even then they probably could have hacked together a decent A8+VCS hybrid somewhat like the 3200 spec at reasonable cost)

 

Again, off topic though and better discussed elsewhere, so probably best to leave it at that for now.

 

Black doesnt always make a timeless design either. The wood grain VCS I think is more a timeless design then the darth vader model, which I think is ugly looking.

The 4 switch models in general look a bit funky to me, but (from an attempt at an objective standpoint) the wood grain stuff looks a bit dated in general (I rather like it personally though).

And I think the Vader would look a good bit worse in beige, creme, or gray, so that aspect still holds true regardless.

 

From that standpoint, the Colecovision, 7800, and 2600 Jr (without rainbow strip) wouldn't be too out of place in styling for the early 90s market even, or later for that matter. (the 7800 especially with the smoother curves that became more prevalent on later designs, though you had exceptions like the North American SNES or original Playstation -both of which are gray and boxy/slab-like... and often considered rather unattractive)

I mean take the Sega Genesis (model 1 or 2), 7800, or N64 and compare them with current gen designs. (actually the PS3 probably would have been better off with a satin/matte finish then that fingerprint/dust magnet piano black gloss)

 

PC cases were available in black since the early 90's but not until computers started to become more mainstream in mid-late 90's so they were more wide spread in the consumer market. but before that the main driving force was business, with a small section of hobbyist using PC's.

I guess business would match that with common styling of other business/office appliances (especially typewriters)... and home computers did generally push for that regardless. (honestly I prefer gray -preferably pure gray and not cool/blue gray- to beige at least...) There were some black styled cases with home computer too, but more so in Japan and Europe. (you had the Amstrad and Sinclair machines along with various incarnations of the MSX -and the Timex incarnation of the Sinclair stuff in the US -and some others like the Plus/4 and C16 -albeit with gray keyboards)

 

You also had the odd case of something like Tandy's 70s/early 80s stuff in the silver+black scheme, and TI used something a bit like that too.

Edited December 25, 2010 by kool kitty89