Atari 7800 Repro

[Coleco Gemini]

There was a project several years ago to recreate the 7800 (see wikipedia) what happened to this?

[jaybird3rd]

They're referring to the prototype that Curt Vendel did for O'Shea some years ago. It's been discussed a few times already:

 

That was a prototype for what was intended to be a new batch of 7800 consoles. From an earlier thread:

 

That was a project for O'Shea's, I believe, to help sell the overstock 2600/7800 cartridges that they had. They apparently balked at the cost of manufacturing new consoles (and have since scrapped the cartridges), so there were only a few prototypes made. I don't remember if these are the same as the "7800 Signature Series" prototypes or if that was a separate project.

 

That's my recollection, anyway; Curt would know for sure.

Jaybird pretty much summed it up.

 

We did a new case design, replicated the original 7800 boards, bom's and such, provided all of the chip data for the TIA and MARIA and it was then up to Oshea to finance the tooling up. He was looking at around 80K for the plastics and about 240K for the chip dies, so he was trying to find factories in China that would do the work, make the systems and he would sell I think it was 200K units with 5 games each and then pay the factories back. Well, as you can imagine, no one jumped on that opportunity. Plus he was also going to have to pay Atari a 500K royalty as well.

 

So nothing ever came of it and that was back around the end of 2003 and that's when I started tinkering around at first with Verilog then just learned straight VHDL, about a year later I had a working TIA core and by January 2005 a fully running system was demo'd at the NY Toy Faire into what would become the Flashback 2

 

Curt

[toptenmaterial]

It's interesting, I've often wondered if a limited rerelease of Atari hardware would sell. The answer that I received from folks here is that one would need very deep pockets to pull it off. I was operating under the erroneous assumption that because the hardware is very old, that it must be cheap.

Edited February 26, 2011 by toptenmaterial

[Toraborakid]

They're referring to the prototype that Curt Vendel did for O'Shea some years ago. It's been discussed a few times already:

 

That was a prototype for what was intended to be a new batch of 7800 consoles. From an earlier thread:

 

That was a project for O'Shea's, I believe, to help sell the overstock 2600/7800 cartridges that they had. They apparently balked at the cost of manufacturing new consoles (and have since scrapped the cartridges), so there were only a few prototypes made. I don't remember if these are the same as the "7800 Signature Series" prototypes or if that was a separate project.

 

That's my recollection, anyway; Curt would know for sure.

Jaybird pretty much summed it up.

 

We did a new case design, replicated the original 7800 boards, bom's and such, provided all of the chip data for the TIA and MARIA and it was then up to Oshea to finance the tooling up. He was looking at around 80K for the plastics and about 240K for the chip dies, so he was trying to find factories in China that would do the work, make the systems and he would sell I think it was 200K units with 5 games each and then pay the factories back. Well, as you can imagine, no one jumped on that opportunity. Plus he was also going to have to pay Atari a 500K royalty as well.

 

So nothing ever came of it and that was back around the end of 2003 and that's when I started tinkering around at first with Verilog then just learned straight VHDL, about a year later I had a working TIA core and by January 2005 a fully running system was demo'd at the NY Toy Faire into what would become the Flashback 2

 

Curt

 

 

Has anyone ever considered just making a new motherboared to replace the ones in the 7800?

 

that way you can use existing systems (broken or otherwise) even if its just the shell, might be a help in bringing the 7800 back to life..

 

BTW: is some of the atari hardware no longer under trademark?

 

and who knows u might be able to build in the xm unit into the case as well.

[Chuplayer]

They're referring to the prototype that Curt Vendel did for O'Shea some years ago. It's been discussed a few times already:

 

That was a prototype for what was intended to be a new batch of 7800 consoles. From an earlier thread:

 

That was a project for O'Shea's, I believe, to help sell the overstock 2600/7800 cartridges that they had. They apparently balked at the cost of manufacturing new consoles (and have since scrapped the cartridges), so there were only a few prototypes made. I don't remember if these are the same as the "7800 Signature Series" prototypes or if that was a separate project.

 

That's my recollection, anyway; Curt would know for sure.

Jaybird pretty much summed it up.

 

We did a new case design, replicated the original 7800 boards, bom's and such, provided all of the chip data for the TIA and MARIA and it was then up to Oshea to finance the tooling up. He was looking at around 80K for the plastics and about 240K for the chip dies, so he was trying to find factories in China that would do the work, make the systems and he would sell I think it was 200K units with 5 games each and then pay the factories back. Well, as you can imagine, no one jumped on that opportunity. Plus he was also going to have to pay Atari a 500K royalty as well.

 

So nothing ever came of it and that was back around the end of 2003 and that's when I started tinkering around at first with Verilog then just learned straight VHDL, about a year later I had a working TIA core and by January 2005 a fully running system was demo'd at the NY Toy Faire into what would become the Flashback 2

 

Curt

Perhaps it might be more feasible now. I guess the patent for the 7800's electronics hadn't yet passed in 2003, therefore necessitating the royalty. I don't think the NES patent had passed yet in 2003, so that's why Famiclones were still illegal. Nowadays they're fully legal to make. There are even SNES and Genesis clones that are completely legal now, so the 7800 has got to be legal, too.

[Retro Rogue]

Perhaps it might be more feasible now. I guess the patent for the 7800's electronics hadn't yet passed in 2003, therefore necessitating the royalty. I don't think the NES patent had passed yet in 2003, so that's why Famiclones were still illegal. Nowadays they're fully legal to make. There are even SNES and Genesis clones that are completely legal now, so the 7800 has got to be legal, too.

 

While the patent for the hardware would most likely have expired (unless there were later changes and renewals), the BIOS would still be protected.

[kenfused]

 

Has anyone ever considered just making a new motherboared to replace the ones in the 7800?

 

that way you can use existing systems (broken or otherwise) even if its just the shell, might be a help in bringing the 7800 back to life..

 

BTW: is some of the atari hardware no longer under trademark?

 

and who knows u might be able to build in the xm unit into the case as well.

 

With maybe the exception of the pushbuttons on the motherboard that can be replaced, I personally have found the 7800 cases to be much more likely to fail than the motherboard. The plastic used seems to be kind of brittle.

[Prodos8]

 

Has anyone ever considered just making a new motherboared to replace the ones in the 7800?

 

that way you can use existing systems (broken or otherwise) even if its just the shell, might be a help in bringing the 7800 back to life..

 

BTW: is some of the atari hardware no longer under trademark?

 

and who knows u might be able to build in the xm unit into the case as well.

 

With maybe the exception of the pushbuttons on the motherboard that can be replaced, I personally have found the 7800 cases to be much more likely to fail than the motherboard. The plastic used seems to be kind of brittle.

 

 

Why do we need new motherboards? Mine has been problem free for 20+ years now. The cases, though, haven't aged as well especially if you try to drill them for mods and such.

[DracIsBack]

Totally not practical, but it would have been cool for someone to remake the 7800 with a standard power supply, better joysticks (or options) and something other than the RF cable for output. :-)

[Chuplayer]

Perhaps it might be more feasible now. I guess the patent for the 7800's electronics hadn't yet passed in 2003, therefore necessitating the royalty. I don't think the NES patent had passed yet in 2003, so that's why Famiclones were still illegal. Nowadays they're fully legal to make. There are even SNES and Genesis clones that are completely legal now, so the 7800 has got to be legal, too.

 

While the patent for the hardware would most likely have expired (unless there were later changes and renewals), the BIOS would still be protected.

Hm... do you even need the BIOS? I don't see a BIOS file in my Prosystem emulator folder. I just loaded Commando in that emulator, and it skipped the BIOS startup screen, too.

 

The Genesis had a BIOS, too (after the first version), and clones work.

[GroovyBee]

Hm... do you even need the BIOS? I don't see a BIOS file in my Prosystem emulator folder. I just loaded Commando in that emulator, and it skipped the BIOS startup screen, too.

 

ProSystem can be configured to use the BIOS. By default it doesn't so it just "jumps" to the cart's reset vector after its been loaded.

[Chuplayer]

Hm... do you even need the BIOS? I don't see a BIOS file in my Prosystem emulator folder. I just loaded Commando in that emulator, and it skipped the BIOS startup screen, too.

 

ProSystem can be configured to use the BIOS. By default it doesn't so it just "jumps" to the cart's reset vector after its been loaded.

As I demonstrated when I loaded Commando on ProSystem.

 

So, do real carts need the console's BIOS to work?

[GroovyBee]

So, do real carts need the console's BIOS to work?

 

On an NTSC console the BIOS checks that the cart's signature is correct as well as determining if a 2600 or 7800 cart is plugged in. If its a 2600 game then the 7800 is locked into 2600 mode before the cart's reset vector is jumped to.

 

On a PAL console the BIOS does the 2600/7800 check and if no cart is plugged in it'll start a game of Asteroids. PAL carts don't have a signature check due to encryption export reasons back in the day.

[Chuplayer]

So, do real carts need the console's BIOS to work?

 

On an NTSC console the BIOS checks that the cart's signature is correct as well as determining if a 2600 or 7800 cart is plugged in. If its a 2600 game then the 7800 is locked into 2600 mode before the cart's reset vector is jumped to.

 

On a PAL console the BIOS does the 2600/7800 check and if no cart is plugged in it'll start a game of Asteroids. PAL carts don't have a signature check due to encryption export reasons back in the day.

That's sounding like a no to my question with a maybe for a physical switch that can switch between 2600 and 7800 mode because if there's no BIOS, then maybe there will be no auto-detection.

[+batari]

It wouldn't be too hard to write a working BIOS from scratch, and without copying any code from the original BIOS. No signature check is needed, and simple heuristics should be enough to determine if a cart (such as toggling the upper address lines, which are not connected on 2600 games.) You could even create your own logo if you wanted to. And, you could socket the BIOS chip so enthusiasts could burn their own BIOS if they wanted it to match the original.