The Atari 5200: Why bother?

[Brian R.]

The 5200 had some great exclusives like SPACE DUNGEON - QIX - GREMLINS - COUNTERMEASURE - BERZERK with speech! A great baseball game that's still fun to play. Better than 8-bit versions of DIG DUG - CENTIPEDE. PITFALL II with an exclusive extra level!

 

I'll have to look at Dig Dug on both again. I can't recall having noticed any differences like I have in the other games I mentioned above.

[MAC-42]

Verbal diarrhea follows. TL;DR: The purchase of a 5200 as opposed to an A8 computer should be considered with great care, but can produce a worthwhile experience if you have the inclination to feed the beast with a little care and to learn its wicked ways.

 

 

I came to this game very late, both in terms of the 8-bit computers and the 5200. I longed for an XEGS when I was a kid, but my parents had already just gotten me a 7800 the previous year and there was no way they were shelling out for it. So I picked one up a few months ago. And just a little bit ago I picked up a 5200.

 

It's very interesting, the ways they evolved in terms of their functions once they settled in here. I really tried to like the XEGS as a game console. I really did. But I didn't like having to have a PC--even a little laptop--attached via the SIO2PC on my entertainment center. (It's smallish.) I didn't like having to pick up a DB15 extension cable for the keyboard to be able to play Defender with smart bombs from the couch. (I have little three kids; keeping the console on the floor while I play is asking for trouble. It'd be stomped to pieces before you could say ANTIC as they break the rules and run through the house for the umpteenth time.) And I really didn't care to sit on my couch while programming because...well, the couch is Comfy. And I doze off easily these days, especially on things that are Comfy. I tried putting it on my desk along with my Mac to see how it "felt" to game there. It felt wrong. This puppy needs a TV to game on, at least I feel like it does. (Right now, I'm passing the signal through a converter I had laying around and displaying it on a VGA monitor. I've bought too many pieces of electronic fun this year and my wife will hang me if I buy another TV, so I'm repurposing an old LCD monitor that was collecting dust somewhere.) So, the XEGS stays on my desk, but she's now living her life primarily as a computer for programming. (I'm learning assembly on it at the moment, and teaching my elder daughter some BASIC, too.) I also play around on some BBSes from time to time.

 

The 5200, on the other hand.... I wasn't even aware of it until the late '80s sometime. Somehow completely overlooked it, even when I had heard of the Colecovision and Intellivision. It just was a system that happened to other people. And then I actually picked one up. Oh, baby. This is a gaming machine. Born and bred. As JayBird3rd said above, I look at her and see the outermost system. Best-of-breed hardware for brains on the inside, yes, but it's built for me to play Defender on. (Among other things. I just play a lot of Defender on it.) It fits...barely...where once my 7800 sat. (Said 7800 now sits in a separate unit attached to an old CRT shared with my Aquarius. My childhood machines, together again!) Yes, I've had to do a couple rounds of surgery on the joystick. Actually, initially, it just needed the eraser trick to bring it to life again. Last weekend, it seems the horizontal pot came loose. No big deal, once I remembered in which particular workspace I stowed my superglue. The long and short being that I'd read all the complaints and never really wanted one of these...until the chance to get one "for free" turned up. (Came with three sticks; repaired two and sold them, making the purchase at least cost-neutral.) Why not take a chance in that case, eh? I could even persuade my wife that it was a reasonable proposition!

 

I've developed a philosophy about the 5200. No, it's not for everyone. Either you'll hate the joysticks, or you'll find the time and expense of the upkeep not to your liking, or you just don't have enough space for this monster to sit around your place. Fair enough; those are perfectly reasonable and valid reasons to give this one a miss. But if you have the time to dedicate to it when it's unwell, which doesn't seem to be all that frequent an occurrence, and the inclination to keeping this beast alive, it'll reward you with some very special gameplay. On this temperamental old beast with its rotten joystick, I've placed my highest scores ever on games like Defender, Pac-Man, Missile Command, you name it. (Though I really suck at Super Breakout. I still can't figure out why when I'm only modestly bad on the 2600 version.) So, the talk of it being a terrible gaming machine can't all be valid. It isn't for me, anyway.

 

In any case, I'm glad I have both machines, but they're very distinct machines that serve me in very different ways, though their brains be very similar.

[Dauber]

Hmm...I somehow missed this thread....

 

Anyhoo, I bought an Atari 5200 just recently, probably early this year. There's a retro game store in town that opened a year or two ago. I went there and saw they had a 5200. When I bought it, the guy behind the counter asked me if I was SURE I wanted to spend my money on it, have I ever had a 5200 before, etc. I assured him I knew of the 5200's quirks, but I still wanted it. He added, "The controller works NOW, but I can't guarantee you it'll work next week." I still bought it and a couple of common games. Took it home, LOVED it. (And I've had a 7800 for seven years too, so even that didn't spoil the experience it.) And actually the controller died within an hour. Went online, found an easy fix (basically, just super-glue bits of aluminum foil to the rubber contacts....worked PERFECTLY and never had a problem again!), and played for a while longer. Just really good games.

 

I even got used to the analog non-centering controllers pretty quickly; I didn't find them to be a hindrance in the least, even with Pac-Man; I guess I can adjust to controller idiosyncracies pretty easily. (I even don't mind the 7800's Pro-Line stick.)

[Master Phruby]

When I was a kid, I had a 400. There was no need to buy the 5200 since it just played the same games and I could do so much more with the 400. Last year, I bought a XEGS so I could play those games again. It was ok but the keyboard was way too short for playing a Star Raiders. I also felt like I needed extra hardware to play some of the other games out there on disk. It wasn't worth getting that hardware. The 5200 was the only Atari console I didn't own. It just felt easier to have those games on cartridge instead of disk or on an expensive sd card reader. Less complicated. The 5200 was great! It even came with a wico keypad that I later added the joystick to. Now, I'm getting the machine modified for svideo and fixing some cracks in the case. I'm hoping it will make a nice restoration when I'm done. I'll have to try the trick with the aluminum foil since I have rows of buttons that don't work on my controllers.

 

The 5200 is like a old muscle car that you restore and proudly show off and drive around.

[Brian R.]

I just can't see the console's size being a valid or reasonable reason not to have one. To me, it seems its size is exaggerated as much as those who say the four-port's switchbox will burn your house down or something.

 

The only reason it seems "so big" is because of the controller storage bin. Sans that, there isn't that much wasted space for the size of the motherboard inside. IMO, if you want to talk about a console being too big relative to its guts, the obvious winner of that contest is the VCS. I remember just before first opening one thinking there'd be all this neat stuff inside, and being just bummed at how little was in there.

 

Controller was never an issue fortunately, as I went straight to a Wico. I got one rebuilt, which quickly failed. But at least I always had at least one 5200 controller around with a working start button so I could at least start games until I got the Wico keypad.

[Ransom]

Why 5200? Trak-ball, best version of Star Raiders, and nostalgia.

 

(Yeah, there are other reasons...but that's it in a nutshell for me.)