Why did Atari produce TWO 8 bit systems?

[Brad2600]

I hear that both systems are 8 bit systems...5200 and 7800.

 

My question is, which one would you say is the better of the two? Why did Atari make 2 8 bit systems? Wouldn't it have been more logical to offer a 10 bit system or even a 16 bit system?

 

Just wondering so I thought I would ask.

 

By the way, it's my 1,000th post!

[dirtboy69]

in contrast to the sega master system and nes you could say that both were pretty low end for 8 bit maybe they thought it would take two to add up to one of either sega or nintendo

[DanBoris]

Atari actually produced three 8-bit systems, 2600, 5200 and 7800, all use basically the same processor. The number of "bits" a system is, is really just a marketing tool, and doesn't always have a direct correlation to the power of the system. Factors such as RAM, cart size, video hardware, sound hardware, etc have a very large effect on the capabilities of the system.

 

Dan

[dirtboy69]

i should of picked that up before i'm programming for the 2600 it can't be that far off of the nes then right cause it was a z86 and the ataris were z24 right?? or z26

[Invader_dag]

Atari actually produced three 8-bit systems, 2600, 5200 and 7800, all use basically the same processor. The number of "bits" a system is, is really just a marketing tool, and doesn't always have a direct correlation to the power of the system. Factors such as RAM, cart size, video hardware, sound hardware, etc have a very large effect on the capabilities of the system.

 

True, you can tell a big difference between, say the Genesis and the SNES. Or the TG-16, NES, SMS, and 7800. But it makes it more simple to make refrences to a particular era, such as the "16-bit days', the "8-bit days" and so on

[Brad2600]

If all 3 are 8 bit systems, then that doesn't make sense to me. How can a 5200 be superior to a 2600? Is this based solely on factors such as RAM, Processing speed and other factors?

 

I really wish I knew more about programming because I'd love to try.

 

I also wonder why Atari and 3rd pary developers never tried to push all 3 systems to the limit. I'm sure the 2600 had a few games that did this, but there's so much more that it's capable of, that it's almost mind boggling. I mean this for the 5200 and 7800 as well.

 

So much to learn..so little time.

[dirtboy69]

i imagine it's assembly to program the 7800 and 5200 right just like the 2600 and i'm having a hard enough time trying to program for the qurky 2600 i can just imagine the problems with those other systems

[Nukey Shay]

If all 3 are 8 bit systems, then that doesn't make sense to me. How can a 5200 be superior to a 2600? Is this based solely on factors such as RAM, Processing speed and other factors?

 

In short, that is true. Perhaps the biggest difference between the 2600 and later systems (from a programming standpoint) is that the hardware has the graphic screen mapped out in Ram...so the programmer can update things at his leisure. No such luxury in the 2600, everything must be done within a small number of processing time since it goes directly to the screen. Additional processing chips in the later 8-bits like Antic make this possible...and just like a person doesn't need to fully understand a car in order to drive it, the programmer doesn't need to spend much thought on things that the hardware handles by itself.

 

 

I also wonder why Atari and 3rd pary developers never tried to push all 3 systems to the limit. I'm sure the 2600 had a few games that did this, but there's so much more that it's capable of, that it's almost mind boggling. I mean this for the 5200 and 7800 as well.

 

No real need to...as long as the software is doing what the programmer intended. In addition, time spent developing a program is proportional to the amount of capital needed...and for a time, there was almost a "no lose" attitude toward creating games.

[Nukey Shay]

i imagine it's assembly to program the 7800 and 5200 right just like the 2600 and i'm having a hard enough time trying to program for the qurky 2600 i can just imagine the problems with those other systems

That is backwards, really. The more limited a system is, the more problems you will run into (since everything that you want to accomplish must bend to those limitations).

[dirtboy69]

i meant if it's as wierd with things as the 2600 hundred is

[DanBoris]

If all 3 are 8 bit systems, then that doesn't make sense to me. How can a 5200 be superior to a 2600? Is this based solely on factors such as RAM, Processing speed and other factors?

 

This of it in terms of PC's. Take a modern day Pentium 4, 2 Ghz system with 512MB of RAM, and put an old ISA EGA video card in it, then try to run a modern 3D game. It will be horrible, and probably un-playable. Now take that exact same system and put in a moden 3D accelerated video card and the game will be much better.

 

Same thing happends with the consoles. As someone else pointed out the microprocessor in the 2600 has to do a lot of work to get video on the screen, thus not leaving time for much else. On the other hand the graphics hardware in the 5200 and 7800 do a lot of the hard work of handling the display so the processor is free to concentrate on other things.

 

Dan

[mos6507]

The 8-bit also has a faster full fledged 6502 vs. the 2600. It also has a lot more RAM and more ROM addressing abilities. That on top of all the extra chips.

 

The 7800 has the same speed 6502 as the 8-bits when in 7800 mode, but the Maria chip interfaces with its internal RAM at a blazingly fast 7.16mhz, or so I've read. This is a big part of how it's able to throw around so many sprites in games like Robotron.

 

Had Atari progressed as Jay Miner and company had envisioned, the Atari 400/800 would have debuted as game machines in 1979, followed by the Amiga circa 1983/84.

 

I don't know what kind of pricepoint they would have been able to reach with those systems at that timeframe, but the hardware would have been ready.

 

Instead, Atari Inc lost Jay and his team mostly over their handling of the 400/800 project, and surved on the 2600's late-bloomer explosion from 80-82. Kassar blew this time away with bad ideas for new game consoles like the 10-bit Intellivision-ish thing.

 

Then when they really needed to work on a next gen system they cost-reduced the Atari 400 into the 5200, and when that flopped, they outsourced the 7800, which was too little too late.

 

Had the 7800 debuted just a couple years earlier it might have made a difference, especially because of the digital signature system to lockout unlicensed 3rd parties. But then maybe we'd just have another bad version of ET to laugh at had it happened the way that company was being run...

 

The turning point was definitely when they lost Jay's team. They just didn't have the vision anymore. They had the bucks, for a while, but it takes more than that to run a company.

[EricBall]

And don't snub the 6502 simply on the basis of it being an 8 bit CPU. The code is very space efficient, therefore the ROMs can be smaller or more complex games can be squeezed into the same size ROM. As noted before, number of bits is more marketting than a useful measurement.

 

To summarize the differences between the Atari 8 bit consoles:

1. graphics (and sound / periphrial) processor capabilities

2. RAM & ROM size

 

That is backwards, really. The more limited a system is, the more problems you will run into (since everything that you want to accomplish must bend to those limitations).

 

Although the 2600 has extremely limitted graphics capabilities, it is also extremely flexible. Thus a console which was created to play Pong and Combat, has one of the largest game libraries in history. Lack of flexibility (e.g. fixed functionality) is a much greater limitation.

 

And even where the flexibility doesn't exist it often can be extended in surprising ways (e.g. RAM in a 2600 cartridge or the DPC for Pitfall 2).

[Curt Vendel]

Well, in all actuality Atari didn't develop the Atari 7800, GCC approached Atari with the design idea and Atari's OOEM manager: Gary Rubio worked with them to see the product come to fruition.

 

The Atari 5200 was a very advanced design but it was stumbling along, Atari knew its shortcomings but had investing so much time, money and resources into it that it was tough to just pull the plug on it.

 

So the Atari 7800 would be its successor, with better graphics capabilities, expandibility and peripherals all ready for launch. The most important feature was its compatibility with the 2600 line of games...

 

You see, at one point Atari's management got so full of itself, that it truly believed that they could slap the name Atari onto anything and people would come in droves to buy it, so they felt that with the 5200 people would just abandon the 2600 line to jump on board, instead they jumped at Atari's throats for cutting off the 2600 userbase, this is why while the Colecovision came out of the gate with a 2600 module, Atari had to run and play catchup with a kludgy add-on (the CX55) 2600 compatibility module later on down the road.

 

The 7800 was a wonderful machine, probably its one and only drawback was that it used the built-in VCS circuitry for sound and you have to include a Pokey chip (or other sound chip) inside each cartridge for enhanced audio.

 

The 7800 could've gone VERY far and really given the NES a serious run for its money, but it spent the entire time during the re-birth of the home console industry by Nintendo and Sega in the warehouse, finally in 86' it was released with only 8 games, no add-ons and no further games for nearly 6 mos. A very short ad campaign (if you even want to call it an AD campaign at all) and people saw it on the shelf as most likely some leftover from the previous wave of videogames and went to buy an NES or Master System which were being advertised non-stop on TV, radio and print ad's, kids wanted what was hot and all over the TV, the age of Atari/Coleco/Intelly had come to closure, Nintendo & Sega would carry the torch forward.

 

Shame, damned shame.... the 7800 had HUGE potential.

 

 

Curt

[Curt Vendel]

If all 3 are 8 bit systems, then that doesn't make sense to me. How can a 5200 be superior to a 2600? Is this based solely on factors such as RAM, Processing speed and other factors?

 

I really wish I knew more about programming because I'd love to try.  

 

I also wonder why Atari and 3rd pary developers never tried to push all 3 systems to the limit. I'm sure the 2600 had a few games that did this, but there's so much more that it's capable of, that it's almost mind boggling. I mean this for the 5200 and 7800 as well.

 

So much to learn..so little time.

 

Well the 5200 used a full blown 6502, the 2600 used a 6507 which is a slightly watered down 6502 to cut costs. The TIA in the 2600 has limited graphics/RAM capabilites, the 5200 had a full set of custom VLSI processors for graphics, memory, sound (GTIA, ANTIC, POKEY) so it was a far superior system. The 7800 had the MARIA graphics processor which was even more powerful and had a slightly better resolution (320X200 vs 5200 320X192)

 

Curt

[+Sauron]

Atari actually produced three 8-bit systems, 2600, 5200 and 7800...

 

You can make that 4 if you include the XE Game System, 5 depending on what you'd consider the Lynx (8 or 16 bit)

[EricBall]

[Well the 5200 used a full blown 6502, the 2600 used a 6507 which is a slightly watered down 6502 to cut costs.    The TIA in the 2600 has limited graphics/RAM capabilites

 

The 6507 (13) has fewer address lines than the standard 6502 (16) and a Ready (RDY) line instead of interrupt lines. RDY is used to halt the CPU until the next horizontal retrace. The IRQ/NMI could have been used by the 6532 RIOT timer, but it is just as easy to poll. Oh, and the 128 bytes of RAM are part of the 6532 RIOT, not the TIA. All of the TIA registers are either read or write only.

[analmux]

i should of picked that up before i'm programming for the 2600 it can't be that far off of the nes then right cause it was a z86 and the ataris were z24 right?? or z26

 

It could be a surprise to you, but both Atari 8 bits (nearly all of them) and NES 8 bits run on a 6502 processor.

 

 

...and the Lynx is a 16bits 68000 if i'm not mistaken...

[Gregory DG]

If all 3 are 8 bit systems, then that doesn't make sense to me. How can a 5200 be superior to a 2600?

 

Boy, that opened a kettle of worms, didn't it? Might as well ask, "How can the Nintendo 64 be superior to the Jaguar 64?" or "How can the Genesis be superior to the Intellivision (both are 16-bit)?"

 

You've gotten more in-depth answers from the programmers, but my simple answer (because I'm a simple person) is this: The march of PROGRESS.

[Gregory DG]

...and the Lynx is a 16bits 68000 if i'm not mistaken...

 

You are. There is no 68000 in the Lynx. It uses a custom 6502 for it's CPU.

[analmux]

You are. There is no 68000 in the Lynx. It uses a custom 6502 for it's CPU.

 

Oh, yes (what was I thinking )

 

But I'm very sure it's a 16bits 6502, in other words a 65816 (like in the SNES)

 

The SEGA Genesis contains a 68000

[Bryan]

The fact is that until recently, games didn't do many calculations and instead the push was to get more colors and more moving objects on screen. Since this generally isn't the function of the CPU, but rather the Graphics hardware, systems got better and better while still utilizing cheap 8-bit processors.

 

Think of a car engine that puts out 120HP. The car manufacturer can put it in a stripped down model with vinyl seats, manual windows and no AC, or in a sports model with reduced weight, better suspension, leather and all the toys. Two very different cars can be built around the same powerplant.

 

The 2600 would be a pretty heavy car, becuase the video hardware is very crude and requires a lot of CPU intervention (on every line). The 7800 requires almost no CPU intervention to generate very complex displays.

 

Once games progressed to the point where 3D calculations became important, newer (more expensive) processors started being used. The 68000 was a large part of the Genesis' overall cost.

 

-Bry

[Noeljb]

Its not how big your tool is its how you use it.

 

An 3E AWACS ( the one with a rotodome / frisbee on top) used to have an 8 bit prosser with only two meg of ferite core memory. And you would not believe the things it could do.

 

Noeljb

[bjk7382]

all of them even the atari 400/800 run on the 6502. So you will have to include the 400 and 800 unless your just looking at consoles and not computers. Although the computers had games.

[Muddawg]

Alot of classic 8-bit systems used the 6502 CPU, even Commodore 1541 and 1571 disk drives had one! funny but true