hy did Atari release the the XEGS at a time when the 7800 was out?

[Prosystemsearch]

Why, just why did Atari think it was necessary to release it in late 1987?? Either they should have released it a year later, or cut off support for in in North America in early 1989 so they could focus more on the 7800. > >

 

UGH. Atari corp.'s stupidity is why the 780 failed!! D:

[Prosystemsearch]

OOPS!! Meant to say 7800 at the end!! Also forgot to put a W at the beginning!

[Bryan]

You can edit your posts after you submit them.

 

I think the main reason for the XEGS was that Atari wasn't investing in any more 7800 titles and they knew they could cheaply buy the distribution rights for A8 games. So, they could blow out 7800 inventory cheaply and tout the XEGS as an upgrade. I wonder how many people actually got paid for XEGS titles.

[charliecron]

I think I've read somwhere it may have been motivated by the massive success of the NES. Basically, people were intrested in console gaming again, and they attempted to cash in.

[Marius]

I am extremely happy with the xegs. It is one of my favorite consoles!

[+Larry]

Hi Marius-

 

Do you mostly use the XEGS with the MyIDE-II or ?

 

Never cared for it, personally -- lack of PBI and 64K of ram. Of course, there are those pastel buttons...

 

BTW, IIRC there was a published story (maybe Antic?) that explained Atari couldn't sell many 65XE's, so they "converted" them to XEGS. Never understood the logic for that since the mobo's are quite different.

 

-Larry

[Marius]

I use all my atari's with most of the time with myide 2.

 

On my xe's I prefer IDE+ 2.0

 

The strength of myide 2 is the ability of acting like a rom cart. All those games that need 128kb or more as a .xex file ... Do only require 64kb or less as rom file. Perfect gadget myide 2 for the xegs.

[Lynxpro]

No.

 

At the time, the software publishers were complaining about software piracy, especially in video gaming. Although the most pirating involved was on the Commodore 64, the publishers needed a scapegoat to blame their woes on and they wanted to make an example to scare people from committing piracy so they started dropping the A8. Atari Explorer magazine wrote about this often back then. So what could Atari do about it? Quickly find a way to expand the user base with new customers and also get rid of more 8-bit stock so they wouldn't be stuck with all of the parts.

 

And so the XEGS was created. It also helped that A8 disk and cassette titles could easily be converted to cartridges and it also got around Nintendo's exclusive console contracts that was strangling the 7800 and the Sega Master System.

 

But still, the 7800 did better because it was a more [graphically] powerful gaming system.

[kiwilove]

With the 7800 it was only the sprite hardware being upgraded - but not the background graphics - nor the sound....

I have yet to see any video of a 7800 game that blows me away with it's graphic capabilities?

I don't consider it an upgrade over the Atari 400 /800 hardware - which must date back to 1978? Although they were on sale from around 1980/1981?

Is there any demo that can show this?

 

Harvey

[Prosystemsearch]

The background graphics were still a noticeable upgrade from the 2600, even if not as good as the NES or SMS.

[Lynxpro]

With the 7800 it was only the sprite hardware being upgraded - but not the background graphics - nor the sound....

I have yet to see any video of a 7800 game that blows me away with it's graphic capabilities?

I don't consider it an upgrade over the Atari 400 /800 hardware - which must date back to 1978? Although they were on sale from around 1980/1981?

Is there any demo that can show this?

 

Harvey

 

Joust, Pole Position [2], Robotron, Centipede, Ms Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Commando, Desert Falcon, Tower Toppler and Dark Chambers all look better on the 7800 than the Atari 8-bit computer line/XEGS, etc. And that's not because of sprites either.

[Marius]

yesterday I found a few 7800 related movies on youtube. Indeed: better graphics than a8. Only strange thing (can't describe it very well in English) is that sprites/player missiles looked so different in graphics style than backgrounds, that imho the sprites and the background did not mix very well. It was too obvious that the sprites were something different than the background.

 

Where in A8 the player/missiles and the background graphics can be mixed very well, I missed that on what I saw on 7800. But perhaps it were just the games I saw.

[TMR]

With the 7800 it was only the sprite hardware being upgraded - but not the background graphics - nor the sound....

I have yet to see any video of a 7800 game that blows me away with it's graphic capabilities?

Well being "blown away" is relative and the sprites are part of the graphical capabilities... so off the top of my head, they might be unreleased but both Sirius and Plutos have a lot of colourful, C64-sized sprites whizzing around in ways the A8 (and at some points the C64) simply can't replicate.

[kiwilove]

Thanks TMR for pointing out Sirius and Plutos. They do have some pretty decent backgrounds for sure.

Sirius looks like a cross between Delta and Armalyte - my only quibble is that the lasers need to stand out more - like with colour effectx maybe? if possible. They are kinda dull.

Plutos looks unfinished - a WIP as there are no enemy missiles firing? Both have that C64 graphical look to them - right down to it's colours. Certainly the A8 hardware can't have that much firepower going.

I can't find a decent 7800 video of Xevious - that'll show the whole game? It won't be an easy game to play through, that's for sure - but I will guess that it's hidden targets are not present? The Nasca bird is poorly represented - but it's easy to see there wouldn't be enough characters left to do it nicely. With the coin-op being a vertical screen game - a horizontal version couldn't replicate it exactly the same - the field of view would be larger/greater in the original.

 

As expected the 7800 can reproduce the arcade hits of the early 80s' - but it can't handle those from the mid 80s' onward ..

I'll guess which typically had more extensive playfields/background graphics. I don't know the technical specs for it...

Was it the case like with it's sound chip - that they fell short on providing enough hardware support for it?

Edited June 14, 2014 by kiwilove

[TMR]

Sirius looks like a cross between Delta and Armalyte - my only quibble is that the lasers need to stand out more - like with colour effectx maybe? if possible. They are kinda dull.

Both are coded by Kevin Franklin and a graphics credit for Plutos goes to Michael Owens; they developed the original Zybex on the C64 between them as well as building a couple of other titles for Zeppelin including Draconus and Ninja Commando.

 

i believe that it's using a four colour 2:1 pixel ratio mode so the lasers have to share playfield colours with the background; that puts it in the same boat as the A8 in a bitmapped mode (like Zybex) so any elements drawn in have to share the four colours and splitting one for the bullets will have an effect on everything else using it.

 

Plutos looks unfinished - a WIP as there are no enemy missiles firing? Both have that C64 graphical look to them - right down to it's colours. Certainly the A8 hardware can't have that much firepower going.

It wasn't a finished game, no.

 

They're just using white and dark grey as shared colours; it's something that gets used a lot on the C64 but works on most 8-bits with a similar resolution like the A8 and Amstrad CPC.

 

As expected the 7800 can reproduce the arcade hits of the early 80s' - but it can't handle those from the mid 80s' onward ..

Very few machines at that time could though, at least they couldn't without a redesign to use their strengths. Look at Salamander on the C64 or R-Type on the Spectrum for example, both great games but not perfect conversions of the coin-ops.

 

Was it the case like with it's sound chip - that they fell short on providing enough hardware support for it?

i can't remember the story (cue Groovybee =-) but it ended up with something more akin to the 2600 than what the A8 had, but it's possible to graft a POKEY in through the cartridge.

[high voltage]

 

As expected the 7800 can reproduce the arcade hits of the early 80s' - but it can't handle those from the mid 80s' onward ..

 

That's the same with the Famicom (released in 1983), it was only capable of playing simple platform games and Shmups, only with the help of extra add-ons (in the cartridge) it produced better games.

Most consoles have under powered specs upon release, it's cheaper.

[Creature XL]

Well being "blown away" is relative and the sprites are part of the graphical capabilities... so off the top of my head, they might be unreleased but both

and

have a lot of colourful, C64-sized sprites whizzing around in ways the A8 (and at some points the C64) simply can't replicate.

Wow! That is some Sirius shit! Seeing all these HW-sprites I understand why Grooybee likes coding the 7800 so much.

The playfiled seems limitd to 4 colors ( with possible raster interupts?). If so, then it is a pitty. As it is no competition to the NES even with all these sprites.

The C64 users/coders can be lucky to have the color RAM. All A8 users know that 4/5 colors aren't enough for really cool 8-bit gfx.

[kiwilove]

Yes it is a shame that the missiles are tied to the foreground colours - as seen in those two games.

Looking at the 7800 specs - it says more colours are available/possible - yet these talented developers are not able to take advantage of it?

 

Delaying the release of the 7800 by 2 years - proved very costly. Just like the 5200 -- it should have been OKed far earlier (like very shortly after the Atari 400/800 release). 2 years meant a lot in those halycon days.

 

Reminds of some Megadrive games - in which backgrounds were only of 4 colours - but the tech specs don't say it is. Limited to such few colours usually mean a saving of memory and/or processing too.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Atari severely fragmented it's own userbase by releasing competing and incompatible products which competed with each other. They pulled this crap during the 5200 and 7800 eras by releasing competing computing platforms. Atari committed corporate suicide so many times throughout the 80s and early 90s it was literally amazing that the company kept rising from it's own ashes so many times like a damned Phoenix. Even throughout the 2000s it has existed in various forms. Every company that bought the Atari brand and IP has either bankrupted or sold it at a huge loss. The company was literally a train wreck but a very fascinating one. The leftovers that survived the said wreck certainly do have an interesting legacy unlike any company before or since.

[TMR]

The playfiled seems limitd to 4 colors ( with possible raster interupts?). If so, then it is a pitty. As it is no competition to the NES even with all these sprites.

The C64 users/coders can be lucky to have the color RAM. All A8 users know that 4/5 colors aren't enough for really cool 8-bit gfx.

You can do amazing things in four colours if the artist is good though, Armalyte, Io and Salamander on the C64 are only using black and three other colours for the playfield and Uridium just adds one more.

 

 

Yes it is a shame that the missiles are tied to the foreground colours - as seen in those two games.

Looking at the 7800 specs - it says more colours are available/possible - yet these talented developers are not able to take advantage of it?

i suspect it's one of those "get something done quick" moments in commercial game development more than anything else; if the graphics turn out to be from scrapped C64 games it won't be a surprise. And i don't claim to understand the 7800 at all (again, where's that Groovybee got to?!) but i believe there are other 160x200 modes with more colours, at least judging by what Groovybee has shown me at events.

 

Reminds of some Megadrive games - in which backgrounds were only of 4 colours - but the tech specs don't say it is. Limited to such few colours usually mean a saving of memory and/or processing too.

It doesn't really save processing power on a character-based display any more than just using two colours in a four colour mode on the A8 would. Not sure about if it'd save memory but i can't remember seeing a Megadrive game running the background in four colour mode either...?

[+pboland]

Hi Marius-

 

Do you mostly use the XEGS with the MyIDE-II or ?

 

Never cared for it, personally -- lack of PBI and 64K of ram. Of course, there are those pastel buttons...

 

BTW, IIRC there was a published story (maybe Antic?) that explained Atari couldn't sell many 65XE's, so they "converted" them to XEGS. Never understood the logic for that since the mobo's are quite different.

 

-Larry

 

I'm pretty sure the XEGS is 64K. It's mainly the same specs as the 800XL (minus the PBI port). The XEGS also has the best stock composite output of all the Atari computers. With a detachable keyboard (with modified keyboard cable) I think makes it one of the better A8's. That's just my two cents.

 

I've heard the that story too about not being able to sell many 65XE's. The problem with that story is the XEGS mother board is totally different from the 65XE. So, I'm not sure what parts (other than keyboards/power supplies) Atari would have been able to re-use from the 65XE line.

[kiwilove]

Although this is the wrong forum to say it in - though - that the Atari 8-bit computers did have the colour advantage over the C64 with it's playfield graphics, with being able to choose the colours you like to use, whereas the C64 had a fixed colour palette - with what appears to be muddy colours.

 

It is a shame that a lot of Atari 8-bit games don't show this off - particularly with scrolling playfields - in which you can have subtle colour differences. I have done this with the re-used Hawkquest graphics in AtariBLASTER!. Also multi-coloured sprites should have made use of - though I guess it requires some work by the programmer to do this.

In short for any hardware platform - which does provide something in the way of graphics hardware - it seems the full potential is sadly discovered, long after it has been sold out (discontinued). That it may take an enthusiast (away from a commercial development environment) or two - to show how it should have been done?

This would apply to the 2600 (as seen in it's last gasp efforts by homebrewers), 5200, Atari 8-bit, C64 - probably the SNES and Megadrive too? Although with these consoles (and the 2600) - it was never meant for non-commercial developers to access (use) that hardware.

[Creature XL]

You can do amazing things in four colours if the artist is good though, Armalyte, Io and Salamander on the C64 are only using black and three other colours for the playfield and Uridium just adds one more.

 

 

That was not what I meant. Artists can do amazing stuff with 4/5 colors. I for one like the gfx of "Heli in the Caves" for example.

And look at this game. If we wouldn't have the 5th color (which is the green) it would all be brown (and grey). Now Imagine Exin would have been able to give some tiles different colors.

Say, a blue lake or a red lava pit or even another brown for a stem of a tree... It would have more variety. Imagine the first level of "Midnight Resistance" on the C64 right at the start without the red and green...

 

You can of course use DLI's or different areas in horizontal scrolling games. But that is in now way comparable to the color RAM stuff which of course isn't perfect but most here in the forum have agreed in endless threads that 16 colors which can be placed (almost) randomly trump 128 color pallet where only 4 can be placed randomly.

 

Slightly back to topic, has the 7800 the same pallet as the 8-Bits? I assume it has.

[Marius]

 

I'm pretty sure the XEGS is 64K. It's mainly the same specs as the 800XL (minus the PBI port). The XEGS also has the best stock composite output of all the Atari computers. With a detachable keyboard (with modified keyboard cable) I think makes it one of the better A8's. That's just my two cents.

 

I've heard the that story too about not being able to sell many 65XE's. The problem with that story is the XEGS mother board is totally different from the 65XE. So, I'm not sure what parts (other than keyboards/power supplies) Atari would have been able to re-use from the 65XE line.

 

Yes the XEGS is 64 KB, but I'm pretty sure Larry meant that also. I interpreted his line as: I did not care about the XEGS: no PBI, only 64K and awful colors on console keys

 

Well no PBI is indeed a loss (I love the IDE+ 2.0 interface, which does not run on XEGS)… but I'm completely fine with 64K, and I like the colorful buttons. I agree: video output is very good. Yes the XEGS is a keeper. I have a few NIB and some used.

[Prosystemsearch]

The Atari XE would have been slightly better had it had both the POKEY and GUMBY chips.