Is the 1977 Bally Arcade Superior to the 1982 Atari 5200?

[high voltage]

Why did/do people always moan about the Atari 5200 controllers, but didn't get any third party controllers? I mean you weren't forced to use the stock controllers, were you. The choice was there.

[Bill Loguidice]

Why did/do people always moan about the Atari 5200 controllers, but didn't get any third party controllers? I mean you weren't forced to use the stock controllers, were you. The choice was there.

 

You were forced to use the stock controllers until third party replacements were available, and even those were not without fault, pretty much resorting exclusively to a Y cable type of situation and what was not necessarily an improvement in control. Even today there are arguably no ideal third party replacements, just sort of adequate conversions/hacks.

 

Among the key things a console manufacturer has to get right are the controllers. Atari didn't do that with the 5200 (and arguably the 7800 and Jaguar as well). The first response from a gamer shouldn't be, "these controllers stink, let me investigate alternatives" when bringing home a new console (plus they should be extremely durable, i.e., not easily prone to failure through no fault of the user).

[high voltage]

Yeah, Nintendo didn't get that right with their awful NES pad either

[Keatah]

The most important thing to know about the Astrocade is that its display is entirely bitmap-based-- no tiles, no sprites. This is a strength, in that there are no restrictions on where and what you can draw, but also a weakness, in that any moving or animated objects must be software-blitted.

 

The vintage Apple II and current PC architectures are also 100% bit-mapped. Though various software packages and APIs and ML routines and all that give you abstracted sprites. In the end, the CPU writes each pixel to the screen. No Players or Missiles or Balls.

 

With the exception of Intellivison and Atari 400/800/2600/5200, in retrospect, I think I've always gravitated to systems that were bit-mapped based.

 

 

The video chip is actually capable of 320x204 resolution, but the Astrocade doesn't have enough RAM to use this mode. In fact the audio and video chipset is the same as that used in the arcade Gorf and Wizard of Wor.

 

I always thought that as being pretty cool. Having some arcade hardware at home. Even now through emulation I can see - hear - feel the flavors and nuances of the Astrocade and how they are similar to the arcade. Especially the hollow wooden electronic sound. And with the right equalization or speakers, the boomy characteristics are there too. I just loved that Galaxian sound on the Astrocade. I'd play the game just to listen to it!

 

But arcade chipsets and processors alone don't make for a better system. Everything has to work together efficiently and this is a topic for a different thread now.

 

[Bill Loguidice]

Yeah, Nintendo didn't get that right with their awful NES pad either

 

I'm not a fan of the NES pad either (sharp edges), but I think popular opinion probably disagrees with that.

[ZylonBane]

The vintage Apple II and current PC architectures are also 100% bit-mapped. Though various software packages and APIs and ML routines and all that give you abstracted sprites. In the end, the CPU writes each pixel to the screen. No Players or Missiles or Balls.

 

Yes, you have explained what bitmap graphics are. For some reason.

[Keatah]

Just reminiscing if that's alright with you.

[wiseguyusa]

There is an Astrocade emu? Link please.

 

What kind of contollers would you use for it?

[+wongojack]

There is an Astrocade emu? Link please.

 

What kind of contollers would you use for it?

 

I think it is mostly done in MESS

 

https://archive.org/details/bally_astrocade_library

[WildBillTX]

I dont think the Astrocade was as good as the 5200. But if it had the right backing and marketing behind it, it might have been a serious challenger to the 2600.

 

I remember in the late 70's demo'ing one at the local Zenith TV dealer in my hometown. I think he was the only place in town selling them while the local Wards, K-Mart, TG&Y and Wal-Mart had plenty of 2600 and Intellevision consoles and carts.

[ZylonBane]

I found this interesting article on the Astrocade's chipset: http://www.academia.edu/2793531/Reverse-Engineering_Robby_Roto_A_1980s_Embedded_System_Masquerading_as_an_Arcade_Game

Somewhat unusual for video games of the time because of its large memory requirements, Robby (and those in its family) used a frame buffer. More typical games of the time, such as Pac-Man, combined a character-based background with sprite foregrounds.

 

Yup, weird even for arcade hardware of the time.

Oddly, pixel colors are set by eight separate eight-bit color registers: four for pixels on the left half of the screen, the other four for the right. The choice of column dividing left and right is under software control.

 

Much like the 2600's left/right playfield color feature, only more flexible.

Video memory appears twice in the Z80’s memory space: once as normal memory that may be read and written as usual, and once as write-only “magic RAM” that invokes simple pixel processing operations according to a global mode register. ... This “magic RAM” mechanism offloads many awkward bit manipulation operations from the processor to increase performance, an effective substitute for the sprite graphics used by other systems of the time.

 

So the Astrocade had, in a sense, a primitive blitter. The arcade hardware took this even further with something called a "pattern board" that could perform rectangular memory copies, but it seems the Astrocade didn't have this.

[hwrd]

Myself, I think the better comparison for 1977 would be the Bally Professonal Arcade versus the Apple ][.

 

Both early, low RAM, colour systems with sound capability.

 

Technically, I think the Bally kicks the Apple ][ to the curb.

(in every other way, historically, the Apple ][ wins out)

[Turbo-Torch]

I dont think the Astrocade was as good as the 5200. But if it had the right backing and marketing behind it, it might have been a serious challenger to the 2600.

 

I remember in the late 70's demo'ing one at the local Zenith TV dealer in my hometown. I think he was the only place in town selling them while the local Wards, K-Mart, TG&Y and Wal-Mart had plenty of 2600 and Intellevision consoles and carts.

 

I used to play the heck out of the Astrocade at Wards. I can't think of any other stores that offered it in my area. The kiosk had a few games to choose from and Galaxian was my favorite. Another I remember was similar to 2600's Outlaw. That console was YEARS ahead of its time.

I never knew anyone who owned one. I've been satisfied with my game collection for at least 15 years but I would love to add an Astrocade to it.

[Lynxpro]

 

I used to play the heck out of the Astrocade at Wards. I can't think of any other stores that offered it in my area. The kiosk had a few games to choose from and Galaxian was my favorite. Another I remember was similar to 2600's Outlaw. That console was YEARS ahead of its time.

I never knew anyone who owned one. I've been satisfied with my game collection for at least 15 years but I would love to add an Astrocade to it.

 

That Warlords-esque homebrew looks pretty sweet on it.

[Keatah]

Ho could the Astrocade have competed successfully against the VCS? At the time, bit-mapped systems were pretty slow in comparison to having to modulate the beam on the fly.

[jetset]

Is this thread serious? Not even close. We should put this next to the "is the Colecovision superior to the NES" joke discussion. Yikes.

[ZylonBane]

Technically, I think the Bally kicks the Apple ][ to the curb.

(in every other way, historically, the Apple ][ wins out)

 

The Astrocade only beats the A2 as a game system. In their respective default configurations, the A2 had a text mode that the Bally chipset lacked, and could generate higher-res graphics. This made it more suitable as a general-purpose computer. Although, Bally apparently put a lot of effort into trying to market adds-on that turned it into a "real" computer. Much like the Coleco Adam, it never saw much success: http://www.glankonian.com/~lance/Z-Grass.html

 

Out of the box the Astrocade was certainly the most programmable game system ever made though. Homebrew games were even commercially released written for its BASIC cartridge.

[Jess Ragan]

Bah! Pure heresy, I say. The Atari 5200 has well-documented issues, but its capabilities are far superior to those of the Astrocade. Most of its problems were the fault of a power-mad marketing department... if it had been more like the Atari computers upon which it was based, we wouldn't even be having this (silly) conversation.

[kiwilove]

Most people (including me) - did not know - that IF the expertise on the 2600 were passed onto the 5200 (and A8) development teams - then - the quality possible on the 5200 would have been even better.

 

This is the technique of multiplexing of sprites - to make up for the shortfall of the number of hardware sprites available.

 

By the mid-80s - the days of the A8 hardware/console was numbered because of how the coin-op videogames were progressing.

The likes of Flying Shark/Raiden/etc could never be faithfully reproduced on the A8 hardware.

However - it occurred to me very recently - that an approximation can be done/made - in which you can get the feel/feeling of that kind of game running on the 5200.

 

Later hardware (eg. the SNES) did have the hardware provided to deliver such games possible for the home audience.

 

Harvey

[ZylonBane]

Most people (including me) - did not know - that IF the expertise on the 2600 were passed onto the 5200 (and A8) development teams - then - the quality possible on the 5200 would have been even better.

 

This is the technique of multiplexing of sprites - to make up for the shortfall of the number of hardware sprites available.

 

You mean like exactly what the 5200 ports of Joust, Ms. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Qix and others use?

 

There are some posts that cry out for the eyeroll smiley, yet AA fails to provide one.

[jetset]

 

You mean like exactly what the 5200 ports of Joust, Ms. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Qix and others use?

 

There are some posts that cry out for the eyeroll smiley, yet AA fails to provide one.

 

Happy birthday.

 

Though this one would work just as well.

[kiwilove]

Multiplexing of sprites does not seem to have been done to the point - whereby - you ask - what the heck is being done here - isn't this new? (beyond the hardware capabilities?) - also with multiplexing of missiles.

 

The downside is that you really can't have full independent movement - otherwise flickering shows up very badly. This can be seen in Joust when they appear on the same horizontal line. But if carefully orchestrated - flickering can be avoided or minimised.

 

Harvey

[ZylonBane]

Multiplexing of sprites does not seem to have been done to the point - whereby - you ask - what the heck is being done here - isn't this new? (beyond the hardware capabilities?) - also with multiplexing of missiles.

 

Would someone care to take a shot at translating this word salad into English?

[+wongojack]

I don't know why I am getting into this but . . .

 

I think he's saying that nothing particularly impressive has been done with "multiplexing of sprites." His example of Joust explains that while the sprites are multiplexed there is still noticeable flicker which he believes could be reduced if 2600 level expertise and energy was devoted to the 5200.

 

 

[kiwilove]

I guess I should have mentioned the example that makes this very clear - one which I am working on (not programming it - but just designing the graphics for it - or rather tweaking - since I am reusing other peoples' work - as well as doing so-called original work)- which is AtariBLAST!

I don't know when the next demo of it will be available - maybe by end of year?

But if multiplexing of sprites - and missiles - were used in other games - would the overall standard of Atari 5200/400/800/etc games be lifted up a notch?

 

The killer to this - would be noticeable flicker that is so bad - that it only highlights the limitation of this method - so very tight choregraphing is necessary to give the appearance that this method works.

 

But in the last demo release - you can see for yourself - whether you find the method viable or not... More has been done since then.

 

Harvey