New Atari Console that Ataribox?

[godslabrat]

They are all pretty passionate about it, apparently. He doesn't work with idiots, he, just like me, has been a programmer for over 30 years. We've seen and experienced a lot of incompetent people, so I doubt he would be working with them, if he believed this couldn't be pulled off.

I don't think anyone doubts it could be done.

 

What we doubt is that it has the potential to deliver anything of significance. We already know Atari has nothing in terms of software. These photos are a clear indication that their hardware is also unremarkable. This is literally something I can cobble together out of stuff in my garage right now.

 

Show me what's worth $3 million. Show me where anyone with talent has made their mark.

[+Nathan Strum]

Hey guys, I hate to tell you this, but there is a friend of mine in the picture. I have known him for 25+ years and he is neither dumb or drinks KoolAid. This project is going to happen, otherwise he would not be standing there.

 

Okay. So Infogrames is going to make a generic Linux box that can do commonplace stuff and look nice on a shelf. Probably.

 

And it will play some games that are already available elsewhere. Great.

 

Why would I be paying $300 for this...?

 

Because a former French software publisher with catastrophically bad business management renamed themselves after the only one of their remaining acquisitions that has any marketability?

 

It's great they have at least one (possibly more) non-stupid people involved.

 

And Moak's beard totally rocks.

 

But as a company, they still have zero credibility.

[lifemadesimple]

Why would I be paying $300 for this...?

 

 

It looks really cool. I don't even mean that in a disparaging way, but their market is people who want a streaming box with decent specs by streaming box standards that looks really cool. Not a bad market, for sure, but they're not really aiming for most atariage users. They're aiming for folk like me who were born after Atari released their last console, who want a nice looking roku that plays some games and starts an interesting conversation when friends are around.

 

That doesn't make it worth the money and it doesn't make it less of a sketchy/tedious process to get the dang thing made. But we shouldn't pretend there isn't a market.

 

Just a very small one, with very little crossover here.

[pacman000]

"If there are competant folks working on the hardware, I would expect them to see it as a very attainable project at this point. The problem is the idiots are the Atari suits who will almost certainly piss the builders off at some point in the process and force them to compromise or deliver something idiotic midway through development."

 

Like Ray Kassar or Leonard Tramiel?

[lifemadesimple]

 

They are all pretty passionate about it, apparently. He doesn't work with idiots, he, just like me, has been a programmer for over 30 years. We've seen and experienced a lot of incompetent people, so I doubt he would be working with them, if he believed this couldn't be pulled off.

 

Thanks for saying this, it keeps me interested and confirms some suspicions.

 

Edit: mostly good suspicions.

Edited August 29, 2018 by lifemadesimple

[JBerel]

Like Ray Kassar or Leonard Tramiel?

Think much, much more idiotic.

[CPUWIZ]

 

Okay. So Infogrames is going to make a generic Linux box that can do commonplace stuff and look nice on a shelf. Probably.

 

And it will play some games that are already available elsewhere. Great.

 

Why would I be paying $300 for this...?

 

Because a former French software publisher with catastrophically bad business management renamed themselves after the only one of their remaining acquisitions that has any marketability?

 

It's great they have at least one (possibly more) non-stupid people involved.

 

And Moak's beard totally rocks.

 

But as a company, they still have zero credibility.

 

Yep, I wouldn't buy it, for what? Maybe if it came with a killer app, like Vita's TxK, or Switch Zelda. I have both of those.

[CPUWIZ]

I don't question the ability to do what they propose. It's still a past gen laptop board in a plastic box. One would hope they can can make that work. I question everything their marketing schills are putting out to stir interest and build buzz. They really haven't promised much of anything except to deliver a Linux PC with an aftermarket stick. Why's it gotta take them another year I have no idea. All this does is prove they've had a big fat nothing up until now while telling people they want money from that they had "test" boards and suggested pretty hard they were running from the box for the last several months. It's a con job from start to finish.

 

And if you look closely at their hatchet job obscuring the copyright date on their board, it sure looks like the year begins with a 2 and ends with a 4 just like the Gardenia Board copyrighted 2014. That in itself proves nothing in that AMD probably placed a specific CPU or chipset chip on a generic evaluation board. They call it custom design and testing to continue the bullshit parade.

 

Just for general observation, my first PlayStation devkit, was the size of two VCR's on top of each other and the damn thing had no sound hardware at all.

[pacman000]

Naughty Dog said their PS1 development system was the size of a refridgerator. Not sure if they meant a mini-fridge or a full-sized one.

[Lost Dragon]

Naughty Dog said their PS1 development system was the size of a refridgerator. Not sure if they meant a mini-fridge or a full-sized one.

Going purely off memory (not good at my age or this time in the morning :-))) didn't someone like Psygnosis or Reflections say in an interview the initial PlayStation development kit was the size of a photocopier?

[racerx]

Just for general observation, my first PlayStation devkit, was the size of two VCR's on top of each other and the damn thing had no sound hardware at all.

Respectfully, that was for a proprietary, cutting edge, next gen system.

[Flojomojo]

Hah, for kicks I searched ebay. This board looks extremely similar (albeit in red instead of green), but most of the stuff is in the same place. The same power supplies, little plug in boards, heatsink/fan, connectors, parts, the works. Checking the stuff they photoshopped out, one of the things is the date. I think it is just about readable near the ©. So much for a "prototype"!

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/AMD-Gardenia-109-C75111-00B-02-Evaluation-Board-for-Merlin-Falcon/282942630214?epid=22018654408&hash=item41e0b1e946:g:~LkAAOSwpFda441m

 

I am not sure what the extensions on their PCB are, with all the jumpers and connectors, but it seems "added on" to the above ebay board's design. All the little buttons/connectors/jumpers all match up between the two boards. I am curious now what CPU that really is now. Them photoshopping the name/number off is quite suspicious, because it has the part number and chip name, going by the ebay board. I just can't get over how the two boards are nearly identical... lol.

 

Insightful as always, thanks Kevtris. I grabbed the pics of the eBay board to make things easy and to keep them for later, since the auction won't last forever.

 

 

I heard that green motherboards are better for games than red ones.

[leech]

Didn't see it mentioned in this thread, but if this box ends up running Steam or having access to it. Valve forked Wine and is calling it Proton and integrated it with Steam. So now this could potentially (who knows how well) play games like Doom (2016), Tekken 7, etc.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DcZZQ4HL_Ol969UbXJmFG8TzOHNnHoj8Q1f8DIFe8-8/htmlview?sle=true#gid=0

 

Officially 'supported' games with Proton;

• Beat Saber
• Bejeweled 2 Deluxe
• Doki Doki Literature Club!
• DOOM
• DOOM II: Hell on Earth
• DOOM VFR
• Fallout Shelter
• FATE
• FINAL FANTASY VI
• Geometry Dash
• Google Earth VR
• Into The Breach
• Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012
• Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013
• Mount & Blade
• Mount & Blade: With Fire & Sword
• NieR: Automata
• PAYDAY: The Heist
• QUAKE
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
• Star Wars: Battlefront 2
• Tekken 7
• The Last Remnant
• Tropico 4
• Ultimate Doom
• Warhammer® 40,000: Dawn of War® - Dark Crusade
• Warhammer® 40,000: Dawn of War® - Soulstorm

Edited August 30, 2018 by leech

[CPUWIZ]

Going purely off memory (not good at my age or this time in the morning :-))) didn't someone like Psygnosis or Reflections say in an interview the initial PlayStation development kit was the size of a photocopier?

 

Trust me, I had one of the first ones, with the SNES controllers.

[godslabrat]

 

Trust me, I had one of the first ones, with the SNES controllers.

Was electrical tape involved? (J/k!)

Edited August 30, 2018 by godslabrat

[Osgeld]

 

He doesn't work with idiots, he, just like me, has been a programmer for over 30 years.

 

the programmer side of me says of course he does, they are called hardware guys

 

the hardware side of me says of course he does, he is a programmer

 

I am in a unique position where I have to interface hardware at a very low level to software written at a very high level and have it produce very precision (and sometimes accurate) repeatable (in the number of tens of thousands of units a day) results so everyone is an idiot

Edited August 30, 2018 by Osgeld

[+frankodragon]

But does he also like tacos? That's the big question.

[CPUWIZ]

Yep, had many tacos with him.

[tschak909]

 

the programmer side of me says of course he does, they are called hardware guys

 

the hardware side of me says of course he does, he is a programmer

 

I am in a unique position where I have to interface hardware at a very low level to software written at a very high level and have it produce very precision (and sometimes accurate) repeatable (in the number of tens of thousands of units a day) results so everyone is an idiot

There is not a like button big enough for this post.

 

-Thom

[SupremeEnchanter]

 

They are all pretty passionate about it, apparently. He doesn't work with idiots, he, just like me, has been a programmer for over 30 years. We've seen and experienced a lot of incompetent people, so I doubt he would be working with them, if he believed this couldn't be pulled off.

 

WTF: a complement on Atariage? That's a first. I thought everyone had to trash Atari no matter what.

 

Now, you can buy a Kiii TV box that runs Android for $45. It'll run games, app and Kodi. All of the movies and TV shows ever right there. It has USB ports, wifi, ethernet, a keyboard and a remote control.

Edited August 30, 2018 by SupremeEnchanter

[+Nathan Strum]

Yep, had many tacos with him.

 

 

He needs to wear a taco shirt next time there's an Ataribox photo-op.

[Lodmot]

Just looked at the pictures of the red AMD board from the eBay posting and compared them side-by-side with the clearest and most complete picture of Atari's dev board. They're both very similar from each other-- almost exact. But Atari's board does have one or two extra pinout connectors, and the tracing on the board itself is a bit different in some spots. And that's all besides the obvious differences (e.g. color of the board, the extended sections with the extra jumpers, etc.)

 

To me, the eBay pics don't really prove that the VCS project is fake. If they prove anything at all, they prove that the motherboard they're using is a variant of the board from the eBay posting, so it's likely a board from 2014... Still though, doesn't mean the CPU/APU is from 2014.

Edited August 30, 2018 by Lodmot

[Shawn]

So they borrowed a stock dev board from AMD and are calling it their own. Lying about a controller that still doesn't do jack shit that Power A is helming. Is "atari" doing anything at all or just "sourcing" (AKA begging, borrowing and stealing) the work of others? CPUWIZ has a friend caught in the middle of a bunch of mouth breathers. Shouldn't be hard for him to be the smartest guy in the room. Smart enough to know he should get the hell out of there or at least make sure he's paid daily....in cash. If he's motivated by any sort of monitary gain from this anyhow, if it's just for shits and giggles and to play Atari 25 years too late than so be it.

[+frankodragon]

Looks like the board is a customized Merlin Falcon (with some Gardenia hybrid,mutant, etc.) board with tumors growing out at several ends. Even this site translated in english mentioned it would be something from the AMD Merlin Falcon.

 

 

 

 

Finally, Atari communicated on its partner: AMD. Ataribox will integrate a custom AMD solution with a Radeon GPU. This could be just a customized version of the AMD Merlin Falcon, a lightweight but flexible architecture.

[Matt_B]

That was last year. We now know that the "custom solution" is the Bristol Ridge A10-9630P.

 

The dev boards are doubtless very similar though, because AMD wouldn't want to re-invent the wheel every time they put a new chip out.