5200 was a waste of solder and plastic

[Voch]

I, too, find Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man work great with the default sticks. They sorta re-center a little because of the stick covering. I think it's just like folks arguing about clicky keyboards vs. mushy ones and I can can use both.

 

Voch

[Curt Vendel]

They did release the XEGS earlier. It's called the 5200. It's the same computer except for the joysticks

Yes, I know, but my point was Atari could have focused on making the best computer carts they could and have them also plug straight into a console system. The time and money they spent converting games for different controllers, memory map, cartridge shells, marketing, and paper trail could have been spent on making better games. I'm in the semiconductor industry and spin-off products can be a real pain even if marketing loves them.

 

The biggest problem was Atari just couldn't let go of the 2600, they pushed more resources, time & money into that console even after the 5200 was released and didn't give the 5200 more time & resources to really push the envelope on the console, plus the fact that they would get 2 products for one with proper development of the code to be for the 800 and 5200, look at Miner 2049... Hogue was incredible in making his load vectors load up the same game but for 2 systems!!! Same prom's!!! Amazing

 

 

Curt

[MegaManFan]

For example, I think I'm pretty good at Miner 2049er; I hauled out the ol XL a few weeks ago and beat both Miner and Jumpman Jr. without much prob at all. I then tried Miner on the 5200 for almost 90min and never got past Lvl 7 as I'd run out of lives from the constant falling because I couldn't get used to the control using the non-centering 5200 controller. I even had some prob's trying to line myself up with the elevators.

 

Trust me on this - try Miner 2049er with a Competition Pro. It's AMA-ZING. A spectacle of graphics and sound. Oh wait, that's Compy 386! But it's still really damn good. Even without a Competitio Pro, it's still leaps and bounds above the 2600 version, which has far too many unavoidable bad jump deaths for anyone's liking.

[NE146]

I still play arcade Ms.Pac and regular Pacman (there are still lots of machines around here...usually sped up though) all the time and also play the 5200 version. You don't need constant pressure in the arcade version, you can just push the stick once in the direction you want to go and pac/mspac does the rest.

 

Matter of fact...if you're coming up to a wall and tap in the direction of a connecting corrider before you reach it, you'll find pac/mspac will hit the wall then turn in the direction of your tap and come to a rest. It's just one of those old mini-showboating tricks.

 

See? Pacman's at rest, yet he's facing right

 

Anyway, I guess my point is even with being super accustomed to digital inputs for Pac & MsPac, playing the 5200 version with their analog sticks was still a breeze. It's all good

[Brad2600]

I like playing Miner 2049er on my 5200 with the Wico stick. I'm not too good at the game itself, but it still rules!

 

Overall, the 5200 was a bigger success than the 7800. You can argue all you want, but you cannot deny the success of the 5200!

[Vigo]

It depends on what one would define as success...

 

Technologically, the 5200 recycles the Atari 8 bit chipset, which is better than the Intellivision (and the Coleco in SOME aspects), but it was already 3,5 years old. This makes the 5200 look like a really quick hack job with no real effort put in.

 

Hmm, i´d really love to try making a PAL 5200 using my PAL Atari 800XL chips.....

[Big_Mo]

It depends on what one would define as success...

 

Technologically, the 5200 recycles the Atari 8 bit chipset, which is better than the Intellivision (and the Coleco in SOME aspects)...

 

In which aspects would you say the Coleco was better? I did a pretty hard-nosed comparison of the 5200 and CV for AtariHQ. The Coleco's pretty much off-the-shelf tech, and extremely limited but for one or two background graphics modes.

 

To chime in myself on other posts, I think comparing late-era 7800 titles to any 5200 title's is unfair. Game genre's changed a lot post NES, and while not particularly well supported, the 7800 did have a longer run as a going concern.

 

If one wants to make a comparison anyway, I'd say there are a few 5200 games more innovative for their time than the 7800. Ballblazer and Rescue on Fractalus, for instance were bleeding edge tech when they were made. Has there ever been anything near leading edge on the 7800?

 

I never understood the whole 2600 compatibilty issue...we got a 5200 and still had the 2600. Besides, I never played the 2600 after getting the 5200 (unil years later). Lemme see...Star Raiders or Chopper Command...hmm...

 

As to constant complaints about the size of the console, yeah, it's overbig for what it could be, but puh-leeze, it's the size of an average 5 disc changer CD player, not a Hummer. I don't see everyone complaining about how big their stereo components are. Bitching about the size is bitching for its own sake.

 

As to the sticks...mixed bag. I could play PacMan okay with them, but it's too easy to get the stick in a semi-diagonal. I used to have those slide-on guides that forced the sticks into 4 directions. That made the game a lot easier. I agree that the fire buttons were crap, though. I have Wico sticks and I find them as mixed a bag as the native 5200 controllers. They just feel "weird" sometimes, and they have a tendency to go out of alignment so I'm always tweaking the centering.

[King Atari]

Pac-Man is okay with the 5200 sticks, I don't have Ms. to judge on it, but I assume it works just as well, as shown by the other posters. The sticks do get on my nerves at times, they're not horrible, just not great. The pause was cool, though.

 

Thinking about it, the 7800 really doesn't have anything innovative at all. Sure, there are some cool games, but really, was there anything like Super Mario Bros. on the system that created such a frenzy? Scrapyard Dog was okay, but it's not a legend like SMB. Midnight Mutants is fun, Commando is better than the NES version, but it was nothing really new.

 

The 5200 offered great arcade ports at a time when getting something comparable to the coin-op on a console was a big thing.

 

Let's look at Q*Bert, a game I love on every system I've played it for (though the NES version does take it's toll). Look at those pictures. What was that about the graphics being not much better than the 2600's?

[+davidcalgary29]

Pac-Man is okay with the 5200 sticks, I don't have Ms. to judge on it, but I assume it works just as well, as shown by the other posters. The sticks do get on my nerves at times, they're not horrible, just not great. The pause was cool, though.

 

Thinking about it, the 7800 really doesn't have anything innovative at all. Sure, there are some cool games, but really, was there anything like Super Mario Bros. on the system that created such a frenzy? Scrapyard Dog was okay, but it's not a legend like SMB. Midnight Mutants is fun, Commando is better than the NES version, but it was nothing really new.  

 

The 5200 offered great arcade ports at a time when getting something comparable to the coin-op on a console was a big thing.

 

Let's look at Q*Bert, a game I love on every system I've played it for (though the NES version does take it's toll). Look at those pictures. What was that about the graphics being not much better than the 2600's?

 

Didn't Q*Bert have eyeballs in the 800 version?

[Vigo]

In which aspects would you say the Coleco was better? I did a pretty hard-nosed comparison of the 5200 and CV for AtariHQ. The Coleco's pretty much off-the-shelf tech, and extremely limited but for one or two background graphics modes..

 

Well, the concept of display lists from the Atari chipset is really ingenious, and i also really like the number of coulours the system has...

 

But the big advantage of the coleco really comes down when looking at the, what you call "high-rez" mode of the TMS9918. Having two independent colours each line of a 8x8 pixel block enables the coleco to display more detailed gfx than Atari´s 160x192 mode. Sure, every coleco game could be done on the Atari, but it would look in all cases less detailed. Just look at some late MSX 1 games, and you get a perfect sense how great games could have been looked if the coleco lasted longer.

 

Btw, since GTIA, ANTIC and POKEY were not designed for the 5200, i could also call them off the shelf components....

[NE146]

Didn't Q*Bert have eyeballs in the 800 version?  

 

Nope. The versions are pretty much identical.

 

... maybe some colors were different(?)

[Jetboot Jack]

...Q*bert on 800 looked the same as those 5200 shots, no eyeballs sadly...

 

Vigo -- since the 5200 was a re-boxed 400, its architecture and graphic/audio componentry was 100% Atari Custom chip...

 

I gotta agree with Big Mo here the Colecovision does not even hold a candle to the abilities of the 5200.

 

Not just because it has a much better color palette, but also a wide range of both character and bimapped modes, more powerful sprite capabilities (albeit at a lower resolution), MUCH better audio, hardware scrolling etc etc

 

sTeVE

[Vigo]

...Q*bert on 800 looked the same as those 5200 shots, no eyeballs sadly...

 

Vigo -- since the 5200 was a re-boxed 400, its architecture and graphic/audio componentry was 100% Atari Custom chip...

 

I gotta agree with Big Mo here the Colecovision does not even hold a candle to the abilities of the 5200.

 

Not just because it has a much better color palette, but also a wide range of both character and bimapped modes, more powerful sprite capabilities (albeit at a lower resolution), MUCH better audio, hardware scrolling etc etc

 

sTeVE

 

Yeah, and the Colecovision is just a reboxed TI99/4A (except the cpu)....

 

Well, the Atari actually has a wide range of display modes, but only a few are really useful for 1982 games (in 1979, it was different). What do you wanna do with double-height characters?

 

Atari has bitmapped display modes, so has the coleco (the 768 character mode, enough redefinable characters to fill the entire screens).

 

;ore powerful sprite capabilities... I wont call 4 blocky 8x8 pixel players and 4x2 bit missiles more powerful than Colecos 32 16x16 sprites.... In terms of pixels, the coleco can display more Sprite pixels per line....

 

MUCH better sound... Well, ok, Pokeys 8 bit frequency divider is of course better than Colecos 12 bit frequency divider, yes.... In terms of sound, both consoles are rather crappy compared to other 8 bit systems (C64, NES).

 

Hardware scrolling... Ok, thats a point. Hardware scrolling is easier on the Atari, but can also be achieved on the Coleco (Well, Ok at the expense of CPU power).

 

Well, its of course easy just calling the Coleco completely inferior to the 5200. The Ataris are great architectures, no one has achieved what they did in 1978/79. But the fact is, they just let time pass by, and the competition grew....

[Mendon]

As to constant complaints about the size of the console, yeah, it's overbig for what it could be, but puh-leeze, it's the size of an average 5 disc changer CD player, not a Hummer. I don't see everyone complaining about how big their stereo components are. Bitching about the size is bitching for its own sake.

 

Difference here, Big Mo, is that I don't store my stereo components in a closest and haul them out when I want to use them. They stay in a rack where they supposed to be; not enough room in my living room (or even house) to keep all up systems up and ready to run so I have to find room for them.

 

I, for one, wasn't bitching.. just observing that for me, with limited storage space, compared to other systems of the day (2600, INTV, Coleco) or even systems today (PS2, Dreamcast, Cube) the 5200 was bigger, bulkier, and harder to store as compared to the others, especially on wall shelves.

 

Like I said before, the 5200 wasn't a bad system; it just wasn't my favorite Atari system especially when I have many of the same games on my XL.

 

Mendon

[Jetboot Jack]

Vigo,

 

"Well, the Atari actually has a wide range of display modes, but only a few are really useful for 1982 games (in 1979, it was different). What do you wanna do with double-height characters?" -- well quite a lot actually, great for screens that need big fonts, when you need displays with small memory footprints, and many games look great in 160X92 mode, like Draconus attatched here....

 

"Atari has bitmapped display modes, so has the coleco (the 768 character mode, enough redefinable characters to fill the entire screens)." -- but without a TRUE bimapped mode the coleco was stuck with using its sprites for all moving things, whereas the 5200 could do software sprites, check out titles like GREMLINS to see what I mean! This is a huge advantage -- look at 800 Donkey Kong compared to the CV version to see what I mean!!!

 

";ore powerful sprite capabilities... I wont call 4 blocky 8x8 pixel players and 4x2 bit missiles more powerful than Colecos 32 16x16 sprites.... In terms of pixels, the coleco can display more Sprite pixels per line.... " -- the CV can only display 4 sprites per line out of those 32, rather similar to the 5200 (except it can manage 5 per line). Also the 5200 sprites are 256X8 pixels not 8X8 and it can easily divide those vertically to produce hundreds of sprites on screen, and each subdivision can be a unique color -- 5200 PMG system vastly surpasses the colecovision's 32 sprites!!!

 

"MUCH better sound... Well, ok, Pokeys 8 bit frequency divider is of course better than Colecos 12 bit frequency divider, yes.... In terms of sound, both consoles are rather crappy compared to other 8 bit systems (C64, NES)." -- the full 9 ocatves, 16 bit channels, complex distortion system, ability to emulate full ADSR envelopes, volume only distortion modes and more means POKEY is LEAGUES anhead of the awful old Yamaha/TI YMS system, ask any one who has had to program it!

 

"Hardware scrolling... Ok, thats a point. Hardware scrolling is easier on the Atari, but can also be achieved on the Coleco (Well, Ok at the expense of CPU power). " -- no, you can software smooth scroll on the CV, its VERY painful to do, the CV has no hardware smooth scrolling...

 

And don't forget display lists and display list interrupts that allow the 5200 to display very complex images for its age

 

sTeVE

[Vigo]

DING, DING! Round Three!

 

Vigo,

 

"Well, the Atari actually has a wide range of display modes, but only a few are really useful for 1982 games (in 1979, it was different). What do you wanna do with double-height characters?" -- well quite a lot actually, great for screens that need big fonts, when you need displays with small memory footprints, and many games look great in 160X92 mode, like Draconus attatched here....

 

Well, of course they look great considering these limitations. But it´s nevertheless a drawback. Small memory footprints are 1979 issue...

 

"Atari has bitmapped display modes, so has the coleco (the 768 character mode, enough redefinable characters to fill the entire screens)." -- but without a TRUE bimapped mode the coleco was stuck with using its sprites for all moving things, whereas the 5200 could do software sprites, check out titles like GREMLINS to see what I mean! This is a huge advantage -- look at 800 Donkey Kong compared to the CV version to see what I mean!!!

 

Well, you actually CAN consider this a true bitmapped mode, since every pixel on the screen can be manipulated independently. And the Coleco version of DK isnt really good, thats true. But it could have been done much better, its one of the first games of the system. Wanna play Super Breakout?

 

";ore powerful sprite capabilities... I wont call 4 blocky 8x8 pixel players and 4x2 bit missiles more powerful than Colecos 32 16x16 sprites.... In terms of pixels, the coleco can display more Sprite pixels per line.... " -- the CV can only display 4 sprites per line out of those 32, rather similar to the 5200 (except it can manage 5 per line). Also the 5200 sprites are 256X8 pixels not 8X8 and it can easily divide those vertically to produce hundreds of sprites on screen, and each subdivision can be a unique color -- 5200 PMG system vastly surpasses the colecovision's 32 sprites!!!

 

Lets do the math: Coleco: 4x16=64 sprite pixels. Atari: 5x8=40 sprite pixels. If you call this rather similar.....

 

About the length: the thickness is important...

 

About the Sprite multiplexing and colour changes: Yes, if you stuff your display list full of DLIs, actually some nice effects can be achieved. But this requires a great amount of CPU time, when the CPU has to write to the position/colour registers multiple times....

 

"MUCH better sound... Well, ok, Pokeys 8 bit frequency divider is of course better than Colecos 12 bit frequency divider, yes.... In terms of sound, both consoles are rather crappy compared to other 8 bit systems (C64, NES)." -- the full 9 ocatves, 16 bit channels, complex distortion system, ability to emulate full ADSR envelopes, volume only distortion modes and more means POKEY is LEAGUES anhead of the awful old Yamaha/TI YMS system, ask any one who has had to program it!

 

You forgot to mention that 16bit channels downgrades the number of voices to 2. And yes, the SN76489 has also channel-independent volume registers to emulate ADSR. The distortion modes: well, if you get the kick out of it, so be it... :wink: Nevertheless, both coleco and Atari sound crappy antique.

 

BTW, the SN76489 is NOT related to the YM2149/AY-3-8910

 

"Hardware scrolling... Ok, thats a point. Hardware scrolling is easier on the Atari, but can also be achieved on the Coleco (Well, Ok at the expense of CPU power). " -- no, you can software smooth scroll on the CV, its VERY painful to do, the CV has no hardware smooth scrolling...

 

Ok, i forgot to name it software scrolling. Well, Coleco has software scrolling, Atari has software sprites...

 

And don't forget display lists and display list interrupts that allow the 5200 to display very complex images for its age

 

sTeVE

 

Why should i? Its what the machine makes very interesting, that´s perfectly clear.

 

Lets face it, the Atari is a powerful raster machine (Atari 2600 heritage), and the Colecos strength lies in displaying detailed Backgrounds and Sprites. With the Atari, you got a lot to play with, trying to push its limits far, the Coleco is more Arcade based, with its tile structure.

[Jetboot Jack]

hmmm....

 

ROUND 4 -- FIGHT!

 

You miss the point of the low res modes -- I can have very large play areas for small ram cost -- since both consoles are RAM starved it makes sense that if I want to say have a map of russia for a wargame the Atari version is much larger physically, although of lower resolution. If I were flying my airplane sprite over a game map the 5200 map may look chunkier, but feel far more expansive -- a fair trade off I think anyone who was playing games in '82 would agree...

 

Bitmaps -- gotta hold onto the probelm that the CV cannot generate enough bitmapped display to do anything useful -- you can't accommodate 2 bitmapped screens, one on display the other being written to to accomplish flicker free double buffered software sprites.

 

Sprite height or width -- I'd always go for MORE moving objects on screen

 

DLI's to do multiple split sprites take very little CPU time -- infact almost none since ANTIC does all teh house keeping -- you're just stuffing a new horizontal value and a color value in teh Horizontal blank time. Just look at Miner 2049'er and Bounty Bob strikes back -- the 5200 versions are wonderful, the CV's are drool...

 

Check out RMT (mentioned elsewhere on these boards) to see just how great POKEY can be!!!

 

sTeVE (yes I do own a CV too!)

[King Atari]

Whoops, sorry there's two of each shot coming up. I was in a hurry when I posted them. I'm trying to edit, but it takes away both of them when I click on the delete button for the 2600 shots.

[Miqorz]

So let me get this straight you guys are telling this guy how bad he is because he bashed the 5200 by bashing the 7800?

 

Uhh that makes alot of sence.

[Jetboot Jack]

huh -- can you be less unclear please???

 

Who is bashing who and what about the 7800?!?!?

 

sTeVE

[Miqorz]

Okay everyone's telling this ElectricTroy guy he's an idiot because he thinks the 5200 is crap...

 

Then I see a dude saying how wrong he is for saying that and later in his post say how the 7800 is really the crappy machine?

 

uhh...yeah...

[+davidcalgary29]

So let me get this straight you guys are telling this guy how bad he is because he bashed the 5200 by bashing the 7800?

 

Uhh that makes alot of sence.  

 

If we follow the argument that one guy's opinion = general consensus, wouldn't we be also led to the conclusion that everyone here thinks that the 5200 is an inferior system (to some contemporary systems) because ElectricTroy said that this was so?

[sku_u]

Okay everyone's telling this ElectricTroy guy he's an idiot because he thinks the 5200 is crap...

 

Then I see a dude saying how wrong he is for saying that and later in his post say how the 7800 is really the crappy machine?

 

uhh...yeah...

 

That's not quite what happened. Electrictroy wrote some garbage about the 5200 system that was based on some internet pictures he saw in hopes of getting the kind of reaction he's been getting.

[MegaManFan]

I think that now is the time it's worth pointing out that ElectricTroy is TheAveng, and when he got in too much hot water for bashing stuff on these boards the last time is when he changed his name to his current handle. I wonder how long now before he changes it again?

[CPUWIZ]

I think that now is the time it's worth pointing out that ElectricTroy is TheAveng, and when he got in too much hot water for bashing stuff on these boards the last time is when he changed his name to his current handle.  I wonder how long now before he changes it again?

 

Someone besides me is paying attention.