The History of the Atari 7800 ProSystem

[swapd0]

I got this in my recommendations, I hope that you're interested.

 

 

[RevEng]

This was a very good presentation, with lots of interesting tidbits. Thanks for passing it on!

 

Steve talked about the cart-based "mini gumby" in the chat and put up this block diagram...

 

 

While it's mostly blurry to the point of being illegible, it's clear to see the blocks around the border are pinouts (e.g. "VDD") though what exactly the internal blocks represent is a bit tougher to discern. Guessing what seems to be 3 additional layers under some of the internal blocks is meant to represent that the block is duplicated for 4 voices.

 

I took a look, but I didn't see this diagram or anything else relevant over at the Museum. Does anybody have a better quality version of the diagram, or is there any other info on "minnie"? The dev community has been looking at inexpensive options for quality sound, and I think a micro-based functional equivalent to "minnie" might be an interesting choice.

 

I've seen speculation that suggested that gumby may have been little more than multi-pokey, but I don't think that's right. That's not GCC's style, and Steve's talk seemed to suggest that it was a new ground-up design.

 

[+Muddyfunster]

That was a very interesting watch. Thanks for sharing the link.

 

 

[zzip]

So Jack wanted to sell it for $50 in 1984?   That's insane for a brand-new console!    I don't think the planned $150 was unreasonable,  but even if they need to discount it because of the crash, no less than $99.

 

Serious question-  Did Jack have some kind of inferiority complex that led him to believe that nobody would buy his products unless he sold them super cheap?

[RevEng]

Jackpot. Steve put the presentation notes online.

 

Within the notes is an interesting overview of the plans for the full-blown Gumby...

Quote

Gumby.spc    created 2/4/83 sjg

Update log: sound synthesis features added 2/7/83  roy

 

                                    GUMBY

                         or, the SPRING Sound Chip

 

0. INTRODUCTION

 

    The GUMBY chip is intended to handle the sound synthesis and user interface chores for the SPRING base unit/home computer family. It will live on the SPRING processor's bus, and will communicate with the processor via a number of registers.

 

Sound synthesis features:

 

    * Two discrete sound channel outputs (left and right), for stereo,
    as well as a mono mix (sum) of the two for rf sound subcarrier
    modulation.

    * Each stereo channel will be a mix of eight distinct voices.

    * The mixed output will have a sample rate of at least 50KHz
    (useable upper frequency around 15 to 20 KHz).

 

 

So we have confirmation here that the full Gumby was supposed to have 8x voices. (per channel? or do they mean a 4+4 voice mix for stereo)

 

If the design relied on clock division, like TIA and Pokey, using 50KHz would give the upper range fairly coarse frequency resolution. (a bit worse than pokey running with a 64KHz base) This doc seems to be a loose overview, so "at least" may just mean the minimum acceptable lower bound, and they would have targeted a higher rate. Or perhaps Gumby wasn't a clock division design. There's also no mention of how the sound timbre might be changed.

 

There's also a very clear version of the slide I captured before...

 

 

...looks like I was wrong about 4x voices (also clear from the previous note). Other than that, the block diagram doesn't illuminate anything for me. (The "accum" "add" notes make me think that maybe the chip wasn't using clock division, but instead using addition+overflow to evenly divide up the frequency range, but that's a lot of inference from two words in a block diagram.)

 

Is this all old news to you guys? I think I'd like to reach out to Steve to see if he has any other info he'd be willing to share with the community on Gumby or Minnie, but I don't want to bother him if I'm just retreading old ground that I personally just missed running across before.

 

[+Cafeman]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing the link to the video. I saw a similar presentation by Steve a couple years back in Pittsburgh, and at that time I didn't know a lot about the 7800 and Maria, for example that Maria was intended originally to have sound on it but it had to be discarded last minute. I always wondered why the 7800 sound was so poorly developed with only TIA sound, well there's the reason.  I remember picking up 2600 and 5200 games by Atari back in the day, 1982 through 1984, and being impressed at the programming. Little did I know that they were all GCC games.

[+Muddyfunster]

2 hours ago, RevEng said:

 

 

Is this all old news to you guys? I think I'd like to reach out to Steve to see if he has any other info he'd be willing to share with the community on Gumby or Minnie, but I don't want to bother him if I'm just retreading old ground that I personally just missed running across before.

 

Thanks for the commentary Mike. I don't pretend to understand the technical electronics side of chip design but I still find the narrative around this quite compelling. Please do update if the story on Gumby or Minnie continues.

 

3 hours ago, zzip said:

Serious question-  Did Jack have some kind of inferiority complex that led him to believe that nobody would buy his products unless he sold them super cheap?

 

Jack was a strange fascinating guy to say the least. I think it was more about his strategy & philosophy than him having an inferiority complex. This is a guy who literally went through hell in the holocaust and came out the other side hardened by fire and brimstone.

 

I'd recommend reading "On The Edge" by Brian Bagnall.

 

It provides a really interesting insight into Jack's character during his Commodore years. It was alluded to in the presentation when the $50 price point was mentioned that Tramiel expected the likes of Walmart, K-Mart etc to make no money on the console and make money on the carts. Jack had his "business is war" philosophy and some of that - over simplified - was like this : he'd drop the prices on products and cost reduce the hell out of them and drag competitors to a price point where they simply couldn't complete for long.

 

Sometimes it was purely a business strategy to attack a competitor, whether that was TI or Radio Shack, or Sinclair in Europe. Tramiel was big on vertical integration and hated the risks associated with having to rely on a "competitor" for a component - goes back to the calculator wars with Texas Instruments and was one of the reasons why Commodore under Jack acquired MOS.

 

He screwed the Commodore's dealer network by selling product (VIC20's) to K-Mart cheaper than the dealers and told em to get lost when they asked for a rebate, his strategy was basically screw people before they could screw him first.

 

I could go on about Jack for hours, he is a very interesting character. 

 

Was the talk about $50 price point real? - based on what's written about Jack I'd say probably, even if it was nothing more than to get rid of stock. I think the 7800 originally came to market with the '84 launch selling at $140, the re-launch later in '86 had it selling for around for $79.95? So perhaps a grain or two of truth there  

I think the NES came to market for around $180 and the SMS around $200. So yeah, maybe Jackanomics at play.

 

 

 

[zzip]

12 minutes ago, Muddyfunster said:

It provides a really interesting insight into Jack's character during his Commodore years. It was alluded to in the presentation when the $50 price point was mentioned that Tramiel expected the likes of Walmart, K-Mart etc to make no money on the console and make money on the carts. Jack had his "business is war" philosophy and some of that - over simplified - was like this : he'd drop the prices on products and cost reduce the hell out of them and drag competitors to a price point where they simply couldn't complete for long.

I know,  but I believe $150 was still cheaper than Mattel and Coleco were selling their consoles for, and both of them were getting ready to leave the market anyway,  so it wasn't like Jack had to do much to destroy the competition at that point.

 

16 minutes ago, Muddyfunster said:

Was the $50 price point real? - based on what's written about Jack I'd say probably, even if it was nothing more than to get rid of stock.

I don't think so.  It's probably the reason the system didn't release in 84,  GCC wanted to get paid

[+Muddyfunster]

8 minutes ago, zzip said:

I know,  but I believe $150 was still cheaper than Mattel and Coleco were selling their consoles for, and both of them were getting ready to leave the market anyway,  so it wasn't like Jack had to do much to destroy the competition at that point.

Yes but the 7800 when re-released in '86, it wasn't competing with Mattel and Coleco it was competing with the NES and SMS.

 

8 minutes ago, zzip said:

I don't think so.  It's probably the reason the system didn't release in 84,  GCC wanted to get paid

Fast forward to '86 and the 7800 launches at $79 after Atari settled things with GCC in '85. Or at least that's my understanding, so it's not a million miles away from the $50 price point that was mentioned.

[zzip]

2 minutes ago, Muddyfunster said:

Yes but the 7800 when re-released wasn't competing with Mattel and Coleco in '86, it was competing with the NES and SMS

Exactly,  and he didn't do enough to destroy the competition from Nintendo.   Or maybe he thought that selling a cheaper console was enough?  Not realizing people would pay more to play the games Nintendo was selling

 

5 minutes ago, Muddyfunster said:

Fast forward to '86 and the 7800 launches at $79 after Atari settled things with GCC in '85. Or at least that's my understanding, so it's not a million miles away from the $50 price point that was mentioned.

Sounds like both sides made concessions.   It sells high enough that GCC can get some money, and low enough to make Jack happy.

[+Muddyfunster]

 

7 minutes ago, zzip said:

Exactly,  and he didn't do enough to destroy the competition from Nintendo.   Or maybe he thought that selling a cheaper console was enough?  Not realizing people would pay more to play the games Nintendo was selling

 

Sounds like both sides made concessions.   It sells high enough that GCC can get some money, and low enough to make Jack happy.

Yup, good points. ?

[Trebor]

3 hours ago, Muddyfunster said:

Thanks for the commentary Mike. I don't pretend to understand the technical electronics side of chip design but I still find the narrative around this quite compelling. Please do update if the story on Gumby or Minnie continues.

? Ditto (On all three statements )

 

Certainly, there have been Gumby talks previously; however, never heard of a 'Mini Gumby' specifically being mentioned, or this amount of detail.  Maybe it was due to the very low attendance that year, per Marty.  Searching the forums for both CGE 2K12 and CGE 2012 yields zilch about 7800 specific material from back then.

[RevEng]

Thanks guys! I sent a mail to Steve. Fingers crossed that he has something to share, and is willing to feed the nerds.

[+Mitch]

1 hour ago, Trebor said:

? Ditto (On all three statements )

 

Certainly, there have been Gumby talks previously; however, never heard of a 'Mini Gumby' specifically being mentioned, neither this amount of detail.  Maybe it was due to the very low attendance that year, per Marty.  Searching the forums for both CGE 2K12 and CGE 2012 yields zilch about 7800 specific material from back then.

I am pretty sure I was in the audience for that talk.

 

Mitch

[fultonbot]

Steve is totally willing to talk. 
He did like 2.5 hours on our podcast this year, and we are going to follow-up again soon.

[Trebor]

I'm curious if that $50 figure is being somewhat confused with the 2600 Jr. 

That was a big part of its marketing back then, during the same full release period of the 7800.

 

This 'Fun is Back' commercial played a lot from mid to late 80's:

 

 

"Under 50 bucks"..."50 bucks!?!?"...

 

 

..."Now isn't that nice."* 

 

To confuse things even further, notice in the commercial, the version of Joust they're showcasing is the 7800 port.  All the other games shown, including Dig Dug, are the 2600 ports.

 

They spruced it up some more in the late 80's with strong emphasis again on $50 price tag:

 

 

I recall seeing both (especially the first), up to ~'89,  maybe early '90, after Christmas/New Year's, to clear what remained. 

I don't believe either aired past early-mid 1990.  I could be mistaken though.

 

*Canadians paid $80.  

[MrMaddog]

On 12/22/2020 at 12:22 PM, zzip said:

So Jack wanted to sell it for $50 in 1984?   That's insane for a brand-new console!    I don't think the planned $150 was unreasonable,  but even if they need to discount it because of the crash, no less than $99.

 

Serious question-  Did Jack have some kind of inferiority complex that led him to believe that nobody would buy his products unless he sold them super cheap?

Jack was selling old warehouse inventory of Atari stuff to liquidators in order to generate cash to make his new computers.  It made sense with 2600/5200 carts & consoles since they were selling at bargin bin prices anyway.  But he wanted to do the same with the 7800 by selling it at cost instead of paying royalties to GCC, who were not happy at all and hence the long two year delay.  (In the book "On The Edge", it talked about Jack dumping unsold Commodore wrist watches to UK liquidators in order to buy the MOS plant so that's an earlier example.)

 

Warner was suppose to sell the 7800 through their New Atari Company but they backed out of at the last minute.  Had they not panic by selling the whole company off but instead streamlined the consumer division (ie. dumped the 2600/5200 line and focused only on the 7800 & XL computers), they might have had a chance to right their ship and the 7800 would had been released in '84...which would have kept Nintendo from completely dominating the North American video game industry and allowing for later 7800 titles to use the Gumby chip for in-game music (though it might had driven the prices up per cart).

[pixelatedharmony]

I would love to make a documentary about the 7800 one day, put some production value in to get the old girl the mainstream attention& limelight she deserves. My little baby dates from the ‘83 launch and was originally the property of a chronically bedridden relative, purchased for them to relieve boredom and then... its brand was gone from shelves here for years ? thank goodness it played 2600 games and he liked those just as well for his sake (& mine!)

[Shawn]

On 12/27/2020 at 10:18 AM, Trebor said:

 

 

*Canadians paid $80.  

 

Eventually Consumers did have it for $50. When I bought Dr. Mario for the NES they had signs up for it for $50 CDN for a Jr. I looked at it and was like "People still buy new Atari's?" 

[TwentySixHundred]

So we all know POKEY and somewhat Gumby however im interested in the sound capabilities that MARIA held (as mentioned in video). Excuse my ignorance but im assuming everything sound related was removed from the MARIA chip in later revisions? If so or not, what sort of capabilities were they hoping/talking about? Im sure it would have been a step above the TIA although how would MARIA stack up against POKEY or Gumby? Or is that how Gumby came to be anyway?

Edited December 30, 2020 by TwentySixHundred

[+batari]

On 12/22/2020 at 3:58 PM, Mitch said:

I am pretty sure I was in the audience for that talk.

 

Mitch

I was also in the audience for that talk. Funny that I learned a lot in that talk that I didn’t know before, but until now I assumed it was just me who had never heard of some of the things mentioned there.

[RevEng]

11 hours ago, TwentySixHundred said:

So we all know POKEY and somewhat Gumby however im interested in the sound capabilities that MARIA held (as mentioned in video). Excuse my ignorance but im assuming everything sound related was removed from the MARIA chip in later revisions? If so or not, what sort of capabilities were they hoping/talking about? Im sure it would have been a step above the TIA although how would MARIA stack up against POKEY or Gumby? Or is that how Gumby came to be anyway?

Yeah, this was part of the talk. Gumby was supposed to be integrated into Maria initially, and then scrapped when other Maria functionality needed the die space. (yes, there is no sound related functionality in Maria now.)

 

It seems from the presentation and the slide I quoted earlier, full blown Gumby would have 8 voices and 2 channels, though it's not clear if that's supposed to be 4+4 voices, or 8+8. The latter seems a bit excessive, unless those voices were also to be combined for timbre purposes in some fashion.

 

We don't have any other information or insights on the design, which is why I reached out to Steve. (no reply yet) I'm not entirely sure if Gumby itself was part of the initial 3600 Maria TTL breadboard proto or not, but Steve's slides do mention that a Minnie (mini-gumby) TTL breadboard was completed, so there definitely are design details that can hopefully be illuminated by Steve. 

 

I think it's safe to infer that Minnie would have been mono, since there's only one audio line from the cart. One might also infer that naming it Gumby means GCC thought it would be at least as capable for sound as Pokey is (likely more) but it's less safe to carry that reasoning over to Minnie. Last inference to be made is it would have certainly been much more capable than TIA (or at least complementary to TIA) or else they wouldn't have bothered.

Going into sheer speculation territory, my guess is that any difference from Pokey to Gumby would be evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. By the time Gumby was on the table, GCC programmers had developed 2 Pokey based arcade games (maybe 3. anybody know if Nightmare is pokey based?) and bunch of 5200 games. I think those programmers would have been looking for more+better, rather than an entirely new paradigm... but you never know.

 

[TwentySixHundred]

12 hours ago, RevEng said:

Yeah, this was part of the talk. Gumby was supposed to be integrated into Maria initially, and then scrapped when other Maria functionality needed the die space. (yes, there is no sound related functionality in Maria now.)

 

It seems from the presentation and the slide I quoted earlier, full blown Gumby would have 8 voices and 2 channels, though it's not clear if that's supposed to be 4+4 voices, or 8+8. The latter seems a bit excessive, unless those voices were also to be combined for timbre purposes in some fashion.

 

We don't have any other information or insights on the design, which is why I reached out to Steve. (no reply yet) I'm not entirely sure if Gumby itself was part of the initial 3600 Maria TTL breadboard proto or not, but Steve's slides do mention that a Minnie (mini-gumby) TTL breadboard was completed, so there definitely are design details that can hopefully be illuminated by Steve. 

 

I think it's safe to infer that Minnie would have been mono, since there's only one audio line from the cart. One might also infer that naming it Gumby means GCC thought it would be at least as capable for sound as Pokey is (likely more) but it's less safe to carry that reasoning over to Minnie. Last inference to be made is it would have certainly been much more capable than TIA (or at least complementary to TIA) or else they wouldn't have bothered.

Going into sheer speculation territory, my guess is that any difference from Pokey to Gumby would be evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. By the time Gumby was on the table, GCC programmers had developed 2 Pokey based arcade games (maybe 3. anybody know if Nightmare is pokey based?) and bunch of 5200 games. I think those programmers would have been looking for more+better, rather than an entirely new paradigm... but you never know.

 

Thanks for the informative reply Mike, yeah i was curious if any remnant parts of sound capabilities remained within MARIA. Like i suspected and you had confirmed they removed everything in later revisions. Would have been interesting if there was traces still left on the chip and if any parts of that were accessible for whatever reason.

 

I really hope Steve gets in touch with you, as his knowledge could really help with further hardware development. Especially with the love and attention the 7800 is receiving these days. His knowledge couldn't be left in better hands then yourself and a few others ?

 

Sound is not my strong point at all, however curiosity was getting the better of me ?