oky2000 Posted June 25, 2021 Share Posted June 25, 2021 Does anyone know the earliest possible year the 7800 could have been put into production and whether Atari-Warner held it back before Jack bought Atari due to the US console market crash? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIKON Posted June 25, 2021 Share Posted June 25, 2021 1984 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted June 25, 2021 Share Posted June 25, 2021 The earliest was summer 1984. The earliest promotional material had Warner’s Atari, Inc. 1984 Summer Olympics logo on them as part of the sponsorship deal. I have an AT-84 unit myself with production date codes on chips from late 1983 through spring 1984. The system was ready to go but Warner’s panic-sale and Jack’s … “Jack-ness” … held things up with the final payments to GCC and it just didn’t happen. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimo Posted June 25, 2021 Share Posted June 25, 2021 5:30 am 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oky2000 Posted June 26, 2021 Author Share Posted June 26, 2021 Such an underrated system, had a real blast using my 7800 on my Trinitron one Saturday afternoon. Found it odd that it was Copyright 1989 (both units were the model bundled with joypads not joysticks). Hopefully I will find the rest of my games soon, sure I had a big stack of loose carts not just the 7 boxed ones I found a while back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SearsRoebuck Posted June 27, 2021 Share Posted June 27, 2021 Well, technically it *was* released in 1984, but so far as we know, only an ultra limited Bay Area of California release, of which almost no one seems to have noticed (I suspect this explains the super rarity of the few 1984 known labels of Joust and a few others). But I've never been able to get first hand accounts of someone who owned or knew someone who owned one that early. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted June 27, 2021 Share Posted June 27, 2021 58 minutes ago, SearsRoebuck said: Well, technically it *was* released in 1984, but so far as we know, only an ultra limited Bay Area of California release, of which almost no one seems to have noticed (I suspect this explains the super rarity of the few 1984 known labels of Joust and a few others). But I've never been able to get first hand accounts of someone who owned or knew someone who owned one that early. The late Curt Vendel (RIP) had information about a NYC test market in 1984 as well. A search of the 20 years of posts on this forum will find plenty of info about it, including some accounts of people who bought them at the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted June 27, 2021 Share Posted June 27, 2021 I believe it was NYC and LA not the Bay area that got the test market 7800s. There is a fellow collector here in SoCal that told me he got his 7800 during the 84 test market. I don't think there were any games available for it in 84 other than the Pole Position 2 pack-in. The other four 84 labeled carts appear to have been demos. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sixersfan105 Posted June 30, 2021 Share Posted June 30, 2021 On 6/26/2021 at 4:59 PM, oky2000 said: both units were the model bundled with joypads not joysticks Do you live in Europe? If so, I believe that is how most 7800 units were bundled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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