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The Atari VCS Controversies Thread


Mockduck

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17 minutes ago, TACODON said:

I got blocked from the IGG page comments ??????

You too?

 

LOL

 

It is actually against the IGG Rules for them to do that ... I make a complaint to IGG every time they do ... I get the impression IGG is sick of FArtari’s bullshyte too LOL.

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11 minutes ago, Chopsus said:

You too?

 

LOL

 

It is actually against the IGG Rules for them to do that ... I make a complaint to IGG every time they do ... I get the impression IGG is sick of FArtari’s bullshyte too LOL.

True, but their rules welcome the type of business l'Atari brings.  IGG isn't set up to attract legit hardware projects.  Anyone with something real to offer would go to Kickstarter.

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Yup, big update today. Atari has announced its shipping partner is starting to ship directly to backers, we should all get tracking numbers by email within the next week or so. All of the edgy edgelords who have a mission in life to make sure everyone around them is miserable will have lots to talk about, including:

 

- Atari says the fan might be too loud. 

- The phone app or a hooked up keyboard and mouse will be needed to operate the home screen at the start. No controller support. 

- Replacing or expanding the RAM in this thing is gonna be a pain, as it is located under the motherboard apparently. 

 

Here's the text from the email and the link to the PDF: https://shop.atarivcs.com/content/IGG-Backers-FAQ.pdf

 

Hello Backers!

Today is the day! By the time you are reading this, the campaign tracker at the top of the Indiegogo page should have switched to “Shipping” and the first packages should be labeled and heading out the door and on their way to you, our loyal backers. Until the warehouse gets into a rhythm we can’t predict exactly how many will go out the door each day, but we do expect most, if not all of the orders to ship out over the next eight to 10 business days. 

We now have enough joysticks to fulfill the orders that have been locked. And we have more joysticks (and controllers) coming, so no backer order orders will be held back due to a lack of inventory. In addition, we strongly encourage anyone who wants extra joysticks or controllers to pre-order from AtariVCS.com ASAP so they ship as soon as possible.

The Atari VCS and accessories you will receive is the final production hardware. The Atari Dashboard and Storefront are definitely not final. As we have indicated before, we are counting on your feedback to help us drive forward product refinements, expanding functionality and interface improvements over time. You will see the very first system update happen the first time you boot up your new Atari VCS. After the day one update, updates will happen periodically and we will communicate all changes with every release. 

Atari VCS Backers FAQ

To help get you ready, the Atari team has prepared a Backer FAQ which provides important information about receiving your VCS, setting it up, and using it. Please take the time to read this entire document. We will update it further as we get your feedback, and as we prepare future system updates.

Atari VCS Founders Club Forum

As stated above, this first version of the VCS production software is not going to be perfect and we welcome and encourage your help to improve our new platform. Please watch for and accept our email invitation to the Atari VCS Founders Forum on Discord. This is an invitation-only, moderated forum just for you, our original backers where you can come together as a community, access the FAQ, how-to content, share feedback and get updates from the Atari VCS team. After the final backer shipment goes out the door we will start to wind down, and ultimately discontinue activities on both the Indiegogo and BackerKit platforms.

Customer Support

To access customer support, please go to https://shop.atarivcs.com/support. You will find a public-facing product Atari VCS Knowledgebase as well as a contact form, and live chat function that you can use to access our support team. 

Getting to this point has been an amazing journey and the entire Atari team can’t thank you enough for your ongoing support and patience. We know you have waited for this day and we are incredibly excited to put the Atari VCS into your hands. As a special thank you for taking this ride, all backers will receive a free copy of Missile Command: Recharged on the VCS, which you can download from the Atari VCS store. 

Happy Holidays!  This is just the beginning!

-- The Atari VCS Team

 

 

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51 minutes ago, godslabrat said:

True, but their rules welcome the type of business l'Atari brings.  IGG isn't set up to attract legit hardware projects.  Anyone with something real to offer would go to Kickstarter.

 

Fair points, but I can see where IGG is fed up with projects like this: a campaign takes in x amount of money over a fixed amount of time, at which point the campaigns stay open (but not raising funds) and active while the people behind them don't get their acts together.  IGG is now on the hook to deal with the complaints and other issues that inevitably arise, and they're doing so without the campaign being a revenue stream for them.  This goes on until the campaign finally closes down when it either a) ships something or b) goes shitshow supernova when the backers' money disappears into the ether along with hopes of ever receiving their <insert item being backed here>.

 

Having said that, you're absolutely right that Kickstarter would be at least something of a filter for the ones who plan to crash & burn at backers' expense.

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3 hours ago, orange808 said:

Off topic, but do you stream 4k? 

 

Seems expensive to me.  Maybe I'm just old, but I throttle back to 720p (similar to bluray).  There's too many people using too many devices in my house to waste bandwidth on 4k.  Even if the kids try to get slick, they get throttled at the router.

 

The finicky 5GHz bands don't have great range and even the Xmas lights degrade the signal.  Anything mobile or away from the router is 2.4hz; there's a lot of strain on the 2.4 GHz bands, not to mention:  no ISP in my area offers truly unlimited bandwidth.

Yeah - I stream 4k like it's 2012.  Then again, I game in 4k, so nothing this turd box can do is remotely interesting to me.  It's 3 year old hardware that can't do what my shit has been able to for damn near 8 years.  It's like the PC as a home theater argument all over again.  Hard to be impressed by stuff so behind the times, when I have had a PC hooked up to a projector, TV, surround system since 1998.

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Oh, dear God.  This is still amateur hour.

 

These are just a few selected highlights from the IGG Backers' FAQ.  I'm kinda lost for words that Fauxtari is actually handing out helpful hints and tips like these.

 

On the subject of powering it: we kinda knew this already, but it's nice to have confirmation that Atari couldn't be bothered to use region-appropriate power cables for units going to territories other than North America and expects its customers in those regions to fix the problem at their expense:

 

Quote

All Atari VCS units will ship to backers with US power cords (NEMA 5-15 grounded Type B). The powerbrick is dual currency and will work in any location. You will not need to use a transformer. If you live in a market that uses a different plug type, you need to either use a travel adaptor or purchase a new power cable. The power cable you need has a Mickey Mouse, or cloverleaf connector (see below). In the United States it is a C5 cable.

 

Yep, looks like most streaming services are accessed through a browser, not dedicated apps:

 

Quote

When using a streaming service you are essentially accessing the web version of the service using a Chrome browser. At this time, you can only use these services using the companion app or a keyboard and mouse. We will be adding controller support in a future date.

 

On installing Windows, where nothing is certified, just 'tested' (and the end user remains responsible for licensing costs):

 

Quote

You need to use a 64-bit version of Windows with the Atari VCS. We have tested Windows 10 Home Edition, but you should have no problem using other versions as long as they meet the 64-bit requirement.

 

 

Want to upgrade the SSD?  Well, there's a FAQ for that as well.  Note that changing the SSD requires completely opening up the case; there is no separate access panel for it.  That's a really brilliant idea for a piece of consumer electronics, but it's nowhere near as good as this handy hint for recovering from detached wiring while replacing your SSD:

 

Quote

Note: If you detach the wires, it is not the end of the world, If the wire detached from the chassis, it probably won’t impact the quality of your wireless connections. If they detach from the chip on the PCB board, wireless should still work, but might be negatively impacted. The solution in either case is to solder the wires back in place. You can also try a conductive adhesive or putty, such as circuit putty, if you are not comfortable using a soldering iron.

 

They're basically advising the same set of steps (with the same 'just solder it back in place' hint) for upgrading the RAM.

 

I do wonder how opening this thing up may affect the warranty, assuming there is one, and particularly when Atari knows its own design is likely to be damaged when opened.

 

Moving on, it's always reassuring to know that nobody has really figured out that pesky boot loop yet - but if it happens to you, don't worry!  You can just email your chums at support:

 

Quote

There is a small chance that some users may get caught in an endless update loop at boot, where the VCS unit keeps updating and does not allow you to access the Dashboard. If this happens please contact support@atari.com.

 

Speaking of support, they're conveniently available to help during business hours on non-specific days:

 

Quote

Our customer support hours are currently 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. PST.

 

There's more that I could tear into, but quite frankly I just don't want to go that deeply into it.  Reading between the lines a bit really shows up that Fauxtari has (and has had) no clue as to what it is that they're doing - not that confirmation was needed, but it is nice to have.

 

Clownshoes.  Clownshoes everywhere.

IGG-Backers-FAQ.pdf RAM-Installation-Guide.pdf SSD-Installation-Guide.pdf

Edited by x=usr(1536)
Added PDFs that were referred to because it seemed like a good idea.
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You don't think Indiegogo actually care about all the hardware projects that go South on their site?

 

It's been obvious for a long time that they've deliberately not followed Kickstarter's lead of asking for a demonstration prototype because they want to snaffle all the projects without one, take their cut, and just walk away from the failures.

 

You've only got to look at how badly they handled the whole Vega Plus fiasco. Their response to being told that a project had a very high chance of failure - when two key members of the development team walked out just after the campaign finished - was to hand over the money anyway, fob the backers off with excuses, make empty promises to launch debt collection, and change their T&Cs to remove any responsibility they might bear and finally admitting that they were powerless to do anything about it.

 

They're the Wild West of crowdfunding and seemingly proud of it.

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I am so glad I sold my pre-order. If I wanted an incomplete mess, I would have bought that. I feel pity for anyone in that tech support call center.

 

Hi, My VCS kit is missing some parts and the fan is loud? What type of model glue do I use? Is this a snap together model?

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9 minutes ago, AlecRob said:

Honestly I much prefer a web interface with keyboard for streaming over the usual crappy apps.  No complaints there.  Giving us Missile Command is pretty cool, as that new one looks pretty good to be honest.

Great for all those people that don't have a PC, but do have a keyboard laying around. For everyone else is yet another add on cost.

 

As for Missile Command, it's free-to-play on mobile and $2.99 since May on Switch. What a heartfelt thanks to the loyal, long suffering backers.

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1 minute ago, AlecRob said:

So it looks like you can install custom OS on internal drive?  Am i reading this correctly?

No, the internal SSD only adds additional storage for AtariOS. A custom OS can only be installed to an external drive.

 

From the July Q&A:

"Atari’s testers regularly swap between bootable instances of Windows or Ubuntu that have been installed on external SSD and HDD drives connected to a VCS, so yes, users can expect to be able to run multiple alternate operating systems on their own systems at home. Each will require an external SSD or hard drive and a little technical know-how, but users should be thrilled with the flexibility."

 

Personally, I prefer the "flexibility" of being able to boot my PCs from their internal storage.

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5 minutes ago, AlecRob said:

I’m sure it is possible to boot from internal storage.  I cant see this thing being that hard to hack...

I somehow doubt its security will be on a par with a Sony or Nintendo console and they pretty much always get compromised eventually.

 

The big question would be whether, with a user base of only 10,000 or so, anyone will bother.

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11 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

I somehow doubt its security will be on a par with a Sony or Nintendo console and they pretty much always get compromised eventually.

 

The big question would be whether, with a user base of only 10,000 or so, anyone will bother.

Everything gets hacked..

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7 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

I somehow doubt its security will be on a par with a Sony or Nintendo console and they pretty much always get compromised eventually.

 

In a way, I now kind of wish that I'd backed this shitshow - it'd be interesting to fire up Wireshark and see what kind of traffic a fresh-out-of-the-box, pre-patch Ataribollocks(tm) spews onto the network, then compare it post-patch.  It could make for interesting analysis.  It's just not $400 worth of interesting.

 

7 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

The big question would be whether, with a user base of only 10,000 or so, anyone will bother.

 

*shrug* Hard to say.  Really, getting the thing to boot some other OS from its internal storage is a who-cares deal: there's any other number of more capable machines in the same price bracket that can do that without having to be forced into it.  The real prize would be getting malware to run on it, because I'm going to take a wild guess that a) the kernel is outdated and poorly-configured; b) no containerisation is taking place, so picking through memory for tasty nuggets or exploiting vulnerable applications would be relatively trivial; c) things are running as root that shouldn't be; and so on and so forth.

 

Heh, I wonder if it supports Adobe Flash.  That would be...  Tragi-comic.

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16 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

*shrug* Hard to say.  Really, getting the thing to boot some other OS from its internal storage is a who-cares deal: there's any other number of more capable machines in the same price bracket that can do that without having to be forced into it.  The real prize would be getting malware to run on it, because I'm going to take a wild guess that a) the kernel is outdated and poorly-configured; b) no containerisation is taking place, so picking through memory for tasty nuggets or exploiting vulnerable applications would be relatively trivial; c) things are running as root that shouldn't be; and so on and so forth.

Yeah, it's not like this would suddenly make it good or anything, as it'll only elevate it to something a $200 off-the-shelf PC can do.

 

It's just that if anyone is intending to spend a lot of time running Windows on it, they'll presumably have to boot into Atari OS, log on, select Sandbox mode, and only then boot Windows which is going to add a lot of unnecessary time and interaction. Maybe it'll sleep in Windows so you don't have to do that every time, but you'd presumably still have to whenever it needs a reboot.

 

So far as potential exploits go, I believe they mentioned something about every machine working as a dev unit for Unity projects...

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