5200 and the arcade experience

[+Defender_2600]

11 hours ago, zzip said:

the 160 width mode most 7800 games used would soon become dated next to the 256 width modes of the NES and SMS.  So it could have used some enhancements before it was brought to market.

 

I'm not interested in your opinion but, for people who don't know the technical specs of the 7800, I'll add some considerations to avoid that someone can get confused between an example of bad programming/bad pixel art and the real potential of the system.

 

First of all the usual omission, the 7800 has a maximum resolution of 320×240, thus higher than the NES resolution of 256×240. In this mode, the 7800 can display 9 colors per scanline/zone (4 colors + background & transparent from 2 palettes) and we have examples with 25 colors on screen like in Froggie. At the time, Tower Toppler and One on One Basketball used 320 mode, and many games used this mode for text and score numbers. The 7800 had a small library, otherwise we would certainly have had more games in 320 mode, this mode works very well for arcade games (and not only).

 

For interested people, here is the list of 7800 games made in 320 modes:

 

Asteroids Deluxe

AstroBlaster

Astro Fighter

Baby Pac-Man (maze)

CrazyBrix

Death Merchant

Defender (WIP)

Dungeon Stalker

Frenzy/Berzerk

Froggie

Galaxian

Graze Suit Alpha

Jacks or Better

Kiloparsec

Moon Cresta

Ms. Pac-Man 320

One on One Basketball

Pac-Man 320

Pac-Man Collection - 40th Anniversary Edition

Pac-Man Plus 320

Plink

Plumb Luck DX

Rikki & Vikki

Rip-Off

Scramble

Space Invaders

Tower Toppler

UniWarS

 

 

 

 

Rikki & Vikki - 320 mode:

 

 

 

11 hours ago, zzip said:

the 160 width mode most 7800 games used would soon become dated next to the 256 width modes of the NES and SMS.  So it could have used some enhancements before it was brought to market.

 

So, 256 resolution is higher than 160 resolution therefore 256 is better, this is a fairy tale for the kids. Again, all other technical specs are deliberately omitted. The 7800 in 160 mode is a beast at displaying *many* *large* *multicolor* sprites and graphics with *4 bits per pixel* color depth.

 

The NES features a palette of only 48 colors and 6 grays, 8x8 or 16x16 tiles / 3 colors from 4 palettes, and 8x8 or 8x16 sprites / 3 colors from 4 palettes. The 7800 features a palette of 256 colors and, with the 160B mode, a single sprite / tiles can have 12 colors from 2 palettes + transparent / background and without limits of size (25 colors per zone).

 

In other words, the NES can only use 4 palettes 2bpp (13 colors available) for tiles and each NES tile is limited to 3 colors, instead the 7800 can use 2 palettes 4bpp (25 colors available) and use all 12 colors in a single tiles. The same rule applies to sprites, the NES can only use 4 palettes 2bpp (13 colors available) for sprites and each NES sprite is limited to 3 colors, instead the 7800 can use 2 palettes 4bpp (25 colors available) and use all 12 colors in a single sprite.

 

Basically a stock 7800 can display 4bpp graphics that a NES + MMC5 can't and in any case on NES you would still be stuck at 3 colors per sprite/tile, stuck at 8x8 or 16x16 pixels, instead no restriction on the size of the sprites / tiles on 7800. Not to mention the maximum number of sprites per scanline, only 8 sprites on NES, instead 30 sprites on 7800. And maximum number of sprites on screen, 64 sprites on NES, 256 sprites on 7800.

 

Therefore, although they are two different systems and with different strengths, reducing the graphic comparison to a mere comparison of resolutions, omitting all the other technical specs, is just the usual fanboy propaganda. Some comparison pictures are better than a thousand words.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Defender_2600

[zzip]

10 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:

First of all the usual omission, the 7800 has a maximum resolution of 320×240, thus higher than the NES resolution of 256×240. In this mode, the 7800 can display 9 colors per scanline/zone (4 colors + background & transparent from 2 palettes) and we have examples with 25 colors on screen like in Froggie. At the time, Tower Toppler and One on One Basketball used 320 mode, and many games used this mode for text and score numbers. The 7800 had a small library, otherwise we would certainly have had more games in 320 mode, this mode works very well for arcade games (and not only).

I know the 7800 has 320x240 resolution, but my point was it didn't get used very often back then because of technical challeges.   Homebrewers have done a good job in recent years with it, but that didn't help the system during it's commercial life

 

10 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:

So, 256 resolution is higher than 160 resolution therefore 256 is better, this is a fairy tale for the kids. Again, all other technical specs are deliberately omitted. The 7800 in 160 mode is a beast at displaying *many* *large* *multicolor* sprites and graphics with *4 bits per pixel* color depth.

I'm glad you recognize the importance of square pixels in your Ms. Pac-Man comparison photo,  But you didn't show the official 7800 Ms Pac-Man which is at 160-width and looks significantly worse than any of them!   The  320x240 HOMEBREW Ms. Pac-Man looks much better, but due to system limitations it can't get the colors right.

 

160x224 produces very elongated pixels that looked dated for the time period the 7800 was active.   Another case in point, 7800 Donkey Kong always looked far too stretched out.

Yes 320x240 produced squarer pixels than 256x240, but 256x240 still produced much squarer pixels than 160x224 which most of the 7800 games used during it's commercial period.

 

11 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:

Therefore, although they are two different systems and with different strengths, reducing the graphic comparison to a mere comparison of resolutions, omitting all the other technical specs, is just the usual fanboy propaganda. Some comparison pictures are better than a thousand words.

Wow, if you think I'm some fanboy you couldn't be more wrong, I've never liked the NES, I've never even played on SMS.   I've always wanted Atari to succeed, but I'm honest enough to admit their hardware and software strategy missed the mark repeatedly in the 80s.   All I said is the 7800 would have benefited from more development time to improve its graphics and sound capabilities to make it more competitive  If you can't endure fair criticisms of your favorite system maybe you should be careful about calling others fanboys. 

[MrMaddog]

When a thread becomes a tech spec debate about different systems...

 

[+Stephen]

Numberwang!  Not just for the 64-bit Jaguar crowd.

[+Defender_2600]

3 hours ago, zzip said:

I know the 7800 has 320x240 resolution, but my point was it didn't get used very often back then because of technical challeges.   Homebrewers have done a good job in recent years with it

What technical challenges are you aware of? Recent games don't use new "tricks", everything was already documented in the 7800 Software Guide. The only difference in the 320 mode is that there are fewer colors than the 160 mode, which is normal.

 

3 hours ago, zzip said:

I'm glad you recognize the importance of square pixels in your Ms. Pac-Man comparison photo,  But you didn't show the official 7800 Ms Pac-Man which is at 160-width and looks significantly worse than any of them! 

About gameplay, I think the official version of Ms. Pac-Man for 7800 is the best 8-bit version of its time, far better than both NES versions. The original graphics in 160 mode look nice on CRT and I prefer them to the awful NES version with the green maze, wrong maze wall art, and sprites walking on the maze edges due to the NES technical limitations of the tile sizing I have described in my previous post. That said, I didn't like some colors of the original 7800 version, some sprites could be drawn better and the dots were too big, so I updated the graphics and I think I got a great result. Here's how it looks on CRT:

 

 

 

 

4 hours ago, zzip said:

The  320x240 HOMEBREW Ms. Pac-Man looks much better, but due to system limitations it can't get the colors right.

Much better? It is simply spectacular!

 

 

 

 

In the 7800 "Pac-Man Collection - 40th Anniversary Edition" we have almost every version that ever existed, including Hack versions, hundreds of mazes, tons of game options, and in 320 modes! True, some colors are not exact but the colors of the NES and Master System versions are worse, and these versions do not have all the mazes and options of the 7800 Collection.

 

But then, I see you like repeating the word "limitations", Maria has quite impressive performance for a home system designed in 1983. About 320C mode, you have available resolution of 320 x 240 pixels, 9 colors per scanline, 4 + 1 colors for sprite/tile with transparent from two palettes, from a palette of 256 colors. What home system released in 1984 can do the same? Of course the NES can't do that. The Atari ST has 16 colors with the same horizontal resolution (and lower vertical resolution) but is hardware 16 - 32 bit. At this point I wonder how you could appreciate your Atari 8-bit which in many cases displays only 4 or 5 colors on the screen in 160 mode and a few and small monochrome sprites (you have to overlap 2 sprites to get the third color) .

 

5 hours ago, zzip said:

160x224 produces very elongated pixels that looked dated for the time period the 7800 was active.

I absolutely disagree.

 

 

What really makes the difference graphically is the quality of the pixel art and the color depth. In my previous post, we saw several examples that clearly show how palette limitations (as well as sprites / tiles limitations) can make the NES look dated compared to the 7800 graphics. We all know that Atari had budget problems, however we had good 7800 graphics even in its commercial period, for example Ninja Golf, Midnight Mutants, Xenophobe, Commando, BasketBrawl and others.

 

 

6 hours ago, zzip said:

 Another case in point, 7800 Donkey Kong always looked far too stretched out.

 

 

Are you serious? Again?

Well, I just need to do a quick copy and paste:

 

"Absolutely no! You keep insisting, but you really don't have the necessary skills to make and show graphics comparisons. All the screenshots you are showing have the wrong aspect ratio, the 7800 160 mode shows approximately 1.7 NTSC pixel aspect ratio while the NES shows approximately 1.2 NTSC pixel aspect ratio."

 

On 12/14/2022 at 7:08 PM, zzip said:

All I do is take screenshots off the web and place them side by side.   Amazingly according to you the 7800 screenshots, and only the 7800 screenshots need "special processing".   My screenshot represents what 7800 Donkey Kong looks like when I play it, it's what it looks like when I see others play it on youtube.  I've never seen it look like your screenshot.   What is there some kind of conspiracy to only post incorrect 7800 screenshots and videos online?

No conspiracies. Simply, in addition to making judgments without owning the real hardware and without knowing anything about the pixel aspect ratio of the two systems, you also don't know how to use emulation correctly. So, the screenshots you are comparing have wrong aspect ratio because they are captured via emulators with default setting. Specifically in your screenshots, NES PAR is 1 instead of 1.143 and 7800 PAR is 2 instead of 1.714, resulting in NES graphics appearing narrower and 7800 graphics appearing wider, compared to how both graphics appear under real hardware on CRT. Most emulators have settings options that allow you to set the correct pixel aspect ratio. In the end, keep in mind that both systems tend to fill a 4:3 CRT screen completely.

 

 

 

 

 

In the end, keep in mind that both systems tend to fill a 4:3 CRT screen completely.

 

 

 

The NES Classic Edition also has the option to display the correct 4:3 pixel aspect ratio:

 

 

9 hours ago, zzip said:

but 256x240 still produced much squarer pixels than 160x224 which most of the 7800 games used during it's commercial period.

Again?

 

"So, 256 resolution is higher than 160 resolution therefore 256 is better, this is a fairy tale for the kids. Again, all other technical specs are deliberately omitted. The 7800 in 160 mode is a beast at displaying *many* *large* *multicolor* sprites and graphics with *4 bits per pixel* color depth.

 

The NES features a palette of only 48 colors and 6 grays, 8x8 or 16x16 tiles / 3 colors from 4 palettes, and 8x8 or 8x16 sprites / 3 colors from 4 palettes. The 7800 features a palette of 256 colors and, with the 160B mode, a single sprite / tiles can have 12 colors from 2 palettes + transparent / background and without limits of size (25 colors per zone).

 

In other words, the NES can only use 4 palettes 2bpp (13 colors available) for tiles and each NES tile is limited to 3 colors, instead the 7800 can use 2 palettes 4bpp (25 colors available) and use all 12 colors in a single tiles. The same rule applies to sprites, the NES can only use 4 palettes 2bpp (13 colors available) for sprites and each NES sprite is limited to 3 colors, instead the 7800 can use 2 palettes 4bpp (25 colors available) and use all 12 colors in a single sprite.

 

Basically a stock 7800 can display 4bpp graphics that a NES + MMC5 can't and in any case on NES you would still be stuck at 3 colors per sprite/tile, stuck at 8x8 or 16x16 pixels, instead no restriction on the size of the sprites / tiles on 7800. Not to mention the maximum number of sprites per scanline, only 8 sprites on NES, instead 30 sprites on 7800. And maximum number of sprites on screen, 64 sprites on NES, 256 sprites on 7800.

 

Therefore, although they are two different systems and with different strengths, reducing the graphic comparison to a mere comparison of resolutions, omitting all the other technical specs, is just the usual fanboy propaganda."

 

 

 

 

9 hours ago, zzip said:

 All I said is the 7800 would have benefited from more development time to improve its graphics and sound capabilities to make it more competitive

As I mentioned, Maria has quite impressive performance for a home system designed in 1983, and we've seen that the 7800 has several strengths where it surpasses the NES technical specs. It's unrealistic to think that the 7800 should have had the power of an Atari ST. However, the increased power of the Master System wasn't enough to slow down sales of the NES, so it doesn't make much sense to look for a correlation between technical specs and commercial success. On the other hand, in 1986 that Super Mario Bros bestselling masterpiece was released, which I think is almost an understatement to define it graphically elementary.

 

As for the 7800 sound, GCC had other plans, the 7800 Maria chip was supposed to include advanced audio within it. But Jack Tramiel had his own company policy and he wasn't going to change his mind. Finally we got TIA+ in-cart sound chip solution. POKEY worked well with Commando and Ballblazer, it works even better today. But sure, Minnie In-Cart Sound Chip would have been better and, as stated in the Minnie Subsystem Top-Level Specification document created Dec 1983 and updated Feb 1984, the cost target would have added less than $2 per cart.

 

10 hours ago, zzip said:

Wow, if you think I'm some fanboy you couldn't be more wrong, I've never liked the NES, I've never even played on SMS

I know, currently you are just hiding behind NES and Master System but in truth I have seen that you are an Atari 8-bit fanboy. Nothing wrong with that until you've started disparaging the 7800, more or less explicitly, with as many posts as I could compile into a list. Since I've been doing graphics for the 7800 for several years, I felt I had to give it a try to correct your disinformation/misinformation activity. But without any resentment, I'm really not interested in your opinion, however I give my contribution so that new users interested in the 7800 may have a better awareness of the potential of the system.

 

11 hours ago, zzip said:

If you can't endure fair criticisms of your favorite system maybe you should be careful about calling others fanboys. 

So...

On 12/6/2021 at 7:43 PM, zzip said:

At the time, there was a HUGE difference between 2600 and 5200 graphics.  (...)  But for the 7800, I don't think that offered enough of an upgrade over the 5200 to justify its existence, and it was a major step back in other ways.

Sure, for example you could the same between the NES and SNES, both have the same low resolution of 256x240, really dated compared to the 320x240 of the Sega Genesis. Goodbye.

 

[zzip]

9 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:

 

The fact that you have to use a homebrew/update to show the 'correct' aspect ratio shows there were problems with the original, doesn't it?

 

Thing is,  if a company gets a console right, nobody should have to make excuses for it or point to homebrews to show what could have been.  Almost every retro system gets homebrews that push it to the limits.   It's the games released during a system's commercial life that make or break it.

 

Atari has had serious problems with their hardware and software strategy from 1982 on.  They repeatedly shot themselves in the foot, taking them from the top dog in the console market to a distant third and ultimately out of the business.

 

My basic argument is the 7800 shouldn't exist in its current form.   It should have either been released instead of the 5200 or sent back to the drawing board to be enhanced further to be the eventual 5200 replacement no sooner than 4-5 years after the 5200 release.  Selling Atari loyalists on a pricey "super system" only to kill it in less than 2 years in favor of a new console probably did more damage to the brand then we'll ever know.

[+Defender_2600]

49 minutes ago, zzip said:

The fact that you have to use a homebrew/update to show the 'correct' aspect ratio shows there were problems with the original, doesn't it?

 

Thing is,  if a company gets a console right, nobody should have to make excuses for it or point to homebrews to show what could have been.  Almost every retro system gets homebrews that push it to the limits.   It's the games released during a system's commercial life that make or break it.

 

No.

The original 7800 version had bad pixel art and for the sake of completeness I should add that the Atari 8-bit version had even worse pixel art.

 

So, since my interest is for people to better understand the difference between bad pixel art and system limitations, I showed you my new graphic.

 

But beware, that graphic I showed is done on graph paper, pixel by pixel, 160 modes. No modern era magic tricks, no alien discoveries, I haven't crossed any unknown limits of the system, I just use a pencil.

 

[christo930]

On 3/26/2023 at 1:23 AM, phuzaxeman said:

Comparing hardware on a computer vs a console isn't a good comparison because both c64 and 5200 have different purposes.  They are not in the same market. 

The 5200's capabilities are identical to the Atari 8 bit line.

 

On 3/26/2023 at 1:23 AM, phuzaxeman said:

In some ways? What ways? There literally isn't a single game nor is the hardware in every aspect better than the 5200. 

The Bally Astrocade has multicolored sprites.  I'll point out The Incredible Wizard looks better than Wizard of Wor.

 

 

Other than the sound, which had the crash not happened, would have been addressed, the 7800 is better. It was also backwards compatible.  Comparing a greatly expanded NES to the unexpanded 7800 is kind of silly.  The NES without the cartridge hardware was a fairly limited machine.  The 7800 was capable of cartridge upgrades, but other than a few POKEY games, this was never exploited. Atari was a zombie corporation for the entirety of the 7800's life.  Had Atari been financially healthy, games would have vastly improved.

Besides, what's your alternative?  The 5200 vs the NES? 

 

 

 

 

[christo930]

On 3/26/2023 at 9:24 PM, x=usr(1536) said:

Yes and no.  Sound is still its Achilles' heel, and while the idea of being able to include sound hardware on-cartridge to produce whatever audio the programmers wanted to use without being limited by the hardware on the system was a good one, in practice it just didn't work out.  Doing so would increase development costs, which would require bigger budgets, which would lead to higher retail costs of the software incorporating sound hardware.

I largely agree with you, but I also don't think you can blame the 7800 for the fact that the expanded sound via the cartridge didn't work out.  The reason is Atari collapsed.  Atari/Jack either didn't have the money in the first place or just didn't care.  Had 1982 Atari been driving with the same resources, the 7800 would have been used to its full potential.  Imagine Atari collapsed in 1980 and how we would be talking about the limitations of the 2600 where adding RAM on the cartridge never happened and ROMs bigger than 4k never happened.  We would see the 2600 in a completely different light.  We are now beginning to see the first signs of cartridge hardware for the 7800.

 

I do fully agree about the stupid decision to not put a sound chip in the 7800.  But, AFAIK, we don't really know what they were thinking beyond the Gumby chip.  Even the Intellivision had a better sound chip.  This decision is just inexplicable to me.  it was so obviously bad even at the time.  This is not a hindsight is 2020 thing.

On 3/26/2023 at 9:24 PM, x=usr(1536) said:

Not exactly.  The 400 & 800 were derived from the early 5200 designs, so it would be more accurate to say that the A8 is a beefed-up 5200.  Remember that the 5200 was originally intended to be on the market in 1980 as the VCS' replacement; if anything, it missed that target date by two years, but did eventually get there in the end.

 

What I've heard (from one of the guys developing the chip on a podcast) is the suits wanted a computer and the engineers were building a game machine.  Since the suits have the money and power within Atari, they got a computer.  They wanted to have stock quotes and weather applications and news and stuff like that. 

 

Worse, years had passed and the chips were out of date.  They could have developed a new chip for use in the new game system. I think it was a bad decision to use the 8-bit chip, at least the video.  Pokey was a decent enough sound chip for the time.

On 3/26/2023 at 9:24 PM, x=usr(1536) said:

It made absolutely no sense whatsoever, and goes some way towards showing how mismanaged large chunks of Atari were at the time.

 

It really is amazing how poorly Atari was run.  The fact that the engineers and management weren't on the same page as to what they were developing when designing the 8-bit chips is pretty amazing when you think about it. 

 

They had a huge hit which made them think they were geniuses.  There was a book released about "corporate excellence" at the time and Atari was featured in it as were a bunch of other companies being run into the ground at the time. Most were tech.  A bunch of them (I think it's almost all)  were bankrupt within a few years.

On 3/26/2023 at 9:24 PM, x=usr(1536) said:

As for three-year-old chips, it really didn't matter.  Bear in mind that this was a time where nobody really cared about what was in the console, only that it was a) within budget and b) had the games that they wanted. 

I disagree.  People may not have cared whether it was chip A or chip B in a brand loyalty sense, they cared what the games looked and sounded like. This is why they chose a Colecovision or intellivision over a 2600, despite the 2600 being the one with they wanted.  Obviously, Atari was still ahead, but this was changing.  Coleco and Mattel weren't merely expanding the market, they were eating part of Atari's market.  This was the whole point of Atari creating an upgrade path for 2600 owners to get better (bigger, better looking and sounding) games.

 

On 3/26/2023 at 9:24 PM, x=usr(1536) said:

  If it looked better than another console, great, but the 2600 was still selling strongly when the ColecoVision and 5200 were on the market, and continued to do so even through the (first) introduction of the 7800.

I certainly don't discount 'if you want to play game X, you need an Atari'  But even Atari saw the writing on the wall.  IDK if the 2600 jr outsold the 7800 after the re-release of both systems, but clearly Atari was focusing on extreme price sensitivity and the existing 2600 library.  Given my experience thrifting and flea marketing, I would think the Jr outsold the 7800, which is pretty interesting.  OTOH, it was "under fifty bucks" and the games under 10 bucks, so maybe that was it, if the Jr indeed outsold the 7800.

[christo930]

On 3/27/2023 at 1:29 PM, zzip said:

7800 was not an Atari design.  They didin't know about it in 82,  it fell into their lap in 83.    Maybe if they had known they'd have skipped the 5200, who knows?

 

But 7800 sound chip was much older than 3 years,  and the 160 width mode most 7800 games used would soon become dated next to the 256 width modes of the NES and SMS.  So it could have used some enhancements before it was brought to market.

I know the 7800 wasn't envisioned at the time. I just mean they should have waited and developed a better system.  I just think the 5200 was just a terrible decision on Atari's part.  For example, the lack of backward compatibility.  Though, to be fair to them, many, many people have purchased multiple copies of an album on various formats.  Maybe they bought the record initially, then an 8-track, then a cassette and then a CD and so on.  Besides the CD, Atari knew this at the time.  Though this could be a case of 2020 hindsight, I think it should have been obvious.  These things were not cheap.  Albums were like 7 bucks at the time, Atari games were like 30-40.

 

The 7800 does have the 320 mode.  But the sound chip is just absolutely stupid.  The 7800 was expandable through the cartridge port.  Hopefully will get some more new "mappers" for the 7800 and push it to its limits.

[christo930]

On 3/29/2023 at 1:16 PM, Defender_2600 said:

The original 7800 version had bad pixel art and for the sake of completeness I should add that the Atari 8-bit version had even worse pixel art.

You are so right about this.  A good pixel artist makes all the difference.  The difference between art by different artists can be very large, even on these old very limited systems.

[BIGHMW]

Yeah but to be fair to Atari, even they were not aware of nor did they have the knowledge about HOW MUCH game developers over the past 40 years would exploit the true (but unheard of at that time) capabilities of these so-called "inferior" systems. We've seen how much has been done by homebrewers all over the world, including some of our very own like @Ryan Witmer, and all the ABBUC software contest entries we have seen the past several years that are pushing the absolute limits beyond what we could've imagined back in 1979-89, the 8-bit A8/5200/XEGS original lifespan.

 

This is why I still love my 5200 and also have an XEGS as well. We've all seen (and played) most of the most beautiful works of game programming over the past 20 years alone, not just on 8-bit, but also on the 2600 as well, with ports like Galagon and Gorf Arcade from @johnnywc John Champeau's Champ Games. Hell, nobody ever thought that a decent 2600 version of Qix was even remotely possible, but then Champ Games decided to "ARM" (Champ Games' exclusive technology) its own programs with extra RAM much like the old Arcadia/Starpath Supercharger did giving it tremendous capabilities we never thought before. Qyx is a top-notch game that FINALLY gives 2600 owners their share of this underrated arcade classic. Others have also put out masterpieces for it too, like @DINTAR816 did with his rendition of Pac-Man, and there are so many more to count but I can't right now as it's getting near shuteye time for me as I have to get to work tomorrow morning for my shift over at Safeway at 6:00 am so I'll leave the rest up to you guys.

[phuzaxeman]

3 hours ago, christo930 said:

The 5200's capabilities are identical to the Atari 8 bit line.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In terms of gameplay and control, the analog sticks on the 5200 is a different experience. So gameplay and controls capabilities are not the same.  The 5200 trackball in 82 for Centipede was also much different than Centipede for the 8bit.  

[phuzaxeman]

3 hours ago, christo930 said:

The 5200's capabilities are identical to the Atari 8 bit line.

 

The Bally Astrocade has multicolored sprites.  I'll point out The Incredible Wizard looks better than Wizard of Wor.

 

 

Other than the sound, which had the crash not happened, would have been addressed, the 7800 is better. It was also backwards compatible.  Comparing a greatly expanded NES to the unexpanded 7800 is kind of silly.  The NES without the cartridge hardware was a fairly limited machine.  The 7800 was capable of cartridge upgrades, but other than a few POKEY games, this was never exploited. Atari was a zombie corporation for the entirety of the 7800's life.  Had Atari been financially healthy, games would have vastly improved.

Besides, what's your alternative?  The 5200 vs the NES? 

 

 

 

 

5200 had twice as powerful CPU than the Astrocade. The 5200 came with more ram built in, 4k vs 16k. It had a better resolution 384×240 pixels while the Astrocade only had 320×204. The 5200 had 256 colors available with 16 on screen at once. The bally only had 8 colors total. Sprites mean nothing if all the games were inferior to the 5200.  Wizard of War looks better, sounds better, and flows better.  There isn't a game on Bally that is near arcade quality.

 

Had Atari been financially healthy in 87? The 7800, which I owned in 87, was competing with Sega and NES and wasn't anywhere near the race.  There are games like Centipede, Real Sportsbaseball, and Mario Brothers released in 83 on the 5200 that are better than the 7800 versions. 

[+x=usr(1536)]

[zzip]

10 hours ago, christo930 said:

I know the 7800 wasn't envisioned at the time. I just mean they should have waited and developed a better system. 

But then it becomes a matter of when do you pull the trigger on a new system,  since the tech was making big leaps every year?   A lot of people will say the 5200 should have come out sooner, maybe it could have, but it would have been too expensive for a console.   Even in 1982 the price was a bit steep.   

 

Atari had Mattel beating them up over graphics for a few years already.   Then Colecovision shows up with arcade-like graphics.   I can understand why they'd want to get something out in 82 rather than wait.  To defend their market share.

 

10 hours ago, christo930 said:

I just think the 5200 was just a terrible decision on Atari's part.  For example, the lack of backward compatibility.

We now have enough data to show that backwards compatibility was never a make-or-break feature.  It's something everyone says they want, but they will still buy consoles without it, and don't use it much when it exists, instead opting to play newer games.   There's no rule that says you have to throw your 2600 away because you bought a 5200.  TV coax switch boxes were cheap enough to support more than one console on a TV

 

The 5200s bigger issues were price, too few exclusive, compelling games that didn't exist on 2600, quality problems-- especially the controller and the looming crash.

 

Another problem is Atari obviously didn't understand the market then (and else nobody really did either), so they beat themselves up over lack of backward compatibility to the point where they made the insane decision to kill the still young 5200 in favor of the 7800 which ultimately failed to even come out on time!

 

Another sign of console makers not knowing what they were doing back then was the features and peripheral arms race---    everybody had to have a keypad controller, not because gamers wanted them, but INTV had one so they had to keep up.   Then a trackball expansion, voice synthesis expansion, 2600 compatibility expansion, steering wheel, Mindlink, and of course keyboard--   I can't think of a single console that successfully made the jump to computer, but they all tried.   Instead of all that, the path to success was better games.

 

10 hours ago, christo930 said:

Maybe they bought the record initially, then an 8-track, then a cassette and then a CD and so on.  Besides the CD, Atari knew this at the time.  Though this could be a case of 2020 hindsight, I think it should have been obvious.  These things were not cheap.  Albums were like 7 bucks at the time, Atari games were like 30-40.

I think albums cost more than that at the time.   I remember CDs were almost $20 initially

Still the wrong strategy was to get people to upgrade their games.   The right strategy would have been to have games that made the 5200 a compelling purchase.   It needed to find its Space Invaders.   The 2600 didn't get Space Invaders until 3 years into its life,  the 5200 didn't even survive 2 years, let alone 3!

 

 

[christo930]

8 hours ago, phuzaxeman said:

5200 had twice as powerful CPU than the Astrocade. The 5200 came with more ram built in, 4k vs 16k. It had a better resolution 384×240 pixels while the Astrocade only had 320×204. The 5200 had 256 colors available with 16 on screen at once. The bally only had 8 colors total. Sprites mean nothing if all the games were inferior to the 5200.  Wizard of War looks better, sounds better, and flows better.  There isn't a game on Bally that is near arcade quality.

This is why I said "in some ways" and not "is a better machine"  Overall, it's inferior.

I take issue with you saying there isn't a game on bally that is near arcade quality. The Incredible Wizard is an example.

[christo930]

54 minutes ago, zzip said:

But then it becomes a matter of when do you pull the trigger on a new system,  since the tech was making big leaps every year?   A lot of people will say the 5200 should have come out sooner, maybe it could have, but it would have been too expensive for a console.   Even in 1982 the price was a bit steep.   

 

Atari had Mattel beating them up over graphics for a few years already.   Then Colecovision shows up with arcade-like graphics.   I can understand why they'd want to get something out in 82 rather than wait.  To defend their market share.

 

Sometimes doing "something" is not better than doing "nothing" They could have put more resources into the 2600, like an Atari version of the DPC.  Did they really think they had the market leadership to charge more than 70 dollars more than a Colecovision?  While I admit pumping up the 2600 would have been a stopgap at best, it would have bought them time. The 2600 was still selling very well.

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Another problem is Atari obviously didn't understand the market then (and else nobody really did either), so they beat themselves up over lack of backward compatibility to the point where they made the insane decision to kill the still young 5200 in favor of the 7800 which ultimately failed to even come out on time!

 

Lack of understanding? Perhaps.  Arrogance?  Definitely. (probably both).  They actually believed the game developer was no different than a guy operating a machine in the factory floor or a guy in the shipping dept. This was like thinking a musician was no different than the guy operating the machine that turns a hot puck of vinyl into a pressed record.  Or believing the public would buy anything they put out no matter how bad it was.  How the hell did Atari even end up as part of Time Warner anyway?  Fisher Price never opened a movie studio.

 

A lot of people complained about the lack of backwards compatibility. While, sure, keeping 2 systems was possible, but this was also the early 80s where a TV in every room was not a given. 1 game system on the living room TV is unsightly enough.

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Another sign of console makers not knowing what they were doing back then was the features and peripheral arms race---    everybody had to have a keypad controller, not because gamers wanted them, but INTV had one so they had to keep up.   Then a trackball expansion, voice synthesis expansion, 2600 compatibility expansion, steering wheel, Mindlink, and of course keyboard--   I can't think of a single console that successfully made the jump to computer, but they all tried. 

Fully agree, except the trackball, which probably was a good idea if they could have sold it for a reasonable price and supported it in the games.  The 5200 has a great trackball that is supported by the games, but it was fairly expensive.   I don't think a single 2600 game supports a trackball natively.  Would it really have been that difficult to allow trackball owners to control games natively via one of the switches or something?  It's not like there weren't arcade games using trackballs.

 

Instead of screwing around with keyboards of keypad controllers, they should have developed a new joystick with more than one button. Omega race pulled it off.  More could have been added (if the port simply couldn't use more than 2 buttons) with a Y cable utilizing both ports. Almost no games required 2 people using the joystick at once.

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

I think albums cost more than that at the time.   I remember CDs were almost $20 initially

CDs were substantially more expensive than regular albums, I think. I recall it that way anyway.

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

The right strategy would have been to have games that made the 5200 a compelling purchase.   It needed to find its Space Invaders. 

 

Instead they launched it with a totally inappropriate and old Super Breakout.  Play the arcade smash-hit from 1978 on your new supersystem with your joystick!!!

 

They were spoiled for choice. After all, it was 1982. Yet they chose Super Breakout.

[BIGHMW]

2 hours ago, christo930 said:

Instead they launched it with a totally inappropriate and old Super Breakout.  Play the arcade smash-hit from 1978 on your new supersystem with your joystick!!!

 

They were spoiled for choice. After all, it was 1982. Yet they chose Super Breakout.

...and even though they did, those of us who waited until all the bugs were ironed out and all the hype subsided and knew that we could get Pac-Man to go with Super Breakout still bought one. And while yes Super Breakout wasn't the best choice for a pack-in game we knew we could get Pac-Man to go with it. When I got my first 5200 on my 17th birthday some 40 years ago (May 19th I'll be 57 and still an Atarian) I also got Missile Command and a Trak-ball to go along with her that night. A few days later we got both Centipede and Pac-Man to go along with her and it was game on after that!!! 

[christo930]

1 hour ago, BIGHMW said:

And while yes Super Breakout wasn't the best choice for a pack-in game

Wasn't the best choice?  That's the understatement of the year.  Not only was the games years out of date and perfectly good on the 2600, the controller is entirely unsuited to the game.  Worse, IMHO, the 5200 version of Super Breakout is inferior to the 2600 version even if there was an appropriate controller available.  That funky sound on the 2600 is awesome.

 

1 hour ago, BIGHMW said:

When I got my first 5200 on my 17th birthday some 40 years ago (May 19th I'll be 57 and still an Atarian) I also got Missile Command and a Trak-ball to go along with her that night.

Agreed. The 5200 trackball is a must own for any 5200 fan.  I got mine many years ago at a flea market for pretty cheap.  There is just no better way to play centipede at home unless on a PC or MAC with a trackball.  The 5200 trackball is very well made too.  But I also enjoy the hacks for the 2600 for native trackball control.

 

Years ago I used a Wingman Warrior to play the paddle games on MAME.  That spinner was awesome. The ONLY way to play tempest.

[+x=usr(1536)]

Looks like we have a match made in heaven a-brewin'!

[christo930]

13 hours ago, phuzaxeman said:

Had Atari been financially healthy in 87? The 7800, which I owned in 87, was competing with Sega and NES and wasn't anywhere near the race.  There are games like Centipede, Real Sportsbaseball, and Mario Brothers released in 83 on the 5200 that are better than the 7800 versions. 

[sorry about breaking up my reply into 2 posts. It was an accident]

 

We're talking about a different timeline where Atari is not a shell of its former self, is a well known brand name associated with games and is a successful arcade game maker,  If things were different, they'd probably be different.  Had Atari not collapsed, the NES might not have even ever came to America let alone achieved the total strangulation on the game market.  Nintendo wasn't loaded with debt and little credit. 

 

Nintendo would likely have been happy to publish its games on Atari hardware for the American market. Even if they didn't, with a healthy Atari pumping out games and great marketing Atari was known for, 3rd parties probably wouldn't have signed exclusivity contracts.  It's easy to sign that contract when Nintendo owns 90% of the market share.  Signing that document locking you out of additional sales is just an acknowledgement that those additional sales are minuscule and you aren't really losing anything.

[zzip]

2 hours ago, christo930 said:

Sometimes doing "something" is not better than doing "nothing" They could have put more resources into the 2600, like an Atari version of the DPC.  Did they really think they had the market leadership to charge more than 70 dollars more than a Colecovision?  While I admit pumping up the 2600 would have been a stopgap at best, it would have bought them time. The 2600 was still selling very well.

Also making the 5200 so large?   I wonder how much cost savings could have been had in materials and shipping by making it a reasonable size?   The 600XL came out less than a year later with almost the same tech and a compact size for half the price of a 5200.

 

The 2600 was definitely making strides, compare Combat or Air-Sea Battle to the games released in 82, and it almost seems like a different console.   But at the same time there were plenty of titles showing the 2600 limits-  Donkey Kong, Zaxxon,  Even "good" arcade ports like Centipede and Ms. Pac-man were showing serious graphical limitations.   Pitfall II didn't come out until 84 so the DPC chip wasn't a thing yet in 82.    In retrospect, the 2600 was the only console to survive the crash, so Atari may have been in better shape if they rode it a little longer and not released the 5200, but I don't that was obvious in 82.

 

3 hours ago, christo930 said:

Lack of understanding? Perhaps.  Arrogance?  Definitely. (probably both).  They actually believed the game developer was no different than a guy operating a machine in the factory floor or a guy in the shipping dept. This was like thinking a musician was no different than the guy operating the machine that turns a hot puck of vinyl into a pressed record.  Or believing the public would buy anything they put out no matter how bad it was.  How the hell did Atari even end up as part of Time Warner anyway?  Fisher Price never opened a movie studio.

Warner hired a textile CEO to head Atari. (Ray Kassar).  Textiles are commodities, and he tried to treat videogames as commmodities because that's what he knew.   But games aren't.  It's strange-   A company like Warner was in music and movies--  they should've understood how content works, even back then, some basic mistakes should have been avoidable.

 

3 hours ago, christo930 said:

A lot of people complained about the lack of backwards compatibility. While, sure, keeping 2 systems was possible, but this was also the early 80s where a TV in every room was not a given. 1 game system on the living room TV is unsightly enough.

A lot of people complained about the lack of backwards compatibility on PS4 too,  it still went on to become one of the best-selling consoles ever!  Same with Nintendo Switch.   It's one of those things where people complain but they still buy the thing anyway.   

 

Space could be a concern, but at the same time, they were selling people on oversized trackballs and other peripherals that took up as much space.   They also sold a 2600 adapter for those concerned about space.

 

3 hours ago, christo930 said:

Fully agree, except the trackball, which probably was a good idea if they could have sold it for a reasonable price and supported it in the games.  The 5200 has a great trackball that is supported by the games, but it was fairly expensive.   I don't think a single 2600 game supports a trackball natively.  Would it really have been that difficult to allow trackball owners to control games natively via one of the switches or something?  It's not like there weren't arcade games using trackballs.

5200 trackball is huge though, did it really need to be that big?   

 

3 hours ago, christo930 said:

Instead of screwing around with keyboards of keypad controllers, they should have developed a new joystick with more than one button. Omega race pulled it off.  More could have been added (if the port simply couldn't use more than 2 buttons) with a Y cable utilizing both ports. Almost no games required 2 people using the joystick at once.

Lots of products used the Atari standard 9-pin joystick ports and had more than one button.  I think the Genesis did this.   So it could be done.   It would have been nice!   NES fans love to brag about their "2 buttons" and almost nobody seems to like keypads.    Maybe you could even play games like Raiders of the Lost Ark or Spy Hunter (at least on Atari 8bit) with a single controller.

[christo930]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Also making the 5200 so large?   I wonder how much cost savings could have been had in materials and shipping by making it a reasonable size? 

I've often wondered this too.  I have a boxed 5200 and the box is comically large.  It probably doubled shipping costs.  And of course, the plastic and the molds are probably significantly more expensive to make. It was probably more than twice as expensive as building a system 1/2 the size. IOW, the cost might not go up linearly.

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

The 2600 was definitely making strides, compare Combat or Air-Sea Battle to the games released in 82, and it almost seems like a different console.   But at the same time there were plenty of titles showing the 2600 limits-  Donkey Kong, Zaxxon,  Even "good" arcade ports like Centipede and Ms. Pac-man were showing serious graphical limitations.   Pitfall II didn't come out until 84 so the DPC chip wasn't a thing yet in 82. 

 

There were limitations they probably could not have gotten around.  I don't think Donkey Kong and Zaxxon are suffering as much from the hardware as they were rushed ports. Just look at the Donkey Kong release for Intellivision.  Though, interestingly enough, there really isn't anything all that much better even in modern homebrews, of which there are 2 I believe.

 

I know Pitfall II came out later, but there is no reason Atari couldn't have thought up a version themselves. Had Atari been innovative, they probably would have.   Had they not frustrated Crane and others, they might have retained that talent.  On the one hand they were worried about poaching, but on the other they were treating them as bad as they could.  When you have employees printing money for you, you do everything you can to keep them happy.  All they wanted was recognition and a percentage of the money they were printing for Atari. Giving them a cut of the money is a major motivator to put out the best games they possibly can.  Putting their name on the box or in the manual would also be motivational.

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

5200 trackball is huge though, did it really need to be that big?   

 

Probably not, but I must admit using such a large control panel makes it seem more authentic.  Arcade machines had large control panels.

A L-R-T-F H (left/right/thrust/fire/hyperspace)  controller would have been nice too.  I believe there was at least one available, but not made by Atari.  Great for games like Asteroids.

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Lots of products used the Atari standard 9-pin joystick ports and had more than one button.  I think the Genesis did this.   So it could be done

But could the hardware inside the Atari support such a thing?  I don't know enough about how the genesis one works. It can't be working the same way because there are more buttons than pins.  4 for each direction, 6 more for the 6 buttons, 1 more for the start plus ground.

The one button really hampered these sticks.  Even the Amiga and ST got stuck with 1 button.

 

It's still hard to believe they were screwing around with keyboards and keypads while not trying to address the 1 button limitation on the controller everyone was using and wanted to use.  If they had used a y cable to utilize both ports, it would be backwards compatible with people who didn't have one by just using both joysticks like they did with Stargate.

[Keatah]

2 hours ago, zzip said:

Warner hired a textile CEO to head Atari. (Ray Kassar).  Textiles are commodities, and he tried to treat videogames as commmodities because that's what he knew.   But games aren't.  It's strange-   A company like Warner was in music and movies--  they should've understood how content works, even back then, some basic mistakes should have been avoidable.

I don't believe videogames were treated as a new artform by marketing and beancounters. Developers obviously did, but not suits. Marketing and advertising simply saw videogames as something to be exploited, like most everything else.

 

6 hours ago, christo930 said:

A lot of people complained about the lack of backwards compatibility. While, sure, keeping 2 systems was possible, but this was also the early 80s where a TV in every room was not a given.

I never worried about backward compatibility or system-changers and cartridge adapters. I had the Colecovision expansion module for running 2600 games. And when I came across a game that didn't work I was done and done with it. Somehow it left a bad taste with me and I simply didn't bother anymore.

 

I had no qualms about getting another system, then another, then another, in order to get full library coverage. This accumulation (and spread of software across a lineup) wouldn't bother me till much later.

 

6 hours ago, christo930 said:

1 game system on the living room TV is unsightly enough.

And today there's youtuberz bragging and boasting about having hundreds of systems and tens of thousands of cartridges in a dedicated house extension. No. Not for me. My little AIO emu rig does more, looks nicer, is infinitely more manageable, and highly practical, in the real world that we all live in.

 

Back in the 1981 I didn't think too much about a wall of 700+ carts for the 5 or 6 systems I had. It sprawled and I scrambled from time to keep it organized. I was too young and naive to make nice dedicated shelving, so had to rely on those cartridge holder things (like for cassette tapes). As long as the "library" was growing I was content.

 

8 hours ago, zzip said:

We now have enough data to show that backwards compatibility was never a make-or-break feature. 

I thought it was a nice feature. But it was not a defining feature. And I couldn't have cared less. Minus one exception. this was when I had to get a //e when I disassembled my II+ and couldn't get it working again (for a long time). I was all hot and bothered about all the hundreds, even thousands, of games I accumulated. But the nice salesman at an Apple dealer assured me the //e would run almost everything. He was right.

8 hours ago, zzip said:

I think albums cost more than that at the time.   I remember CDs were almost $20 initially

I paid $24.95 + tax for my first CD from Precision Video. A cool store dug into this embankment off of Roselle Road, which later became Myoda Computers. A time when they were packaged in those lengthy plastic anti-theft plastic cage things.

 

8 hours ago, zzip said:

Still the wrong strategy was to get people to upgrade their games.   The right strategy would have been to have games that made the 5200 a compelling purchase.   It needed to find its Space Invaders.   The 2600 didn't get Space Invaders until 3 years into its life,  the 5200 didn't even survive 2 years, let alone 3!

I gave nary a thought to buying and re-buying a game I already had. I only started getting pissed after I got a number of 5200 games, because I had them on the 400/800, and they were the same. Yes. Somehow I'm still sour on that!

 

6 hours ago, christo930 said:

Lack of understanding? Perhaps.  Arrogance?  Definitely. (probably both).  They actually believed the game developer was no different than a guy operating a machine in the factory floor or a guy in the shipping dept. This was like thinking a musician was no different than the guy operating the machine that turns a hot puck of vinyl into a pressed record.

You can't really put a time schedule on creativity. Well you can, but then you end up with shit like 2600 Pac-Man and E.T. Marketing departments aren't the brightest brains in the barrel, then or now.

 

I would say it was ignorance and the notion that videogames could be commercialized like stapes in grocery stores. After all, they were selling them right alongside cereal boxes and in display cases right next to the checkout registers.

 

6 hours ago, christo930 said:

  Or believing the public would buy anything they put out no matter how bad it was.  How the hell did Atari even end up as part of Time Warner anyway?  Fisher Price never opened a movie studio.

There was a time that marketing departments and shitbox startups believed that the word "videogame" could sell anything. Hence the crap spinoffs. Hence the garbage games that diluted the industry. I kinda got flustered that this was happening. In combination with my completist mindset, these meaningless fluff games were a drag on my psyche. And soon I was just going through the motions.

 

1 hour ago, christo930 said:

I've often wondered this too.  I have a boxed 5200 and the box is comically large.  It probably doubled shipping costs.  And of course, the plastic and the molds are probably significantly more expensive to make. It was probably more than twice as expensive as building a system 1/2 the size. IOW, the cost might not go up linearly.

I confidently believe that the ridiculous size of the 5200 and its box were the result of marketing. They likely wanted to overshadow and outsize everything else. After all, it was the SuperSystem!

 

In reality it was a hindrance to me having to deal with such a hulk, aside from all its other faults and quirks.