WISHFUL THINKING: I was wondering - how many if you would've wanted a 5200 "in XEGS clothing"?

[BIGHMW]

20 years later STILL no Knight Rider for the 2600, I'll pass. The TV show's legacy carries more weight than this project and it aired twice as long ago.

[+x=usr(1536)]

But what about Knight Rider for the 5200?

 

It'll also need an A8 port.

[BIGHMW]

7 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

But what about Knight Rider for the 5200?

 

It'll also need an A8 port.

For a change I'm gonna join both you and @Stephen and give this one a 😄, much like the 2600 version this one will probably take, well, perhaps maybe TWICE AS LONG to come up with, and not because I would've requested it either. This one has (so far) taken 20 years and  a A8/5200 version may take 40, so I'm not holding my hopes up for this one.

[sirlynxalot]

Nothing can top the 5200 because it is big and sexy. 

 

No seriously, I think the got the styling totally right, it looks great.  Would be nice if it were like 3/4 the size, but these days the bigness kind of makes it cool, its a premium BIG machine, like a laser disc player! It looks like something I'd expect to see in the background of one of the 1980s Star Wars movies.  If you shrunk it and cut off the controller storage I guess it would look an awful lot like the 7800... another black wedge with a silver bezel.  The controller looks cool too, just would have been nice if the build quality was better, or if atari had gone for digital joysticks instead of analogue...

Edited May 28, 2023 by sirlynxalot

[BIGHMW]

4 hours ago, sirlynxalot said:

Nothing can top the 5200 because it is big and sexy. 

 

No seriously, I think the got the styling totally right, it looks great.  Would be nice if it were like 3/4 the size, but these days the bigness kind of makes it cool, its a premium BIG machine, like a laser disc player! It looks like something I'd expect to see in the background of one of the 1980s Star Wars movies.  If you shrunk it and cut off the controller storage I guess it would look an awful lot like the 7800... another black wedge with a silver bezel.  The controller looks cool too, just would have been nice if the build quality was better, or if atari had gone for digital joysticks instead of analogue...

Something like the CX24 digital stick the 7800 came with combined with the gold flex circuit keypad instead of the dual-pot x/y-based analog system, oh if Warner and Atari had only thought of that as a possible option for those who wanted one that would've boosted sales.

Edited May 28, 2023 by BIGHMW

[phuzaxeman]

On 5/25/2023 at 1:59 AM, CaptainBreakout said:

 

 

if the 5200 had come out with a similar console sleekness to the 7800, and a controller like an NES, pokey audio, plus lots of muticarts based on the Atari 800 games, I'd have been ALL IN.

Having owned the 7800 (87) and 5200 (82) during their release dates, hands down the 5200 was much sleeker than the 7800 in terms of looks.  Yeah it was big, but the shiny black was amazing to look at.  Still looks amazing.  

 

A controller like the nes?  The 5200 is the only atari console with analog controls. There were games like Realistic Baseball that used the keypad and analog controls that blew out the 7800 version years later.

 

Pokey audio? 5200 has that. Better sound than the 7800.

 

 

[BIGHMW]

On 5/28/2023 at 8:12 PM, phuzaxeman said:

Having owned the 7800 (87) and 5200 (82) during their release dates, hands down the 5200 was much sleeker than the 7800 in terms of looks.  Yeah it was big, but the shiny black was amazing to look at.  Still looks amazing.  

 

A controller like the nes?  The 5200 is the only atari console with analog controls. There were games like Realistic Baseball that used the keypad and analog controls that blew out the 7800 version years later.

 

Pokey audio? 5200 has that. Better sound than the 7800.

 

 

True dat to the POKEY audio on the 5200, but, over the most recent years programmers and even our own Fred Quimby @batari have incorporated POKEY-like technology (a.k.a. "HOKEY") in a chip, into some of the newer programs in either ROM or cartridge format like in the 7800 Concerto multicart, in which is optional. You can, for an extra charge, get a HOKEY chip installed in your Concerto so you CAN have POKEY sound along with the TIA sound that you currently get with the 7800. I did not know of such an option at the time I had my first Concerto (earlier pre-production/launch edition version, late 2020) but when I do get another one this June I will make sure to get one installed in it and pay the extra $$$ to get it.

[+DrVenkman]

10 hours ago, BIGHMW said:

True dat to the POKEY audio on the 5200, but, over the most recent years programmers and even our own Fred Quimby @batari have incorporated POKEY-like technology (a.k.a. "HOKEY") in a chip, into some of the newer programs in either ROM or cartridge format like in the 7800 Concerto multicart, in which is optional. You can, for an extra charge, get a HOKEY chip installed in your Concerto so you CAN have POKEY sound along with the TIA sound that you currently get with the 7800. I did not know of such an option at the time I had my first Concerto (earlier pre-production/launch edition version, late 2020) but when I do get another one this June I will make sure to get one installed in it and pay the extra $$$ to get it.

I hope you realize that just adding a POKEY or HOKEY to your Concerto won’t magically give you better quality audio for 7800 games … only two retail releases used POKEY audio (Ballblazer and Commando) and modern hacks and homebrews have to be specially programmed to expect the presence of a POKEY or HOKEY and take advantage of it. 

[+x=usr(1536)]

12 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

I hope you realize that just adding a POKEY or HOKEY to your Concerto won’t magically give you better quality audio for 7800 games … only two retail releases used POKEY audio (Ballblazer and Commando) and modern hacks and homebrews have to be specially programmed to expect the presence of a POKEY or HOKEY and take advantage of it. 

And we may as well tack the YM, BupChip, and any other potential sound generating device onto that list.

[ApolloBoy]

I thought the XEGS was the 5200 in XEGS clothing.

[pirx]

On 5/24/2023 at 3:59 PM, Stephen said:

Who is "we", and "us"?  That implies plural as in more than one person.  You (singular) are the only one constantly whining about wanting every single one of the multiple thousand computer titles ported to the 5200 for god only knows what reason.

as a (co)coder of 5200 conversion of Scorch I must say we (I and the rest of the team) were pretty underwhelmed by the 5200 community response / reaction. the conversion was very difficult, took ~1/2 yr. Unintended consequence is that the game runs on 48KiB Atari 800 which is maybe cool.

anyways, not much of a traffic in the 5200 thread. a general feeling of désintéressé. was it worth it? not sure about it.

[+Stephen]

38 minutes ago, pirx said:

as a (co)coder of 5200 conversion of Scorch I must say we (I and the rest of the team) were pretty underwhelmed by the 5200 community response / reaction. the conversion was very difficult, took ~1/2 yr. Unintended consequence is that the game runs on 48KiB Atari 800 which is maybe cool.

anyways, not much of a traffic in the 5200 thread. a general feeling of désintéressé. was it worth it? not sure about it.

That's because computer > game machine.  Therefore, all 400/800/XL/XE/XEGS derivitaves are > 5200 game machine.

[+x=usr(1536)]

On 6/5/2023 at 9:00 PM, pirx said:

as a (co)coder of 5200 conversion of Scorch I must say we (I and the rest of the team) were pretty underwhelmed by the 5200 community response / reaction. the conversion was very difficult, took ~1/2 yr. Unintended consequence is that the game runs on 48KiB Atari 800 which is maybe cool.

anyways, not much of a traffic in the 5200 thread. a general feeling of désintéressé. was it worth it? not sure about it.

That's the thing: the 5200 crowd is a smaller audience compared to the 2600, 7800, and A8.  That's not to say that it's not worth developing for, but if you look at all of the Atari-specific forums here, this one is the slowest (in terms of posting activity) other than perhaps Atari General.

 

One thing that I think has hurt 5200 development in general over the years is that it was, for the longest time, considered to be the 400's redheaded stepchild rather than a console in its own right.  Granted, that's not a totally undeserved or inaccurate perception of it, but it has meant that the machine was basically seen as just a POKEY, GTIA, and ANTIC donor for years.  That plus the baggage from its original production run left it somewhat unloved, I think, and people gravitated towards other machines.

 

FWIW, I really do appreciate that you released both 5200 and A8 versions, and the 5200 version is my go-to.  Nothing wrong with the A8 one, but it's one of the few 5200 games I prefer playing with the 5200's controller.

[leech]

I tend to think there could be a lot of benefit to getting some games ported over to the 5200 simply because you can have a lot more buttons for stuff.  For most of the games that you'd want to play with a controller, I don't think the 16kb of RAM is even as much of a limitation as one would think...

 

Ha, as the jokes were about the Atari Adapter with Fujinet, I think there is/was some talk for a Fujinet being added to the 5200?  I happen to be looking at Patents randomly today, and stumbled upon Atari's patent for Bank Switching Memory, thought it was kind of funny (long expired of course).

[+x=usr(1536)]

2 hours ago, leech said:

Ha, as the jokes were about the Atari Adapter with Fujinet, I think there is/was some talk for a Fujinet being added to the 5200?

In a general sense, the conversation that I've picked up on is that the 5200 is a FujiNet candidate - as are the 2600 and 7800.  There's no timeline or development effort being done in any of those directions, AFAIK, however.

[leech]

10 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

In a general sense, the conversation that I've picked up on is that the 5200 is a FujiNet candidate - as are the 2600 and 7800.  There's no timeline or development effort being done in any of those directions, AFAIK, however.

Yeah, I pop into the discord now and then.  The progress on it is nuts!  I have a few for the Atari line and one connected to an Adam (literally bought an Adam because of it).

[+DrVenkman]

11 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

In a general sense, the conversation that I've picked up on is that the 5200 is a FujiNet candidate - as are the 2600 and 7800.  There's no timeline or development effort being done in any of those directions, AFAIK, however.

Not really - or at least, not the “FujiNet” as we know and use it today. Consoles don’t generally “do” serial input and don’t have serial I/O ports. They need to have cartridge-based devices. Now, if you’re talking about a wifi-based cartridge that can load arbitrary roms from a central server on the LAN, that’s something distinct from what FujiNet does today for any of the computers it works with. @CPUWIZ teased something like that a couple years ago for the 7800 but I don’t think he took it past the prototype/proof-of-concept stage. 

 

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

2 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

Not really - or at least, not the “FujiNet” as we know and use it today.  Consoles don’t generally “do” serial input and don’t have serial I/O ports.

Which is true - there's no PIA on the 5200, so no SIO.  From what I understand, the concept that's been kicked around has been more to use the FujiNet hardware and TNFS as a method to run something akin to a networked AtariMax Ultimate SD Cartridge.  More:

4 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

Now, if you’re talking about a wifi-based cartridge that can load arbitrary roms from a central server on the LAN, that’s something distinct from what FujiNet does today for any of the computers it works with.

Pretty much, yep.  Realistically, there's no huge call for SIO support on the 5200 since it never had it to begin with, so being a networked multicart that's TNFS-capable would be fine for the 5200.  Or the 2600, 7800, or other non-SIO (or equivalent)-capable console.

 

Granted, that doesn't have to be a FujiNet, necessarily - but given that the conversations that had happened were in the context of the FujiNet, it was the one that got the mention.

[+x=usr(1536)]

1 hour ago, leech said:

Yeah, I pop into the discord now and then.  The progress on it is nuts!  I have a few for the Atari line and one connected to an Adam (literally bought an Adam because of it).

It's really good to see how it's making its way to different platforms.  Think I'm up to four of them here now (all Atari), and they really are a must-have peripheral these days.

[leech]

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

It's really good to see how it's making its way to different platforms.  Think I'm up to four of them here now (all Atari), and they really are a must-have peripheral these days.

Ha, I have 3 (one in each style) + one for the Adam.  I intend on getting one for my Apple IIGS and C64 at some point.

[+x=usr(1536)]

Since I've been kicking the horrible idea around in my head, I now feel compelled to blurt it out in a forum post.  Note that I am in no way suggesting that any of this should happen, or would be good features to have; I'm literally just brain-dumping the thought to get it out of my own mind.

 

FujiNet support for SIO devices on non-SIO Atari consoles.  Right.  For this case, we'll focus on the 5200, though much of this could also possibly apply to the 2600 and 7800 as well.

 

Since the FujiNet is a device capable of handling both USB power and data, it's not inconceivable that the USB port could be used in conjunction with something like an SIO2USB adapter to create an SIO chain accessible by the console.  This would involve SIO emulation on the FujiNet.  It could also potentially open the doors for commodity HID device connectivity such as USB keyboards and mice.

 

While this sounds neat on the surface, it also seems like a Really Dumb Idea after putting a bit of thought into it.  Reasons why:

1. Nothing on the consoles - software- or hardware-wise - was ever designed to take advantage of SIO peripherals.
2. Because of 1. above, the probability of someone writing software to take advantage of the potential capabilities are low.
3. Loading from disk or cassette (with notable exceptions such as the Starpath Supercharger) on these machines is pointless since SD cards most closely replicate cartridge operation.
4. With respect to the 5200, the hybrid format negates the need for mass storage other than an SD card.
5. The amount of FujiNet firmware work it would take to make this happen just isn't worth it because of the above.

I'm sure there's more that I could think of if I cared to put in the effort, but the FujiNet as a device to allow networked cartridge loading and transfer is probably more appropriate.

[leech]

7 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Pretty much, yep.  Realistically, there's no huge call for SIO support on the 5200 since it never had it to begin with, so being a networked multicart that's TNFS-capable would be fine for the 5200.  Or the 2600, 7800, or other non-SIO (or equivalent)-capable console.

Could have sworn I saw a post somewhere on here that specifically talked about adding an SIO port to the 5200's expansion bay, as it has the majority of what is needed already there.

[+x=usr(1536)]

21 hours ago, leech said:

Could have sworn I saw a post somewhere on here that specifically talked about adding an SIO port to the 5200's expansion bay, as it has the majority of what is needed already there.

That's the thing, though: even if a PIA and SIO port could somehow be attached the expansion port, there's still the issue of the OS not having SIO support to deal with.

 

WRT the OS part, none of the choices for how to address that are good.  Carving out the SIO code from OS B (probably the closest 10K OS ROM variant to the 5200's 2K OS ROM) and somehow grafting that onto the 5200's OS ROM may be the least-terrible option, but it's still not good and brings up a lot of where-to-put-it questions since it's almost certainly going to wind up over 2K in size.  At least by emulating SIO on an ESP32 (or ARM, or whatever) on the cartridge port, the device in the cartridge port could map software directly into the cartridge ROM space at $4000-$BFFF.  Random-access I/O to disks, cassettes, etc. may be a different issue, though.

 

A while back, @smbaker built a RasPi-powered multicart for the 5200.  I'm wondering if this with a Zero W and a TNFS client implementation may not make for a first step FujiNet-alike device for the 5200.

[BIGHMW]

What I'd like to see, since Curt Vendel is no longer with us is maybe for @smbaker to perhaps manufacture a prototype for a dual-OS (A8/XL/XE/5200) multicart/interface that would boost the overall RAM (much like Champ Games' ARM-based technology that John Champeau's 2600 games use @johnnywc) and would output to a 5200 console using its onboard OS to run games on it, although that might be impossible due to having to reconfigure the controls from digital to analog or vice versa if one were to make a dual-OS multicart/interface with an output to an A8/XL/XE/XEGS console. It's worth a somewhat go for those who don't want to have to get a bulky standalone PC to enjoy BOTH sets of games on one console. Two different units, each has its own ways to use one, one for 5200-compatible controllers (that also will work with all Masterplay and Redemption units as well for those who want to use them), or one for use with a PC keyboard and a conventional A8-style digital control or PC-style control. WIN-WIN!!!

 

Two models, one for the 5200, one for the 8-bit lineup. Every game. Both consoles. All winners. All smiles. Nobody ever gets shut out ever again.

 

.bin, .xex, .car, .rom, .cas, .atr, you name it. If any Atari 5200/A8/XL/XE game uses it, they should both be able to play it. Plain and simple.

[+MrFish]

On 6/5/2023 at 10:00 PM, pirx said:

as a (co)coder of 5200 conversion of Scorch I must say we (I and the rest of the team) were pretty underwhelmed by the 5200 community response / reaction. the conversion was very difficult, took ~1/2 yr. Unintended consequence is that the game runs on 48KiB Atari 800 which is maybe cool.

anyways, not much of a traffic in the 5200 thread. a general feeling of désintéressé. was it worth it? not sure about it.

I'll tell you what I've found out, after attending the 5200 and 8-bit forums for over 18 years now: generally speaking, people who attend the 5200 forums are highly unappreciative of almost any software development. If you take a look at almost any software posted, you'll see the downloads in the hundreds (often 300 - 400 downloads or more), yet paltry few likes and/or comments. I first started to notice this back when I was doing hacks for the 8-bits and following up by applying the hacks to the 5200 versions of the same games. I'd get hundreds of downloads and nearly no likes or comments. After having this happen for several different hacks -- which were quite well-liked by the 8-bit crowd -- I said screw it, and stopped applying the hacks for the 5200. It's not that I don't like seeing the 5200 system get some love, but it's as if 5200 forum participants in general have no interest in supporting any software efforts; and the thing is, it's generally freely done software. Most software efforts aren't done for money here; but crap... gratitude is in the toilet.