AtariAge + Atari Q&A

[Tickled_Pink]

14 hours ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

The spirit of Atari was always the games, and the home computers were an afterthought who clearly couldn’t compete once IBM and Apple entered the market.

That's not even close to being true. The original PCs cost thousands, even in the early 90s, until OEMs got on board and sold components, driving the cost down. Apple continued to be niche products, normally restricted to DTP workloads.

 

Atari and Commodore's problems were primarily the decision-making in how to meet this threat. Development of new backward-compatible systems was slow and lacklustre. It was ultimately those OEMs that changed the scene and moved everyone to PCs. Until that happened, there was no threat from either Apple or IBM, who were dealing in entirely different sectors. But then, even IBM couldn't compete with people building their own systems and the likes of Amstrad producing the first semi-affordable pre-builds (about the price of the original ST but a couple of years later) with GEM built in. I know because I was there ... at the beginning (cue dramatic movie music). I was working my first job as a software development trainee at a small local business software company with just the boss and one employee. Originally, we were working on Tandon XT and AT machines. Heavy things with full thick steel chassis. Then one day the boss introduces us to the company's first Amstrad PC - think it might have been the 1640 rather than the 1512 and me and my co-worker just looked at each other thinking "what the hell is this cheap piece of plastic crap?" It did its job, although the keyboard was nowhere near the quality of the Tandons.

But here's the other thing. That small business I worked at in '86 is still going because it adapted to changes and has long ago moved from the old village post office to a larger building in an office park. Companies like Atari didn't adapt to changes. That was the problem.

[Lostdragon]

On 9/8/2023 at 7:24 PM, TrogdarRobusto said:

100% you will see Atari ST projects down the road. What they are specifically, I cannot say. But there is so much good content from that era it would be a crime not to share it more broadly. This is an area where I think we are all aligned. 

This is an area you have me very intrigued by. 

 

When you talk of "so much good content" from the ST era, you leave me scratching my head somewhat. 

 

 

I was a 529STFM owner at the time and one thing the ST really lacked, was enough Killer-App exclusives, in terms of it's games library. 

 

You see it today, when YT creators etc attempt to compile a list of must have, ST exclusives. 

 

 

Medicore titles like Star Raiders, which wasn't a patch on the A8 version, White Water Madness (a Toobin' clone) get thrown in with shareware clones of titles popular on other systems such as:

 

Creepy (an Atic Attack clone) 

Alien Thing (an Alien Breed cline). 

 

Even the late commercial titles, like Substation (a Doom clone), Rock 'n' Roll Clams (a Bubble Bobble clone), Intruder (by Beyond Good And Evil and Rayman creator, Michel Ancel. A very generic and dull shooter). 

 

Even things like Zero 5 which is a different title to the Jaguar one, don't scream brand recognition. 

 

You say it'd be a crime not to share good ST era content more widely, but I am honestly struggling to think of any ST era exclusive that holds up well today and would have people scrambling to get hold of. 

 

There have been enough voices out there belittling ST ports to the Jaguar (without having any real concept of the work involved to make them happen 🙄), I just struggle to see the widespread commercial appeal of something such as a Min ST which came with some ST exclusives on it. 

 

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

13 hours ago, duzkiss said:

Anyway, take pride...Stella is on a system from a brand name.  That's a huge win! 

What kind of "huge win"? Ego boost or what? Because of a brand name used? 

 

Personally I am way more proud about all the numerous "normal" people who decide to use Stella.

[Flojomojo]

On 9/8/2023 at 3:03 PM, youxia said:

Seriously? Do you really believe that a corporate sponsorship - or shall we say ownership - makes no difference in such situations?  Do you really think that a harsh critique of Atari products, such as the Taco Thread, would be even remotely possible?  Tbh this is just an extreme example, off top of my head, because I'm a little bit shocked - I only learned about it right now, as I don't frequent this site as often as before, and when I saw a thread about it yesterday I really thought it's a joke. So I didn't really have time to think about thoroughly, but I'm pretty sure there will be plenty of other downsides (haven't there already been roms/creators withdrawn?)

 

I'm sorry, I did read Albert's statement on the matter and while it is full of reassurances - and its author is a respectable and believable person - I've been around for too long to not know that in the long run this will not turn out well. It's a pity, because AA is (was?) the biggest and best still existing independent forum dedicated to old computers and consoles. This is why I ended up being a poster here, not because I'm a nostalgic Atari fan.

 

I simply cannot fathom how it being taken over by a corporate operator, especially one of such terrible pedigree, doesn't ring more alarm bells in people.

Everything you said might come true, but I’m not going to get emotional about it if it does. Everything changes, everything dies. Atari itself has gone bankrupt and risen in a different/lesser form multiple times. People I consider friends in this forum have moved on or passed away. For a period of years this very site harbored and enabled a lying narcissist who wanted only to boost his ego and sell preorders for an Android TV console. Last night the admin of this site resorted to desperately emailing everyone on a Saturday night with instructions on how to defeat warnings about SSL certificates and to assure them the outage was unrelated to the recent buyout. If the site goes away, it’s a shame for game preservation, but as a source of entertainment we have plenty of other options. Albert heavily implied he was getting burned out on running the show alone and this seemed like the best possible solution. I believe him when he says he wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t believe in the partnership. You don’t have to trust him yourself but I don’t see how fretting about it would make anything better. 

[BIGHMW]

3 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

The 5200 was a sales disaster with a struggle bus controller that would be prohibitively expensive to recreate, literally four exclusive games, and simply no compelling reason to own one. At least half the library consists of arcade ports from a plethora of other companies that Atari would need to negotiate expensive new contracts to revive. It is simply not commercially viable to revive it. There is no more nostalgia for it in the mass market than there is for the Tiger R-Zone.
 

I don’t know if there is a market for 8 bit computer stuff but none of the other Atari video game systems is commercially viable. The notoriety and the mystery of the Jaguar probably make it #2. The Lynx is one of my favorite systems ever but I notice that in the Evercade community a good 1/3 won’t even give the best games on the system a chance.

 

The reason Atari keeps hammering the 2600 is that it’s the only thing the mass of consumers remembers and buys. Other systems, save for maybe the Atari 8 bits, are viable at the scale of the AtariAge store, sure, but not at the scale of mass factory production or sale in major retailers.

Where else are you going to find and/or play an official version of Keith Hayenga'a brilliant Tempest??? I tried to lobby to get and A8 conversion done for her because of all the anti-5200 sentiment and nobody would do it, not even Homesoft, the guy who is famous for making straight-up 5200-to-A8 conversions like he has done for years. 

 

There are also a dozen or so other titles that are either exclusive to the 5200 or are improved from their original A8 counterparts that have yet to be back-converted, that list, is right here on these two posts:

 

 

 

[MrBeefy]

19 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

Everything you said might come true, but I’m not going to get emotional about it if it does. Everything changes, everything dies. Atari itself has gone bankrupt and risen in a different/lesser form multiple times. People I consider friends in this forum have moved on or passed away. For a period of years this very site harbored and enabled a lying narcissist who wanted only to boost his ego and sell preorders for an Android TV console. Last night the admin of this site resorted to desperately emailing everyone on a Saturday night with instructions on how to defeat warnings about SSL certificates and to assure them the outage was unrelated to the recent buyout. If the site goes away, it’s a shame for game preservation, but as a source of entertainment we have plenty of other options. Albert heavily implied he was getting burned out on running the show alone and this seemed like the best possible solution. I believe him when he says he wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t believe in the partnership. You don’t have to trust him yourself but I don’t see how fretting about it would make anything better. 

AtariAge was/is going to change at some point. That's just the way things are. Al isn't an immortal robot so there was always an endpoint for a change somehow. Even if the site was handed over to another enthusiast there is no guarantee that it would be the same or wouldn't change.

 

People are scared of change and that is even less surprising considering this is a forum mainly focused around games from the 70s and 80s 

[hizzy]

Stella on the 2600+ is a bit an issue for me. It's Atari. Why are they selling a device with freeware/shareware? In my local classifieds, there are people selling Raspberry Pi's with emulators installed. These are just random enthusiasts, not a company. Atari is a big company doing the same thing as these craigslist sellers. With their experience and resources, could they not have made their own software? There are some freeware programs that are better than premier pro by Adobe but Adobe never sells them. I'm not sure what Atari is thinking with this. Just because sketchy Hyperkin did this doesn't make it right. I'm not even asking for FPGA or whatever. Don't just take some fan made software and make that into the engine of for your console. It's a very bizarre move.

Edited September 10, 2023 by hizzy

[marakatti]

On 9/8/2023 at 9:19 PM, Mercenary said:

Revive Machines currently has an Atari 800XL revived system in the works.

https://revive-machines.com/index-en.html

Will Atari now push systems other than the 2600? Such as the Atari 8-bit systems (the XL and XE in particular, perhaps with something like what Revive Machines is doing), the Atari ST, and the Atari Lynx? There hasn't been much acknowledgement of those from Atari (they were mentioned on Atari 50, but not much), despite being a huge part of its legacy. 

The Atari 8-bit line was the most impressive of the 8-bit systems overall, the ST was a very well received and supported 16 bit machine, and the Atari Lynx was truly impressive, innovative, and ahead of its time. 

I'd really like to see these legacy systems get more love from Atari. They certainly have their fanbases. 

Very important post!

 

I have to say I was extremely disappointed that for example the ST was basically left out completely from Atari 50. There are tons of fascinating stories and well researched history, just please talk to Karl Morris from https://zafinnbooks.com/

 

I'm a huge Atari fan and an ST user from 1990 onwards to this very date. I also use the VCS800 to preserve Atari ST series history and to do my research. I even use my old Mega STe to write articles still in 2023! So I really love Atari as whole, not only the 'old' ST series. As most of us I've lived through the painful Atari years, had high hopes for the new succesful era time after time again, but never lost the faith to this brand, even when it was "uncool" to use Atari.

 

BUT... as much as I think the current team at Atari is really the best since Tramiels left the scene in 1996, sadly I don't see Atari paying much respect to the fact that without Atari ST's commercial success in Europe there would have not been Atari Lynx or Jaguar at all. Atari's story would have very likely finished there in 1984. For that reason I think there is a really big black spot in Atari 50 compilation history because of this, even if otherwise it's an extremely polished product, and I've enjoyed it a lot on my VCS800. 

 

Other than that the 'new' Atari is pretty much all I've been hoping Atari to be. It's just amazing to be able to use a real Atari computer still in 2023 for modern tasks and enjoying nostalgia ❤

 

I just wish there could be more recognition for 8bit and 16bit computer lines in Atari's future plans. Atari ST's success was very critical for Atari's name to be alive today.

Please Atari, don't forget it 😊

[42bs]

59 minutes ago, Tickled_Pink said:

Companies like Atari didn't adapt to changes. That was the problem.

And made a lot of bad marketing decisions!

[42bs]

22 minutes ago, hizzy said:

Why are they selling a device with freeware/shareware?

A bunch of commercial products use OpenSource software these days. That is not a bad thing. The added benefit makes the difference. Does 2600+ do a better job then a RetroPi? If so, well it is worth it. The not invented here attitude does work if you have a lot of money and a lot of coders. If not, stick with what you are good at and leave the rest to others. 

Edited September 10, 2023 by 42bs

[Zoyous]

41 minutes ago, hizzy said:

Stella on the 2600+ is a bit an issue for me... With their experience and resources, could they not have made their own software?

Then people on here would be savaging the proprietary emulator they came up with and pointing out all the ways that Stella is better and saying that they should have just used Stella instead.

[DirtyHairy]

25 minutes ago, hizzy said:

Stella on the 2600+ is a bit an issue for me. It's Atari. Why are they selling a device with freeware/shareware? In my local classifieds, there are people selling Raspberry Pi's with emulators installed. These are just random enthusiasts, not a company. Atari is a big company doing the same thing as these craigslist sellers. With their experience and resources, could they not have made their own software? There are some freeware programs that are better than premier pro by Adobe but Adobe never sells them. I'm not sure what Atari is thinking with this. Just because sketchy Hyperkin did this doesn't make it right. I'm not even asking for FPGA or whatever. Don't just take some fan made software and make that into the engine of for your console. It's a very bizarre move.

It is safe to say that Stella is one of the most accurate VCS emulators out there --- to my knowledge, Gopher2600 ans 6502.ts are the only other emulators that have the same level of accuracy. Stella and 6502.ts have soaked up countless hours of my work, and the level of quality of my work there is not different from the one I apply to professional work --- I am a professional software engineer. The only difference is that I am doing this work as a hobby in spare time, and that I give the result to the community for free. If I alone were to bill the hours invested into Stella alone as freelance work, that'd be easily a high 5-digit number, probably more, and I am just a contributor to the current core. The same goes for the other members of the Stella team (and in particular Stephen wo has invested much, much more over decades of maintenance), and for all other developers of high-quality open source software. Developing a similar emulator with the same level of quality from scratch would easily cost Atari several 100k, which would reduce the potential revenue of the project.

 

That's the reason 😏

 

[bloodreptile]

On 9/9/2023 at 12:56 AM, jgkspsx said:

That was the previous CEO and a very different company. The current company are the people who are publishing awesome new Jeff Minter games on every platform imaginable and he seems pretty excited about working with them.

Is it the same company that produced Asteroids outpost online? You may think it is a different company but have they offered refunds to the people who bought Asteroids Outpost online? I bet the answer is no. 

 

Or refunds for their nu VCS which was basically a Chromebook?  I hear it still does not work properly out of the box, and that you have to download the updates yourself.  You must admit that is pretty low for any organisation to sell substandard goods as if they were top-shelf items.

 

Haunted house cryptic graves?

 

Okay, this is the new company that put out the pretty substandard Recharged series.  Oh if you play Arcade Paradise they have a wonderful variation on Missile Command called Communists from Mars, If Missile Command Recharged was as good as that, I would have nothing to say but it is another of their mobile games masquerading as an update.

 

I could carry on showing the fallacy of your discussion but I will draw to a close.

 

 

[TrogdarRobusto]

14 hours ago, stirrell said:

I also am skeptical about the 2600+ compatibility list. I just can't believe that Atari had access to a Custer's Revenge cart to test but not Popeye or Pitfall II. I want to believe that Atari is being straight with the carts they have tested but there are some carts that it is surprising they could not get a hold of.
 

As I understand it they are methodically testing games, one by one. Why they are testing some titles and not others, I admit I have no idea. The testing is ongoing so ... ideally we work through them all. But there are what, 500+ ....gonna take a while.

[christo930]

4 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

Attention should be shifted immediately to reviving other Atari hardware.  The relentless focus on the 2600 has become absurd at this point.  5200, XL, XE, ST, etc... there's so much that has been ignored.

The 2600 is the only classic (old) property Atari owns worth more than fifty cents.  The ST maybe has some value outside of the US, but they didn't release the games and so they don't own the games and would have to license them..  The 5200, Jaguar and 8 bit lines, nobody cares.  The 8 bit line has the same problem the ST has in that most (by most, I mean like 99%) of the games were not released by Atari.  None of them are as iconic and well known as the 2600.

[TrogdarRobusto]

10 hours ago, Trebor said:

@TrogdarRobusto The following 7800 games have received a "P" respecting compatibility with 2600+:

These are all really solid questions and I will find out next week as much as I can abut 7800 compatibility and controller requirements. All may know more as well, we will dig.

[number6]

On 9/8/2023 at 11:06 AM, Flojomojo said:

There seem to be about a half dozen threads like this, each in a different section of the forum. Albert already explained himself in the big thread, where there are almost 500 responses last I looked. 

 

Of all of them — and for some perverse reason, I’ve read them all — this is the most “downer” of all of them, and seems to represent about 10% of the people talking. 

 

Why worry about the loss of community before it happens? Wouldn’t you rather contribute to making the site what you want it to be, leading by example? The people are the same, so what difference does corporate sponsorship make?

Interesting parallel from another company discussed here (who also became involved with IE over trademark issues)

 

Amiga had long standing owners at both Amigaworld.net and Amiga.org.

Both sold their websites to an entity believed to be of a similar corporate nature.

 

Result? The websites did not change much despite similar concerns being raised.

And as both the Atari rep and Albert have mentioned, the point in the change of the AtariAge website was also in strengthening IP.

 

Concerning this strengthening of IP regarding the above Amiga example:

Please note the logo obtained shown in all the diagrams

 

The facts:

Amiga.org owns neither the checkmark, the "A", nor the checkered ball (boingball) shown.

Yet they can picture them as if they do, because the "combined" logo (Commodore approved) predates the arguments and lawsuits over the 3 pieces used "individually".

 

The point:

Until you know the details on everything acquired during the Atari/AtariAge acquisition and how items can be used, you'll really just be guessing about the full scope of the motivation. Nothing sinister. Just sayin'...

 

#6

[TrogdarRobusto]

1 minute ago, christo930 said:

The 2600 is the only classic (old) property Atari owns worth more than fifty cents.  The ST maybe has some value outside of the US, but they didn't release the games and so they don't own the games and would have to license them..  The 5200, Jaguar and 8 bit lines, nobody cares.  The 8 bit line has the same problem the ST has in that most (by most, I mean like 99%) of the games were not released by Atari.  None of them are as iconic and well known as the 2600.

The 2600 games may be the most iconic / well-known. That is probably true. The 2600 was in market for so long that there are way more games tied to the platform. A lot of those other platforms had a shorter lifespan. Plus there were fewer developers in the early years. The explosion of the game development industry was a good thing, and yes, that means Atari doesn't own/have rights to as high a percentage of later platform games. But we do own or have access to a good amount of titles across ST and Lynx, even Jaguar. 

And don't forget we own a lot of PC titles from the 90s and 00s, and a lot of early handheld era games that have value. A lot of work ahead of us bringing titles back into circulation. 

[christo930]

3 hours ago, Crazy Climber said:

. I mean, Nintendo sold numerous versions of the DS and game and watch handhelds without even including an AC adapter, they just assumed you already had one

They didn't assume you had a 35 year old power supply.

 

3 hours ago, Crazy Climber said:

If original 7800 controllers work it doesn't seem like a big deal to me

I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be a mass market product.

If this were a low volume product aimed at the retro market from Atariage, i would agree with you.  If it were aimed at us, the pack-in games are a poor choice, IMHO.

[SIO2]

1 hour ago, hizzy said:

Stella on the 2600+ is a bit an issue for me. ... [Atari] With their experience and resources, could they not have made their own software?

The amount of work done on Stella is incredible and the emulator is a miracle in my opinion.  Why would anyone start all that over again?

[DirtyHairy]

3 minutes ago, SIO2 said:

The amount of work done on Stella is incredible and the emulator is a miracle in my opinion.  Why would anyone start all that over again?

Amen 😏 The only more even more reasonable alternative imo would be (not financially, but morally, if they indeed cared about the community as they claim): use Stella, give proper credits to it and provide financial appreciation of the effort that was invested into building it by making a donation to the project.

[TrogdarRobusto]

4 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

 

It is going to be interesting. I'd agree that the 2600 has the most nostalgic appeal and it was the most logical platform to revive. But retro gaming overall is a solid market right now. There are so many good games that were sort of lost as the console wars heated up and new and more powerful became much more important than backwards compatibility. Older games will continue to come back into circulation. Some will be ported to PC and modern console. Some will be rereleased in their original physical form. And I expect you will see more retro hardware that accepts original media coming to market as well. Commercial viability will always be an issue for more obscure platforms, but it you are realistic about the size of the market and can right size your development and distribution costs ... I mean we all want to get our hands on new versions of these classic legacy platforms for Atari and other brands. 

Unfortunately some games are owned by very big players who are unlikely to want to revisit them because they are always chasing much higher-dollar opportunities. The rerelease of some classic games on the first party platforms subscription services is cool, but I doubt they will go very deep into their catalog. So unless they license their tier 2 and tier 3 titles out to someone else to commercialize I think a lot of games are just not going to see the ight of day. Let's hope I am wrong.

[marakatti]

1 hour ago, Lostdragon said:

This is an area you have me very intrigued by. 

 

When you talk of "so much good content" from the ST era, you leave me scratching my head somewhat. 

 

 

I was a 529STFM owner at the time and one thing the ST really lacked, was enough Killer-App exclusives, in terms of it's games library. 

 

You see it today, when YT creators etc attempt to compile a list of must have, ST exclusives. 

 

 

Medicore titles like Star Raiders, which wasn't a patch on the A8 version, White Water Madness (a Toobin' clone) get thrown in with shareware clones of titles popular on other systems such as:

 

Creepy (an Atic Attack clone) 

Alien Thing (an Alien Breed cline). 

 

Even the late commercial titles, like Substation (a Doom clone), Rock 'n' Roll Clams (a Bubble Bobble clone), Intruder (by Beyond Good And Evil and Rayman creator, Michel Ancel. A very generic and dull shooter). 

 

Even things like Zero 5 which is a different title to the Jaguar one, don't scream brand recognition. 

 

You say it'd be a crime not to share good ST era content more widely, but I am honestly struggling to think of any ST era exclusive that holds up well today and would have people scrambling to get hold of. 

 

There have been enough voices out there belittling ST ports to the Jaguar (without having any real concept of the work involved to make them happen 🙄), I just struggle to see the widespread commercial appeal of something such as a Min ST which came with some ST exclusives on it. 

 

 

Why it has to be exclusives? I don't think that mattered so much back then. There were dozens of systems out there and most games were converted to whatever sold. The whole exclusives thing started when consoles appeared again in the NES era.

 

Isn't it enough that the ST was practically a lead platform for many 16bit games in 87, 88 and even to some extend in 89? Or that some of the biggest software housesused it as a development system to produce games for other platforms also.

 

People tend to forget that many 16bit computer games in those years were first in shops for the ST. By the time other versions were out, ST players had already completed the game in question. It usually took 2 to 3 months for example European Amiga versions to reach shops. Sometimes even 6 months, or over a year.

 

So while there were not many exclusives outside shreware/freeware market, many of today's 'Amiga classics' were actually born on the ST originally.

 

The beauty of ST was that it really is one of a few computers in it's price range where for a few years you could play the latest games first and use the same computer to earn money running your business as a cheap but at the time powerful Mac-like hires system.

[+jgkspsx]

3 hours ago, GaryH917 said:

I see Atari hired a few comedians too 🙂

Look, man, I get it. If you have a personal affinity for a flop system you want other people to want it too. I would love a 32X revival or a Tiger game.com, but I’m not getting one.
 

The 5200 sold less than 1/3 what the Nokia N-Gage did, less than half of what the 3DO and Odyssey^2 did, less than the infamous CD-i sold, less than the tragically and fatally delayed 7800 sold. And, most importantly, 3.33% of what the Atari 2600 sold. It was a disaster.

 

And I should say I was very happy that the 5200 was included in recent Atari emulation collections. That’s more than Sega does for its historical systems, every one of which besides the 32X was a massive success compared to the 5200.

 

Hell, if they make a 5200 mini I will buy one. I am sitting on a near-complete collection with a blown out controller port management IC that I haven’t gotten around to fixing yet, and I would like to get the room that the 5200 currently occupies back for other things  

[TrogdarRobusto]

10 minutes ago, christo930 said:

I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be a mass market product.

If this were a low volume product aimed at the retro market from Atariage, i would agree with you.  If it were aimed at us, the pack-in games are a poor choice, IMHO.

It is kind of a tweener I suppose. It IS meant as a mass market product, but even within that market it is still a bit of a niche product. You are not going to see the 2600+ chasing the PS5 in unit sales (I mean, it would be nice). But it is also meant to appeal to core enthusiasts. That is why you have the attention to detail on the build, the resistance on the toggles, the effort put into the rubber gasket and red elastolin on the joystick, etc. The controller cross compatibility with the original hardware. The cart slot is a little wider because we know that a lot of third-party carts can stick because they wre made a little too big.

The people working at Atari are the audience for this product, to be honest. I think in many ways we made what we wanted AND what we thought would do well in the marketplace.  A lot of us have an OG 2600, but we wanted something we could easily plug into a modern monitor using HDMI. Just like I have two beautiful B&O turntables, but I bought a Rega Planar 1 to listen to records. The B&O's are amazing, but keeping them going is a lot of work. If you were to draw a circle around retro enthusiasts it would overlap with mass market ... retro gaming has gotten that big. I think it is very analogous to the revival of vinyl in music.