Atari 400 Mini Interview w/ Atari's David Lowey Mentions a surprise coming before the release on the 28th....

[PowerDubs]

 

[THX-1138]

I noticed he mentioned something special coming before the 28th, any ideas?

 

[SuperZapperRecharge]

It'll be interesting what the announcement is related to the 400. Other games? USB paddle controllers? Not sure home many games on the 400/800 used paddles.

[THX-1138]

Looking at the product timeline that RGL published a while ago, I wonder if this is related to the "New Accessory" due to be launched Q3/2024?  (Circled in yellow)

[OscarGungan]

I thought I heard something about how plugging in a VCS classic controller would unlock something. It was in an Atari email and then edited out.

[Bill Lange]

On 3/17/2024 at 4:51 PM, THX-1138 said:

I noticed he mentioned something special coming before the 28th, any ideas?

 

 

Something like this would be nice.

 

[Spanner]

Will the Phase Two computers all use the Manhattan Carousel like on THEA500 Mini and THE400 Mini, THE400 Mini should have a `A` in its name so its `THEA400 Mini` because it uses the same carousel as THEA500 Mini so its a A computer not a C computer ..lol.

 

One problem... THE400 Mini is not a 16 bit but a 8 bit computer so no connection to THEA500 Mini so its a bit weird it uses THEA500 Mini carousel, RGL have used it because no one hack it, anything can be hacked its just if you can be bothered to do it thats all, and no one could be bothered to do it really because its pointless, you can side load games so the carousel becomes redundant in the end where you just side load games.
There should just add games the way you add them on the ARMIGA so you add games and your own png file for the game and that's it, there is no need for a carousel now not really if you can load your own, its just there to as a feature to sell the product and look pretty and it comes with games, if it came with no games would you buy it still...?.
and its not about how many games it comes with, it about if the games are any good thats important, Codemasters realised that when they made there `30 Games on CD Pack` for the C64/ZX Spectrum, most of the games were rubbish so why it never sold and was a flop and at the time it cost more to buy a CD player then a disk drive in 1989...

Did you know that `M.U.L.E` is on the very first `1st CD-Edition 10 Games on CD` that for the C64, it was made by Rainbow Arts, and EA the makers of `MULE`.
https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/1st_CD-Edition_(Collection)

Edited March 24 by Spanner

[Jetboot Jack]

Not sure I follow your train of thought regarding naming - 99.9% of those who buy these will have no knowledge or care what’s inside, so the naming you propose seems pointless…

 

sTeVE

 

P.S. EA did not make M.U.L.E. Ozark Softscape did, EA published it…

[Rob Merritt]

On 3/24/2024 at 10:02 AM, Spanner said:

Will the Phase Two computers all use the Manhattan Carousel like on THEA500 Mini and THE400 Mini, THE400 Mini should have a `A` in its name so its `THEA400 Mini` because it uses the same carousel as THEA500 Mini so its a A computer not a C computer ..lol.

 

One problem... THE400 Mini is not a 16 bit but a 8 bit computer so no connection to THEA500 Mini so its a bit weird it uses THEA500 Mini carousel, RGL have used it because no one hack it, anything can be hacked its just if you can be bothered to do it thats all, and no one could be bothered to do it really because its pointless, you can side load games so the carousel becomes redundant in the end where you just side load games.

The CPU in the 400 mini supposedly is an Allwinner H3. Its a quad core 32 bit cpu. At least as far as I can tell by looking it up on the internet.

[Spanner]

Yes thats its host system not its VRM(Virtual Retro Machine)...
And it uses THEC64 board in it too, well we all need to recycle..

[+jeremiahjt]

We still have a couple of days, but I think the surprise was probably the news of Atari 50 DLC coming later this year.

[Rob Merritt]

I think the surprise is the 2 secret games you get when you plug in the Atari VCS pc joystick. Since it can see it as a paddle, it unlocks breakout and castle defense / warlords.