FireTiger Posted June 23, 2004 Share Posted June 23, 2004 I say we need to get a count and show them how intrested we are and our wish list for the system A) S audio/video B) a portable version Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HawgWyld Posted June 23, 2004 Share Posted June 23, 2004 I say we need to get a count and show them how intrested we are and our wish list for the system A) S audio/video B) a portable version Heck, that would be great. But, do you really think O'Shea wants to spend the cash to develop a portable 7800 with S video outputs? I'd imagine they want to put something together which is as inexpensive as possible, yet gets the job done. Frankly, I'd be happy with plain, old RCA outputs, but even developing those might be more than O'Shea is willing to spend (I know those are cheap, but going with straight RF is even cheaper). It's probably not going to happen, of course. However, a "clone" 7800 would be great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 Heck, that would be great. But, do you really think O'Shea wants to spend the cash to develop a portable 7800 with S video outputs? I'd imagine they want to put something together which is as inexpensive as possible, yet gets the job done. Frankly, I'd be happy with plain, old RCA outputs, but even developing those might be more than O'Shea is willing to spend (I know those are cheap, but going with straight RF is even cheaper). Actually RCA would be cheaper than RF nowadays. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mot Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 What about 2600 on a chip person? Would he be willing to do this if the price is right? And I don't think s-video would be a cost factor. I would buy one if I could play it on the go (protable). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atariman Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 I imagine it would probably be similar to the top-loader NES -- cheap, simple, and standard. I doubt they'd bother trying to add an S-Video connector to it. Even if it was a cheaply built unit, I'd shell out the money just for the sake of having one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Tomlin Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 In fact, I think a video/S-video output would be more likely these days, because 1) it's cheaper than building in an RF adapter, 2) it should be easier to get FCC approval without an RF adapter, and 3) most TVs in the past ten years have been built with at least a composite A/V input, so there isn't the issue there was back in 1984 when most TV sets only had an RF input, and even the F connector was relatively new. But none of this is going to happen without someone first doing the hard work of making a VHDL 7800. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap5750 Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 Aren't the games they have the same ones over and over? As in...all the ones we keep seeing on Ebay over and over and over and over...such as Joust, Kangaroo, Ms Pacman, etc...? Cap Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 The major issues are your can't reverse engineer technologies for profit as part of the Millenium Copyright Act, and Atari is actively enforcing the proprietary circuit design of the MARIA chip. So if O'Shea is going to move forward they are going to need to get license rights to the 7800 chipset or all the work they will pay for for will be for nothing. A portable version certainly would be nice (like a gameboy type device) but it would need to be the size of a Sega Nomad. The other thing is the BIOS, unless Oshea is going to rewrite the BIOS (ala Pheonix on a Personal Computer) they are going to run into copyright issues with use of the BIOS as well. Curt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Room 34 Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 If they actually want to unload their million-plus cartridge inventory, maybe they should bring the prices back down! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 I don't see any way this could be financially sound. People would clamor for more cartridges which would simply not exist. I suppose the idea would be to market as a five game console period, and how you could price it appropriately and still profit from it seems an impossibility. Maybe not for the 7800, but many new games for the 2600 exist and are sold right here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 The major issues are your can't reverse engineer technologies for profit as part of the Millenium Copyright Act, and Atari is actively enforcing the proprietary circuit design of the MARIA chip. Is this also the case with the TIA? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanBoris Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 The other thing is the BIOS, unless Oshea is going to rewrite the BIOS (ala Pheonix on a Personal Computer) they are going to run into copyright issues with use of the BIOS as well. The BIOS wouldn't be a big problem since it doesn't do a whole lot in the 7800. The main thing it does (besides the Atari logo) is the cartridge validation check which wouldn't be needed if this was a 7800 only system. Another IP issue would be the 6502. Western Design Center owns the rights to the 6502 intellectual property so if you wanted to clone it and sell it you would probably have to pay them royalties also. Dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Tomlin Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 The major issues are your can't reverse engineer technologies for profit as part of the Millenium Copyright Act, and Atari is actively enforcing the proprietary circuit design of the MARIA chip. Do you have any references for this? Besides, this isn't breaking the encryption to copy software, and you can't copyright hardware, just the actualy implementation (like a particular circuit layout). The patents on MARIA should have run out at least three years ago. And it would be possible to create a functional equivalent from the spec, since nobody relied on any "quirks" of it like they did with the TIA. That wouldn't be reverse-engineering, that would be creating something new from an existing specification. The other thing is the BIOS, unless Oshea is going to rewrite the BIOS (ala Pheonix on a Personal Computer) they are going to run into copyright issues with use of the BIOS as well. I've said many times that the "BIOS" (which isn't a BIOS at all, it's just a boot ROM) does nothing essential other than making the decision of whether a cart is a 2600 or a 7800 and starting up appropriately. I could write this in a day in under 256 bytes of code. It wouldn't even be necessary at all if if you didn't want 2600 compatibility. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveW Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 Is this too much to dream for? Maybe a 7800 built like a Sega Nomad, with a nice backlit LCD screen, that would play 7800 and 2600 games anywhere? With a good rechargable Lilon battery for extra long battery life, and small size? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyranthraxus Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 The major issues are your can't reverse engineer technologies for profit as part of the Millenium Copyright Act, and Atari is actively enforcing the proprietary circuit design of the MARIA chip. Greedy corporations! Everything should be in the public domain after 25 years. Honestly if you havn't figured out another way to make money after 25 years off of an invention then you deserve to go broke after everyone tries to cash in on your decades old gadegtry! But which Atari is enforcing the MARIA copyright? Williams or Info-Atari? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 Frankly, I'd be happy with plain, old RCA outputs, but even developing those might be more than O'Shea is willing to spend (I know those are cheap, but going with straight RF is even cheaper). I wonder if they have a choice? Pretty much all TV's now, even the sub-$100 color tvs have RCA inputs. The little "joystick with ten game" units all connect that way now too. Consumer's kind of expect it, not the old RF way. 20 years ago, TV's with RCA jacks existed but were much less "standard" than today. Where I wonder what O'Sheas would do about the joysticks. The 7800 has a unique 2-button setup that most of the "2 button sticks" that support the Atari port format don't match up to. To sell 200K new systems, you need to have joysticks to play the games. I'm pretty sure they don't have 200K odd prolines sitting around somewhere. I assume that if they made "new" 7800 systems, they'd go to a standard off-the-shelf power supply. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 But which Atari is enforcing the MARIA copyright? Williams or Info-Atari? It would be Infogrames-Atari. The rights to all the consoles and old titles went to them. Who knows, maybe they'd make MARIA public domain, like Hasboro did with the Jaguar when they owned the rights. Who knows, though? Different company altogether. Also, different system. The 7800 was less well-known that the Jaguar in the general public's eye, but also sold significantly more units than the Jaguar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trip_Cannon Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 So is anybody actually going to take on this task? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draikar Posted June 24, 2004 Share Posted June 24, 2004 I would love a portable version with a screen, I know its a dream but if it become real I hope they use good plastic and not that crap plastic you see with pirate stuff from Hong Kong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted June 25, 2004 Share Posted June 25, 2004 But which Atari is enforcing the MARIA copyright? Williams or Info-Atari? It would be Infogrames-Atari. The rights to all the consoles and old titles went to them. Who knows, maybe they'd make MARIA public domain, like Hasboro did with the Jaguar when they owned the rights. Who knows, though? Different company altogether. Also, different system. The 7800 was less well-known that the Jaguar in the general public's eye, but also sold significantly more units than the Jaguar. I have 132 pages of 11 X 17 printouts of the whole MARIA (Rev D) chip and I've asked Atari, the answer is a firm NO on putting it into PD. Curt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregory DG Posted June 25, 2004 Share Posted June 25, 2004 I have 132 pages of 11 X 17 printouts of the whole MARIA (Rev D) chip and I've asked Atari, the answer is a firm NO on putting it into PD. That doesn't make much sense to me. Why be so protective of 20 year old technology, but not 10 year old tech (Jaguar)? Unless they have plans to release a Jakks 7800 Joystick in the future... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sku_u Posted June 25, 2004 Share Posted June 25, 2004 The major issues are your can't reverse engineer technologies for profit as part of the Millenium Copyright Act, and Atari is actively enforcing the proprietary circuit design of the MARIA chip. Greedy corporations! Everything should be in the public domain after 25 years. Honestly if you havn't figured out another way to make money after 25 years off of an invention then you deserve to go broke after everyone tries to cash in on your decades old gadegtry! But which Atari is enforcing the MARIA copyright? Williams or Info-Atari? Infogrames paid a sizeable amount of money for the Atari names and copyrights. I don't think it's greedy at all. If O'Sheas gets the okay on this and puts together a 7800 with S-Video I'd be all over this, as would a good portion of the classic gaming community, but 200,000??? I don't think so. There isn't enough of a market to support the reissue of any classic gaming console in that kind of volume. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveW Posted June 25, 2004 Share Posted June 25, 2004 I don't see why it's so strange that they want to reproduce the 7800. It plays 2600 games, after all, so they can get into the retro market for people wanting to replace an old 2600 console. O'Shea could put them into stores like Hot Topic or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Tomlin Posted June 25, 2004 Share Posted June 25, 2004 I have 132 pages of 11 X 17 printouts of the whole MARIA (Rev D) chip and I've asked Atari, the answer is a firm NO on putting it into PD. Okay, that's fine, they can do that, they own the copyrights on it. It still doesn't prevent someone from making a compatible chip (or compatible VHDL logic), just from the programming specs and already released 7800 schematic, since the patents most definitely HAVE run out. (17 years ago would be 1987.) A project of this magnitude is enough work that having the original diagrams probably wouldn't help all that much. And unlike the TIA, there aren't mysterious wierd side-effects of abusing the chip. Certainly not ones that have been used by any existing software. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godzilla Posted June 26, 2004 Share Posted June 26, 2004 Id happily buy a few, no matter what, but especially if they had svid. and keeping 100% 2600/7800 compat would be a must, imho. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.