Atari's Biggest Mistake

[Joey Kay]

Atari blew it in the transition from the 2600 to the 5200, period. They confused and annoyed their core base of customers, who then turned to the Colecovision and C64s for their gaming. There were multiple mistakes in this transition, primarily the repetition of 2600 titles (notice that every company ever since has issued a completely new slate of launch titles for their new systems?) and the stupid decision to promote two systems equally at the same time. They set the blueprint for how not to launch a system upgrade.

 

That is a very good point. Atari screwed the 5200 release royally.

 

It wouldn't have done much good. By the time the Tramiels decided to dust off the 7800, superior technology already existed. Moreover, at the time that the 7800 would have enjoyed its peak, The NES and SMS were already about to be trumped by the Genesis and SNES, which would have doomed the 7800 anyway.

 

There was an interesting debate on the 7800 forum regarding this. For those who have not read it:

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.p...der=asc&start=0

 

Cheers!

 

Joey

[Feralstorm]

Ahem. Don't forget that the Amiga was supposed to be an Atari product originally.

 

That was Jack's fault. He screwed Amiga over' date=' so they took the Lorraine to Commodore, who were more than happy to oblige. A twisted bit of irony if you ask me, given the timing and Jack's origins.[/quote']

 

My limited understanding of early Amiga history:

 

"Father of the Amiga", Atari hardware enginner Jay Miner, starts campaigniing his bosses to build a new system around the Motorola 68000 CPU. Bosses were not interested, saying such a machine would be too expensive.

 

Miner and others leave Atari and found "Hi-Toro" with the help of some dentist venture-capitalists

 

They change names to "Amiga", since people were asking them about lawnmower products. They make various Atari accessories (the most famous being the Joyboard) to try to fund their new hardware project.

 

It's not enough, and they get a loan from Atari at some point.

 

Amiga makes a big showing of it's new hardware (custom chips in the form of hand-wired bread boards) at CES, but are nearly out of money at this point.

 

Amiga offers Atari a chance to buy out their stock, but Atari never offers enough for Amiga to survive, and keeps lowering the bid, expecting to swoop in and mine the company for technology once Amiga defaults on its loan.

 

Commodore, fat with Commodore 64 money, swoops in and buys out Amiga for more than they asked from Atari, loans are paid off, and the Amiga eventually became a reality.

 

Commodore made a bunch of bonehead decisions and died out in 1994.

[NovaXpress]

Lynx, indeed . . . If it had Tetris and the GB didn't, we'd be saying "Game What? Oh, that black-and-white thing."

Nope. The Lynx was clearly superior to the GB in every way, but lost because of price and availability. Tetris wouldn't have changed a thing.

 

Nintendo used the popularity of the NES to make the Gameboy release a press event. You could get it in every store. Meanwhile, the Lynx got no press attention outside of game magazines, was available in only a fraction of stores that sold GB, and cost more. It also carried a brand name which had no credibility at the time, as opposed to the beloved Nintendo name. The Lynx was doomed from the start to be the #3 handheld of its day (the Game Gear was a much better seller).

 

Atari's name was shit after the crash. The 7800 and 2600 releases in the late 80s were pathetic and pointless. They even made the same old mistake of launching the 7800 with more old games.

 

The 5200 launch was the disaster that killed the company. If they'd done it successfully, there wouldn't have been a crash and Warner never would have sold out to Tramiel. The 2600 was already obsolete when PacMan and ET hit the market (and I still say that Swordquest was more damaging to Atari's rep than either of those other two). Remember, many gamers didn't give a damn about ET because they were busy with their new Colecovisions.

[a_gurno]

I've always held that Atari really pooched it when they just quit trying with sports games.

 

Sports games really move consoles. Atari's last good sports game was RSFootball. After that, they really didn't try. 7800? Ninja golf? Please. Jag? Nope.

[Stella'sGhost]

I'm not an xpert in Atari's history, but I know enough to realize that Atari's biggest misake is hard to pinpoint because they have so many. It all started off good but Atari tried to milk the 2600 for all its worth to maximize profits. By the time the NES came out, Atari had nothing to compete with it, the 7800 would have been direct competition. Having said that there were so many bad games for the system that it discouraged buyers and forced them to look at other systems like Nintendo and later Sega. Atari kept rehashing their old tired titles for every new system, the 5200, the 7800, the 800 XL and XE's... no new really good games, just a few, and those came from 3rd party developers.

 

Alot of money hungry visionless boneheads were managing Atari to the ground while a sleeping giant was looming on the horizon, yes, Nintendo. Nintendo was and is brilliantly run and managed even decades before the Famicom was released, but especially after the NES was released. Everything Atari did wrong, Nintendo did right. It's too bad too, one of the pioneering video game companys is dust in the wind today....even Apple survived bad management decisions and bounced back but Atari never did, it's as if they were always years behind.

 

Case in point: 1987 the XEGS comes out. It's based on technology that was already 10 years old. It comes with Missle Command built in and Bug Hunt. WOO HOO!!! BUG HUNT!! man o man, how exciting!! BUG HUNT???? sure its kind of cool to shoot things at the screen, but by 1987 both Missle Command and Bug Hunt seemed like dinosaurs from a bygone era.

 

Sure we all love Missle Command, but by '87 we wanted something NEW, not an atari 800 in a new case. By '87 the world was already looking ahead to 16 and 32 bit computers....

 

anyways that's just one story out of many of which Im sure you guys know more of than I do....

 

And I do have an XEGS, and I love the damned thing!...

[Mindfield]

Nope. The Lynx was clearly superior to the GB in every way, but lost because of price and availability. Tetris wouldn't have changed a thing.

 

The Lynx's biggest problems were battery life and durability. Where the Game Boy could churn out spinach-green Marios for 6-8 hours at a stretch and take abuse like Evander Holyfield, the Lynx could barely manage 2-3 hours and would break on the first or second "whoops." Despite the vastly inferior technology, the Game Boy won the hearts of parents by appealing to their wallet.

[NovaXpress]

99% of parents never heard of a Lynx in the first place. The kids demanded those GameBoys they read about in the Nintendo Fun Club and issues such as battery life and durability were irrelevant. It was all about the marketing.

[AtariDude]

As history has shown, the best products do not always win. You have to have good products that people want. The Lynx was better than the Gameboy, the 7800 could have been popular if it was released 2 years before, Atari had the opportunity to buy Amiga but the Tramiels with their usual cheapness missed out on a golden opportunity.

 

The management of Atari is where the blame is to be placed. If Atari had done a better job of marketing themselves and if they had not released some poor products (PacMan and E.T.) just for the sake of making money on famous names, they might have fared better.

[Curt Vendel]

Ahem. Don't forget that the Amiga was supposed to be an Atari product originally.

 

That was Jack's fault. He screwed Amiga over' date=' so they took the Lorraine to Commodore, who were more than happy to oblige. A twisted bit of irony if you ask me, given the timing and Jack's origins.[/quote']

 

My limited understanding of early Amiga history:

 

"Father of the Amiga", Atari hardware enginner Jay Miner, starts campaigniing his bosses to build a new system around the Motorola 68000 CPU. Bosses were not interested, saying such a machine would be too expensive.

 

Miner and others leave Atari and found "Hi-Toro" with the help of some dentist venture-capitalists

 

They change names to "Amiga", since people were asking them about lawnmower products. They make various Atari accessories (the most famous being the Joyboard) to try to fund their new hardware project.

 

It's not enough, and they get a loan from Atari at some point.

 

Amiga makes a big showing of it's new hardware (custom chips in the form of hand-wired bread boards) at CES, but are nearly out of money at this point.

 

Amiga offers Atari a chance to buy out their stock, but Atari never offers enough for Amiga to survive, and keeps lowering the bid, expecting to swoop in and mine the company for technology once Amiga defaults on its loan.

 

Commodore, fat with Commodore 64 money, swoops in and buys out Amiga for more than they asked from Atari, loans are paid off, and the Amiga eventually became a reality.

 

Commodore made a bunch of bonehead decisions and died out in 1994.

 

Partially correct... you've got a mix of truth and a mix of RJ Mical's bullsh*t mixed together there...

 

In late 1983 Amiga approaches Atari for capital to finish the chipset and bring it to silicon. The deal will allow Atari use of the chipset for videogames use through the first year and then they can offer a keyboard upgrade to their videogaming systems to turn it into a full blown computers and also then offer a full computer system. Atari gives Amiga $500K to complete the chipset in exchange for its use in future Atari products.

 

Atari begins to layout designs for an 85' launch of a videogame system and also spec's out plans for the Atari 1850XL which would be an Amiga chipset based computer system.

 

April 84' - Amiga is approached by Jack Tramiel who is shopping around for a computer firm to launch his new venture, he's approached Mindset and has already begun talks with Atari (as well as Phillips is in discussions with buying Atari as well) Tramiel makes it quite clear to the Amiga staff, he wants Amiga and the chipset, but not the staff, the deal is rejected...

 

June 84' - Amiga discovers Atari is in heavy negotiations with Tramiel Technologies Limited... Amiga is due to deliver the chipset on June 30th to Atari... Commodore approaches Amiga about purchasing the firm as a way for Commodore to compete in the market. Commodore agree's to give Amiga the needed capital to return to Atari.

 

June 30th 84' Instead of delivering the chipset as planned, Tom Hogg's "Mickey" team.... the Atari engineering group that has wire-wrapped project "Mickey" the Atari videogame/computer system and is awaiting the "Lorraine" chipset from Amiga finds out that Amiga delivered a check to Atari for $500K and NOT the chipset.

 

July 2nd 84' Atari is sold to Tramiel Technologies

 

August 13th 84' Atari sues Amiga for breach of contract and selling a chipset that Atari had financed to Commodore.

 

1987 in a closed ruling the Atari-Amiga suit is settled, no specific details are known to date, but rumor has it Amiga paid Atari royalty for the sale of the chipset and Atari was supposed to gain access to the chipset for use in future Atari product.

 

 

Amiga went around looking for capital in 83' and Atari was the only firm to agree to finance their chipset, if it was not for Atari putting up the capital to Amiga the chipset would have never have been completed and Amiga would've been a rumor and nothing more in 84' The Amiga chipset is based on the same designs as the TIA and the Atari "Colleen" chip from the Atari 400/800 computer line, the design was done by former Atari engineers and financed to be brought into silicon by Atari... so really in the end, the Amiga is truly an Atari more so then the ST's ever were.

 

 

Curt

[Goochman]

Note about the ST line and competing - The ST was brillent - It got lots of press due to its capabilities and price point - It was called the 'Jackintosh' since it did so much more for a lower price point. It owned the midi market. Amiga owned the graphics arena though was butting heads with the Mac Heads there as well.

 

Now,

The thing that really killed Atari IMHO was seperating the CoinOp group from the Computer/Manufacturer group - Sega survived as long as it did due to its arcade conversions being popular and wanted by players - Atari Inc couldnt get its hands on any arcade conversions unless paying dearly for them - Once Nintendo and Sega drew lines in the sand with their products Atari didnt get many table scraps.........

 

If M$ sticks with PC based architecture for the XBox you may see Nintendo following Segas path - creating proprietary consoles costs big $$$$ - I would presume Sony will have to move in that same direction in the future cause once the PC and consoles are sharing the same codebase it will cost too much $$$ to justify ports across multiple proprietary systems. Just my $0.02 of course

[Vic George 2K3]

The 7800 should have been its sole marketing focus in the late 1980s.

 

It wouldn't have done much good.  By the time the Tramiels decided to dust off the 7800, superior technology already existed.  Moreover, at the time that the 7800 would have enjoyed its peak, The NES and SMS were already about to be trumped by the Genesis and SNES, which would have doomed the 7800 anyway.

 

At the very least, it would have been a better effort than drowning out necessary 7800 support by also supporting two other systems simultaneously.

[gdement]

If M$ sticks with PC based architecture for the XBox you may see Nintendo following Segas path - creating proprietary consoles costs big $$$$ - I would presume Sony will have to move in that same direction in the future cause once the PC and consoles are sharing the same codebase it will cost too much $$$ to justify ports across multiple proprietary systems.  Just my $0.02 of course

 

I'm not sure I see evidence of that. The X-Box is significantly more expensive than the Gamecube. In any case, all 3 companies - Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, have announced they'll be using IBM chips next time around - x86 is out. It does seem like the shared code base helped Microsoft get lots of games, but the XBox was not a practical machine and really was only designed to get Microsoft's foot in the door. In fact, I think the X-Box is the modern day 5200. The difference is Microsoft can afford to lose the money and they engineered it properly.

 

I don't think Sony can match Microsoft on the shared code base even if they wanted to. The PC code base is inherently written for WinAPI - something only microsoft can provide. I do expect all the game companies will be using standard graphics chips from now on. The only difference is they probably will get low-wattage chips and the low-level programming specs for it.

[gdement]

The 7800 should have been its sole marketing focus in the late 1980s.

 

It wouldn't have done much good.  By the time the Tramiels decided to dust off the 7800, superior technology already existed.  Moreover, at the time that the 7800 would have enjoyed its peak, The NES and SMS were already about to be trumped by the Genesis and SNES, which would have doomed the 7800 anyway.

 

At the very least, it would have been a better effort than drowning out necessary 7800 support by also supporting two other systems simultaneously.

 

By sticking with 1 system and supporting it well, it also would have saved the brand's credibility. Even though I didn't have an SMS, and Sega was clearly 2nd fiddle, I still respected the brand name enough that I had no problem with buying a Genesis when it came out. If the Genesis had said "Atari" on it, it would have had a much tougher time with the early adopters.

[Lord Helmet]

Didn't I read somewhere that Nintendo originally came to Atari about producing the Famicom (NES) here in the States?

 

That might have saved Atari...

[Curt Vendel]

Note about the ST line and competing - The ST was brillent - It got lots of press due to its capabilities and price point - It was called the 'Jackintosh' since it did so much more for a lower price point.  It owned the midi market.  Amiga owned the graphics arena though was butting heads with the Mac Heads there as well.

 

Now,

The thing that really killed Atari IMHO was seperating the CoinOp group from the Computer/Manufacturer group - Sega survived as long as it did due to its arcade conversions being popular and wanted by players - Atari Inc couldnt get its hands on any arcade conversions unless paying dearly for them - Once Nintendo and Sega drew lines in the sand with their products Atari didnt get many table scraps.........

 

If M$ sticks with PC based architecture for the XBox you may see Nintendo following Segas path - creating proprietary consoles costs big $$$$ - I would presume Sony will have to move in that same direction in the future cause once the PC and consoles are sharing the same codebase it will cost too much $$$ to justify ports across multiple proprietary systems.  Just my $0.02 of course

 

Actually coin-op staying seperate is what helped coin-op stay alive, coin-op had always kept its distance from CED and HCD within Atari, they were the only division to consistantly make a profit while HCD (Home Computer) was always loosing money and CED (Consumer Electronics) bottomed out in 82'

 

 

Curt

[kisrael]

Lynx, indeed . . . If it had Tetris and the GB didn't, we'd be saying "Game What? Oh, that black-and-white thing."

Nope. The Lynx was clearly superior to the GB in every way, but lost because of price and availability. Tetris wouldn't have changed a thing.

Battery life, size, and game selection where other GB advantages. The publicity and power of Nintendo's name and ability to leverage Mario at that stage helped as well.

 

But for all the people who have their favorite "also ran" handhelds, most of which had a color screen earlier and sometimes more complex games, try to pretend that their systems are superior in EVERY way but the name and it just ain't the case, whether it's size, game selection, battery life, screen, etc.

 

Heheh...I wanna draw an anology between Nintendo's run of success with the GameBoy and the Patriots run of wins in football... a lot of those 20-21 teams were better in certain ways than the Pats, but with a little luck and a lot of doing the little things right, the Pats always come out on top as well. And that drives fans of the others NUTS.

[sidcrowe]

For me, Atari was an AMERICAN success story.

 

From cobbling the first Pong arcade together with chicken wire and gum, to the wild and creative work environment at Atari, to even the time when a few talented guys split off to form Activision, which was also feeding the 2600. They blazed a trail, and got well-deserved success. The market was theirs to lose.

 

Then it was sold to assholes...fucked up, sold, fucked up and split up, sold and fucked up again with the Jaguar.

 

Now it's just a name some French people own, and the market is owned by the Japanese.

 

What a great story

[zenassem]

As I'm reading more and more of these posts, I'm starting to see things a little differently. The Question should be:

 

"How did Atari Succeed For so long??? And still have such devoted Fans?"

 

I mean with this many mistakes, and we've probably only touched upon 2%. It's truly amazing!!!!

 

 

It's hard to stomach that both the game consoles "AND" the Home Computer lines lost. I never understood why the Home computer line Never put something together (A8) that could compete with the Commodore 64. The 800 was great when it was realeased. I always preferred the look of the 800xl, and built in basic was nice. I liked the GTIA improvements. But did the home computer line really need a 600xl 1200xl 65xe 130xe 1400? etc...

 

None of these was aimed at competing with the C64. Just the same product wrapped in different paper. Then to add insult to injury, we tie both lines together with the XEGS. It's like one big backwards loop.

 

Look at Commodore. They go from a PET line, to a VIC20. Then smoke Atari with the C64. They fumble a bit with the Plus 4. But come back strong with 128 line. (even a repackaged C64 did well). Then they light up the Afterburner with the Amiga. Very nice progression. Of course, we all know that after the afterburner blew out, they crashed to the ground like a Lawn Dart.

 

So I definately think that the Computer Line was lossed, because Atari never even bothered to compete with the C64. Then they blow the Amiga deal. I mean, how many times do you have to get kicked in the nuts, before you invest in a cup???

 

Let's face it... the Nintendo deal could have saved Atari for a couple of years, but they would have found a way to ruin it. Just think we would have NES9600,NES9600xl,NES7700.... And all would be packaged with

 

Super Pac-Man Bros.

 

But that's what it's like to be an Atari fan. And we still love them. I think that's why they succeeded for so long. It's like the Boston Red Sox (and look where they are now). Atari was - and IS- more than the company, more than the Hardware, more than the games. It captured hearts and Imaginations. And for anyone who has held a joystick with a little orange button, it changes you. Some of the nicest people I have met in my life are atari fans. My eyes still light up, when I see )|(

 

#############

 

[/b]

[deathtrappomegranate]

Nice post, zenassem!

 

And thanks to Curt Vendel for the accurate history.

 

For me, there were so many problems, it's hard to know where to begin.

 

As an A8 guy, I have to say that these computers continued without modification for too long. They competed well with the C64, released 3 years later, but rested on their laurels too much.

 

The 1200xl, and subsequent 8-bit machines, did not offer significant improvements over what went before.

 

The 7800's Maria chip was pretty cool, but the 5200 was just a very big A8 with no keyboard. As everyone knows, the Amiga was an Atari in all but name. The ST was still good at the time, though, but not quite good enough.

 

The Tramiel takeover seems to have stifled some of the creativity at Atari, and one of the constantly recurring themes of Atari's later days is their penny-pinching.

 

However, as zenassem reminds us, Atari had a lot of successes, and the fact that we are still moaning about their failures 20+ years on suggests that they did pretty well at the time.

[+davidcalgary29]

It's hard to stomach that both the game consoles "AND" the Home Computer lines lost. I never understood why the Home computer line Never put something together (A8) that could compete with the Commodore 64. The 800 was great when it was realeased. I always preferred the look of the 800xl, and built in basic was nice. I liked the GTIA improvements. But did the home computer line really need a 600xl 1200xl 65xe 130xe 1400? etc...  

 

None of these was aimed at competing with the C64. Just the same product wrapped in different paper. Then to add insult to injury, we tie both lines together with the XEGS. It's like one big backwards loop.

 

I think that I will disagree with you here. The A8 machines had an exceedingly long period of market viability (1979-1992, a span that matches that of the C64, if one counts the 800XE in Central Europe), and they were probably highly profitable for the various incarnations of Atari. I think that a big part of the reason for the comparitive market "failure" of the A8 machines (in comparison to the C64) was the fact that Atari was a company in transition from '83-'84 -- the exact time period when the home entertainment market was moving from dedicated gaming consoles to home computers -- and you can't really blame any one party for that. Atari lost a big opportunity to capitalize upon this emerging market, which instead was won by Commodore.

 

I believe that the 800XL was marketed to compete directly with the C64. I also understand that the 65XEM was developed specifically to counter claims of the C64's aural superiority, but this was, of course, never released.

 

And it should be remembered that the C64 really didn't undergo any major revisions before production ended in the '90s. The C65 would have been a remarkable improvement, but it really would have been the first (128 aside) major improvement since 1982. [/img]

[Mindfield]

Actually, it was the attempts to further the 8-bit line into the 1200XL and beyond that was the mistake with that line. The 8-bit computer line was brilliant -- technologically superior in almost every way but sound to its later competition (specifically the C64). I myself had a 600XL, 800XL, 65XE and 130XE at various times throughout my 8-bit life. Problem is Atari put so much into R&D that never made it past prototyping (if it even made it that far) that they squandered much better opportunities. The 1200XL was a buggy flop, the 14xxXLx series were doomed from inception by Kitchen Sink Syndrome, and the 65XEP and XEM units barely even made the rank of prototype. Even into the ST line -- the 130ST and 260ST units were rediculous when you considered how much RAM was left over after TOS was loaded. Right there, that's 7 units they probably should have known better than to take as far as they did.

 

Not that Atari is alone in their vapourware efforts -- but they did have a habit of making announcements for products that never made it.

[kisrael]

I'd say it was the 2600 that really made Atari into such a beloved company. That brought cartridge gaming into homes on a grand scale for the first time. Atari brought out a ton of great arcade games, but I think most casual gamers couldn't tell you which ones were by Atari...unlike the carts (though they might mix it up with Activision a bit)

[zenassem]

I owned (and still own) most of the line at one time or another. (800,600xl,800xl,65xe)

 

I don't really disagree with you guys, but here is what I meant.

 

Memory might be escaping me, but I don't recall running any software on my 65/xe that didn't look like a game that was on the 800. Sure we had some XE carts, but It really wasn't a leap foward. It's not hard to tell the difference between a Commodore 64 game and anything realeased for the Atari's. The graphics were far superior on the 64 and we never had anything to compete with it.

 

I may be incorrect, but the 800 was realesed years before the C64. The 800xl is not much different than: an 800 - a cartridge slot, - two game ports, and standard with GTIA, 64k ram. The 600xl is a (less professional 800xl) entry computer with 16kb ram standard, and Basically the 65/XE is a cheaper cased 800xl. And all of them ran original 800 quality games. So it's hard to see how the 800xl can be considered a competitor to the c64. Maybe to Atari it was, but without being able to produce similar quality games, 8 sprites etc. it was never a fair fight. And that's why we have atari800winplus and not atari65XEwinplus. And it's no accident that the majority of the highly regarded programming books are focused on the 800.

 

But I still love my Atari's. (I just purchased my first ST yesterday. A 1040ST w/monitor $30 via ebay. (+$22.00 s/h)

 

~zen

[Mindfield]

Actually, the C64 was far more limited in many areas than the 8-bit Atari.

 

Graphically, for example, the 8-bit Atari had more colours (128 vs. 16), a faster processor (1.79Mhz vs. 1.02MHz), much faster stock speed disk drives (19,200 baud vs. 2400 baud), and various other bits that were just generally superior technologically. Where the C64 had it over Atari was its famous SID chip which, while having only 3 voices, could utilize realtime ADSR envelopes, and in the fact that it had hardware sprites. (The Atari had player/missile graphics, but players and missiles could only be one colour, which is where the biggest graphical differences can be seen in many games.)

 

If you want an example of where the Atari excelled in pure bitmap graphics, compare Alternate Reality on both machines. You'll see where the advantages of having a fully programmable display list come in very handy.

 

With regards to the differences in 8-bit machines -- actually, there were very few between models, and pretty well all of them occurred between the 400/800 and the XL line:

 

400/800: 16k (400)/48k (800) RAM, CTIA graphics (modes 1-11) 1 (400) or 2 (800) cartridge ports (the left in the 800 intended for a BASIC cartridge. 2 (400) or 4 (800) expansion slots behind the cart port(s) that were mainly only ever used for RAM and ROM upgrades. 4 joystick ports. The 400 also had a horrible membrane keyboard.

 

600XL/800XL: 16k (600XL)/64k (800XL) RAM, GTIA graphics (added modes 12-16), 1 cartridge port (the left becoming redundant as BASIC (Rev. B) was built in) and no expansion slots. Due to the internal changes, numerous games (including my favourite Alley Cat) written for the 400/800 became incompatible on the XL line and beyond. A "translator" disk was available that essentially turned the machine back into an 800 to run these old apps.

 

65XE/130XE: 64k (65XE)/128k (130XE) RAM. BASIC Rev. C. Everything else is the same. The only other difference is that the parallel bus interface port was removed in the 65XE (a cost cutting measure to make the machine appeal to the budget crowd)

 

I didn't include the 1200XL because it was a bit of a moot point; it was buggy and flopped.

 

But to drag this kicking and screaming back a little bit on-topic, I always felt they should have kept and made greater use of the expansion slots they abandoned after the 400/800 line. The expansion possibilities would have been amazing. The PBI just wasn't enough.

[kisrael]

Given how much I gripe about the PS2 not having 4 built in controller ports, I guess I should kvetch about Atari ditching the concept on all its 8bit lines...