7800 sound sucks!

[The_Laird]

Can somebody tell me why 7800 games have such truly abysmal sound. Is the 7800's sound chip really that bad! Apart from Ballblazer, which uses a pokey, i really can't think of a game in my library that i don't turn down. Actully Midnight Mutants is ok, i had to really think to come with 1! The worst thing is there are loads of 2600 games that have great music and sound. The 2600 Version of Double Dragon (havn't played the 7800 version) has all the music from the arcade machine and sounds just as good as the NES version. Other great tunes on the 2600 include Commando, Smurf, Bobby's Going Home, California Games, Kung-fu Master and Pitfall 2. And for sound effects you simply can't beat Defender 2, in fact you can't beat this game on ANYTHING! So was it just crap programming then?

[+Mitch]

It uses the sound chip from the 2600, not exactly cutting edge at the time. It could be made to sound pretty good but it seems most 7800 programmers were rushed for time and the sound frequently suffered.

 

Mitch

[SteveW]

I still maintain that Planet Smashers has the absolute worst sound of any 7800 game. I would just like to smack around the programmers and scream, "What were you thinking when you made that laser sound effect?"

[Albert]

Yes, it's unfortunate that Atari decided to saddle the 7800 with the same sound capabilities in the 2600, without adding new sound hardware for 7800 games. Two games, Ballblazer and Commando, actually include an onboard POKEY chip for improved audio, and it certainly shows. The POKEY is the same audio chip found in the Atari 8-bit (400/800/XL/XE) computers as well as the Atari 5200.

 

..Al

[Classic Pac]

I totally agree the sound from a 7800 is BAD most of the time I play any game on that system I usually turn the sound off.

[Joey Kay]

Yeah...

 

Evidence that Atari still had a lot to learn after the flop of the 5200. Why on earth would they disable their next-gen machine with sound worse than its predecessor???

 

And cost-wise, I don't think it makes much sense. I'm willing to bet the total run of Commando carts combined with the total run of Ballblazer carts is close to (if not greater than) the total run of 7800s. Every game could have had the potential for awesome sound (and more cheaply) if they would have shoved a POKEY in the machine... yeesh!

 

Cheers!

 

Joey

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Guys...Atari wanted to include the Pokey on the 7800..but they simply didn't have room for it on the motherboard. So they (Atari) decided that it would be best to have the Pokeys included separately onto the carts to save the space. And before anyone says, "Why not just leave a Pokey in place of the TIA?" The answer to that is because to have 2600 compatibility, the TIA had to be present. The Compatibility was of much more concern to Atari vs. innovation it would seem. So an entire 2600 is inside the 7800 with only the Maria chip on the motherboard and a slightly different version of the 6502 being added for the 7800 side.

 

If they had chosen to leave off the expansion port from the beginning...that would have been the space for where a Pokey would have been most likely to go, or at least provided room for one then.

[DracIsBack]

Guys...Atari wanted to include the Pokey on the 7800..but they simply didn't have room for it on the motherboard. So they (Atari) decided that it would be best to have the Pokeys included separately onto the carts to save the space. And before anyone says' date=' "Why not just leave a Pokey in place of the TIA?" The answer to that is because to have 2600 compatibility, the TIA had to be present.[/quote']

 

Bingo - they needed the 7800 to have backwards compatibility and to do that in the mid-1980s meant it needed 2600 hardware as well as other hardware. Packed motherboard, expensive to design, compatibility a key requirement.

 

The Compatibility was of much more concern to Atari vs. innovation it would seem. So an entire 2600 is inside the 7800 with only the Maria chip on the motherboard and a slightly different version of the 6502 being added for the 7800 side.

 

Can't agree there!

 

First, the 7800 had a couple of different things. 1) A very innovative graphics chip. 2) Backwards compatibility out of the box, which nothing had; 3) More RAM; 4) A faster processor; 5) The whole encryption system; 6) An expansion port which was SUPPOSED to give the 7800 access to additional (innovative) peripherals, such as a laser disc player, keyboard, disc drive etc. They also planned other accessories like the high score cart.

 

All this was pretty touch to achieve at a consumer price point in 1984.

[jetset]

Yeah...

 

Evidence that Atari still had a lot to learn after the flop of the 5200.  Why on earth would they disable their next-gen machine with sound worse than its predecessor???

 

 

Who ever said the 5200 was a flop? Were you not born yet or are you just a fanboy of another system?

[+Allan]

Yeah...

 

Evidence that Atari still had a lot to learn after the flop of the 5200.  Why on earth would they disable their next-gen machine with sound worse than its predecessor???

 

 

Who ever said the 5200 was a flop? Were you not born yet or are you just a fanboy of another system?

 

Well, I guess compared to the 2600 it was a flop but I honestly have never seen any evidence of this. There are tons of 5200s and 5200 games out there. Plus it seems that it's harder to find a Colecovision than a 5200. It would be nice to know how many systems were sold of each console.

 

Allan

[Trip_Cannon]

Had the 7800 been run by anybody other than the Tramiels we might have seen more games with the Pokey included...

[Joey Kay]

Yeah...

 

Evidence that Atari still had a lot to learn after the flop of the 5200.  Why on earth would they disable their next-gen machine with sound worse than its predecessor???

 

 

Who ever said the 5200 was a flop? Were you not born yet or are you just a fanboy of another system?

 

 

Relatively speaking it was a flop. I was only six or seven at the time, but all my friends who were getting "next gen" machines for xmax, birthdays, etc, were getting Colecovisions. Mind you, living in Canada, I think there was zilch for distribution of 5200's here... I never found out about the machine until 85 or 86! All the store catalogues here had 2600s and Colecovisions.

 

Anyhow, compared with the 2600 it was an undisputable flop. If it wasn't a flop, Atari wouldn't have rushed out the 7800 less than two years later. The 5200 hardware was good enough to carry Atari further than two years, especially considering some of the later games and hardware add-ons.

 

As for the design of the 7800, it's well documented that the Pokey wouldn't fit on the motherboard, but wasn't that because they were trying to cram the 7800 into the Sears Video Arcade II casing instead of designing a new case?

 

I am the first to admit I know NOTHING about designing motherboards, but wouldn't it be easy to just add an extra half-inch to the size of the console, make the motherboard a bit bigger, and add on the chip?

 

Although, my theory is blown to pieces if Pokeys only cost pennies to make. I don't know what the production cost of a Pokey chip was in 84. Any ideas???

 

I suspect (totally baseless speculation I might add - merely hypothesizing) that Atari may have viewed the lack of an on-board Pokey an asset as third-party games would be crippled sound-wise unless game manufacturers leased Pokey rights from Atari.

 

Who knows... really, who cares! Just always fun to revisit the past!

 

Cheers!

 

Joey

[Mindfield]

Um ... the 5200 was released in 1982. The 7800 wasn't released until 1986. Sure, it was ready by 1984, but Jack shelved it to concentrate on computers, and didn't dust it off 'til the video game market was proven to be profitable again. (And probably also because Jack was kicking his ass around the planet for turning down a distribution deal for some upstart game system from Nintendo)

 

The 5200 was also fairly successful by Atari's standards. Its main downfalls were those crappy, non-centering, easily-destroyed joysticks, and a lack of backwards compatibility with the 2600, which people wanted but didn't get until they released the 2600 adapter.

 

True, Atari was known for re-using case designs, and it's probable they wanted to re-use the little-used Atari 2800/SVAII shell for that purpose to save some money. I think the decision to omit Pokey was related more to cost cutting to keep the consumer cost down (which is also why they reused the case) -- a new case, plus a bigger PCB and Pokey would just have driven the price of the 7800 up even more, and it was at an uncomfortable price point as it was.

[DracIsBack]

Um ... the 5200 was released in 1982.  The 7800 wasn't released until 1986.  Sure, it was ready by 1984, but Jack shelved it to concentrate on computers, and didn't dust it off 'til the video game market was proven to be profitable again.  (And probably also because Jack was kicking his ass around the planet for turning down a distribution deal for some upstart game system from Nintendo)

 

OK - I don't know how many times we'll need to repeat this on the forum, but we'll repeat it again here. I'm not singling you out specifically, but many people think that Atari had the NES lock, stock and barrel and changed their mind. This is NOT true.

 

Atari did not "turn down a distribution deal". Anyone who thinks they did has NEVER been involved in any business development negotiations EVER.

 

Nintendo approached Atari and STARTED discussions about Atari possibly distributing the NES in the USA. This is very different from signing on the dotted line. If you've ever had to work with lawyers negotiating the terms and conditions of such a deal, you'll know why I find this (misguided) notion that Atari "turned Nintendo down" to be amusing.

 

Atari never got past early discussions because a) Atari was imploding at the time and different people were involved in different meetings; and b) Nintendo themselves didn't feel strongly enough to push the issue. I don't think they even had an "agreement in principle" in place when it all fell apart, let alone a distribution agreement ready to be signed on the dotted line.

 

Finally - Jack wasn't the one who was involved in the negotiations ... it was Warner Atari.

 

The 5200 was also fairly successful by Atari's standards.

 

Not by the standards they were hoping for. Remember, when Atari released the 5200, they had 75% of the market with the 2600 and were expecting the 5200 to take off the same way. It didn't ... and was canned, by Warner Atari, within 2 years. From the Warner Atari perspective, it was a bomb. In terms of Atari Corp as a whole from 1972 to 1996, it did fairly well in terms of sales, but probably not profits.

[jetset]

Yeah...

 

Evidence that Atari still had a lot to learn after the flop of the 5200.  Why on earth would they disable their next-gen machine with sound worse than its predecessor???

 

 

Who ever said the 5200 was a flop? Were you not born yet or are you just a fanboy of another system?

 

 

Relatively speaking it was a flop. I was only six or seven at the time, but all my friends who were getting "next gen" machines for xmax, birthdays, etc, were getting Colecovisions. Mind you, living in Canada, I think there was zilch for distribution of 5200's here... I never found out about the machine until 85 or 86! All the store catalogues here had 2600s and Colecovisions.

 

Anyhow, compared with the 2600 it was an undisputable flop. If it wasn't a flop, Atari wouldn't have rushed out the 7800 less than two years later. The 5200 hardware was good enough to carry Atari further than two years, especially considering some of the later games and hardware add-ons.

 

I 'spose in Canada, where the 5200 was not released. it may have seemed a flop. Here in the states (Florida at least) I myself knew one person who bought a CV, and everyone else went for the 5200.

The 7800, as evidenced by this thread, was just a repackaged 2600 with better graphics. Though planned for release in 84, it didnt see the light of day until 1986 if Im not mistaken. I think the fact that the 5200 has close to a dozen homebrews right now compared to zero for the 7800 and maybe 3 (worth mentioning) for the CV are evidence of it's appeal and proof the 5200 was no flop.

Of course, compared to the 2600, few systems were *not* flops, including the 7800, Colecovision, Intellivision, Odyssey2...hell everything released in the 70's-late 80's were flops compared to the 2600.

[DracIsBack]

The 7800, as evidenced by this thread, was just a repackaged 2600 with better graphics.

 

The 7800 has a completely different graphical architecture. It also has a faster processor, can address cartridges in chunks 12 times that of the 2600, has 32x the memory of the 2600, has an validation key, seperate 2600/7800 modes etc. etc. etc.

 

Your own conceptualization of the 7800 really points to the bad job that Jack Tramiel did of marketing the 7800. Many had had the assumption that it's a "2600 with better graphics", which is a drastic over-simplification.

 

Think of the 7800 as a bizarre design where it has its own (very unique) graphics hardware, sitting on a 6502 processor (found in 5200/8-bit computers) and then 2600 hardware thrown in for backwards compatibility. When the 7800 is activated, it looks for a validation key. If it doesn't find one in the game, it runs in 2600 mode and doesn't access the MARIA chip, it doesn't access the full capabilities of the 6502, it isn't able to read 48K chunks in the cartridge, the TIA generates the graphics etc.

 

If it finds a validation key, then it runs in 7800 mode and all the hardware is "turned on", so to speak.

 

The 7800 was the 7800. A unique system designed to be backwards compatible with the 2600, while also offering a graphical architecture similar to arcade systems at the time. It was not, however, a repackaged 2600 with better graphics.

 

 

 

A couple of points to consider:

 

1. The 7800 had that validation key problem, whereas the 5200 did not. The key didn't even turn up until a few years ago.

2. The 5200 is very similar in design to the Atari 8-bits, whereas the 7800's graphical architecture is very unique. As such, the 5200 hardware is fairly well documented, whereas the 7800 hardware is only now being documented in the homebrew community.

[Mindfield]

I 'spose in Canada, where the 5200 was not released.

 

It was released here. A friend of mine down the street back in the day had one. I had an XL by that time though, and since it was relatively the same thing except that the XL was a full computer, I didn't really care to get one myself. Plus, even then I hated the joysticks.

[JB]

A couple of points to consider:

 

1. The 7800 had that validation key problem, whereas the 5200 did not. The key didn't even turn up until a few years ago.

2. The 5200 is very similar in design to the Atari 8-bits, whereas the 7800's graphical architecture is very unique. As such, the 5200 hardware is fairly well documented, whereas the 7800 hardware is only now being documented in the homebrew community.

As a third note(that ties abck to the first 2)... the 5200 has much more convenient development systems available.

 

 

7800 emulators were a long time in coming, because many thought the key had to be broken to emulate the system, so no one tried. They're relatively new, and not nearly as mature as other systems.

And you can also get a good ways in on 5200 dev with an Atari 8-bit computer. No such equivalent exists for the 7800.

 

 

 

So the 5200 has TWO convenient dev systems, where the 7800 has only recently acquired ONE, and it's still pretty glitchy relative to 5200/computer emulators, making it more of a .5 than a 1.

 

As far as I know MOST 7800 dev work has to be done on an actual system, instead of just the final portion. That slows things down, I'm sure.

[Atarifever]

I'm from Canada. The 5200 seems to have been released here, as I have seen a handfull in thrift stores over the years. However, it couldn't have been heavily marketed because I owned a 2600, then an NES and never knew there was another option at all. Heres a funny story:

When I bought my 7800 2 months ago all my friends (well like the 3 of them who could care less about video games) said "can't wait to see the crappy graphics on that, I mean I have an old 2600 and that's bad enough"

I said "the 7800 has better graphics"

And all three of them agreed that the order went 7800, 5600 (which doesn't exist) then 2600. They told me the 2600 is the little one (because they all own atari jrs), the 5600 is wood panneled and the 7800 is a hugh wood panneled monster with 6 buttons. I looked it up for them and proved I was right.

How would you ever think the order went backwards? What was atari working toward the tiniest number, with the final product being the atari zero (hey that sounds pretty good. Anyone want to make an ad campaign for it, I'm sure we can convince modern atari to distribute it).

[Cousin Vinnie]

How would you ever think the order went backwards?  

 

If you were Canadian.

 

J/K

 

CV

[birdie3]

He's just YANK-in' your chain.. You should be more concerned with the fact that you are a Newfie!!

 

I still say that it would be cool if someone were to replicate the 6502 sound programming techniques used in Jinx on a 7800 homebrew.

[DracIsBack]

He's just YANK-in' your chain.. You should be more concerned with the fact that you are a Newfie!!  

 

I still say that it would be cool if someone were to replicate the 6502 sound programming techniques used in Jinx on a 7800 homebrew.

 

That's why I was hoping too ... wondering if someone could create a utility to create digiized sound files on the 7800, ala JINKS?

[Atarifever]

Wow, fellas from up along. Guess they let anyone in here.

[EricBall]

 

1. The 7800 had that validation key problem, whereas the 5200 did not. The key didn't even turn up until a few years ago.

2. The 5200 is very similar in design to the Atari 8-bits, whereas the 7800's graphical architecture is very unique. As such, the 5200 hardware is fairly well documented, whereas the 7800 hardware is only now being documented in the homebrew community.

I think you don't give Dan Boris and Eckhard Stolberg enough credit. Although it may not have been widely known, there was sufficient info available to create a homebrew back in 2000 (maybe earlier), prior to the signature key being discovered. (Which was never a factor for PAL 7800s either.)

[DracIsBack]

I think you don't give Dan Boris and Eckhard Stolberg enough credit.  Although it may not have been widely known, there was sufficient info available to create a homebrew back in 2000 (maybe earlier), prior to the signature key being discovered.  (Which was never a factor for PAL 7800s either.)

 

Good point, although as you note, it wasn't really widely known. Also, you have to admit that there was far more documentation available for the 5200, as it shared hardware with the 8-bit Atari's.