The Atari 3200 System X

[peteym5]

It is obvious why Atari did not want to go through with the 3200 and had to throw the 5200 together quickly. Some answers I could never get are what are the graphics, sound, and other capabilities of this 3200. Maybe the 5200 was a better ideal in the first place, having the graphics and sound abilities of the 8-bit. They should have just stuck with the 2600/8-bit joystick ports instead of those weird analog things.

[Buyatari]

WOW

 

blast from the past ! I wonder what the longest span between any 2 posts has been on any topic here.

[moycon]

WOW

 

blast from the past ! I wonder what the longest span between any 2 posts has been on any topic here.

 

Heh, I've actually been lured into way old threads and started to or have replied before. I think what happens is people open a thread that interests them and then as they are reading through it, the "Similar Topics" list contains a thread title that catches their eye even more so they pull it up and get involved with a sometimes year old discussion!! LOL

[Polybius]

Apparently, the 3200 was canned due to it being rather difficult to program.

[CPUWIZ]

Apparently, the 3200 was canned due to it being rather difficult to program.

 

[Animan]

Apparently, the 3200 was canned due to it being rather difficult to program.

 

(no offense, just kidding)

 

But, really, a "deluxe version" would be cool. I'm sure someone out there is talented enough to pull off the project. I know i'm not.

[peteym5]

The 5200 was a logical choice because it used the graphics and sound of the 400/800. Would had done better if they utilized the re-designs that were going toward the 600XL, Single smaller mainboard. Should had been mapped the same way as the 8-bit and used same joystick port. Maybe have an extended cartridge slot to take 32K and 64K cartridges (like 130XE ECI) or just have a bigger cartridge slot. Could had easily mapped the IO area the same. Could had done it actually cheaper than what they did for the 5200 in 1981 if it was closer to the 8-bit. 16K would had been plenty.

 

I had been trying to get some documents on this 3200 to get answers about processor speed, graphics resolution, sound channels, but there is nothing about it.

[+nanochess]

Not even a single image in this thread from 10 years ago?

 

Here you go http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/sylvia/sylvia.html

[+wongojack]

Not even a single image in this thread from 10 years ago?

 

Here you go http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/sylvia/sylvia.html

 

That was linked on page 1

 

But seriously I heard this thing failed because it was hard to program. Did you guys hear about that? I can't remember where exactly I heard that . . . I think it was in 2005 . . . maybe on a message board thread or something.

[+nanochess]

 

That was linked on page 1

 

But seriously I heard this thing failed because it was hard to program. Did you guys hear about that? I can't remember where exactly I heard that . . . I think it was in 2005 . . . maybe on a message board thread or something.

 

Well! It looks like I read so fast that I missed that link!!

 

But after a lot of searching found this: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/156916-atari-ss1000-sylvia/

 

There never was a 10-bit processor.

[tschak909]

As for finding any hardware, the only thing you might be able to find is a set of S-100 wire wrapped cards, possibly marked with the name SYLVIA on them, as according to those who programmed it (Bob Smith, Rob Zdybel, maybe others), it never left the Cromemco chassis.

 

-Thom

[Tempest]

I'm curious as to what the graphics would have looked like.

[Rhod]

https://rhodblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/prototype-atari-5200-atari-video-system-x/

https://rhodblog.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/prototype-atari-5200-vendu-2650/

[atari2800man]

Is there any atari 3200 or Atari system X consoles for sale out there?if so hopefully they dont cost 10,000 usd or more.

[Bryan]

Pete, why do you keep necrobumping this thread?

2004->2009

2009->2015

[tschak909]

atari2800man, as I said, There never were any real Atari 3200 consoles. THEY NEVER LEFT THE BREADBOARDING STAGE.

[Smalltalk-80]

On 1/23/2016 at 7:12 AM, tschak909 said:

atari2800man, as I said, There never were any real Atari 3200 consoles. THEY NEVER LEFT THE BREADBOARDING STAGE.

BUT IT WOULD STILL BE VERY INTERESTING TO HEAR ABOUT THE SPECS AND PLANS FOR THE CONSOLE.

 

And can anyone tell me what on earth is wrong with “necro bumping”‽

Never been able to get a satisfactory answer to that.

Are people embarrassed about rereading their own posts?

It seems super stupid to start a new thread when there is already a lot of common questions and logical fallacies answered and history in this one.

The whole point of forums over dreck like FB groups and Reddit, is exactly deep history and search ability.

 

The 3200 released in 80 to 82 would most definitely have been a huge hit and possibly the savior for Atari as it was, and would to a large extent probably have avoided the video game crash.

 

It’s just a very interesting unreleased console, with a very under-told story.

 

It would have been based on the 6502 not the 6507. So real interrupts and more RAM.

With the rumored speech chip, they could have gotten away with the TIA sound hardware. Possible with slight tweaks to remain fully BC. 
The big question is of course the video hardware.
It needed to be able to respond perfectly to 2600 programs, so there isn’t that much wiggle room, aside from a complete separate chip, which would not have been possible within a middle class family budget console.

 

8Kb of SRAM would have been pushing it at the time and possibly overkill with the possible ROM sizes. But 4Kb seems possible and useable when looking at contemporary computers.

[Tempest]

33 minutes ago, Smalltalk-80 said:

BUT IT WOULD STILL BE VERY INTERESTING TO HEAR ABOUT THE SPECS AND PLANS FOR THE CONSOLE.

 

And can anyone tell me what on earth is wrong with “necro bumping”‽

Never been able to get a satisfactory answer to that.

Necrobumping a post to add new info or ask a question is fine.  It's when people necrobump an ancient thread to add nothing but a 'yeah' or 'me too!' kind of response that's the problem.  That or when people bump 15+ year old sales threads.

[carlsson]

Unpopular opinion, but haven't every Atari system from the 2600 to the XEGS (*) been hard to program, compared to what else was on the market? Often far more powerful than the competition once you learned all the intrinsics, but that is a different side to it. Now if this breadboarded design was known to be even more challenging to write games for, it would have been a very steep uphill compared to the upcoming competitors.

 

(*) I imagine the ST line being more straightforward, don't know about the Lynx but again I understand the Jaguar as well as the unreleased Panther were systems for pros.

[Smalltalk-80]

12 hours ago, carlsson said:

Unpopular opinion, but haven't every Atari system from the 2600 to the XEGS (*) been hard to program, compared to what else was on the market? Often far more powerful than the competition once you learned all the intrinsics, but that is a different side to it. Now if this breadboarded design was known to be even more challenging to write games for, it would have been a very steep uphill compared to the upcoming competitors.

 

(*) I imagine the ST line being more straightforward, don't know about the Lynx but again I understand the Jaguar as well as the unreleased Panther were systems for pros.

I have a very hard time finding a primary source on the factoid that the prototypes were hard to program?

 

One source insinuated that the hardware was actually too good, and that it resulted in in-fighting with one more of the other teams at Atari doing more glamorous high spec hardware. 

 

It’s the exact product Nolan Bushnell quit over. And the product they put off making for far too long.
The 7800 was a halfhearted attempt, way too late and way too little (in 86).

A timely 3200 would have staved off the competition, avoided much, if not all, of the crash and timidness from consumers, and would have made a Japanese market entry much easier.

 

As such it’s probably the most important console never released.

The 5200 was fine, but it really needed a lower tier model to complement it and invite existing 2600 users. And of course the controllers originally planned for it.

 

The 3200 would have been the bread and butter for Atari for the next five years.

 

IMO it would be fun and interesting to do a virtual “platonic” machine, and perhaps even a few mock games with screens or a video of it.

[carlsson]

In the other thread, it was mentioned severe issues with sprites that neither could be reused nor overlap. If things like those could not be solved in due time, I have no clue if the hardware was "too good" or not.

 

To succeed in Japan probably is due to other factors than hardware capacity. Epoch was importing the 2600 for a while before releasing their own Cassette Vision.

 

I read about added luminance levels which I suppose means a larger palette, closer to the 8-bit. Combined with more built-in RAM and that the CPU could address more memory without bankswitching sounds a lot like a beefed up 2600.