5200 vs. 7800

[shadow460]

I thought the 5200 was slightly better for a couple of reasons:

It has POKEY onboard, which reduces the cost of a cart that needs POKEY sound. Granted we may not see the price difference in Target or Wal Mart, but having onboard POKEY would have given Jack one less reason to cancel good sounding games.

The 5200 also has analog control right out of the retail box. Unfortunately, it is found in awful controllers.

Look what built in quality analog control did when Big N used it in 1996.

the 5200 has a bigger library of games. Sure the 2600 compatibility is nice (I use the crap out of it), but there are about seventy games that are meant specifically for the 7800, the 5200 quite a bit more.

The 5200 isn't leaps and bounds superior to the 7800 in my mind--it's only superior by a hair.

 

On the 7800 side, there's the far better graphics, including the "3D" in Ballblazer. Also, the backward compatibility is a plus, despite me not counting 2600 titles as part of the system's library.

If you consider POKEY carts as a part of the 7800 hardware, and 2600 controllers as "belonging" to the 7800, then it does become the better system by far.

But hey, "belong" or not, they still work, right?

[Bryan]

I thought the 5200 was slightly better for a couple of reasons:

It has POKEY onboard, which reduces the cost of a cart that needs POKEY sound.  Granted we may not see the price difference in Target or Wal Mart, but having onboard POKEY would have given Jack one less reason to cancel good sounding games.

The 5200 also has analog control right out of the retail box.  Unfortunately, it is found in awful controllers.

Look what built in quality analog control did when Big N used it in 1996.

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The plan wasn't to keep putting Pokeys in carts, but rather to develop a cheaper sound IC. Of course, this never happened.

 

I don't see the analog controller as a big plus. It eventually became a feature on modern consoles, but it got in the way for many arcade style games.

 

-Bry

[ZylonBane]

Yeah, the controllers are a solid negative. No brownie points for "but but but they were ANALOG!". I don't care. They were non-centering and broke easily.

[vdub_bobby]

With a POKEY chip in the cartridge, a 7800 has better graphics AND sound.

I'm not quite sure how you figure that a 7800 with a POKEY has better sound than a 5200 with a POKEY. Seems like they'd be the same. Can you explain?

[ZylonBane]

Because a 7800 with POKEY has access to six sound channels. Four on the POKEY, two on the TIA.

 

Well, providing that using POKEY sound doesn't somehow disable TIA sound.

[jaybird3rd]

Because a 7800 with POKEY has access to six sound channels. Four on the POKEY, two on the TIA.

 

Well, providing that using POKEY sound doesn't somehow disable TIA sound.

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It doesn't; I've successfully used both at the same time.

[Danno]

Yeah, the controllers are a solid negative. No brownie points for "but but but they were ANALOG!". I don't care. They were non-centering and broke easily.

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Worse than the much-maligned 7800 Pain-Line controllers even.

 

Analog Controllers could only be a positive in free-environment games, like Berzerk or Centipede.

 

Linear directional movement games, with 8 or even only 4 directions being used, and the definite need for a centering feature to stop the character (like Pac-Man, Pitfall, etc.) become virtually unplayable once you move the joystick as you can never get them back to center properly without taking your eyes off the screen, and even then only if you're lucky.

Edited January 4, 2006 by Danno

[MaDDuck]

Well, the 5200 is a complete waste of solder and plastic, just like the Saturn.

 

'til you turn it on. 

 

I always thought the 5200 was slightly superior hardware wise.

All things considered, though, I like my 7800 better than I did my 5200, but both are fun to play.

 

And no, I don't think the Saturn is a waste, either.  It is enjoyable in its own right.

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so true!!!!

You have to turn it on.

 

But for the 7800, it turns YOU on!!!

[vdub_bobby]

Because a 7800 with POKEY has access to six sound channels. Four on the POKEY, two on the TIA.

 

Well, providing that using POKEY sound doesn't somehow disable TIA sound.

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Good point.

[supercat]

No, Atari didn't use that trick. Those systems effectively have a double speed bus which leaves every other cycle free for DMA. Although all Atari DMA steals cycles from the CPU, it's clocked nearly twice as fast as the Commodore or Apple so it's not as bad as it sounds.

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Well, it doesn't sound all that great.

 

The 7800 is able to show a lot more colors in 160-pixel mode than the 400/800/5200 really can, but the 400/800/5200 can have high-resolution sprites in front of a low-resolution background, something the 7800 cannot do.

 

IMHO, the 7800 would have been a graphically-superior machine if instead of the lame 320-pixel modes it had simply offered a variation of 160-pixel mode where the left half of each pixel would be controlled by one color register and the right half by another. The color registers could have been programmed to mimic a 320-wide 4-color mode, but could also do 320-3 color plus 7 other colors at 160 resolution, or 320-2 color plus 12 other colors at 160, or 'limited' 320-2 color (e.g. white on black and yellow on black, but no white on yellow or yellow on white) plus 9 other colors, etc.

 

Also, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that the 400/800/5200 has a line buffer to reduce the bus overhead posed by character-based mode; the 7800 does not.

[Bryan]

Well, it doesn't sound all that great.

 

Think of it this way... In a consumer level device in the late '70s you can only afford RAM that runs up to a certain speed (Let's say 2MHz). In order to use the 6502 interleaving trick, the CPU must run at 1/2 the RAM speed, limiting us to 1MHz but leaving another 1MHz of bandwidth free for other DMA devices.

 

If you don't use the interleaving trick, then you can run your CPU up to 2MHz (in this case 1.78MHz, 1/2 the pixel clock) but the bandwidth must be shared among all DMA devices. When no other DMA is happening (like during VBlank) the CPU runs at full speed.

 

This means the Atari has a lot more cycles available during off screen time, but less during a video line. It really isn't a bad trade-off.

 

-Bry

[supercat]

Think of it this way... In a consumer level device in the late '70s you can only afford RAM that runs up to a certain speed (Let's say 2MHz). In order to use the 6502 interleaving trick, the CPU must run at 1/2 the RAM speed, limiting us to 1MHz but leaving another 1MHz of bandwidth free for other DMA devices.

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I s'pose, but I don't remember ever seeing any RAMs slower than 250ns. While I know that a 250ns RAM can't go all the way up to 4MHz because of other prop delays in the system, and recognize that sequencing logic will be necessary to go over half that, I wouldn't think such sequencing logic would be all that hard to produce (mainly, it's a matter of generating assymetric clocks).

 

What's the top clock speed in a 400/800/5200? Is it 7.16Mhz, or there a 14.32Mhz clock in there somewhere?

 

I guess using just a 7.16Mhz clock, it might be hard to generate the necessary waveforms to run a useful speed faster than 1.79Mhz (7.16/3 would work, but getting 2.6 bytes/character clock could be awkward). If there's a 14.32Mhz available, though, I'd think it would be possible to run at 14.32/5 (2.86Mhz), dropping one cycle every 15, which would give a memory-bus access time of 279ns and fetch three bytes per character clock.

[DracIsBack]

Because a 7800 with POKEY has access to six sound channels. Four on the POKEY, two on the TIA.

 

Well, providing that using POKEY sound doesn't somehow disable TIA sound.

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It doesn't; I've successfully used both at the same time.

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So does COMMANDO, which uses POKEY for music and TIA for sound effects. That's why the 7800 sound in the game is more detailed than the XEGS version.

[DracIsBack]

The 7800 is able to show a lot more colors in 160-pixel mode than the 400/800/5200 really can, but the 400/800/5200 can have high-resolution sprites in front of a low-resolution background, something the 7800 cannot do.

 

Do you also want to get into some of the graphical things the 7800 can do which the 400/800/5200 cannot do?

Edited January 5, 2006 by DracIsBack

[ZylonBane]

the 400/800/5200 can have high-resolution sprites in front of a low-resolution background

Uhmm.... the 400/800/5200 can't display high-res sprites at all. And low-res backgrounds are something to be avoided anyway, not bragged about.

[NightSprinter]

Because a 7800 with POKEY has access to six sound channels. Four on the POKEY, two on the TIA.

 

Well, providing that using POKEY sound doesn't somehow disable TIA sound.

994068[/snapback]

It doesn't; I've successfully used both at the same time.

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So does COMMANDO, which uses POKEY for music and TIA for sound effects. That's why the 7800 sound in the game is more detailed than the XEGS version.

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Agreed, DIB (don't ask why, the letters made me think of "Invader Zim" for some reason). In fact, the sounds in Commando that are done through the TIA are actually pretty close to the arcade game believe it or not. They sound more faithful than the NES version's sound effects do. The only thing the 7800 version lacked was slightly higher resolution, the extended pallete, and some graphical effects (such as the trees blowing when the helicopter drops off Super Joe). So yeah, the 7800 could do quite a bit for just a tiny 4K of system RAM.

[HammR25]

I guess I just don't understand why people say the 7800 controllers were good. When the 7800 first came out the controllers came with a 90 day warranty. I went through 3 or 4 sets before that warranty went out and mailed them all back. I finally gave up and bought third party controllers.

 

If the 5200 controllers were worse then they REALLY sucked.

Edited January 5, 2006 by HammR25

[supercat]

the 400/800/5200 can have high-resolution sprites in front of a low-resolution background

Uhmm.... the 400/800/5200 can't display high-res sprites at all. And low-res backgrounds are something to be avoided anyway, not bragged about.

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I've never owned a 400/800/5200, and my memory of the machine comes from having played on my cousin's 800 on a small black and white television when I myself owned a C64. Perhaps my memories are faulty.

 

As for low-res backgrounds being nothing to brag about, how many games on the 7800 aren't stuck using low-res for everything? Even though the 7800 has a 320-dot mode, it seems like it's fundamentally designed around 160-dot mode. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I'd always thought the 400/800/5200 seemed to be more "fundamentally" 320-dot machines.

[supercat]

The plan wasn't to keep putting Pokeys in carts, but rather to develop a cheaper sound IC. Of course, this never happened.

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How hard would it have been to throw a POKEY in a 28-pin package as was done with the 6507?

[Artlover]

I guess I just don't understand why people say the 7800 controllers were good.  When the 7800 first came out the controllers came with a 90 day warranty.  I went through 3 or 4 sets before that warranty went out and mailed them all back.  I finally gave up and bought third party controllers.

 

If the 5200 controllers were worse then they REALLY sucked.

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Hmmm. I've still got the original pair that came with my 7800 that I bought back in 1986. They saw years of use on my 7800, C64 and 800XL. One of the shafts is slightly bent, thats about it.

[jaybird3rd]

I guess I just don't understand why people say the 7800 controllers were good.  When the 7800 first came out the controllers came with a 90 day warranty.  I went through 3 or 4 sets before that warranty went out and mailed them all back.  I finally gave up and bought third party controllers.

 

If the 5200 controllers were worse then they REALLY sucked.

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I'm surprised to hear this. The CX-24 ProLines were pretty rugged controllers; they were just uncomfortable. If you're talking about the European gamepads, that's a different story; those weren't very well-made and seemed flimsy AND uncomfortable to me.

 

As for low-res backgrounds being nothing to brag about, how many games on the 7800 aren't stuck using low-res for everything?  Even though the 7800 has a 320-dot mode, it seems like it's fundamentally designed around 160-dot mode.  Maybe I'm mistaken, but I'd always thought the 400/800/5200 seemed to be more "fundamentally" 320-dot machines.

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Unfortunately, that's not the case; the only 320-dot mode on the 400/800 was the pseudo-monochrome mode (mode 8 in BASIC, I believe) that used color artifacting and other tricks to simulate high resolution. All other modes were 160 pixels per scanline (or less).

 

How hard would it have been to throw a POKEY in a 28-pin package as was done with the 6507?

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The 7800 mainboard is pretty crowded as it is, and I'm not sure where Atari would have put even a reduced-pin-count POKEY (presumably including only the sound circuitry) without a daughterboard. Besides, I get the impression that the Tramiel Atari was never enthusiastic enough about the 7800 to go through the trouble of repackaging or consolidating POKEY or any other chips in the system. They were still manufacturing a ton of those chips for other machines, and probably wanted to save money by using them as they were (when they had to). I've heard that they never even paid their suppliers for the last batch of MARIA chips they used. Speaking of which, MARIA was originally supposed to include better sound, but that idea and the low-cost "Gumby" sound chip that GCC was developing eventually fell by the wayside.

 

Things might have been different if the 7800 was manufactured by a company that actually cared about it, but sadly, the 7800 was the ultimate red-headed stepchild of the console world.

Edited January 5, 2006 by jaybird3rd

[Bryan]

What's the top clock speed in a 400/800/5200?  Is it 7.16Mhz, or there a 14.32Mhz clock in there somewhere?

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The later machines with Freddie use a 14MHz clock and divide it down to generate all the various clocks, but the earlier machines used a 3.58Mhz clock and used a delay line to generate RAS/CAS which cut down precision a bit.

 

-Bry

[Bryan]

Unfortunately, that's not the case; the only 320-dot mode on the 400/800 was the pseudo-monochrome mode (mode 8 in BASIC, I believe) that used color artifacting and other tricks to simulate high resolution.  All other modes were 160 pixels per scanline (or less).

You could use artifacting to simulate more color, and that only worked on NTSC models. Otherwise you get 2 shades of the same color. At least the 7800 allowed you some real color control in the 320 mode.

 

-Bry

[DracIsBack]

I guess I just don't understand why people say the 7800 controllers were good.  When the 7800 first came out the controllers came with a 90 day warranty.  I went through 3 or 4 sets before that warranty went out and mailed them all back.  I finally gave up and bought third party controllers.

 

I have this weird respect for them, though I don't think they're good. I sort of just "learned how to use them". Like you, I wrecked the first one I had and had to buy another. But since then, I've owned four prolines on two 7800's and never had an issue.

 

Also, as strange as it is ... I have the 7800 joypads and don't use them much. For some reason, some games which require extra sensitivity (ie. SCRAPYARD DOG where literally every pixel counts in a jum) I find the prolines work better.

[EricBall]

The 5200 had 16K of internal RAM while the 7800 had only 4K. While 4K wasn't quite as limiting as the 128 bytes of the 2600 (256 if you used a Supercharger), it still wasn't exactly a "lot" of RAM to do very complex games in.

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Where are you getting 256 bytes from? A SuperCharger game has 6K of RAM/ROM (plus the 128 bytes of system RAM). Or are you thinking of the Atari Super Chip which had 128 bytes of RAM mapped to the ROM space. CBS RAM+ and M-Networks had on-cart RAM.

 

The 7800 is able to show a lot more colors in 160-pixel mode than the 400/800/5200 really can, but the 400/800/5200 can have high-resolution sprites in front of a low-resolution background, something the 7800 cannot do.

True, although the 7800 can change resolutions (via a DLI) on different parts of the screen. It is also possible to change between color modes on a per-sprite basis.

 

IMHO, the 7800 would have been a graphically-superior machine if instead of the lame 320-pixel modes it had simply offered a variation of 160-pixel mode where the left half of each pixel would be controlled by one color register and the right half by another.  The color registers could have been programmed to mimic a 320-wide 4-color mode, but could also do 320-3 color plus 7 other colors at 160 resolution, or 320-2 color plus 12 other colors at 160, or 'limited' 320-2 color (e.g. white on black and yellow on black, but no white on yellow or yellow on white) plus 9 other colors, etc.

My guess is that all of the graphics modes (other than the base 160A four color mode) were afterthoughts after they had comitted to the 2x800 bit line RAM needed for 160A.

 

Also, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that the 400/800/5200 has a line buffer to reduce the bus overhead posed by character-based mode; the 7800 does not.

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The 7800 also has two line buffers. One for write (from memory), one for read (to screen). It does not, however, buffer each display list so must read it for each line in the zone.