best not released non cartridge item for 7800

[8th lutz]

Mine is the 5200 adapter.

[+Allan]

Well, the Mindlink sucked cause all it did was give you a headacke. The 5200 adapter is neat but since there already is a 5200 it's no big deal. The laserdisc adapter is defintely my vote but since it was just an idea it really doesn't matter. It would be a cool hardware project though.

 

Allan

[jbanes]

Where's the keyboard? I know Curt is working on one, but it's still not released.

[Shawn]

I voted all but I would want the 5200 adaptor most. And the keyboard doesn't count anymore cuase it's gonna be for sale real soon (yahoo!! )

 

EDIT: Also, is the mindlink not a 2600 prepheral?

Edited January 19, 2006 by silver_surfer

[sku_u]

The keyboard, definitely.

[8th lutz]

I voted all but I would want the 5200 adaptor most. And the keyboard doesn't count anymore cuase it's gonna be for sale real soon (yahoo!! )

 

EDIT: Also, is the mindlink not a 2600 prepheral?

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it is a 2600 prepheral. I put it down since it was for the 2600 and the 7800 according the dp guide I have. I thought that atari would consider making 7800 mindlink games. I think back in 1984, atari know that the 2600 was in its twlight and would make sense for the 7800 to have mindlink games for that reason sometime in the 7800s lifespan.

[+Allan]

I would have voted for the keyboard as well but hopefully it will be released soon so it won't count in this survey.

 

Allan

[Bruce Tomlin]

Meh, the mindlink, keyboard, and laserdisc were flash, and were distractions from actually having to make good games. And not one computer add-on ever achieved any kind of success. The 5200 adapter would have been to placate people who had to buy a new console again, and was nothing more than a 7800 that used the 5200 as an expensive RF modulator. Hell, the design didn't even have a boot ROM for automatic 2600 cartridge detection!

 

I'm especially amused that there are currently three votes for the laserdisc. I hope the people who voted for it realize that 1) it would probably have cost more than the 7800 console's initial MSRP (I would be surprised if it was less than $500) and not have sold enough to encourage any kind of game development, and 2) it would have basically have been used for crappy FMV games (rail shooters and joystick reaction RPG-ish games) like the ones that stunk up the Sega CD, only on discs that cost 100 times as much to press as CD-ROMs did in the Sega CD era. Sure, Dragon's Lair is interesting if you've never seen it before, but just how much replay value is there in it, anyhow?

 

When Dragon's Lair was new, I seem to recall dumping $10 worth of quarters in it before I decided it was more fun to save my money and watch. (and watching wasn't hard, because this was the first time I had seen a second monitor attached to the top of a game for passive "audience" viewing)

[8th lutz]

My reason not picking laserdisc was easy. My thinking that it would be used for fmv games besides the price. Rpgs were note popular in the 80's. By the time that y's 1&2 came out, atari would've released a new atari game console in 1989 if Time warner was the owner of atari. The laserdic games in the arcades were a fad. That being said atari be forced to end the laserdisc add-ons life or make other types of games. At the time the 7800 was supposed to be released in 1984, games were not needed to have over 48k unless they were computer games.

Edited January 19, 2006 by 8th lutz

[+Allan]

Meh, the mindlink, keyboard, and laserdisc were flash, and were distractions from actually having to make good games.  And not one computer add-on ever achieved any kind of success.  The 5200 adapter would have been to placate people who had to buy a new console again, and was nothing more than a 7800 that used the 5200 as an expensive RF modulator.  Hell, the design didn't even have a boot ROM for automatic 2600 cartridge detection!

 

I'm especially amused that there are currently three votes for the laserdisc.  I hope the people who voted for it realize that 1) it would probably have cost more than the 7800 console's initial MSRP (I would be surprised if it was less than $500) and not have sold enough to encourage any kind of game development, and 2) it would have basically have been used for crappy FMV games (rail shooters and joystick reaction RPG-ish games) like the ones that stunk up the Sega CD, only on discs that cost 100 times as much to press as CD-ROMs did in the Sega CD era.  Sure, Dragon's Lair is interesting if you've never seen it before, but just how much replay value is there in it, anyhow?

 

When Dragon's Lair was new, I seem to recall dumping $10 worth of quarters in it before I decided it was more fun to save my money and watch.  (and watching wasn't hard, because this was the first time I had seen a second monitor attached to the top of a game for passive "audience" viewing)

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Even though I voted for the laserdisc player I have to agree with Bruce. Laserdiscs were just too expensive to make and their replay value was limited. Today would be different but back then it just wouldn't sell do to it's price.

 

The only thing I would add here was that I really believe that GCC really wanted to make a great video game system. I think whatever product they made for the 7800 would have been of excellent quality. I think that if Warner hadn't sold Atari and GCC had continued to make games and hardware for the 7800, that both the games and hardware would have gotten better and better. I think the games would have gotten just as good as later NES games. Although some might disagree with some of their design decisions, I think quality was one of the highest goals. I don't know if they would have been able to do anything good with the laserdisc player but I think if anybody had a chance they could maybe pull it off.

 

Allan

[8th lutz]

I agree About GCC wanting to make a great system. They were great in making games and hardware. The 7800 would have gotten better versions of some games. The laser disc player would of been a difficult thing to sell. The idea of the laser Disc player being released around the time the 7800 was would have been bad in the press and would be wondering why the 7800 needs a laserDisc player add-on right away. Then there would of be speculation of the 7800's capablities without the add-on in terms of graphics and sound along with how better is the 7800 compare to other systems.

 

I think it would difficult for the laser disc player not to be a flop with GCC. I also feel that the laser dis player would hurt time warner big time in money if it was released.

[+Allan]

I wonder if anything else could have been done with that expansion port?

 

Allan

[jbanes]

While I agree that the Laserdisc would have been mostly useless, I chose it because it's the best out of three useless options.

 

The mindlink was junk. Nothing more than a cutesy headband that would "read" your brow. If it was released, it would have gone the way of the PowerGlove. Except with less fanfare.

 

As Bruce pointed out, the 5200 adapter would have been nothing more than a 5200 machine that plugged into your 7800.

 

The Laserdisc, while guaranteed not to be successful, might have been at least interesting. i.e. It could have been the SuperCharger of the 7800. Just more expensive. At the very least, it might have been useful with a lightgun for an early version of Maddog McCree.

 

As for the keyboard, I think it might have done alright for itself. I have to disagree that it was a distraction. It could have been used to create more complex games that needed more keys/buttons than the 7800 could provide. It could also be used to load games from tape, allowing for large worlds that could never have fit on a cartridge. Basically, the keyboard could have had a purpose, even though it may have seemed gimmicky.

 

I wonder if anything else could have been done with that expansion port?

I don't see why not. For example, you could create a CDROM drive with extra RAM for the machine. Maybe even include a cool video or sprite compression decoder to free up the CPU. All you really need is the documentation that explains the pinouts. (And some hardware design experience, but that goes without saying. )

[Bruce Tomlin]

I wonder if anything else could have been done with that expansion port?

I don't see why not. For example, you could create a CDROM drive with extra RAM for the machine. Maybe even include a cool video or sprite compression decoder to free up the CPU. All you really need is the documentation that explains the pinouts. (And some hardware design experience, but that goes without saying. )

I thought it was pretty much common knowledge by now that the "expansion port" was nothing more than a souped-up audio/video input. It was basically there to allow the 7800 to overlay the laserdisc player video and nothing else.

[jbanes]

I thought it was pretty much common knowledge by now that the "expansion port" was nothing more than a souped-up audio/video input.  It was basically there to allow the 7800 to overlay the laserdisc player video and nothing else.

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I did a bit of Googling and found the pinouts here. I'm actually scratching my head a little bit at this, but I think the idea is that the LD player supplants the 6502C and controls the MARIA/TIA directly. So the LaserDisc player would have to basically be a completely new processor and RAM architecture that is allowed to integrate with the graphics, sound, and controllers of the 7800. At least, that's how I read the specs.

 

Am I wrong? If I am, please tell me now so I don't feel too sheepish.

[jedijeff]

I picked the laserdisc player. It was another idea way ahead of it's time. I eventually got a laserdisc player just so I could watch the original widescreen versions of movies and not that pan&scan crap. It's still the best way to watch the original Star Wars movies.

 

Jeff

[Student Driver]

I'm especially amused that there are currently three votes for the laserdisc.  I hope the people who voted for it realize that 1) it would probably have cost more than the 7800 console's initial MSRP (I would be surprised if it was less than $500) and not have sold enough to encourage any kind of game development, and 2) it would have basically have been used for crappy FMV games (rail shooters and joystick reaction RPG-ish games) like the ones that stunk up the Sega CD, only on discs that cost 100 times as much to press as CD-ROMs did in the Sega CD era.  Sure, Dragon's Lair is interesting if you've never seen it before, but just how much replay value is there in it, anyhow?

 

I was a vote for LD.

 

In reference to the cost of the players and software: Double-sided laserdiscs only cost around $6 to press in low runs (500 or so) during the Sega CD era, and were cheaper in the mid-80s. If data were included on the disc (instead of being required on a separate cartridge), manufacturing costs for a complete title would have been similar to cartridge releases of the day. (LD title MSRPs were often lower than VHS title MSRPs until the mid-to-late 90s because they were cheaper to make.) The players would have been expensive, but in 1984, it still wasn't clear that there was a clear winner in a home-video market where VHS and Beta players were running $500; an Atari-branded LD player for $500 wouldn't have been out of place, and could have made a decent showing... the cost would have been offset by its usefulness as a home video player.

 

RE low market penetration not encouraging game development: What special game development would be needed? Considering the emphasis on arcade translations in the era of the 7800's development, any of the miscellaneous arcade LD/CED games, as well as the Japanese MSX LD titles, could have been converted to the hypothetical platform. The video already existed and was already mastered, and in many cases required no graphics to be overlaid. Development costs would have been fairly low. Judging by titles like Cliff Hanger, pre-existing TV shows and movies could be used for video content if new titles needed to be developed cheaply.

 

Anyway... the (re)playability of FMV and LD titles is something that differs for everyone. I agree with you on the play value of most of the Sega CD FMV titles, but I have to admit a soft spot in my heart for the 80s arcade titles... if a home platform existed back then to give me Astron Belt, Cobra Command and MACH 3, I'd have been a very happy boy.

 

As one more last regarding the feasibility of LD and the 7800- it might seem a ridiculous prospect in 2006, but when the 7800 was being developed, Dragon's Lair was seen as a major leap forward in video games, instead of the dead-end side road that it turned out to be. Considering the era and market, it's perfectly reasonable that GCC would have designed the 7800 to interface with a LD player, in order to handle the future games they all thought were coming...

[Prodos8]

I voted for the LD player.

 

Not because I think it would have been successful, but rather the opposite. It would have been a marketing failure, way overpriced, and then be on clearance for $50 bucks or so and games for $10 or so. Kinda like the Vectrex system ended up. Then we all could have snatched one up cheaply and be happy completing Thayer's Quest without worring about puttting in another quarter.

[gdement]

After Nintendo locked up so many developers, Atari in 1986-87 should have turned to the domestic computer game companies, like Broderbund, Infocom, Origin, Electronic Arts, etc. A keyboard peripheral might have been helpful in recruiting those kinds of developers. The computer market had a wealth of games that console gamers never saw, and many of them would be awkward without a keyboard.

Edited January 22, 2006 by gdement

[Bruce Tomlin]

After Nintendo locked up so many developers, Atari in 1986-87 should have turned to the domestic computer game companies, like Broderbund, Infocom, Origin, Electronic Arts, etc.  A keyboard peripheral might have been helpful in recruiting those kinds of developers.

The keyboard wouldn't have helped, because Atari wasn't giving any kind of support other than throwing some documentation at them and, presumably, offering to sell devkit boards. In particular, they weren't fronting any money for development, and that was one of the main things that killed the 7800.

 

I'm going to have to side with Jack Tramiel here for once. Any game that needed a keyboard would have come from the computer world anyhow, where text and bitmap graphics were the norm, so the 7800's sprite abilities (which were a pain to use anyhow) wouldn't have been useful. Those games would have worked just fine on (and were already out for) an XE/XL/C64, which usually had a floppy drive available, and therefore was much cheaper to publish for, even with software piracy.

 

And the 7800's lack of internal memory would have made it about as useful as an Aquarius where computer game ports were concerned. Every keyboard game cart would have needed RAM, increasing the price difference over floppy disk even more. For instance, you've mentioned Infocom. Well, even assuming someone would want to play a text game on their 7800, all their Zork-based games required 16K of RAM for working space.

[Shawn]

Quite possibly any homebrew software for the 7800 keyboard will most likey have to take advantage of the Xboard I would assume to be of any real eye candy to the user. Nice way to get the Xboard into common use I say.

[+Mitch]

Quite possibly any homebrew software for the 7800 keyboard will most likey have to take advantage of the Xboard I would assume to be of any real eye candy to the user. Nice way to get the Xboard into common use I say.

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Not really, RAM is cheap nowadays and wouldn't add much to the price of a cart. You just need a cart board that supports it.

 

Mitch

[+Allan]

After Nintendo locked up so many developers, Atari in 1986-87 should have turned to the domestic computer game companies, like Broderbund, Infocom, Origin, Electronic Arts, etc.  A keyboard peripheral might have been helpful in recruiting those kinds of developers.

The keyboard wouldn't have helped, because Atari wasn't giving any kind of support other than throwing some documentation at them and, presumably, offering to sell devkit boards. In particular, they weren't fronting any money for development, and that was one of the main things that killed the 7800.

 

I'm going to have to side with Jack Tramiel here for once. Any game that needed a keyboard would have come from the computer world anyhow, where text and bitmap graphics were the norm, so the 7800's sprite abilities (which were a pain to use anyhow) wouldn't have been useful. Those games would have worked just fine on (and were already out for) an XE/XL/C64, which usually had a floppy drive available, and therefore was much cheaper to publish for, even with software piracy.

 

And the 7800's lack of internal memory would have made it about as useful as an Aquarius where computer game ports were concerned. Every keyboard game cart would have needed RAM, increasing the price difference over floppy disk even more. For instance, you've mentioned Infocom. Well, even assuming someone would want to play a text game on their 7800, all their Zork-based games required 16K of RAM for working space.

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It was my impression that pre-Tramiel Atari was ready to throw everything at the 7800 but when Warner sold Atari that all ended. It's hard to tell what would have happened if Warner stuck it out with Atari.

 

As far as the Ram issue goes, couldn't they have simply built a RAM cart and put games that used the keyboard on disc?

 

Allan

[gdement]

Any game that needed a keyboard would have come from the computer world anyhow, where text and bitmap graphics were the norm, so the 7800's sprite abilities (which were a pain to use anyhow) wouldn't have been useful.  Those games would have worked just fine on (and were already out for) an XE/XL/C64, which usually had a floppy drive available, and therefore was much cheaper to publish for, even with software piracy.

I would contend that the console and computer game markets were largely separate from each other. Lots of kids didn't have computers back then, or if they did, they didn't play games on them. I agree cartridge games are more expensive to produce, but they're still worth producing if they will reach a wider market.

 

And the 7800's lack of internal memory would have made it about as useful as an Aquarius where computer game ports were concerned.  Every keyboard game cart would have needed RAM, increasing the price difference over floppy disk even more.  For instance, you've mentioned Infocom.  Well, even assuming someone would want to play a text game on their 7800, all their Zork-based games required 16K of RAM for working space.

1004729[/snapback]

That may be true about Zork, I wouldn't know. But in general, disk based systems need more RAM than cartridge systems do. 4KB isn't as bad as it sounds if you have a ROM cartridge from which you can directly access static data. But yeah, depending on the game, you might need an extra 8KB.

[Godzilla]

Man, I wanted the computer adapter so bad back in the day...