Atari 800/400

[Anonymous No.10437856]

>256 color graphics
>incredibly fast display list driven fast bitmap
>true RNG
>fastest and smoothest 3D graphics among all 8-bit machines
>diverse, innovative, and high quality game library relative to other 8-bit systems
>relatively cheap and fast floppy drive
>2 cart slots
>only $165 by 1982, or less than $150 if you opted for the 400
Why wasn't this computer a huge success in the US? Why did the Americans choose the NES over this pinnacle of 8-bit gaming?

[Anonymous No.10437975]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic0nvtNfDRM

[Anonymous No.10437978]

>>10437856
Americans chose C64, retard. NES was different market.

[Anonymous No.10438016]

You could get the 16-bit TI-99 for 99$ though

[Anonymous No.10438026]

>>10437975
Why's there so much seething in the comment section?

[Anonymous No.10438053]

>>10437856
americans only care for braindead apple computers and then they rather habe consoles, why else do you think they shit so much on computers all the time?

[Anonymous No.10438068]

>>10437856
only the 800 had 2 cart slots, and the second was so scarcely utilized all the other 8-bit machines eliminated it.

[Anonymous No.10438072]

>>10437856
lolwut? the NES belonged to a completely different era. the A8s were from the generation prior to it and were long irrelevant by the time NES was a thing.

[Anonymous No.10438082]

>>10437856
Atari were dumbasses who didn't publish any tech info for the first year so nobody could program them except in BASIC.

[Anonymous No.10438130]

the A8s got pinched between the Apple II and C64. there was only a short window in 1982-83 when they were relevant.

[Anonymous No.10438132]

>>10437856
>true RNG
Here's your answer. The glowies didn't want hard crypto going mainstream. Source: my ass.

[Anonymous No.10438151]

>>10438016
Poor TI, they didn't stand a chance.

[Anonymous No.10438172]

My school had a few 800's although they mostly had Apple II's and TRS80's. NES was much later and a completely different market.

[Anonymous No.10438194]

>>10438072
Star Raiders II, Alternate Reality, and all Lucasarts games on the system look a generation ahead of anything on the NES. The NES doesn't even have 256 colors and bitmap mode. It's an older system for sure, but it was the quantum computer of 8-bit systems when it came out, and still outperformed the NES in many respects years later.

[Anonymous No.10438274]

>>10438194
unfortunately the A8s could only really display 4 colors out of that large palette and the sprites were limited and monochromatic. also char mode was limited to 128 characters while C64 and NES had 256.

[Anonymous No.10438281]

>>10437856
It also did not have any sound hardware other than 3 beepers.

[Anonymous No.10438294]

>>10437856
pretty amazing when you consider it came out in the damn 70s. Also had 4 controller ports before any other machine

[Anonymous No.10438302]

>>10438016
dirty rape ape

[Anonymous No.10438312]

>>10438274
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOR_DX1JCMg

Here's Gauntlet. This had to use bitmap mode because character mode was too limited but it's very monochromatic as a result and runs sluggishly.

[Anonymous No.10438337]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLO-z3re1PU

this Aussie retard i swear. and you thought The 8-bit Guy was dumb.
>wastes a bunch of time swapping RAM chips only to realize he really had a PSU issue

[Anonymous No.10438349]

>>10438281
Pokey isn't sound hardware?

[Anonymous No.10438356]

>>10438337
I love C64 and Atari 8-bit PSUs and they were truly fine pieces of engineering.

[Anonymous No.10438358]

>>10437856
Why are you obsessed about Americans and what games they liked? I never once in my life tried to imagine why britlards and auswogs liked their gay calculator games instead of colecovision or NES. Who fuckin cares?

[Anonymous No.10438365]

>>10438274
No, the Atari could display all of those colors at the same time vertically, each of them per scanline. The sprites were missiles and had separate color attribute. There are various ways to get around the sprite/missile color limitation. Games had to be programmed differently on this system from what you're used to in most sprite based systems such as the C64 and NES, to get the most of it.

[Anonymous No.10438378]

>>10438365
For all practical purposes it's 4 colors due to the limitations of what you can do with the DLI system.

[Anonymous No.10438391]

>>10438378
basically the DLI system lets you switch palettes/video modes once every eight scanlines so in theory you could do 24 switches per screen but there isn't enough memory for it. also you still can only put four colors on every group of eight scanlines.

[Anonymous No.10438428]

>>10438312
It's just a bad port. Dandy runs much better than this and uses char mode with very smooth scrolling.

[Anonymous No.10438495]

>>10437856
>>256 color graphics
4-16 colours out of a palette of 256 can be used for graphics
>>fastest and smoothest 3D graphics among all 8-bit machines
completely false
>Why wasn't this computer a huge success in the US? Why did the Americans choose the NES over this pinnacle of 8-bit gaming?
because c64 was born and made the entire atari line look like a piece of shit. they didn't choose the nes. this is why c64 ended up being the best selling computer in history

great to see yet another sad delusional atari thread written by people that lost the 8-bit wars in 1982.

[Anonymous No.10438503]

>>10438365
>, the Atari could display all of those colors at the same time vertically, each of them per scanline.
wooooooooooooooooooow. nobody fucking cares.

[Anonymous No.10438514]

>>10438312
god damn it that is absolutely awful. unplayable.

>>10438337
> touches ram
> blistering hot
> usually a good sign it's dead or malfunctioning
he did the right thing considering the lack of tools and documentation. what's your contribution to the world of computing, cletus?

[Anonymous No.10438572]

>>10438349
Not by any definition I sign up to.

[Anonymous No.10438714]

Is austroon still larping as an obese homosexual failed dev?

[Anonymous No.10438727]

>>10437856
The answer to any question asking why an Atari product failed, is that Atari was fundamentally retarded as a company, their competition was not.

[Anonymous No.10439016]

>>10438572
>integrated circuit that produces square wave audio
>not hardware
Explain further? It isn't exclusively used for sound but that was its de facto purpose

[Anonymous No.10439126]

>>10438302
You can't rape the willing. It's all a BullShit propaganda stunt to destroy his attempts at civilizing black Americans.

[Anonymous No.10439208]

>>10438714
hello, schizo. everyone is australian here. whoever this australian is lives rent free in your tiny single digit iq mind.

[Anonymous No.10439214]

>>10439126
bill cosby was always a degenerate rapist, hated his own race and thought he was better than all of them. he should have been shot in the face in the 1970s. bill is literally uncle ruckus from boondocks.

[Anonymous No.10439250]

>>10438514
yeah the RAM being molten hot would indeed be a good indication that the PSU fucked itself and fried it

[Anonymous No.10439275]

>>10438016
With their HIPPIN and their HOPPIN and heir BIPPIN and their BOPPIN they dont know what computers, is alll about!

[Anonymous No.10439283]

>>10438053
>braindead apple computers
Thirdie zoom zoom detected, Apple was famous for giving you the schematics and having lots of expansion ports inside, while other computers of the era had very little expandability and didn't give you the level of documentation. I think it's a shame third worlders and Indians have the ability to comment in boards like /vr/, you're poorly informed and shameless liars even when you do actually know the truth.

[Anonymous No.10439286]

>>10439283
Until C64 took over the Apple II was also the go-to gaming computer.

[Anonymous No.10439306]

>>10439286
It's just ridiculous that we have to tolerate third world street shitting retards on this board who have no idea what Apple 2's even are.

[Anonymous No.10439325]

>>10439214
LMAO take your meds

[Anonymous No.10439336]

>>10439250
DRAM is really easy to damage from overvoltage due to its structure. It's a grid of very tightly packed transistors while other chip types like CPUs have more space on the die. If a PSU shits itself it will nearly always take out DRAM first. This is a well-known phenomena on C64, a bad PSU usually manifests as blown RAM.

[Anonymous No.10439357]

>>10439336
pretty sure it has more to do with the small size of the dies

[Anonymous No.10439374]

>>10439336
Used to be worse in the 80s before clamp diodes were widely used in ICs and chips had next to no ESD protection.

[Anonymous No.10439404]

>>10439208
Dilate more

[Anonymous No.10440605]

>>10438503
Cope.

[Anonymous No.10440607]

>>10437978
There's no reason to choose the NES over the C64 or Atari 8-bit.

[Anonymous No.10440618]

>>10438016
that looks kino

[Anonymous No.10441039]

the Atari 800XL mogged everything the C64 could do, it just came on the scene too late.

[Anonymous No.10441370]

>>10441039
>the Atari 800XL mogged everything the C64 could do
no, it really did not. no one who has actually programmed for these machines could think this.

[Anonymous No.10441785]

>>10440605
Ah yes, cover everything in gradients because you can't come up with actual art direction

[Anonymous No.10442329]

>>10439283
>>10439306
go back to your grave steve

[Anonymous No.10442518]

>>10440607
NES has better games.

[Anonymous No.10443038]

>>10442518
Even Apple II had better games than the NES.

[Anonymous No.10443048]

>>10443038
lol

[Anonymous No.10443356]

>>10440605
> has to use background colour changes like an atari 2600
ahahahahaahahahahaahaha oh yes, you sure showed that anon, retard.
>>10441039
>the Atari 800XL mogged everything
>failed to sell
>notorious for hardware failures
embarrassing.
>>10442518
>>10443038
lmao.

[Anonymous No.10443364]

>>10441785
it's like this with all of atari's cancer, including the atari st. only machine to take full advantage of raster colours for backgrounds was the amiga, using a vastly superior user definable colour palette.

[Anonymous No.10443383]

>>10440605
pure distilled vaporwave sovl

[Anonymous No.10445039]

>>10438072
op is correct here. The real quetion is why choose 8bit over NES if you were around back then? The answer is that the software was different. You had much more capabilities with computer software then a gaming console.

[Anonymous No.10445057]

>>10437856
Recall. The Atari also had superior sound to the C64. Furthermore, you would have had dial-up capability compared to the NES. Gaming consoles were for little kids. Teenagers still high from watching War Games wanted to actually do something online.

[Anonymous No.10445647]

>>10439283
>Other computers of the era had very little expand-ability
*Ahem*
>Commodore PET 2001-16 and and some PET 2001-32s could be upgraded in both the software (installing new BASIC versions like 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0 via proper Cassette tapes containing such updates) and hardware department via expansion slot to a maximum of 64K, albeit sound had to be manually added
>Atari 400 & 800, had support for no just Cassettes, but also 5 1/4 inch floppy disks, and ROM cart. Both could both be expanded to a certain level, with the Atari 400 going from 4k to 16k max and the 800, being not only gifted with a better keyboard, but also started at 16K, and could be upgraded to higher levels than the 400, via larger support for RAM boards that allowed it to go up to 32k or higher still to 48k.
>TI-99/4a could be upgraded to a total of 32k
>Radioshack TRS-80 Model 1, which had various revisions throughout its production life, also had graphics, albeit in monochrome B&W or green depending on settings, but still had sound out of the box unlike pre 40-column PETs, and initially came in 4k of RAM (though some revisions officially came with 8k), but was expandable in many ways, including adding joystick ports, expanding RAM up to 16k max, installing color graphics via color cards, and an expansion module that added 32k to the base computer, max 48k possible.
>TRS-80 Model III was also expandable to some extent.

[Anonymous No.10445664]

>>10437856
>>true RNG
what you're actually referring to here is a pseudorandom number generator. true randomness doesn't exist

[Anonymous No.10445669]

>>10445057
Superior graphics, yes. The Atari 8-bit did have that going for it. Not sure about sound being superior in every category...
Either way, both still better sound than both the pre-128k models of the ZX Spectrum, 8 bit Apple ][, and the TI-99 4/a.

[Anonymous No.10445679]

>>10445664
>true randomness doesn't exist
Why not? Definitely not on 1970s and early 80s computers and consoles, sure.

[Anonymous No.10445685]

>>10443364
>>10443356
OH BOY a computer system war!

[Anonymous No.10445686]

>>10445679
randomness is a manmade concept to cope with the fact that we don't fully understand how a system works

[Anonymous No.10445689]

>>10437856
>no documentation
Atari forgot to tell people how to program it and by the time people figured it out, cheap and good-enough computers were out like the Commodore Vic20, c64 and Speccy which DID have awesome documentation.

[Anonymous No.10445796]

>>10445664
>>10445679
It used the sound chip oscillator to produce RNG. It's as good as an RNG in a mass produced device could be.

[Anonymous No.10445910]

>>10445796
i think he's just being a pedantic "uhm acsksually..." faggot

[Anonymous No.10445971]

Nobody knew how to program it because Atari refused to release documentation.

[Anonymous No.10446205]

>>10445971
*next to nobody not working for Atari in one way or another knew how to program it at first. Oh, and There's something called "trial and error", like through PEEK, POKE, BREAK and other commands such as GOSUB & GOTO. BTW, what was the case regarding public documentation for the Commodore 64, MSX, ZX Spectrum, and FM-7 (FM-7 wasn't exclusive to Japan; while not as officially used in Europe as the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad, MSX, nor the Acorn BBC Micro, it still had some presence outside of East Asia, mostly in Spain)?

[Anonymous No.10446234]

>>10446205
The c64 had complete open documentation through the programmer's reference guide, as did the Vic20. Speccy game with a full reference to all aspects of the hardware and was pretty easy to program.

[Anonymous No.10447928]

>>10445685
Better than another thousand console wars, computers vs console wars or west vs east wars.

[Anonymous No.10448142]

>>10445796
>It used the sound chip oscillator to produce RNG
The C64 produced RNG in literally the exact same way.

[Radiochan !!8R5IcuH3PgQ No.10448187]

>>10437978
this
>>10440607
>>10442518
better games, yes, plus easier availability
floppies kind of suck, NES carts are made of Nintendium

[Anonymous No.10449032]

>>10448187
>floppies suck
speak for yourself. The mini Floppies used by certain models of the Sharp MZ and FDS, do kind of suck, but not so for the 5 1/4 inch floppies and 3 1/2 inch disks. 8-inch floppies are meh.

[Anonymous No.10449264]

>>10448142
Yes the C64 could do it as well, but it should be easier on the Atari since the PSG also handles the keyboard input.

[Anonymous No.10450603]

up

[Anonymous No.10450821]

>>10445685
> atari fag is upset
it's not that anon's fault that the amiga was vastly superior to the ST when in came to graphics. that isn't debatable. please, tell us about your "midi ports".

[Anonymous No.10452115]

>Atari 800XL was prone to breaking at the Hardware Level
O really? By what metric was it commonly prone to failure? Still not as bad as the 65XE and XEGS. Ditto for the first and similarly, the 2nd versions of the ZX Spectrum.

[Anonymous No.10452220]

>>10452115
The XLs were mostly vulnerable to bad PSUs. Also some of them had a Mexican-made 6502 that was kind of shitty and failure-prone. There are threads about those chips on AtariAge, also a few different brands of CPU were used and some ran hotter than others.

[Anonymous No.10452229]

>>10452220
>>10452115
As for the XE line, horrible Tramiel-era cost cutting. Ultra shitty PCBs and use of Micron MT4264s aka Satan's RAM chip.

[Anonymous No.10452236]

>>10452229
Did they overheat like with 4116s?

[Anonymou No.10452241]

>>10452115
My xegs still works, well the carts have problems reading

[Anonymous No.10452246]

>>10452236
No. They were shitty and defective from the factory. Apparently most were duds that Micron shipped anyway to meet quotas. I believe they must have had an issue with wafer contamination that was never addressed.

[Anonymous No.10452253]

>>10452241
>>10452246
The XEGS didn't have those Micron chips, it used two 64kx4 RAM chips instead (I believe those were 41264s which is what the late C64 boards had). They can still get eaten by the shitty PSU though.

[Anonymous No.10452254]

>>10438016
is that gus fring?

[Anonymous No.10454120]

>>10450821
>he's actually this dedicated to a dead machine war
That's so embarrassing. Did you get beat up by an atari kid in your youth and never live it down or something?