Atari (general) thread

[Anonymous No.5443632]

Atari 2600: Lifespan 1977–1992.
How is that even possible? There will never be any console with that long life span. Why did Atari suck so much? I can't have nostalgia goggles when it is about Atari, ANY Atari sucked in my opinion and I already hated it back in the day. How do you feel? Where you amazed by the Atari or already like
>yeh that sucks but that's the only thing we have
Is there anything GOOD by Atari? Blue pill me.

[Anonymous No.5443635]

So the question is: Why does Atari suck so much?

[Anonymous No.5443651]

The main problem with Atari games is that there's really not way to compete with other people. They're like arcade games but can't record your scores and were made for playing at home.

[Anonymous No.5443717]

Atari doesn't suck; and there's too many 'Ataris' to use that term generically. The Atari 8-bit computers were pretty fantastic, and the 7800 has some good qualities. The 2600 kicks ass at ay rate. Kaboom with a paddle controller is top notch, Warlords with 3 of your buddies and a bunch of beer is an experience no console since has been able to replicate. A lot of the arcade ports I actually find more fun than the actual arcade versions; the simplicity of the stripped down graphics to just the bare gameplay elements is a beautiful thing. There's a shit ton of garbage on the 2600, but there's lots to love.

[Anonymous No.5443740]

>>5443632
The NEO•GEO came out in 1991, it’s last official title came out in 2005. The 2600 was produced for a long time too, but I don’t think much software came out for it after, like, what? 1982 maybe? I’m going to hand the longevity trophy to SNK on this one.

Anyway... 8-Bit Atari isn’t bad, I guess. I was a little too young to really enjoy it. Someone (obviously a bit older) posted once that Atari was a toy, like any other toy you might have had back then. You played it a few minutes and moved on to something else, legos, model plane, Tandy leather crafts, whatever... So nobody of that generation really obsessed over it like the NES. Happy memories of finding secrets in Zelda or finally beating Metroid with a map you drew yourself, being blown away by how awesome Mario 3 was.

[Anonymous No.5443754]

>How is that even possible?

Atari drastically cut the price and re-released all their old games after the NES came out. I think it also took a couple of years for the system to really take off.

[Anonymous No.5443918]

>>5443740
The Neo Geo had under 500 games in that time and basically no cultural impact whatsoever, I think that's a bit of a disingenuous comparison. You're definitely right about the toy thing though, it's not fair to compare the 2600 to later consoles since it was in completely unknown territory at the time.

[Anonymous No.5443931]

I loved mine, but I got it with two of its best games: River Raid and Enduro. Clueless gamers these days give it half a chance and try it with some of the shittiest games it had, which is the reason why they end up with a bitter first impression of the hardware.

Same with Odyssey 2.

[Anonymous No.5443936]

>>5443931
oh let me just check out pac man... well this sucks!

[Anonymous No.5444026]

They were selling them for $50 at the end and the things had to cost practically nothing to manufacture by that point.

[Anonymous No.5444032]

>>5443936

A decent version of pac man came out too late. You would be better off with K. C.'s Krazy Chase.

https://youtu.be/JA3mIWzwrZk

[Anonymous No.5444040]

>>5444032
Ms. Pac Man on the 2600 is also a huge step up

[Anonymous No.5444053]

>>5444040

Indeed.

[Anonymous No.5444115]

>>5443632

Best 2600 game coming through

[Anonymous No.5444228]

I spent all day yesterday glueing the labels back onto my collection of 2600 games. It spent 20 years in an attic, so I don't even know what works, but damn did the labels work out good! Next weekend I should have the connector to jack it up to the coaxial connection on my tv for supreme high fidelity.

[Anonymous No.5444240]

The Video Game Brain, a cartridge switcher made by Hong Kong-based RGA. This had a terrible, terrible design that would cut the voltage to the power line when you switched cartridges, but not the signal lines. Electronics design 101 should tell you that sending signals to an IC with no power voltage is the stupidest thing you can do. The only way this thing could be used safely was if you had one cartridge in the slot and selected with the others empty which defeats the entire point of having a switcher. They must be extensively modified to be used safely.

[Anonymous No.5444415]

>>5443632
Nintendo sold the NES Classic over two decades after the initial release. Not everyone wants the newest games all the time.

[Batowl No.5444420]

>>5443632
Pre 8 bit gaming doesn't do much for me.

[Anonymous No.5444428]

>>5444420
There's no such thing as pre-8 bit gaming unless you mean stuff like Pong that used TTLs instead of microprocessors.

[Anonymous No.5444432]

>>5443632
You'd be surprised OP, the Xbox 360 was still getting games in 2017, 12 years after release, and PS2 had games from 2000 until 2013. Some consoles just get support for a long time.

Now that said, Atari sucked because the company heads sucked, it pretty much went to shit starting with the sale to Warner and the replacement of Bushnell, and continued pretty much until they were sold to Hasbro.

The games and their work were pretty good though, they made some cool and unique arcade games in their day. 2600 got some fun games too, even if they are simplistic by modern standards. They were real accomplishments given the severe limitations of the device.

[Anonymous No.5444434]

Atari was a coin-op company, first and foremost.

That Thing was built to play Pong and Combat. Every other game was a hack. It was stupidly limited and it was only the incredible work of developers that it did even did Anything Different. Add-on chips later helped a bit, but my point stands.

If you really want to experience Atari, download MAME, pick any game, and you are in for a treat my good friend.

[Anonymous No.5444435]

I have half the mind to pay $25 for a unit to play Combat with a friend. I don't know why and I don't particularly care about any other game but I want to play Combat.

[Anonymous No.5444436]

>>5444415
>Nintendo sold the NES Classic over two decades after the initial release.
Its an emulator. No different than the 2018 release of the "Atarii Flashback 9" system, which is a licensed product. By the reasoning you have presented, this is over 4 decades after the initial 2600 release in 1977.

[Anonymous No.5444440]

>>5444032
I only ever played Alien but it was a good pac-man clone too

[Anonymous No.5444443]

>>5444432
The Atari 2600 lasted as long as it did because >>5444026 and it was also very cheap to make games for. The NES and later cartridge-based systems were expensive to develop for so they didn't last as long (the SNES and N64 lasted less than a decade).

The PS1 and PS2 lasted for as long as they did due to low cost of game production and huge installed userbases.

[Anonymous No.5444448]

>>5444434
>pick any game
Computer Space and Pong cannot be emulated.

[Anonymous No.5444467]

>>5444434
Interviews with Atari programmers suggest most of them didn't really like the 2600 that much because of how frustrating it was to deal with its limitations and they were happy to move onto more powerful machines. Only David Crane seems to be hopelessly in love with the thing.

[Anonymous No.5444471]

>>5444467
other devs were in it to make stuff, crane was in it for the challenge of making

[Batowl No.5444484]

>>5444428
Whatever was before the nes. Stickman figures or blobs are not my thing.

[Anonymous No.5444501]

>>5443632
The Wii might if Ubisoft keep pumping those Just Dance games

[Anonymous No.5444505]

>>5444484
>Whatever was before the nes
More 8-bit then.

[Anonymous No.5444506]

>>5444467
>Only David Crane seems to be hopelessly in love with the thing.
He said he found the C64 boring because it was too easy and presented no real programming challenge compared with the Atari 2600.

[Anonymous No.5444629]

>>5444115
But that isn't Secret Quest.

[Anonymous No.5444670]

Us old heads remember when it was pretty much the only game in town. So many here have no frame of reference for what actual retro gaming was like. The NES came out in.....86 or 87 stateside, not looking it up so don't jump on me like a lil' shitbag kthx. But yeah at first it was a tall order to get the parents to buy me one, so we played Atari until shit, at least the 90s or something. When the NES came out and played it at friend's houses, it was pretty clear that the Atari was on its way out.

Atari did have some pretty great arcade games in the 90s, though. Race Driving, Hard Driving, and STUN Runner to name a few. I took a bus to Aladdin's Castle and blew a fiver on arcade games to cope with my lack of good vidya at home right up until about the time I got an NES and some RPGs.

I have the Atari full set and Stella emulator, but it's very rare that I fire it up. The games are just so shallow and old. Nothing in the entire catalogue aged as well as sayyyy, Bank Panic for the arcade (which will always be a favorite and very playable). Also, I've always regarded Pac-Man and Frogger as trash games and never understood what anyone saw in them.

[Anonymous No.5444691]

>>5443740
Nobody even had a Neo-Geo lol. In order to be considered as having longevity, people had to actually.....buy and play it. Not saying it wasn't an amazing (and expensive as all fuck) system, because it was, but still. I'll say it was the first to offer an actual authentic arcade experience, though, unlike the ported stuff that Atari got or the Playchoice-10 (which was clever in that it planted a bug in kids that they got an arcade experience at home, but was arguably not arcade quality).

[Anonymous No.5445014]

>>5444501
I forgot they kept pumping those out. At this point Ubisoft has supported it longer than Nintendo has kept the Wii Shop active.

[Anonymous No.5445021]

>>5444691
Did anybody actually think that the playchoice-10 was a "real arcade" when other, much better-looking 80's arcade releases would be right next to it at an arcade?

>>5444670
Thanks for the reference point. What kinds of games did you play on atari in particular? Anything you remember fondly, or is it mostly just memories of wishing for something better?

[OP No.5445027]

>>5444432
>You'd be surprised OP, the Xbox 360 was still getting games in 2017

Yeh
>Just Dance
and a bunch of sports games like Fifa. It also got Mine Craft Story mode. That's about it. What I am trying to say: The Atari sucks. Any Atari system sucks. I mean there was more than the 2600. There were systems AFTER the 2600 so how did those do? Did they have any interesting games? I know pretty much nothing about the Atari. Frederator Studios (the guys who do the Castlenavia Anime on Netflix) once gave me an Atari Flash Back 2. Adventure is a game I can enjoy. It is clever and fun. Moon Patrol is fun too but most Atari games are like LSD trips with pixels and you have to guess what the fuck is even going on.

So I wanted to know about fun Atari games like Adventure where I can see it is limited but it is clever and entertaining. I also wanted to hear about all those other Atari systems. Personally I know jack shit about them. Don't even know what came after the 2600 but I think there was a way more modern Atari and I remember some screenshots of some game where you are on a space station and everyone is dead or something. I don't know.

Anyway I don't want to be fucking ignorant about the Atari because it seems to be popular. My favourite system is the Game Boy and a lot of people shit on it too so I do not want to come across as an arrogant cunt who can't be educated.

[Anonymous No.5445123]

Got myself an Atari 800 at 10:50 disk drive for 10 dataset and it does cover in a few joysticks at a garage sale for 120. Trouble is it's missing power supply and the data cables, and a monitor cable for composite signal.

[Anonymous No.5445161]

Seaquest is a lot of fun.

[Nope. No.5445239]

>>5445021
To your first question: I didn't, but others might have. I mean it was just an NES with a timer; cost a quarter and a minute to find that out. But I always thought the point of Playchoice-10 machines must have been to show that "the NES is arcade quality". I never got why kids spent any money in it, playing a few levels of Super Mario Bros until it demanded another quarter. The Rampage machine was far more compelling to me.

As for the second, my favorite was definitely Missile Command, but I had a morbid fascination with nuclear war as an early 80s kid so that could be part of it. Special thanks to Wargames and especially The Day After for that (thank fuck I was spared seeing Threads until much later on). I played Amidar, Space Invaders, Yars Revenge, Return of the Jedi, and some common Activision games. I also owned E.T. like many others, and oddly enough thought it was one of the better games. It and Raiders of the Lost Ark kinda had RPG-ish elements that I really liked (I know I got as far as getting to the right map room and seeing a blinking dot, but don't recall if I ever "finished" the game). I didn't really think in terms of wanting something better because it was either Atari or the arcade for so long, and then ofc the NES happened. Also, us neighborhood kids would swap carts, so that expanded the library a bit.

I do have fond memories of the system I suppose, but like anything else dealing with nostalgia, sometimes it's just better to let it live as a memory than actually trying to revisit it. Rose-tinted glasses and all that.

[Anonymous No.5445301]

>>5445123
You can ask on AtariAge about a PSU. There were several types, just avoid the infamous ingot of death. Also get an SIO2SD for storage instead of the 1050.

[Anonymous No.5445350]

>>5445161
I can't believe how low the score requirement was for the activision patch, I got it while barely trying. Meanwhile games like Kaboom require you to be a crack fiend to get the patch, IMO of course.

>>5445239
I feel that on nostalgia, also interesting to think about the nuclear war thing (nowadays we spend more time wondering if we're going to get a random psycho's bullet than if we're going to get a world-ending missile barrage). Agreed on the arcade, never saw much point to a Playchoice beyond it just looking kind of cool/appealing to my NES nostalgia.

I may have to check out some of the games you mentioned since I haven't played them, for me there is a real fascination with games done on the most limited of hardware, and only a few systems exist that are more limited for development than the 2600. Appreciate the input.

[Anonymous No.5445393]

>>5445350
>nowadays we spend more time wondering if we're going to get a random psycho's bullet than if we're going to get a world-ending missile barrage
Well, yeah, obviously if you point your missiles at your enemy, they shoot back and it's all ogre, but if you pay news channels to turn people crazy, you can get away with it for infinity

[Anonymous No.5445497]

>>5443632
Despite being rather archaic, the technology behind the 2600 is pretty interesting. The book "Racing the beam" (a term that describes to only way to code for the console) is an fascinating read in that case:
https://my.mixtape.moe/yeotaj.pdf

As far as I understand, the longevity of the machine was also caused by it's simple yet flexible design. And because it's hardware quirks were equally highly exploitable as the C64 or Amiga, a experienced coder could to things with the hardware (again just like the C64 and Amiga) it was never designed to do.

[Anonymous No.5445526]

>>5445123
I would argue the 800XL is the best overall machine to have since it lets you run the widest range of software, although note that the vast majority of NTSC Atari 8-bit software is designed for the 400/800 and doesn't take advantage of 64k memory.

[Batowl No.5445619]

>>5444505
Nope

[Anonymous No.5445716]

Atari and Nintendo nearly had a deal to produce the Famicom (with Atari branding) outside of Japan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q5_RgSCjBo&gl=CA

[Anonymous No.5445718]

>>5445716
Yes and then Atari decided to cuck Nintendo by pirating their lockout chips.

[Anonymous No.5445735]

trying to sell the 2600 all the way into the 90s might be one of the reasons atari failed

[Anonymous No.5445746]

>>5445735
There were a hundred bad business decisions that fucked them over, the attempt to milk the 2600 cash cow as long as they could being one of them. By 1982, it was half a decade old and getting increasingly antiquated. The disappointing Christmas sales that year were the first sign of impending trouble.

[Anonymous No.5445758]

>>5443632
Wrong.. Master System is 1985 - Present.

Tectoy is still producing new Master Systems for the Brazilian market. They have been since the beginning, and have never stopped.

[Anonymous No.5445894]

>>5444115
There's a new homebrew port of Wizard of Wor made by one of the guys on AtariAge

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/282958-wizard-of-wor-arcade-reboot/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA3HgAoJZNY

[Anonymous No.5445906]

>>5443918
>no cultural impact whatsoever
>my backyard is the world

[Anonymous No.5446046]

>>5445758
i love brazil now??

[Anonymous No.5446338]

>>5444228
>the connector to jack it up to the coaxial connection on my tv
I got the connector today. Just an RCA to Coaxial type. I can't believe that the system powers on. The power switch is a bit "wonky", in that it can't be pushed all the way up. The paddle controllers work, and from what I can tell, all the games work. What doesn't work well is the control sticks. I had to take one apart to see wtf was the problem. The PCB buttons work fine. However, there is a white plastic piece inside of the handle that presses against the 4 buttons, and it looks like the plastic has gotten weak, and flexes instead of pressing the button. It works, but is in no way enjoyable. As much as I hate to do it, I think I am going to sell everything. There is someone out there who wants one of these for parts or even as-is. It certainly looks great, and everything works pretty well.

[Anonymous No.5446352]

Atari 2600s are like cockroaches--they will survive nuclear winter. On the other hand...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY0TgFpNG-s

[Anonymous No.5446662]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oep9Gyt-bQw

>even includes an intro animation
These guys were ambitious.

[Anonymous No.5446670]

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

More of a demo for someone's sound engine than a proper game.

[Anonymous No.5446712]

https://www.retrogamingconsoles.com/consoles/atari-2600/complete-game-list-atari-2600/

There were 470 North American Atari 2600 games released; if Japan (where it was briefly sold as the Atari 2800) and PAL regions are counted, the total would be higher.

[Anonymous No.5446734]

Activision games on the Atari 2600 were fucking godtier. Play H.E.R.O from Actvision on the 2600.

[Anonymous No.5446796]

>>5443918
No cultural impact? Right, everyone forgot about NEO•GEO. It’s the Atari 2600! That’s what the kids are into!

[Anonymous No.5446812]

>>5443632
You're just jelly it had a longer lifespan than you.

[Anonymous No.5446840]

>>5443632
The 2600 did NOT have a fifteen year lifespan. Active development slowed to a crawl after 1983 and most of the hardware sales after that were NOS sold out of RadioShack or discount stores. If you really think there was a factory somewhere pumping out brand new Atari 2600’s in 1991-92 your nuts.

[Anonymous No.5446846]

>>5446840
But that's not true They replaced the old woody 2600 with the black 2600 Jr in 1985, which was a cost-reduced version and this was produced until 1992 as a budget/starter console and sold for $50.

[Anonymous No.5446857]

>Atari officially discontinued all remaining sales and support for the 2600, 5200, 7800, and 8-bit computer line on January 1, 1992.

[Anonymous No.5446870]

>>5446846
I’m aware of that revision. But I assure you most or all of its sales in the late 80’s and early 90’s are just back stock. They had made so many they didn’t know what to do with ‘em. But the fun WAS back!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_DcBd-O9Y_U

[Anonymous No.5446883]

>>5446796
yo do you like having a mini?

[Anonymous No.5446917]

>>5446857
I’m sure you really want to believe that they were making and actively selling 2600’s right until the bitter end... It’s a fun thing to think about. Busy Atari salespeople, sleeves rolled up, phones ringing in the background, drinking stale coffee, trying to get new games into stores for Christmas of 1990! And the night shift at the ol’ Atari factory, hardworking men and women hammering on those 2600 in 1991. Then you cut to a scene of Ernie the janitor turning the lights off at the empty Atari warehouse in 1992, a lone tear rolls down his cheek.

Not how it happened. It’s just a press release. If you telephoned Atari about any problem with an 8-bit system after ‘92 they’d tell you to fuck off. That was basically it.

[Anonymous No.5446923]

>>5446883
No. I have a real one. Two of them.

[Anonymous No.5446925]

>>5446917
>Not how it happened. It’s just a press release. If you telephoned Atari about any problem with an 8-bit system after ‘92 they’d tell you to fuck off. That was basically it.
>after 92
Can you even read at all?

[Anonymous No.5446930]

>>5444434
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiI2yrT5I-o

I have no idea what's going on here, but ambitious as fuck.

[Anonymous No.5446937]

>>5446925
I've had a few drinks so never mind if I sound like I'm rambling.

[Anonymous No.5446938]

>>5446925
Yes. I accurately described the end of the Atari 8-bit line. It was nothing.

[Anonymous No.5446942]

>>5446937
That’s okay.

[Anonymous No.5446953]

Tell me about Atari's stupid fucking controllers. They all seemed like they had zero thought put into them. Buttons on opposite sides instead of the face? Numeric keypads like a phone? Whose bright idea was any of this?

[Anonymous No.5446960]

>>5446930
Open Sesame and Quadrun have digitized speech.

[Anonymous No.5446969]

>>5446953
Atari seemed like they would just design stuff and then figure out if it worked later, like, years later, after you already bought it. They loved a good wedge shape though. Google “Atari Concept”. Nothin’ but wedges and chrome! Like this controller you posted.

[Anonymous No.5446983]

A lot of Atari 2600 games, particularly early ones from the late 70s, would slowly cycle through the 128 available colors. This was to prevent screen burn on B&W TVs which was often a problem in the very early days of home video games (have a Pong score burned into your TV).

The B&W switch on the console was to switch the color palette to grayscale which would look better on B&W TVs, but many later 2600 games don't include a grayscale palette option and the switch was often repurposed to add a pause feature to the game.

[Anonymous No.5447008]

>>5445393
Amen

[Anonymous No.5447016]

>>5446983
I wouldn't have thought most people in the late 70s still had a black and white TV.

[Anonymous No.5447018]

>>5443632
>Atari 2600: Lifespan 1977–1992.
bull fucking shit. it died in 1985.

[Anonymous No.5447019]

>>5447016
Shit was built to last

[Anonymous No.5447054]

>>5447018
There were new games coming out all the way up to 1990.

>>5446712

[Anonymous No.5447059]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cvugs3lw5U

Ikari Warriors was '90 and it was one of the very last ones, definitely the last arcade port.

[Anonymous No.5447064]

>>5447016
Desktop/console TVs by 1977 were virtually all color, the only B&W sets still being produced in that size were for hotels. Portable sets were still commonly B&W though and poorfags often still had larger-sized B&W sets purchased in an earlier time.

[Anonymous No.5447081]

>>5447059
>Ikari Warriors
>Atari 2600

[Batowl No.5447108]

>>5447059
Is there a list of all Atari games?

[Anonymous No.5447110]

>>5447108

>>5446712

[Anonymous No.5447112]

>>5447064
It was getting increasingly common for kids to have a TV in their room in the 90s, and these were often BW sets. I played a lot of NES on a BW TV back in the day.

[Anonymous No.5447117]

>>5447081
Atari probably saw Activision's port of Double Dragon and went "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

[Anonymous No.5447134]

>>5447117
Atari executives were fucking insane. They had no grasp of the technical capabilities of their own consoles. The engineers would patiently try to explain to them that some things couldn't be done and it went in one ear and out the other.

[Anonymous No.5447146]

>>5447134
Since this was 1990, long, long after Warner had sold Atari to the Tramiels, I doubt that was what was going on here. At this point they were just doing a port of IW for fun and to prove they could.

Yeah I know Warner were idiots, that was why they refused to let poor old Tod Frye have his 8k Pac-Man ROM so he had to shoehorn the thing into 4k and you know the rest.

[Anonymous No.5447157]

>>5447134
That reminds me of those types on Lemon64 who think you can do a C64 port of Civilization III or Diablo if you just reduce the resolution and color depth a bit.

[Anonymous No.5447165]

Ray Kassar was from a textile industry background, he didn't know anything about electronics. He also didn't understand why programmers deserved to be credited and he went so far as to say that they were the equivalent of a guy sewing an shirt on an assembly line.

[Anonymous No.5447176]

>>5447165
I read an interview he gave a couple years before his death where he tried to make himself out as this messiah figure who saved Atari from crumpling in the late 70s because Nolan Bushnell et al were a bunch of California hippies who were stoned most of the time and had no clue how to manage a company. He was all like "They were just kids, they needed some adults in the room."

[Anonymous No.5447187]

>>5447176
MBA types always think like that

[Anonymous No.5447194]

>>5447146
The equivalent would be like if Nintendo execs had told programmers they had to fit SMB3 in 64k because bigger ROMs cost money.

[Anonymous No.5447197]

I grant you Atari wouldn't have lasted too long under Bushnell either because he honestly didn't know the business side of things at all. Although as far as drugs were concerned, all the accounts claim that the cocaine flowed freely through the company during its early 80s zenith and everyone was high most of the time.

[Anonymous No.5447217]

You have to spend money to make money, which is something Nintendo understood, although it did probably help that the Famicom was extremely cheap to manufacture and the cost savings could translate into more money available to spend on game development and add-on cartridge hardware.

[Anonymous No.5447228]

>>5447064
>the only B&W sets still being produced in that size were for hotels.
I believe this was done for cost reasons and to discourage theft of TV sets from hotel rooms (B&W sets were a less desirable theft target).

[Anonymous No.5447238]

>>5447064
The first year in which sales of color TVs exceeded sales of B&W TVs in the US was 1971. Since a color TV in the 70s was still an expensive purchase, it was quite likely that a lot of people held onto old B&W sets for years.

[Anonymous No.5447271]

>>5445718
That was Atari Games under their Tengen division, a totally different entity from the Tramiel owned Atari Corporation of the lockout chip era dispute. Atari was split into this arcade game/home companies after the crash.

[Anonymous No.5447374]

>>5444228
>jack it up to the coaxial connection on my tv for supreme high fidelity

If you really do wish to have the highest fidelity:
Composite, S-Video, Component (YPbPr), and RGB mods are readily available.

In fact: the RGB mod allows for all of those above mentioned output types, and even allows the system to switch palettes. This allows NTSC and PAL games to function properly on the any system (multi-region mod basically).

Check it out here:
http://etim.net.au/shop/shop.php?crn=210&rn=552&action=show_detail
here:
http://etim.net.au/shop/shop.php?crn=210
and here:
https://etim.net.au/2600rgb/

[Anonymous No.5447384]

>>5443931
I had an odyssey 2 my mom got from a salvation army. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

[Anonymous No.5447398]

>>5444506
At this point any old computer can be used to squeeze out magic. The cpc has competitions and the last few years have produced astonishing feats for such limited hardware. On another note, no other developer could even touch the wizardry of david braben. He still cant be touched for what he pulled off on such limited hardware. Elite and elite frontier are technical masterpieces. So is the game virus (i think thats what its called)

[Anonymous No.5447463]

>>5447374
>If you really do wish to have the highest fidelity:
I don't, and was being sarcastic by writing "supreme high fidelity" the way I did....

However, you have made a great contribution to this thread with your excellent links and information! I hope someone can use some of this information to better their experience.

[Anonymous No.5447465]

>>5443632
Confirmed shit taste in everything

[Anonymous No.5447521]

>>5446338
>However, there is a white plastic piece inside of the handle that presses against the 4 buttons.

Those wear out all the time.
There are replacements available.

eBay should be of help. But there is a lot of crap.

The best ones are from "Best Electronics".

The website looks like it was constructed by a madman (and he sometime is), and you have to (gasp) e-mail him to purchase anything.

Those issues aside, this place is the place to go to get replacement Atari stuff of all kinds. He has a ton of new-old-stock, and newly-made stuff.

The guy that runs it was the guy that managed to clear out the last Atari warehouse before they went belly-up.

Replacement handle stick: http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/CX40%20Suiper%20Handle%2027.htm
Replacement Controller PCB innards: http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/joystick.htm#PCB
Replacement handle boot/jacket: http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/CX40%20Super%20Boot.htm
Replacement parts of all types (including the original power swtictes): http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/2600_Tech_Tips.htm#based

[Anonymous No.5447626]

>>5447108

Of course, Anon. For such a long lifespan, the 2600 actually had very few games released.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atari_2600_games

[Anonymous No.5447634]

>>5445027

Anon, one thing that's sort of fun about the Atari is how cheap the games are. I have a local shop that sells them for $1-$2, cheap enough to be an impulse buy. This is actually how I found one of my favorites, Wizard of Wor. The point is you can try out different Atari games for basically no investment. I get that you can also do this with emulators. But this is /vr/, the point is appreciate old games. Having infinite options on an emulator sort of feels like Netflix: you always want the next thing, and can't appreciate what's in front of you.

Anyhow, these games are SUPER simple, and aren't much fun past 5-10 minutes, really, unless you find a good multiplayer game. Because of the system's limitations, there are basically no arcade games whose definitive port was on Atari. So, unlike Gameboy, which is technologically pretty simple, but has many titles unique to the system, Atari is sort of the PSX of its day. There's always a better port somewhere. Further, many of the games still come from a time when gaming was pretty experimental, so the concepts of the games are not necessarily flushed out very well, and couldn't possibly sell today.

That said, some of the Atari games themselves make unique or interesting compromises, or alternatively, had games where the original version was the 2600, even if a better port came out somewhere else later. (e.g., most of the Activision games such as Pitfall, River Raid)

Do you have any favorite 2600 games, anon?

[Anonymous No.5447637]

>>5445894

Well hot damn. Will they be selling a real cartridge?

[Anonymous No.5447881]

>>5447637
He said after the Portland Gaming Expo he's planning on releasing the ROM, doesn't say what method but AtariAge has released physical cartridges of several other homebrew titles, I think its a pretty safe bet.

For now there's a demo you can play if you have a harmony cartridge or want to emulate

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/282958-wizard-of-wor-arcade-reboot/page-2#entry4158140

[Anonymous No.5448129]

>>5445619
Do you not understand what "8-bit" means?

[Anonymous No.5448139]

>>5446796
That's pretty close to reality. Fucking everybody understands what the 2600 was but I'd be damned if people too young to have played Neo-Geo games during their relevance have even heard the name.

[Anonymous No.5448147]

>>5447016
Plenty of people in the US did. I think we kind of underestimate how expensive new TVs were at the time, how many people were poor enough to not be able to upgrade from ancient sets, or didn't watch enough TV to care.

[Anonymous No.5448175]

>>5446840
I still remember pretty well seeing the Atari 2600 side by side with NES, Master System, Mega Drive, SNES, C64, Amiga, Atari ST in german mail order catalogs way into the 90's.

[Anonymous No.5448185]

A color console TV in 1977 cost between $500 and $800. Factored for inflation this would be close to $2000 today.

[Anonymous No.5448202]

From what I could find, B&W console sets had disappeared by the end of the 70s, but tabletop sets were still avaliable into the early 80s and portable 12" up until the early 90s.

[Anonymous No.5448208]

>>5446983
Hmm, the TRS-80 Model I used a modded RCA 12" B&W TV and I've never heard of them having major problems with screen burn.

[Anonymous No.5448213]

>>5448208
It might depend on the phosphor used. CRTs explicitly intended for computer use probably had phosphor types that were less likely to burn. Many B&W TVs probably didn't because they were never intended to be used with anything but moving images.

[Anonymous No.5448339]

>>5445526
>800XL
I got my hands on an 800XL and a bunch of peripherals, it sat in an abandoned house for 15 years exposed to moisture and animals, and unfortunately it didn't have the power supply so I'm not able to test it.

The keyboard was disgusting and full of mouse shit, the casing smelt bad and was covered in stains, and the rf shielding is all rusty and corroded, but the board itself looks to be good, no signs of water damage or any cracks so I'm hoping it still works.

[Anonymous No.5448370]

daily reminder that AMD confirmed that atari vcs will ship with Zen 2.
Get your wallets ready boys

[Anonymous No.5448375]

>>5448339
Go on AtariAge and ask for help about a power supply.

[Anonymous No.5448383]

>>5448375
Yeah I have to do some research. Some of the keys (the actual key mechanism not the cap) have some corrosion on them that I'm hoping is just cosmetic, but I may need to find a replacement KB as well.

[Anonymous No.5448445]

I played it back in the day and it was a huge entertainment for the whole family. I mean we would gather at someone's house and there would be all these uncles, aunts, moms, kids etc all taking turns in River Raid to see who did the best score.
When I finally got one to myself I would play Pac-Man for a long time, writing down my records, then I would switch between a few different carts. Shit was dope.

[Anonymous No.5448451]

>>5445526
There actually never was a true PAL Atari 8-bit machine; I think they just changed the clock crystal or something for machines sold in PAL regions, which is why PAL machines display a large screen border (the border on NTSC units is much smaller). It's not like Commodore machines which had different VIC chips for NTSC and PAL.

[Anonymous No.5448521]

>>5446840
those games don't exist, it's a fake image

[Anonymous No.5448549]

>>5445526
Why no 64k software though?

[Anonymous No.5448570]

>>5448549
Software devs for some reason were obsessed with the idea that they had to support 48k machines in order to get enough sales even though the 400/800 had been discontinued in early 1983. Yet a good two years later they were still refusing to put out 64k software.

[Anonymous No.5448616]

>>5448139
nice goalposts, are they heavy?

[Anonymous No.5448664]

>>5448521
I'd play Frankenhooker at least once.

[Anonymous No.5448868]

>>5446734
Hey, get out of here Metal Jesus

[Anonymous No.5449178]

>>5446796
>No cultural impact? Right
Yes, exactly.

[Anonymous No.5449483]

>>5444436
Yes, that's my point and my answer to OP. People are willing to spend money on the games in 2019, and they were willing to spend money on the games in 1990.

[Anonymous No.5449491]

>>5448868
Metal Jesus has good taste in Atari games.

[Anonymous No.5449509]

>>5449491
He has great taste for the most part, but he does hyperinflate game prices.

[Anonymous No.5449530]

>>5449509
He just has a big audience. I mean... he could be a reseller like the game chasers. I suspect a lot of those youtubers are sellers.

[Anonymous No.5449536]

>>5449530
>he could be a reseller like the game chasers. I suspect a lot of those youtubers are sellers.
They are. John Riggs is literally friends with all of them and they directly conspire with game shop owners to manipulate prices.

[Anonymous No.5449539]

>>5449536
John Riggs is probably the biggest reseller of them all. That dude has a fucking family and his collection is fucking massive. No way he is doing that with his YouTube channel. These small channels can't be doing much over 50k a year off advertisements.

[Anonymous No.5449543]

>>5449539
Was thinking John Hancock

[Anonymous No.5449545]

>>5449539
>No way he is doing that with his YouTube channel.
UH yeah. Local shop owners suck his dick and base prices off of what HE say, my man. And it's all because of his channel and associations with the other guys.

>>5449539
>These small channels can't be doing much over 50k a year off advertisements.
I heard it's more like half that, but word of mouth helps, and you're underestimating the power of even pseudo celebrity.

>"wow John Riggs is in my shop-this is my chance to "advertise"

[Anonymous No.5449548]

>>5449543
>Was thinking John Hancock
He seems much nicer, even if seems like he could go on on a chainsaw rampage and keep that jolly grin on his face the entire time. Anyway, I have no local information on him, but Riggs is fucking up the prices for sure.

[Anonymous No.5449554]

>>5449545
They are lying about how much they make. Some small channel with similar subscriber counts as these gaming youtubers posted how much he made from YouTube each year. It was around 40k a year off YouTube advertisements alone. And this was a fucking electrical engineering channel, so you know most viewers are smart enough to install an ad blocker. He supplement his 40k a year by selling multimeter and tools on his online shop. These gaming youtubers make a fuckload of money from pateron, YouTube, and donations on streams. They are fucking lying about being broke. That is why I hate classic game room. Mark was a lying fucking man child who wanted more so he didn't have to get a real job to supplement his income from youtube.

[Anonymous No.5449558]

Pressure Cooker was the first video game I ever played, and one of the only Atari 2600 games I can boot up to this day and still have fun playing.

It's a simple concept executed very well, grab ingredients to construct burgers based on a color indicated menu, then insert the burger into the corresponding colored shoot on the second screen. For something so simple it's frustratingly challenging trying to collect the correct ingredients, assemble them to order as the buns move on the convener belt, then put them in the right slots before time runs out, but intensely satisfying when you get a good streak going.

[Anonymous No.5449596]

>>5449558
There's something strangely satifysing about assmebling burgers

[Anonymous No.5449786]

>>5449596
Looks like you'll find your career satisfying

[Anonymous No.5449825]

>>5449596
>>5449786
>playing Pressure Cooker on gameboy while on break at McDonalds
livin' the dream

[Anonymous No.5449835]

>>5449825
>Invent a catapult system that slings ingredients and condiments towards you, so you can play real life Pressure Cooker
>Has an unexpected fringe benefit of increasing productivity and drive through wait times
>System is applauded by upper management and sent through to corporate, who decide to implement the system in all franchise locations
>Promoted to Chief Brand Officer for your groundbreaking advancements in service
>MCWORLD!
>...Hey, it could happen!

[Anonymous No.5449865]

>>5449548
>He seems much nicer, even if seems like he could go on on a chainsaw rampage and keep that jolly grin on his face the entire time.
Glad I am not the only person to see that potential from John Hancock.

[OP No.5449934]

I called this atari General so anything atari so why do we have atari copy cat threads on here now? People could have just posted in here. That was the idea.

[Anonymous No.5450250]

>>5448664
I'd play some of them, but I had to set the record straight in case anybody got ideas to the contrary.

[Anonymous No.5450260]

Did Ray Kassar just purposely try to not understand video games and computers? Surely he could have had stuff explained to him, was he just one of those bosses that didn't want to listen to those below him unless they agreed with him?

[Anonymous No.5450729]

>>5448616
Then what the fuck is cultural impact, you mong? Do people know your name or not?

[Anonymous No.5450736]

>>5450260
>was he just one of those bosses that didn't want to listen to those below him unless they agreed with him?
^This. CEOs aren't engineers and they don't understand the technical aspects of their company's product most of the time. That's why they're CEOs and not engineers.

[Anonymous No.5452851]

>>5443632
I used to think that Curt Vendel was the second coming of Atari with him creating the only commercial retro Atari machine that mattered (and even producing a prototype portable machine that Atari nixed) but have since learned that he fell deep into MAGA territory. Not a clue what happened to him to cause him to go full-MAGA but... Oh well. Note: Ben Hecken-I forgot how to spell his name also made some post-Atari stuff but those were just him in a garage type of things, not fully commercialized like what Vendel did.

[Anonymous No.5452857]

>>5452851
>>>/pol/
>>>/anywherebuthere/

[Anonymous No.5452872]

>>5452857
Not my problem that he traded away all his Atari street cred so that he could go to rallies and scream his ass off while wearing a red baseball cap.

[Anonymous No.5452887]

It was a nice thread until now. See ya!

[Anonymous No.5452920]

>>5452851
>>5452872
That's pretty cool. White liberals are consistently a destructive/toxic force in retro video game communities. It almost seems as if the games are a backdrop for these NPC's to spout off the Democratic Party platform and turn everything into a toxic PC hugbox that drives normal people away.

Good to see there's still functional human beings and their existence strikes fear into the hearts of libshits. Gives a little hope for the future of the community you know? Maybe we can have a split and all libshit subhumans can have their own "communities" to talk about gender pronouns and problematic themes in JRPGs and all people who actually care about games can focus on what's important.

[Anonymous No.5454510]

>>5444448
I doubt too many care to venture that far back anyway. Asteroids onward is where it's at.

[Anonymous No.5454936]

The games don't have much substance to them but they're fun in short bursts.

[Anonymous No.5454984]

>>5454936
>HDTV

[Anonymous No.5455032]

>>5454984
>>5454936

Yea, stop enjoying life with a larger television. You are intended to play ~4 feet from the screen and ruin your eyes, not enjoy games from afar and relax. Get with the program.

[Anonymous No.5456331]

>>5454936
>short bursts
I see people say this a lot but I feel like that's only true if you aren't really trying.
A single play of those kind of games (ones like Frogger in the pic, i.e. single-player high-score games with no time limit) can go on for multiple hours (with no pause function in their original version) if you're actually playing to get good.

[Anonymous No.5456341]

>>5455032
What the fuck are you talking about, retard

[Anonymous No.5456403]

>>5452920
lmao how the fuck did we get from Atari 2600 to this? can’t stand the adolescent angst in here lately man it’s killing the board’s feel

[Anonymous No.5456624]

>>5456331
>playing to giit gud
Do you even know where you are?

[Anonymous No.5458381]

>>5454936
>not the superior Starpath Supercharger release by Sega
Y I K E S
I
K
E
S

[Anonymous No.5458538]

>>5449558
Pressure cooker indeed is a fine game. Too bad that the Atari era was before my time. I started with an C64 (not counting the east german home computers that I only played on but never owned myself) and later Amiga.

But I really enjoyed Pressure Cooker on one of those Atari Anthologies on the PS2.

[Anonymous No.5459215]

>>5458538
Activision in the atari days was pretty clearly the best developer on the console, besides maybe Imagic, who were extremely good, but who never matched the prolific output of the Activision team.

[Anonymous No.5459297]

Just ordered an Atari 2600 six-switcher from eBay and also bought the following games:
- Haunted House
- Night Driver
- Phoenix
- Seaquest
- Midnight Magic

[Anonymous No.5459405]

>>5459297
nice choices.

[Anonymous No.5459415]

>>5443632
-Adventure
-Asteroids
-Astroblast (you will need a knob controller)
-Bowling (simple and fun)
-Crystal Castles
-Desert Falcon (boss fights and everything)
-Fatal Run
-Missile Command
-Night Driver
-Radar Lock (it's like NES Top Gun)
-Secret Quest (it's like Zelda NES sort of)
-Yars' Revenge

[Anonymous No.5459418]

>>5459297
>- Phoenix
Nice. Feel bad for missing that one.
-Demon Attack (that's another good one with great sound effects and graphics)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p67oOM4rjcU

[Anonymous No.5459508]

>>5459415
It's called a paddle my friend; great choices.

[Anonymous No.5460061]

>>5459508
Thank you! For the life of me the word escaped me. And thanks. 2600 games can have a certain something, or nothing at all, least that's how I see it.

[Anonymous No.5460204]

>>5443740
PS2 has 13 some years under its belt and over 3000 games. Many of them as significant or more significant than almost all Atari games.

[Anonymous No.5460551]

>>5460204
>Many of them as significant or more significant than almost all Atari games.
lol imagine believing that.

[Anonymous No.5460651]

>>5459297
all very good games, be sure to post your top scores, we can compete in seaquest for example

>>5460061
lol, this console is all joysticks and knobs, sounds like a fruit's paradise

[Anonymous No.5460663]

>>5444432
>360
Other than shovelware no. 360s last big game was mgsv. Ps3 at least got persona 5 in 2017

[Anonymous No.5460671]

>>5460663
That's considerable too. I realize it's falling under shovelware, but I still recognized the exciting release of "Cars 3" to be the last game. Hilariously though, it appears that Just Dance 2019 was the last game, being released in late 2018 for 360, Wii U, and even Wii, pushing Wii and 360 releases to 12 and 13 years later respectively. Bizarrely they decided not enough PS3 Moves were sold to justify Just Dance 2019 there, but it is on PS4. Strange.

You are right though, PS3 got games even through 2017. Still waiting to see if Wii will get Just Dance 2019, that might take it up to 13 years. I know that at this point it's basically for historical relevance and not for actual games worthy of release in the discerning player's eyes, but it is still fun to see consoles so well entrenched in the market as to still receive some cheap throwaway titles.

[Anonymous No.5461094]

I'm disappointed that no one ever made an Initial D drifting meme video out of Indy 500's Icy Tracks game modes.

[Anonymous No.5461146]

The Atari 7200 had some very good arcade ports compared to the competition but now in the time of MAME those consoles have nothing to offer.

[Anonymous No.5461176]

>>5443632
Master system: 1985-present

[Anonymous No.5461203]

>>5443632
You're right. I was a poorfag kid who bought an Atari in the early 90s so I could own a console like the cool kids. I was bitterly disappointed and found myself wondering - repeatedly - how the game designers could have such open contempt for their customers, or perhaps how gamers in the 70s-80s could be so easily amused.

[Anonymous No.5461205]

>>5461094
Indy 500 used a specially modifed paddle controller. There was no true racing wheel controller for the 2600 though, in fact the Colecovision was the first console to have one. You can use Sega racing wheels with an Atari 2600 but some rewiring is needed.

[Anonymous No.5461261]

>>5461205
it's true, I know because I had it. Fun racing game, maybe better even than Sprint Master if only for the icy tracks mode.

Are you sure the Telstar Arcade doesn't beat the CV to the punch though? I would think it wins, but I don't know a lot about the inner workings of the Arcade. I would expect it to be similar since it's from the same company however.

[Anonymous No.5461279]

>>5446840
>tfw you will never play Frankenhooker

[Anonymous No.5461285]

>>5443632
PS2 was 14 years.

Famicom was 1983 to 2003, so, 20 years.

[Anonymous No.5461330]

>>5460671
I have an inexplicable fetish for these late-cycle releases, possibly because they remind me of holding out for new releases on Genesis and Dreamcast. In fact I preferentially play games on older console generations when possible. I'm currently playing Minecraft Story Mode 2 on 360, for example.

[Anonymous No.5461459]

Atari should have sticked with computers

[Anonymous No.5461497]

>>5461459
"stuck" and no. The 2600 was amazing back in the day.

[Anonymous No.5461512]

>>5458538
Alright, you convinced me. Just ordered this.

[Anonymous No.5461541]

>>5461512

Also, unrelated, I just grabbed missile command for 2600. It holds up beautifully, and actually works quite well on a dpad.

[Anonymous No.5461552]

>>5444240
>They must be extensively modified to be used safely.

How exactly? If I ever run into one I might want to pick it up. But I don't want to damage my system or games using it.

[Anonymous No.5461556]

>>5461497
Other consoles during the same generation were far better. Just compare Donkey Kong from Atari 2600 with the ColecoVision version.

Top = Atari 2600
Bottom = ColecoVision

[Anonymous No.5461576]

>>5461556
the colecovision was released 5 years later, saying that they are from the same gen is stretching it
and i know that it is traditionally considered to be so, but fuck them they arent the same gen

[Anonymous No.5461584]

>>5444670
>But yeah at first it was a tall order to get the parents to buy me one, so we played Atari until shit, at least the 90s or something.

My parents wouldn't even get a second game for it.

>You already have a game, anon. You don't need another one.

Didn't get another system until that 2600 finally failed. But buy that time the PS1 and N64 were already out for a while. Why they got me a 2600 back when I was two years old and unable to comprehend a damn thing I'll never know tho.

[Anonymous No.5461615]

>>5446953
>It's TV that you can play?
>So let's make the remotes like TV remotes

There's your logic.

[Anonymous No.5461635]

>>5448147
>or didn't watch enough TV to care.

Yeah, I'd say most people back then got their TV just to be a news box and nothing else.

[Anonymous No.5461643]

>>5448570
Was it the actual devs that thought that or the people above them that made all the financial decisions? Granted I can see the logic behind that kind of thinking. The more people that can use the product the more potential buyers. Reminds me of why the C128 didn't get as many games made to take advantage of its hardware while the C64 just kept on getting title after title.

[Anonymous No.5461645]

>>5452872
>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.5461695]

I like the wood aestetic of old tech. Now it's just plastic. Will something ever replace plastic?

[Anonymous No.5461978]

The 2600 is the Volvo 240 of the video game world.
Lived into the 90s out of a desire at atari to remain stuck in its ways as long as humanly possible.

[Anonymous No.5461984]

>>5461576
agreed
I mean, one has tile based graphics. One has an object called a "projectile" and nothing called a "sprite."

[Anonymous No.5461995]

>>5445758
Aren't the newest master systems actually emulations? Using SD cards?
A few years ago, I know they were making proper ones.

[Anonymous No.5461998]

>>5447176
He may have even been right, but he was less of a parent type adult figure and more of a molester.

[Anonymous No.5462009]

Here's a complete Atari 2600 schematic, from the set of service manuals in my collection. Just three chips!

The TIA design schematic is also interesting, but that's available online IIRC.

[Anonymous No.5462017]

Yep, online.
https://atariage.com/2600/archives/schematics_tia/index.html

[Anonymous No.5462583]

Do any of the other consoles controllers like the Master System work on the Atari 7800?

[Anonymous No.5462672]

>>5461995
It says 8-bit CPU on the website at least

[Anonymous No.5462705]

>>5462583
Depends on the controller, I think genesis controllers work but it's been a while. They can also approximate a dial, but without any real valid input.

[Anonymous No.5462819]

>>5443717
>Kaboom with a paddle controller is top notch, Warlords with 3 of your buddies and a bunch of beer is an experience no console since has been able to replicate.
This right here is why I still need to have an A2600 console and the proper games and hardware. Everything else, EVERYTHING else I'm happy to emulate/flashcart/ports/whatever, just play the game and have fun. A handful of paddle A2600 games are just too good to pass up and they simply cannot be emulated properly.

[Anonymous No.5462943]

>>5459297
>>5459405
>>5459418
>>5460651

Also forgot to mention I got Kangaroo.

[Anonymous No.5463083]

>>5462819
I know the feeling, I had a 2600 but sold it, tempted now to buy another one for sick paddle games.

[Anonymous No.5464105]

>>5446840
>The Pit
Watching that movie was really surreal for me since it was shot in my hometown. I've only seen that and the bottom-left three. Are the other movies worth seeing?

[Anonymous No.5464985]

Can you put and play 2600 games on the 7800 through a flash cart or multicart?

[Anonymous No.5465992]

>>5462009
They're telling me a chip from the 70s and nobody understands how the goddamn thing works?

[Anonymous No.5465998]

>>5461556
>Just compare Donkey Kong from Atari 2600 with the ColecoVision version.
Not really the same generation, but yeah I know others are better, but the 2600 still rocked us when it was new to us. I hadn't even seen anything else until around 1979 or maybe as late as 1981, literally. Everyone and their grandmother had an Atari.

[Anonymous No.5466008]

>>5465992
Someone would have to decap a TIA. The chip, aside from generating video output, contains the console's 128 bytes of WRAM, and there are a number of variations over the long life of the 2600 as well as NTSC and PAL variants. It is known that late 2600s produced in East Asia won't run Kool-Aid Man due to an odd graphics exploit it uses.

[Anonymous No.5466019]

It's interesting to me to hear that the TIA is the component in the 2600 most likely to fail.

[Anonymous No.5466039]

>>5445239
You have absolute shit taste, alll boxes checked.
>I also owned E.T. and oddly enough thought it was one of the better games
LOLOLOLOLOLOL

[Anonymous No.5466049]

>>5466008
Coleco apparently did just that back in the day so they could produce a clone for the Atari 2600 Colecovision adapter (the 6507 and RIOT were off the shelf parts). Probably a few tiny changes made so they could claim it wasn't a 1v1 copy and get sued.

[Anonymous No.5466067]

>>5466049
Actually, no changes necessary. Under US law, it was 100% okay, because it contained no proprietary parts. That's part of why every company since has put proprietary stuff into their systems.

[Anonymous No.5466087]

>>5466067
The TIA was a proprietary Atari chip though.

[Anonymous No.5466316]

>>5466019
>the least reliable chip is of course the proprietary one that can only be obtained by stealing from working consoles
Figures.

[Anonymous No.5466326]

If you recall, Nintendo/Ricoh got away with cloning the 6502 by cutting one trace to disable decimal mode.

[Anonymous No.5466578]

>>5443632
If I was going to look out got an AV-modded console to mostly play VCS games on without it looking like smeary garbage, would I be better off modding one of the VCS revisions, or a 7800 to also have access to the handful of 7800 games worth playing?

[Anonymous No.5466657]

>>5465998
I always thought the existing classification of console generations to be pretty much bullshit.

[Anonymous No.5466860]

What would you say was the worst in the end? 5200 or Jag?

[Anonymous No.5466887]

>>5447059
It seems that the last arcade port was Klax. It's also the last game which appeared in Europe.

[Anonymous No.5466950]

>>5465998
great pic, saved

>>5466657
nah, its mostly alright, just particularly shitty in this particular case

[Anonymous No.5467058]

>>5466950
It does make me wonder how the Famicom ends up fitting into this though. The famicom was an '83 release, yet its fellow early 80s systems all fell away while it survived and competed with the rest of the 80s consoles, and even lasted into the 90s. In that light, it almost comes off as part of the same generation as Colecovision and 5200.

I feel like the distinction is made more from an American perspective, in the sense that the American timeline for the 80's is clearly divided by "pre-crash" and "post-crash", and by the 2 year gap between the crash in '83 and the release of the NES in 1985.

Do the lines warrant a reevaluation of these generations?

[Anonymous No.5467091]

>>5467058
The Famicom and the SG-1000 were literally released the same month. In the same market. As direct competitors.

[Anonymous No.5467272]

Are there any power supplies that fit on the 7800 besides the official?

[Anonymous No.5467276]

>>5467091
>>5467058
But that's not true either because the SG-1000 was based around a chipset from 1979, it was older technology. Sega had planned it for a 1981 release but didn't get around to it until two years later by which point it was quite out of date.

[Anonymous No.5467351]

>>5467058
Console generations are based purely on date of release. The whole "New generation so hardware must be better" is nothing more than marketing.

[Anonymous No.5467378]

>>5443918
>it only counts if its mainstream.

[Anonymous No.5467381]

>>5445758
Nope discontinued in 1992. Counterfeit doesnt count

[Anonymous No.5467420]

>>5467381
counterfeit, but they were licensed? How does that work?

[Anonymous No.5467565]

>>5466860
Does the 5200 even have any games that weren't on the Atari 800?

[Anonymous No.5469927]

>>5467420
Don't ask me.

[Anonymous No.5470185]

>>5467565
They've all been converted.

[Anonymous No.5470413]

>>5461330
why the hell are you playing a game written and targeted at preschoolers

[Anonymous No.5470426]

>>5465998
The SG-1000 released the same day as the Famicom in Japan, who the hell calls it second gen?

[Anonymous No.5471953]

>>5467565
Yeah, but as >>5470185 mentioned, they've all been converted to play on the 800, which is obviously the superior machine because it uses normal controllers.
>>5470426
They just copied the Colecovision, the hardware is previous gen. They had a deal with Coleco to release the machine in Japan, and make carts for the Coleco in the US. They made carts for Coleco in the US, and ended up just cloning the machine and making the SG-1000 for Japan. The original MSX spec is also extremely similar.

[Anonymous No.5471962]

That's why the SG-1000 bombed. It was outdated hardware running on a 1979 chipset that quickly fell flat and Sega were forced to replace it with the Mark III within two years.

[Anonymous No.5471963]

>>5471962
Better Space Invaders port than the Famicom though.

[Anonymous No.5471965]

>>5471953
Not really. The SG-1000 was test-marketed initially in 1981, before the CV came out. Also all those Sega ports on the CV were done by Coleco in-house. Sega had their own separate batch of arcade ports for the SG-1000. I would imagine the Sega ones are more arcade accurate because the programmers had access to the original arcade source code and assets while Coleco did not.

[Anonymous No.5471972]

>>5471963
The Famicom port everything looks too small. Also IIRC this is the smallest commercially-released Famicom game, the PRG is only 4k (although it uses a 16k ROM, the remaining space being empty).

[Anonymous No.5472083]

>>5471965

[Anonymous No.5472090]

>>5471972
I think it had something to do with sprite limits on the Famicom, leading to cute mini invaders.

[Anonymous No.5472092]

>>5472090
It's not though because the TMS 9918 has only four sprites per line and on both systems the enemies are tile graphics, not sprites.

[Anonymous No.5472098]

It's more likely to do with the fact that the NES has only 2k of video RAM so each block of four tiles has to share colors. All systems based on the TMS9918 and its derivatives have 16k of video memory so each tile can have a unique color set.

[Anonymous No.5472102]

>>5472092
huh; thanks for setting me straight anon. I read the specifics of it somewhere but I can't find it for the life of me.

[Anonymous No.5472117]

The PPU was basically a reverse-engineer job of the TMS9918 with a lot of enhancements including more colors, hardware scrolling, and more sprites (64 with 8 per line against the TMS9918's 32 with 4 per line).

[Anonymous No.5472123]

The VDU in the Master System is also a TMS9918 enhancement with even more colors and hardware tile flipping (although the NES's sprite flipping is more useful), though they kept the resolution at 256x192 for backwards compatibility with the SG-1000.