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AtariAge and Atari

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Re: AtariAge and Atari

#41

Post by glimshe »

rbanffy wrote: post #22
glimshe wrote: post #12

I love the Atari 8-bit computers. I don't want to start a flame war with C64, CoCo and Apple II folks because I love them too... But the early Atari computers, as opposed to the console and the ST, seems to be less remembered despite being so amazing.

Ataris had the best graphics. The C64 had the best sound. CoCo had the most sophisticated CPU, and the Apple II series was the best overall and most expandable computer (but not particularly well suited for games - the good ones it had were due to absolutely brilliant programmers). I think that would be a nice summary. ;-) People this side of the Atlantic will also mention BBC, Spectrum and Amstrad. Oh. Oric, Dragon,…

I should have mentioned the British/French computers. In fact, my first computer was a ZX Spectrum (I grew up in Latin America) so I hold it very dear to my heart.

Re: AtariAge and Atari

#42

Post by MenhirMike »

lordfrito wrote: post #33
MenhirMike wrote: post #29

Happy for Albert to get a job, but I expect this to be the end of the site in the not so far future, given that Atari seems to be more about squeezing every last drop out of their old portfolio. The homebrew community can be forever grateful to the site though (well, to Curt Vendel and Glenn Bruner) for getting ahold of the original Jaguar Encryption keys so that homebrew CD games just work on unmodified consoles, so…

I don't mind Atari being a nostalgia company. Actually, when I think about it, at this point their business only makes sense if they embrace being a nostalgia company. The old company is long gone. Even if it was around, the people/skillset are no longer relevant to game development. There's no engineering/developer continuity, tech continuity, etc. So it makes no sense for Atari to attempt to compete with other AAA…

Yeah, the AAA thing definitely didn't work out for them (or for whatever company was called Atari when they were AAA publishing).

I could definitely see them being a great Indie publisher, and I just saw that they bought Nightdive Studios earlier this year (at least I assume that's the same Atari) - so they seems to be setting themselves up for that kind of "Triple-I/Double-A" stuff. Heck, I hope they still own the Star Raiders IPs and make another remake of it, hopefully a better one than the last.

And they bought Stern IPs. They could do a new Berzerk game as a frantic twin-stick shooter - get inspiration from Robotron 2084 which too inspiration from Berzerk.

Okay, seems like Atari actually has potential ahead of them, that's cool!

Re: AtariAge and Atari

#43

Post by rbanffy »

TMWNN wrote: post #31
rbanffy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen equivalents for the C64 and Apple II.

I'm not sure how far along the Apple II version is, but that's not surprising given its ability to autoboot from a card. As I discuss in the linked thread, FujiNet for the C64 is not and cannot be the equivalent because of lack of SIO or something akin to it.

At least the disk interface is a serial one, and the 1541/1571 drives are smart devices much like the Atari ones. The disk interface is not as "general" as SIO, but it seems they are functionally very similar.

Unless I understand it very wrong, in the base C64 OS, you run an "ls" by opening the floppy device and asking the drive to read it.

Re: AtariAge and Atari

#44

Post by rbanffy »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #39
ShadowBanThis01 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the built-in MIDI. The inverse color scheme? Not so great... which people are finally admitting 40 years later.

'twas easy enough to flip the palette

Not sure it was so, but it'd be interesting if the monochrome mode used two entries of the palette. Possibly also easier to implement as well.

Re: AtariAge and Atari

#45

Post by rbanffy »

glimshe wrote: post #41
rbanffy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ataris had the best graphics. The C64 had the best sound. CoCo had the most sophisticated CPU, and the Apple II series was the best overall and most expandable computer (but not particularly well suited for games - the good ones it had were due to absolutely brilliant programmers). I think that would be a nice summary. ;-) People this side of the Atlantic will also mention BBC, Spectrum and Amstrad. Oh. Oric, Dragon,…

I should have mentioned the British/French computers. In fact, my first computer was a ZX Spectrum (I grew up in Latin America) so I hold it very dear to my heart.

Same here (Brazil). We had local manufacturers doing Apple II, Sinclair and TRS-80 clones. Some of them really good.

I was surprised when I learned the Apple II+ couldn't do lowercase when my very first II+ clone could.

I was even more surprised when I figured out a clone I owned was so close to the original II+ that it also couldn't do lowercase.

Re: AtariAge and Atari

#46

Post by rbanffy »

rasz wrote: post #32
rbanffy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly like the STs better as computer designs. They are clean and general-purpose while the Amigas ended up being hurt by an overly complicated hardware that made it expensive for Commodore to keep up with PCs.

More like basic and barren, missing the simplest/cheapest to implement quality of life features (scrolling = video start address offset register, pcm output). Add awful Engineering, signal integrity is marginal with many hacks to keep the house of cards from falling over. "Bad DMA" chip recall (would erase your hard drive on first access) was actually caused by using too fast DMA chip picking interference on the over…

Yes. The ST was very basic and didn't include too much in the box. A lot of it needed a couple revisions to work well. Hardware scrolling is not a huge thing on a GUI machine - the Mac didn't have it either. The ST is not a computer built out of a gaming console (much like, BTW, the C64 - which just happened to be quite good for that). Later versions improved on the on-board audio and video and at least two were built around a VME bus (probably the only home computers to ever do that). Much as Commodore, Atari was also slow to iterate (and it had a much better starting point for that, but not as much money).

> What hurt Commodore was technologically clueless management.

That, too, but all the bus timings on the Amigas tied to NTSC (it sprung out of a gaming console, after all), the complexity of the custom chips (they'd all need to be iterated to keep up with new Motorola processors AND what was being offered in PC clones), resulting in multiple buses, fast/chip RAM, and so on. The Amigas were incredibly capable for their time, but were not elegant computers and did not evolve, in part, because it'd be too costly for Commodore to do so. A lot of the features of the Amiga made sense in games (planar graphics), but made none for a general purpose computer. What's obvious now (hindsight is always 20-20) is that they should have segmented the line, have a gaming platform at the low end, and a general purpose computer, running the same OS but with things like VGA ports and preemptive multitasking with memory protection and virtual memory. And they SHOULD have taken the Sun proposal of selling 3000's as low-end UNIX machines seriously.

As for the floppy, I have no idea why they didn't just adopt a market standard FDC and let the original's floppy side rot. The audio part was quite impressive but I doubt anyone was using the FDC side without the OS in the middle.

Another thing that always surprises me is that both made PCs with little or no commonality with their "proprietary" lines. Using the same chassis for Amigas, STs and their PCs would save money, as well as putting Amiga and ST keyboards on PCs (this was all before the PC-101 layout).

Re: AtariAge and Atari

#47

Post by cmrdporcupine »

rbanffy wrote: post #44
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'twas easy enough to flip the palette

Not sure it was so, but it'd be interesting if the monochrome mode used two entries of the palette. Possibly also easier to implement as well.

That's how it was. Flipping to inverse as really easy and there were lots of auto programs or desk accessories that included an option for it, including I believe Atari's stock control panel.

Re: AtariAge and Atari

#48

Post by cmrdporcupine »

rbanffy wrote: post #46
rasz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like basic and barren, missing the simplest/cheapest to implement quality of life features (scrolling = video start address offset register, pcm output). Add awful Engineering, signal integrity is marginal with many hacks to keep the house of cards from falling over. "Bad DMA" chip recall (would erase your hard drive on first access) was actually caused by using too fast DMA chip picking interference on the over…

Yes. The ST was very basic and didn't include too much in the box. A lot of it needed a couple revisions to work well. Hardware scrolling is not a huge thing on a GUI machine - the Mac didn't have it either. The ST is not a computer built out of a gaming console (much like, BTW, the C64 - which just happened to be quite good for that). Later versions improved on the on-board audio and video and at least two were buil…

All good points. But I think Commodore was essentially technically rudderless with the Amiga after Miner and related folks were no longer involved, so I don't think they'd really have had anything to offer on either end (game/consumer or general purpose workstation class machine.) Or even on the software front, who would have even developed the software on the latter? Like Atari, I get the sense that they just didn't have the resources to make that kind of thing happen.

Atari made moves in 90, 91 to get more serious about their OS development, hiring Eric Smith fulltime to work on MultiTOS, etc. Smart move, but too late.

The low-end Unix workstation thing was a meme that just didn't work out in practice. Both Atari (with the TT running SysV) and Commodore tried at this market and failed. There was no buyer for it. I still remember the snarky little headline on a snippet in UnixWorld about Atari's TT & Unix: "Up from toyland."

Re: AtariAge and Atari

#49

Post by TMWNN »

rbanffy wrote: post #43
TMWNN wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how far along the Apple II version is, but that's not surprising given its ability to autoboot from a card. As I discuss in the linked thread, FujiNet for the C64 is not and cannot be the equivalent because of lack of SIO or something akin to it.

At least the disk interface is a serial one, and the 1541/1571 drives are smart devices much like the Atari ones. The disk interface is not as "general" as SIO, but it seems they are functionally very similar. Unless I understand it very wrong, in the base C64 OS, you run an "ls" by opening the floppy device and asking the drive to read it.

Again, please read the linked thread. I explain the difference between SIO and Commodore's approach and why the latter doesn't allow what the former does, specifically autobooting and throughput.

Re: AtariAge and Atari

#50

Post by snickerbockers »

deaddodo wrote: post #20
pauldenton wrote: post #13

How long will it take for this AtariAge thread to bring up Tommy Tallarico and the Intellivision Amico I wonder.

The Amico is dead and buried as far as any one concerned cares, at this point.

The Amico was always dead as far as anybody with more than two brain cells is concerned.

IIRC there was a bit of scandal involving the AA mods censoring criticism of the Amico. Not sure if there was an actual conflict of interest or just fanboys getting drunk on hype, but it was only a couple years ago and to see them getting into bed with yet another company trying to capitalize on a retro gaming brand is bound to draw comparisons.

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