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The Atari 1200XL fiasco

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Re: The Atari 1200XL fiasco

#61

Post by exceptione »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #52
exceptione wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The smartest thing Microsoft could do, imho, is cancel all their billion UI variants, bless Avalonia and throw all the saved millions of dollars to them. Then in one instant they get a real cross-platform UI framework, with a competent team as a free bonus. It is actually incredibly compelling, the cross-platform .NET offering. If you look at all the Go, Python and Rust UI toolkits, none hits the bar. They invariably…

Linux distros are rewriting their installers and partition tools in web technologies these days. Hard to believe but the direction is clear, no one cares about local UI toolkits.

I didn't know that? That is hitting a new low.

But maybe it should not surprise me, C/C++ got out of fashion (with good reasons), but the devs lost the UI toolkit with it. The average dev does not command a language with an ecosystem that is up to the task. So it is some slow Python + some crapshoot UI.

Linux finally has an option for good, performant UI, written in a sensible high level language with a vast standard library. Look at HN, people hate the electron stuff. There is just a shortage of competent programmers.

Java + JavaFX might be an other option next to .net core, but Java is verboten as well. People rather fix runtime crashes in the untyped langue they learnt in their first tutorials than broaden their horizon.

Re: The Atari 1200XL fiasco

#62

Post by bsder »

mrandish wrote: post #48
justin66 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For their time they were very comparable We can say that now, but it's worth remembering the Atari 8 bit computers came out over two years before the C64. Not such a big gap in computing today, but back then it was a lot. ex-Atari people talking about what they could have done better is always an interesting youtube phenomenon. (as with, for example, ex-Sun people, you hear a lot of theories but you never encounter…

> ex-Atari people talking about what they could have done better As someone super into retro computing now, who also lived through the history getting my first computer in 1981, participating in users groups, reading all the zines, going to regional and national trade shows for 8-bit home computers, etc, this was (and still is) a significant recurring theme. Owners of 8-bit and 16-bit computers in the 80s/early 90s (…

Agreed. The IBM PC wave was going to sweep the 1980s 8-bit computers aside no matter what they did.

However, Tandy was the only one that could have survived as they had PC compatibles that were actually better than the original PC computers. Unfortunately, I seem to remember that Tandy had a big accounting/embezzlement thing back about the time that they needed to be hyperfocused on the PC business.

Re: The Atari 1200XL fiasco

#63

Post by justin66 »

Suppafly wrote: post #57
justin66 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For their time they were very comparable We can say that now, but it's worth remembering the Atari 8 bit computers came out over two years before the C64. Not such a big gap in computing today, but back then it was a lot. ex-Atari people talking about what they could have done better is always an interesting youtube phenomenon. (as with, for example, ex-Sun people, you hear a lot of theories but you never encounter…

>you never encounter anyone who says "yeah, I was the guy who made the whole thing fail" Because that was usually a business decision and not a technical one.

Rereading the comment I made which you're responding to, I can only assume you do not consider those making business decisions to be... people? That seems a bit harsh.

Re: The Atari 1200XL fiasco

#64

Post by justin66 »

simonh wrote: post #51
justin66 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good comment. I guess I don't attach the same weight to the CISC/RISC thing you do, but I agree that it's certainly true that the big "the real problem was x " pronouncements are insufficient to explain what really happened. (but are nevertheless quite interesting when they come from the parties involved!)

Arguably there is one company that did manage to make the transition from 8 bit hobby home computing and gaming. Apple. The Apple II was a contemporary, in fact a predecessor of all these systems. So, what did they do right, or what went right for them, that enabled them to make it? I suspect it was the penetration of the Apple II into education and business that helped make it possible, but suppose Steve Jobs had be…

> I suspect it was the penetration of the Apple II into education and business that helped make it possible

I don't know how much it moved the needle but it was astonishing how much schools and home users - parents whose kids used the machines at school - were willing to pay for an Apple II well after it was a technically obsolete machine. It definitely helped them to some extent.

(don't get me wrong, I love those machines in my bones, but they were pretty overpriced after a while)

Re: The Atari 1200XL fiasco

#65

Post by mrandish »

bsder wrote: post #62
mrandish wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ex-Atari people talking about what they could have done better As someone super into retro computing now, who also lived through the history getting my first computer in 1981, participating in users groups, reading all the zines, going to regional and national trade shows for 8-bit home computers, etc, this was (and still is) a significant recurring theme. Owners of 8-bit and 16-bit computers in the 80s/early 90s (…

Agreed. The IBM PC wave was going to sweep the 1980s 8-bit computers aside no matter what they did. However, Tandy was the only one that could have survived as they had PC compatibles that were actually better than the original PC computers. Unfortunately, I seem to remember that Tandy had a big accounting/embezzlement thing back about the time that they needed to be hyperfocused on the PC business.

Yes, the Tandy 1000, 2000 and their PC-compatible descendants were what Tandy ended up doing, but being PC-compatible they were more of a "surrender and join'em" strategy in the face of the PC juggernaut instead of "beat'em". When I was referring to Tandy I was thinking of their earlier unique non-PC computers like the Model I, II, III, IV (Z-80), Color Computer (6809) and 16 (68000 Unix-based OS), some of which were sold until 1991.

If you're interested, this retro site has several articles covering the Tandy PC clones, why they struggled at launch (weren't actually very compatible early on) and how they eventually failed (weren't differentiated or cheaper at the end). https://dfarq.homeip.net/tandy-1000-models/ But Tandy's PC-compatibles sold very well in-between the first and last couple years. More interesting from a retro perspective though, a lot of people don't realize just how dominant Tandy/Radio Shack's unique (non-PC) computers were between 1977 and 1985. They outsold even Apple, Atari and the C64 in many of those years.

Re: The Atari 1200XL fiasco

#66

Post by justin66 »

bsder wrote: post #62
mrandish wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ex-Atari people talking about what they could have done better As someone super into retro computing now, who also lived through the history getting my first computer in 1981, participating in users groups, reading all the zines, going to regional and national trade shows for 8-bit home computers, etc, this was (and still is) a significant recurring theme. Owners of 8-bit and 16-bit computers in the 80s/early 90s (…

Agreed. The IBM PC wave was going to sweep the 1980s 8-bit computers aside no matter what they did. However, Tandy was the only one that could have survived as they had PC compatibles that were actually better than the original PC computers. Unfortunately, I seem to remember that Tandy had a big accounting/embezzlement thing back about the time that they needed to be hyperfocused on the PC business.

Over the years, Tandy sold computers with a broader set of CPUs than anyone, as far as I know. [0] It's remarkable.

8080, 8085, Z80, 6803, 6809, 68000, 8088, V20, 80186 (of all things!), and also the purely PC-compatible stuff.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TRS-80_and_Tandy-brand...

Re: The Atari 1200XL fiasco

#67

Post by ack_complete »

glimshe wrote: post #2

Microsoft was one of the first companies who fully internalized the importance of seamless backwards compatibility. The lessons had been around for a while, such as the fate of the 1200XL. They would have done a lot better, even at a higher price, if they had focused on it. The Atari 8-bit line had a lot going for it and was arguably superior (flame wars incoming, Atari army please help me) in many ways than the C64.

I would say Apple had been doing a fair amount of it prior to Microsoft, if you looked at the way they carefully patched the Monitor II ROM in later models. This is something that Atari didn't get at first when they first revised the OS in the 1200XL and shifted entire sections of code, before reverting major sections back to match the original OS.

Problem is, there were always programs that abused the OS so much that it would have been impractical to accommodate them, since bundling extra ROMs is costly. The worst case I know of is a program that used an entire section of the OS ROM as an XOR encryption key for sectors on disk.

As for Atari vs. C64, I love the Atari but it needed an update to the custom chips to compete with the C64 and other newer systems. But instead, Atari was looking at adding a 300 baud modem and a speech synthesizer to the computer instead.

Re: The Atari 1200XL fiasco

#68

Post by justin66 »

mrandish wrote: post #65
bsder wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The IBM PC wave was going to sweep the 1980s 8-bit computers aside no matter what they did. However, Tandy was the only one that could have survived as they had PC compatibles that were actually better than the original PC computers. Unfortunately, I seem to remember that Tandy had a big accounting/embezzlement thing back about the time that they needed to be hyperfocused on the PC business.

Yes, the Tandy 1000, 2000 and their PC-compatible descendants were what Tandy ended up doing, but being PC-compatible they were more of a "surrender and join'em" strategy in the face of the PC juggernaut instead of "beat'em". When I was referring to Tandy I was thinking of their earlier unique non-PC computers like the Model I, II, III, IV (Z-80), Color Computer (6809) and 16 (68000 Unix-based OS), some of which were…

The Color Computer was interesting. They kept the 8-bit fire burning a little longer than was truly reasonable, but I wouldn't fault them for it.

Re: The Atari 1200XL fiasco

#69

Post by flenserboy »

justin66 wrote: post #64
simonh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably there is one company that did manage to make the transition from 8 bit hobby home computing and gaming. Apple. The Apple II was a contemporary, in fact a predecessor of all these systems. So, what did they do right, or what went right for them, that enabled them to make it? I suspect it was the penetration of the Apple II into education and business that helped make it possible, but suppose Steve Jobs had be…

> I suspect it was the penetration of the Apple II into education and business that helped make it possible I don't know how much it moved the needle but it was astonishing how much schools and home users - parents whose kids used the machines at school - were willing to pay for an Apple II well after it was a technically obsolete machine. It definitely helped them to some extent. (don't get me wrong, I love those ma…

here's a guess: text was sharp on an Apple II with a decent monitor. font shapes were good. no matter how good graphics were on the C64 & Ataris, in comparison, text was always blocky & amateur looking. Tandy did better on this front, but it wasn't enough for them. pretty sure this is the same reason why the Amiga & the ST didn't make more inroads — people looked at them alongside the Mac & technical considerations were quickly forgotten. it's funny to me that this hasn't changed all that much — Windows font rendering looks awful to me, & I'll always pick a Mac or Linux box to use instead if there's a choice, just so I don't have to put up with the fonts. this wasn't always the case — the old system character sets used under DOS were pleasant to use.

Re: The Atari 1200XL fiasco

#70

Post by mrandish »

justin66 wrote: post #68
mrandish wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the Tandy 1000, 2000 and their PC-compatible descendants were what Tandy ended up doing, but being PC-compatible they were more of a "surrender and join'em" strategy in the face of the PC juggernaut instead of "beat'em". When I was referring to Tandy I was thinking of their earlier unique non-PC computers like the Model I, II, III, IV (Z-80), Color Computer (6809) and 16 (68000 Unix-based OS), some of which were…

The Color Computer was interesting. They kept the 8-bit fire burning a little longer than was truly reasonable, but I wouldn't fault them for it.

The 6809-based Color Computer was my first computer and it was indeed incredibly powerful. Unfortunately, all that power was in the CPU itself, arguably the best 8-bit CPU ever made (because it was really an 8-bit / 16-bit hybrid) and the 68000's immediate predecessor.

Tandy just used the Motorola reference design so there was nothing unique or proprietary to Tandy. The graphics were just a straight bitmap from CPU RAM, no sprites, tiles, or selectable palette colors. The sound output was a plain six bit DAC that had to be driven by the CPU on interrupts.

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