Atari 7800 Thread

[TrekMD]

The 7800 had a lot of potential at the time and, had Atari followed through and done more enhanced carts, it would have had a very nice life to compete against the NES.  Sadly, they didn't.  Heck, had they released the XM as they originally intended, that would have also helped and it would shaved costs.

[dot.fyre]

Some of my boxed 7800 games.

[TL]

The 7800 had a lot of potential at the time and, had Atari followed through and done more enhanced carts, it would have had a very nice life to compete against the NES.  Sadly, they didn't.  Heck, had they released the XM as they originally intended, that would have also helped and it would shaved costs.

Indeed, I would have loved to have seen what some of the big 3rd party NES licensees would have done with the 7800.

[TrekMD]

Nice set of games, dot.fyre. 

[dot.fyre]

Nice set of games, dot.fyre. 

Thanks. I got boxed versions of Asteroids and Centipede too but they were NTSC. 

[TL]

Nice set of games, dot.fyre.  :40:

[dot.fyre]

Nice set of games, dot.fyre.  :40:

Neither worked properly. Could have been the carts although they were both sealed when I got them.
As for Asteroids, it's a nice box.

[guest5175]

I would just like to see the XM get released period at this point

But yeah, in a more perfect universe, the XEGS being released in 1982 instead of the 5200 and the XM in 1987 instead of the XE would have been an interesting thing. But there were many other things that needed to happen. And of course there is the Mirai, who knows what that might have ended up being if released in 1988 or 89 or whenever it was.

Given the new release of Atari 7800 BASIC, it's tempting to try and learn that and hammer something out for the 7800 although I have never been able to wrap my head around programming enough to make anything happen. I can design all day long but code is a different story.

[TrekMD]

Yes, rumor has it that we'll be seeing the XM in June!  Can't wait! 

[retromod]

Yes, rumor has it that we'll be seeing the XM in June!  Can't wait!

yes hopefully. I cross the fingers a long time for such a project. as I know the first incarnation was based on original design and delivered as a modul called "the hiscore card". The current design is an extension with some add-ons of this concept. The website lists the XM as "sold out" and as I've heard it will not enter mass production at all. Not sure how many pieces will be built but at a price of $150 I'll bet there are no earnings in comparison to time spent.

[retromod]

During my todays verification of my new mod i recognized that a lot of my cartridges seems to be broken. They works fine in first run but fails after a while. For example centipede show screen noise at the bottom. Which changes during gameplay.
Ninja golf works fine too, until you reach the middle of the first level, then you will notice white lines at he bottom appearing randomly but steady at the same position. Finally it crashes in gameplay.
I have multiple ballblazer modules, sometimes they reach the demolevel, sometimes they alter the lucasgame screen and crashes. Seems due to pokey init. Weird as it happens randomly on different consoles. Also checked pal/ntsc version.

problem solved: after some investigations it seems a flacky ground solderpoint was the root cause. I've found several reportings of similar issues after modding consoles to S-video. I solved the problem by simple adding an additional ground solder point from the console to the modding PCB. Now all games are stable and ballblazer works fine every time except you'll switch off/on too rapidly. It seems the used capacitor within the console requires too long and keeping voltage for a while (same issue on Atari 2600 where you'll notice even if there is no power connection the LED will light for a while). but this can be improved by a simple trick in the circuit  :104:

[TL]

[align=center:14znfeej]You don't see many 7800 walk throughs, so this new video was a welcome upload!

Atari 7800 Longplay [001] Commando[/align:14znfeej]

[TrekMD]

Very nice and also an excellent choice for a longplay video! 

[Gorf]

Indeed, I would have loved to have seen what some of the big 3rd party NES licensees would have done with the 7800.

Unfortunately, they'd have done nothing either way since Nintendo monopolized all the big 3rd party dev's with the exclusivity clause. You would have not seen the 7800 falter but they had no one who was allowed to code for the system. Another big a-hole move from Atari delaying the release of the 7800 two years. Had they released it when they originally intended to, Nintendo would have not had such an easy time convincing top dev's that they were the only game in town...because they would not have been. As it was, they were the only game in town and released the NES at the right time and the right place.

Blame Atari for this....another hair brained move.

[TL]

To be fair it wasn't Atari's fault, it was Warners. Jack Tramiel's Atari didn't own the rights for the 7800 because Warner had never paid GCC for developing it and the original games. Warner thought Atari Corp should pay, Jack thought Warner should as they released it first, a bit horrible mess that only got settled when Jack eventually paid up because he really wanted to get the 7800 out the door before it was too late.