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Atari(TM) 2600 VCS users too

My Brother, who is an Insane Genius©, Has been using Atari systems, mainly the 800's and the Mega ST, since around '87 I think; He's got them hacked all to hell, built a scanner head into a printer, Parallel processing with random mutated code, good stuff like that.

These machines are incredible for their era, which is not surprising considering they pretty much lost all the best talent in the company to Amiga.

Enjoy Freenet & Frost while you can.

My Brother, who is an Insane Genius©, Has been using Atari systems, mainly the 800's and the Mega ST, since around '87 I think; He's got them hacked all to hell, built a scanner head into a printer, Parallel processing with random mutated code, good stuff like that.

These machines are incredible for their era, which is not surprising considering they pretty much lost all the best talent in the company to Amiga.

Enjoy Freenet & Frost while you can.

My Brother, who is an Insane Genius©, Has been using Atari systems, mainly the 800's and the Mega ST, since around '87 I think; He's got them hacked all to hell, built a scanner head into a printer, Parallel processing with random mutated code, good stuff like that.

These machines are incredible for their era, which is not surprising considering they pretty much lost all the best talent in the company to Amiga.

Enjoy Freenet & Frost while you can.

Your wish is answered (rather, was answered, in 1993)

On that note, Atari System V UNIX

Atari Solaris is a interesting game -- lots of different screens, good graphics, some level of complexity. Kinda gives you an idea what the console could have done if ROM chips weren't so expensive in the early 80s.

Excellent point. I helped a bit around the company in early 1983, wiring new office space, but I wasn't really there for the 7800. I had a housemate in 1986 who had been a 7800 developer, so I did get to play with the system while it was in limbo.

Here's an excellent 7800 history.

try The Atari Historical Society for information on atari.

The guy that runs it runs it well, and there's often new stuff uncovered (the kind of stuff people find in attics then realise its worth something) that can be quite interesting.

Well worth a read if you like that sort of thing.

While the ATA133 appears to be only slightly faster than the ATA100, it demonstrates considerable speed up over this device.

Mint? Fuck that shit. Atari System V UNIX!

About 15 years ago I remember reading in Antic about an Atari game control to do something like this. Not quite the same but reading the muscle inputs on your forehead. Here is a link: Atari Mindlink.

Touch Me was a real arcade game, circa 1974 (I'm guessing that was before you were born). This rendering on Safestuff is probably one concept of the final cabinet, the production one looks different.

The game was redone in 1978 by Baer/Glass/Milton Bradley as a portable game called Simon. You can still buy Simon in stores today.

It's such a shame that a company with so many on point ideas and cutting edge innovation had to be laid to rest. I have always enjoyed the content of this site, as they have made a respectable effort to preserve Atari's legacy. Take a look at their arcade exhibit, especially the 1970-1974 page. There is also solid content on some interesting projects and prototypes that you probably had no idea Atari even attempted, like the AtariTel division, which developed phones designed by Porsche. Many interesting pictures...

It's such a shame that a company with so many on point ideas and cutting edge innovation had to be laid to rest. I have always enjoyed the content of this site, as they have made a respectable effort to preserve Atari's legacy. Take a look at their arcade exhibit, especially the 1970-1974 page. There is also solid content on some interesting projects and prototypes that you probably had no idea Atari even attempted, like the AtariTel division, which developed phones designed by Porsche. Many interesting pictures...

It's such a shame that a company with so many on point ideas and cutting edge innovation had to be laid to rest. I have always enjoyed the content of this site, as they have made a respectable effort to preserve Atari's legacy. Take a look at their arcade exhibit, especially the 1970-1974 page. There is also solid content on some interesting projects and prototypes that you probably had no idea Atari even attempted, like the AtariTel division, which developed phones designed by Porsche. Many interesting pictures...

It's such a shame that a company with so many on point ideas and cutting edge innovation had to be laid to rest. I have always enjoyed the content of this site, as they have made a respectable effort to preserve Atari's legacy. Take a look at their arcade exhibit, especially the 1970-1974 page. There is also solid content on some interesting projects and prototypes that you probably had no idea Atari even attempted, like the AtariTel division, which developed phones designed by Porsche. Many interesting pictures...

It's such a shame that a company with so many on point ideas and cutting edge innovation had to be laid to rest. I have always enjoyed the content of this site, as they have made a respectable effort to preserve Atari's legacy. Take a look at their arcade exhibit, especially the 1970-1974 page. There is also solid content on some interesting projects and prototypes that you probably had no idea Atari even attempted, like the AtariTel division, which developed phones designed by Porsche. Many interesting pictures...

Or.

Step 1.

Source an Atari Portfolio from ebay

Step 2.

Marvel at ancient PC applications running very slowly on your PDA...

Not as cool as the 5200 -- A huge shiny black wedge -- probably about 18" x 12". Maximum bloat -- also had horrid controllers.

I don't know if Jeff Minter was behind it, but I have an Atari Video Music from the 70s that's very trippy.
--

1. Buy a second-hand Atari Portfolio
2. Buy a Palm Pilot and replace all with LispMe

checkout for example PayPal, and Just Web It.

PayPal is a way to send money over the internet, it is a nice little operation, and convenient.

Just Web It is a free ecommerce/estore site, just right for the entry band selling some albums and an occasional t-shirt, etc.

These may not be the best options, but they help someone who doesn't have coding expertise to set up a web page.

Now we get to the morons who do not see what their little misstep does on the broader scale. I am reminded of the apocryphal story of Atari Computer. Supposedly, they ultimately went under in part because the games for the Atari computer were so popular that everyone hacked them, and the developers ultimately went broke, throwing in the towel. (Anyone remember copy protection?)

of course the hackers were pissed that the company went broke, and didn't connect what they did to the fate of the company.

ultimately, the company got sold and resold many times (history here, and here), and now is a subsidiary of Hasbro.

Officially, there were other market forces at work. But I can not help wondering if these wise fools contributed to the downfall.

Actually, the GameBoy is an interesting "What if?" What if Nintendo had never upgraded from the Snes? Would they have held their own against Sony better or worse? While the obvious answer would seem to be worse, the GameBoy shows that out of date technology can thrive as long as programmers will push it. There are some good games for it, so my brother tells me, but I've never been able to enjoy playing on that tiny, relatively colorless screen.

Of course, I'm a bitter Lynx owner. I keep thinking I'll bring that to work one of these days and when people ask me what it is I'll say, "Oh, it's my new PDA! It's called a Lynx," and see how many people I can fool.

Of course, Lynxes kill batteries PDQ, too. I would never try to use one without a "Lynx Battery Pack" (massive, almost the same size as the Lynx, uses D batteries) or a power adaptor. Of course, I have the old Lynx, I think on the newer version of the Lynx you can turn off the back light.

I don't know why some clever company never bought the rights to Lynx technology and tried to make it smaller and more energy efficient (as well as continuing to develop games for it). It blows away both the GameBoy Color and NeoGeo Pocket (which I own, and don't play that much... seems to be almost the same quality as Color GameBoy) in terms of processing power, and considering its age it should have been possible (by Moore's law) to improve it greatly as far as size and efficiency.

Oh well, I look forward to the day when they finally come out with a handheld system that is more advanced than the Lynx or the TurboExpress.

Yeah, I know, I'll get moderated down by some youngster who hates to hear us old guys grumbling about things, "back in the day." But here's the Atari Lynx FAQ for those browsing at -1 ^_-

Actually, the GameBoy is an interesting "What if?" What if Nintendo had never upgraded from the Snes? Would they have held their own against Sony better or worse? While the obvious answer would seem to be worse, the GameBoy shows that out of date technology can thrive as long as programmers will push it. There are some good games for it, so my brother tells me, but I've never been able to enjoy playing on that tiny, relatively colorless screen.

Of course, I'm a bitter Lynx owner. I keep thinking I'll bring that to work one of these days and when people ask me what it is I'll say, "Oh, it's my new PDA! It's called a Lynx," and see how many people I can fool.

Of course, Lynxes kill batteries PDQ, too. I would never try to use one without a "Lynx Battery Pack" (massive, almost the same size as the Lynx, uses D batteries) or a power adaptor. Of course, I have the old Lynx, I think on the newer version of the Lynx you can turn off the back light.

I don't know why some clever company never bought the rights to Lynx technology and tried to make it smaller and more energy efficient (as well as continuing to develop games for it). It blows away both the GameBoy Color and NeoGeo Pocket (which I own, and don't play that much... seems to be almost the same quality as Color GameBoy) in terms of processing power, and considering its age it should have been possible (by Moore's law) to improve it greatly as far as size and efficiency.

Oh well, I look forward to the day when they finally come out with a handheld system that is more advanced than the Lynx or the TurboExpress.

Yeah, I know, I'll get moderated down by some youngster who hates to hear us old guys grumbling about things, "back in the day." But here's the Atari Lynx FAQ for those browsing at -1 ^_-

Some 2600 'features':

1. No VSync. Every 2600 game had to count lines and keep an exact constant framerate _manually_.
2. A total of 4KB ROM and 128 bytes of RAM to work with.

Read this Case History from 1983 in IEEE SPectrum for some more insight into 2600 development.

Also see this interview. Best quote: "The early games [...] were 2K games and the old programmers looked down on us kids for using 4K because only a wimp would need 4K :)"

Try looking at the Atari Historical Society and you'll see that Pong wasn't really Atari's first video game. A variant of Spacewars was. This site also gives you alot of history and old plans of Atari's. It's a real pity that they didn't make it to the year 2k... sigh, what could of been. -BlacKat

Gary Kildall would approve.

Chuck