YEAH BABY! MY FIRST SYSTEM! Got it for Christmas '89, I was 6, oldest kid of 5 in the family, so this was a group gift. This was ONLY $59.99!!! @ ToysRUs I Still Have it: It sits here on my desk at home It's my Most Prised Possession... My kids love playing ET & Donkey Kong

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

That's awesome that you have your 7800 from when you were a kid.. Nice, sharng with th kiddos. 🤣🤣🤣

@PongbyAtari

Жыл бұрын

That's great that you still have your 7800 and play it with your family what a way to bring back memories.

I received my 7800 for Christmas in 1990. My parents had a bunch of 2600 games in their closet from the system they had from the 70s that was long broken. Between this, my VHS copy of Ninja Turtles and my MC Hammer cassette, Christmas of 1990 was one of my favorites

@RetrogamerGenX

6 ай бұрын

Awesome!! I remember getting the Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em Album on tape too.

@batboy9997

6 ай бұрын

@@RetrogamerGenX I recently found the boombox I played it on. The dial was still set to the same station I listened to, lol. Nothing beats early 90s top 40

From what I've seen from the homebrew community, and from what homebrew programmers say, the 7800 could rival the Master System in graphics. You just have to be very proficient in programming for it, knowing the system in and out. Bubble Bobble is in early development on the 7800, and looks amazing already. The homebrew port of 1942 is impressive too.

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

I would agree the Maria chip is very capable. However back when the system was new, developers didnt take full advantage of it. Alot of this is because Atari themselves pushed the Dev's to make games quickly, making impossible deadlines. So corners were cut. Making really lackluster games that really couldn't compete with the NES or SMS at the time. Now, 30+ years later, home brew folks are taking advantage of both the Maria and pokey chip on the new games showing what could have been done with the system. Amazing what could be accomplished if you had the time to develop for it.

Criminal that they didn't use the pokey for sound.

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

Ain't that the truth brother!!! This system would have been so good with the Pokey installed.. That's Jack Tramiel's cost cutting right there.

@yandman26

Жыл бұрын

Thankfully we now have new affordable versions that can be built in cart.

@marccaselle8108

Жыл бұрын

Only ballblazer and commando had pokey chips in the games.

"I want sounds that curl my hair! 😂 Well you certainly did get that!

@RetrogamerGenX

11 ай бұрын

🤣🤣🤣

I bought for myself the Atari 7800 ProSystem in the late 1980s / the early 1990s and most of the Atari 7800 game cartridges. However I am still playing it along with the new homebrews that came out in the early 2000s which you don't seem to know about existing.

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

Nice brother... Glad you were able to pick one up and get most the carts. The 7800 is a great platform to collect for because of the number official games produced. Yeah I am very aware of the homebrew scene for the 7800, which a lot of them use the pokey chip. Atari Age is the Shiznit... Too bad that during the time the 7800 was in production, they didn't make the quality of games the homebrew community has made. But at the time, everything was about Nintendo. Even Sega got the snub during that time from publishers. Keep an eye out, I will be working on a 7800 here soon once I get back from my vacation... Thanks for watching and sharing bro...👍👍👍

The difficulty switches are not just for 2600 games. Xevious, Tower Toppler, and all the flying games use them.

I got one on 86 or 87 and the only games I had back then were Pole Position II which came with the console and Karateka. Really happy with the console and the backward comp with the 2600, until one day I went to friend house and saw Super Mario Bros for the first in front of me, no TV ad, and later same day we went to another friend house and they were playing The Legend of Zelda and Punch Out........ At that very moment I stop seeing my 7800 the same way.......

@RetrogamerGenX

9 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing. Cool story.

I really enjoyed the video I got a late start in gaming in 1978 at the age of 17 with the Odyssey 2 and really didn't own any Atari Systems until the Lynx in 1989.

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it. The Odyssey 2 was a cool system too. I'll be doing an A Look At for that system one day too. So stay tuned... Thanks for watching and commenting...

7800 could hang with a Nintendo pretty well just never got the chance. Go look up a recent Port of 1942 somebody did to the 7800

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

As far as tech specs go, the Maria chip blew away what nintendo was doing. Problem was nintendo and sega had all the developers. And as always atari made the system difficult to program for with the their custom chips. The jaguar had the same fate. But you are right, some of the home brew that has come out for it is amazing. And no sprite flicker. What could have been.. Seems to be the going theme for atari after the 2600's success.

It's really amazing how ahead of the time the NES was given its Japanese counterpart, the Famicom, was from 1983. The 7800 should have easily compared but didn't. It didn't help that Atari recycled the sound chip from the 2600, forcing devs to add additional hardware to the carts to have better sound. Also- I remember the controversy back then on how to pronounce "Karateka." Seems that even Atari didn't know as in two of the commercials it was pronounced two different ways. 😅

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

Yep that's Tramiel's cost cutting. They should of put the Pokey chip in it, that's for sure. I've never been able to pronounce it right🤣🤣🤣 Thanks for watching and commenting.

@yandman26

Жыл бұрын

Even sillier the fact that Nintendo asked Atari to release the NES and they passed it up.

@dtester

Жыл бұрын

There is a fun KZread video by Jordan Mechner, the maker of Karateka, talking about the pronunciation. It really comes down to how English stress certain syllables and Japanese doesn't. Care-a-tee-ka and Ka-rah-tee-ka are both technically off from proper Japanese but in my opinion Ka-rah-tee-ka is slightly less wrong. Why? Because most westerners pronounce Karate as Ka-rah-tee and not Care-a-tee. That said, Jordan likes to say Care-a-tee-ka, so I guess its a tie! 😆

@KrunchyTheClown78

Жыл бұрын

The 7800 was just as, if not more capable than the NES. Look at the homebrew port of 1942. Bubble Bobble is also being ported, and the sprite color and detail is better than the arcade version.

A few things Jack Tremiel held the release of the system because he thought Warner should have paid GCC for the system and it was in legal litigation also the system was designed using the Atari 2800 shell.

23 minutes long video, brilliant, something to watch whilst I'm eating 😀

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

Right!! Glad you enjoyed it with your meal. 👍👍🤣

Your overview and reasoning for the design and components is very well stated. I planned on making my own video because I was tired of so many people getting it wrong so I'm glad to see you did your homework. There was a few small things that I'd alter or change but it's really nitpicking so I won't. Thanks for the video it's well done.

@jonstoll8278

Жыл бұрын

Also the XEGS was on the market at the same time as the 7800 and 2600 Jr. In the 2600/7800 compendium there's an interview with Michael Katz who was the head of the gaming division at the time and he said that Tramiel forced him to sell the XEGS. Tramiel was excited about a console computer hybrid and even though Katz warned him that it wasn't a good idea to introduce a third console he was made to put it to market.

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it. I do a lot of research before these videos, I hope it shows. 😊Thanks again for watching and commenting.👍👍👍

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

@@jonstoll8278 Ah yes the XEGS.. I literally just got done working on one, cold solder joints caused the issue of games not loading. I will be doing an "A Look At" video for that too soon, so keep an eye out. Yeah never a good idea to compete against yourself. Especially when they had to compete with the two juggernauts Nintendo and Sega at the time.

The 7800 was released in 1984 in small test markets, then put on hold by Tramiel until 1986. The tombstone should say 1984-1992.

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

Very true, it was released in LA and New York in 84' in very limited numbers for test marketing (only a few hundred). But Jack pulled the plug almost instantly, instead focusing on the soon to come ST line of computers, due to his fear of the console market during the crash. Plus Jack had to renegotiate licensing as he didn't like how it was set up under Kassar and Time Warner. Now if it was fully released in 84' I would have put that. But seeing the true release wasn't until 86', that's what I went with. The same could be said for the Colecovision as it was shelved for a few years before it was released fully too. I go by the official release date. But thanks for commenting about this as I left it out. A cool little snippet of history about the 7800.

@tarstarkusz

Жыл бұрын

@@RetrogamerGenX Wasn't there some issue with Atari owing GCC a bunch of money Tramiel didn't want to pay (really, believed he didn't actually owe)?

@The_Real_DCT

Жыл бұрын

​@@tarstarkusz yes that was the real reason why it was on hold. Atari inc. under Warner owed GCC for the work on the 7800, but since by then Warner sold to Tremell there was a dispute over who owed GCC, plus the new Atari Corp was in the red from the start as Jack agreed to take on all debits in his acquisition. So he couldn't have paid GCC if he wanted too. The whole "shifting focus on computers" was one of those myths that got accepted as fact. Since Jack was frugal and had a massive debt to pay off, so he happily sold everything they had in storage that he could even brought back the 5200 and the shelved but completed Gremlins 5200 game just to make whatever he could. So if there wasn't a despuite with GCC over the 7800 it would have probably been out when Jack first took over.

Early 7800s also included a serial port on the side for peripherals like Atari's printers and disk drives and connecting to a laser-disc player (all of these potential options were lost on release so the port was removed).

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

Yep, mine has the expansion port on the motherboard, but it has no hole or slot in the case for it. But its there. There were plans for a keyboard and expansion to a computer. But it got shelved and never made it to production.

@madmax2069

Жыл бұрын

My AT84 7800 has the expansion port, love the fact all main chips are socketed.

19:13 WTF were they thinking?

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

🤣🤣🤣

It was decades before i understood why the 7800 had flicker free sprites while the NES was flicker haven. Impressive chip designs for its time. At least a better controller then the 5200 🙂. Never knew any friends or family that had one.

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

The maria chip was amazing.. No sprite flicker due to them amount of sprites that could be on screen. Compaired to them NES and having to bank switch to have more then 8 on screen.

I only knew 3 kids who had this system, and one of them didn't work.

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

It was wasn't very popular were I lived either. Everybody had a NES or a SMS. Too bad that one didn't work. It was a well designed system, however the chips in side, especially the TIA chip. It was very sensitive to ESD.

In 84, the only thing I wanted in the world was a Commodore 64. I already had the machine that really killed Atari, The Vic 20.

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

Yep it was about that time I got the C64. My parents didn't want to buy another Atari for just games when a computer could do so much more. If you haven't seen my A Look At for the C64, you should check that out too..

@fonzitheman

Жыл бұрын

I wanted the C64 as well at the time. But instead I got the Mattel Aquarius 😏

I didn't have one at the time, but have collected a full collection with my PAL console. I don't think it can really compete with the great Master System or the NES, but it is still pretty cool. Especially as it is so arcade focussed and most of its games aren't on the competing consoles. Never played a 5200, as that wasn't released over here. About the video: it is good, but I wish you would say something about the games that you are playing, instead of just having some gameplay.

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

Nice.. Great to hear you have the whole collection. Like I said i the video, it's an easy system to collect for because of the small number of games, and the cost of them. It was strange to see Nintendo games on the system seeing they were competitors at the time. I will keep that in mind for my next a look at's and their gameplay sections.

Ball blazer was advertised first? They wanted to fail!

4:10 I have to disagree. The NES was older than the 7800 having been released in July of 1983 in Japan. What really saved the NES was cartridge hardware which would have been also available to the 7800 had Atari never been in Tramel's grubby hands. Early NES games show the limitations of the machine. Like the NES, the Atari 7800 could benefit from cartridge hardware. Obviously, later games for the NES looked much better and had a lot of development the 7800 never got. But had the 7800 gotten the support the NES had, way more cartridge hardware would have been developed. More ram, better sound chips and much larger ROMs. It still might not have been enough though.

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

True. If developers would have gone for the 7800, Atari could have been around today. like Nintendo. The fact that they used the TIA chip for sound and it was up to the publisher to put the expensive pokey chip in the carts, raising the cost for them and the consumers for the game, was just plain crazy. One of the reasons they just didn't get a following from developers. If you look at the specs for both machines, they are eerily similar. The Nintendo's dedicated sound chip and PPU, put it ahead though IMHO. Although, the Maria chip was more powerful then what Nintendo was using. The 7800 could produce more colors and sprites then the NES. So yep, a tit for tat on this one my friend.. 🤣🤣🤣

@tarstarkusz

Жыл бұрын

@@RetrogamerGenX I agree with you about the sound, but it wasn't the plan to put POKEY chips in the cartridges. The plan was to put a chip yet to be developed called "Gumby" (IIRC) which was to be an inexpensive chip. But it was either never even started or never finished. GCC was to be the vendor. Of course, this design flaw is what allows such easy ability to stick a modern sound chip on a 7800 cartridge. One major shortcoming of the NES is sprites. It is hard limited to like 8 sprites per scanline. NES games flickered like crazy. I believe the number of sprites is limited in the 7800 only by clock cycles. Having a DSP in the cartridge would probably increase the number of sprites.(I don't know this for sure) on the 7800 while nothing could eliminate the 8 sprite per scanline limitation. OTOH, at least flickering is an option on the NES. I don't think maria is capable of flickering to get more sprites on the screen than it has clock cycles (I'm not too sure if it is Maria's clock cycles or the 6502's clock cycles) to display because I think it takes too long to change the display list to do 30/30 flickering. IOW, by the time you are done updating the display list, a screen refresh has already happened. Unfortunately, we got to see what was possible with the NES through 12 years of development (83 release last game released in 95) with 716 games officially released. The 7800 only had 56 or so releases, all budget titles. Modern programmers are getting some pretty great results you simply will never see on a NES. 1942 and the homebrew not yet released Mario Brothers are running in the 320x200 mode and look way better than the NES ports. We've really yet to see to my knowledge what new mappers can be developed for the NES and some more new "mappers" for the 7800.

Lol ve the 7800, only slightly ruined by most games using TIA audio. At least it can take advantage of an Audio chip on the cart, and homebrewers are pushing the 7800 to where is should have been years ago. A very capable system, its graphically more capable than the NES.

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

Yep the audio was its downfall. But the Maria chip was awesome. It produced beautiful graphics.

If this were released as intended in 1984, the 7800 would have been significant and would have turned Atari's fortunes around. However, by 1986 most of the games were dated and Nintendo made this system totally irrelevant.

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

Yep. Atari had Alot of those could of, should of moments in the 80's that could of brought them back from the crash on top. But they didnt take advantage. Did you know nintendo came to atari to have them distribute the NES in america. But the deal fell through when atari saw a donkey kong cart in a colecovision during CES. Image if Atari distributed the NES instead of Nintendo. Atari would probably be a powerhouse to this day. All the nintendo characters would have been licensed through them too. What a mistake on ataris part.

If Atari had released the 7800 instead of the 5200, Atari would probably still exist. The most important problem the 7800 actually solved is the lock-out feature. Add in the backwards compatibility and they could have just discontinued the 2600.

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

The lock out feature was probably the best thing Atari did for itself. Prevent the barrage of bad games being released for it. Yeah, they should have discontinued the 2600 at that point like current consoles do. Especially if it was backward compatible.

@tarstarkusz

Жыл бұрын

@@RetrogamerGenX Not only that, but it allowed Atari to profit from every game sold for the system. When Activision put out games for the 2600 that were huge hits, Atari saw not a dime from those games other than increased console sales to play those games. But if a 3rd party NES game sold a million copies, Nintendo got a license fee for every single copy sold. IMHO, if the US government wasn't run by clowns and traitors, Nintendo would have been banned from the US. Their monopolistic practices put many US companies out of business or otherwise made them uncompetative. Their exclusive contracts should have been outright illegal..

So basically a 7800 is a butchered 800XL, cause all these games are exactly the same on the home computer back then. There were a lot more than 57 games though ;)

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

No not really. They are totally different on the inside. The 5200 really is an 8 bit atari computer consolized. The 7800 is its own beast. But atari released all those same arcade ports again on the 7800. Which didn't help with sales as everybody already had those games on the previous systems launched. There were only 57 officially licenced games for the 7800. There are about 50 unlicensed homebrew type games that have been released for it from the late 90's till today. There were also a few official unreleased games too.

@Gacu666

Жыл бұрын

@@RetrogamerGenX oh right, I've mistaken 7800 with 5200, my bad :)

soooo…….. no redheads???

Where is the girl 😂 ?

atari copy phantom system shell

@RetrogamerGenX

Жыл бұрын

No the Brazilin Phantom system was supposed to be a licensed clone of the 7800. But they saw the success of the NES and decided to make it a NES clone instead and kept the shell design of the 7800. So it had the 7800 shell with a 72 pin cart port on the top for NES games. It also had the same zapper design as the 7800 and XEGS too, but the game pad of the Sega Genesis. The Phantom was Interesting system to say the least.

@taskanawa9604

Жыл бұрын

@@RetrogamerGenX yeah sega copy the controller from phantom system... just kidding