Are you related to the Wizard of Woz Steve Wozniak?

You rule Woz!!!

Scott Wozniak Same, dude, except I was 11, in 1983, when I got an 800, after I'd had a TI-99/4A for awhile. Those were criminally cheap, at that time, although, at the time, I had no idea that that was probably because of the crash. I didn't even think about that, until now, because, with my 800, I never really "experienced" the "video game crash of 1983." That was and awesome year, for me and video games. I also agree wholeheartedly with your assessment. Unfortunately, the original Jumpman only ever came out on compact cassette, for the 410 and the XL line cassette drive. It's worth it, though, for the dozens more screens it has -- almost 100 different boards, on that. It took only 22 minutes to load, too... I still use my 800, although I'd had an 800XL, because the 800's monitor out has an extra pin slot, and a dude on eBay makes cables that connect it to S-Video, using the extra pin, and I find the S-Vid to be noticeably better than composite. Of course, both are better than the RF I used, in the mid-'80s. Montezuma's Revenge is also better on the Atari 8-bits, than on anything else I've found, and that game was incredible. The interesting thing I find is that most people around our age see a gap, or a "huge leap," between "Atari"/Intellivision/ColecoVision and the NES, but although the ColecoVision seemed a big jump, amidst that, among consoles, by around that time, I'd already started playing on a machine that rivaled the NES, in potential (even though I still got an NES, that first Christmas), plus huge games like Ultima II-IV were becoming available, into the NES era, which were _far_ better games than Zelda. Donkey Kong was also better, on Atari 8-bits, early on, because even the first run of that game, for Nintendo's own machine, only had three boards -- missing the pie factory, like almost every other system. However, years later, the "Arcade Series" port of DK had all four boards, on NES. For half a decade, though, Donkey Kong was best, on Atari 8-bit, which even goes into the era when the XEGS and the NES co-existed. DK Jr. also had every screen and played perfectly, and the original Mario Bros. still seems to play better on the Ataris than it does, on the NES. Last, all the Epyx and some EA games, as did Ultima, represented what could be done, with an Atari 8-bit, that Nintendidn't. Real, duplicable save files, for the Apshai series and Seven Cities of Gold. Awesome times. There's definitely something to be said for the fact that the Atari 400 and 800 were the first computers to have specialized sound (the infamous "POKEY") and graphics chips, to take load off the CPU -- plus make incredible music and effects. The Atari 8-bits were also two and a half years earlier to market, than the C64, and I spent plenty of middle school, and even into high school, arguing with my best friend, whose family had a C64. That had a great monitor and was ahead of its time, with sprites, though. Some try to make arguments about the C64 sound chip, but it was always far too "muddy," in comparison, I still think. The POKEY sound signature was just better. Anywho, cool to see someone and agree with someone who had such an obscure, similar history, although I doubt that explains that I close with, Cheers, Carson... 🍻

@@mechamania That crash of '83 was something that barely registered to consumers--they didn't stop playing video games, they'd just already bought as many cartridges for the second-generation consoles as they wanted.

"since it was the same as their 8-bit hardware from 1979." I mean that's not technically true. Ram was increased from 8k in the original Atari 800 to 64K in the XEGS, the CTIA turned into the GTIA, BASIC bugs were fixed, the XEGS had the FREDDIE chip that didn't get used..... but in the spirit.. yes your right, it didn't change enough sadly. but then again, nether did the C64 and they sold that for even longer

Currently one costs $299.99 with 4 games on eBay. Ouch!

Don't pretend girls play video games lol

I bough my Atari 400 with 48kb. That was of course a 3rd party extension.

There are so many KZfaq “experts” making videos (for some reason a lot seem to be from the uk) in a number of domains I know (not just tech topics)... and none of them really know what they’re talking about - they do a little research and regurgitate various things they’ve learned as gospel, but If you really know your stuff you can catch numerous little mistakes which give away the lack of true expertise.

That happened to Commodore too, the last system they launched was the Amiga in1985. From then to 1994 they just kept repurposing it in dozens of different versions.

Spot on re: perception of Atari (and Commodore) in the USA post 1985 Amazing they released the Falcon 030 in 1993, figured they'd give up by then. I was an Atari ST uber fan from 85-90, but transitioned to x86 fully by 1992, building my first AMD 286-16Mhz clone from mobo and parts bought out of Computer Shopper in 1990. Appears ST and Amiga did better and lasted longer into the 90s in the UK and Europe vs the USA The 7800 would have been a better console in place of the 5200 when the 5200 was launched ~82 or so, but not 86-87 Constantly repackaging the 800XL into the XE, XEGS, etc didn't help. Atari maybe could have come back as a strong video game console company in the 90s with the Lynx/Jaguar and successors, but Nintendo and Sega ruled ~90-95, then Nintendo and Sony post 95 due to the poor marketing and management of the Atari brand in the 90s. But the ST line up through 89 gained lots of respect among prs and business for DTP, MIDI music, office aps, and of course games for the masses. Both the Amiga and ST were at minimum 7 years ahead of the x86 world (vs cost, tech capabilities for the consumer masses), so a LOT of respect must be given to both for enabling a lot of s to make it through the 80s with something better than an 8086 clone with no sound and CGA graphics, low speed processor, etc at the time

I just got an ST not long ago. My friend wanted it gone, and i absolutely love it. It must have been amazing back when it first released.

@@coryrabbit Great system but just not as good as an Amiga for many people, mostly due to the smooth scrolling in amiga games that wasn't replicated on the ST.

The Audio of the ST was horrible though, especially if your ears had been spoiled by the excellent C64 and Amiga sound chips.

It seemed like Amiga got more games!

@@VJFranzK only towards the end: many early Amiga games (especially arcade ports) were plagued by being Atari ST conversions. So, not only they did not took advantage of the full power of the Amiga, but by being conversions they ran even slowly than the ST originals.

if only atari stopped selling the 2600 in its various rebranding attempts the other products would of sold better.

The 7800 had some good games but the god awful sound chip really dated and well with Nintendo and Sega about to change the gaming future it really felt old and dated

@@SAM-ru4vx That's were Atari made a lot of their money on though.

@@AandNvg 2600 has been out since what 1978? how was the 5200 or 7800 suppose to make a profit if the 2600 still had products on store shelves taking up inventory space?

I agree with this. Maybe emptied leftover inventory by having "also plays on 7800" and not releasing the Atari 2600 Jr. The Atari 7800 was always a little cheaper than the NES and master system but Jack Tramiel should have tried much harder to get computer conversions on the system. I even think a Atari 7800 COMPUTER would have helped this. The sound chip problem could have been remedied by a cartridge with a sound chip that you put a game cartridge into.

I agree that they should have just gone with one of them. But it seems to me that the 7800 had better graphics, but it's not a huge difference. They did have a keyboard designed for the 7800 to turn it into a computer, but I think that would have been a bad idea since the 7800 was a custom system that wasn't compatible with anything, where as the XEGS was just an XE computer in a whacky case.

I dunno...I would love to have an XEGS but I do enjoy my 7800. The only thing I don't enjoy is that knuckle-busting controller US consumers got saddled with. Would have very much preferred that nice controller the European market got.

@@ressljs yep, the 7800 with pokey sound chip, could of produced descent competition for nes, it's hard to know as Atari only developed a few games at the later end of the 7800's life that actually weren't just redo's of arcade games made for 5200/2600. Same can be said for xe, as Atari spent zero on developing newer software. They had moved on, to developing lynx/st by the time both systems were dead in 1990

Yeah, agree completely.

"was a completely logical idea from a technical and IP standpoint; it was just far too late." in a market where the C64 was made and was still selling right up till 1994 means I have to question that. There was definitely a market for it.. If only Atari brought out the lower cost XE/XEGS versions earlier they could have gotten a larger market segment and thus done better software wise

I always thought the 5200 SHOULD have been the XEGS. They should have released it at the same time as their 8 bit computer line and used the same carts and did a work around on starting games. Maybe they could have used that number pad that was designed for some Atari 2600 games? The 5200 was always poorly thought out and designed, IMO. Even the engineers at Atari knew it.

I love the Odyssey 2!! I have my original one from 1982 and it still works!! It has The Voice and those game/physical board and pieces like Quest for the Rings, The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt, and Conquest of the World. Such a fascinating system with terrible graphics but great gameplay!!!

I think LGR did the Gizmondo, that is if you are talking about the handheld. If you haven't checked his content out you should.

If you can get over that works

@@jsc315 Honestly I just want to here him talk about it being "Bloody horrible"

It success, came from an almost zero mkting campaign, primarily selling thru catalog sales, and just clearing out old inventory

Is the person who was holding up the Atari Lynx in the beginning of the video his wife?

To be fair, the XEGS version is likely the original version released for the 800 back in 1981. On the 'newer' Master System they'd likely try to enhance the experience.

Just compare the Sega to the Atari ST that they produced at the same time. The XE series were just an attempt to dress up and flog old tech cheaply until the cost of 16 bit systems dropped.

As another stated, the Missile Command ROM is the original 1981 version. its a shame they didn't release an updated version, because the machine is certainly capable of doing better

@@another3997 But It worked for the C64 for so long..

I've often heard people accuse the XEGS of being ugly. I think it's odd asymmetry is cool and the pastel colors is like an extra dose of 80's, which is just glorious!

The games that came out around the time of hte 130XE were silver again, at least the ones published by Atari. There was a lot of US Gold / Mastertronic / Activision stuff too of course.

Someone should make a THGM REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE shout.

The Atari 400*/800* 1200XL, 600*/800XL, 65/130XE, XEGS (and 800XE [europe only]) are all ~97% compatible with one another; *assuming you've 64K or higher RAM installed. The 400 and 600XL commonly have 16K which will cut out a good ~30% of games/software. The original 800 commonly had 48K installed, so it'll run a bit more than the 16k models. All other models came with 64K (or 128K for the 130XE), and will run most everything. Best home computer platform ever!!!!

On the C64, the technology wasn't just for the early '80s. game quality improved into the 90's as programing tricks were learned, some games and music even rivaled the Amiga500. the C64 had a huge leap forward mostly because of the huge consumer base meant that programs for the C64 were mainstream in PAL regions until ~1994. As for the Atari, it was more expensive and didn't sell as well in PAL regions. so its only more recently you see people are learning the programing tricks needed to actually take full advantage of the hardware.

Same 8-bit chip set as the 400, same amount of ram memory. The only reason 400/5200 games are not compatible (besides physical cartridge size) was the memory map of the 5200 was different than Atari 8-bit computers. And for a couple of decades now, hacked versions of all the 5200 games can be played on Atari 8-bit computers and the XEGS too, as long as you have a multi-cart or SD-card device to download and save the rom images to the SD card and slip it in the Atari multi-cart (many different versions out there by different people, but any will work).

Anything that you're not aware of is a failure? In which case, I'm sure there must be an awful lot of very successful 'failures' in the world.

Sorry, I'm a bit confused... what exactly do you mean? I've used them but never owned one. But from what I can see, there's certainly a healthy demand for Beebs in the UK and a fair amount of hardware and software development too. A very advanced, if somewhat 'serious' 8 bit computer. And it led directly to the creation of the ARM chip. 🙂

Yes I just found that out last week

Actually, Sega Master System and Genesis/Megadrive controllers will work on the XEGS and all Atari 8-bit computers. Even the 2600/7800 consoles. Though only the B button works, but for all Atari systems except the 7800, the joysticks/controllers only had one button and games only use one. Atari also released their own game pad for the 7800 in Europe and England that has two buttons, and will also work with all Atari computers and consoles (except the 5200). It's Black with red buttons, and about the same size and shape as the NES and Sega Master System controllers. Atari eventually sued Sega (in the 90's) for copyright infringement for copying the controller ports. They settled and Sega payed Atari 50 million and both companies signed a deal to allow each other's consoles (Saturn & Jaguar) to get exclusive titles, after the originating console had it for 6 months or a year. Only Tempest 2000 from the Jaguar was also published on the Saturn through this deal, nothing else because by then Atari's Jaguar was a commercial failure and Atari quit the console business. But That's why all Sega consoles after the Genesis/Megadrive no longer had the 9-pin Atari compatible plugs anymore. Of course most other console and computer companies (besides Nintendo, Apple and IBM) in the 80's copied Atari's 9-pin controller ports and wiring and it was the de-facto standard. But Sega was the only one still left standing for Atari to finally sue when Atari was trying to get back into the console market in the 90's with the Jaguar and were desperate for an influx of cash needed to get it to market after years of failures.

@@mattbaker5757 that's interesting thanks for filling me in. I have 2600 and play with a Genesis controller. At 1st I thought you couldn't but later realized it was because I was using a 3rd party controller. Some reason one of my brandless 6 button controllers will only work on the Genesis, but all my others work fine on both. Strange phenomenon.

I think that's definitely the nostalgia talking. I had the 2600 (or VCS, the one I had was one of the original models in all it's 70's glory) so I get what you're saying. But I also have a 7800, and I feel just as much attachment to that.

I love the pastel buttons, so pretty.

Pastel colours were so late 80s, perfectly on with the times. Also, I like the design of the XE more than the NES'.

I actually find those buttons very appealing, that really helps the console stand out fro the competition, I love it personally.