>Atari 2600 was the most powerful console released in 1977
>Atari 8-bit was the most powerful gaming system 1979
>Atari 7800 was the most powerful console released in 1984 and remained the world champion of sprite count until the PC Engine was released in 1987
>Atari ST was the cheapest and most powerful 16/32 bit computer in 1985, higher clock speed than the Amiga
>Atari Lynx's sprite capability beat every existing home console in 1989 and it remained the most powerful handheld system for 12 years (GBC, Wonderswan, and Neo Geo Pocket were incapable of sprite transformation on the go)
>Atari Jaguar was the most powerful console for its price in 1993 (3DO was slightly more powerful, but its nearly 3 times as expensive)
How the actual frick did they do it?
By not spending money on attracting software developers.
>Atari 7800 was the most powerful console released in 1984
There's still an academic debate in the historian community regarding if that actually happened.
It happened.
what 5200 and 7800 games are worth playing?
>5200
The ones that use its analog stick properly, like the star wars game.
>7800
Its got a bunch of gemmys. Robotron is the best 8 bit game ever made and you cant change my mind.
There's also a 5200 trakball controller, though, sadly it only works with some 1st party games.
Is the fedora hat wojak supposed to be a PC gamer or a Sega fan
Who cares the image is a fever dream from Atari fans POV
It's supposed to be steam users, hence the steam logo
The fact that Atari memes are only associated with 70s disco should tell you how non-existent Atari is in the general social consciousness after the 2600...
Home Computer and some Arcades, on the other hand...
Atari were always most comfortable in the arcade style and could never really adjust when games started to get deeper.
An element of that is the fact that they never seemed to understand how integral decent music and sound are to the home gaming experience so they always treated it as an afterthought. The 7800 used the same sound chip as the 2600. The Lynx was touted as having a 32-bit sound processor, but in practice seemed like only a minor sonic upgrade from the 2600/7800. Even on the Jag, stuff like the soundtrack in Tempest 2000 was the exception. Many Jag games didn't even bother with music at all.
>The Lynx was touted as having a 32-bit sound processor, but in practice seemed like only a minor sonic upgrade from the 2600/7800
It had an 8 bit 4-channel DAC which could be switched into PSG mode. It could sound nearly as nice as the SNES sound chip provided you gave it good samples. Most Lynx games use the PSG sound mode, perhaps to save some ROM. But in DAC mode, it sounds great.
>Many Jag games didn't even bother with music at all.
Most Jag games were distributed in 2MB carts. Most developers were too lazy or too poor to hire good musicians to compose great sounding sampled music for them. Tempest 2000 was an exception.
9561415
Yah Klax has great sound on the Lynx. So that would be an exception too.
Every platform at the time had limits but made due. My point was that Atari just never seemed to think audio was that important to begin with. Otherwise they would have made some different choices. In hindsight it's something that definitely hurt them, even though it's not usually mentioned as such.
>It depends
we're not talking about the jaguar cd.
>You weren't required to use protracker mods
nobody said they were. i was saying that was a common format that was used, and it was no better than the SNES.
> Most devs took the shortcut and added amiga music software because they were european and were required to develop games on amigas and atari falcons.
they were 'required'? if they were 'required' then everything would be done on the falcon, and
it clearly wasn't. since when was protracker and deluxe paint on the falcon? oh great! you're 'required' to use a falcon for "atari's top secret falcon development kit" to run an assembler and make/debug roms, but everything else that makes up the other half of the game is done on better computers with actual software support.
it's no surprise to anyone why this console, and the falcon, went down the toilet despite being so promising. atari had no idea what the frick they were doing anymore. they spend the last years of their life catching up to amiga and other competitors. trying to compare any part of jaguar to snes, that absolutely killed it, is peak moronation.
>we're not talking about the jaguar cd.
It was nothing but a CD player. You could do anything on the normal game carts. The only limiting factor was ROM size.
>it was no better than the SNES
Are you kidding? The SNES was pretty junk sounds wise. 64KB of audio RAM can't do much. Does the SNES even use the mod format? It only accepts SPC.
>if they were 'required' then everything would be done on the falcon
That's all they got from atari. Most had no money to afford much more.
>but everything else that makes up the other half of the game is done on better computers with actual software support
For most games, music obviously had the least support.
>atari had no idea what the frick they were doing anymore
They kinda dropped the ball with the jaguar, but with a fatter stack of cash they could save themselves.
>they spend the last years of their life catching up to amiga and other competitors
Funny because commodore died first despite having done a lot better initially. CD32 was a joke, it lacked any ambition or imagination. Unlike the Jaguar, Jaguar was Atari's last stride, they risked everything to make it happen. It's clear which company was the loser one.
Have you played Atari today?
Oh, hey. It's an actually retro discussion on the retro video games board. Please, continue.
stinky
If you had an Atari 8bit machine, what killer app, mind blowing, fun shit was available on it up until the NES came out? Sounds like it would have been the best option for a gaymin platform if you could only choose one.
Its got tons of games, so let me recommend you the games the NES couldn't possibly replicate instead. There's not even a NES equivalent for Star Raiders, atari's 1979 killer app on an 8 bit cart. The sequel looks even more impressive. There's star luster for the NES, but it looks horrible and plays worse. LucasArts 3D fractal games are also excellent, the NES couldn't run any of them. The Seven Cities of Gold is a huge open world action RPG slash strategy game, NES didn't have enough RAM for that kind of thing. Alternate Reality is undoubtedly the best looking and sounding RPG of the 8-bit era. It was exclusive to the Atari 8 bit, but was later ported to the c64 and amiga, horribly.
Atari's coders were god tier. The fact they were actually able to get as much as they did out of the 2600 was amazing.
I tried dabbling with 2600 game making and dont you literally have to dedicate a good part of the code to teaching the machine how a tv is supposed to operate? Thats the impression i got from the one write up i saw a number of years back.
i have more somewhere hang on...
I love seeing vintage stuff! It reminds me of better days…
8-bit was the most powerful gaming system 1979
first of all, atari 8-bit is atari's 8-bit line of home computers
second, it was the only powerful 8-bit home computer until commodore 64 came along. both C64 (commodore 64) and atari 8-bit is the only powerful 8-bit computers of the 80s
ST was the cheapest and most powerful
depending on what you mean by "powerful". if you mean atari st's processing speed then yes, it is far powerful than amiga but if you mean graphical power then no, it is inferior to amiga
>second, it was the only powerful 8-bit home computer until commodore 64 came along.
Unless you count the Apple II. You know, the thing that most games were primary written for before being ported off to other machines?
The apple ii was ass. It had a high speed floppy, assembler software, and tons of expansions which helped game developers, but you wouldn't want to compile a game on it.
>atari 8-bit is atari's 8-bit line of home computers
It was built for gaming. It had sprite system, projectile system, 4 channel sound chip, cart slot, and some BASIC clone that sucked because Atari cheaped out on that.
>it was the only powerful 8-bit home computer until commodore 64 came along. both C64 (commodore 64) and atari 8-bit is the only powerful 8-bit computers of the 80s
Now that's stupid. Yes the Atari 8-bit and C64 had a powerful sprite system, but others had their own strengths. The BBC Micro was a 6502 computer clocked at a whopping 2MHz, Elite ran smooth as a butter on it. ZX Spectrum could update its screen faster than any bitmap graphic home computer of its days. The CPC was, I think, the only 8 bit computer with no colour attribute limitations, and it was pretty fast too considering what it was. The PC-88 had a really high screen resolution.
But yes, for gaming purposes, nothing beat the Atari 8-bit and C64.
>if you mean atari st's processing speed then yes, it is far powerful than amiga
Of course, blast processing beats the 'migger.
People talked up the Amiga's custom chips, but as a matter of fact, raw processing power is what let IBM compatible blasted everything else out of the PC business.
god i miss atari posting during those mini launches
Lynx's sprite capability beat every existing home console in 1989 and it remained the most powerful handheld system for 12 years (GBC, Wonderswan, and Neo Geo Pocket were incapable of sprite transformation on the go)
Turbo Express existed
PC Engine (and Turbo Express by extinction) was just a doped up NES.
There wasn't much the 8086 could do that Z80 couldn't, 80286 was weaker than the much cheaper 68000. Both CPUs had a few features that made them stand out, but it wasn't raw processing power, they sucked at that, and people didn't buy them for the power or the features either, but the software compatibility.
>but it wasn't raw processing power
Shit sure was by the time the 486 rolled around.
68000 successors dropped the ball, but RISC CPUs were both cheaper and more powerful than x86. They lost simply for having no IBM/windows compatibility though.
What is the best game for it and how can I emulate it?