Scott Stilphen

RickR pretty much nailed it with his comments about Tramiel.  The guy was just a ruthless businessman and his track record for that is a mile long.  Certainly his experience during the holocaust shaped him.  To paraphrase a line from "V for Vendetta", what they did to him was monstrous, and the result was they created a monster.  The sole reason he bought Atari was to compete (get back) with Commodore for firing him.  His motivation was one of pure revenge, and his focus was on the home computer market.  Whereas there were several causes of the video game crash, there was only one cause for the home computer crash - Jack Tramiel.  In his effort to hurt Texas Instruments, he initiated a price war that nearly toppled everyone.  He effectively 'erased' the market by lowering Comodore's prices to the point where only Commodore could make any money, thanks to their vertical integration (from owning their own chip fabrication company - MOS Technology).  He tried a similar tactic with the XE and ST lines, pricing them far below the competition, except this time he didn't have MOS to back him up, so he turned to making them as cheap as possible.
As for the video game market, all he did in the first 2 years of his ownership was sell off the backlog of inventory in Atari's warehouses as a means of raising money for his computer ambitions.  He had zero interest in competing in the vg market, and publicly stated that several times.  It was only when he saw the vg market roaring back with Nintendo and Sega did he decided to make an effort to re-enter it.  But even if he had paid GCC's contract obligations and kept the 7800 on the market in 1984, it still would have failed - the NES was the future, and they had the IPs and the creative development folks behind it.  Jack's mindset at Commodore was, if he released good hardware, the software would naturally follow (from others); it happened with the VIC-20 and C-64, but only with those.  The Lynx only came into Atari's possession due to Jack's unethical business practices, basically putting a financial squeeze on Epyx until they were on the verge of collapsing, allowing him to grab the Lynx for cheap.  That pattern would repeat itself with Jack many times over.  The Jaguar could have really made an impact in the market, but besides Tempest 2000 (which was the only reason I bought a Jag), aside from a few standout titles (Alien vs Predator, Doom) the software library was mostly forgettable.  Its hardware was also hamstrung when compared to the Playstation.  Like the Lynx, the 3rd-party support was almost nonexistent.  Atari's time in the vg marketplace under Tramiel was one of missed opportunities.  Tramiel had the NES and Amiga in his grasp, and dropped them.  The Atari ST was a terrible game machine, but then again, unlike the Amiga, it was never designed to be.  The TT and Falcon aren't even worth mentioning as they made zero impact in the computer market, much like Atari's PC clone. The Lynx was really the hidden gem in Tramiel's lineup.  Great machine that should have captured the handheld market, if not for its unyielding size and voracious battery appetite.  The Lynx II was an improvement, but once again - too little, too late.  Like the VCS, Nintendo's GameBoy won out against superior consoles with its simplicity.
To summarize, Jack hurt Atari's reputation in the video game market.  Nothing released under him had much of an impact.  He also hurt Atari financially by trying to support multiple systems (VCS, 7800, XEGS, Lynx, Jaguar) because he didn't have the money to effectively market them and compete with Nintendo, Sega, and Sony.  It wasn't a case of David vs Goliath, it was a case of David vs 3 Goliaths.  As for the ST computers, The Amiga outsold them more than 2 to 1, and that was mainly due to its fantastic abilities to run games.  So ultimately, his plan to exact revenge against Commodore failed.

RickR pretty much nailed it with his comments about Tramiel.  The guy was just a ruthless businessman and his track record for that is a mile long.  Certainly his experience during the holocaust shaped him.  To paraphrase a line from "V for Vendetta", what they did to him was monstrous, and the result was they created a monster.  The sole reason he bought Atari was to compete (get back) with Commodore for firing him.  His motivation was one of pure revenge, and his focus was on the home computer market.  Whereas there were several causes of the video game crash, there was only one cause for the home computer crash - Jack Tramiel.  In his effort to hurt Texas Instruments, he initiated a price war that nearly toppled everyone.  He effectively 'erased' the market by lowering Comodore's prices to the point where only Commodore could make any money, thanks to their vertical integration (from owning their own chip fabrication company - MOS Technology).  He tried a similar tactic with the XE and ST lines, pricing them far below the competition, except this time he didn't have MOS to back him up, so he turned to making them as cheap as possible.
As for the video game market, all he did in the first 2 years of his ownership was sell off the backlog of inventory in Atari's warehouses as a means of raising money for his computer ambitions.  He had zero interest in competing in the vg market, and publicly stated that several times.  It was only when he saw the vg market roaring back with Nintendo and Sega did he decided to make an effort to re-enter it.  But even if he had paid GCC's contract obligations and kept the 7800 on the market in 1984, it still would have failed - the NES was the future, and they had the IPs and the creative development folks behind it.  Jack's mindset at Commodore was, if he released good hardware, the software would naturally follow (from others); it happened with the VIC-20 and C-64, but only with those.  The Lynx only came into Atari's possession due to Jack's unethical business practices, basically putting a financial squeeze on Epyx until they were on the verge of collapsing, allowing him to grab the Lynx for cheap.  That pattern would repeat itself with Jack many times over.  The Jaguar could have really made an impact in the market, but besides Tempest 2000 (which was the only reason I bought a Jag), aside from a few standout titles (Alien vs Predator, Doom) the software library was mostly forgettable.  Its hardware was also hamstrung when compared to the Playstation.  Like the Lynx, the 3rd-party support was almost nonexistent.  Atari's time in the vg marketplace under Tramiel was one of missed opportunities.  Tramiel had the NES and Amiga in his grasp, and dropped them.  The Atari ST was a terrible game machine, but then again, unlike the Amiga, it was never designed to be.  The TT and Falcon aren't even worth mentioning as they made zero impact in the computer market, much like Atari's PC clone. The Lynx was really the hidden gem in Tramiel's lineup.  Great machine that should have captured the handheld market, if not for its unyielding size and voracious battery appetite.  The Lynx II was an improvement, but once again - too little, too late.  Like the VCS, Nintendo's GameBoy won out against superior consoles with its simplicity.
To summarize, Jack hurt Atari's reputation in the video game market.  Nothing released under him had much of an impact.  He also hurt Atari financially by trying to support multiple systems (VCS, 7800, XEGS, Lynx, Jaguar) because he didn't have the money to effectively market them and compete with Nintendo, Sega, and Sony.  It wasn't a case of David vs Goliath, it was a case of David vs 3 Goliaths.  As for the ST computers, The Amiga outsold them more than 2 to 1, and that was mainly due to its fantastic abilities to run games.  So ultimately, his plan to exact revenge against Commodore failed.

That was an old trick that spread around to Star Raiders fans BITD, and certainly predates DP.
FYI, DP hasn't been updated in 10 years.  My site (www.ataricompendium.com) has the most current info.

Here's a few more.

104,400
 
 

This is sold.

Thanks Rick.  I forgot there's also reverse-image apps to figure out the sources of images.

One of the Adventure photos I posted has that same "W" sticker, and here's another Skiing with the same:

And here's a box for a pirate version of River Raid:

Here's a few more.

One of the Adventure photos I posted has that same "W" sticker, and here's another Skiing with the same:

And here's a box for a pirate version of River Raid:

List updated.

Atari announced it would be for all their consoles and computers in 1984, but as we know, only the VCS version was released.  A prototype version for the computers existed in 1984 (and was leaked out soon after Atari changed hands) and was later revamped and released in 1988, but neither version supported the trak-ball.  The game was unofficially converted to the 5200 and someone made a version of it that supports the trak-ball:
https://atariage.com/forums/topic/247585-crystal-castles-no-trackball-support/
 
Considering all the effort that was put into making and marketing the trak-ball controllers, it's shameful how little they were supported.  At the $45 retail price they were first advertised for, it was pretty much a sham, especially when Atari was telling people the controller "takes a good game (Phoenix, Missile Command, Galaxian, Space Invaders) and makes it awesome".  In the case of the VCS controller, it was never fully supported, as no games were ever made that took full advantage of it; all the controller ended up doing was translating the analog movement into the standard up/down/left/right movements.  Years later someone hacked a few VCS games to take advantage of analog movement:
http://home.ptd.net/~scottith15/trak-ball_series.zip

The cart LightBlue2222 used for his 63,260 score was the 1987 released version.  I have 6 Pole Position carts at the moment, and some of them are the 1987 version. I'll dump them as soon as I can and let everyone know the results.  The person from Atariage, "MayDay", who got the same score back in 2014 used the Stella emulator.  He wasn't sure where he got the ROM image from, either Atariage or EmuParadise.  

The cart LightBlue2222 used for his 63,260 score was the 1987 released version.  I have 6 Pole Position carts at the moment, and some of them are the 1987 version. I'll dump them as soon as I can and let everyone know the results.  The person from Atariage, "MayDay", who got the same score back in 2014 used the Stella emulator.  He wasn't sure where he got the ROM image from, either Atariage or EmuParadise.  

The cart LightBlue2222 used for his 63,260 score was the 1987 released version.  I have 6 Pole Position carts at the moment, and some of them are the 1987 version. I'll dump them as soon as I can and let everyone know the results.  The person from Atariage, "MayDay", who got the same score back in 2014 used the Stella emulator.  He wasn't sure where he got the ROM image from, either Atariage or EmuParadise.  

Venture
Atari 2600
Difficulty: Skill Level 1
High Score: 104,400
April 29, 2020

Atari's were never white, they were always an off-yellow.

Atari's were never white, they were always an off-yellow.

Must-buy for me, and I just did :)

Must-buy for me, and I just did :)

Here's a near-complete list of all the VCS arcade conversions:
http://www.ataricompendium.com/game_library/arcade_ports.html

Here's a near-complete list of all the VCS arcade conversions:
http://www.ataricompendium.com/game_library/arcade_ports.html

Venture
Atari 2600
Difficulty: Skill Level 1
High Score: 104,400
April 29, 2020

Yes.  List updated.

It does not:
http://www.ataricompendium.com/faq/faq.html#hardware5