Favorite XE Game

[Atari 5200 Guy]

53 minutes ago, RickR said:

"Computers for the masses, made by cheap asses."

 

I have never heard that before...that's funny.  

How can a business person be that dumb?  Hardware doesn't sell itself...it never has.  Software is what pushes the sale of hardware.  People spend hundreds of dollars on just computer graphics cards alone these days just to get the best out of their games.  Video games sell hardware.  Always have.  I've never seen anyone walk up to a machine going, "Look at that cool spreadsheet program!  I gotta have that!"  Blah.  

Everyone of us who owned a game machine or computer in the past when all of this started seen the hardware but it was the games that sealed the deal.  That MIDI Maze should have been released.  That would have been a cool way to play multiplayer.

[RickR]

The real Jack Tramiel saying was "Computers for the masses, not for the classes". 

Love him or hate him, he stuck with his mantra.  And you're right, it didn't work.  Nintendo proved him wrong in the biggest way. 

[Justin]

1 hour ago, RickR said:

The real Jack Tramiel saying was "Computers for the masses, not for the classes". 

Love him or hate him, he stuck with his mantra.  And you're right, it didn't work.  Nintendo proved him wrong in the biggest way. 

"Computers for the masses" unfortunately didn't include them caring about video games.

[RickR]

I really feel like Commodore was one big cause for the big crash in video games.  They raced to bottom out pricing, undercutting everyone.  And the C64 was a pirating dream come true. 

 

[Justin]

5 hours ago, RickR said:

I really feel like Commodore was one big cause for the big crash in video games.  They raced to bottom out pricing, undercutting everyone.  And the C64 was a pirating dream come true. 

 

BINGO

[Video 61]

11 hours ago, RickR said:

"Computers for the masses, made by cheap asses."

 

hi,

 

 SNICKER!!! but jack was really stuck in the 1970's, he could never figure out what happened in 1979-1980. games, it was that simple.

 

lance

www.atarisales.com

 

[Video 61]

10 hours ago, kamakazi20012 said:

Yea.  Unfortunately I have no clue what ever happened to my 7800 game collection back then.  I managed to hold on to the machine for a while but the games came up missing.  I have a theory but I won't touch on that subject.  Mom was not at her best for a few months after I turned 18.

hi,

 

 that happens a lot.

 

lance

www.atarisales.com

 

[Video 61]

10 hours ago, kamakazi20012 said:

I have never heard that before...that's funny.  

How can a business person be that dumb?  Hardware doesn't sell itself...it never has.  Software is what pushes the sale of hardware.  People spend hundreds of dollars on just computer graphics cards alone these days just to get the best out of their games.  Video games sell hardware.  Always have.  I've never seen anyone walk up to a machine going, "Look at that cool spreadsheet program!  I gotta have that!"  Blah.  

Everyone of us who owned a game machine or computer in the past when all of this started seen the hardware but it was the games that sealed the deal.  That MIDI Maze should have been released.  That would have been a cool way to play multiplayer.

hi,

 

it was jacks saying minus by cheap asses. everything went to hardware, they hated video games. but the over whelming percentage of software sold, is video games.

 

lance

www.atarisales.com

 

[Video 61]

6 hours ago, RickR said:

I really feel like Commodore was one big cause for the big crash in video games.  They raced to bottom out pricing, undercutting everyone.  And the C64 was a pirating dream come true. 

 

hi,

 about a 50% failure rate of the cheap c-64 mother boards made from phenolic material. which has a tendency to etch, and does not handle heat well. jack used the same type of board in the xf-551 disk drive. you will notice that disk drive has a high failure rate.

the drive is a absolute mess. you need a special 5.25 disk to format side two, they never made them available to their own customers, it was supposed to be a 720 3.5 drive, never made  a dos that recognized anything over a double density formatted disk with 180k per side.

lance

www.atarisales.com

 

[RickR]

Don't forget the cardboard RF shield. 

Giving this a bit more thought, and it really hit me how crappy Commodore software really was.  The C64 games they released were pretty much identical to the VIC-20 versions of the same games.  Radar Rat Race, Gorf, Jupiter Lander, etc.  All of it was good on the VIC, but embarrassing on the C64.  The best and most memorable games were made by third parties.  It's a shame, too.  The C64 was a well designed machine that could do amazing things.  But quality was just abysmal, and so many cut corners. 

I had a VIC-20 and loved it -- mostly because of the ability to create my own games and learn BASIC.  The VIC had fantastic games...all made by third parties.  Choplifter, Defender, Centipede, Demon Attack, etc.  I never had a C64 (until I started collecting systems as an adult), but moved on to an Atari 800XL in 1984. 

When I finally did want a C64, I had a very hard time finding one that worked.  I've fixed many.  They just were not built to last. 

 

[Justin]

1 hour ago, RickR said:

The best and most memorable games were made by third parties.  It's a shame, too.  The C64 was a well designed machine that could do amazing things.  But quality was just abysmal, and so many cut corners. 

I think for the most part that was Jack's approach after taking over Atari with everything from the 2600 through the Jaguar. A lot of good hardware, not a lot of quality first-party support, and never got the third-party support that he received with C64. I don't think he got that.

[Video 61]

1 hour ago, RickR said:

Don't forget the cardboard RF shield. 

Giving this a bit more thought, and it really hit me how crappy Commodore software really was.  The C64 games they released were pretty much identical to the VIC-20 versions of the same games.  Radar Rat Race, Gorf, Jupiter Lander, etc.  All of it was good on the VIC, but embarrassing on the C64.  The best and most memorable games were made by third parties.  It's a shame, too.  The C64 was a well designed machine that could do amazing things.  But quality was just abysmal, and so many cut corners. 

I had a VIC-20 and loved it -- mostly because of the ability to create my own games and learn BASIC.  The VIC had fantastic games...all made by third parties.  Choplifter, Defender, Centipede, Demon Attack, etc.  I never had a C64 (until I started collecting systems as an adult), but moved on to an Atari 800XL in 1984. 

When I finally did want a C64, I had a very hard time finding one that worked.  I've fixed many.  They just were not built to last. 

 

yea forgot about the cardboard.

 

jack did basically the same thing with the TT030, it was way ahead of its time, a actual unix work box that was easy to use. he was about two years ahead of the pc and mac. but over that two year period, the TT030 kept failing the r.f. shielding test, jack ended up not budging, then the pc came out with a unix box, jack relented and fixed the shielding problem, by then the industry said TT030, whats that, i got a fantastic peecee.

 software is the name of the game. it always was, always will be. even when some of jacks software releases did good, he ignored it.

 

lance

www.atarisales.com

 

 

[Video 61]

56 minutes ago, Justin said:

I think for the most part that was Jack's approach after taking over Atari with everything from the 2600 through the Jaguar. A lot of good hardware, not a lot of quality first-party support, and never got the third-party support that he received with C64. I don't think he got that.

hi justin,

 

 no one trusted him anymore. by the time the jag came out, jacks way of doing business was dead. he never figured it out.

 

lance

www.atarisales.com

 

[Justin]

6 minutes ago, Video 61 said:

jack did basically the same thing with the TT030, it was way ahead of its time, a actual unix work box that was easy to use. he was about two years ahead of the pc and mac. but over that two year period, the TT030 kept failing the r.f. shielding test, jack ended up not budging, then the pc came out with a unix box, jack relented and fixed the shielding problem, by then the industry said TT030, whats that, i got a fantastic peecee.

I remember really wanting a TT030, I thought it looked killer in the '90s. I ended up with a NeXTstation. Even talked with you once later on about getting a TT030, but after our chat it sounded like the best thing for me at that time would've been an Atari 520 STFM for playing games, as I had moved on from the needs of workstations. Never ended up getting a TT030, or the other workstation I lusted over, a Silicon Graphics Indigo 2.

[Justin]

Here I am the admin of the site and I'm not really keeping this thread on topic am I 

[Justin]

5 minutes ago, Justin said:

Even talked with you once later on about getting a TT030, but after our chat it sounded like the best thing for me at that time would've been an Atari 520 STFM for playing games, as I had moved on from the needs of workstations.

Now that I think of it @Video 61 I think you also talked me out of the Atari Mega ST2 with Megafile 30. I thought that was a tidy looking ST unit, but realized after our call that day the only thing that would keep me entertained for the next 20 years was the 520 STFM. For playing games on TV there's nothing better.

[Video 61]

13 hours ago, Justin said:

I remember really wanting a TT030, I thought it looked killer in the '90s. I ended up with a NeXTstation. Even talked with you once later on about getting a TT030, but after our chat it sounded like the best thing for me at that time would've been an Atari 520 STFM for playing games, as I had moved on from the needs of workstations. Never ended up getting a TT030, or the other workstation I lusted over, a Silicon Graphics Indigo 2.

hi justin,

 it was ahead of its time for sure, by the time jack relented and spent a extra dollar on shielding, it was a has been.

 

playing most games, one meg or ram will do it. once the falcon came on, 4 megs will do it in most cases.

 

lance

www.atarisales.com

[Video 61]

13 hours ago, Justin said:

Now that I think of it @Video 61 I think you also talked me out of the Atari Mega ST2 with Megafile 30. I thought that was a tidy looking ST unit, but realized after our call that day the only thing that would keep me entertained for the next 20 years was the 520 STFM. For playing games on TV there's nothing better.

hi justin,

 

 yes so many of the games back then were designed for t.v. use.

 

lance

www.atarisales.com

 

[Video 61]

hi guys,

 

 now we are back on subject 🙂 

 great game, notice the nice easy build up of the story of the game, in a clever single screen setup. this is a very clever way in getting you involved in the story, yet it was squeezed into a 64k cartridge.

 the youtuber used the disk version, i could not find a cart version of a review, cart and disk are pretty much the same.

 

lance

www.atarisales.com

 

[Atari 5200 Guy]

19 hours ago, Justin said:

Here I am the admin of the site and I'm not really keeping this thread on topic am I 

It doesn't bother me at all.  I'm rather enjoying it.

My first xegs had two xf551 drives but I never could get it to format double sided...only single sided.  I thought the issue might have been dirty heads so I took them apart and cleaned the heads.  The insides were an engineer's nightmare.  One board was warped slightly...still working but warped.

When I worked at Walmart one of my co workers gave me his old C64 that had issues.  It was the latter designed model...all white colored with matching drive.  The drive had issues as well but I fixed that.  That c64 just felt cheap comparing.  Hell, the xegs was a far better quality system...and they were both Jack's.  Go figure.

I really would like to explore the software side of the Atari 8-bit computers because I missed it.  That's why I try to get from lance what I can when I can.  I want the whole experience, holding that package, ripping the shrinkwrap off, finding catalogues...you can't do that with digital/archived copies.  And Jack never understood that feeling.  

I hope to replace the Racing Destruction Set I had.  I loved that game.  You could design tracks and race on them.

[Atari 5200 Guy]

6 hours ago, Video 61 said:

hi guys,

 

 now we are back on subject:)

 great game, notice the nice easy build up of the story of the game, in a clever single screen setup. this is a very clever way in getting you involved in the story, yet it was squeezed into a 64k cartridge.

 the youtuber used the disk version, i could not find a cart version of a review, cart and disk are pretty much the same.

 

lance

www.tarisales.com

 

The 7800 has this game too but I have yet to play either one.  To see Accolade and Micrprose on Atari sort of shocked me because I didn't discover their games until I got a 386 and that was 90 or 91.  Those two made some of my favorite IBM games.  Railroad Tycoon, Covert Action, Light speed, Test Drive...those were good games.  I wish they were still around.

Edited June 14, 2020 by kamakazi20012

[Atari 5200 Guy]

On 6/12/2020 at 10:51 AM, RickR said:

The real Jack Tramiel saying was "Computers for the masses, not for the classes". 

Love him or hate him, he stuck with his mantra.  And you're right, it didn't work.  Nintendo proved him wrong in the biggest way. 

It wasn't just Nintendo.  Sega did, too.  The SMS might have struggled against the NES but it still had impressive games, and most were ports of Sega's own arcade games.  Those games sold the SMS.  And the Genesis didn't really take off until Sega brought Sonic into the eyes of the public.  By then it was way too late for Atari...they no longer mattered.

[Video 61]

15 hours ago, kamakazi20012 said:

The 7800 has this game too but I have yet to play either one.  To see Accolade and Micrprose on Atari sort of shocked me because I didn't discover their games until I got a 386 and that was 90 or 91.  Those two made some of my favorite IBM games.  Railroad Tycoon, Covert Action, Light speed, Test Drive...those were good games.  I wish they were still around.

hi,

 

 and on the 7800 it is great also. tomcat f-14, f-18 hornet, super huey,  were all good sellers for me. atari should have released GATO! atari should have done battlezone also, tank command is a rare one on the 7800, and incredibly hard to play.

 

skyfox as well as rampart should have been released also. atari unknowingly was creating a simulation platform, with a following. but hating games, they were completely oblivious.

 

lance

www.atarisales.com

[Atari 5200 Guy]

10 minutes ago, Video 61 said:

hi,

 

 and on the 7800 it is great also. tomcat f-14, f-18 hornet, super huey,  were all good sellers for me. atari should have released GATO! atari should have done battlezone also, tank command is a rare one on the 7800, and incredibly hard to play.

 

skyfox as well as rampart should have been released also. atari unknowingly was creating a simulation platform, with a following. but hating games, they were completely oblivious.

 

lance

www.atarisales.com

I still never understood why, if you hate video games, you would "buy" a company that made video games.  I'd have loved to have bought Atari.  It had the best engineers the world had ever seen.  They did things that were ahead of their time.  It also made video games which I am very passionate about.  I often wonder if someone else would have bought Atari if things would be different.  Hard to say.

I know one thing.  If I could I would design an Atari machine a lot different than the current missing Ataribox.

[RickR]

35 minutes ago, kamakazi20012 said:

I still never understood why, if you hate video games, you would "buy" a company that made video games.  I'd have loved to have bought Atari.  It had the best engineers the world had ever seen.  They did things that were ahead of their time.  It also made video games which I am very passionate about.  I often wonder if someone else would have bought Atari if things would be different.  Hard to say.

I know one thing.  If I could I would design an Atari machine a lot different than the current missing Ataribox.

Oooh, this is an easy one.  I think Commodore saw Atari as their main competitor for computers.  When he got ousted at Commodore, Jack Trameil saw a respected brand name available for a dirt cheap price.  The ST computers were seriously good.  Give him credit for that.  It's just that they saw no value in games or software.