Category: Cancelled Atari 5200 games

Atari 5200 system with controller, game cartridges and packaging

The Atari 5200 SuperSystem, commonly known as the Atari 5200, is a video game console that was introduced in 1982 by Atari Inc. as a higher end complementary console for the popular Atari 2600.

The 5200 was based on Atari Inc .' s existing 400 / 800 computers and the internal hardware was almost identical, although software was not directly compatible between the two systems.

In its prototype stage, the Atari 5200 was originally called the " Atari Video System X-Advanced Video Computer System ", and was codenamed " Pam " after a female employee at Atari Inc.

Actual working Atari Video System X machines, whose hardware is 100 % identical to the Atari 5200 do exist, but are extremely rare.

The 1983 revision of the Atari 5200 has two controller ports instead of four, and a change back to the more conventional separate power supply and standard non-autoswitching RF switch.

The Atari 5200 did not fare well commercially, compared to its predecessor, the Atari 2600.

At one point following the 5200's release, Atari had planned a smaller, cost-reduced version of the Atari 5200, which would have removed the controller storage bin.

Code-named the " Atari 5100 " ( a. k. a. " Atari 5200 Jr ."), only a few fully working prototype 5100s were made before the project was canceled.

On May 21, 1984, during a press conference at which the Atari 7800 was introduced, company executives revealed that the 5200 had been discontinued after just two years on the market.

* Ajax ( floppy disk controller ), a floppy disk controller fitted to the Atari STE

The 360-degree non-centering joystick was touted as offering more control than the eight-way joystick controller offered with the Atari 2600.

Atari Inc. released the Pro-Line Trak-Ball controller for the system, which was used primarily for gaming titles such as Centipede or Missile Command.

Atari 7800 System ( PAL system with Joypad controller )

The Atari 7800 came bundled with the Atari Proline Joystick a two button controller with a joystick for movement.

Reading Atari 8-bit 130kB or 180kB disks was possible as well with special software, but the standard Atari 8-bit 90kB format, which used FM rather than MFM encoding, could not be handled by the 1571 hardware without modifying the drive circuitry as the control line that determines if FM or MFM encoding is used by the disc controller chip was permanently wired to ground ( MFM mode ) rather than being under software control.

The interrupt controller can be as simple as a 74LS148 priority encoder, or may be part of a VLSI peripheral chip such as the MC68901 Multi-Function Peripheral ( used in Atari TT030 ), which also provided a UART, timer, and parallel I / O.

The controller uses the prevailing de facto standard Atari-style 9-pin connector and can be connected without modification to all other machines compatible with that standard, including the Atari 2600, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum with Kempston interface or similar.

A variation on the Paddle, the Atari driving controller appeared on the Atari 2600.

was Bunten's first game for EA, originally published for the Atari 8-bit family because the Atari 800 had four controller ports.

The Quickshot Trackball is an unlicensed controller designed for a number of gaming consoles, including the Commodore 64, Atari computer line, the Sega Master System and the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Starting in the late 1970s the Atari 2600 game console used modified DE9 connectors ( male on the system, female on the controller ) for its game controller connectors.

However, very few prototypes have been located, due to Tramiel Atari ’ s reluctance to make them in the first place.

Atari 7800 prototypes tend to be highly coveted by collectors, often fetching hundreds of dollars when sold.

Atari created prototypes for location testing, but the game did not fare well against more popular titles at the time such as Street Fighter II.

There were two releases, both sanctioned by Atari and Bridgestone Multimedia ( who had obtained the rights to the Starpath library some time ago ): the first release ( a limited number not-for-profit release ) also included the previously unreleased Atari prototype, Polo by Carol Shaw, and the second release included the Supercharger prototypes Meteroid ( an early version of Suicide Mission ) and Excalibur ( an early version of Dragonstomper ), as well as a number of homebrew games by permission of their respective authors, and the song Atari 2600 by Splitsville, fully licensed from the band.

Atari Corp. created a number of prototypes of the Falcon040 ( based on the more capable fully pipelined, integrated-FPU, Motorola 68040, and using a " microbox " case ), but canceled it in order to focus developers on the Atari Jaguar.

Such a controller was planned for development and release by Atari, but no prototypes exist.

Unreleased prototypes are games which were developed by Atari Inc. in the 1970s and 1980s but never sold to consumers ; some of these games may have bugs or be incomplete.

Atari also used the game for its other late ' 90s and 2000s anthology series.

This would eliminate the need for more ports on the back of the machine, and allowed for the elimination of expansion slots for supporting more complex devices ( the Atari 8-bit family used a similar solution, known as SIO ).

The 7800's compatibility with the Atari 2600 is made possible by including many of the same chips used in the Atari 2600.

There was also a small faction of devoted Atari BBSes that used the Atari 800, then the 800XL, and eventually the 1040ST.

* Atari DOS, which was used by the Atari 8-bit family of computers.

Although used in the early days of the personal computer ( on the Sinclair ZX80, ZX81 and Atari 400 ), they have been supplanted by the more tactile dome and mechanical switch keyboards.

The 68000 became the dominant CPU for Unix based workstations including Sun workstations and Apollo / Domain workstations, found its way into heralded computers such as the Apple Lisa and Macintosh, Amiga, Atari ST, and was used in the first generation of desktop laser printers including the original Apple Inc. LaserWriter and the HP LaserJet.

The 1993 multi-processor Atari Jaguar console used a 68000 as a support chip, although some developers used it as the primary processor due to familiarity.

The 65xx family most notably included the 6502, used in several home computers such as the Commodore PET and VIC-20, the Apple II, and the Atari 800.

The 68030 was used in many models of the Apple Macintosh II and Commodore Amiga series of personal computers, NeXT Cube, Sun Microsystems Sun 3 / 80 desktop workstation ( a member of the " sun3x " architecture, where the earlier " sun3 " used a 68020 ), later Alpha Microsystems multiuser systems, and some descendants of the Atari ST line such as the Atari TT and the Atari Falcon.

The Atari standard joystick, developed for the Atari 2600, released in 1977, was a digital joystick, with a single fire button, and connected via a DE-9 connector, the electrical specifications of which were for many years the de-facto standard digital joystick specification.

* Atari founder Nolan Bushnell managed midway carnival games at Lagoon while earning his electrical engineering degree at the University of Utah.