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Video Game crash of 1983

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alfonzotan:

--- Quote from: Ravenger on September 02, 2012, 12:40:19 pm ---
--- Quote from: DaveMMR on September 02, 2012, 11:27:10 am ---Atari also had a line of home computers. But they couldn't compete with the likes of Commodore - that was more powerful and designed as a computer from the get-go and not just a weak console with a keyboard slapped to it.

--- End quote ---

The Atari 8-Bit range were in many ways superior to the C64 - and I say that as someone who is a big C64 fan, and my career started off on the C64.

They had faster processors, more colours (128), better display control hardware - they could change screen modes without the flickering raster lines you got on the C64. Arcade conversions on the Atari tended to be more faithful than the C64 versions. However they were incredibly expensive compared to the Commodore machines, as were the Apple machines of the time. Commodore in the US and Sinclair in Europe pioneered cheap, high volume computers to the masses. They weren't the most powerful or capable, but they were affordable.

--- End quote ---

Yep.  Atari never got the price down to the consumer level (as opposed to the enthusiast level) until after Tramiel bought the company and slashed the 800XL down to $99.  By then the C64 had already been selling for $99 for quite a while, and Commodore owned the market.

The original Atari 800 (all the subsequent 8-bit models were just variants of that original design) was a fantastic computer for its time.  The ability to add expansion cartridges for RAM and such by just flipping up a panel was way beyond anything anybody was selling in the consumer market back then.  It just wasn't priced to sell, and the company had a bad "Atari is an island" policy of not dealing with either software or hardware peripheral developers.

ark_ader:

--- Quote from: alfonzotan on September 02, 2012, 01:00:36 pm ---
--- Quote from: Ravenger on September 02, 2012, 12:40:19 pm ---
--- Quote from: DaveMMR on September 02, 2012, 11:27:10 am ---Atari also had a line of home computers. But they couldn't compete with the likes of Commodore - that was more powerful and designed as a computer from the get-go and not just a weak console with a keyboard slapped to it.

--- End quote ---

The Atari 8-Bit range were in many ways superior to the C64 - and I say that as someone who is a big C64 fan, and my career started off on the C64.

They had faster processors, more colours (128), better display control hardware - they could change screen modes without the flickering raster lines you got on the C64. Arcade conversions on the Atari tended to be more faithful than the C64 versions. However they were incredibly expensive compared to the Commodore machines, as were the Apple machines of the time. Commodore in the US and Sinclair in Europe pioneered cheap, high volume computers to the masses. They weren't the most powerful or capable, but they were affordable.

--- End quote ---

Yep.  Atari never got the price down to the consumer level (as opposed to the enthusiast level) until after Tramiel bought the company and slashed the 800XL down to $99.  By then the C64 had already been selling for $99 for quite a while, and Commodore owned the market.

The original Atari 800 (all the subsequent 8-bit models were just variants of that original design) was a fantastic computer for its time.  The ability to add expansion cartridges for RAM and such by just flipping up a panel was way beyond anything anybody was selling in the consumer market back then.  It just wasn't priced to sell, and the company had a bad "Atari is an island" policy of not dealing with either software or hardware peripheral developers.

--- End quote ---

I felt sorry for those kids who got an Atari 400 for Christmas.  Membrane keyboards were never in fashion.



And you had to swap out the BASIC cartridge all the time.....

alfonzotan:

--- Quote from: ark_ader on September 02, 2012, 01:05:41 pm ---
--- Quote from: alfonzotan on September 02, 2012, 01:00:36 pm ---
--- Quote from: Ravenger on September 02, 2012, 12:40:19 pm ---
--- Quote from: DaveMMR on September 02, 2012, 11:27:10 am ---Atari also had a line of home computers. But they couldn't compete with the likes of Commodore - that was more powerful and designed as a computer from the get-go and not just a weak console with a keyboard slapped to it.

--- End quote ---

The Atari 8-Bit range were in many ways superior to the C64 - and I say that as someone who is a big C64 fan, and my career started off on the C64.

They had faster processors, more colours (128), better display control hardware - they could change screen modes without the flickering raster lines you got on the C64. Arcade conversions on the Atari tended to be more faithful than the C64 versions. However they were incredibly expensive compared to the Commodore machines, as were the Apple machines of the time. Commodore in the US and Sinclair in Europe pioneered cheap, high volume computers to the masses. They weren't the most powerful or capable, but they were affordable.

--- End quote ---

Yep.  Atari never got the price down to the consumer level (as opposed to the enthusiast level) until after Tramiel bought the company and slashed the 800XL down to $99.  By then the C64 had already been selling for $99 for quite a while, and Commodore owned the market.

The original Atari 800 (all the subsequent 8-bit models were just variants of that original design) was a fantastic computer for its time.  The ability to add expansion cartridges for RAM and such by just flipping up a panel was way beyond anything anybody was selling in the consumer market back then.  It just wasn't priced to sell, and the company had a bad "Atari is an island" policy of not dealing with either software or hardware peripheral developers.

--- End quote ---

I felt sorry for those kids who got an Atari 400 for Christmas.  Membrane keyboards were never in fashion.



And you had to swap out the BASIC cartridge all the time.....

--- End quote ---

Yeah, that was me.  But I didn't know any better, so it worked out okay...

Ravenger:
One of the best selling upgrades for the 400 was a full moving key keyboard replacement. It was nowhere near a nice as the 800's keyboard though. That was wonderful to type on.

The Atari floppy disk drives were excellent - very fast, if limited in capacity, but the tape drives were terrible. Very slow, and used only one channel of the tape stereo track so it could play audio whilst loading (which was rarely done). Because of that they were very unreliable.

I did have an Atari 800 at one point, but I must have sold it (I can't remember what happened to it). I wish I'd kept it now. I still have my 30 year old Commodore 64, and it works, but the disc drive doesn't read disks any more.

vanrose72:
An interesting Alamogordo Daily News article from September 1983:

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