You can now pre-order the Linux-powered Atari VCS games console, a lot more details revealed

Quoting: Dunc

Quoting: stretch611Yes, it is underpowered. However, the primary purpose of this console is emulation. Emulating a 40 year old console.

Except they've consistently protested that it isn't.

If that was the idea, I'd agree. In fact, it's probably over-powered for that purpose; an ARM device would be more than adequate. But no: in their original announcement, they mentioned “modern” games. It's supposed to be able to play stuff from Steam. In fairness, it may never have been the intention to have current big-name AAA games on it (although I'd argue the marketing so far has been somewhat misleading on that), but it has clearly never been “just” an emulation machine.

Ha, you could probably emulate the 2600 with an Arduino, and those are very basic processors.

Even with JUST the Atari Vault, there are Atari Arcade games in there, so that's proof enough that it's not 'just for 2600 games'.

Quoting: stretch611Yes, it is underpowered. However, the primary purpose of this console is emulation. Emulating a 40 year old console.

You are talking about an era when the 6502 microprocessor was king. It was an 8bit processor running at 1mHz and could at most address 64k of RAM. (Note: 64k of RAM, not M, not G, less than 1 millionth of a modern processor.) The 6502 was in some old arcade cabinets, the Apple II, Commodore Pet, Commodore Vic20 a few Atari home computers, and some others. Some variants were around too, like the 6510 in the hugely popular Commodore 64 or the 8502 (which could run at 2mhz) in the commodore 128. The point is that this wimp of a processor (by modern standards) ran many popular computers(including Atari computers) and arcade machines until the very early 90's. I forget what was in it, but the Atari 2600, did not have a 6502, but something significantly weaker. (History lesson: The relatively powerful IBM PC was using the 8088 and 8086 processors from Intel back then; they never used the 6502 series and variants) Ok, I did a little research/verification... the Atari 2600/VCS was using a 6507 chip. It was a wimpy version of the 6502 that could only address 8k of RAM total.

Twenty years ago, I was using Stella, an Atari 2600/VCS emulator. (I was using it on OS/2... 20 years ago, I only just started using linux, but was unhappy with windows even earlier.) This was a few years before processors hit the 1ghz mark, and the games ran fine and stutter free even on a mere 100mHz processor. (with idle clock time to spare as well.)

Why did I write all this history (other than to prove that I am an old fart Simple... For the purpose of emulating Atari games... (whether they plan to emulate the old console, computer, or arcade games,) Even a modern day low-end processor will have a lot more power than what is actually necessary. While it will not play the most recent CPU or GPU limited linux titles, it can play a significant amount of older linux titles and still be more than able to tackle the main task of Atari emulation.

One other thing... the 32gb of eMMC... while slow and limiting is also fine for the purpose of Atari emulation. The 6507 limited memory to 8k... many original atari cartridges had a max of 4k ROM (though later some cartridges used some tricks to double that, but only a limited number of later cartridges due to the expense of memory chips back then.) Assuming you can use all the memory... that means about 8 million cartridge games can fit on the flash ram. Even the 64k RAM limit of the full 6502 processor can fit 500,000 ROM images on the memory card. Having used Stella... many of the old Atari 2600 classics only used 2k ROMs, let alone the normal limit of 4k. (admittedly, for linux titles, you will probably need to expand with a SD card or external drive.)

So, yes, it is underpowered by modern standards. However, it is far more beefy than necessary in order to provide the function of emulating old Atari games. One other thing... look at that thing... and its size... I don't even see a fan on the pictures. Its tiny and small and obviously not meant to replace a full fledged computer with a high-end processor and/or a dedicated GPU. Even if you could fit all that in the tiny form factor, there is not a snowballs chance in hell that it would not overheat with high end gear.

Could be wrong, but I thought I saw one of the key developers of Stella comment on one of these threads here. Though it could have been on the AtariAge forums, I kind of bounce between them. Would be interesting to have him as an interview?

Now, this is interesting:

QuoteIntellivision is making a new console and no that’s not a set-up for a joke that’s a real thing that’s happening in the real world, really.

Not simply in that first Atari jumps back into the hardware business and now their almost-forgotten competitor from the late '70s has returned too, but specifically Shamus's speculation on what it might be:

QuoteThere’s a lot of room between $5 phone games and the $300 Switch. I don’t know if it adds up to a “huge gaping hole in the market”, but I imagine there’s a lot of interesting things you can accomplish with sub-$100 hardware these days. You’re not going to get Overwatch or Doom 2016 running on that sort of machine, but if you’re looking to do family / party based games like LittleBigPlanet, Mario Kart, Super Mario 3D World, or retro arcade titles, then you can probably make that happen.

It's an idea that's been in the back of my head half-formed until I read that, but I think this is the market Atari's aiming at. Obviously not sub-$100, since we know the price, but that “hole” in the market between mobile and the Big Three. It's not necessarily retro gaming or emulation, although they'll certainly play a part in it; it's simply less hardware-taxing, but modern, games. Call them “AA” titles, if you like. It's the sort of market that, actually, Linux is already in, given the bias towards indie and away from the big names. The list of “confirmed partners” on Indiegogo - a mix of mobile developers and indies - would seem to suggest this too.

I still think it's underpowered (and possibly overpriced) even for that, but hopefully it helps to make some sense of what Atari may be trying here.

Final Shamus quote:

Quote(T)hat would sort of be muscling in on Nintendo’s turf. Except, Intellivision doesn’t have the vast storehouse of weaponized nostalgia properties to draw from. They don’t have a Mario, a Samus, a Link, or even a Kirby.

But Atari... well, Atari doesn't really either. But they're closer to it, and Atari S.A., the former Infogrames, has some more recent franchises to draw on as well.

Quoting: DuncNow, this is interesting:

QuoteIntellivision is making a new console and no that’s not a set-up for a joke that’s a real thing that’s happening in the real world, really.

Not simply in that first Atari jumps back into the hardware business and now their almost-forgotten competitor from the late '70s has returned too, but specifically Shamus's speculation on what it might be:

QuoteThere’s a lot of room between $5 phone games and the $300 Switch. I don’t know if it adds up to a “huge gaping hole in the market”, but I imagine there’s a lot of interesting things you can accomplish with sub-$100 hardware these days. You’re not going to get Overwatch or Doom 2016 running on that sort of machine, but if you’re looking to do family / party based games like LittleBigPlanet, Mario Kart, Super Mario 3D World, or retro arcade titles, then you can probably make that happen.

It's an idea that's been in the back of my head half-formed until I read that, but I think this is the market Atari's aiming at. Obviously not sub-$100, since we know the price, but that “hole” in the market between mobile and the Big Three. It's not necessarily retro gaming or emulation, although they'll certainly play a part in it; it's simply less hardware-taxing, but modern, games. Call them “AA” titles, if you like. It's the sort of market that, actually, Linux is already in, given the bias towards indie and away from the big names. The list of “confirmed partners” on Indiegogo - a mix of mobile developers and indies - would seem to suggest this too.

I still think it's underpowered (and possibly overpriced) even for that, but hopefully it helps to make some sense of what Atari may be trying here.

Final Shamus quote:

Quote(T)hat would sort of be muscling in on Nintendo’s turf. Except, Intellivision doesn’t have the vast storehouse of weaponized nostalgia properties to draw from. They don’t have a Mario, a Samus, a Link, or even a Kirby.

But Atari... well, Atari doesn't really either. But they're closer to it, and Atari S.A., the former Infogrames, has some more recent franchises to draw on as well.

This is what I have been trying to say over on the AtariAge thread, where everyone is convinvrled this will have AtariVault and that is it. But it is Linux based and should be able to support the huge library of games that now run on it. One thing I do find odd is that they show Tempest 4000 running on it, but Jeff Minter says he is currently unaware that he has ported that to Linux...

Quoting: slaapliedjeOne thing I do find odd is that they show Tempest 4000 running on it, but Jeff Minter says he is currently unaware that he has ported that to Linux...

That's ominous. The Llamasoft logo jumped out at me from the Indiegogo page. Sounds like it's not as “confirmed” as they're making out.

But the more I think about it, the more the general strategy makes sense. In the light of Nintendo and the later Tramiel/Atari Games era, it's easy to forget how much early Atari was all about kids and families too. That's the market the original VCS was in. There were no “hardcore gamers” back then, at least not in the numbers that manufacturers saw fit to cater for. The 2600, with two controllers, sat under the family TV (because there was only one). That's why it had the woodgrain. Sure they didn't have something like Mario or Link, but that's only because the technology didn't allow for relatable cartoon-like characters and it hadn't occurred to anyone yet that a videogame company could do something like that. Even so, they did licence Asterix (in Europe), Sesame Street, E.T. (notoriously, but still, they had it), Pac-Man, Looney-Tunes, and, yes, Mario for first-party Atari-published titles.

I'm more sure than ever that this is what they're going for: basically the same niche that Nintendo has carved out since the Wii, but undercutting them on price (a little) and with an open platform.

Quoting: Dunc

Quoting: slaapliedjeOne thing I do find odd is that they show Tempest 4000 running on it, but Jeff Minter says he is currently unaware that he has ported that to Linux...

That's ominous. The Llamasoft logo jumped out at me from the Indiegogo page. Sounds like it's not as “confirmed” as they're making out.

But the more I think about it, the more the general strategy makes sense. In the light of Nintendo and the later Tramiel/Atari Games era, it's easy to forget how much early Atari was all about kids and families too. That's the market the original VCS was in. There were no “hardcore gamers” back then, at least not in the numbers that manufacturers saw fit to cater for. The 2600, with two controllers, sat under the family TV (because there was only one). That's why it had the woodgrain. Sure they didn't have something like Mario or Link, but that's only because the technology didn't allow for relatable cartoon-like characters and it hadn't occurred to anyone yet that a videogame company could do something like that. Even so, they did licence Asterix (in Europe), Sesame Street, E.T. (notoriously, but still, they had it), Pac-Man, Looney-Tunes, and, yes, Mario for first-party Atari-published titles.

I'm more sure than ever that this is what they're going for: basically the same niche that Nintendo has carved out since the Wii, but undercutting them on price (a little) and with an open platform.

Ha, did you ever see the documentary about the Atri New Mexico dump? Basically the guy who wrote Yar's Revenge (huge hit), and Indiana Jones (another huge hit) was given 5 months to complete E.T. he busted ass, got mostly there, showed it to Steven Spielberg who loved it, so they shipped it. So that game, along with Crystal Skull and War of the Worlds is why I will never watch Ready Player One.

Quoting: slaapliedjeHa, did you ever see the documentary about the Atri New Mexico dump?

I haven't, but the Retro Hour podcast did a good two-part interview with Howard Scott Warshaw about a year ago. Well worth a listen. He does point out that he volunteered to do E.T. in six weeks, even though nobody else on the programming staff at Atari thought it was possible. But yes, the fact remains that they were given that ridiculous timeframe in the first place. Crazy.

Quoting: Dunc

Quoting: slaapliedjeHa, did you ever see the documentary about the Atri New Mexico dump?

I haven't, but the Retro Hour podcast did a good two-part interview with Howard Scott Warshaw about a year ago. Well worth a listen. He does point out that he volunteered to do E.T. in six weeks, even though nobody else on the programming staff at Atari thought it was possible. But yes, the fact remains that they were given that ridiculous timeframe in the first place. Crazy.

Interesting, they interviewed him for that documentary and I thought it was 5 months he said. I'd first heard six weeks too though.

Either way, Speilberg said it was great, so they shipped it.