Atari 5200

The Atari 5200 is a video game console manufactured by Atari and launched on the market in 1982. It was not as successful as its predecessor, the Atari 2600, but it was an improved version of the previous one.. The graphics chip is improved, to the point that it is practically the same as the arcades of the time. It is estimated that sales exceeded 1 million units, compared to more than 30 million for its predecessor. For this reason, in 2022 it is highly sought after among collectors.

History

The Atari 5200 SuperSystem was released in 1982, and was the successor to the Atari 2600. The Atari 5200 offered improved graphics and several features that could not be found in any other video game console of its time, in fact, if the controllers Had they not been so fragile, it would have competed in the market longer, since it was only manufactured from 1982 to 1984, although in 1983 the release of the 7800 was already prepared, due to the complaints that arose from everyone who They bought the machine; It was not backwards compatible, the controls do not follow the Atari standard, and since it has a potentiometer and the buttons are made of rubber, they failed to a large extent.

This was a computer with 16k of RAM designed specifically for high-quality gaming. The heart of the system was essentially an Atari 400 computer, the most powerful 8-bit home computer available at the time, and whose games could theoretically be ported quickly and easily between the two machines.

Although the Atari 5200 enjoyed some early success, the public never warmed to it, and the "Great Video Game Crash of 1983" It helped seal its fate like that of the rest of the home video game systems. The game library is around 70 titles. At the time it was withdrawn from the market, the cx55 adapter had already been released that allowed 2600 games to be played on the two-port console and on the 4-port ones with modifications and when Atari withdrew it, in 1984, the Atari 5200 It surpassed Colecovision in sales. It became extremely popular since it appears in the movie Cloak & Dagger, where the protagonist plays with the 5200. In Europe it was not sold, although the Atari 400, 800, 800xl, 600 xl and Series Xe have the same graphics and games, since they are the same machine. The replacement console for the 5200 in Europe was the Xegs (quite rare in Europe as it was manufactured between 1987 and 1988), making it easier and more common to buy a 65xe computer.

Hardware

Much of the technology in the Atari 8-bit home computer systems was originally developed as a second-generation game console intended to replace the Atari 2600. However, as the system was completed, the gaming revolution Personal computing was beginning with the release of machines such as the Commodore PET, TRS-80 and Apple II. These machines had less advanced hardware than the new Atari technology, but were sold at much higher prices with higher associated profit margins. Atari management decided to enter this market and the technology was packaged in the Atari 400 and 800. The chipset used in these machines was created with the idea that the 2600 would likely be obsolete by the 1980s.

Atari later decided to re-enter the gaming market with a design that matched its original 1978 specifications. In its prototype stage, the Atari 5200 was originally called 'Atari Video System System", and was codenamed "Pam" after an Atari, Inc. employee. It is also rumored that PAM actually stood for 'Personal Arcade Machine', as most games for the system ended up being arcade conversions. Really working Atari Video System

The initial 1982 version of the system included four controller ports, where almost all other systems of the time had only one or two ports. The 5200 also featured a new style of controller with an analog stick, a numeric keypad, two trigger buttons on each side of the controller, and gaming function keys for Start, Pause, and Reset. The 5200 also featured the innovation of the first automatic TV switching box, allowing it to automatically switch from normal TV viewing to the gaming system signal when the system was activated. Previous RF adapters required the user to slide a switch on the adapter by hand. The RF box was also where the power supply was connected in a single dual power/TV signal configuration similar to that of the RCA Studio II. A single wire coming out of the 5200 is plugged into the switch box and was used for both the electricity and the TV signal.

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-switching RF switch. It also has changes to the cartridge port address lines to allow for the Atari 2600 adapter released that year. While the adapter only worked in the two-port version, modifications can be made to the four-port to make it compatible with the line. In fact, towards the end of the quad-port model's production cycle, there were a limited number of consoles produced than these modifications. These consoles can be identified with an asterisk in their serial numbers.

Drivers

The controller prototypes used in the electrical development lab employ a yoke and gimbal mechanism that comes from an RC airplane controller kit. The analog stick design, which used a weak rubber boot instead of springs to provide centering, proved unreliable and unreliable. They quickly became the system's Achilles' heel due to their combination of an overly complex mechanical design with a very low-cost internal flexible circuit system. Another major flaw of the controllers was that the design did not translate into linear acceleration. from the center through the arc of the stick's path. However, the controllers included a pause button, a unique feature at the time. Several third-party replacement joysticks were also included, including those made by Wico.

Atari Inc. released the Pro-Line Trak-Ball controller for the system, which was primarily used for game titles such as Centipede and Missile Command. A paddle controller and an updated self-centering version of the original controller were also in development, but were never released to market.

The games were shipped with plastic card overlays that were placed over the keyboard. The card would indicate which game functions, such as changing the view or vehicle speed, were assigned to each key.

The primary controller was ranked the 10th worst video game controller by IGN editor Craig Harris. An editor for Next Generation said that its non-centered joysticks "made many games unusable. almost impossible to play.

Hardware specifications

• Processor: 6502C (8-bit), 1.78 MHz
• RAM: 16K
• Colours: 256, 16 simultaneously
• Resolution: 320x192
• Sound: 4-channel

Internal differences of 8-bit computers

In 1983 David H. Ahl described the Atari 5200 as "a computer with 400 disguises." Its internal design was based broadly on that of the Atari 8-bit family, including ANTIC, POKEY, and GTIA. Software designed for one does not run on the other, but porting the source code is not difficult as long as you don't use specific features of the computer. Antic reported in 1984 that "the similarities far outweigh the differences, so you can develop a 5200 program and almost completely debug the Atari 8-bit before trying it on a 5200" #34; John J. Anderson of Creative Computing alluded to the incompatibility being intentional, caused by rivalries between Atari's computer and console divisions.

In addition to the 5200's lack of a computer keyboard, other differences include:

• The operating system was replaced by a simpler "monitoring program" of 2 KB, of which 1KB is the character set.
• Several important records, such as the GTIA and POKEY chips, appear in different memory locations.
• The purpose of some records changes slightly in 5200.
• 5200 analog joysticks appear as paddle pairs to the hardware, which required a different entry management than that of the traditional digital joystick on Atari computers

In 1987, Atari Corporation released the XE Game System console, which was essentially a repackaged 65XE (the current iteration of the 8-bit computer line) with a detachable keyboard that could run home computer titles directly, a difference from the 5200. Anderson wrote in 1984 that Atari could have released a software-compatible console in 1981.

Reception

The Atari 5200 did not fare well commercially compared to its predecessor, the Atari 2600. Although it touted superior graphics to the 2600 and Intellivision, the system was initially incompatible with the 2600's extensive game library, and some analysts Market players have speculated that this hurt its sales, especially since an Atari 2600 cartridge adapter was released for the Intellivision II. (A review The 2-port model was released in 1983, along with a game adapter that allowed This lack of new games was due in part to a lack of funds, with Atari continuing to develop most of its games for the saturated 2600 market.

Many of 5200's games appear simply as updated versions of 2600 titles, which did not excite consumers. Its package game, Super Breakout, was criticized for not doing enough to demonstrate the system's capabilities, and this gave ColecoVision a significant advantage when its package, Donkey Kong, offered a more authentic arcade experience than any previous game cartridge. In its list of 25 best gaming consoles of all time, IGN stated that the main reason for the 5200's market failure was the technological superiority of its competitor, while other sources maintain that the two consoles are roughly equivalent in power.

The 5200 received a lot of criticism for the "sloppy" of its uncentered analog controllers. Anderson described the controllers as "absolutely atrocious.

David H. Ahl of creative computing video games said in 1983 that the "Atari 5200 is, dare I say it, Atari's answer to Intellivision, Colecovision and the Astrocade&# 34;, describing the console as a version of" true mass market 'atari 8-bit computers despite software incompatibility. He criticized the joystick's imprecise control, but said that it "is at least as good as many other controllers," and wondered why it was "at least as good as many other controllers." Super Breakout was the package when not using the 5200's improved graphics. At one point after the 5200's release, Atari had planned a smaller, cheaper version of the Atari 5200, which would have eliminated the controller storage tray. Codenamed "Atari 5100" (also known as "Atari 5200 Jr."), only a few fully operational 5100 prototypes were made before the projectwas cancelled.

Technical specifications

	type	data	image
CPU		MOS Custom Technology 6502C (no 65C02) @ 1.79 MHz
Support hardware:		3 custom VLSI chips
GPU	GPU	ANTIC and GTIA
	Resolution	14 modes: six modes of text (it supports character matrices of 8 × 8, 4 × 8 and 8 × 10), eight modes of graphics that include 80 pixels per line (16 colors), 160 pixels per line (4 colors), 320 pixels per line (2 colors) varying height and width up to overexplor 384 × 240 pixels
	Color palette:	128 (16 tones, 8 luma) or 256 (16 tones, 16 luma)
	Colors on screen:	2 (320 pixels per line) to 16 (80 pixels per line). up to 23 colors per line with player/missile priority control mix and playing field. Registration values can be changed in each line of exploration using interruptions from the ANTIC display list, which allows displaying up to 256 (16 tones, 16 luma) at the same time, with up to 16 per line of exploration.
	Sprites:	4 sprites of 8 pixels wide, 4 sprites of 2 pixels wide; the height of each is 128 or 256 pixels; 1 color per sprite
	Displacement:	thick and thin horizontal and vertical displacement. (Great horizontal displacement of 4, 8 or 16 pixels/color clock increments, and vertically by line height of mode 2, 4, 8 or 16 scanning lines). (O horizontal fine displacement 0 to 3, 7 or 15 simple lines increments of clock of pixels/color and then 4, 8 or 16 pixels/increment of colour thick scrolling; and vertical fine scrolling 0 to 1, 3, 7 or 15 increments of scanning line and then 2, 4, 8 or approximate shift of increase of 16 lines of exploration),
Sound:		4-channel PSG sound via the POKEY sound chip, which also handles the keyboard scan, serial E/S, timers with high-resolution interruption capacity (unique cycle rate) and random numbers generation.
RAM:		16 KB
ROM:		2 KB integrated BIOS for system startup and break-up. 32 KB ROM window for standard gaming cartridges, expandable by switching techniques of memory banks.
Dimensions		13 "×15" × 4.25 "
energy		entrance: 120v 60hz 30w output: 11.5v dc 1.95a

Games

Annex: List of Video Games for Atari 5200