All 12 Atarisoft games for the TI 99/4A

All of the 12 Atarisoft games released for the TI 99/4A

[@wowbagger4242]

I still remember the radio/TV ads... 🎵Atarisoft. All the hits... your computer's been missing!🎵

[@DarthHemis]

This is the system that my grandma had set up in her game room on an old black and white TV. Donkey Kong and Pac Man killed a lot og sick days when I was growing up in the 90's it seemed so old but, I loved it.

[@temmy9]

A highly underrated computer imho

[@deathstrike]

Very much an underrated computer!! Sleekest out there if you didn't have the armor slab err expansion module. And the TI community did wonders with it. Atari's effort was vastly better than most translations, even it's own Pac Man for the Atari 800 didn't have the intermission levels like the TI version does.

[@AliTaylor777]

It could have been lightyears ahead of the competition. Some of its architecture was 16 bit nearly a decade ahead of the ST and Amiga. Some simple design compromises stopped it reaching its full potential.

[@ronb6182]

The problem with TI in its day was they didn't let third party software designers write programs for the TI. But then TI was mainly made for education and not to play games. Even though TI had a few game cartridges. Later Milton Bradley wrote some games with voice recognition but you needed the expansion console. I still have a few of them games. Bigfoot was one and sewermainia was another one. The baseball game was the one to use voice recognition you could name all the baseball players and they would catch the ball when you called out their name. The pitching of the game was good too you could throw fast balls, curves and other pitches. If I remember correctly there were 8 different pitches. 73

[@AngryCalvin]

Yeah as soon as they did have 3rd party games Imagic not only had their very best ports on the system. But they blew away the other versions. Microsurgeon with multiple screens showing a zoom screen as well as the anatomy screen and the patient room inside the hospital. One of the most mind blowing games in its day. I used to show off that one to friends. There was nothing else quite like it. Most the arcade ports at least looked good. I got an Atari 7800 controller in my last years of playing on my TI994a. Much better than those clunky joysticks.

[@Mrshoujo]

I never realized Atari Corp had licensed Shamus for an Atarisoft release on the TI. It was a hit on the Atari 8-bit and the fast action was ported well to the TI version. Synapse Software originally published it, as I think they also did Protector 2. Picnic Paranoia? What the heck? Centipede was the best of the arcade conversions. Very playable. Though for some of the others, missing music and the underutilization of the TI's sound chip is a shame. It has more than 1 voice!

[@PeBoVision]

I learned to play Shamus on an Atari XL, but brought it home for my TI and (finally) beat the game thanks to generic maps I found on an Atari BBS. They worked perfectly, demonstrating a perfect port (pretty one too) When judging Atarisoft ports for any system, one must remember the severe time constraints placed on programmers...many working on unfamiliar systems for the first time. On the TI it was worse, as Atari was not paying TI licensing fees and so had no rights to use TI GRoms, which would have greatly expanded the memory limitations of cartridges. Without this, all Atarisoft TI carts are a maximum of 8K...not a lot of room for cutscenes and multi-channel sound. (TI-licensing is why we have no authentic Bröderbund or Epyx games (albeit, some great unauthorized clones)) It is impressive that Atarisoft games look, sound and play as well as they do. A major feat in 8K. (compare C64, TI, and Apple II 'Moon Patrol' from Atarisoft. The TI port, which isn't perfect, wins hands down) We also got one of the few DK ports with the pie level.

[@tron3entertainment]

The TI-99/4A became my gaming system. I lamented having spent all that money on the Atari 2600. Yes, the Atari games were fun, but often incomplete and not nearly as good on a TI system with "only 16K" of RAM.

[@Antiorganizer]

The Texas is more capable than what I've assumed. I went the Commodore route and always wondered about this.

[@RagingInverno]

Great collection of some of the best TI games.

[@denoydeboer2]

I don't think all those games were Atarisoft, but the ones that were are very impressive. I didn't realize the TI 99/4A was capable of such graphics. It was underated in it's day.

[@sdamon]

All the games in the video were indeed published by Atarisoft: ti.mysweetweb.com/index.php?title=Atarisoft

[@AngryCalvin]

I would have thought the same thing only I remember the box of Donkey Kong having Atarisoft printed on it. Nintendo did have contracts with Atari for a while all the way up to Atari 7800. I loved it when you could get Donkey Kong, Popeye,Mario Brothers and other arcade ports from Nintendo on other systems. Even though I strongly prefer Sega over Nintendo by far I hope for Nintendos demise so I can play all their games on Steam.

[@rustymixer2886]

Its 16 bit

[@tarstarkusz]

This version of Donkey Kong proves the Colecovision didn't have to make the screens shorter.

[@AngryCalvin]

It was a great port. I had it. Just wish it had the animation on the gorillas part like Colecovision and Atari 800. It had both the pie factory and elevator levels. Seems every other version lacked one or the other and in some cases both.

[@arcadeshopper]

@@AngryCalvin they only had 16k to work with as that was the largest cartridge ROM they had designed at that point and that was with bank switching 8k at a time. if they had the modern cartridge bank switching they could have included a lot more we are up to 2mb

[@ridiculous_gaming]

I never guessed that Atari would release games on the Ti99 such as Shamus or Protector. Some of the best games that apparently show off the computers hardware gaming potential were produced by a company, Atari, that was producing a competing platform. The fact that they produced Donkey Kong, which has a more accurate looking Mario and the first stage even uses the proper number of girders, which the Atari computer version does not...definitely different times in history. I remember seeing the Ti99 as a kid, but it was very expensive back in the day; however, I was intrigued by it.

[@PeBoVision]

Atari didn't. Atarisoft did. Completely different animal. Even back then.

[@ridiculous_gaming]

@@PeBoVision Atarisoft was a division of Atari, which distributed the programs/games. The games could have been written by external developers, but distributed by Atari...cheers.

[@fred6464]

I ended up cutting a lot of yards in the neighborhood to buy one in 1982. I had the "Editor/Assembler module" and learned assembly programming on this computer. Later my parents purchased the peripheral expansion box and floppy drive for me and I used my assembly skills to program a disk copier that worked on every disk I threw at it. I also wrote an audio sampler that used the cassette interface but the audio on that system did not have a lot of capabilities. I met several local engineers of the day at local computer club meetings, and they helped me with any questions I had. They also exposed me to the Atari 400 and 800 as well. They have long since passed away but they helped shape my future and it was a very special time to be alive. Things like Raspberry Pi's are bringing some of that wild west of computing feeling back again.

[@PeBoVision]

Actually that was AtariSoft, a software-only division of Atari, created specifically to release their licensed titles on competing systems of the era. I would say the very small catalog of Parker Bothers games beat the pants off anything AtariSoft released for the TI. In nearly every instance the TI was capable of having the best port of each title at the time. But why would Atari do that ??? They too wanted to sell their own computers. TI Pole Position & C64 Moon Patrol are examples of how rushed (and just plain bad) some AtariSoft offerings were. Parker Brothers was truly the superior developer for the 4A. I can only imagine what their games would have been like had they paid the TI developer ransom and had been given access to TI GRoms for their carts. And that is the reason we never got support from Epyx or Bröderbund which would have allowed the 4A to compete with gamers. TI shot itself in the foot because they got goaded into a price war against the Vic-20 and needed to recoup losses through software developers. (btw TI Donkey Kong also includes the cement factory (pie level) - not all ports do. But with 28 sprites available and sprite doubling capabilities, there's no excuse for not having springs on the spring level or flame spawning on level 1...but I think that has more to do with Coleco flexing its license.)

[@PeBoVision]

@@fred6464 I was already working full-time in 1982 when I bought my 4A...didn't pay full price, but the $99 (with a $50 rebate) that they ended up dropping to was still a year away. My big expense was the PEB. I had inherited money from my grandmother, and every penny went to the box, an RS232, dual drives, and 32k. All for about $3500 in 2023 dollars (just over $1200 at the time) I've spent easily that again, building my TI-collection today. Worth every penny.

[@steveafulton]

Wow. These look great! (except for maybe Pole Position).

[@PeBoVision]

Since they are both available on cartridge now, you should really add "Slime" and "Robotron 2084", even though they were never released during the Atarisoft era. Robotron 2084 is a GREAT variation of the classic arcade hit, and "Slime", well, it's a"Slime" And both were developed by Atarisoft (while not released for some 30 years)

[@arcadeshopper]

You can get a cart with all the Atarisoft TI-99/4a games at my site including the two unreleased prototypes robotron and superstorm

[@dustheg]

Thabka for this video. It helpa me see how many of the atarisoft collection i need to find still. I try doing that in the wild but its so freaking hard ao sometimes i rarely cheat and ebay them lol

[@61pwcc]

Well done!! I remember when these games came out and money being tight I had to choose carefully. I went with Q*bert & Popeye by Parker Brothers. I would've gotten their Frogger cartridge too. I see the Defender isn't as good as TI's own Parsec. Even Dig Dug which should be easy enough to make look close to the original is bad BUT, not as bad as that Pole Position!! Atarisoft should have had a programmer or two from each of the brands to come over and assist. The worst part is that all the sounds are just lazily done. Most of those games sound like regular TI games. With a little more work they could at least get some better sound effects which wouldn't have cost them any more memory. Donkey Kong and the two Pac Man games seem the best. Centipede wasn't bad but, again, the sound could've been better. Thanks again for the great video!!

[@61pwcc]

@Robert whittle interesting!! Didn't Triton sell a cartridge plug in that allowed 3rd party gaming or am I just old with a crap memory??

[@rob_milstein]

@@61pwcc Triton sold all things TI and I remember looking forward to their regular catalogs. However there was no adaptor for 3rd party games. As far as I know, all TI games whether licensed or not worked on the system.

[@bitwize]

The Donkey Kong port has a few rough edges, but it has all four screens from the arcade, and may be the only contemporary port to have all four screens, making it one of the best ports for any system of the era. I don't think even the NES port was that complete.

[@AngryCalvin]

Good choice on the games you went with. Popeye being one of the best ports of the day and a really fun arcade game. I had Donkey Kong and it was definitely worth having. It included pie factories and a good level order and difficulty increase so you didn’t get board continuing far in the game. The only complaint I had was complete lack of animation on Donkey Kongs part. Also had Burgertime which was a very good port. Congo Bongo not so much but nobody had a decent port of that game anyway. I believe Zaxxon was unreleased but looks like a really nice port. You are very right about Parsec being a better game than Defender. I think of it as Defender meets Scramble but much better than both games. One of the main highlights of TI994a games.Better than many arcade games at the time.

[@AngryCalvin]

Yeah I had an NES right after I had a TI994a. I had both versions of Donkey Kong and was super disappointed not having the pie factory level on the NES version which was totally criminal. I wanted to sue!

[@TheDood71]

Dope assed version of Defender!!!

[@ronb6182]

Must remember TI was an educational computer that's why they only made a few games. If you want games get a game console. Someone needs to do a video on the educational programs that TI came out with. 73

[@Topesio66]

How cool were these porting compared to hardware? Masterpieces, neve had this personal computer but always loved the TI. ❤

[@prodos8]

This was my family's first computer, but I don't think we had any of the atarisoft games for it. We, also, had a 2600 so if my brother and I had a game for it my dad wouldn't let us get the same game for The TI-99, even if it was better. :(

[@tomy.1846]

LOL! Faulty parents logic, I hear ya!

[@dallase1]

The Pole Position engine sound sounds like farting. The TI994 Pole Position was in that movie DAYRL, Dayral was playing it and kicking ass at it because he is supposed to be a kid with a CPU for a brain and had a direct connection with computer processors.

[@sdamon]

Pretty sure that was the Atari computer version in that movie. You can even see an Atari 800XL near the TV. kzbin.info/www/bejne/rWTamYpsar2fa5Y

[@dallase1]

Yup it is a Atari computer the cartridge is inserted standing up into the top and not laying flat on the right side of the computer. I thought it was TI99a because of the black non chicklet keys and was not paying full attention to see how the cartridge was plugged in.

[@Exacerbate42]

There were only bad games for the Ti-99/4A. Until Texas Instruments discontinued production of the Ti-99/4A and then allowed third party manufacturers to release games for the Ti-99/4A. I was finally able to play almost perfect arcade conversions on it. Thanks to Atarisoft.

[@AngryCalvin]

I see where you are coming from. I liked many early games but outside the cream of the crop for example Tunnels of Doom they just have not aged very well. 3rd party publishers made incredible contributions! While Atarisoft made awesome arcade ports, Sega ports of Zaxxon and Congo Bongo were also fantastic. IMAGIC TI-99 versions blew the competition out of the water. If Fathom and Super Demon Attack were not enough Microsurgeon was revolutionary despite being unnoticed. Not only had Microsurgeon aged well but had elements unseen in it's day. Nothing like it before or after.

[@arcadeshopper]

Funny how these were all released well before that.. as we're games from other vendors that all ran fine on the original 4a it was the 1983 update ROMs that broke third party modules and that was just before they bailed out so not many of those ever ended up in anyone's hands

[@cathrynm]

Yeah, this is what really hurt the TI-99/4a. Way way way overly-tight control on the distribution of software. The machine did have some strange bottlenecks, but with a more open development platform, programmers could have worked around this.

[@jwades77]

they did good on some of them but i owned pole position for the ti-99 and it was a poor effort, not nearly up to atari 2600 quality even.

[@OriginalGrasshopper]

Say what?! I owned Pole Position for both the TI and Atari and the TI version was vastly superior.

[@ScottithGames]

All 16? There's only 12 games in your video.

[@sdamon]

True. Corrected the title.

[@damon2874]

I liked hunt the wumpus on ti 99/4a and miner2049er,shamus,picnic paranoia.