The Story Of: 5 Cancelled Atari Consoles

[@snowsgaming8706]

I love this. The story gets even deeper. I had always wondered why stick with the 2600, when the engineers who had originally designed it, expected it to be a more advanced Pong machine that would have 12 cartridges. If you search for 'Stella at 20' on YT, there's videos where the engineers explain that they lacked imagination (they weren't game designers and really had no concept) and bottle necked the system to save a dollar here, 25 cents there. The TIA which was a very cool engineered device was also limited. As said, they expected no more than combat and tennis. The truth was, the 2600 started to fly off the shelves. Other superior consoles like the Intellivision came out, but, when most American households already had an Atari, it was difficult to compete. And while it was a bullet in the foot, it was brilliant programmers who could take what they had and make the VCS do things it wasn't meant to do. Homebrewers push it even further. Lode Runner was recently released for the VCS. Absolutely incredible. Better than arcade version IMO. Still, it makes one wonder what could have been if the timeline was different. Would we have played SMB1 on an Atari console in 85. Talked about Adventure 3 on the school playground? I have no idea if remaking old 8 bit or 10 bit chips is still very expensive, but I'd love it if there were engineers and hardware homebrewers that made a Sylvia console. I wonder then how cool the homebrew games would be for it.

[@snowsgaming8706]

So, I found some more information on Sylvia. There was a prototype and it almost made it to market a few times, but one of the engineers had to shut it down because it had a nasty design flaw that would cause a very bad sprite glitch if you had more than 4 sprites on screen and 2 happened to overlap. There was also another sprite glitch it had, but I can't remember what that one was. If I understood correctly, the lead engineer of Sylvia quit and moved on. If this console was to be revived as a homebrew console now, it would need to partially re-engineered to fix the nasty glitches. Still, I would love to see that happen. I still want to see homebrew on a console that almost was. That would be the closest you could get to stepping into an alternate universe, where the issues were fixed and then it was marketed.

[@InfectiousGroovePodcast]

There was so much I didn't know in this video. That's for uncovering all of this info and sharing it in such detail!

[@cryptocsguy9282]

3:50 why do these Atari schematics keep getting taken down from the Atari museum website? 😐 Yesterday I read an article from a few years ago about the Atari 7800 being implemented on an FPGA with a link to the original Atari 7800 schemes on Atari museum but the link was dead 💀. The funny thing is there's books 📚 like "Mapping the Atari" & De Re Atari" that were published 😀 back in the 80s explaining the inner workings of the Atari 8bit computers & Atari allowed it back then.

[@cryptocsguy9282]

The Atari painter computer with a mixture of Atari falcon & jaguar hardware sounds like it would have made an amazing gaming PC & workstation 🤩😮😮.

[@ridiculous_gaming]

Back in the day I wanted a 1450xld...it never launched, but I wanted one. Instead, I ended up with a 600xl and a 1010 cassette player.

[@wormwoodroadshow]

Fantastic work, as always. I always feel a little melancholy watching these videos because it makes me wonder how many more wild and brave ideas we could have seen much earlier in home computing if not for the trepidations of a few penny pinchers or the haste of some panicky marketing people within the company. Even little things like game cartridges for the ST seem like a no-brainer.

[@retrojoe85]

Thank you for the video, never heard about this stuff!

[@robintst]

Very cool video, I didn't even know about the 3200, Mirai, or Spector.

[@TheLairdsLair]

If you want to know more about the Mirai make sure you watch the video linked in the description!

[@thebotbuilder]

Won’t lie, the Atari Spector has a really cool design

[@Sinn0100]

Had Atari not monumentally screwed up with the 5200 and with decent quality control they could have done so much more. The Super Atari ST console could have been a huge, huge victory for Atari if done right. Imagine if you will Atari subsidizing their Super ST to keep the costs low. While simultaneously selling licenses at say...5 bucks per game and tacking let's call it an extra 10 to 15 bucks on peripherals. Of course marketing it as the defacto "Most Powerful Console" ever built in the US. Now, you have a piece of hardware that could (knowing Atari) give the mighty Sega Genesis and quick PC Engine/TG-16 a run for their money years before they released. If they could somehow eat the cost upfront keeping it in the $200-$250 range they would have outright murdered Nintendo and Sega in 1986/1987 in the US. Addendum- Even with the Sega Genesis and Snes hitting...knowing how modular the ST platform was Atari could have out upgraded them before they even started. Man...

[@dragonchaserkev]

As an old guy who grew up with the 2600 I always wished better for Atari but it was evident in video game consoles they were dead after the NES and never came close to competing. The machines might have been capable enough but there was a serious lack of talented programmers making good games on them. Also Atari seemed to fail in making good controllers after the original Joystick. Hell if Atari had came up with and patented the controller "D pad" that would have helped a lot, but they still needed exclusive quality games.

[@cryptocsguy9282]

@DragonChaserKev never used it but I think the Atari 7800 🇪🇺 EU only joypad controller the time looks no better or worse than the NES or master system controller & has a screw in thumbstick stick. As for exclusive quality games I think Atari should have bought out Epyx games instead of letting them go bankrupt, they already developed the Lynx hardware & acted as a 1st party developer until 1993. With financial backing from Atari as a parent company that could have made 1st party exclusives not just for the lynx but the 7800, ST & jaguar systems too.

[@tommylakindasorta3068]

You've become one of my favorite gaming channels. Always interesting and entertaining.

[@captaincorleone7088]

Thanks for laying to rest the ST console myth: I too remember reading about it at the time in C&VG and perhaps elsewhere that the keyboardless "ST Plus" was imminent. Had no idea that Morecambe and Wise featured in an Atari advert! Was this in '77/'78? etc?

[@TheLairdsLair]

It was 1982

[@avabethmcghee3048]

All I know, is that I still listen to the Tempest 2000 soundtrack to this day.

[@TheLairdsLair]

As do I!

[@DiscoScottie]

Boost!!!

[@neilthomas6042]

Nice to see the Morecambe and Wise advert; they were my favourite comedy duo. The series sticks in my mind, but I don’t remember the advert though. PS the video content was interesting as well.

[@TheLairdsLair]

Eric Morcambe lived in my home town, my parents used to talk to him in Sainsburys!

[@DiscoScottie]

@@TheLairdsLair - interesting... we didn't have any American ads like that. Always fascinating to see how products were sold in other parts of the world.

[@MarkTheMorose]

I remember reading about the 'ST console', but I don't think I knew anything about the others. I'd also forgotten that Eric and Ernie fronted Atari TV adverts.

[@Swanlord05]

I think they should finish these consoles and launch a mini war of games with them

[@williamcrowe2576]

Seems to me that "Killer Satellite" game would've been better suited to a tabletop unit or at least an arcade game.

[@vertigoz]

Are you keeping up with Atari, Atari is keeping up with you!

[@skywarp727]

I had no idea Atari was trying and game planning so many different ideas. Great video, I learned quite a bit.

[@f.k.b.16]

What would be the benefit to Sony to use an old design mentioned at 13:24 ?

[@TheLairdsLair]

Because it's a really cool design that allowed the console to be laid flat or positioned upright?

[@f.k.b.16]

@@TheLairdsLair I wondered if they just copied the design or paid royalties for it?

[@TheLairdsLair]

I explained this in more detail in another comment, but yes, Sony bought the design and patent from Atari (then owned by Hasbro). This came about because several people who worked on the Jaguar and Painter, including Richard Miller most notably, went to work for Sony later on and told them about the design.

[@dodgeramsport01]

Y not?

[@cryptocsguy9282]

Music at the start ? :P

[@kaidzaack2520]

Fascinating! (Although I’m not an Atarian) 😉. Have a nice WE all! ✌️

[@ethacade]

Kinda wish we had seen the Atari Panther and the Atari Spector

[@alucart1984]

I have been watching your videos for a while. What on earth is said at the very beginning? Also I love your videos. They are the best. You are one of the reasons I bought the Atari 400, 800, 800XL and XEGS. I learned about the Atari ST from your videos as well so I bought an Atari 1040 STe. Thank you!

[@TheLairdsLair]

I think I get asked this on every single video right now! It's "Welcome STUN Runner!" from the Lynx port of the classic arcade game!

[@DMCfan189]

is there any information if the atari mirai ever got far in development

[@TheLairdsLair]

Yes, watch this video that is also linked in the description: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pnfZmJuAn899qaM

[@DMCfan189]

alright thx@@TheLairdsLair

[@orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

This one was really interesting

[@geraldford6409]

Late to this party, but I see lot of comments re how the Painter or other Super St or Jaguar or computer based on these could have saved Atari in the 90s after Jaguar. Not in the USA. By 1992 and certainly by 95, most families and many gamers were moving to X86 pc gaming. By 1992 16 bit soundcards and xga cards were common, as well as 386 33mhz+ cpus in the usa

[@TheLairdsLair]

Yeah, I agree, Atari needed Panther no later than 1989 to save themselves, after that went wrong they were done.

[@Kilroy_5150]

The Tramiel era. Ugh. This man bought, milked, and sold companies just for pure profit. I never saw him as an innovator of anything. Unlike Woz and Jobbs, Tramiel was in it purely for the money and he ruined some good ideas on the way throuhg. If Amiga had been supported, the way it SHOULD have been, it probably would still be a running machine today. It was light years ahead of it's competition back in the day. The only way a computer THAT powerful and that affordable dies is if someone handles badly. When we PC people were getting 4/16/128 colors, Amiga had thousands and it had better EVERYTHING. What's scarier is "business" people helped RUIN Atari. It should have kept being run by techo-potheads. The game qualities would have been much better and we wouldn't have gotten such a crappy version of Pac-Man, even with the Atari's limitations. Heck, the "remakes" of A2600 Pac Man PROVE it could have been better. When a home enthusiast makes a better version to run on the emulator you can't argue with that. nuff said?

[@MrTristan1235]

Not a console but does anyone have information on the Atari 8000 computer? I can only find a few pictures, zero information or context.

[@TheLairdsLair]

It was never anything more than a concept drawing, not an actual computer.

[@stillbuyvhs]

The guy who owned the Atari History Museum website passed away...

[@TheLairdsLair]

One of them has, Curt Vendel, but Marty Goldberg is still very much alive and well!

[@dodgeramsport01]

You Mean the scammer!

[@xenxander]

why did Atair think we all wanted joystick like controllers? What was their fetish with it? sure the arcades had joysticks but that's totally a different experience.

[@bleirdo_dude]

Welcome gun runner, or gum runner? What is this from?

[@TheLairdsLair]

Welcome STUN Runner, from the Lynx port of the classic arcade game! It's simply amazing how many people mis-hear this and don't recognise it.

[@bleirdo_dude]

@@TheLairdsLair Thanks for clearing things up. Voice synthesis in it's early form can be confusing. For example the arcade game Berserk was more interesting to me before I found out what it actually was saying.

[@orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

@@TheLairdsLair I knew what it was lol....(took frickin forever though to work it out)

[@orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

@@bleirdo_dude "in-troo-derr alert" x2

[@Mrshoujo]

Mirai is Japanese for "Future." As in Hatsune Miku's Magical Mirai concerts.

[@NesNyt]

8:13 i love how it says thebnew snes is backwards compatible with nes games hahahahahaha

[@summer20105707]

So Atari could have made a comeback to the console scene. But they decided to sell it to Sony. Some people have no vision. But at least Sony knew a good thing when they saw it. Good for them. Sad for Atari.

[@TheLairdsLair]

They only sold the case to Sony, the PS2 hardware was still Sony's design. This came about because several people who worked on the Jaguar and Painter, including Richard Miller most notably, went to work for Sony later on and told them about the design.

[@zaxxon4]

You forgot the Panther. You could also include the 7800 on a technicality since it was announce and cancelled in 84, before being released in 86. Atari was well known in that era for their vaporware. They'd fully develop a product, show it to the press at CES or Comdex, and then decide that there was no market for the product at the price it would cost. The 8-bit 3.5" floppy drive was even created and then abandoned twice (The Atari 1055 then a later one to launch along with the 65XEP).

[@TheLairdsLair]

No I didn't, as I said in the intro I have already done a full standalone video on the Panther, which is linked in the description. The Panther reached full production prototype stage, so doesn't meet the criteria here anyway. The 7800 was released to both New York and Californian test markets in 1984, it wasn't cancelled. The full worldwide release was held up by the sale of Atari and a legal dispute between Atari Corp., GCC and Warner. It doesn't qualify for the criteria of this video in any regard.

[@penuts17]

“Super Starioland” lmao, what a rip off! 😂

[@maxheadroom4659]

So in short Atari failed because of bad management at the top.