Megalextoria
Retro computing and gaming, sci-fi books, tv and movies and other geeky stuff.

Home » Digital Archaeology » Electronic Gaming Arcana » Atari » Atari 7800 » Adventures In Vintage Gaming (darth-azrael (tumblr-7800))
Show: Today's Messages :: Show Polls :: Message Navigator
E-mail to friend 
Switch to threaded view of this topic Create a new topic Submit Reply
Adventures In Vintage Gaming [message #286690] Wed, 25 March 2015 18:40
Anonymous
Karma:

mikeyshake:

Part 2: Digging Deeper Into Retro Tech - Dust & Detective Work

image


In February, I found myself in Portland, ME on an unexpected weekend getaway with my wife.  We hadn’t spent much time there before, and found it to be half coastal port, half artists enclave.  A great place to spend time if you like record shops and bookstores.  Our first night there, we ended up at one such establishment that had a bunch of vintage gaming systems on display.  They had an Atari 7800 on sale (“tested and working”) for seventy-five bucks, including a controller and five games.  Frankly, I wasn’t even considering something like that at the time.  We didn’t really have a ton of expendable money (hence choosing a Maine vacation during a week-long blizzard), and $75 is a kind of high for some “vacation impulse buy”.  But when I saw the look in Roxy’s eye, and she said “Hey, Mike… look at this!”, I knew I was going to have a new decision to make.

The 7800 is the grandchild of the original “2600” Atari console and was released in 1986.  The 7800 was designed in 1984, but shelved until two years later.  (The middle generation, the 5200?  We don’t talk about it much.)  The 7800 is more advanced electronically than the original 2600 — roughly on par with the Nintendo system.  The controllers do the same things, but are a completely different design, similar in your hand to a 5200 controller — a design I don’t care for quite as much.  Crucially, the 7800 plays both the old 2600 cartridges, as well as the sixty or so games designed for the 7800 — which were good, but according to The Internet, not necessarily amazing.  So this potential 7800 would play any Atari game I could imagine I’d want, but the controller wouldn’t be my preferred type.  I could buy replacements, but how much would that cost on top of things?

So yeah, “It’s kind of pricey," I thought, "but I wouldn’t have to pay for shipping.” Since it was in front of me (as opposed to a good deal online), it seemed acceptable that it would cost a little more than an online price.  Despite frequenting this kind of establishment, I’d rarely seen Atari consoles in the wild, and like I said, I’m not a hardcore.  I didn’t know what a “good price” was.  Research later taught me that $75 was a pretty hefty tag for a 7800, but I was one of those people who just didn’t know better.

The fact that I could see with my own eyes that it worked was a big point in this 7800s favor.  It wasn’t a risky junk-shop find that might just never turn on once it came home. But I didn’t know much about Atari console history, which were worth getting, and which weren’t.  I just really wanted to finally get my hands on a reliably-working Atari gaming machine.  They’d always seemed so outlandishly priced when I’d see them in glass cases, and I never saw them turn up at even thrift shops for big bucks.  Here was one in front of me, visibly operational, for an amount of money that seemed reasonable for a used gaming console package.

I had the credit card in my pocket, but didn’t pull the trigger.  I decided to sleep on it and come back the next day.

Overnight, I came to terms with the fact that if I wanted nostalgia, I needed to scratch that itch properly. While it really did seem like a fine system, I chose to pass on the 7800 (though I went back to pick up a Lookout!-era LP copy of Operation Ivy’s Energy), and finally decided to get the O.G. itself — a real, actual Atari 2600.

I couldn’t sleep much that night because I was a little sick, so off to the internet I went. Initially, I had no idea exactly what I was looking for — much less how much it was going to cost me.  Hours folded as I dove into the differences in Atari 2600 consoles.  Some had six switches, some had four.  Some were wood-paneled (ahhh, ‘70s styling), and some were all-black.  Were they the same?  What switches were missing on some of them?  Are some more reliable than others?  Does the color matter?  Will they all play the same games?  Seeing them occasionally in shops only proved that pricing fluctuated wildly.  Some people clearly seemed to think they’re worth a fortune because they’re old, but I’d also hear/read of one going for a steal.  It became clear that I needed to quickly learn everything I could about what I was dealing with to not get ripped off.

The shortest version is that they made them with six switches on the front, and then later they made them with four switches on the front.  Seems pretty simple.  But each of these types (“sixers” and “4-switch” in collector slang) has different eras of their own.  

[ALL of this info is just a surface-level synthesis of much more in-depth comparison that’s just a web search away — atariage.com is an invaluable resource.]

Six-Switch Models:

image

- “Heavy Sixer” (1977): The original Atari “Video Computer System”.  Initially made in Sunnyvale, CA, these ones have six switches on the front and a big, heavy bottom plastic plate that makes it weigh more than any other version.  After about a year, production moved from the US to Asia, right about the time they redesigned the chassis.  This model has distinctive wood paneling on the front for maximum ‘70s vibe.

- “Light Sixer” (1978-1980): These have a redesigned bottom plate that weighs less than the initial versions.  The weight difference is down to that bottom plate — the interior design, including the thick RF shielding, is the same as a “heavy sixer” (a fact that seems to cause a lot of debate online).  Aesthetically, it’s still wood-y and orange — in fact, to a non-expert, it looks almost the same as a Heavy Sixer.  All of the six-switch models (heavy and light) are reputed to have better video resolution than the 4-switch due to heavier RF shielding around the circuit board.  Internally, both types of six-switch model are said to be virtually identical, other than later ones allegedly using slightly cheaper overseas parts.  Either way, it’s a pretty safe bet that if it has six switches on the front of the machine, it’s older than one with four on the front.

For whatever reason (probably cost-cutting?), the company re-designed the console to move two of the switches to the back around 1980.  The circuit board inside changed a little bit, too.  They played the same games and did the same things, but some of the redesigns are said to have some minor effects on the picture and sound quality. These redesigned models are known as “4-switch” consoles.

Four-Switch Models:

image

- “4-Switch" (a.k.a “4-switch woody”) (1980-1982):  These have wood paneling like the originals, but the two “difficulty switches” have been moved to the back of the console, and the motherboard layout has been redesigned.  So, technically, they still have the same six switches, it’s just that only four remain on the faceplate.


image


- “Vader” (1982-1986): To move the console into the sleek, modern ‘80s, the 4-switch got a facelift.  Away with the wood panel and orange, in with a textured black plastic.  Of course, all-black-plastic in the early ‘80s meant one thing:  Darth Vader.  (Hence the nickname.)  Internally, I think these are the same as the 4-switch woodys.  That 1986 end date might be a bit of a red herring, in that the company just about went under following the video game crash of 1983 and production almost certainly halted for a while. That was just the last model released until the Atari Jr. in 1986.

There were some other variants for awhile, like the cheap, plastic Atari Jr. model from ‘86 that was the result of even more cost-cutting — though it should be said that some people love them.  I was stunned to find that some form of the Atari 2600 was in production in one form or another until 1992.  They were still selling them after the Super Nintendo debuted.  Cripes.

But ultimately, there were my options. I could get: 1) a collectible Heavy Sixer, 2) a more affordable Light Sixer, 3) a woodgrain 4-switch, or 4) an all-black “Vader” 4-switch.  Each had their own merits, and some had some drawbacks.  I’d spent a day or so doing my research — if you want to learn something,read everything you can find.  Now that I knew what was out there, I could figure out what I was hunting.

But which one did I choose?  Tune in next time — the best is yet to come.. with a shocking surprise!

—-

http://www.megalextoria.com/forum2


- - -
http://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/
  Switch to threaded view of this topic Create a new topic Submit Reply
Previous Topic: Toki (Atari 7800)atarigames:TOKI on Atari 7800 #playataritoday...
Next Topic: Impossible Mission (Atari 7800)humanoidhistory:The joy of the...
Goto Forum:
  

-=] Back to Top [=-
[ Syndicate this forum (XML) ] [ RSS ] [ PDF ]

Current Time: Thu Mar 28 15:28:11 EDT 2024

Total time taken to generate the page: 0.02639 seconds