7800

2^nd Generation – The Atari 7800 was often called the second generation Atari 2600 which actually jumpstarted the home videogame industry.  Because of the limited storage capacity, game development back in those days was tight, elegant, precise. 

My first shot in the golden age of video gaming was with the introduction of the Atari 7800.

True, it looked a whole lot like the very popular Atari 2600, but there were some neat hardware things done that were probably designed in by Leonard – an astrophysicist by education and computer designer by love – and Antonio (Tony Salerno, VP of apps).

The 7800 was a good game system but the GCC (General Computer Corp.) contract–they produced the game cartridges–held it up.

Then too, the generally sluggish sales of game machines didn’t give the system much of a chance against the NES, Sega and fledgling Sony PS systems.

Especially when – as now – you need titles to sell systems and you need to sell systems to attract title developers.

Some things will never change.

Atari ST

Special System –  Leonard Tramiel (seated) was instrumental in developing the breakthrough Atari ST computer and was just as happy to let his brother Sam be the business face (and voice) of Atari. 

While the 7800 did ‘O.K., the Tramiel team focused on something they really knew/loved … computers for the masses and Commodore.

The ST was a home computer that got computer scientists, engineers, musicians excited:

–          MIDI port

–          Powerful Motorola MC68000 CPU

–          Sophisticated GUI (Graphical User Interface)

–          ROM-based TOS that was remarkably bug free with only one patch in its history (no one even knew it was needed)

The ST was the “go-to” system for CAD and desktop publishing folks.

Amateur and professional musicians loved the system.

With Sam and the team, the ST introduced me to folks like:

–          Fleetwood Mac

–          Mike Oldfield

–          Jean-Michel Jarré

–          Madonna

–          Tangerine Dream

–          Fatboy Slim

And a whole lot of other folks most of today’s smartphone game players have to run to Wikipedia to learn about.

When it came to real-time 3D role-playing computer games, the ST and its advanced graphics opened up new vistas.

Lots of folks still think it’s a helluva’ system!

Portfolio

Compact Computing – The Atari Portfolio was a subnotebook computer before there was even a category.  It packed a lot of power and usability into a small package. 

The Atari Portfolio was a subnotebook even before there was a category.

To get people to understand it, we tried to create a new category – palmtop – but most just called it the Portfolio.

Powered by three AA batteries (AC adapter optional), it was an Intel 80C88-based system running the DIP OS with a whopping 128KB RAM and 256KB ROM.

It had an expansion port for parallel, serial, modem or MIDI expansion slots.

If you were lazy, forgetful or a show-off, you could put the speaker to a phone and automatically dial a phone number … cool.

The eight-line, 40-character screen was about as easy to read as emails on my smartphone today.

It was originally developed by DIP Research in England and came with a text editor, spreadsheet (Lotus 1-2-3 compatible), phone book and time manager.

What more did you need?  Everything in one compact unit that could fit in your back pocket.

With the shrunken QWERTY keyboard we saw any number of people typing at 20-30 wpm and were sure they were going to throw their thumb joints out.

Reporters at the time found it a great system for taking notes and tracking stuff.

Long-time friend Dick DeBartolo, better known as the Giz Wiz – and perhaps most famous for writing for Mad magazine as well as years guesting on Computer America and Leo Laporte’s The Tech Guy – still tells us how much he liked the Portfolio.

In fact, there are a lot of folks who still do.

It had all the features, capabilities you needed without all the frufru stuff.

Lynx

Living Color – The Atari Lynx was the portable that game systems drooled over in its day with a brilliant LCD screen and solid feel.  It still has a solid following among discerning gamers. 

This was the portable game system to have (and I was/am a lousy gamer)!

Sure, the dumb little Nintendo GameBoy had 80 percent of the market, but JT wouldn’t shy away from a good fight in the marketplace and beside … OMG the Lynx:

–          Brilliant color

–          Superb graphics

–          Ambidextrous layout

–          A decent selection of quality image games

Developed by Epyx, Atari unveiled the Lynx at the Summer CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Chicago.

I flew with Sam to Chicago with the media ready to see what we were going to introduce.

It didn’t really matter that the deal between the two firms was still a work-in-progress.

The night before the big unveiling, I took a cab to O’Hare airport and picked up what we hoped would be the final manufacturing/marketing contract and delivered it to Sam’s room at 5:00 a.m.

Wanting to sleep but also wanting to rock-n-roll, I asked Sam if we were ready to go.

He answered that he’d let me know at 7:45 (the press conference was at 8).

He said if the contract was okay, everything would be great.  If it wasn’t, it was going to be one of the shortest press conferences in history and I’d look like a damn fool.

Just the kind of pep talk I needed!

Sam signed the contract, we had a fantastic press conference and reviewers were begging to get on the first look list.

The problem was it was priced at $179 against the anemic – dumb monocolor screen – GameBoy’s $75-$90 price.

Unfortunately, the LCD manufacturer wouldn’t pass through any manufacturing savings so it was a tough up-sell (not for kids but for parents).

JT wasn’t lawsuit happy but he took the LCD manufacturer to court … and won!

While this was going on Sam, Gary, Leonard and the team were busy developing a second-generation, more cost-effective Lynx.

Just before the following Thanksgiving, we introduced the Lynx II that had a better “feel”, better way of handling the cartridges, better battery life and a lower price, at the Marriot Marques in NYC overlooking the Times Square digital sign we rented for the occasion.

While a young lady on our team trudged through the slush delivering seed review systems to radio, TV and print folks; Sam, other team members and I had back-to-back interviews.

Most reviewers wouldn’t let the beauty go, so Sam was happy to offer them a special editorial discount and have the unit overnighted to them.

Everyone was happy…except the gal with the wet, cold feet.

The Lynx only had two shortcomings – a lack of widespread retail distribution and an unlimited selection of games. Before the evolution of online sales, not having product in every outlet hurt big time.

There were plenty of games, just not every one of the big hits that were available on other platforms (platform folks played hardball with their developers, keeping games off competitor’s systems).

Even today though, the Lynx has cleaner, fresher colors than the lousy Gameboy.

It was so good, the company was recognized for pioneering the development of handheld games at the Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards a few years ago.

In spite of that, sales didn’t take off and we were fired … again.

Then, when Sam was ready to kick-off the Jaguar, we got another call.

It was just a few months before the roll-out, but that didn’t deter us and we said sure, we could do it, named a price for the scramble and JT said okay.

But we added that we also wanted a one-year, no-cut contract and he said no way!

It was probably just as well because as much as we respected JT and liked Sam, Gary, Leonard, trying to build as much excitement for the Jaguar as we had for the Lynx would have been tough.

Still might have been fun to try…

# # #

G.A. “Andy” Marken

President

Marken Communications, Inc.

Andy@markencom.com

 

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