1978: VCS Follow-Up: Colleen &
Candy
When work
started on the follow-up to the VCS in 1977, the engineering team Joe Decuir,
Jay Miner, and Steve Mayer were tasked to create a machine that could both
follow up the VCS, and double as an entry into the burgeoning personal computer
market.
"(The follow-up had to) support
1978-vintage arcade games. We knew we would need to leapfrog the 2600 before
somebody else did. (It also had to) support home computer character and bitmap
graphics. We saw the Apple II, Commodore, and Radio Shack appliance machines
coming." xxxiii
- Joe Decuir
The project
was soon split into two separate projects, dubbed "Colleen" and "Candy"
after two particularly attractive secretaries These products were later re-named
the Atari 800 and 400 respectively. "Colleen" was to be the full-fledged
computer, while "Candy" was more suited as the game machine follow-up
to the 2600.
Both were based on the same basic hardware design with four
separate silicon chips that handled different parts of the computer's operation:
the 6502 CPU running at 1.8 MHz, the ANTIC display microprocessor, CTIA
graphics chip, and POKEY sound chip. The power of these multiple processors
pushed the 8-bit computers power far beyond that of the VCS.
Jay Miner, as
system architect, led a group that included Joe Decuir, George McCloud and
Francois Michel that designed
the ANTIC microprocessor for processing display information and the CTIA
graphics chip to put it on a screen xxxiv.
It was a very potent
combination, giving the Colleen and Candy the most sophisticated graphics
for any microcomputer at the time. The ANTIC took graphics information in
the form of Display Lists. Display List Interrupts allowed the screen to
be cut horizontally into multiple parts, allowing for almost limitless display
options.
These
instructions were processed and displayed by one of multiple
graphics modes by the CTIA (later GTIA) processor. The design also
included hardware based sprites (Player-Missile Graphics) for creating
games, a character-set that could be completely redefined in code, and per-line
fine scrolling. xxxv In terms of sheer horsepower, the graphics
capabilities of these new machines made the output of the TIA chip in the VCS
look primitive by comparison.
After the
6502, ANTIC and CTIA, the 4th chip of the design was the POKEY.
POKEY was a dedicated sound processor started by the core team and finished off
by Doug Neubauer.
"The Atari 800's architecture
evolved as an upgrade of the 2600. Conceived primarily by Steve Mayer, Joe
Decuir and Jay Miner before I arrived at Atari, the original plan for the POKEY
chip called for keyboard interface, audio and paddle controllers." xxxvi
- Doug Neubauer
The chip
had four distinct sound channels, with the ability to set volume, frequency and
waveform per channel. This gave Colleen and Candy sound production abilities
far beyond the speaker beeps of most other personal computers at the time.
As the
hardware was being finalized, Atari started working on the software required to
get the computers up and running. After announcing late in 1978 that the new
computer systems would be on display at the January CES in 1979, the scramble
was on write software that would run the machines.
"Atari had been designing a personal computer for a couple years and had
a group of programmers working on the OS for a long time. Atari then
pre-announced that the computer would debut at the January 1979 CES. " xxxvii
- Alan Miller
To meet
this date, Atari tapped some of the best programmers from the VCS team, Alan
Miller, Larry Kaplan, Bob Whitehead, and David Crane to work on the operating
system, while outsourcing the job of creating a version of the BASIC language
for the computers.
"There is a period at Atari
when there were no games coming from Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller, Bob Whitehead,
and myself. As the most senior designers at Atari, we were tasked with creating
the 800 operating system. This group, plus two others, wrote the entire
operating system in about 8 months. A funny story from this time that Al Miller
likes to tell has to do with the Atari BASIC cartridge
that was to ship with the system. Atari had contracted with a young programmer
named Bill Gates to modify a BASIC compiler that he had for another system to
be used on the 800. After that project stalled for over a year Al was called
upon to replace him with another developer. So, while Al is the only person I
know ever to have fired Bill Gates, I suspect that rather than work on Atari
BASIC, Gates was spending all his time on
DOS for IBM. Probably not a bad career choice for him, do you think?" xxxviii
- David Crane
The
BASIC language was finished by SMI corporation in time for CES, as was the internally
developed OS.
"I'm very proud of
the OS we created for the Atari 400/800. It was similar in complexity to QDOS
-- the OS that Microsoft licensed a couple of years later from Seattle Computer Products and renamed MS-DOS for the IBM Personal
Computers. However, the Atari OS was much better designed in terms of its user
friendliness and it had a much, much richer graphics subsystem and many fewer
bugs." xxxix
- Alan
Miller
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Thanks for the great article, although I must say that I find the claim that the VIC-20 was more powerful than an Atari 400 a bit tough to swallow... ;-)
-Clay
Thanks. That probably should read "arguably more powerful" or "perceived as more powerful". In retrospect, it wasn't.
-Steve
Having worked at Time Warner, back in the SF Rush / Rise of the Robots era, I totally recognize the pattern that has also poisoned most large developers :)
Sorry to be a pingeek but I think there's a misplaced comma: Superman the pinball, more like 3500-5000 units sold according to the ipdb. 10 K sales from the late 70's on was blockbuster.
http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/7749/fairchildchannelfcartrihz0.jpg
Channel F's Videocart 12 was baseball, released in 1977.
Good catch, but I believe it says that it was the first "single player" baseball game. I believe the Fairchild game (which I played many times at my friend's house BTW...but my favorite game was Alien Invasion) required two-players. I was trying to highlight the A.I. of the VCS game.
-Steve
We'd like to translate a decent articles "The History of Atari: 1971-1977" (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2000/the_history_of_atari_19711977.php?pag
e=1) and "Atari: The Golden Years -- A History, 1978-1981" (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3766/atari_the_golden_years__a_.php) into Polish language and publish it on a popular portal jakilinux.org (and/or osnews.pl). Do you mind us doing so? Obviously proper attribution would be paid to you as the author.
Please let us know what you think about such re-publication. (My e-mail address is tprimke_at_gmail_dot_com.)
Best regards,
Tomek
Moreover, it is very unlikely that the Atari 3200 was to be based on the same chipset as the Intellivision. The Intellivision was mostly a knee-jerk reaction to the Atari 2600 from Mattel, and therefore consisted of an pre-built, off-the-shelf game system created by chip maker General Instruments. In fact, it was an actual sku item on their 1978 parts catalog. It was later customized a little, mainly to allow for more ROM and custom graphic tiles, but it was generally an off-the-shelf product.
Therefore it seems unlikely that Atari would plan to replace their aging custom-designed Atari 2600 with an off-the-shelf product, whose technology, although having some more capabilities, was just as old.
-dZ.
Thanks for that!
I'd say that from your description, the Intellivision processor could have still been one of the chips that Bushnell had tied-up in development, especially if GI was one of the companies he used. Remember, the idea that the Intellivision was based on one of those processors did not come from myself, but from a direct quote that Bushnell gave to me in an interview. Still, it's a very gray area and this why that part of the story is painted as "not definite".
-Steve
Thanks for your response. You are right, the GI microprocessor could still have been the planned successor to the Atari 2600. However, I still think it unlikely due its many limitations (weird architecture, 10-bit memory addressing, etc.).
My point was that the only reason Mattel used it was not because it was considerably better, but because they needed a quick release, and chose the General Instrument's pre-built system in haste in order to jump into the new Video Game market.
The entire Intellivision console was indeed superior, with better graphics resolution and 3-channel DSP'ed sound (although the graphics were tile-based instead of pixel-based, limiting its practicality; not to mention the ill-conceived Disc Controller!), but its microprocessor and chip technology were the products of early 1970s technology, hardly state-of-the-art; and unlikely the first choice for a successor.
But, of course, we can't ever know, and I do concede it's possible.
I do agree that competition from Mattel could have been avoided if only Atari had adhered to Bushnell's strategy.
All in all, a very interesting and satisfying article; one that brought back wonderful memories. Please keep up with the thoughtful historical accounts of our wonderful technological roots.
Thank you,
-dZ.
P.S. Why, yes, I did (and currently) own a Mattel Intellivision, thank you.
Perhaps Gamasutra can showcase the Mattel Intellivision on a future article and fulfill my well of nostalgia, as it has already done with the Atari VCS, the Commodore 64, and Video Game arcades in general.
-dZ.
No problem! Thanks for adding to the discussion. I agree, the Intellivision story needs to be told. I'd love to try to tackle it someday, especially since it all went down near my home town (they used to frequent the local arcade here while making games), Keith Robinson from the Blue Sky Rangers draws a cartoon for the local paper, and Intellivision Productions is in the same office building as my favorite Sunday breakfast coffee shop)...plus, I currently work for Mattel.
mason,
I'm happy you noticed. The quotes, to me, are the most important part.
It was Atari that really changed my life. Starting with COMBAT. My brother and I played that till the wee morning hours and although it was simplistic. I never had so much fun in my life. That would be followed by Space Invaders. Asteroids, Adventure, which was the first game that gave me the sense I could explore a world in a game. I liked the Sword Quest series as well.
Seeing a TV ad for Atari. Going to store and seeing the box art for each game. Buying a game and taking it home and opening it up. Taking the cart out and putting it into your Atari. That was pure bliss when I was growing up.
Atari is my childhood. I love Nintendo as well, but I'm not the Nintendo generation. I'm the Atari generation. Atari forever!
We re-developed 2-3 years ago Intellivision cartridges as Keith acquired the rights to unreleased games and wanted to release them for the retro crowd.
The carts are not simple ROMs, but use a time multiplexed bus for address and data, and the Intellivision hardware is definitely odd...
We've also re-developed a 2600 clone, for a product that hasn't been released (distributor problem), so I can answer a lot of questions about the 2600 hardware and some of its history if you want to do a followup.
you can contact me at: my first name that you can see on this post @ retrogamesllc.com
>>box art for each game. Buying a game and taking it home
>>and opening it up. Taking the cart out and putting it into
>>your Atari. That was pure bliss when I was growing up.
Ryan,
That is exactly what I can't shake Atari from my mind. Somehow i want to recreate those moments, but it is very difficult these days.
-Steve