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  Top: North American 7800 Bottom: European 7800 | |
| Developer | General Computer Corporation |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Atari, Inc. Atari Corporation |
| Type | Home video game console |
| Generation | Third |
| Release date | |
| Introductory price | US$140 (equivalent to $400 in 2024) |
| Discontinued | January 1, 1992[2] |
| Media | ROM cartridge |
| CPU | Atari SALLY @ 1.19-1.79MHz |
| Memory | 4 KBRAM 4 KBBIOSROM 48 KB cartridge ROM space |
| Display | 160×240, 320×240 (288 vertical forPAL), 25 colors out of 256 |
| Graphics | MARIA custom chip @ 7.16 MHz |
| Best-selling game | Pole Position II (pack-in)[3] |
| Backward compatibility | Atari 2600 |
| Predecessor | Atari 5200 |
| Successor | Atari Panther (canceled) Atari XEGS |
TheAtari 7800 ProSystem, or simply theAtari 7800, is ahome video game console officially released byAtari Corporation in 1986 as the successor to both theAtari 2600 andAtari 5200.[4] It can run almost all Atari 2600 cartridges, making it the first ever video game console withbackward compatibility. It shipped with a two button controller instead of the 2600-standardCX40, and withPole Position II as the pack-in game. The European model has a gamepad instead of a joystick. Most of the early releases for the system are ports of 1981–1983arcade video games. The final wave of 7800 cartridges is closer in style to what was available on other late 1980s consoles, such asScrapyard Dog andMidnight Mutants.
Designed byGeneral Computer Corporation, the 7800 has graphics hardware similar to early 1980s arcade video games and is a significant improvement over Atari's previous consoles. It uses the sameTelevision Interface Adaptor chip that launched with the Atari VCS in 1977 to generate two-channel audio. In an effort to prevent the flood of poor quality games that contributed to thevideo game crash of 1983, cartridges had to bedigitally signed by Atari.
The Atari 7800 was first announced byAtari, Inc. on May 21, 1984,[5][6] but a general release was shelved until May 1986 due to the sale of the company.[7] Atari Corporation dropped support for the 7800, along with the 2600 andAtari 8-bit computers, on January 1, 1992.[2]
The Atari 7800 ProSystem was the first console fromAtari, Inc. designed by an outside company:General Computer Corporation.[8] It was developed in 1983–84 with an intended mass market rollout in June 1984, but was canceled after the sale of the company toTramel Technology Ltd on July 2, 1984. The project was originally called the Atari 3600.[9]
With a background in creating arcade games such asFood Fight, GCC designed the new system with a graphics architecture similar to arcade machines of the time. The CPU is a slightly customized6502 processor, the Atari SALLY,[10] running at 1.79 MHz. By some measures the 7800 is more powerful, and by others less, than the 1983Nintendo Entertainment System.[11] It uses the 2600'sTelevision Interface Adaptor chip, with the same restrictions, for generating two channels of audio.
The 7800 was announced on May 21, 1984.[5] Thirteen games were announced for the system's launch:Ms. Pac-Man,Pole Position II,Centipede,Joust,Dig Dug,Nile Flyer[12] (eventually released asDesert Falcon),Robotron: 2084,Galaga,Food Fight,Ballblazer,Rescue on Fractalus! (later canceled),[13]Track & Field, andXevious. It was a significant technological leap over theAtari 2600 andAtari 5200.
On July 2, 1984,Warner Communications sold Atari's Consumer Division toJack Tramiel.[14] All projects were halted during an initial evaluation period. GCC had not been paid for their development of the 7800, and Warner and Tramiel fought over who was accountable. In May 1985, Tramiel relented and paid GCC. This led to additional negotiations regarding the launch titles GCC had developed, then an effort to find someone to lead their new video game division, which was completed in November 1985.[15] The original production run of the Atari 7800 languished in warehouses until it was introduced in January 1986.
The console was released nationwide in May 1986 for $79.95[1][16] with games intended for the 7800's debut in 1984.[17] It was aided by a marketing campaign with a budget in the "low millions" according to Atari Corporation officials. This was substantially less than the $9 million spent bySega and the $16 million spent byNintendo.[18] The keyboard and high score cartridge planned by Warner were cancelled. The 7800 addressed many of the most common complaints with the preceding 5200, including a smaller size, built-in backward compatibility, and an improved controller design.
In February 1987,Computer Entertainer reported that 100,000 Atari 7800 consoles had been sold in the United States, including those which had been warehoused since 1984.[1][19] This was less than theMaster System's 125,000 and the NES's 1.1 million.[1] Games were slowly released:Galaga in August, followed byXevious in November.[19] By the end of 1986, the 7800 had 10 games, compared to Sega's 20 and Nintendo's 36.[1] Atari would sell over 1 million 7800 consoles by June 1988.[20]
The Atari 7800 was released in the UK in September 1989 at the price of £69.95. It was supplied with two joypad controllers.[21]
On January 1, 1992, Atari Corporation announced the end of production and support for the 7800, 2600, and the 8-bit computer family including theAtari XEGS. At least one game, an unreleased port ofToki, was worked on past this date.[22] By the time of the discontinuation, the Nintendo Entertainment System controlled 80% of the North American market while Atari had 12%.[23] In Europe, last stocks of the 7800 were sold until summer/fall of 1995.[24]
Retro Gamer magazine issue 132 reported that according to Atari UK Marketing Manager Darryl Still, "it was very well stocked by European retail; although it never got the consumer traction that the 2600 did, I remember we used to sell a lot of units through mail order catalogues and in the less affluent areas".[25]
Graphics are generated by the custom MARIA chip, which uses an approach common in contemporary arcadesystem boards[32] and is different from othersecond andthird generation consoles. Instead of a limited number of hardware sprites, MARIA treats everything as a sprite described in a series ofdisplay lists. Each display list contains pointers to graphics data and color and positioning information.
MARIA supports a palette of 256 colors and graphics modes which are either 160 pixels wide or 320 pixels wide. While the 320 pixel modes theoretically enable the 7800 to create games at higher resolution than the 256 pixel wide graphics found in theNintendo Entertainment System andMaster System, the processing demands of MARIA result in most games using the 160 pixel mode.[citation needed]
Each sprite can have from 1 to 12 colors, with 3 colors plus transparency being the most common. In this format, the sprite references one of 8 palettes, where each palette holds 3 colors. The background (visible when not covered by other objects) can also be assigned a color. In total, 25 colors can appear on ascan line.[36]
The graphics resolution, color palettes, and background color can be adjusted between scan lines.[36]
The 7800 uses the TIA chip for two channel audio, the same chip used in the 1977 Atari VCS, and the sound is of the same quality as that system. To compensate, GCC's engineers allowed games to include aPOKEY audio chip in the cartridge. Only two official releases from Atari do this:Ballblazer andCommando.
GCC planned to develop a more advanced sound chip, GUMBY, which could also be used in 7800 cartridges.[37] This project was cancelled when Atari was sold to Jack Tramiel.
In response to the large number of low quality, third party games released for the Atari 2600—a contributing factor to thevideo game crash of 1983—Atari required that cartridges for the 7800 be digitally signed. When a cartridge is inserted into the system, the BIOS generates a signature of the cartridge ROM and compares it to the one stored on the cartridge. If they match, the console operates in 7800 mode, granting the game access to MARIA and other features, otherwise the console operates as a 2600. This digital signature code is not present in PAL 7800s, which use variousheuristics to detect 2600 cartridges, due to export restrictions.
The 7800's compatibility with the Atari 2600 is made possible by including many of the same chips used in the 2600. When playing an Atari 2600 game, the 7800 uses a Television Interface Adaptor chip to generate graphics and sound. The processor is slowed to 1.19 MHz, to mirror the performance of the 2600's6507 chip. RAM is limited to 128 bytes and cartridge data is accessed in 4K blocks.
When in 7800 mode (signified by the appearance of the full-screen Atari logo), the graphics are generated entirely by the MARIAgraphics processing unit. All system RAM is available and cartridge data is accessed in larger 48K blocks. The system's SALLY 6502 runs at its normal 1.79 MHz. The 2600 chips are used to generate sound and to provide the interfaces to the controllers and console switches.
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The Atari 7800 came bundled with the Atari Pro-Line Joystick, a two-button controller with ajoystick for movement. The Pro-Line was developed for the 2600 and advertised in 1983,[40] but delayed until Atari proceeded with the 7800. The right fire button only works as a separate fire button for certain 7800 games; otherwise, it duplicates the left fire button, allowing either button to be used for 2600 games. While physically compatible, the 7800's controllers do not work with theMaster System, and Sega's controllers are unable to use the 7800's two-button mode.
In response to ergonomic issues with the Pro-Line controllers, Atari released a joypad controller, similar in style to those on Nintendo and Sega systems, with the European 7800.[41] It was not available in the United States.
TheXG-1 light gun, bundled with theAtari XEGS and also sold separately, is compatible with the 7800. Atari released five 7800 light gun games:Alien Brigade,Barnyard Blaster,Crossbow,Meltdown, andSentinel.
After the acquisition of the Atari Consumer Division byJack Tramiel in 1984, several expansion options for the system were cancelled:
While the system can play the over 400 games for the Atari 2600, there were only 59 official releases for the 7800. The lineup emphasized high-quality versions of games from thegolden age of arcade video games.[45]Pole Position II,Dig Dug, andGalaga, by the time of the 1986 launch, were three, four, and five years old, respectively. A raster graphics version of 1979'sAsteroids was released in 1987. In 1988, Atari published a conversion of Nintendo'sDonkey Kong, seven years after the original arcade game and five years after theAtari 8-bit computer cartridge. Atari also marketed a line of games called "Super Games" which were arcade and computer games previously not playable on a home console such asOne-On-One Basketball andImpossible Mission.[46]
Eleven games were developed and sold by three third-party companies under their own labels (Absolute Entertainment,Activision, andFroggo) with the rest published by Atari Corporation. Most of the games from Atari were developed by outside companies under contract.[47]
Some NES games were developed by companies who had licensed their title from a different arcade manufacturer. While the creator of the NES version would be restricted from making a competitive version of an NES game, the original arcade copyright holder was not precluded from licensing out rights for a home version of an arcade game to multiple systems. Through this loophole, Atari 7800 conversions ofMario Bros.,Double Dragon,Commando,Rampage,Xenophobe,Ikari Warriors, andKung-Fu Master were licensed and developed.[citation needed]
A final batch of games was released by Atari in 1990:Alien Brigade,Basketbrawl,Fatal Run,Meltdown,Midnight Mutants,Motor Psycho,Ninja Golf,Planet Smashers, andScrapyard Dog.Scrapyard Dog was later released for theAtari Lynx.
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In 2004, theInfogrames-owned version ofAtari released theAtari Flashback console. It resembles a miniature Atari 7800 and has five 7800 and fifteen 2600 games built in. Built using theNES-On-A-Chip hardware instead of recreating the Atari 7800 hardware, it was criticized for failing to properly replicate the actual gaming experience. A subsequent 7800 project was cancelled after prototypes were made.[48]
The digital signature long prevented aftermarket games from being developed. The signing software was eventually found and released at Classic Gaming Expo in 2001.[49]Several new Atari 7800 games such asBeef Drop,B*nQ,Combat 1990,CrazyBrix,Failsafe, andSanta Simon have been released.[citation needed].
In July 2009, thesource code to 13 games, the operating system, andAtari ST-hosted development tools, were released.[50] Commentedassembly language source code was made available forCentipede,Commando,Crossbow,Desert Falcon,Dig Dug,Food Fight,Galaga,Hat Trick,Joust,Ms. Pac-Man,SuperStunt Cycle,Robotron: 2084, andXevious.[51]
On November 29, 2024,Atari andPlaion released theAtari 7800+, amicroconsole designed as a smaller-scale replica of the 7800, specifically the European model.[52] It includes support for physical cartridges of both the Atari 2600 and 7800 via emulation.[53][54] It is effectively a variant of theAtari 2600+, which was introduced in 2023.[55]
named SALLY by Atari engineers, but [support documents call it] "6502 (Modified)", "6502 Modified", "Custom 6502", or "6502C". [..] SALLY 6502 chips are never marked "6502C" but, other than the UMC UM6502I, always [marked] C014806. [..] [Other] chips marked "6502C" [..] are NOT the Atari "6502C" but [standard 6502] certified for 4MHz
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