Atari 7800

The 7800 was announced on May 21, 1984.[4] Thirteen games were announced for the system's launch: Ms. Pac-Man, Pole Position II, Centipede, Joust, Dig Dug, Nile Flyer[12] (eventually released as Desert Falcon), Robotron: 2084, Galaga, Food Fight, Ballblazer, Rescue on Fractalus! (later canceled),[13] Track & Field, and Xevious.

On July 2, 1984, Warner Communications sold Atari's Consumer Division to Jack 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] It launched with titles intended for the 7800's debut in 1984[17] and 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 by Sega and the $16 million spent by Nintendo.[18] The keyboard and high score cartridge planned by Warner were cancelled.

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 the Master System's 125,000 and the NES's 1.1 million.[1] A complaint from owners in 1986 was the slow release of games. Galaga in August was followed by Xevious 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]

On January 1, 1992, Atari Corporation announced the end of production and support for the 7800, 2600, and the 8-bit computer family including the Atari XEGS. At least one game, an unreleased port of Toki, was worked on past this date.[21] By the time of the discontinuation, the Nintendo Entertainment System controlled 80% of the North American market while Atari had 12%.[22] In Europe, last stocks of the 7800 were sold until summer/fall of 1995.[23]

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".[24]

Graphics are generated by the custom MARIA chip, which uses an approach common in contemporary arcade system boards[31] and is different from other second and third generation consoles. Instead of a limited number of hardware sprites, MARIA treats everything as a sprite described in a series of display 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 the Nintendo Entertainment System and Master System, the processing demands of MARIA result in most games using the 160 pixel mode.

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 a scan line.[34]

The graphics resolution, color palettes, and background color can be adjusted between scan lines.[34] This can be used to render high resolution text in one area of the screen, while displaying more colorful graphics at lower resolution in the gameplay area.

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 a POKEY audio chip in the cartridge. Only Ballblazer and Commando do this.

GCC planned to make a low-cost, high performance sound chip, GUMBY, which could also be placed in 7800 cartridges to enhance its sound capabilities further. This project was cancelled when Atari was sold to Jack Tramiel.

Following the large number of low quality, third party games for the Atari 2600, 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 various heuristics 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's 6507 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 MARIA graphics 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.

• Initial version: two joystick ports on lower front panel. Side expansion port for upgrades and add-ons. Bundled with two CX24 Pro-Line joysticks, AC adapter, switchbox, RCA connecting cable, and Pole Position II cartridge.
• Second revision: Slightly revised motherboard. Expansion port connector removed[35] from motherboard but is still etched. Shell has indentation of where expansion port was to be.
• Third revision: Same as above but with only a small blemish on the shell where the expansion port was.[36]

After the acquisition of the Atari Consumer Division by Jack Tramiel in 1984, several expansion options for the system were cancelled:

• The High Score Cartridge was designed to save high scores for up to 65 separate games.[39] The cartridge was intended as a pass-through device, similar to the later Game Genie. Nine games were programmed to support the cartridge.
• The expansion port, to allow for the addition of a planned computer keyboard and connection to laserdisc players and other peripherals, was removed in the second and third revisions of the 7800.[40]
• A dual joystick holder was designed for Robotron: 2084 and future games like Battlezone, but not produced.[41]

In 2004, the Infogrames-owned version of Atari released the Atari Flashback console. It resembles a miniature Atari 7800 and has five 7800 and fifteen 2600 games built-in. Built using the NES-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.[45]

The digital signature long prevented aftermarket games from being developed. The signing software was eventually found and released at Classic Gaming Expo in 2001.[46] Several new Atari 7800 games such as Beef Drop, B*nQ, Combat 1990, CrazyBrix, Failsafe, and Santa Simon have been released..

The source code for 13 games, the operating system, and the development tools which run on the Atari ST were discovered in a dumpster behind the Atari building in Sunnyvale, California.[47] Commented assembly language source code was made available for Centipede, Commando, Crossbow, Desert Falcon, Dig Dug, Food Fight, Galaga, Hat Trick, Joust, Ms. Pac-Man, Super Stunt Cycle, Robotron: 2084, and Xevious.[48]