Atari Releasing New Cartridge For Its 46-Year-Old 2600 Console

Atari just announced preorders for a physical cartridge for the company's once-ubiquitous 2600 console. From a report: A gaming console that counts 1982 as its most successful year is releasing another new cartridge in the year 2023. The game-in-question is called Save Mary and was actually developed during the console's golden years, before being shelved when the 2600 went the way of the dodo. Save Mary was in development for two whole years, which is a lifetime in the generation of gaming that preceded the NES. The normal timeframe to produce a game back then was six to nine months, with some notorious titles taking just five or six weeks. Save Mary was originally developed by veteran Atari staffer Tod Frye, the guy behind the 2600 version of Pac-Man and the Swordquest series.

What happened?

[The Grim Reefer]

The normal timeframe to produce a game back then was six to nine months, with some notorious titles taking just five or six weeks.

Now it's years to get to the shelf in beta release at best and another year or three until there are enough updates to qualify as something that should be released.

Re: What happened?

[algaeman]

The Atari 2600 had 128 bytes of RAM, and the original cartridges were 4K.

Re: What happened?

[TheGratefulNet]

I'm not sure this is true; they didn't even have 1080p back then!

Re:

[Osgeld]

yea and at first you might have compiled that 4k on a notepad with a pencil, lets not forget the sheer witchcraft it took to get those games running on a programmable pong machine

1 playfield, 2 players, and 2 balls, kind of like an hour at your moms house... go make blazing lasers with that, we will wait :p

Re:

[Smidge204]

To be fair, it's probably not going to take years to fill a 2KB or 4KB ROM...

=Smidge=

Re:What happened?

[Waffle Iron]

To be fair, it's probably not going to take years to fill a 2KB or 4KB ROM...

=Smidge=

Writing the game doesn't take that long.

What takes almost all the time is optimizing the Javascript-based web framework in which the game is coded until it fits into that memory footprint.

Re:

[Neuroelectronic]

1) What

Re:

[Fly Swatter]

Bloat. From hardware to software to number of developers.

Also usually by the time the artists think they are almost done, the engine coders have rebuilt the underlying engine (again).

In anticipation

[kamapuaa]

Atari (or the company that bought its remains, really) is releasing the 2600+, which takes cartridges, and on the outside just looks like a well-built 2600 from 40 years ago. It also plays 7800 games, and then instead of having built in games like the corny Atari consoles of the last decade, comes with a cartridge with 10 games built into it.

For total nerds who have a bunch of cartridges in the back of some closet (full disclosure: I am one of those nerds) it seems like a must-have.

Re:In anticipation

[Guspaz]

The 2600+ is an ARM-based software emulation box that just dumps roms from cartridges (it doesn't execute directly off them) and isn't the same size as an original 2600 (it's smaller). It's basically just an Atari Flashback with a nicer case and a cartridge slot sold for twice the price.

Re:In anticipation

[darkain]

Yup, 100% this. It is simply an emulator with tons of known compatibility issues.

For the price, even the lowest of end FPGAs would have worked, and been flawless. But instead, they went the half-assed route for a quick buck and that's it.

Re:

[kamapuaa]

Oh, that's too bad. Is there a better option if you have a bunch of 2600 and 7800 cartridges lying around?

Re:

[Guspaz]

The trick is the cartridges. With the caveat that I'm not an expert on the 2600/7800 specifically, there are good FPGA implementations of the 2600 and 7800 (like on the MiSTer and Analogue Pocket), but not in the polished retail product form like there is for the NES, SNES, Genesis, etc. So if you want to use cartridges, unfortunately as far as I know the simplest approach (while still being authentic) is going to be to do an s-video mod to an original 7800 and connect that to something like a RetroTINK 2X

Great Game

[Tempest_2084]

I found a prototype for this back in the late 90's and then an earlier version after that. It's a great game that should have been released as a swan song to a great console. There were a number of good games that were 100% completed that never got released towards the end, and a few that probably shouldn't have (Ikari Warriors anyone?).

I have a write up about the game on my webpage from back when I found my copy: http://www.atariprotos.com/260... [atariprotos.com]

That's cute, but it's been on other Atari products

[Spyrus]

Save Mary is on at least one Atari Flashback plug-n-play unit, including the Flashback 2 which was a 2600-on-a-chip rather than emulation. It was also included in the software collection Atari Flashback Collection for Switch, Playstation, and Xbox. Only the hardest of die-hard fans are going to spring for a $50 cartridge in 2023, but if you're curious about he game, there are plenty of other ways to play it.

Refresh copyright and patents

[La Gris]

It also prevents the hardware design for the cartridge to fall in the public domain and prevents 3rd-parties from selling compatible console emulator hardware capable of operating Atari's cartridges.

I think it's a carefully considered move to refresh licenses and copyrights. Cartridge design, technical operation can be marked as still in use by the Atari company, so it prevent 3rd-parties from being able to create compatible products alternatives for a few more decades.