Distributor: Atari

Manufacturer: Atari

Released: 1986

Units Sold: N/K

RS: 3/2

Expect to pay: 30 GBP

List of games available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atari_7800_games
Best Fan Site:
www.atariage.com

General Info:

The Atari 7800 is a video game console released by Atari Corporation in June 1986. A test market release had occurred two years earlier under Atari Inc. The 7800 was designed to replace Atari Inc.'s unsuccessful Atari 5200 and later to re-establish Atari Corp.'s market supremacy against Nintendo and Sega. With this system, Atari Inc. addressed all the shortcomings of the Atari 5200: it had simple digital joysticks; it was almost fully backward-compatible with the Atari 2600; and it was affordable (originally priced at $140).
The Atari 7800 Prosystem was the first game system from Atari Inc. designed by an outside company, General Computer Corporation (GCC). The system had been designed in 1983 and 1984 with an intended mass market rollout at the end of 1984. The project was originally called the 3600 and then later renamed the 7800.
Several key factors influenced the design of the 7800. First, Atari had been facing mounting pressure from the Colecovision, which boasted graphics that more closely mirrored arcade games of the time than Atari’s reigning 2600 VCS system. Second, the Atari 5200 (the original intended successor to the Atari 2600 VCS) had been widely criticized for not being able to play Atari 2600 VCS games and for the poor quality of its analog joysticks. Finally, dropping prices of home computers like the Commodore 64 had caused many parents to believe that buying a home computer was a better investment because it provided more detailed game play and could be used for other purposes such as word processing.
Best selling game:

List the one best selling game on the system here and how many it sold.

Top 10 Must have games:

Xevious, Pacman, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr, Mario Bros, Tapper, Jinks, Impossible Mission,Joust, Double Dragon.

Key Accessories:

Technical Specs:

CPU: Custom 6502C

• Speed: 1.79 MHz, drops to 1.19 MHz when the TIA or RIOT chips are accessed
• (note: This is Atari's custom 6502 known as SALLY which can be halted to allow other devices to control the bus)

RAM: 4 KB (2 6116 2Kx8 RAM ICs)

ROM: built in 4 KB BIOS ROM, 48 KB Cartridge ROM space without bankswitching

Graphics: MARIA custom graphics controller

• 160x240 (160x288 PAL) resolution or 320x240/288 resolution
• 25 color palette out of 256 colors (16 hues * 16 luma), different graphics modes restricted the number of usable colors and the number of colors per sprite
• Direct Memory Access (DMA)
• Graphics clock: 7.16 MHz

I/O: Joystick and console switch IO handled byte 6532 RIOT and TIA

Ports: 2 joystick ports, 1 cartridge port, 1 expansion connector, power in, RF output

Sound: TIA video and sound chip, same as the 2600. Only the sound is used in 7800 games. Both video and sound are used in 2600 games.

• Optional POKEY sound chip on cartridge for improved sounds.

Technical Advice:

Comes with an awful controller.