Granted it’s been several decades, but I seem to recall that’s what the original had. Or maybe it’s just what my addled brain has added since everything from that era had fake wood grain including the wood.
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I have an original 2600, it has wood grain in the places this new model has it. My aunt and uncle’s Plymouth Reliant station wagon they bought new in '82 had wood grain panels, too! It was a thing. A dumb and kinda ugly thing, but definitely a thing. Looking back, the early 80’s were a pretty boring and phoned-in era of “design”. All my memories of that time have a sepia overlay because everything was beige or brown. 
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sold.
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Indeed, I was referring to the original Atari putting wood grain on the original product. Obviously I didn’t phrase that well since y’all thought I was talking about the remake.
It is just like the simulated wood grain panels on station wagons of the era. Maybe more for the parents who somehow thought that would look better in their living room.
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What company? The original, actual, Atari company hasn’t existed since 1998 when the last of the rights to the brand were sold to Hasbro. The OG company that people think of that made the 2600 and all those games stopped existing in 1984 at the first major acquisition where they pivoted mostly to branding exercises and the last gasps of the Atari ST computers.
Since then, a few dozen companies have called themselves “Atari” that are just random groups of investors that have nothing to do with anything the original company was or did.
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So much hate for something so misunderstood. The man who wrote 2600 Pac-Man, Todd Frye, happens to be a friend of mine. Anyone who thinks that port is bad doesn’t understand how wide the hardware gap is between the arcade machines and the VCS. That was port was considered absolutely, categorically, unquestionably impossible by everyone at the time. It was like running Crysis on a Casio watch. Nobody else would even attempt it. That Todd managed to build something that was fun and recognizable as the original game was a goddam technical miracle.
The public agreed. That game sold so many copies that Todd made so much money that he once abandoned a sportscar that broke down, took a cab to the dealership, and bought a new one (never give that much money to dumb 25 year olds). He was getting weekly royalty checks in the range of $250k. Also he used to literally climb the walls at Atari and once cracked his head open on a fire sprinkler, but that’s a story for another time.
So, you know… a little respect please.
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I hope I didn’t sound too disrespectful - I was more pointing out the wide gulf / lack of horsepower in the 2600. I can’t imagine how people coded entire games to fit in 4k of memory and made playable games.
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Um…how to say…the wood grain panels on cars were meant to invoke “woodies” that Boomers kinda-sorta vaguely recalled their parents driving around. It wasn’t random, it was phoned-in capitalism at it’s 80’s lamest. 
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Frye should know the criticism better than anyone, Pacman “home version” was critically disliked and is still viewed poorly today. It was riding off the success of the arcade version and the storm of early home video gaming that made it a success financially. This article even cited pac man in the same sentence as ET stating these two titles hurt Atari’s consumer confidence and was the beginning of the 1983 video game crash.
Of course this is no fault of Fry’s and I’m sure he could care less as he pays cash for sports cars while I’m casually complaining on a message board. The real problem was Atari. As you mentioned/alluded that company was a mess and for multiple different reasons.
Check out this announcement video… it straight up shows the arcade version, mentions the arcade version, uses art from the arcade version and gives no hint about “versions”. Atari was lying to children.
That is a terrible take and deeply at odds with reality. I dunno what flavour of internet points you’re to score by trashing my friend’s amazing work, but please stop.
Basically, yes. Wood veneer was the style of home TV and hi-fi equipment of the time, and Atari wanted it to fit in with your stereo and such. They actually originally thought it was a product for adults. It wasn’t until it took off with kids that Atari pivoted to marketing to them. Early arcade games like Computer Space and Pong were the domain of adults, so they assumed home video games would be too. It took a while for the marketing people to catch up to the fact that it was kids and teenagers who wanted this stuff.
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Tod Frye explains his design decisions. (should start about 43 minutes in)
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So under the hood, does this thing dump and then emulate cartridges? I’m now morbidly curious what they’re up to in there.
Looks awesome. I like the 7800 compatibility. (Bummer no 5200 but I know the carts are a different shape).
My only wish would be for RCA or coaxial output as well. I know the whole point is for modern TVs but atari really does look good on an old CRT.
Fortunately I already have a vintage 2600.
If you’re into this sort of thing I’d buy any cartridges on ebay now before this comes out and drives up the price. Ha. (I’m into it but I pretty much have all the games I ever wanted)
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There have been several mini atari releases. Of course not ones that you can plug the old carts into. They were more of the built in games variety. I do have a portable from a few years ago that has an SD slot and you can secretly load ROMs!
I meant mini Intellivision. The Amico is going to fail so hard if it ever comes out.
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I surely don’t know the reality. I wasn’t there.
What I do know is when pac man booted up my excitement was replaced with confusion and mounting disappointment. This was my first and lasting impression. This was my reality, and apparently not singular if you look around. The third paragraph on wiki talks about the criticism.
On a positive note I loved my Atari. Countless childhood hours happily spent. Mr Frye also worked on Asteroids?.. one of my faves and I still remember the day I flipped the score. I see he also worked with 3DO, another huge impactful gaming product in my life. I didn’t know who Mr Frye was before today and I’m glad to know more about one of the unknown heroes of my childhood. Cheers
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There is a thriving home brew community at the website atariage. They have made better versions of Pac-Man and even A version of the ET game with slight modifications to fix the most annoying problems with it (falling into holes too easily, ha). If you get a harmony cart you can load any rom on an SD card and play them on a vintage atari (and hopefully this new system too… I guess we’ll see if there are incompatible games when it comes out…)
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I was born in 77 and although now I can see that Pac-Man game was sub par, at the time I just accepted it. All the atari games looked cheaper than the arcade versions. Maybe it’s because I was a little kid and you don’t question things or have expectations that older kids and adults may have had… I do have a fond memory of my grandmother, who was in her 70s probably at the time being introduced by me to the atari pac-man game and loving it. This must have been the early 80s - definitley before NES came out. I’m guessing she never played the arcade version. Ha.
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Space invaders and asteroids were close enough to the originals that I assumed I was mostly playing the real thing, being a child I was completely ignorant of the tech involved. I didn’t know what was happening behind the curtain, I didn’t know there was even a curtain. I just thought the game was the game. The resolution and sound were different, but the core still felt the same.
And space invaders even had extra modes, like the game was getting better!
When pacman had a different maze and shapes and movements and colors I was unable to understand why, I just didn’t get the game I thought was being promised.
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