half grown-up Commodore 64 kid, RC2014 enthusiast, Linux platform engineer and hobbyist retro coder (C / ASM / BASIC).
SysOp of telnet BBSes “Wintermute BBS” (wintermutebbs.ddns.net:23) and the infamous “RC-BOX BBS” (rc2014.ddns.net:2014), the world’s first and (currently) only #rc2014 based telnet BBS !!
@ajsadauskas @Stege @technology @videogames @retrogaming I get your point, but then: weren’t the Atari 400 and 600 aimed at the same target group?
EDIT: this is probably an example of Warner Communications loosing control over their product strategy
@Stege @ajsadauskas @technology @videogames @retrogaming well, Philips did the same with their Videopac G7000 - it was already the cheapest option for a keyboard, aside from having people build one themselves
@ajsadauskas @technology @videogames @retrogaming come to think of it: the same year that the addon was released, Tandy released the #CoCo2 for an initial retail price of $159 - to me this shows how quickly prices for components dropped and tech evolved while the fierce competition (at least in the US market) made prices drop every month.
… and yes, as we all know #JackTramiel played a big role in this effect …
@ajsadauskas @technology @videogames @retrogaming yup, that’s fair enough, thank you 👍
@ajsadauskas @technology @videogames @retrogaming
I’ve got one remark on this: the thing that this addon turned the 2600 into was way *below* 1982 #ZXSpectrum tech standards and specs in many ways. Just take a look and compare memory and screen resolution and you’ll see. Not to mention the rich BASIC functionality of Sinclair BASIC.
Also, that addon came too late in many ways to be profitable as some of the real computers of the time (see above) were less costy and easier to get than this rather limited piece of addon hardware.
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@ajsadauskas @Stege @technology @videogames @retrogaming which would have been much more then the $159 for a CoCo 2 or Timex 2000 in the same year.
Please don’t misunderstand me: I don’t say that you are wrong or that I disagree with you - but if Atari really thought this was a good idea at the time, they could as well have saved the resources and burn the money right away …