Atari 7800
- Manufacturer
- Atari
- Production
- 1986–1992
- Generation
- Gen 3
- Type
- Home
- Region
- US
- Launch price
- $79
- Units sold
- 3.8M
About Atari 7800
The Atari 7800 ProSystem, or simply the Atari 7800, is a home video game console released by Atari Corporation in May 1986 as the successor to both the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200. It can run almost all Atari 2600 cartridges, making it the first console with backward compatibility. It shipped with a two button controller, instead of the 2600-standard Atari CX40 joystick, and with Pole Position II as the pack-in game. The European model has a gamepad instead of a joystick. Most of the early releases for the system are ports of 1981–1983 arcade video games. The final wave of 7800 cartridges is closer in style to what was available on other late 1980s consoles, such as Scrapyard Dog and Midnight Mutants.
Source: Wikipedia (text under CC BY-SA 4.0).
Library & collector facts
59licensed games
- North America: 59
Lineage
Pricing
Launch price (1986)
- 🇺🇸 USD
- $79
Launch titles & exclusives
Pole Position II · Ms. Pac-Man · Centipede · Joust · Galaga · Asteroids · Robotron: 2084 · Dig Dug · Food Fight
Pole Position II
Food Fight · Ninja Golf · Scrapyard Dog · Mat Mania Challenge · Tower Toppler · Midnight Mutants — modest 59-game library, mostly arcade ports
Motor Psycho / Tower Toppler (~1990) were among the last licensed releases
Tank Command (very limited print, ~$500+ CIB); Sentinel (~$200 CIB); homebrew titles like Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest command premiums
Hardware specs
- Cpu
- Atari SALLY @ 1.19-1.79 MHz
- Gpu
- MARIA custom chip @ 7.16 MHz
- Ram
- 4 KB RAM on board, 4 KB BIOS ROM (NTSC), 16 KB BIOS + Game ROM (PAL), 48 KB General Purpose Space (ROM, RAM, etc.) accessible at once
- Display Output
- 160×240, 320×240 (288 vertical for PAL), 7, 9, or 25 colors out of 256 (Depending on the mode)
Hardware revisions
- Original 7800 (1986)(minor cost-reduction revisions only)
never widely sold in Europe
⚠ never released in Japan; built-in 2600 backward compatibility was a flagship feature
Launch colorways & special editions
- None
Modding scene
- Difficulty
- soft-mod
- Custom firmware
- N/A; modern flashcarts: Concerto, Dragonfly
Reception & legacy
Lukewarm — designed in 1984 but shelved during Atari Corp's sale from Warner to Jack Tramiel; finally launched 1986 already obsolete against the NES
2-year delay killed launch momentum; Atari Corp under Tramiel barely marketed the console, preferring to push the Atari ST computer line
Final dedicated Atari 8-bit-class console; remembered for arcade-quality ports and 2600 backward compatibility but couldn't compete with Nintendo's licensing-driven NES strategy
References
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