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RETRO
DECEMBER 2019|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE 382
RETRO
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telecommunications part,Ataritel, withTramiel
being allowedto buy amillion Warner shares
at $22 each. Analysts suggestedWarner had
given Atari awa yint he hopeTramiel would
turn it around, butTramiel went onto hammer
down the payments owedto Warner and also
brought his sons on board, withAtari’s
fortunes rising and Commodore staff poached.
Atari stalwarts were frightened. Some
threatenedto quit, having heard stories from
others at Commodore (andof businesses
stung by Tramiel’s penchantfordelaying
paying suppliersforsol ong, many almost
went to the wall).
“I love cutting waste,”Tramiel said, as 1,050
of the 1,200 US staff were axed.Across the
world, Atari’s 5,000 employees became 1,500,
but it nevertheless lookedto sell more than
500,000 800XLsover the Christmas season
to put it back in the black, withfactories in
Taiwan and Ireland churning them out.
ALL SYSTEMS GO
Tramiel then orderedarejig of the Atari line
but, more importantly,heh ad his engineers
design anew personal computer in less than a
year –atask that also included creatinganew
operating system. This would become the
Atari 520SThome computer running The
OperatingSystem (TOS), which wasoften
dubbed theTramiel OperatingSystem, as well
as the Mac-like Graphics Environment
Manager (GEM), which was licensed from
Digital Research. The computer went up
against Commodore’s Amiga, with the
similarities between the two prompting
writs that were later settled.
Based on the Motorola 68000 CPU–the
same as the Amiga and the Apple Mac–the
Atari 520STwas dubbed the Jackintoshby the
press, and it did well in Europe thanksto its
low cost and MIDI capabilities. As the first
independent titles already
announced. Find out moreby
visitingevercade.co. uk.
VIEWAWEBSITE
HOSTED ONA
30-YEAR-OLD MAC
The World WideWebwas
inventedby Tim Berners-Lee in
1989,but couldacomputer
released in that year be usedto
host awebsitetoday?
It was aquestion sales
engineer HuxleyDunsany asked
of his Macintosh SE/30 running
MacOS7.5.5. And the
answer?Well, yes and
no –for while it does
indeed host and serve
the sit e, (rhyal.com,
the nameof his son),
it has neededafew
modifications in
order to do so.
Dunsany explains
that he has upgraded
the machine with a
custom 32-bit ROM
and that the 2MBof RAM and
80MB hard drive have been
replaced with 68MBof RAM
and a4GB solid-statedrive.
Ethernet capabilities have
also been added.
The resulting siteiss imple.
It containsadithered GIF
image along withtext and a
guestbook, and it goesoffline
when visitor numbers exceed
1,000, forcing areboot. Even so,
it’s provento be apopular
curiosity.Maybe someone will
try withaDragon 32 next.
NEWGAMING
HANDHELDCOMPETING
WITH MINI
RE-RELEASES
Although there are many
retro-orientated handheld
consolesonthemarket(together
with agood numberof DIY jobs
that useaRaspberry Pi), the
forthcoming Evercade device
looks promising, not least
because it supports physical
media and has the backingof
some big-name publishers.
It looks setto offer officially
licensed classic 8-bit and
16-bit games such as Earthworm
Jim, Switchblade,Centipede and
Pac-Man from the likesof Atari,
Namco,Interpla y, Piko,Mega
Cat Studios and Data East.
Sold on compilation cartridges,
the games will run ona4.3in
screen, although it will also be
possibleto hook upto aTVv ia
an HDMI connection and enjoy
HD up-scaling.
Nine cartridgesof between
six and 20 games will beavailable
at launch in March 2020 at a
cost of £15 each, with the
handheld itself priced at £60.
The console–which comes in
black or white–will also have a
built-in rechargeable
battery lasting up
to fo ur hours and
adedicated
game-save button.
What’s more,
Evercade is
hopingto attract
indie developers
with some
whi
bui
wit
⬆Jack Tramiel wantedalow-cost colour computer
that could be connectedto atelevision, and it
resulted in the VIC-20
