Back to Table of Contents 1.2 DID YOU KNOW? The 5200 was originally conceived as Atari's answer to Mattel's Intellivision, NOT the Colecovision as many people think. As an example, the 5200's analog joystick was a response to Mattel touting its unit having 16 positions of movement compared to the 2600's eight. Atari's plan was to upstage the Intellivision in this area by creating an analog controller with 360 degrees of full motion control. The 5200 was created at a time when poor marketing and questionable company policy ran rampant within Atari. The 5200 controller was developed by an individual who had NEVER even played a single video game in his life! Response to the controllers from focus groups and clinics were poor, but the marketing arm stubbornly insisted on releasing the system with the "groundbreaking" elements intact. In addition, the controller was partially influenced by corporate policy where hardware designers and engineers were offered bonuses for creating designs that received patents. Not surprisingly, many engineers and designers developed hardware that were innovative for the sake of being "original", with complete disregard for functionality. The engineers were so adamant in their disapproval of the 5200's controllers that they sent a petition to the director of engineering in hopes that the non-centering joystick would not be released in its finished form. The wedge-shape design of the 5200 was influenced mainly by the 2700 (aka. "RC Stella"), a prototype remote-controlled 2600. Other 2700 design features, such as the side-mounted fire buttons and the non-self-centering joystick mechanism, carried over to the 5200 design as well. The Atari 3600 (aka. "Silvia") was originally planned as the successor to the 2600. Silvia's bizarre 10-bit chip set (similar to the Intellivision) was designed in 1978-79. One must remember that the shelf life of typical home videogame systems during this period was generally two years at most, and Atari did not, in its wildest dreams, foresee the 2600 becoming the awesome videogaming force that it eventually became. The 3600 was killed by the game programmers who complained that it was too difficult to program games for the machine (as if 2600 game development was any cakewalk). Code names had always been popular at Warner Atari. The VCS was internally referred to as "Stella," the 400 computer was "Candy," the 800 was "Coleen" and the 5200 was nicknamed "Pam." All of the aforementioned machines were named after well-endowed female employees who were working at Atari. The 5200 was unique in that Atari strongly considered using Pam as the actual name of the unit before changing it to "Video System X" and eventually deciding on 5200. Why? Because it would have been the abbreviation for "Personal Arcade Machine." Back to Table of Contents