MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - Thoughts on the Atari 5200

> What's funny is in the AVGN clip he ordered a 5200 controller off eBay only to find
> it has a 2600 plug - I see that same joystick is still listed on eBay as a 5200
> joystick.
>
> At least he got a decent stick for his 2600, C64, and Genesis. I don't know if there
> was a 5200 redesign that changed the controller ports. But how can someone NOT
> actually check to see it would fit?
>
> And what was the deal with the touch-tone keypads on controllers at the time?
> Intellivision, Colecovision, 5200, and even much later the Jaguar!
>
> And what about that storage space in the back? I can sort of understand that with the
> Astrocade. I guess so it would match up well with the 8-track storage. But it seemed
> rather outdated with the 5200.
>
> --Bekki

Wow... that video sucked. So a ten minute video about how he didn't do any research on how to get a 25+ yr old system working, and since he couldn't get it working, it was a piece of shit. Nice.

I owned one. I loved it. Here's some facts to clear it up for the folks here:

The storage on the back was to keep your two controllers.
The original controllers suffered from a bad case of oxidation. I learned how to take care of mine: take it apart, and clean the cell membrane contacts with a pencil eraser. Good as new.
That Wico controller he bought is a 5200 controller. The original came with a Y-adapter, as the Wico didn't replace the keypad or S/P/R buttons. The Y-adapter plugged into the system; the two controllers plugged into the Y-adapter. Wico also made a keypad that replaced the other half, in which case you plugged that into the system, and the joystick into that keypad.
The keypad was used to control the different options for the game. Each game came with an overlay (e.g. see here: http://www.atariage.com/overlay_page.html?SystemID=5200&SoftwareID=2106&ItemTypeID=OVERLAY). Most cartridges had storage on the back of the cartridge to keep the overlay.
It did suck that there were no labels on the top of the cartridge. I solved that with a pack of blue Avery labels and a typewriter (remember... this was 1982).

CSB time... to buy my first PC, I sold my first Ataris (2600, 5200, games, and a Pong). In hindsight... a really STUPID idea. Anyway, it's how I got my first computer, and I was happy for the time being. Sold the whole package to a guy in Santa Monica who mainly just wanted the Pong so that he and his friends could watch it after they partied really hard... supposedly, it's a real trip.

About 5-6 years later, I go visit this video game store in North Hollywood that I go to every few months. They sell used games going all the way back to the 2600. In the one Atari case, I see all of my old game cartridges, still with the blue Avery labels (cue "It's a Small World" music).