Stella is to 2600 as ***** is to 5200

[Nature Boy]

What code name did Atari use for the 5200? I know they had one for the 7800 as well - did they use the same convention for the 8-bits (receptionist names)?

[rsiddall]

PAM...5200 (Personal Arcade Machine)

[oesiii]

Pam for the 5200 is right but it was probably named for a buxom secretary at Atari.

Atari 400 - Candy
Atari 800 - Colleen
2600 - Stella
5200 - Pam
7800 - Maria


Actually I don't think Stella was a person but rather one of the guys' bike

[Sniderman]

Yup, you're right:

Stella - The in-house name for the Atari VCS while it was in development. Named after a bicycle owned by one of the Atari 2600's creators, Joe Decuir (programmer of Combat and one of the designers of the 2600 itself).

[Tempest]

Did they ever say where the 2600 came from? I've heard all kinds of rumors, but never any concrete answers.

Tempest

[Nature Boy]

Did they ever say where the 2600 came from? I've heard all kinds of rumors, but never any concrete answers.

I definitely thought it was a person and not the bike. Maybe I was thinking of Candy though.

Did they do the same thing with the Jag and Lynx? And did they bother changing the names for the XL or XE line or did they stick with Candy and Colleen? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?

[Tempest]

Tempest wrote:
Did they ever say where the 2600 came from? I've heard all kinds of rumors, but never any concrete answers.


I definitely thought it was a person and not the bike. Maybe I was thinking of Candy though.

Nope Stella was a bike.
I'm curious as to where the 2600 product number came from.

Did they do the same thing with the Jag and Lynx? And did they bother changing the names for the XL or XE line or did they stick with Candy and Colleen? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?

The Jaguar was the sucessor to the Panther which died in development. I don't know where the cat names came from, but I think they stopped using womens names by then as the processors were nicknamed Tom and Jerry.

The XL and XE had different names. The 1450XL was 'Dynasty', the 800XL-F was Rose, the 800XL-CR was Kerri, the 600 I think was "Liz".

Tempest

[ManekiNeko]

"Pam for the 5200 is right but it was probably named for a buxom secretary at Atari. "

I heard the Jaguar was codenamed "Boobies" shortly before it came out.

JR

[jjessop]

PAM (the 5200) was named after Mike Moone's adorable secretary Pam Araby. Mike was the President of the consumer games division at the time.

We did attempt to get the name to stay in the form of Personal Arcade Machine but marketing said no names, only numbers could be used to denote products. The flawed theory was that quality products like BMW and Mercedes never had names but model numbers. Of course they forgot people thought they were high quality because......they were, and model numbers had nothing to do with it. This is also why the "Video Computer System" model #CX-2600 just became the Atari "2600" later.

Jerry

[Videogamerdaryll]

So that's why the Arcadia Supercharger's CD book says
"Stella Gets a New Brain!"Now I understand..

[kainemaxwell]

So that's how the Stella 2600 emu got it's name. Pretty cool.

[Aswald]

PAM (the 5200) was named after Mike Moone's adorable secretary Pam Araby. Mike was the President of the consumer games division at the time.

We did attempt to get the name to stay in the form of Personal Arcade Machine but marketing said no names, only numbers could be used to denote products. The flawed theory was that quality products like BMW and Mercedes never had names but model numbers. Of course they forgot people thought they were high quality because......they were, and model numbers had nothing to do with it. This is also why the "Video Computer System" model #CX-2600 just became the Atari "2600" later.

Jerry

Note comment about marketers.

The Crash of 1984: I rest my Case Against The "Glut."

[CrazyImpmon]

I don't think Atari had a different name for Lynx but I believe Epyx called it Handy before Atari decided to get the Lynx.

The Jaguar CD had to be called Toilet Seat at one time.