"New" Atari console? Not quite... this was new back in the springtime.
FYI, I wrote about it in the May 30 issue of Computer Collector Newsletter. Here's an excerpt:
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Six months ago, just before the 2004 winter holidays, we published a head-to-head review of the Commodore 64 DTV joystick vs. the Atari Flashback console. Both systems had advantages and disadvantages, and we declared the C64 as our winner.
Curt Vendel of
http://www.atarimuseum.com sent us an email sooon
after: "I thought your review was exceptionally fair and I would've voted the C64DTV stick the winner as well..." The C64DTV, he noted, used original Commodore software running on a field programmable gate array, while the Flashback used basically a Nintendo chip "pretending to be a 2600/7800." Curt's team had just a few months to build it.
Now everything's changed. CCN visited Curt's house to see prototypes of Atari Flashback 2.0, built with the luxury of 10 months' time, and with a Xilinx FPGA inside - the system he wanted to ship last year.
The new version, available in mid-July, closely resembles a real 2600 in size and materials, unlike last year's Flashback which looked like an obvious 7800 fake. The only tell-tale signs of the new unit are red and orange buttons where the metal toggle switches were on real 2600 units. The new CX40B joysticks are a more major improvement. They're nearly identical copies of the original CX40 models, and are fully compatible with original consoles, while original Atari game controllers are compatible with FB2 as well (yes, even paddles and trackballs). The actual stick of the CX40B is better than original, built of strong black plastic with a rubber base cover, instead of a simple tube covered with rubber as in the 1970s.
This time, there are 40 games instead of 20, and there are two hidden games, accessed by a specific controller action from the main menu.
Curt didn't reveal the action, what fun would that be? He did show us how hackers can attach a real cartridge port, available from sites like
http://www.best-electronics-ca.com and
http://www.myatari.com - all you have to do is cut a couple of well-defined circuit traces and install a toggle switch instead, with one set of wires going to the cartridge slot. It looked so easy that even we can do it.
Another improvement is the documentation. The original Flashback had a nice, colorful manual, and this one promises to be as good, with the addition of a much more detailed HTML manual of about 90 pages available online. So what's it all cost? The price is $29.99 ($10 less than the original Flashback price), and it will be at Walmart first, followed by other department stores and game shops.
Now, if you know Curt, you also know that he always sees more room for improvement. The day of our visit, he was cleaning the garage out in preparation for a second-floor addition, installing a fire pit in his patio, and - deep inside his brain - planning for Flashback 3.0.
Whether FB3 will ever happen is a mystery that only time (and sales) will determine. There is not yet any committment from Atari, he emphasized. But the chip is mostly laid out, with features like a USB- to-PC connection (online gaming?), a media port (download new games?), and the possibility of having Atari 800 aspects inside, just as the
C64 DTV has a real C64 inside, the master explained.
Still prefer the C64 DTV? There is a 2.0 version of that being planned as well. Jeri Ellsworth pointed out to us that someone "leaked" the programming manual to
http://www.dtvhacking.info 
