Slide Show

Name:	Slide Show
Company:	Atari
Model #:	N/A
Programmer:	Unknown
Year:	1984
Released?	No
Notes:	Found in 2025

Slide Show is a previously unknown tech demo that was found in a storage unit that was purchased in an auction in 2025.  The three prototypes were quietly sold on Ebay along with three prototypes for Touch Pad Game and several other 5200 prototypes.  This storage unit most likely belonged to a former Atari programmer, although their name is currently unknown.  As the name implies, Slide Show is simply a static screen demo.  The user can move the mouse cursor around the screen, but that appears to be the only interaction possible.  Given the size of the prototypes (24K), there may be more than one picture on each prototype but this is just a hypothesis.  It is believed that Slide Show was part of the 5200 Touch Tablet (a CX77 Touch Tablet adapter for use on the 5200), although no such device has yet to be found. 

There are three different Slide Show prototypes:

Slide Show 1

This prototype shows what appears to be an insect themed game.  The player would have most likely used the touch tablet to draw a line to shoot flies or moths as they flew around the screen.  There is a score counter, timer, and lives counter displayed at the top of the screen.  This concept is very similar to the gameplay from the Touch Pad Game prototype.

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Slide Show 3

This prototype appears to be a Pac-Man style game called ‘Pac-Maziac’.    The idea appears to be a Pac-Man maze builder game where the player would pick a maze piece from the right and put it into the main screen on the left.  It is unclear if the player would build the maze while the game was in progress or if it would be built ahead of time.  The screen shot shown seem to indicate the former.  It is unknown if the game would pause while the player selected and placed the pieces or if it just moved very slowly to give the player enough time.  The screen also shows a score and level counter in the lower right.

It's unlikely that Slide Show was ever intended to be full game.  The currently available evidence seems to indicate that it was just a demo for showing possible game ideas that could be done on the 5200 Touch Tablet.  In a presentation the presenter could have used the 5200 joystick to move the mouse like cursor to point to different parts of the screen as they were talking and to simulate where the use would click when using the touch tablet.  No documentation exists on the Atari 5200 Touch Tablet project, so it may have been an unofficial project that was being worked on at one Atari's skunk works labs (Cyan Engineering, Grass Valley, or the Design and Research Group).  It is unknown if any further work was done on Slide Show, but another tech demo called Touch Pad Game also appears to have used the 5200 Touch Tablet controller.  Until these other prototypes are archived we may never know the full story of this previously unknown project.

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