"Oddly, when Atari released the 5200, no such backward compatibility option was offered, confusing some consumers and hurting system sales. Atari tried making amends with a smaller 5200 system redesign and an awkward add-on module that enabled the backwards-compatibility gamers demanded. Unfortunately, this add-on was incompatible with the earlier, larger 5200 consoles without modification at a service center."
There was never a "smaller" 5200 redesign (one was prototyped, but never released, IIRC). The redesigned 5200 that was compatible with the VCS adapter had 2 joystick ports instead of 4 and went back to a more conventional RF switch design, but the actual size of the unit remained unchanged.
"Oddly, when Atari released the 5200, no such backward compatibility option was offered, confusing some consumers and hurting system sales. Atari tried making amends with a smaller 5200 system redesign and an awkward add-on module that enabled the backwards-compatibility gamers demanded. Unfortunately, this add-on was incompatible with the earlier, larger 5200 consoles without modification at a service center."
There was never a "smaller" 5200 redesign (one was prototyped, but never released, IIRC). The redesigned 5200 that was compatible with the VCS adapter had 2 joystick ports instead of 4 and went back to a more conventional RF switch design, but the actual size of the unit remained unchanged.