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the (610), atari (281), and (223), for (108), #computer (76), with (71), 800 (62), was (56), retrieved (52), computers (50), that (50), from (47), 400 (39), bit (37), system (35), which (33), graphics (32), home (31), edit (31), were (31), antic (29), 1983 (29), new (29), video (26), software (26), august (26), 800xl (26), has (26), keyboard (25), computing (24), are (24), rom (24), but (24), have (24), game (23), ram (23), 1979 (22), color (22), 1984 (22), its (22), display (22), games (20), 1200xl (20), can (20), this (19), april (19), gtia (19), cartridge (19), 2025 (18), basic (18), into (18), ctia (18), may (17), creative (17), july (17), original (17), machine (17), market (17), december (16), all (16), released (16), 1982 (16), later (16), two (16), modes (16), june (15), other (15), dos (15), 600xl (15), only (15), models (15), machines (15), not (15), 65xe (15), sold (15), september (14), november (14), infoworld (14), magazine (14), 1985 (14), chip (14), both (14), these 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ssues edit televisions of the time normally had only one input the antenna connection for devices like a computer the video is generated and then sent to an rf modulator to convert it to antenna like output the introduction of many game consoles during this era led to situations where poorly designed modulators generated so much signal as to cause interference with other nearby televisions even in neighboring houses in response to complaints the federal communications commission fcc introduced new testing standards which are extremely exacting and difficult to meet 24 to meet the fcc requirements both new machines were built around cast aluminum shields forming a partial faraday cage with the various components screwed onto this internal framework this resulted in a sturdy computer at the disadvantage of added manufacturing expense and complexity 6 the fcc ruling also made it difficult to have any sizable holes in the case which would allow rf leakage this eliminated expansion slots or cards that communicated with the outside world via their own connectors instead atari designed the serial input output sio computer bus a system for daisy chaining multiple auto configuring devices to the computer through a single shielded connector the internal slots are reserved for rom and ram modules they do not have the control lines necessary for a fully functional expansion card nor room to route a cable outside the case to communicate with external devices 6 400 and 800 release edit atari 400 1979 has a membrane keyboard and a door covering the single cartridge slot atari 800 with the cover removed showing expansion cards and two cartridge slots the slots are molded into the cast aluminum rf shield the atari 800 has expansion cards for the ram rom and processor it eventually shipped with three of these 16kb ram cards for a total of 48kb after atari announced its intent to enter the home computer market in december 1978 25 the atari 400 and atari 800 were presented at the winter ces in january 1979 26 and shipped in november 1979 1 2 their names originally referred to the amount of memory 4 kb ram in the 400 and 8 kb in the 800 by the time they were released ram prices had started to fall so the machines were both released with 8 kb using 4kx1 drams the user installable ram modules in the 800 initially had plastic casings but this caused overheating issues so the casings were removed later the expansion cover was held down with screws instead of the easier to open plastic latches 27 the computers eventually shipped with maxed out ram 16k and 48k respectively using 16kx1 drams both models have four joystick ports permitting four simultaneous players but only a few games such as m u l e use them all paddle controllers are wired in pairs and super breakout supports eight players 28 the atari 400 with a membrane keyboard and single internal rom slot outsold the atari 800 by a 2 to 1 margin 8 only one cartridge for the 800 s right slot was produced by march 1983 and later machines in the series have only one slot 29 28 creative computing mentioned the atari machines in an april 1979 overview of the ces show calling atari the videogame people it stated they came with some fantastic educational entertainment and home applications software 30 in an august 1979 interview atari s peter rosenthal suggested that demand might be low until the 1980 81 time frame when he predicted about one million home computers being sold 31 the april 1980 issue compared the machines with the commodore pet focused mostly on the basic dialects 32 ted nelson reviewed the computer in the magazine in june 1980 calling it an extraordinary graphics box describing his and a friend s shouting and cheering and clapping during a demo of star raiders nelson wrote that he was so impressed that i ve been in computer graphics for twenty years and i lay awake night after night trying to understand how the atari machine did what it did he described the machine as something else but criticized the company for a lack of developer documentation he concluded by stating the atari is like the human body a terrific machine but a they won t give you access to the documentation and b i d sure like to meet the guy that designed it 33 kilobaud microcomputing wrote in september 1980 that the atari 800 looks deceptively like a video game machine but had the strongest and tightest chassis i have seen since raquel welch it weighs about ten pounds the large amount of engineering and design in the physical part of the system is evident the reviewer praised the documentation as show ing the way manuals should be done and the excellent feel of the keyboard 34 infoworld favorably reviewed the 800 s performance graphics and rom cartridges but disliked the documentation and cautioned that the unusual right shift key location might make the computer unsuitable for serious word processing there is an atari key between the and shift whereas a typical keyboard would extend the shift key into this area noting that the amount of software and hardware available for the computer is no match for that of the apple ii or the trs 80 the magazine concluded that the 800 is an impressive machine that has not yet reached its full computing potential 35 400 800 evolution edit in october november 1981 atari began shipping the 400 and 800 with the gtia chip instead of the ctia chip used since launch 36 37 existing computers could be upgraded gtia adds three graphics modes with more colors but at a low horizontal resolution 80 192 38 some later software relies on gtia modes such as koronis rift and space lobsters circa 1982 the base memory in both models increased from 8k to 16k for the atari 400 and from 16k to 48k for the atari 800 citation needed sweet liz project edit though planning an extensive advertising campaign for 1980 20 atari found difficult competition from commodore apple and tandy by mid 1981 it had reportedly lost 10 million on sales of 10 13 million from more than 50 000 computers 39 40 atari benefited in 1982 from the rapid growth of the home market with its computer sales quadrupling to 300 million the division remained unprofitable however with losses of 25 to 50 million 41 in 1982 atari started the sweet 8 also called liz ny and sweet 16 projects to create new machines that were easier to build and less costly to produce atari ordered a custom 6502 with logic to disable the clock signal called halt which antic uses to shut off the cpu to access the data address bus 42 this sally cpu was incorporated into late production 400 and 800 models all xl xe models and the atari 5200 and atari 7800 consoles mirroring the 400 800 two systems were planned the 1000 with 16 kb and the 1000x with 64 kb each expandable via a parallel bus interface slot on the back of the machine 1200xl edit atari 1200xl the original sweet 8 16 plans were dropped and only one machine using elements of the new design was released announced at a new york city press conference on december 13 1982 43 44 the 1200xl was presented at the winter ces on january 6 9 1983 45 it shipped in march citation needed 1983 46 with 64 kb of ram 2 joystick ports instead of 4 built in self test a redesigned keyboard with four function keys and a help key redesigned cable port layout 29 and a case designed by regan cheng 47 there is no pal version of the 1200xl 47 announced at a retail price of 1000 48 the 1200xl was released at 899 equivalent to about 2 900 in 2025 45 this is 100 less than the announced price of the atari 800 at its release in 1979 3 but by this time the 800 was priced much lower the system uses the sio port again instead of the parallel bus interface the 12v pin in the sio port is not connected which prevents a few devices from working the 12v was typically used to power rs 232 devices which now required an external power source an improved video circuit provides more chroma for a more colorful image but the chroma line is not connected to the monitor port the only place that could make use of it the operating system has compatibility problems with some older software the 1200xl was discontinued in june 1983 compute stated in an early 1983 editorial that the 1200xl was too expensive 49 john j anderson of creative computing agreed 50 bill wilkinson author of atari basic co founder of optimized systems software and columnist for compute criticized the computer s features and price he wrote that the 1200xl was a terrific bargain if sold for less than 450 but that if it cost more than the 800 buy an 800 quick 51 600xl and 800xl edit the 800xl is the best selling atari 8 bit model the 600xl has a slightly shallower case than the 800xl a new lineup was announced at the 1983 summer consumer electronics show the 600xl is essentially the liz ny model and the spiritual successor of the 400 and the 800xl would replace both the 800 and 1200xl the machines follow the styling of the 1200xl but are smaller from back to front and the 600xl is more so atari marketed the 800xl as a powerful user friendly device for beginners 52 the campaign featured actor alan alda 800xl main circuit board the atari 800xl launched in north america and great britain in late november 1983 priced at 299 in the united states 53 54 and 249 in the uk 55 initial production delays meant only 60 of pre ordered units were delivered by christmas in north america 54 even with costly air freight imports 56 the entire 1983 production of approximately 400 000 atari 600xl and 800xl units sold out by year end 57 58 significant quantities did not reach france and west germany until april 1984 59 priced at 3200 francs 60 and 800 dm respectively 61 a secam variant for france was available from june 1984 for 3500 francs 62 in italy the computer likely launched around the same time for 707 000 lire 63 the trade press praised the 800xl for its high build quality though opinions diverged regarding the quality of the keyboard and the external power supply some noted that basic revision b intended to be bug free introduced new albeit less severe errors analog computing wrote in 1984 let s face it these new xl machines are nothing more than repackaged 800s that does not change the fact that atari home computers are still the most versatile graphics machines you can buy for less than five thousand dollars 64 unreleased xl models edit the high end 1400xl and 1450xld were announced alongside the 600xl and 800xl they were to add a built in 300 baud modem and a voice synthesizer and the 1450xld a built in double sided floppy disk drive in an enlarged case with a slot for a second drive atari basic was to be built into the rom and the pbi at the back for external expansion the 1400xl and the 1450xld had their delivery dates pushed back and in the end the 1400xl was canceled outright and the 1450xld so delayed that it would never ship other prototypes which never reached market include the 1600xl 1650xld and 1850xld the 1600xl was to have been a dual processor model capable of running 6502 and 80186 code and the 1650xld is a similar machine in the 1450xld case these were canceled when james j morgan became ceo and wanted atari to return to its video game roots 65 the 1850xld was to have been based on the lorraine chipset 66 which became the amiga tramiel takeover declining market edit commodore founder jack tramiel resigned in january 1984 and in july he purchased the atari consumer division from warner for an extremely low price no cash was required and instead warner had the right to purchase 240 million in long term notes and warrants and tramiel had an option to buy up to 100 million in warner stock when tramiel took over the high end xl models were canceled and the low end xls were redesigned into the xe series nearly all research design and prototype projects were canceled including the amiga based 1850xld tramiel focused on developing the 68000 based atari st computer line and recruiting former commodore engineers to work on it atari sold about 700 000 computers in 1984 compared to commodore s two million 67 as his new company prepared to ship the atari st in 1985 tramiel stated that sales of atari 8 bit computers were very very slow 68 they were never an important part of atari s business compared to video games it is possible that the 8 bit line was never profitable for the company though almost 1 5 million computers had been sold by early 1986 39 41 69 70 by that year the atari software market was decreasing in size antic magazine stated in may 1985 that it had received many letters complaining that software companies were ignoring the atari market and urged readers to contact the companies leaders 71 the atari 800 computer has been in existence since 1979 six years is a pretty long time for a computer to last unfortunately its age is starting to show analog computing wrote in february 1986 the magazine stated that while its software library was comparable in size to that of other computers now and even more so in the future there is going to be less software being made for the atari 8 bit computers warning that 1985 only saw a trickle of major new titles and that 1986 will be even leaner 72 computer gaming world that month stated games don t come out for the atari first anymore 73 in april the magazine published a survey of ten game publishers which found that they planned to release 19 atari games in 1986 compared to 43 for commodore 64 48 for apple ii 31 for ibm pc 20 for atari st and 24 for amiga companies stated that one reason for not publishing for atari was the unusually high amount of software piracy on the computer partly caused by the happy drive 74 75 76 the magazine warned later that year is this the end for atari 800 games it certainly looks like it might be from where i write 75 in 1987 microprose confirmed that it would not release gunship for the atari 8 bits stating that the market was too small 77 xe series edit atari 130xe the 65xe and 130xe were announced in 1985 at the same time as the atari 520st and used the same design language xe stands for xl compatible eight bit 78 the 65xe has 64 kb of ram and is functionally equivalent to the 800xl but lacks the 50 pin parallel bus interface pbi the 130xe has 128 kb of memory accessible through bank switching the additional 64k can also be used as a ram drive which is supported by an updated version of atari dos the 130xe includes the enhanced cartridge interface eci which is similar to the parallel bus interface it is physically smaller has only 14 pins and is located next to the standard 30 pin 400 and 800 compatible cartridge interface on the back of the machine it provides only signals that existed solely on the pbi most pbi signals were duplicated with the signals on the cartridge interface eci peripherals were expected to plug into both the standard cartridge interface and the eci to gain near full pbi compatibility later revisions of the 65xe which contained 130xe motherboards but only had 64 kb of ram 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