Atari 8-bit computers

Atari built a series of 8-bit home computers based on the 6502 starting in 1979. Over the next decade several versions of the same basic design would be released, but they remained largely identical internally.

History

As soon as the Atari 2600 was released the engineering team went back to design its eventual replacement. The newer design would be faster, have better graphics, and include much better sound hardware. Work contined throughout 1978, primarily working on the much-improved video hardware, known as GTIA.

However it was at this point in time that the home computer revolution took off in the form of the Apple II and TRS-80. Atari management saw this as a golden opportunity to re-purpose the machines, and started research on what would be needed to produce a workable home computer of their own. This included support for character graphics (something the 2600 didn't support), some form of expansion for peripherals, and a keyboard.

Eventually they identified two "sweet spots" for such machines, the low-end Candy and high-end Colleen. The primary difference between the two was expandibility, Colleen would include a number of memory slots, monitor output and a full keyboard, while Candy used a plastic "membrain" keyboard and didn't include any memory slots. In both cases the expansion was included via the use of a "smart" port that could be used with any device, instead of the more common selection of special-purpose ports.

The machines were brought to market in October 1979 as the 400 and 800, although they weren't widely available until late 1979. The names originally referred to the amount of memory, 4kB RAM in the 400 and 8kB in the 800. However by the time they were released the prices on RAM had started to fall, so the machines were instead released with 8kB and 16kB respectively, making the naming somewhat superfluous.

The machine were rather advanced for their day. As one would expect from their game-machine genesis, they included far better sound and graphics than their competition. However the machines were also notable in running at 2MHz, twice as fast as most machines, and being built like tanks. The market was somewhat sceptical of the new machines, notably because the 800's expansion slots were of limited use, being able to add memory only.

The 800 was rather complex and expensive to build, while the 400 didn't compete techically with some of the newer machines appearing in the early 1980's, so in 1982 Atari started the "Sweet 16" project to address these issues. The result was an upgraded set of machines otherwise similar to the 400 and 800, but much cheaper to produce due to the use of custom chips that replaced a number of chips from the earlier designs. Sweet 16 also looked to address problems with the 800 by adding a new expansion chassis as well. Like the earlier machines, the Sweet 16 would be released as the 1000 with 16kB and the 1000XL with 64kB.

But when the machines were actually released they came in only one version, the 1200XL. A number of problems in this machine, including a nasty bug in the BASIC made the machine a flop. This was quickly addressed in the hastely completed 600XL and 800XL, which were largely identical to the original Sweet 16 specifications.

However the 1200 was released at potentially the exact wrong time. By the time the new machines replaced it the Commodore 64 had already become the market leader, and Atari was unable to address this.

The final machines in the series were there 130XE and 65XE. These were really cut-down versions of the 600XL and 800XL in much cheaper cases, a result of Jack Tramiel's efforts to wring every dollar out of the platform before finally killing it.

Models

Atari 400 1979 (widely available in 1980)
Atari 800

Atari 1200XL 1982

Atari 800XL 1982
Atari 600XL

Atari 130XE 1985
Atari 65XE