The Atari 400 and 800 were the first home computers to use custom coprocessors and the first to use "sprites" and special video interruptions like display lists; features that would be implemented later on the Commodore 64, then on the Commodore Amiga (Atari 400/800 and Amiga were both designed by Jay Miner).
It offered high graphic resolution, lots of colors and great sound capabilities, more than other computers could do then! The two models had same characteristics, but the 800 had 48 KB of RAM (instead of 16 kb), two cartridge ports (only one for the 400) and a proper mechanical keyboard (a membrane keyboard for the 400).
In fact the very first Atari 800 Computers were shipped with 8 or 16 KB memory, expandable to 48 KB. After initial release, the 800 came standard with 48 KB memory.
Prior to production, the 800 was known inside Atari as code name "Colleen". It is rumored that Colleen and Candy (the 400 code name) were actually secretaries at Atari.
Amazing to see such great information about this fantastic machine. After progressing from a lowly ZX-81, this was another world being entered in 1983, with colour graphics and an amazing 16k of memory. After buying upgrades to make it 48k and also a floppy disk drive (the original 810 5 1/4" drive), it truly made it an amazing bit of kit and the envy of my friends with their Vic 20''s and C64''s and a tape machine.
Having said that though, early days, although fun, were also frustrating and time consuming. I remember waiting 20minutes for Apple Panic to load on cassette and nearly an hour for Jumbo Jet Pilot (which wasn''t worth the wait!!), which is why we bought the disk drive (for another £400!!). Mind you, the worst bit was developing what i can only describe as ''Atari Ankles'' after sitting on them for hours on end playing ''Miner 2049''er'' and Bounty Bob Strikes Back.
I used to sell Computers back in the dim and distant past and no matter what came along, my benchmark was this Atari 800 - competing against BBC model B''s, Acorn Electrons and Amstrad CPC464''s etc...Carried on being an Atari fan, buying a 130xe and a 520STFM afterwards, before converting to the ''Dark Side'' and getting an Amiga A600 when Atari finally gave up being popular.
My parents still own the Atari 800 and, believe it or not, we had it out the other night. I have an 8 year old son who was fascinated by this ageing technology, but had great pleasure in attempting to play Zaxxon, Pac-Man, Preppie, Mr Robot''s Robot Factory, Rescue at Fractalus (we have the ''pilot'' called Behind Jaggi Lines), Pole Position, Claim Jumper and all of the brilliant games that we still have a box-full of sitting in the cupboard.
Best memory has to be my mother sitting playing Centipede one Sunday afternoon and getting over 10million points - must have been some bug in the game, as she managed to find a spot for the little character to sit and all she had to do was keep the fire button pressed to rack up the points, only giving me the joystick when she needed the loo....
The biggest surprise though? I actually managed to get my mother''s telly tuned in to find the Atari!! And here was I thinking modern technology would have simply passed it all by....
Great machine, great memories - bring ''em back and more to the point, bring back some healthy competition between computers that all ran different operating systems and different software.....whoops, we''ve got it - they''re called games consoles nowadays though!
Wednesday 7th April 2010
Robin Bithrey (UK)
Yesterday was the anniversary of the shutdown of the last Multics machine! Multics was the first operating system to use a hierarchical file system, and the first OS to use the now-standard practice of per-process stacks in the kernel. For a brief retrospective, check out this story on CR4: The Engineer's Place for News and Discussion.
Hi, If you are a fan of MULE, have a look to my decompilation and reverse engineering page of this wonderful game. You'll find a lot of informations about the hidden rules used and secrets . http://bringerp.free.fr/RE/
QWERTY full Stroke keyboard, 62 keys 4 function keys (Reset, Option, Select, Start)
CPU
6502
SPEED
1.79 Mhz
CO-PROCESSOR
ANTIC (Scrolling, Sprites, Video), CTIA / GTIA (Color, Sprites, Collisions), POKEY (timers, sound, keyboard, serial I/O), PIA 6810 (I/O, including the 4 joystick ports)
RAM
8 KB to 48 KB (with memory expansion boards)
ROM
10 KB
TEXT MODES
40 x 25
GRAPHIC MODES
several graphic modes, maximum : 320 x 192
COLORS
16 (each color can have 8 luminances) = 128 colors maximum in the lowest graphic mode (requiring display list interruption to have them simultaneously) and up to 256 colors in some specific modes for machines having the GTIA chip instead of the CTIA
SOUND
4 voices, 3.5 octaves
SIZE / WEIGHT
40.5 (W) x 33 (D) x 11 (H) cm / 4200 g
I/O PORTS
Monitor RGB output, RF TV video output, 2 cartridge slots, Atari Serial Input/Ouput (SIO) port, 4 controller jacks, 4 internal slots for memory modules
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