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The following are some
of the highlights of the major Atari 8-bit systems released in the United
States after the 400 and 800:
1982: With a consolidated
number of chips, the Atari 1200XL, a sleek silver and black machine, was
designed as a replacement for both the 400 and 800. When released, however, it
was buggy, and the operating system sometimes rendered it incompatible with
older software. The number of controller and cartridge ports was cut in half,
and the internal speaker was removed, with the "fifth" channel of
sound now routed in the same way as the POKEY's audio. These changes would
become standard in later models.
However, instead of replacing the aging 400
and 800 line, the Atari 1200XL actually increased sales of those
systems. Meanwhile, Commodore was having great success with its low-priced VIC
20 and announced the more powerful Commodore 64 (C64).
1983: The Atari 600XL and 800XL
were meant as replacements for the failed 1200XL. They had better backward
compatibility and a tiered system approach similar to that of the 400/800. Both
new systems had BASIC built in, and the 600XL shipped
with 16KB RAM, while the 800XL featured 64KB. Despite the relative inconvenience,
translator software addressed most of the remaining compatibility problems with
older software. Unfortunately for Atari, by this time, the C64 was already
establishing itself as the dominant 8-bit computer.
1985: The Atari 65XE/130XE
replaced the black and silver XL line. These units were cheaper and had gray
cases and keyboards that matched Atari's new 16-bit ST line of systems. The 65XE
came with 64KB RAM, while the 130XE contained an extra memory management unit
and came standard with 128KB.
1987: After The Great Video
Game Crash and Atari's return to the video game market in 1986 with the 7800
and the 2600 Jr., the company added
a third console to the mix the following year. This unit was the XEGS (XE
Game System). The XEGS was a complete, back-to-its-roots, re-imagining of the
8-bit computer line based on the 65XE, with detachable keyboard and built-in Missile Command.
It was also bundled
with Flight Simulator II and Bug Hunt on separate cartridges. The
latter supported the included light gun. Although the release of the XEGS brought
an influx of re-released and new software for Atari 8-bit computers on
cartridge (some not compatible with the older systems featuring less than
64KB), the three-console approach against the single Nintendo Entertainment
System (NES) was ultimately ineffective.
The Atari XEGS with detachable
keyboard was as capable as any other Atari computer, but with pastel-colored
buttons didn't necessarily look the part.
So, with all the
custom chips and comparatively impressive performance, what went wrong for
Atari? The most likely answer is that the company couldn't recover from the
disappointment it caused with the highly anticipated 1200XL. Its efforts to
atone for this mistake with that computer's replacements were too late and
expensive to win back consumers.
Furthermore, as a "game"
company, Atari never achieved the legitimacy of an Apple on the high end and
was unable to sustain momentum or reduce prices in the low-end market,
particularly after the C64 became
dominant. In 1984, in the face of declining sales, Atari's home computer
and video game divisions were bought from Warner Communications by former
Commodore founder Jack Tramiel.
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You have to wonder how much damage Atari did by failing to compete outside the US.
I was a little disappointed to see errors in the very first part of the article though. The Atari 8-bit computers had a resolution of 320x200 and in fact could be programmed to display 384x262, the OS just defaulted to 320x200. They could display 128 colors AND get all of them on the screen unlike the Apple 2 which had 16 colors in low-res and 6 in hi-res and the Commodore 64 which had 16 colors period. (In fact the first screenshot on page 5 shows more than 16 colors on the screen)
Neither the 400 or the 800 had "monitor output". Both had RF (TV) output and that was it.
"Most users outfitted the four slots with a 10KB ROM". There was no such thing as a 10k rom. They were all 8k. There were 3 expansion slots for ram and 2 cartridge slots. One cartridge slot was usually used for BASIC. An 8k cartridge.
Atari was not secretive at all about their hardware or software. I still have the detailed publically available manuals. Far more details than anything Apple, Commodore or Tandy Radio Shack ever made available.
While I'm at it, other random tidbits:
The Atari system was the only 8bit consumer system with a *real* OS. For example Apple's was a complete hack, so bad to issue disk commands you had to use the print statement in basic and embed Ctrl-D in a string follow by the command since the Apple 2's OS/Basic was never designed for IO. Commodore's was not much better. Atari's actually had "device drivers" so your programs didn't need to know what device they were loading from.
Atari had generic graphics commands that worked in all it's 15 graphic modes unlike for example Apple which had special incompatible commands for each of its 5 modes.
Atari's engineers went out of their way to reserve half of the first 256 bytes of ram (a special part of ram on 6502 based machines) where as both Apple and Commodore's engineers used the entire area and left nothing for user programs leaving programmers on those systems to rely on hacks.
The Atari systems (along with the Amiga) are the only consumer systems to have ever supported "overscan" allowing you to generate an image that uses the entire TV display. Apple, Commodore, IBM etc all have a border around what they display. It's only in recent years that PCs and Macs have caught up without special hardware.
You're wrong on some of what you've posted. Max res was 320x192. You could coax a little more X/Y by encrouching in the overscan areas but nowhere near as much as you cite.
The 400 lacked a monitor out but the 800 had one (composite only)
The 10K ROM was the OS 'personality' module. All 800's has that plus 1 to 3 16K RAM carts which is what the article says. You also had 2 x ROM carts (LEFT/RIGHT) under the front flap.
The stuff about the OS is largely correct although the first 256 bytes was used by the OS (with the odd byte here and there not used) and held the OS vectors etc. - perhaps you're thinking of page 6 which was left free for programmers.
1) bytes 128-255 were reserved for user programs. The OS used none of those bytes. Basic used a few but left most of them unused unlike C64 and Apple 2 (both of which I also programmed).
As for resolution, The standard display when you booted the computer was mode 3 which was 40x24 8x8 characters or 320x192. Putting the system in overscan made it 48 across or 384 pixels. Boot up your Atari or an emu and basic and type
POKE 54286,0 (turn of interrups so the OS doesn't reset the next line)
POKE 54272,35 (make the display 384 pixels wide)
Now start editing the default display list.
POKE 39968,2 (turn on the top 8 lines)
POKE 39969,2 (turn on the next 8 lines)
POKE 39970,2 (turn on the next 8 lines)
You now have 384x216. Of course nothing will appear in those lines unless you write code to use them or create a display list that sets the vram address.
A few more pokes will add at least another 24 lines to the bottom to get 384x240. Maybe not 262 but a far cry form the 80x192 listed at the start of the article. Change the numbers from 2 to something else for different graph modes on those lines.
If you are using an EMU you'll need to configure it to display all of overscan mode. Most emu's default to clipping those areas.
As for the OS, there is no "personality module". The Atari 800 had an 8k OS rom 1k of which was the standard font. The rest simple services like device io and booting, the driver system and a few other small things. If there was such a thing it was added to far later modules. I programmed Atari software from the 400/800 era up though the 130XE.
Regarding the above, here's a snippet from A Guide to Atari 400/800 Computers (1982):
"ANTIC can control each scan line on the television receiver; however, not all 262 lines are visible. Because of a broadcast compensation factor called overscan, the actual number of visible scan lines on a television receiver is closer to 200 than 260. In the interest of compatibility with hundreds of different brands of televisions, Atari set a conservative standard of 192 scan lines for its graphics displays under BASIC."