The 800XL – By Paul Lefebvre – Goto 10
goto10retro.com
goto10retro.com
We could all be using Atari motherboards in our desktops and servers. They could release a series of mini pcs with a value proposition as well.
As a company they seem to be stuck in 8-bit mode.
Because there never was "one" Atari company, there were several eras behind the name (summed up) :
* the "Bushnell" Atari (Atari Inc.) that made the original Xyzzy/Atari arcade games & groundwork on the VCS ;
* the "Warner" Atari ("a Warner Communications Company") that brought you the VCS and 8 bit until the XLs & 5800 ;
* the "Tramiel" Atari (Atari Corporation) that brought you the XE and most importantly the ST, which was the last attempt at "computers for the masses" ;
* the "Infogrames" Atari (Atari SA) which is a completely different company gathering the copyright ashes from the Jaguar überfail and attempting to reunite the whole Atari Games/Midway mess ;
* the "current" Atari (Atari Inc, legally under Atari SA) which is overtly focusing on retrogaming & funding initiatives like Nightdive remasters.
During the end of the Corporation era (after sacrificing the Falcon & Sparrow project in favor of the Jaguar, which is arguably the worst mistake they ever made), they made some PC clones, but as someone said : too little, too late.
I can't imagine why an Amiga 2000 case couldn't hold a PC motherboard or why a Mega ST keyboard couldn't be a PS/2 keyboard (and an Atari mouse be a PS/2 mouse). It wouldn't be that easy for an Amiga to read/write PC disks, but it'd be worth the effort.
Their 8-bit stuff were the best hardware designs. Anything that would have surpassed it went with Jay Miner and the Amiga.
Where Atari really failed was not creating the next gen from the stockpile of money from VCS/2600--waited for the market to crash only to have NES produce the next wave using 6502+Audio Ricoh chip. Their 5200/7800 consoles were too late and expensive.
Almost all my programming foundations were learned hacking on the 8-bit Atari computer. Great times.
> Overall, I’m pretty excited for this. It’s not like I need yet another Atari 8-bit computer since I already have an 800, 800XL, 130XE and (non-working) 1200XL. But those are all 40+ years old at this point and can be fragile.
I have the Atari 400 Mini but I wouldn't mind adding THE 800XL to my collection. I grew up on the original membrane keyboard 400, had an 800 and 1200XL, and collected a 130XE.
It was with the Maxi that I realized it’s the physical interaction that defines the quality of the experience. An FPGA-based machine might have the ability to drive period peripherals, but that’s a relatively small part of the experience. Most of the time we are on the keyboard or the joystick.
The keyboard is such a huge part if you are exploring it as a computer rather than a gaming machine - and it goes to other platforms as well. Amigas and STs are close enough to PCs that it isn’t jarring, but others - Apple IIs, Sinclair (not the chiclet ones), terminals, and other more esoteric platforms, have keyboards with layouts where using the “normal” keyboards is just confusing.