Yepp, I think it was the best looking homecomputer these days. But I also loved the 70's design of the Atari 800, which was also the best looking one in his days IMHO.
I legitimately find it hard to call late 70s/early 80s Atari developers & designers "developers" or "designers." They'll always be nothing short of engineers and architects to me.
This was the first computer I've ever touched, way back in 1984 when I was 4 years old. My uncle, who raised me, introduced it to me and I was absolutely enamored. Mr. Robot and His Robot Factory was the very first game I've ever played. This set off a lifelong love for all things technology. Later in life, I made a career out of this. I was an IT SysAdmin for years, and now I'm a Cybersecurity Engineer, all thanks to my uncle and his introduction of the Atari 800XL all those years ago. My mother bought it from him as a gift to me when he upgraded to an Atari ST, but I kept the 800XL until I was an older teenager. I really miss my uncle. He unalived himself in 2021 at the height of the pandemic, suffering from deep depression being alone. I was really messed up after that. But I'll always remember him and his influence on my life, and how he helped shape me, my career, and the things I love. So this thing has a lot of precious memories attached to it for me, so thank you so much for the video.
I think it was THE coolest looking PC from the 8 bit days. I had 2 computers growing up. We got the Atari 400 for Christmas 1979 and all 5 of us kids used it for mostly gaming, but it was the beginning of a lifelong interest in programming (I'm a software engineer today) for one brother and I. We had the 400, 2 controllers, a handful of games and the 410 tape drive. That's how my brother and I actually saved and loaded the programs we wrote. I think my dad could see that we were a bit hampered by the 400's 16K and tape drive, so we got the 800XL, with a kick ass Indus GT disk drive and even the Commodore 1702 monitor with conversion cable...the works! I spent many summer and weekend evenings programming that thing and playing games. My first time "online" was with that computer in '84 or so, when my brother had moved on after high school and the computer became pretty much mine. My dad got us the Hughes 1200 baud modem, which was pretty nice because at the time , most people had 300 bd. I had my dialer software, and I'd dial into all sorts of local BBS's and I even found one for the Kansas City Police Dept that were weren't supposed to know about/have access too. I dialed in and ordered ammunition for very, very cheap, but you had to put in personal/payment information at one point for pickup and I just had to leave it there ;). I also got tons of shareware. But I actually "chatted" in a terminal program with a friend who had an Apple IIe and a modem. He'd fire up his modem and call me and I'd pickup with mine and we'd both user our terminal programs to chat. There was TONS of garbage in our text due to noise on the line, like weird non ascii characters would pop up as you were typing. I remember it wasn't an actual chat program but just raw terminal programs so it was see it as you type it on the other end...again..with tons of garbage. And we'd always get dropped after a couple minutes and have to redial. But still....was amazing for the time. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that someone had cracked on of the old SSi games for Atari and made there own multiplayer ONLINE version that you could play through this one BBS as a broker. And I don't mean multiplayer like those turn based BBS MUD's, etc....I mean real time multiplayer with graphics. You'd move your joystick and the guy would see your movements/actions as they happened. It was like playing it in 2 player mode at the same PC on one battle screen, but over a modem! Some madman genius cracked that game and reprogrammed it to do that in 1984 or so. It was insanely ahead of it's time. Of course, again, had tons of glitches and would often drop/crash...but just the achievement was pretty insane in my book. The 800XL and Atari 8 bit line in general will always be the best there was back then and I used/was proficient with them all...Apples, Commodore's, Ti-99. Got so much enjoyment out of that machine in the mid 80's.
Very good point about the Atari 800XL graphic capabilities that the Atari ST "lost". The Atari 8-bit family improved upon the background/playfield/player-missile concept pioneered by the Atari VCS/2600. It allowed to define the screen so that a multi-directional scrolling was easy to implement (these concepts did carry over to the Amiga, designed by the same team). As far as the disk drive, I think it was reasonably fast. The C64 disk drive however suffered from a hardware bug making it horribly slow.
I also came from the Spectrum to the 800XL and for me also, it was the homecomputer I loved the most. And the most underrated IMHO. Compared to the popular C64 it had twice the CPU speed, more free RAM, much nicer colors with these great Antic effects and the floppy has been around 100 times faster, at least perceived. And many of the great C64 game hits were in fact late conversions from the Atari 8 bit computers, but with less and worse colors. Haha, I missed this discussion so much.
I also had one when I was a kid. I think we had 40-50 games for it!! Spy vs Spy was my favorite!! I really wish I still had it and all the games. My daughter and I collect retro style console games. This would be a great addition to share with my daughter.
I had an Atari 800XL and did own a cassette player and it was awful because it was so slow. We also owned a TI-99/4A, while I wasn't too fond of their cassette storage option, you can use whatever portable cassette player to use it and it was considerably faster. The big problem is you always have to adjust the volume and more likely get an error message. With the Atari, you are forced to use the Atari brand cassette player, but I often had to wait a half hour for a program to load up. The TI-99/4A was frequently less than ten minutes to load so long you don't get an error message. We also owned a disk drive for the Atari as it was superior in every way to the cassette. Here in America, cassette storage pretty much died out by the mid 1980s, so by that time, disks were the best choice. I'm also glad you brought up the Sega Mega Drive controllers able to be used on the Atari. I later owned a Sega Genesis (which is what the Mega Drive is called in North America), I plugged one in the Atari and I was surprised it worked!
the maximum time it took for an Atari tape game to load was 15 minutes.... and then you would get "LOAD ERROR" and then youd try, try again... so don't exagerate! ;O) haha
This is such a well done video. Thanks for the excellent content. I love your retro stuff. I just picked up an 800XL and it was cool to get this context for the machine.
As a kid in the 80s, I always wanted a Commodore 64. But my Dad convinced me to get the Atari XEGS because he believed it was more modern. It turns out the architecture was actually a little older than the C64 and there weren’t nearly as many games for it (at least in Australia in the late 80s). But I still had so much fun with that system, and played it daily. I still remember a magical summer where we got a pool, and a friend gave me a bunch of Compute! magazines. I spent every day going from the pool to typing in game listings from those magazines. It was just a world of discovery for me and I’m so thankful for my parents getting me that computer, despite not being made of money. I fire up my emulator regularly to keep the memories alive (I still have the XEGS but unfortunately it no longer works). Apart from Space Harrier and Atari Blaster, what other home brew games would you recommend?
Great story! There are so many amazing homebrews for the Atari 8-bit, others that I recommend include Yoomp, Skool Daze, Fairlight, Treasure Island Dizzy, Stunt Car Racer, Bosconian, Scramble, Jewel Bits, Crownland, X-8, Jet Boy, Xirius Defect, H3x0r, The Last Squadron, Overflow 2021, Pang, Jet Set Willy 2020 and I could honestly go on! I've written a book on Atari 8-bit games that covers these games and many more if you are interested: ua-cam.com/video/ANBw7l6pbOg/v-deo.html&ab_channel=TheLaird%27sLair
@@TheLairdsLair I agree with Yoomp! I’ve put hours into that game. Scramble is awesome and I must admit that I had no idea Boscanian was home brew (and for a while, nor Scramble either). I have some home brew version of Jet Set Willy, but I don’t think it’s the 2020 version. I check this and the others out. Thanks for letting me know about the book. I’ll check it out!
Well, the Commodore PET also had a daisy-chainable bus for peripherals from the very start in 1977. It was a parallel bus rather than serial, but it served the same purposes, and even allowed multiple computers to share a set of disk drives, which can't be done on the Atari SIO bus. The Commodore 64's IEC serial bus is based on the parallel bus of the PET, and likewise was used to chain multiple devices.
Overlooked for many years in the UK, mainly due to original high pricing of the 400/800 which was a pity as they first and the best 8 bit home computer.
The good thing about my 8000XL is it's fully socketed. Any chip goes bad (including ram), pop it out and plug in a new one. The only thing I don't really care for is the keyboard ribbon cable. I wish they would have done a pin cable.
Basil is a good kitty. Give him good treats and belly rubs. Addendum- I see 64K on the box. Now, I know that was very big back then but I wonder...did they sell versions that came with less? More? Edit: I am specifically speaking solely about the Atari 800 line at the time. Like several different models perhaps?
I never knew anyone who had one back in the day, but I do remember seeing the games in the shops and my local branch of Software Plus stocked Atari 8-bit cartridges as well as tapes and disks, I remember thinking how cool it was to have the choice of 3 formats like that.
The only problem with the C64GS was its complete lack of a keyboard. It was otherwise a full C64, but many existing games depended on a keyboard being present, so this one problem was fatal, as was the fact that a full C64 didn't cost much more. It was one of Commodore's European subsidiaries that came up with the idea, and I have no clue what they were thinking...I suppose they weren't thinking at all.
The C64's 1541 disk drive data transfer rate was unfortunately limited by default for reasons I won't go into here (unless someone really wants to know, in which case I have a fairly complete answer to offer), but using only software, with no hardware modifications at all, it is possible to transfer data between the C64 and 1541 significantly faster than between the 800XL and 1050. In fact, the C64 and 1541 can even transfer data faster than the Apple II and Disk II. Just play an original copy of _Winter Games_ to see for yourself--the "fastloader" on that game and some others is way faster than even ProDOS on the Apple II. So the C64's issue with slow disk speed is definitely not due to a hardware limitation, and there were many solutions available to those who cared enough to do something about it.
How good an 800XL keyboard is depends on which you got out of 5 or so distinct types. The one I got is definitely inferior to my 800's keyboard, while at least one type is the 800 keyboard's equal or better.
@@TheLairdsLair I had a 130XE in my childhood, and then got another a couple of years ago. I sold it to put money towards a MiSTer FPGA (which has a perfect Atari 8-bit core), but now I want to get another of the original hardware. I've been trying to figure out if I should make a change and go for the XL instead of the XE this time. The XL does have the better keyboard, but I think both nostalgia and the looks are winning me over towards the XE again.
I think the 800XL has such a cool look, Atari had the best designers anywhere back then.
Yepp, I think it was the best looking homecomputer these days. But I also loved the 70's design of the Atari 800, which was also the best looking one in his days IMHO.
I legitimately find it hard to call late 70s/early 80s Atari developers & designers "developers" or "designers." They'll always be nothing short of engineers and architects to me.
This was the first computer I've ever touched, way back in 1984 when I was 4 years old. My uncle, who raised me, introduced it to me and I was absolutely enamored. Mr. Robot and His Robot Factory was the very first game I've ever played.
This set off a lifelong love for all things technology. Later in life, I made a career out of this. I was an IT SysAdmin for years, and now I'm a Cybersecurity Engineer, all thanks to my uncle and his introduction of the Atari 800XL all those years ago.
My mother bought it from him as a gift to me when he upgraded to an Atari ST, but I kept the 800XL until I was an older teenager.
I really miss my uncle. He unalived himself in 2021 at the height of the pandemic, suffering from deep depression being alone. I was really messed up after that.
But I'll always remember him and his influence on my life, and how he helped shape me, my career, and the things I love. So this thing has a lot of precious memories attached to it for me, so thank you so much for the video.
Wow, what a sad but powerful story, thanks for sharing.
I think it was THE coolest looking PC from the 8 bit days. I had 2 computers growing up. We got the Atari 400 for Christmas 1979 and all 5 of us kids used it for mostly gaming, but it was the beginning of a lifelong interest in programming (I'm a software engineer today) for one brother and I. We had the 400, 2 controllers, a handful of games and the 410 tape drive. That's how my brother and I actually saved and loaded the programs we wrote. I think my dad could see that we were a bit hampered by the 400's 16K and tape drive, so we got the 800XL, with a kick ass Indus GT disk drive and even the Commodore 1702 monitor with conversion cable...the works! I spent many summer and weekend evenings programming that thing and playing games. My first time "online" was with that computer in '84 or so, when my brother had moved on after high school and the computer became pretty much mine. My dad got us the Hughes 1200 baud modem, which was pretty nice because at the time , most people had 300 bd. I had my dialer software, and I'd dial into all sorts of local BBS's and I even found one for the Kansas City Police Dept that were weren't supposed to know about/have access too. I dialed in and ordered ammunition for very, very cheap, but you had to put in personal/payment information at one point for pickup and I just had to leave it there ;). I also got tons of shareware. But I actually "chatted" in a terminal program with a friend who had an Apple IIe and a modem. He'd fire up his modem and call me and I'd pickup with mine and we'd both user our terminal programs to chat. There was TONS of garbage in our text due to noise on the line, like weird non ascii characters would pop up as you were typing. I remember it wasn't an actual chat program but just raw terminal programs so it was see it as you type it on the other end...again..with tons of garbage. And we'd always get dropped after a couple minutes and have to redial. But still....was amazing for the time. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that someone had cracked on of the old SSi games for Atari and made there own multiplayer ONLINE version that you could play through this one BBS as a broker. And I don't mean multiplayer like those turn based BBS MUD's, etc....I mean real time multiplayer with graphics. You'd move your joystick and the guy would see your movements/actions as they happened. It was like playing it in 2 player mode at the same PC on one battle screen, but over a modem! Some madman genius cracked that game and reprogrammed it to do that in 1984 or so. It was insanely ahead of it's time. Of course, again, had tons of glitches and would often drop/crash...but just the achievement was pretty insane in my book. The 800XL and Atari 8 bit line in general will always be the best there was back then and I used/was proficient with them all...Apples, Commodore's, Ti-99. Got so much enjoyment out of that machine in the mid 80's.
I got mine in 1985. I just loved it. I got Gauntlet in 87 and it took 20 mins to load on cassette. Still was worth it. Good times
Very good point about the Atari 800XL graphic capabilities that the Atari ST "lost". The Atari 8-bit family improved upon the background/playfield/player-missile concept pioneered by the Atari VCS/2600. It allowed to define the screen so that a multi-directional scrolling was easy to implement (these concepts did carry over to the Amiga, designed by the same team).
As far as the disk drive, I think it was reasonably fast. The C64 disk drive however suffered from a hardware bug making it horribly slow.
I also came from the Spectrum to the 800XL and for me also, it was the homecomputer I loved the most. And the most underrated IMHO. Compared to the popular C64 it had twice the CPU speed, more free RAM, much nicer colors with these great Antic effects and the floppy has been around 100 times faster, at least perceived.
And many of the great C64 game hits were in fact late conversions from the Atari 8 bit computers, but with less and worse colors.
Haha, I missed this discussion so much.
another great video, brings back some fun memories. I got an 800xl for Christmas in 1984. I can still faintly hear Star Raiders in my ears.
Thanks for watching!
I also had one when I was a kid. I think we had 40-50 games for it!! Spy vs Spy was my favorite!! I really wish I still had it and all the games. My daughter and I collect retro style console games. This would be a great addition to share with my daughter.
I had an Atari 800XL and did own a cassette player and it was awful because it was so slow. We also owned a TI-99/4A, while I wasn't too fond of their cassette storage option, you can use whatever portable cassette player to use it and it was considerably faster. The big problem is you always have to adjust the volume and more likely get an error message. With the Atari, you are forced to use the Atari brand cassette player, but I often had to wait a half hour for a program to load up. The TI-99/4A was frequently less than ten minutes to load so long you don't get an error message. We also owned a disk drive for the Atari as it was superior in every way to the cassette. Here in America, cassette storage pretty much died out by the mid 1980s, so by that time, disks were the best choice.
I'm also glad you brought up the Sega Mega Drive controllers able to be used on the Atari. I later owned a Sega Genesis (which is what the Mega Drive is called in North America), I plugged one in the Atari and I was surprised it worked!
the maximum time it took for an Atari tape game to load was 15 minutes.... and then you would get "LOAD ERROR" and then youd try, try again... so don't exagerate! ;O) haha
This is such a well done video. Thanks for the excellent content. I love your retro stuff. I just picked up an 800XL and it was cool to get this context for the machine.
Awesome, glad you enjoyed it!
As a kid in the 80s, I always wanted a Commodore 64. But my Dad convinced me to get the Atari XEGS because he believed it was more modern. It turns out the architecture was actually a little older than the C64 and there weren’t nearly as many games for it (at least in Australia in the late 80s). But I still had so much fun with that system, and played it daily.
I still remember a magical summer where we got a pool, and a friend gave me a bunch of Compute! magazines. I spent every day going from the pool to typing in game listings from those magazines. It was just a world of discovery for me and I’m so thankful for my parents getting me that computer, despite not being made of money. I fire up my emulator regularly to keep the memories alive (I still have the XEGS but unfortunately it no longer works).
Apart from Space Harrier and Atari Blaster, what other home brew games would you recommend?
Great story! There are so many amazing homebrews for the Atari 8-bit, others that I recommend include Yoomp, Skool Daze, Fairlight, Treasure Island Dizzy, Stunt Car Racer, Bosconian, Scramble, Jewel Bits, Crownland, X-8, Jet Boy, Xirius Defect, H3x0r, The Last Squadron, Overflow 2021, Pang, Jet Set Willy 2020 and I could honestly go on!
I've written a book on Atari 8-bit games that covers these games and many more if you are interested:
ua-cam.com/video/ANBw7l6pbOg/v-deo.html&ab_channel=TheLaird%27sLair
@@TheLairdsLair I agree with Yoomp! I’ve put hours into that game. Scramble is awesome and I must admit that I had no idea Boscanian was home brew (and for a while, nor Scramble either). I have some home brew version of Jet Set Willy, but I don’t think it’s the 2020 version. I check this and the others out.
Thanks for letting me know about the book. I’ll check it out!
Well, the Commodore PET also had a daisy-chainable bus for peripherals from the very start in 1977. It was a parallel bus rather than serial, but it served the same purposes, and even allowed multiple computers to share a set of disk drives, which can't be done on the Atari SIO bus. The Commodore 64's IEC serial bus is based on the parallel bus of the PET, and likewise was used to chain multiple devices.
Would love to get my hands on an Atari 800 XL.
Really nice overview! I slightly prefer the smaller design of the 600XL though. I just added a RAM expansion to mine.
Overlooked for many years in the UK, mainly due to original high pricing of the 400/800 which was a pity as they first and the best 8 bit home computer.
The good thing about my 8000XL is it's fully socketed. Any chip goes bad (including ram), pop it out and plug in a new one.
The only thing I don't really care for is the keyboard ribbon cable. I wish they would have done a pin cable.
Basil is a good kitty. Give him good treats and belly rubs.
Addendum- I see 64K on the box. Now, I know that was very big back then but I wonder...did they sell versions that came with less? More? Edit: I am specifically speaking solely about the Atari 800 line at the time. Like several different models perhaps?
Thanks for this. The Atari still gets relatively scant coverage, in comparison to the Commodores.
Started with the 600XL then migrate to the 130XE, did get the 1040STFm but I went back to the 130XE, didn't like the ST much. Still have my 130XE
Had one of these yet I never ever came across any cartridges for it anywhere,never seen one until this video
I never knew anyone who had one back in the day, but I do remember seeing the games in the shops and my local branch of Software Plus stocked Atari 8-bit cartridges as well as tapes and disks, I remember thinking how cool it was to have the choice of 3 formats like that.
Man your Channel is underrated!
I really appreciate that, thanks!
I had one with a drive and printer . I would spend hours programming in badic😊
The only problem with the C64GS was its complete lack of a keyboard. It was otherwise a full C64, but many existing games depended on a keyboard being present, so this one problem was fatal, as was the fact that a full C64 didn't cost much more. It was one of Commodore's European subsidiaries that came up with the idea, and I have no clue what they were thinking...I suppose they weren't thinking at all.
I remember playing that martial arts game but forgot the name good times thanks for the memories cheers 🍻
Maybe a must have to me as an alternative for the atari xe,atari 400 or 800😁🤣
The C64's 1541 disk drive data transfer rate was unfortunately limited by default for reasons I won't go into here (unless someone really wants to know, in which case I have a fairly complete answer to offer), but using only software, with no hardware modifications at all, it is possible to transfer data between the C64 and 1541 significantly faster than between the 800XL and 1050. In fact, the C64 and 1541 can even transfer data faster than the Apple II and Disk II. Just play an original copy of _Winter Games_ to see for yourself--the "fastloader" on that game and some others is way faster than even ProDOS on the Apple II. So the C64's issue with slow disk speed is definitely not due to a hardware limitation, and there were many solutions available to those who cared enough to do something about it.
How good an 800XL keyboard is depends on which you got out of 5 or so distinct types. The one I got is definitely inferior to my 800's keyboard, while at least one type is the 800 keyboard's equal or better.
Nice overview, K!
Lol wow! The xe had a light gun controller?? Crazy!!
Do you prefer the 800XL or the 130XE of the two computers?
I far prefer the looks of the 130XE, but the 800XL has a better keyboard and the cartridge slot on top, so is the better one overall.
@@TheLairdsLair I had a 130XE in my childhood, and then got another a couple of years ago. I sold it to put money towards a MiSTer FPGA (which has a perfect Atari 8-bit core), but now I want to get another of the original hardware. I've been trying to figure out if I should make a change and go for the XL instead of the XE this time. The XL does have the better keyboard, but I think both nostalgia and the looks are winning me over towards the XE again.
*basic
Space harrier works on side 3 too...and 1mb of ram as an upgrade