Testing three Atari 8-bit computers

In this chill video, we have three Atari 8-bit computers that need to be tested, so let's do that! One of them is in its original box and it came with some original 80's-tastic Atari brochure brochures , so of course I read through them and check out the pictures!
-- Video Links
Atari 8-bit computers:
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Deoxit D5:
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O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)
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Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:
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Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:
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Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:
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Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:
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TS100 Soldering Iron:
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DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:
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Magnetic Screw Holder:
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Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)
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RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)
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Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (order five)
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Heat Sinks:
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Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)
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--- Links
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--- Instructional videos
My video on damage-free chip removal:
• How to remove chips wi...
--- Music
Intro music and other tracks by:
Nathan Divino
@itsnathandivino

[@LeftyLabs]

Just a heads up re that last boxed 800XL - the black bottom label indicates it's a Chelco-built unit made in Hong Kong. By and large, those are some of the earliest built 800XL machines, have fully socketed motherboards and very desirable overall. These were designed and spec'd before Jack bought the Atari name and assets from Warner in July 1984 and began cost-cutting. But be VERY VERY WARY of that power supply. There are half a dozen or so North American power supplies for XL and XE machines. That one in the box appears to be a sealed example Atari users refer to as "the Ingot" - it tends to fail by over-volting and destroy chips on the way, usually DRAMs but sometimes others. The best thing you can do with an Ingot PSU is cut off the pigtail to re-use the DIN connector and wire it to a safe modern power supply. Other XL/XE PSU's are very reliable but THAT one is a menace.

[@wildcat189]

As a graphic designer, I LOVE it when you go through all the old manuals, packaging and artwork. Don't stop doing that!

[@tschak909]

The 1400 and 1400XLD were planned to be released. Some pilot production units were made, and many of them were used inside Atari offices as programmer workstations. There were a few 1400 and 1450XLDs rescued from dumpsters when Atari Corp folded, and some others were in the possession of Atari dealers like B&C and Best Electronics, for many years. These systems are now in the hands of private collectors. The 1400XL added a modem and voice synthesizer. The 1450XLD added disk drives on top of that. Yes, there was a 1200XL, it was the first of the line.

[@jazzdirt]

We got the ST instead.. Just like later we got the watered down version of what the Falcon should have been...

[@nickfifteen]

​@jazzdirt imagine if Atari didn't shun Jay Miner and Jack Tremiel stayed with Commodore... there would've been the Atari Amiga and the Commodore ST. Such a strange flip between the two!

[@f15sim]

Here's the video I did on the 1400XL in my collection: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nGHPk6KIp9atesU

[@rabidbigdog]

@@nickfifteen Yes, the 1850XL (?) was going to be the Lorraine (Amiga) based Atari model I think.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

@@nickfifteen A Commodore ST wouldn't have been as good because they wouldn't have had Landon Dyer or any other ex-Atari Inc programmers working on porting and customizing DRI's GEM over to run on the ST. Not to mention other ex-Atari Inc engineers working on the ST's hardware and peripherals. That's often forgotten. The ST has just as much ex-Atari Inc DNA in it as ex-Commodore DNA.

[@rabidbigdog]

My glorious Atari 800XL got me through university. I wrote my own 80-column display software to work remotely to the campus VAX/VMS system for my thesis. I ended up working for Digital and still have my fully functional Atari 800XL system. I always found them a beautiful industrial design as well too.

[@rabidbigdog]

My eyes have never recovered from my 80-column software though .....

[@eekee6034]

How do you even get them to display 80 columns in software? I didn't think the hardware had the options. Then again, I only have the full manuals for the 800, not the XL. I can understand your eyes having never recovered! XD

[@rabidbigdog]

@@eekee6034 You're in graphics mode and 'drawing' 4-bit wide characters. It worked, but was terrible! Performance wasn't too bad however.

[@eekee6034]

@@rabidbigdog 4 bits wide! No wonder your eyes have never recovered. :) I've tried designing 4xN fonts but I realized I'd never be happy using them. It's interesting that performance wasn't bad. I've considered using sprites to increase the horizontal resolution, but that only gets you a total of 384 pixels wide. With 5-bit characters that's only 76 columns, or 64 at my preferred minimum of 6 bits.

[@Applecompuser]

Same @rabidbigdog. I took the 800 to college and used it for most of my papers. The exception was that I worked at the college paper and also had access to Macs and laser printers. That was my second computer. (I wish I had space to set it up.) What type of work did you end up doing?

[@kevinkeeney9418]

Atari 8-bit computers are the ones I grew up with. I bought a 1200XL and, later, a 130XE with paper-route money. It's always nice to see the architecture getting some love.

[@fragalot]

23:44 no one used Microsoft Basic on the Atari, everyone used Atari Basic since it gave you access to all the graphic capabilities it had. None of the magazines I read had any type-in software for Microsoft Basic. Besides you had to pay for it, while Atari Basic came with every unit for free.

[@Cherijo78]

I love box dwelling. Looking back at the old pictures and advertising is freaking amazing.

[@rabidbigdog]

The 1980s programmer is the same as the 2020s programmer.

[@kellerkind6169]

I love how pristine that box looked considering how old it is by now.

[@JeepinBoon]

37:45 - That tune brought back memories and tears. I played B1-G1 Handbells years ago...

[@retropuffer2986]

I don't mind if you talk about what's on the packaging or brochures. I enjoy those parts of the video.

[@katho8472]

Same here

[@fragalot]

22:55 not much was made for the bus expansion in the back of the XL/XE, they did make SCSI controllers for it but it wasn't made by Atari. If you had a 600XL that expansion would allow you to upgrade the RAM to 64k and turn it it into an 800XL Because of that the 600XL is the only one that supplies 5V on that BUS expiation, the 800XL does not. I think that was to prevent people from plugging in the RAM expiation into an 800XL when it's intended for a 600XL. The XE version had a combination cartridge port with another smaller port next to it that combined gave you the BUS expansion, but it was physically incompatible with parts made for the XL, but simple adapters (with a pass though so you can still use cartridges) can be made to fix that since it was all the same signals. The majority of peripherals plugged into to the SIO port (the precursor to the USB port) like disk drives, printers, tape drives, modems, etc. These days modern mods for the Atari can be done all from the cartridge with a simple SDcard. Most people use SOPIHA and/or Ultimate 1MB to "modernize" the Atari with out needed any external peripherals like a disk drive to load software in. Even for the 600XL you can now get simple RAM upgrades that don't require anything external hanging out of it.

[@rodgepodge2956]

Listen, if you find the packaging interesting, you talk about it! Ignore the wags. The best thing, in my view, about your channel is that we get to enjoy your enjoyment along with you!

[@andrewclegg9501]

As an Amiga fan, you'll recognise the architecture, very similar. Antic=Agnus, GTIA=Denise, Pokey=Paula. 600XL is a 5 minute job to mod for 64K, pretty much like modding a C16 for 64K. My 600XL has those Futaba keyswitches like in the BBC Master you recently fixed.

[@adriansdigitalbasement2]

Oh Futaba switches! Well that's fascinating. I do have a 600XL as well, but the keyboard on that one one fully works.

[@brianv2871]

@@greggauthier5012 I think he meant that because the Amiga was created by the same folks who created the 8-bit Ataris, that you'd notice the similarities in the naming of the chips.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

@@greggauthier5012 The GTIA was the successor of the CTIA. The "G" stands for both "Graphics" and "George". And it increased the color palette from 128 colors to 256 colors.

[@waltciii3]

@@greggauthier5012 CTIA was a very early chip and was replaced by GTIA in ALL later versions PAL and NTSC.

[@blackterminal]

I had no idea you could mod a c16 to 64k. That's cool. I have a couple of them and one working plus 4.

[@pierremartel3552]

MY favorite 8 bit computer!!!!

[@tschak909]

36:45 TOSS...THAT....POWER SUPPLY...RIGHT NOW... We call that power supply "The Ingot." They suffer from a massive design flaw which results in massive overvoltage which will destroy the machine. Not a question of "if" but "when" Use a USB to +5V cable instead. A lot more stable.

[@adriansdigitalbasement2]

Just like those stupid Commodore death bricks then.... Yeah good one. I'll just toss it and reuse the DIN cable for use with a USB PSU.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

@@adriansdigitalbasement2 do you carve the Commodore logo out of those Commodore epoxy bricks or do you just cut off the valuable plug? There are a lot of Atari plugs to USB adapters to run the 800XL off a USB power adapter. Definitely liberate the plug from the Atari Ingot brick.

[@katho8472]

Just a little fun note: The music from the self-test is the "Promenade" from the famous "Pictures at an Exhibition" by Modest Mussorgskij.

[@tschak909]

Yes. the wireless joysticks did come out. They were made by a third party and licensed by Atari. They worked, but the extended base made them _REALLY AWKWARD_

[@davetir]

My sister bought them for our 2600 when they came out. I thought they were really cool until I tried using them. Then I went back to the wired joysticks.

[@Aeduo]

they thicc

[@evileyeball]

@@davetir My dad had a 2600 before I was born (I am from 1984) but he lent it to my cousin and never saw it again as she lent it to her friend and didn't get it back. In 2010 I got him a 2600 for Christmas and you should have seen him He was like N64 Kid. I haven't seen him use it since but hey it was worth the while.

[@ChrisMcDonough]

Had one! Not great but fun as heck!

[@moosemaimer]

We had them... I discovered if you turned off the power while playing a game, it would induce different effects... one of which was the tanks in Combat moving forward at double-speed. Speedrunning hacks in the 80's!

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

The 1400XL and 1450XLD were casualties of Commodore's price war and its effects on Atari while Atari was still recovering from the North American video game industry crash. When James Morgan was brought into take over Atari Inc, he made the mistake of halting production on the 600XL and 800XL until manufacturing was almost completely moved to Asia to cut losses to Atari as it competed against Commodore's price war. The problem was Atari had also heavily advertised the XL computer line with Alan Alda's commercials. So there was a huge demand going into Christmas 1983 for Atari XL computers but then hardly anyone could buy them. So parents across the country bought Commodore 64s because they were readily available. That's what got the C64's leg up over Atari 8-bits. Morgan handed Christmas 1983 over to Commodore. Then everything got put on hold for Atari to focus on getting the 7800 out the door. Atari was going to bring the 1400XL and 1450XLD out once the 7800 was nearing release. But unfortunately, Warner broke up Atari and sold it off right out from under Morgan's feet with the assets of the Consumer Division going to Jack Tramiel's TTL company which was renamed Atari Corp. What you didn't see, Adrian, was the 1090 XL expansion chassis. Think TI's PEB. That would've plugged into the Parallel Bus on all Atari XL computers. That would've also been released. But with Tramiel's takeover, the XL's got cost reduced further and the Parallel Bus was eliminated as a separate connector. Tramiel had it changed over to the Enhanced Cartridge Port which basically merged it into the cartridge slot and appeared on the later Atari XE 8-bit computer redesign. Tramiel opted not to bring out the 1090 because higher end sales would shift over to the ST. And the 1400XL and 1450XLD were completely eliminated. Tramiel's Atari Corp did intend to bring out the 65XEP and 65XEM computers but there wasn't much demand for a Compaq-esque 65XEP and the AMY sound chip couldn't get fixed so the 65XEM wasn't released either. Had Atari Inc survived, they would've also brought out the 1600XL which was a hybrid Atari 800XL/PC compatible. And also along that, had Amiga been acquired [instead of the fraud Amiga Corp and Commodore perpetrated on Atari Inc], then it would've been released as the 1800XL and 1850XLD after a console version had been released for Christmas 1985. Since you are acquiring Atari 800s, maybe you'll spot an ultra rare 800D. It doesn't have the "D" in the label. It's a rare developer version of the 800. It has 2 serial ports - separate of the Atari SIO Port - on the side of the case and 2 MC6850 ACIAs driving them. The ROM is different. The late Curt Vendel showed off his at one of the VCF East shows before his untimely passing.

[@grakkal]

More Atari 8Bit content please! As others have said, I would love to see you install an Incognito for the 800, and/or Ultimate 1 Megabyte for the 800XL.

[@adriansdigitalbasement2]

I actually ordered some of those mods from Poland, so perhaps this really nice 800XL deserves to get them installed into it!

[@gamedoutgamer]

​@@adriansdigitalbasement2 Yes but please know that the Incognito install is IMO damaging to an 800 and should not be done. It turns an 800 into a hybrid 800+800XL. The thing is, it's fine to just use an 800XL if one wants an 800XL since there are plenty of them. If you really want to do an Incognito install, there is a touch-capacitive sensor method that avoids the need to shave/cut/damage the 800's light tunnel. There's no way around it though, the Incognito install damages an 800 and the one you show here is beautiful and in great condition. I would cry.

[@chuckbenedict7235]

I loved Defender. Brings back memories.

[@oldguy9051]

42:30 A note about the RAM test: it only tests the first 48K not the whole 64K of the 800/1200XL (or 128K of the 130XE). A case of better than nothing I guess but Atari also used chips from Adrian's "favorite" RAM vendor so it may come in handy... ;-)

[@adventureridergirl]

I actually found an Atari 400 complete in box (with a Basic cartridge) on the side of the road on bulk trash pickup day a few months back. I hooked it and it works great! The only issue is the stupid membrane keyboard it came with, that luckily still works.

[@Chordonblue]

Yep. That was my first computer. I HATED that keyboard, but I was in heaven nonetheless. I had a few good games for it - mostly on cassette, but it was when I got my 800xl, a Rana disk drive, and Action! that I really got into programming it. Action! was so much faster than Atari BASIC, but you had to think differently as it was a compiled, not a runtime language.

[@freednighthawk]

A tip for new players, don't use any sort of protectant that uses silicone e.g. ArmorAll. The silicone will leach the plasticiser out of the plastic causing it to become brittle and possible chalky.

[@peddersoldchap]

38:36 "That keyboard was just like blargh!" -- Top technical jargon right there!! 😂

[@HuntersMoon78]

Nice to see some more Atari 8-Bit machines on your channel

[@rabidbigdog]

Ground-breaking machines designed by two legends (Miner and Decur) that preceeded the C64 by nearly 3 years with almost the same functionality!

[@slaapliedje]

​@rabidbigdog still a greater pallette and (arguably) better sound. The c64 was a downgrade in many ways. The SIO design was genius.

[@stephenelliott7071]

I've always loved the original Atari 800 since a friend was lucky to own one back in the day (I owned a ZX Spectrum as a kid). Great keyboard, 4 joystick ports, 2 cartridge ports, graphics and sound wise it excelled, and the thing was built like a tank! Not a fan of the cost cutting later models, even if they had more RAM. Thanks to Ebay I have one now.

[@gamedoutgamer]

Adrian this was a joy to watch! Congrats on your three new acquisitions! That 800 is especially nice. Only about 560,000 800's were made afaik. A good way to diagnose that non-working machine is to put the chips from it into a known working machine, one at a time, to find the bad chip(s). The 800's keys not initially working is almost certainly a little bit of oxidization on the contact 'wings' which is very minor and temporary. 6:16 it's the white part of the plunger that cracks at the corners. The black part does not crack. That white plunger looks EXCELLENT with no cracking. Wow. Consider yourself fortunate. The Mitsumi is more prone to failing with it's mylar however it has an excellent typing experience. The Mitsumi's plus-shaped plungers are also known to break when people store the power supply on top of the keyboard. 11:30 yes the hard wired rf cable out the back was an FCC issue. 11:45 a nice mechanical keyboard. It's not supposed to be floppy. Notice the keyboard PCB has traces at 16:14 which is a dead giveaway of a mechanical variant. That variant has a more firm typing feel. Have not used that one very much. 13:25 the XL's have great plastic cases, very strong! It's the XE's that have thin cheaper plastic case. Also the original 800's have a thin plastic case that is very prone to shattering, especially when shipping in the mail because of the heavy aluminum block in there. But the original 800 case feels great even if the plastic is a little thin. XE's don't shatter very often because they are so lightweight. 14:50 yes the chips are quite reliable. They can fail but no overheating issues. The XE machines' OS chips are known to fail. IMO it's the CPU that tends to fail the most often, followed by GTIA then POKEY. That's not including RAM chips. 16:30 Keyboard is made by AWC, or at least that's the brand name afaik. 19:00 the date spread shows how Atari had huge inventories of many chips, IMO. They had warehouses full of all sorts of stuff. 20:10 the GTIA is typically the warmest of the chips, followed by the CPU. Antic is often dead cold but not always. POKEY is always very cool. PIA never gets hot afaik. 23:33 he's a combination of Bono and M. Jackson! ;) 23:48 Microsoft's basic was not popular, at all. 25:18 yes that's a great owner's guide. Unfortunately the XL's didn't come with a memory map or BASIC instructions like the 800's and also the XE's come with a nice comprehensive manual. 26:30 yes the numpad also has YES and NO keys which is a very rare thing! Would be very cool to hook it up to a modern computer and have it work for YES NO dialogs which will save having to reach for the mouse!!! Think of the incredible time savings here. =) One could eventually *rule the universe* with so much time saved. 29:04 Umm I don't think so. The cart ports on these is very capable, especially when it comes to memory banking techniques. This comparison is referring to the PBI vs the C64's user port afaik. The irony is that the C64 had a great selection of user port addons while the Atari did not and so almost always went unused. It was very unfortunate because the PBI is very, very capable!! 30:00 no idea how they came up with that 1 service center number. 30:55 Very unfortunate that the 1400/1450 never released!! Tramiel canceled those due to cost but it made it didn't give a good appearance especially since they did tease everyone with these photos! So sad. A few 1400 and 1450's do exist and they are very nice including a speech synthesizer that talks in the ROM diagnostic. 31:50 the NTSC 600XL has no video/audio jack, only RF from the factory and a more compact case with 16K. The PBI port also has 5v DC wired on a pin while the 800XL does not. Otherwise the 600XL is identical. PAL 600XL's do have the monitor jack with video/audio. Yes the 600XL is the most compact of the whole line which is nice. Ones with mechanical keyboards almost never have the Alps but the AWC like your 800XL. 32:35 the 1400/1450 also have a built in modem and PBI ports, neither of which is on the 1200XL. 32:54 yes the 1200XL came out in March '83 several months before all the other XL machines. I think the 1400XL was to replace the 1200XL's market slot over the 800XL. The 1200XL has bugs in the OS (nowadays easily fixed) and was a market failure however it is a great machine and built very well. They never intended the 1200XL to last long in the market. 33:03 yeah about a hundred (or less) prototype 1450XL's were made. Funny fact is that people would dumpster dive Atari and get these, take them to a store for a 'full refund' of huge sum of well over $1000. So Atari started removing the 1450XL badge from the computer so most of them today have the badge missing. They were not fully completed in development. They were supposed to use an internal DMA bus connection for the disk drives for much faster disk operation but that part was never finished. It had to be compatible with SIO so that was the challenge afaik to make it work via DMA but be SIO compatible and still work with all copy protection, etc. 33:49 yes there are wireless joysticks you can find them on ebay often. They were for the 2600 but since these machines are fully compatible with the 2600 9pin connector they work great on the A8's. Yes everything on that brochure page was released and still available still to this day. That's one thing IMO that distinguishes these from C64's is the large variety of hardware like this. The one exception I know of is that the C64 has more types of disk drives directly from C=, six I believe. 34:18 numpad connects via joystick port. They are common on ebay. Very little software used them. It was released presumably because Atari suits initially thought the 800 was going to be a successful business computer, which it wasn't suited with only 48K maximum. They initially put a lot of resources into business software development. I would remove those RGT stickers on those. They will leave a permanent non-yellowed mark under them like a suntan line. 35:40 I think the first 800XL feels 'cheap' because it was stored in a very hot environment like an attic and the plastic has deteriorated. There's a slim chance that it is a prototype case. That would be valuable. If there's no texture at all on the underside of that first 800XL case, it's a prototype especially since it doesn't have a label or any label residue. There are known documented 1200XL prototype cases (September of '82) with no texture but no textureless 800XL's which came out nearly a year later. It's more likely someone removed the label and I see later in this video you say it does have texture. 36:40 throw that PSU away don't use it. That's the worst one, but common. It can and probably will destroy the computer if you use it. If you get one with proper XL style case with the characteristic air vents then keep those they are fully serviceable and aesthetically match the computer. 38:35 you probably had the rare Mistumi keyboard on your original 800XL which is terrible. They have very square keycaps and a brown PCB with no traces like a 1200XL and many C64's but are worse than either of those. The 1200XL mitsumi is great, sans mylar issues which are fixable. 39:10 Only if it's a more serious RAM issue will it power on directly into RAM diagnostic. Still good to run the diagnostic (in color LOL). 40:20 yes that method of seeing the brown PCB on an ebay auction is one way to know keyboard type. The other way is the font of the keycap. CONTROL key font is bigger on mechanicals. Otherwise the font is smaller and more narrow on mechanicals. The second 800XL you show here has the most common keyboard type, which is called the 'type 4' or SCCO. Some like it, most don't care much for it. It usually works but the shift and control keys do bind and the heavy texture on most of them is unpleasant. The type 1 with Alps switches is the best variant. The Alps types super fast and the sound of the keycaps is amazing. The SCCO you show here is very similar font to the original 800 which is/was a sort of 'open source' font used on many keyboards way back into the 1950's iirc. Yes the mechanicals are much more reliable and serviceable but perhaps a little more fragile if a heavy power supply is stored on the keyboard during a move to a new home. 43:06 yes there's never the issue of being in the wrong joystick port as what happens on the C64. 44:17 yes the 800XL is a great machine however the video circuitry is the worst aspect of it. It's as if whoever designed it didn't know how NTSC worked. Composite color works on all of them but it's soft and blurry. I think it was a very unfortunate cost cutting as well. Back then proper chroma+luma monitors were rare or almost nonexistent, even if the C= 1701 had it. No chroma line is an excusable if unfortunate circumstance. Composite is best for all games/applications that use artifacting color so composite is best. 45:04 That 800XL weighs so much more due to the 1mm thick aluminum backing of the keyboard.

[@scootdadtx]

In 1989 I bought a 128k memory upgrade kit, atari 5.25 floppy drive, sio to rs232, 2400 baud modem and printer for my 800xl. I felt like i had the best computer around. When i bought my first pc i took the floppy drive out of the atari case and installed it into the pc, the drive worked like a champ for several years. I still have the box for the sio to rs232 converter.

[@tetsujin_144]

26:53 - (Thick joysticks) Check out those antennae. Those are RF wireless joysticks!

[@tetsujin_144]

33:43 - Ah, there ya go!

[@daveash9572]

Regarding colours on screen, for the 800xl at least, i distinctly remember a programme by Red Rat software, which i think was called Technicolour Dream, which was an art programme. It allowed all 256 colours to be used on screen at once. I seem to remember it used clever tricks to do this, including redefining the palette while it was drawing the screen, so this mode could not be used for moving images, but even so. It was a fabulous machine in any case. I especially liked the Touch Tablet which worked really well. It worked bettet than it had any business doing though. It was essentially two potentiometers, one for x and another for y. I could never get it to read reliably from basic, but the bundled art package it came with worked really well.

[@tschak909]

Yes. Microsoft BASIC was available for the Atari 8-bit. It was a version of their 16K 6502 BASIC. Originally it was released on disk, and it required more than 21K of RAM to run. This made a lot of people mad, so Atari took some bits out, and released it as a 16K cartridge and called it Microsoft BASIC II. You could also load the Microsoft BASIC II Extension disk to get back the missing commands. Functionally it was as complete as the Microsoft BASICs for systems like CP/M, containing all the advanced formatting and I/O functions, so business software could be ported directly.

[@TheGreatAtario]

As well, the Atari BASIC, widely known as "8K BASIC" was what you normally ran into (as in the cartridge and built-in versions you see in this video)

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

Atari "fired" Microsoft from the contract to provide Microsoft BASIC to the 400/800. They failed to provide their version of 6502 BASIC to Atari in the contractually agreed-upon 8K ROM size.

[@maxxdahl6062]

@@TheJeremyHolloway For all of the limits of basic ver. 2 on commodore, glad my family went with the c64. lol

[@gamedoutgamer]

@tschak909 Good info!! Did not know this since we didn't have MS Bsc =)

[@johanlaurasia]

Yeah, the statistics were WAY off. As a CoCo owner for 40+ years, the CoCo can have 64k, and 48k was NEVER a limitation, there was a 4k and 16k CoCo originally, and there was eventually a "32K" model, and I use quotes because it was actually 64k chips (there's no such thing as 32k chips), the 32k machines all had 64k chips, most of them were good, only the first 32k machines actually had the 'half bad' chips in them. As far as service centers go, ANY Radio Shack served as a drop off point for service, so siting 400 'computer centers', that had service centers doesn't include the 10,000+ Radio Shack stores you could drop equipment off at, and retrieve after repair, with Radio Shack covering the shipping costs... hard to believe they wen't there.

[@brianwild4640]

There should be a hard rubber block stuck on the metal shield to support the keyboard in the middle it was missing also take care the screws in the front should be a little bit smaller

[@michaelcalvin42]

People complain if you talk too much about the packaging? Are they aware that this is KZbin, and that there's a slider to seek ahead in the video? Talk about the packaging all you want. Don't let complainers ruin your fun.

[@rabidbigdog]

While Adrian was talking I was thinking; does he realise how priceless that packaging is? At least here in Australia, great condition 800XLs with a superb box are worth a small fortune!

[@SpecialAgentBillMaxwell]

That Atari XL extender becomes USB. The inventor of it joins the future USB committee and spins the Atari addon ability into USB. So that's extremely important.

[@eekee6034]

That was the serial bus, not the expansion port. They were both impressive interfaces, but in different ways.

[@exidy-yt]

The chonky wireless controllers were real, I played with one at the pivotal store of my childhood, Minitronics. (Bless you, Joanne Woodward, store manager who let us geeky 11 year olds hang out and run errands for you!) They were extremely awkward to hold in your hand and use, however and were best placed on a desk, which almost did away with the reason for wireless! Surprisingly low latency as I recall too.

[@Aeduo]

How many D batteries did it take? Also, being RF, you didn't have the issues of having to point directly at anything, and the design was probably pretty simple. I imagine somehow just stuffing signal bits in to a shift register and modulating that over the air. Also children running errands for a manager is called child labor. :p

[@exidy-yt]

@@Aeduo You think we cared? We got to hang out and play on computers and consoles all we wanted! It also wasn't exactly hard work or alot of it, mostly getting her coffee or lunch. As for batteries, I'm afraid I don't remember. Back then we cared about the function not the form. 🙂

[@M7TIN-TinManUK]

I remember the wireless joysticks as my Mum and Dad bought the kit to go with the 800xl we had, as well as the trackball which was bundled with Missile Command I think. The wireless kit came with 2 joysticks then a receiver box that had a telescopic antenna on it. it plugged into the mains then had 2 joystick connecters which plugged into the Atari. I think I spent more time using my Competition Pro arcade style joystick and trackball than mess about with the wireless ones as they always ate through the batteries the joysticks used.

[@evertonshorts9376]

Commodore didn't actually do warranty repairs at that time, they just replaced the machine, and Jack killed the 1200 and 1450XL when he took Atari over in1984.

[@igorperuchi2114]

Great video about my favorite 8-bit computer! Thank you so much, Adrian!

[@semillerimages]

Oh man! Love it! I had an Atari 400 when I was a kid back in the early 80s. My dad replaced the membrane keyboard with one with real keys and I got an Indus GT disk drive for my birthday once! I played Defender on that machine sooooo much! Flipped the score over on one 16 hour + marathon. I gotta tell you though, there are not many channels that cover Atari machines. I still have my TT030 from 1990 or so AND it has an EXTERNAL graphics card! Granted, it's connected by a ribbon cable into the machine - but it works. I wish more peeps would cover that realm of Atari computers because there were insanely powerful for the price at the time. I actually published 3 fanzines using Calamus SL on my TT030 back in the 90s. I had a piece of software that converted bit mapped graphics to vectors that I forget the name of and more! The 19" monochrome monitor that did 1280x960 or something was incredible for 1992 or so. After watching all your videos, I am kind of afraid to try to boot it up because of the capacitors... especially since I spent something like $1000 to upgrade to 16 Mb of ram back then. Toad Computers was my go to. I am sure some of your viewers will remember them if they did anything Atari in the late 80's and early 90's.

[@stevesnow9259]

The numeric keypad and the trackball both came out. I have both of them.

[@BrainSlugs83]

@26:55 -- RE: Thick Joysticks -- they're thick because you'll notice upon closer inspection that those are antennas coming out of them and not cords. -- They are battery powered wireless RF joysticks that atari produced. -- The thickness is for the battery compartment.

[@RadioSaladStudios]

Man, that was like stepping back in time and reading the paperwork at a mall store.. So cool. Keep making the genius videos.

[@timsmith2525]

Thanks for taking the time to show the 800XL box! Loved it!

[@annareismith6843]

I had a set of those wireless controllers. They were OK but had short range. They heavy and hard to hold a long time while playing at a young age. The batteries did last me a while. I used them mostly on my 2600. I remember being so proud I had those. Everyone thought they were cool at the time. The first wireless game console control I ever used or owned.

[@fragalot]

I had those too mostly used it with my Atari 2600. when the batteries got low they would input randomly to the 2600, so if you wanted the game to "play it self" use nearly dead batteries.. it was funny.

[@kevin34ct]

Finally!!! I grew up with Atari computers, 800, 800XL 130 XE and finally 520ST. I still have the 520ST and it still works. I wish I could get my hands on an 800XL or 130XE again. I don't trust some of the ebay ads as they say untested.

[@tim1724]

The 1400XL and 1450XLD never ended up shipping. I think there are some prototype units floating around. You're right about the 1200XL, that was an actual machine that was sold in 1983. The 1400XL and 1450XLD had been intended to replace it.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

The 800XL replaced the 1200XL. The 1200XL had a lot of design challenges and had been deemed Atari's Edsel at the time by the computer industry press' hype of compatibility issues with a lot of the existing 400/800 software.

[@johnyoder9302]

H Adrian, great video as usual, I have purchased that exact same 800xl on eBay for a super low price. The box isn't in very good shape at all, and that might be why no one bid on it except me, I just had a feeling about it. When I opened the box, to my surprise, everything was still in the factory sealed packaging, and I have received a never before used 800xl. I contacted the seller to find out the story on this, and he said he went to a garage sale, and he purchased a box of toys for his kids and the 800xl was at the bottom of the box of toys. The box looks like it has some water damage, but with everything still in the plastic, the 800xl was preserved, in brand new condition.

[@paultidd8905]

I had a 800xl with a cassette drive and a subscription to compute mag. It took me almost a whole week using machine language just to see a stick man jitterbug across the screen. That was around 1986. I really miss that rig. I also had game cartridges.

[@TheSulross]

the Atari 800 looks phenomenally battle hardened in its design and build quality - like milspec equipment

[@adriansdigitalbasement2]

It is by far the most bad-ass built 8-bit computer. Thick plastic, insanely chonky metal shielding inside ... it's absolutely rated for battle.

[@Chordonblue]

@@adriansdigitalbasement2 The 400 was no different. Same plastic and bulletproof (heavy!), shielding inside. Just awesome - especially for 1980!

[@mikebain5037]

Seeing you hold those 2 machines just brings back such a positive flood of memories. Thanks so much for doing videos like these.

[@NozomuYume]

Plot twist, it was the dog talking on the box.

[@smcic]

I still have all of the pamphlets for my 800xl from when i was a kid, and i have an okidata color printer. man i loved that computer!

[@tschak909]

No self-test on the 400/800 systems. It appeared on the 1200XL (btw, I am Thomas Cherryhomes, Mr. FujiNet, just in case you want to connect the name dots) :)

[@RBLevin]

My 800 had a self test.

[@slightlyevolved]

3:26 The 1200xl did not have the extra video pins connected for chroma/luma. AFAIK, the rest all did, uo through the XE. Also, 22:48, the SIO port was not parallel. Serial Input/Output. Fun fact, the main designed of the SIO interface went on to become a major part of the USB design team and he did model a fair bit of USB off that previous work. So we have USB in no small part due to the Atari 400/800.

[@lsvemir27]

I bought one 800XL 1986. And I have it today. It's working now, with FDD, my second computer in my life /Zx 48 is the first, of course/ 😊 Excellent video for sure 😂 go with this ... Ivica - Croatia

[@QualityModelRailroad]

Hahaha! I love the run down of comparisons of specs and you're comments were spot on! Fyi commodore would honor warranty at all federated groups in 1984 and I'm sure all over the world the c64 dealers did the same

[@Chordonblue]

Looking at those ads, it might seem unlikely today, but I'm telling you, people actually DID use Atari's, C64's, PET's, etc. in small businesses. Not everyone could afford (or justify), the cost of an IBM PC. I remember one notary public here in PA that was STILL using their C64 and dot matrix printer up until the 90's.

[@rabidbigdog]

Absolutely. We had clients using TRS80, Atari and Apple II systems well into the early 1990s. Some of them developed their business systems themselves.

[@JonBailey]

The early 800 had (instead of Philips screws) captive rotate-able tabs that could rotate to release the lid. The internal cards were "16K RAM"x3 & "10K ROM" in mine, iirc Atari sold 8K cards too. The only right-cartridge releases I know of are The Monkey Wrench ][ and maybe The Pill.

[@daveash9572]

After i had an 800xl as a kid, its so lovely to see that old 800. I saw so many pictures of the 800 in manuals, and remember how cartridges like Assembler Editor and Carnival Massacre said "LEFT SLOT" on them, but I never got to see one in person - they were thin on the ground here in the UK.

[@Inadvisablescience]

TIL about the Atari 1400XLD and now I want one. Wow

[@rabidbigdog]

A top collectible now I expect unfortunately. A bit like the Atari Falcon 030.

[@DeathMetalDerf]

Watching you take these apart piece by piece really drives home the old phrase, "they just don't build them like they used to." I understand that some sacrifices will have to be made in order to make things at least appear as "affordable" to the everyday consumer. However, I don't think I'm all alone in thinking that I'd actually be willing to pay a little more money for something, with the tradeoff being it's built to last.

[@gamedoutgamer]

Yes this sentiment did bring some to this brand instead of a C= but nowhere near enough.Even the 800XL was comparatively built well for what it cost. @@safiire Yes but the competition in this space was brutal and warlike. It was more than FCC compliance. It was the uninformed consumer who didn't know what they were buying who is somewhat to blame.

[@gregcoons7308]

Yes! More Atari!!

[@KAPTKipper]

26:54 Those joysticks were wireless, hence the antenna, BTW They ate batteries and had short short range. The 600 XL lacks the monitor out in North America) The 1400 series machines were cancelled.

[@geraldreetz1601]

brings back memories.. thank you.. way back when

[@jonwilson3821]

i LOVE my 800XL. first PC as a kid, and then the Apple IIe. have both in my office at work lol

[@fragalot]

33:08 1400XLD (and 1400XL) were vaporware. Only a handful exist as demos, the "D" model had a built in disk drive, modem, other fancy stuff I can't recall. It's was basically a fat 1200XL. the 1200XL was a big flop due to some sort of compatibility issue with software for the 400/800. That was largely fixed with the "translator disk" which I never needed to use, but Atari did include this disk for free.

[@marcinmiklaszewski9336]

Out of my 2 800XLs exactly both had bad RAM. One had broken leg on PAL cristal (PAL version has 2 crystals). Thumbs up for Atari!

[@rabidbigdog]

31:50 the 600XL did not have the monitor-out and the processor-bus out connectors compared to the 800XL.

[@gmirwin]

34:16 The keypad did exist. I saw one that someone had modded at the VCF SW.

[@tjlazer71]

41:12 the 1200XL has the most keyboard issues. Usually I have success pressing the keys hard many times to bring them back to life...

[@InterCity134]

@24:00 say what you want but I wrote a university term paper on AtariWriter around 1988, printed out on an Epson FX-80.

[@thudtheace]

What is only in Atari computers, the kick ass SIO port! (USB grandpa!). Plus a 1.79Mhz cpu (unlike that slow 1Mhz version in the C64!), yep just resurrecting some good old Commodore/Atari wars!🤣. Plus the best part was Jay Miner was behind the 800 (which you know means the 800 is awesome).. Cheers!

[@adriansdigitalbasement2]

Yeah SIO is pretty much like the IEC on the Commodores, but better! (And, of course, SIO came first)

[@wino99999]

My Favorite game apart from Star raiders was Spelunker!

[@thudtheace]

@@wino99999 Star Raiders was a great game. I believe it was the first 'killer app' on the 800. Cheers!

[@thudtheace]

When I was 10 or so we got our first Atari 800, and my dad programmed up particle simulation software (for a proton accelerator) on it because getting batch time on the Cray1 (National Lab) was limited (a couple hours) and inconvenient (use your thermal paper terminal, with acoustic modem, to log into the system at 2am). We used to leave the 800 on a lot for those sims. So a pretty cool use of an 800 to do real scientific work. Cheers!

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

@@adriansdigitalbasement2 in fairness, Commodore could've just used IEEE-488 like in the PETs. Atari Inc. was going to bring out an IEEE-488 expansion card for the 1090 XL expansion chassis. But that was before that project was cancelled unfortunately.

[@fragalot]

42:45 No you don't need to hold the option key down when you're booting a cartridge. It's only needed if you're booting a floppy disk that doesn't use BASIC (if the disk drive is off or not connected it enters Self Test). If what you are booting doesn't use BASIC, a big message "NO CARTRIDGE" will appear on screen. The software assumes you're on an older 400/800 with the BASIC cartridge in. So all the option key does disable BASIC at bootup, just like booting an 800/400 with no cartridge which allows it to load pre-compiled software, like commercial games and software.

[@kronos5385]

The original 800, such a nice machine. The numbering scheme was supposed to denote price. The 400 meant to be $400 and the 800 to be $800 but Atari ended up releasing the 400 at about $550 and the 800 at over $1100. The FCC really gave Atari a hard time with signal bleeds and television interference so they ended up with that massive metal cage inside. Another Jay Miner masterpiece of specialty chips (before he ended up at Amiga) the display list processor allowed multiple resolutions and colors on the same screen as modes could be changed on the fly while drawing the screen. The Atari serial bus was designed by the same guys who eventually designed the USB protocol. There is a company overseas which is developing a 800 retro machine with an FPGA inside and the output will be HDMI. Their case will be like a 800 XL. No price yet or even a working prototype. Will have a working Atari cartridge slot as well as USB ports. The company is called Revive Machines. Hope it comes out at a reasonable price. Actually, I just hope it comes out, period.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

The Atari 400 was meant to ship with 4K RAM and the 800 8K RAM. That's where the naming convention came from. But delays meant by the time Atari released them, they had 16K RAM. The 800 obviously was better with the real keyboard, dual cartridge slots, the monitor port, etc. The 400 was meant for children since the membrane keyboard was meant to be spill-proof.

[@KLund1100]

400 not $400, but 4Kb of ram, 800 not $800, but 8Kb of ram at the 1979 release The name numbering denotes ram size, not price

[@haraldweinreich9522]

I love your channels Adrian, thank you! I had an Atari 400 with a cherry keyboard and 48k and was really an Atari fan boy (one of the few here in Germany), but the comparison table between Atari 800XL, C64 and Coco is really hilarious. By the way: In most graphics modes the Atari hat "only" 128 colours and the sound chip of the C64 had "only" 3 channels, but was far more capable with different wave forms and filters than then POKEY chip with it's 4 channels. Still the Atari Computers provided really great hardware for their time. In my opinion only few games really took advantage of the graphics options the Atari 8-Bit system had to offer. 🙂

[@MabuseXX]

Four Colors out of 256 (excluding sprite colors). If you want more colors on screen you must do extra display list programing (=switching the colors to a differnent set based on the scanline). A good example is International Karate's background picture. On the C64 Version it's just a simple bitmap, for the Atari version they needed to do some clever programing to get the same quality. 26:08

[@mUbase]

I've missed my usual fill of ADB due to being in hospital. Im back at home now though. Good to see youre in top form as usual. Really great video (dare I say Fascinating) ., Thanks Adrian! :) x.

[@Anacronian]

Man now I feel like playing some Rescue on Fractalus.

[@shaylanmackay3930]

If you Type Bye and Press Enter / Return it goes to system Diagnostics. if you Type Dos and press Enter / Return you will go into dos 2 or 4 SpartaDos that boots from B Floppy Disk . P.S Love that your Atari works too have fun 8-)

[@8bitwiz_]

26:52 33:40 Those are the official wireless joysticks from Atari, rather rare 33:02 I don't think the 1450 was ever released, but there was a prototype at VCF Southwest last weekend. As for chroma/luma, all the 8-bit Atari stuff (including the 7800) generated color that way.

[@kenny13a]

people complain but I love when you talk about packaging of stuff

[@fragalot]

4:50 only the XL/XE models had a self test mode. the 800/400 only had MEMO PAD.

[@FlashPan73]

Everytime Adrian says "membrane" I sing "insane in the membrane" and take a shot.....feeling a little schonkered now

[@JayAlfredoG]

I had a 1200XL. It definitely existed.

[@donmarek7001]

I had an 800XL. I always loved the keyboard compared to other brands. The only thing better was IBM Selectric Typewriter keyboard.

[@massmike11]

Only problem was the return key is in the wrong place. Makes it hard to go back and forth to other computers, always hitting the wrong key.

[@eekee6034]

@@massmike11 Tell me about it! I was all right migrating to the ST with its giant return key, but I kept tripping up a little on European PCs tall but narrower enter key and when I got a US keyboard iBook in '05... well I didn't do so much typing. When I got a US keyboard PC in '09 and typed on it fast for social and gaming things, I found I still had the muscle memory for the Atari keyboards which I'd last used in maybe '89 at the latest. 20 years! lol

[@bobbobson1605]

Nice. I came across an 800 a few years ago at an estate sale (end of day, they were trying to get out and sold it for like $20). Didn't come with any accessories or power supply, but was in very good condition and had a BASIC cart in it. The 'Stackpole' keyboard (one of several variants) feels odd to my fingers, but works perfectly. Apparently they were having issues meeting overly stringent emissions requirements at the time, so opted to stuff all electronics inside of a giant metal shell. Not just stamped metal... an aluminum casting encloses the core of the machine (pretty much everything but the power board). Reminded me of T-series ThinkPads. Of all the machines I own of any vintage, it seems to be by far the most ridiculously overbuilt.

[@fragalot]

28:23 the Help key didn't jack squat. No software used it.

[@danman32]

I had all my games on floppy. My favorite game was Defender. When you get to a certain point where you have smartbombs, you can play forever as one smartbomb against one of those big things that broke into little ones, you rack up so many points, you get another smartbomb! My first PC was the original 800. It had a problem in the power supply somewhere where you'd get buzzing in the sound and herringbone in the video. Later I got a 130XE, two double-density drives, 300 baud modem that connected to the joystick ports. I miss those days

[@phippsdl]

2:17 No, you’re quite right - there is a “personality board” right at the back that contains the CPU, but you have to remove the case to get to it. I found out about this a few years ago when I got a dead 800, which much to my consternation remained dead despite me swapping out the ROM and RAM boards that you show here. I didn’t know at the time that the other board even existed, but that turned out to be the one that needed replacing. Fortunately it’s a fairly easy job once you get past the layers of casing…

[@heskrthmatt]

24:14 Hey! Don’t disrespect the elbow pads!

[@therealjammit]

My Atari 800 had the overheating issue and it had the plastic encased expansion cards. I modified the cover switch to allow it to operate with the cover off.

[@robgeib1723]

I had those wireless Atari controllers for my C64 and Atari 2600.

[@winstonsmith478]

The keyboards with the solid white (not outline) rectangle control key marking are the better keyboards. See AtariAge 600/800XL Keyboard variants. You really need a Star Raiders cartridge. That was the "killer app" for the Atari 8-bits showing off what they could really do and it is THE reason why the 400 has any keyboard at all because that game required a keyboard.

[@Chordonblue]

No lie! That game stayed on the charts of Electronic Games magazine for many weeks - and deservedly so! NO game came close to what that did until Elite, IMHO.

[@wino99999]

Yep thats what I purchased my first Atari for - couldn't afford the 800 so bought the 400 and installed a different keyboard when thay became available! Took a while until I could afford a disk drive so had to use a tape for software.

[@Chordonblue]

@@wino99999 Me, as well. I think that was a very common thing. My family could barely afford that 400 in 1981, as it was. I didn't get a disk drive until 1984 - and with my own money from Basic Training. I didn't get a hard drive until 1987 for my Amiga 500. All of 50 MB, and I cradled that thing all the way home.

[@iroll]

Loved the shout out to Hot Chip, my absolute favorite band.

[@tetsujin_144]

26:38 - Ah, yeah I have one of those CX85 keypads. Got it at a flea market, was planning to turn it into a USB keypad...

[@MabuseXX]

The wireless ones did came out, AVGN has (at least) one of them 34:02

[@crydiamond8704]

I love how the screwdriver handle has the picture of the Philips head on it so you don't accidentally grab a flathead

[@del4you2]

Atari 800 XL was such a superior machine than C64...

[@MotownBatman]

Go Atari! Played the 800 a few times, Always the Player 2... Babysitter usually played Single Player Games lol

[@lancenutter1067]

I had the original 400. I updated it to 64k ram and a real keyboard. Really liked that old computer. Defender and Caverns of Mars were my favorite games.

[@tonycosta3302]

I miss the sound of an arcade. Defender had such a great audio presence. Centipede as well. All those classic game being played like a symphony. The good old days.