What was the Atari 800XL capable of? | Trash to Treasure Part 3

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Let's finish up the Atari 800XL restoration and take it for a test drive! What does this machine have to offer?
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1. Meet the Atari 800XL - • The Atari 800XL / Part...
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[@RMCRetro]

Thanks for joining me on the conclusion of this T2T series, and a special thanks to Mr Lurch who you can find here: kzbin.info What games would you have chosen to demonstrate the power of the 800XL? Neil - RMC

[@kralikdoribunny5615]

Apart what you have chosen (geat selection, Fractalus is a masterpiece of coding for its time), I would choose Tomahawk (vector AH64 Apache "sim"), Amaurote (nice monochrome hires graphics), ScreamingWings (1942 conversion), Draconus, Ace of Aces, anything from Poland that came out after 1989 ........ and a lot more. It was a great machine.

[@sunspot42]

Star Raiders. A groundbreaking game for 1979.

[@twiddler71]

M.U.L.E for sure, best strategy game in my opinion. Alternate Reality the city, great music, and Capture the Flag with it first person 3D game with good frame rate.

[@farkough]

Chop Suey - fairly decent beat'em'up with big sprites; and Warhawk had some of the best music on the Atari (I bought it just for the music, come to think of it).

[@mikerichards6065]

So glad to see Archer McClean's 'Dropzone' after all these decades - I was beginning to wonder if I'd imagined it! The C64 version is a great game, the Atari version is a legend. The other LucasArts games I loved on the Atari were the weird fractal cave exploration of 'The Eidolon' and of course 'Ballblazer' and its amazing soundtrack.

[@lmlmd2714]

The 800XL is the first computer I ever had as a kid - best christmas present ever, and why I work in IT now! I've also still got an 800XL and it's still bloody brilliant :)

[@lsvemir27]

Is this my CV :-) ?

[@jazzdirt]

Mine too!

[@wayland7150]

These 8 bit machines taught us so much and fired our obsession.

[@mal-avcisi9783]

C64 is so much better gaming experience. Commodore always won the race. Later with the glorious Amiga 500 which killed the Atari st.

[@harrylor66]

​@@mal-avcisi9783 The Atari 8 Bit and the AMIGA are designs by JAY MINER, the Commodore 64 and the Atari ST - business computers (the ST is NOT a gaming computer) were developed by the team around Shiraz Shivji (the so-called "father of the C 64") and a certain Commodore founder and Atari boss Jack Tramiel. The Atari 8 bit computer is the predecessor of the Amiga, the ST was developed by former Commodore people. Commodore "only" bought AMIGA. The Commodore 64, however, is the most successful 8 bit game computer, the developers of the games put a lot of effort into it, the market was very big. The Atari 8 Bit is considerably older than the C 64, but still amazingly powerful. The names "Commodore" or "Atari" are rather meaningless, both companies have a common history.😉

[@eruure]

Huge thanks for including our game, Yoomp! in your awesome video! :)

[@MrLurchsThings]

Yoomp! Is 100% my favourite game on the system. Not just for its amazing technical achievements, but for its awesome gameplay.

[@thepirategamerboy12]

Honestly, the Atari 8-bit series' capabilities are pretty impressive for late 70s hardware.

[@RetroRogersLab]

I was hoping to see Star Raiders. Back in '78 I worked for a reseller. Shortly after we got our first shipment of 800's we hooked up our demo unit to the projector and hi-fi. The guys from the shop next door came over to see what all the noise was about. We all had a great time and it is one of my fondest memories of working there.

[@stevesstuff1450]

Yeah, Star Raiders on the 800 was an amazing game back then.. And THERE, there the was a copy on the desk next to monitor throughout the whole video, and it never featured..!!😳😳 I was disappointed...!!😭

[@ironhead2008]

I'd love to show "Yoomp!" to some of the original engineers who designed the 8-bit line . No way they had any idea that the 8-bit line could do THAT!

[@SenileOtaku]

The modern-day developers have the advantage of much more powerful systems to do rendering on (or even do the development inside emulators). They can try things out on higher-end systems then port them down.

[@RichardM-kv4uu]

Rescue On Fractalus did that back in the 1980s anyway!

[@ironhead2008]

Yeah, but that psuedo 3-D effect Yoomp! is doing is something else! Really impressive for an 8-Bit computer!

[@joshuascholar3220]

Actually they knew what it could do. It was the best documented computer of all time, with a very fancy if quirky video hardware system thoroughly described.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

I'm pretty sure Joe Decuir has seen Yoomp! in action.

[@daviddavies3637]

Dropzone is my all-time favourite Atari game. It was the first game I loaded into my machine on Christmas Day 1985. After a week of solid play, I was able to get 1 million points, after which you stopped getting extra lives. Rescue on Fractalus was another game I owned and played to death ... almost literally. Nearly fell off my chair with a heart attack the first time the alien popped up.

[@ThisIsPete]

Re: the stereo audio cassettes, one of the most interesting uses of them was the "Conversational" language-learning series. These used the tape audio to actually have full speech throughout the program -- the program would load itself into memory first, and then the Atari would control the tape deck at appropriate moments in the program to play back the appropriate audio. Very clever!

[@tonibianchetti]

I also had an Atari official BASIC course what was also using cassette audio to let the teacher speak. The computer had full control of cassette motor. A really clever low tech solution.

[@thisnthat3530]

It doesn't sound like much effort was put into the 800XL music in the Last V8. The 800XL is capable of so much better than that as can be heard in the other games.

[@tommyeastwood4393]

The graphics are also not so good as the programmers didnt bother.

[@RobertGolias]

The best show of Rob Hubbard's music on Atari would be surely Jet Set Willy

[@reedfrey9120]

Boulder Dash is such a great concept, it needs resurrection. I had ages of fun back in the day.

[@kermit88a]

Loved the Atari computer

[@armanelgtron4533]

Rocks'n'diamonds is a slightly more modern open source game with the same concept

[@ridiculous_gaming]

I loved the intro back in the day.

[@mikerichards6065]

I agree, it was incredible. Boulderdash keeps getting outings on more recent systems and phones, but they insist on tinkering with the gameplay and adding ‘features’ which detract from the simple brilliance of the game play.

[@waltciii3]

I have my old 800 from 1981 and am restoring it after it sat in the parent's garage for 30 years. I bought an 800xl to play with in the interim. The only thing I need to clean or polish are the aluminum function keys. By contrast, similar plastic keys on the original 800 are still perfect.

[@Jimbaloidatron]

Some of my favourites: Rainbow Walker, Elektra Glide, Alley Cat, Shamus Case II, Kik-Start (against a friend), Star Raiders II, Rally Speedway, Preppie!, Koronis Rift, Mr Do!, Capture the Flag. There's such a vast array of A8 stuff out there, you'll be kept quiet for many months! I'm still finding previously undiscovered gems.

[@Jimbaloidatron]

And Pastfinder and...

[@sunspot42]

Pastfinder and Alley Cat are both amazing, unique games.

[@michaelstoliker971]

It's not about what the Atari was capable of then, it's about what it is capable of now. Spend some time on the Atari Age website forums and see what people are doing with them now. There is a thread about Rastaconverter images that are lower res/hi color images that no other 8-bit computer of the era could reproduce. People that see them sometimes complain that the images are cheating because they are produced with the help of software on a Windows PC, but what they don't want to address is that the Atari hardware is capable of producing the images and a patient and talented artist could produce the images manually if they wished. Go to post #12 in that thread and tell me you aren't impressed.

[@BrainSlugs83]

atariage.com/forums/topic/200118-images-generated-by-rastaconverter/?do=findComment&comment=2557165

[@billkendrick1]

Don't forget to switch the Trak-Ball into "trackball" mode, fire up Missile Command again, and hit Ctrl+T to make the game work in 'analog' trackball mode, like the arcade!!!

[@RMCRetro]

Thanks Bill!

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

@@RMCRetro and hunt down the Centipede version on disk that Atari Corp UK sold. It was the 5200 version that "Glenn the 5200 Man" had ported from the 5200 back to the Atari 8-bits in circa 1982 in his unauthorized manner. Since it was the 5200 version, it had native Trak-Ball support included.

[@AdamHougham]

I remember coming face to face with an 800XL at a friend's house not long after they came out. The lasting impression on me were those amazing metal keys down the side and the instant loading from the cartridge slot! I had an Acorn Electron at the time and this really burst the bubble of my computer's own capabilities... I had to wait another 5 years to get my own Atari - a 1040STE - which finally made up for it!

[@twiddler71]

The Atari 800XL was my first computer back in the early 80s. I still have it today along with many other retro's I've collected. The Atari was the first to design custom graphics chips in the personal computer. Commodore basically stole those ideas in their VIC 20 and C64.

[@KuraIthys]

Yeah... Then they outright stole the design team. XD (OK, technically not. But at the end of the day the Amiga is essentially the 16 bit counterpart to this system. - plus Tramiel ended up Running Atari, so it was more like a swap) In some ways it pains me that the Atari 8 bit design was never updated. If the XL, or even the XE line had just a few small tweaks to GTIA it could have been much more obviously competitive. A few slightly bigger tweaks and it would've done a lot more than that. (albeit, with the caveat that hardware isn't everything.) I've wondered about this in a speculative sense - could I implement anything in an FPGA that would eliminate it's shortcomings a little, and could I do so in a way that would've seemed reasonable for the era? (like, VBXE is amazing, but that thing makes an Amiga look underpowered, and that definitely feels a little off... Just like Rapidus having 35 megabytes of RAM - that wouldn't have been sane even for 1995, much less the mid 80's) So... Basic tweaks, that I'm sure would've been possible in 1982-85 even if they weren't in 1979: - Extend the palette registers to be a full 8 bits, making it consistently a 256 colour system instead of the sometimes 128 sometimes 256 colour system. - double the sprite hardware. - Arguably a ground up rethink would work better, but from a design perspective this would be relatively easy; just takes more transistors. With 8 players an 8 missiles instead of 4+4, this would've been more competitive without radically altering the way they work, and would make multicolour sprites less dramatically limiting. - In line with doubled sprite hardware, double the number of sprite palettes to 8. Keeps the logic of it consistent. As a side effect there's now 13 palette entries, meaning the 9 colour GTIA mode could be 13 colours. (obviously it would make sense to provide 3 additional registers) Some more advanced design tweaks that probably might've been feasible if anyone had wanted to put in more effort: - Make the high res mode properly 2 colours, instead of 2 luminances. - Extend the ANTIC/GTIA bus to 4 bits instead of 3. This would allow some extra functionality, though antic would have to be redesigned to deal with this. But it would allow higher colour support - Possibly automate DMA-ing of colour register changes or provide a way of swapping between multiple palettes similar to other systems of the era. Again drastically increasing colour output in practice. I mean I could keep listing increasingly elaborate things, but of course it's ultimately a moot point. Still, I find it interesting to think about nonetheless...

[@twiddler71]

@@KuraIthys The thinking at the time was that Atari wanted to maintain compatibility with their 800/400 models when they made the XL series. While Commodore realized just how bad the VIC20 design was, and needed to build a new PC from scratch. The C64 was basically the improved version of the Atari 8-bit computer in some sense.

[@sunspot42]

@@KuraIthys Atari's graphics hardware was still state of the art - more than sufficient for the games of the era. I probably would have focused on cost-reducing the disc drive, which was the real limiting factor, since the smart drive contained a 6502-based computer of its own plus a bit of RAM which acted as the controller. I think the 1200XL had a great case. I would have fit a drive into the side of it, like the Apple //c, and built the controller onto the motherboard. I'd have given programs a way to access that additional CPU when it wasn't in use - it would have been a marketing coup to have a home computer with 2 CPUs. And integrating that drive would have eliminated a separate case and power supply, allowing Atari to flood the market with drive-equipped computers at a price competitive with the C64 after that had hit the market. If I were going to tinker with the graphics, it would have been to add an 80-column mode. Since the Ataris had separate y/c video output (well, save the 1200XL, bizarrely), it should have been possible to sell an 80-column capable monitor that took advantage of the separate luma signal to produce an acceptable (if not RGB-sharp) image at a fraction the cost.

[@dm8dd]

Preferred XL sound on last V8, had the game too. 800xl was my first too, still have also

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

@@KuraIthys Atari Corp later looked into doing an advanced XE Game System before the Panther and Jaguar development took hold. But then they were hitting the wall where an XE would've been more powerful than the ST. And then they had that same issue with the STe/Falcon and the Panther/Jaguar. Curt Vendel was getting the details of all of that - along with a 2nd powerful chipset that Atari Inc's Advanced Research Lab had almost completed before Warner broke up the company and sold it off into pieces in July 1984 - and many other things before his untimely passing a few weeks ago.

[@johnchase7667]

The original Atari Joystick is still one of my favorites.

[@nickolasgaspar9660]

I thought is was bad until I got one in great condition and used it......The feeling is great!

[@Thematt11]

Scored 2 boxed 800XLs with printers and tape recorders, all boxed. One worked fine out of the box (new belts for the tape drive) the second has dead RAM. Amazing machines though.

[@zero0ryn]

Along with those Laserdiscs I have a still boxed set of Atari paddles. Yours if you want them.

[@Breakfast_of_Champions]

Hooray for 8-bit particle effects!

[@Thiesi]

I like the short highlights montage at the end of a series. It reiterates how much effort has gone into the project in the video, and acts as a nice short recap (without soldering iron though).

[@st3ddyman]

What’s incredible about the Atari 8-Bit is they weren’t competing with the C64 at release, they were competing with the PET and TRS-80. They cost a fortune in the UK then though. I remember they were over £1000 in Laskys but I used to dream about owning one.

[@grantbyers7625]

You really should try some of the amazing demos on this machine to get an appreciation of what it's capable of. Joyride is one that comes to mind. Absolutely stunning!

[@aaronbrowne7862]

The sound on "Far Away" by Agenda is awesome: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mZi2lmeKa6uWpbc

[@corvuscorax9265]

I had 800xe back then. And I fought with my C64 friend as fiercely as any nintendo kid with sega one :) I wanted to share how in Czechoslovakia we used a loader called Turbo 2000 to load the games. It made the Atari from the slowest loading computer to one of the fastest. Every game had to be hacked and saved to this new format, but there was a lot of dedicated programers in CS pirating all the good games :)

[@brainslayer666]

yep we had that too for discs. we also modded cassette drives + special loader code to load faster than any disc drive at the end with a modified operating system rom. so no special loader was required since it was included in the os already, but the game must be copied in this new format of course

[@corvuscorax9265]

Yes xc-12 had to be modded to support the turbo. At first I had to load the turbo loader from cassette, much later I obtained a turbo cartridge and that was great. The speed was 2270 bd as standard. Much higher speeds were available but those were less reliable. But even 2270 bd was great leap from the measly 600 bd.

[@weepingscorpion8739]

@@corvuscorax9265 What is the retro scene like in former Czechoslovakia? I sometimes travel to Slovakia (used to live there) and it'd be nice to see if I could pick up some equipment there that I can't easily find here.

[@corvuscorax9265]

@@weepingscorpion8739 sorry I have no idea, I am not a part of it. But I guess it is not too big in SK. And I dont see a lot of retro computers ads. Only kinda worthy local purchase for collector would be Atari 800xe (kinda crappy eastern europe version of 130xe, I had one) and local Spectrum compatible range of computers called Didaktik. There are other local computers like PMD85 or Mato for those really into iron curtain stuff.

[@pdsnpsnldlqnop3330]

Few KZbinrs really care about fans that send them stuff or help them out. It is a basic courtesy. RMC is truly appreciative. I respect that.

[@EmmaMaySeven]

European Countries and Capitals was my favourite game as a child because of the fabulous intro and music it played while loading. I remember my father setting up the computer on the kitchen table just for me to play the game even though I only wanted to hear the music. It's great to learn how they did it. I just assumed it stopped loading while playing the audio.

[@dschult3]

I have no horse in the race, so I feel a bit impartial here. I actually liked the Last V8's music on the Atari. I really dig that sound!

[@BrainSlugs83]

I did too. It sounded amazing. The C64 one clearly had better capabilities that were shown, but it just wasn't as good imo.

[@Heaven-dy9lj]

I'll never forget the 1st time me and my friends encountered the alien jumping on the screen. This heightened tension and atmosphere, was a 1st I'm sure in home computer games. Rescue On Fractalus rocked!

[@thezood]

It's surprising how nice sound and music is when they really take advantage of the full capabilities of the system. The SID chip is rich and full but the Atari 800 sound is maybe a bit crisper.

[@retrogamer33]

800XL / 65XE has the best music on BMX Simulator.

[@tomsuzyinfluencerinfj2712]

Remember what Julian Rignall said in ZZAP! magazine: The Atari 8-bit is the Rolls Royce of computers.

[@OperationPhantom]

Isn't that an Archer Maclean quote though? He said that in a ZZap interview somewhat cheekily...

[@tomsuzyinfluencerinfj2712]

Could be actually, gotta check my ZZap!'s. But Julian also always praised the A8

[@MrLurchsThings]

Yoomp. That music. Just perfect.

[@ATARIADO]

Great video! there's a lot of very good games, like Draconus, ,Montezuma's Revenge, River Raid, PAC MAN Arcade, Ms PAC MAN Arcade, Commando, Black Lamp, Crownland, Laura, Bosconian, Time Pilot, Karateka, The best version of Mr. Do on 8 bit computers, and so many others.

[@durrutino]

Mr. Do! was for me one of my ARCADE favorites in 800XL with a relatively high learning curve for a child, but at the same time very fun that hooked from the first game trying to get one more extra life, and another to be able to continue advancing screens. I still think today it's a great game technically and playably addictive as hell! with his great mix between Boulderdash and Pac-man adding his own hallmark, which is the most enjoyable part of the game, the hypnotizing and destructive movement / sound of your "magic ball". It is also fun to have verified over the years or decades that graphically and technically it was/is superior to the competition. A great job by Datasoft for the Atari 8bit in its Arcade conversion. It is definitely in my TOP 10 Atari 8bit HALL OF FAME.

[@durrutino]

Mr. Do! was for me one of my favorites ARCADE games on 800XL with a relatively high learning curve for a child, but at the same time very fun that hooked from the first game trying to get one more extra life, and another to be able to continue advancing screens. I still think today it's a great game technically and playably addictive as hell! with its great mixture between Boulderdash and Pac-man adding its own hallmark, which is the most fun part of the game, the hypnotizing and destructive movement/sound of your "magic ball". It's also fun to have proven over the years or decades that graphically and technically it was/is superior to the competition. A great job by Datasoft for the Atari 8bit in its Arcade conversion. It's definitely in my TOP 10 Atari 8bit HALL OF FAME. By the way, with excellent catchy music that gets into your brain forever and FX sounds at the same height, and best of all, AND EVERYTHING AT THE SAME TIME on a supposedly "1979 computer" with paradoxically "1982 ARCADE technology", THE YEAR of creation of the game For being such an "old computer" back in 1982 (RMC - The Cave dixit), not bad everything it was capable of offering and how in a tube color TV on that times.... The same could be said for the impeccable DROPZONE.

[@Mr_ToR]

This video made me remember the days of Atari-Commodore rivalry amongst users.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

...which continued with the ST/STe/Falcon vs the Amiga line. It's arguable as to which was one was the most heated along with a certain segment of both 8-bit platforms' owners refusing to upgrade to either.

[@DataHombre]

First! :) Atari 800XL... IMHO the best 8-bit Atari unit!

[@theannoyedmrfloyd3998]

I have 256k in my 800XL, thanks to the ICD RAMbo XL. SpartaDOS X works great.

[@DataHombre]

@Erroll Leggo Yeah, the 130XE was amazing. I made a choice to go with the 800XL simply for overall compatibility, as I'm not really a hard-core Atari 8-bit fan and I wanted only one unit (I'm more of a Commodore, Sinclair fan), but I'd love to get my hands on a 130XE eventually. :) My favourite Atari 8-bit game is Alley Cat.

[@jorge1170xyz]

Great video. The two reasons I bought an 800XL: 1. A wonderful port of BurgerTime called BEEF DROP. This, and the very similar 7800 port, are by far my favorites as they are programmed such that it is not overly easy to get "stuck" trying to get on or off a ladder (try saying that about the NES port). 2. A wonderful port of Warlords called CASTLE CRISIS. It required buying 4 refurb paddles at a considerable cost, but boy is it a great way for 4 people to have an absolute blast.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

Castle Crisis was built atop code from the official version of 5200 Warlords that wasn't completed and abandoned when Atari Inc went down the drain. Although if you really want to see something impressive, check out the 5200 version of Tempest sold by AtariAge. The original Atari programmer, Keithen Hayenga, decided in the 00s that he wanted to finish up the game which he wasn't able to do back in 1984 due to Atari Inc's implosion. And so he finished it up a few years later and is highly respected and has convinced plenty of people to buy 5200's - and its CX53 Trak-Ball controller - just to play it.

[@cnarvaez]

The 800XL was my first computer..... I remember the box with the sticker for the 1984 L.A. olympics!!!! Had so much fun with that computer!!!!

[@robertdavies5139]

First time watching your channel. Sat through all three parts to this one and boy did it bring back memories! As a child/early teen I had a VCR, 600XL, 800XL, and then went on to the ST. Yes I could have gone down the C64 or Specky route but I there was just something about the Atari range that kept me coming back again and again. Thanks for putting this together! :)

[@PMcDFPV]

Just saying I physically applauded at the end, due to the way you present and how things turned out, it just felt natural. True honor good Sir, thank you for all you do and the joy you bring !

[@Tuxon86]

The Atari 8bit were great home computer. I had both a 130XE and a C64 back in the day. I had a 600XL before that. I prefered the music of the C64 but I loved the color palette of the Atari over the C64.

[@nickolasgaspar9660]

try ASMA the atari music archive...it may change your opinion on that

[@hypurban]

I learned to program in the summer of 2000 on an Atari 600xl, and eventually 800xl when I found them for sale at thrift stores and garage sales.

[@thehairyfish3240]

I think the Atari was neglected from being misunderstood. Take the recent Albert creation. The coders have written at length, how they created the 'near' 16bit level graphics. The Atari provides this 'hidden' potential. The coders have managed after all this time to unlock incredible graphics through the Atari having many colors on hand. If you remember 'detail' is not only attained through resolution but also through colour amount. Read the coders info on this it's enlightening that the Atari demonstrates, continually, it's the 8 bit with incredible potential.

[@MrTBoneSF]

Now if you want to see a homebrew game that really shows off all that the Atari 8-bits were capable of, check out Atari Blast. It's pretty much every graphic trick and mode rolled up into one giant scrolling shooter that no other 8-bit console or computer could replicate.

[@PG-gs5vb]

While Atari Blast is quite a nice tech-demo, game-wise it is a bit bland in my opinion.

[@TheHighlander71]

My atari800xl doesn't get nearly the love and attention it deserves. Thanks for showing these games. I'll have to check these games out.

[@emmettturner9452]

It looks like you are using JS (joystick) mode in Missile Command. Missile Command is the only game across all of the 9-pin Atari platforms that officially supports the CX-22 Trakball controller in TB (trackball) mode. Even then, you have to press CTRL+T to enable it. I'm told this was not even mentioned in the manual!

[@MrTBoneSF]

For Rescue on Fractalus you said something like "the Atari didn't have the color palette to pull off anti-aliasing". Lucasfilm's other debut game, Ballblazer, DOES implement anti-aliasing. The Atari 8-bit computers with their 256 color palettes are probably the only computers of that era with the capability of attempting anti-aliasing (and is possibly the first game ever to do so). The RoF programmers (which you didn't quite make clear that Loren Carpenter actually did the original Genesis sequence in Wrath of Khan and was a Pixar founder) simply didn't want to waste the CPU cycles to do it. RoF is already amazing for its speed since it gets frames-per-second with 3D terrain while its peers like Microsoft Flight Simulator updates were seconds-per-frame.

[@johantibbelin417]

Nice episode. I had an Atari 130 XE as my first computer. So this was a nice trip down memory lane.

[@xnonsuchx]

I think the top 5 games played on my family's Atari 8-bits were STAR RAIDERS, MISSILE COMMAND, ARCHON, M.U.L.E. and BALLBLAZER. I really liked REALM OF IMPOSSIBILITY too.

[@sunspot42]

Oh I forgot about Realm Of Impossibility. It was quite good and different.

[@audio01]

Bruce Lee, Karateka, Centipede, Mouse Trap, Spy vs. Spy, the Pac-Man port is excellent... there're a lot!

[@sunspot42]

audio01 The 800’s version of Pac-Man was stunning.

[@clivejones5880]

Some things you may be unaware of: Due to some register changes between the 400/800 and the XL range, some earlier games would not run on the XL series. To overcome this, a 'Translator' disk was released which was pre-loaded prior to loading the game to be played. The Translator was a basic 400/800 emulator. Lucasfilm games: 'Rescue on Fractalus' was originally called 'Behind Jaggi Lines' and 'Ball Blazer; (which you should really cover as it was a stunning 3D game for the period) was called 'Ball Blaster'. One of the best platform games ever (IMHO) was 'DROL' which used artifacting to achieve colour in the then 'high resolution' mode. ;-) I believe a later lower resolution game in four colours was available. Now, back to your regular programming...

[@GeVeBeGaming]

From someone that grew up with 8bits I absolutely love your channel. Keep it up :-)

[@RMCRetro]

Thank you! I love making the videos, I appreciate you taking the time to watch

[@WrightOffsGaming]

Many thanks for this really excellent restoration, the 800 is one of those machines I've managed to miss in my gaming so seeing this through from start to finish has been a real pleasure.

[@MikeBiddle]

I had the Goonies game on a cartridge. 9:39 brings back bad memories. I wanted a C64, but got the 800XL because my dad found it on clearance. Lol It still served the same purpose to springboard me into my career field.

[@TzOk]

Atari tapes were stereo, but sound output was mono. TV was feed only with a mono-audio track, while the data-track was feed into the micro. So you did't need to adjust a balance in TV. You actually didn't heard the data track in the speaker (only some crosstalk).

[@sunspot42]

Thanks for pointing this out. I'd left a comment about the Atari tape drives and this unique ability in the first RMC video on the 800XL.

[@audio01]

There is a "POKE" (register) that you can use to mute the data transfer sound.

[@Species1571]

Not true. My TV only had 1 speaker and it always played the data sound. In the case of this game, it played the combined sound like you hear in the video, so it must have been merged in the RF modulator for mono output. Unfortunately, this means that shifting the balance to eliminate the loading sound would not be possible. I wonder if it would have been possible to cut the loading time in half if they had just used both channels for data.

[@sunspot42]

Species1571 You could poke a certain location to silence the data sound. Worked on cassettes and the disk drive. Presumably they could have enhanced the load speed by using both channels, but that would have pretty dramatically upped the complexity of the encode/decode circuits. Also keep in mind the 400 only shipped with like 8K, maxed out at 16 (without hacks) and it was the machine really intended to be used with a tape drive. The much more expensive 800 was meant to be used with a disk drive, especially if you had the money to expand it beyond 16K. An 8 or 16k program wouldn’t take long to load off of tape. It was only when the machines started coming with 48K or more - and programs grew that large or even larger - that tape load speeds became really daunting.

[@danehenry895]

makes sense, i wondered why some games loaded pretty quietly 🤔. None of my friends had an atari (spec'ies & c64's) i would argue how good the XE/800 was... we never really got the games the others had🤣

[@BrainSlugs83]

The Pac Man and Donkey Kong ports to the 800 are awesome. Also, it's not well known but Asteroids on the Atari 8-bit supports up to 4 players simultaneously. It's really fun.

[@Dios67]

I had the original Atari 800 48k then a XL 64 later. As you said about ports I always thought the Atari could pull off better games than what we we got because I saw what the system could do on other titles. But we were at the mercy of who was doing the porting. Once the C64 became the platform of choice the games seemed to be the worse for it.

[@durrutino]

At that time (in its twilight, so to speak), not all games was worse. And when they were, obviously it was because the base programming platform stopped being the Atari, to be the C64. Due to the carelessness and laziness of the programmers/converters at Atari, it was more than deficient when it was not due to the amount of people and money spent on development, nor were the capabilities of Atari's dedicated chips taken advantage of. Until then, the balance tilted rather to the contrary, seen in the best and most advanced games of the moment, like this Rescue on Fractalus that pulls hertzian power, in addition to sounds (FX), still unbeatable.

[@Applecompuser]

That is interesting as there was always so much more choice for C64. I only had an Atari. It kinda reminds me of owning a Mac. There may be a few games that dont make it. But the good ones mostly did.

[@mal-avcisi9783]

C64 is so much better gaming experience. Commodore always won the race. Later with the glorious Amiga 500 which killed the Atari st.

[@Dios67]

​@@mal-avcisi9783 Like the console wars of the 80's/90's the system with newer/better hardware can sometimes be the victor. But we are comparing a computer designed in the 1970's with one designed in the 80's. Also, it comes down to the support a system gets from software developers. Atari Jaguar? Lol. The people that built the Atari 800 also designed the Amiga. They ran the idea by the Atari leaders at that time but were denied; probably because of the great video game crash of 1983. So, they went to Commodore. The ST was a slapped together response to that. It did well with it's "off the shelf" hardware and the audio is still highly regarded. But, again the better supported system won out. I blame timing and bone head leadership at Atari for their failures.

[@lorensims4846]

Though originally designed as the successor to the 2600 Game System, The Atari 8-bit computer line (I had a pre-XL Atari 800) was capable of much more than just games. I used it to learn 6502 Assembly Language because of a bug in the Atari 8K Basic floating-point routines, the floating-point routines were dreadfully slow (and ALL numbers in Atari 8K Basic are floating-point numbers - enter 2.5E4 as a line number - it works!) so we used machine language subroutines (stored and addressed through Basic strings) to speed up calculations. FIG-Forth was available too. I learned a lot about using interrupts to do multiprocessing running routines on the ANTIC graphics chip. I did buy games, but only as graphics demos to figure out how they did what they did. I passed on getting an Apple ][ because the Atari had superior graphics and could do Everything an Apple ][ could. I also appreciated the four-channel POKEY sound capabilities.

[@atariastinus]

I loved my 800XL. Rescue on Fractalis was one of my favorite games. I love simulators. I played a lot of F15 and MSFS. One FPS lol. Another one of my favorites was MULE. Great series, thanks!

[@MrBootoob]

I had one back in the day. And I had Zybex too. That clip has just taken me back. The soundtrack/FX sounded as if I'd heard them yesterday. Wow. Nostalgia overload

[@ClassicContagious]

This was my first computer back in the mid 80's. It was also the computer that got me addicted to RPGs. Some of my favorites Wizard's Crown / Eternal Dagger, Phantasie 1 & 2 and Alternate Reality the Dungeon. Then some more action games, Bruce Lee, World Karate Championship, Karateka and can't forget Star Fleet 1 as a interesting Strategy / Star Trek SOS type game.

[@ianhughes5090]

Love the Trash to Treasure videos. as they give you a great history lesson for retro computers which I never owned back in the day thanks Neil for sharing

[@normantor]

Star Raiders for the Atari 8-Bit.....superb. I have it for the 5200.

[@eightbit1975]

Wonderful computer. I grew up with the C64 only and only had the opportunity to actually use an Atari 8-bit computer in the early 2000's for the first time. It did not take time to fall in love with the machine for so many reasons. Super fast SIO, incredibly reliable hardware, excellent POKEY sound...this machine was WAY ahead of its time. If I had been subjected to it before the C64 I would have been coding on this machine instead back in those days.

[@jayglasper93]

Drop zone had some rather impressive colour scrolling on the game over screen. Another game to try if u haven't as yet is Alley cat from synapse software, very unique and quirky game. 😀

[@paulgordon135]

ARGH! damn I wish I'd kept my trusty 800XL... I had the 1010 cassette deck, and the 1050 disk drive, and loads of games on 5.25" floppies.... I (foolishly) sold it when I was in my 40's, and it was in PERFECT condition... I even remember the day I brought it down from the loft when I'd decided to sell it (it had been up there untouched & unloved for maybe 10 years), I set it up to make sure it all still worked OK, and man did I spend virtually that entire day playing Boulderdash!

[@JelliedInfant]

In the 80's (before I got my Atari 520ST!) a friend of my roommate used to use his 800XL to hack our answering machine and change the outgoing message. It was pretty funny.

[@kralikdoribunny5615]

Soooooo much nostalgia. I remember playing all of those games on my 800XE. Great video and great selection of games. Ataris were much more common in eastern europian countries than C64. Glad you did it justice :)

[@retrogamer33]

Bit of a mix up there dude, it's either 800XL or 65XE/130XE that you had.

[@kralikdoribunny5615]

@@retrogamer33 You're wrong, it was 800XE .. looked same as 130XE, but had 64kb RAM .. look it up. I've read somewhere that it was sold maybe only in post-communist countries (not sure about that).

[@kralikdoribunny5615]

@@retrogamer33 did it for you ... starikompjuteri.nasaskola.rs/files/Kompjuteri/Atari/Atari_800xe_.jpg

[@RiksVids]

@@kralikdoribunny5615 Yes you're right....as Jack Tramiel had an affinity to the region....everywhere else it was the 65XE, there was also a 65XEN I think that was for Arabic countries

[@emmettturner9452]

Original replacement feet for the CX-22 Trackball controller are available on eBay, at least in the USA. They aren't listed specifically for the CX-22 but that's only because Atari used the same feet for many other accessories and systems. The seller has a ton of new-old stock (NOS) Atari parts.

[@millerk20]

The 800XL was the first computer I ever bought it was around 80 or 81. I upgrade to an ST in around 1986. I sold the 800XL but I still have the ST.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

There's a healthy Atari ST scene. You can find them on AtariAge, Atari-Forum, and a bunch of ST Facebook groups.

[@mmille10]

Re. the audio track on the tape load - I discovered that when I first started using Atari computers in 1981, since at the time, the tape drive was a popular mode for loading programs. I heard audio tracks on a couple Atari tape titles: States and Capitals, and An Invitation to Programming. What An Invitation to Programming demonstrated in spades was that the computer was able to control the tape drive, turning it on and off on cue. That really seemed like magic. There were a few Atari games that depended on having an audio track, as well, which did a lot of this. All of these titles were written in Atari Basic. The first part might just have the "buzzing" sound of loading the code part of the presentation off tape. Then when you typed "Run", the program would start and stop the tape for the audio it was supposed to sync to. What I noticed about these titles, though, was there wasn't great quality control syncing the tape with what went on on-screen. Most of it was impressive, because some of the coordination was controlled through timing loops, and it was very good. The early and middle parts of such a program would work, but if you kept going, you'd run into some part where the screen and audio track got out of sync, or the program crashed while the audio was playing. That was always pretty frustrating, because the illusion it created was impressive. When you realized that it was just a coordination game, it was disappointing. Another Atari technology that exploited this was their Education System that used an Atari cartridge, and each lesson series came on program cassette. It seemed to use a streaming technique, where data was loaded from the cassette, and immediately displayed on-screen, while the audio track played. The series taught foreign languages, and history, as I remember, and the syncing between the screen and the tape was top-notch. This was probably because it was easier to design the interaction in this system, since there was likely no code being loaded off tape. It was just data in a standard format, telling the cartridge what to do when.

[@ricardobornman1698]

Thank you Neil. Absolutely awesome.

[@solitairepilot]

A game and restoration! The best of both worlds!

[@Black.Irish.Charmer.Explores]

Sargon II was a really cool chess style 2 player board game, in which different creatures had different attack and defence capabilities. Each move would shift to a separate combat screen in which the piece battle would play out. It had an AI, but the most fun was had playing directly against mates, and usually winning (to boast a little, lol). I burned a lot of hours on it in my teens.

[@RichardCyberPunk]

Thanks for making this video about the Atari 800XL. I really like it. You not only showed games , but also spoke about 21st century upgrades.

[@a120068020]

Best 8 bit computer ever IMO.

[@ubezoen]

Watch the key bouncing a few times after it is pressed at 1:39. Extremely satisfying!

[@skullleader-hw9hi]

My Atari plaed games but also did work. Word Processing spreadsheet and flyers. All helped to pay a trip to the UK. You have to remember the 8-Bit Atari were the progenitor of the Amiga.

[@AE-bm4no]

For anyone with a track ball. There is a modded version of Missile Command that gives you 3 missile bases just like the arcade version. The extra missiles are bound to the keyboard.

[@samsulummasamsulumma6898]

Outstanding video!!! Thanks for the time and effort you put in making it👍👍👍

[@Dev_olution]

Excellent video and great finish for the series

[@RichardTroupe]

Thanks for another great video Neil. I really enjoyed this series on a micro I don't actually own yet!

[@timwatson3157]

Great video Retromancave, I literally got given an Atari 800xl the same week you started the trash to treasures trilogy so immediately bought an Uno cart. Loving the game Yoomp! (Thankfully works on the Uno, phew!) It's great when people write new games for old machines!! Currently watching all the Demos too which really bring out the capability of this machine so looking forward to exploring this machine more!

[@RetroDream]

Hey Neil! Like your channel very much, lots of unique technical stuff and our beloved good old machines. Featured your channel on mine! Keep them coming!

[@RETROCENGO]

I was actually curious about this system, was thinking about buying one and try out the games, being a Commodore guy, this video was very informative, thanks RMC, this video made me wanna use my time on other retro systems😁👍🏻

[@dunebasher1971]

It's a testament to the power built into the Atari 8-bit range that they were designed in 1977-78, but were still way ahead of almost every other micro on the market in the mid-80s. Their only real rival was the C64, which had the benefit of being designed several years later, but even then, when the same game existed for both the Atari and C64, the Atari version was often faster and smoother.

[@KuraIthys]

Yeah, the only real letdown of the Atari, and almost certainly a side effect of when they were designed, is their sprite hardware is a bit wonky compared to later systems. (also weird memory saving hacks like having 256 colour video output circuitry but 7 bit palette registers, but those aren't so significant) I bet if they had done even a slight design tweak to GTIA and Antic when the XL machines had launched they could have done a lot better. Like, say, fixing the palette registers, and doubling the number of sprites (in absence of a more comprehensive design change to how they worked.)

[@RichardM-kv4uu]

@@KuraIthys THe Atari sprites were of their time - the original 800 had 4 joystick ports and so it had 4 hardware sprites too, called "players", but it also had 4 smaller sprites (2 pixels wide) called "missiles", one for each player - the idea being that one sprite for each player would be enough! They were single colour too.

[@elHosed]

My family had an Atari 800. I remember playing a few of these (though by then we had a Sega Master System so not much playing was done). What's funny is that my Old Man used that Atari right up until 1996 as a label printer for his business. He probably would be using it even today except his business was flooded (to the ceiling) and the Atari did not survive :(

[@5000wombats]

Rainbow Walker was always a favorite game of mine.

[@kjrchannel1480]

I had a 1010. I have to say those button linkages were built good and would break. I recall a few cassette decks also had playback linkages break to. One of my more favorite games was Boulderdash 1. I had many competitions with friends and relatives on the 800XL.

[@Teeb2023]

Star Raiders in the background... Wow. One of the first games that hooked me. That, and Caverns of Khafka. :)

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

That was the first killer title/system seller for the Atari 8-bit computer line. The Apple II's was VisiCalc.

[@MindFlareRetro]

Great work, guys! An excellent topic and excellent collaboration. Mr. Lurch will definitely wake up to a few more well deserved. I really enjoyed this series -- well done (as usual).

[@realcourte]

My precious :) So much fun with it !

[@KieronWray]

thnks for this, great nostalgia.. ive got an 800xl in the parent's loft and a bunch of boxed games and joysticks and things (1050, i think a 1010 and the xe tape deck), made me wonder about the retro cave waiting for me in their loft :)

[@fredericktennant9151]

I loved the video, I used to own this computer with its 5.45" floppy disk drive and printer, the Disk drive had been modded so that I could play loads of game son floppy disk shame I upgraded to the Atari ST (first gen) I had a 4 figure serial number which required a monochrome monitor to use, later it was modified with a pal card for playing on a TV. thanks for the memories.

[@demonsty]

really cool video. like u said, for 1979 tech, this micro could hold its on. that last game was awesome with the tunnels.

[@demonsty]

that music on the last V8 for c64 is KILLER!

[@SledgeFox]

Another wonderful episode, thank you very much!

[@RMCRetro]

My pleasure, thank you for watching

A very nice episode. In fact, in a short material you managed to show how great a computer an 8-bit Atari is! One addition: currently the best "storage" solution for a small Atari is AVGCART (it is worth buying with a dedicated SIO cable) - it can load: cartridge images and executables (XEX, EXE, COM ...) and floppy disk images ( ATR, ATX) or casette tape images (CAS).

[@ttrjw]

Lovely shot with a Sony Trinitron and an original 80s Atari Joystick.

[@suitandtieguy]

"The Last V8" sounds like the Space Patrol Orion theme but with a different B section. Clever!

[@c6jones720]

Ahh the memories: I remember the trackball, the PCB used to corrode, I was never able to fix mine. As for the tape stereo thing, lone raider, and invitation to programming made good use of the audio track.

[@fybyfyby]

We loved Spy Hunter with my friend. It was a blast!