The year was
1978. Atari was at the top of the video gamming world with its 2600
VCS game console. Atari management looked around and saw a new
and potentially lucrative market just beginning to take shape. This market
was the Home Computer Market. They saw a market with relatively few major
competitors and Atari was in a great position to market a computer
of their own. They, after all, were a trusted household name, everyone
owned an Atari or knew someone who did!
So December of 1978 Atari
introduced the Atari 400 and 800 computers. The actual
computers were not delivered until late 1979 due to production problems.
The 800 was a full blown 8
bit computer based on the MOSTEK 6502A processor running at 1.70
MHz with up to 48K of user RAM installed. It had a standard QWERTY
keyboard with 62 full-travel keys and 4 special keys to the right of the
keyboard.
It stood out amongst the
other computer offerings of the day with its graphics and sound
capabilities. It was capable of producing 128 colors on the screen using
the CTIA video processor and up to 256 colors with the upgraded GTIA
video processor chip used on later versions of the computer. The 400 was
first amongst the early computers to be able to display 4 programmable
screen objects simultaneously called 'Player-missiles' (also known
as 'Sprites' on Commodore computers). This was at a time
when the most computers produced only monochrome displays or very
primitive 8 color screens. The graphics were handled by a custom chip
called the "ANTIC" (CTIA/GTIA). This chip was
designed to work as a sort of co-processor to take the work load away from
the main processor to display graphics and color on the screen.
The team that developed the custom
chips inside the 400 and 800 was headed by Jay Miner
who later, after leaving Atari, headed the teams who developed the custom
chips that surrounded the Motorola MC68000 processor that powered
arguably the most advanced computer of its time, The Amiga 1000!
The sound was supplied by another custom
chip called "POKEY" and produced 4 voices for the most
realistic sound production of any computer on the market at the time.
Input/output was handled by a serial port on the right side of the
machine. You could daisy chain a tape player, a 5 1/4 inch disk drive, a
modem, or a printer through special 13 pin D-type jacks. The Atari 800
could also accommodate up to 4 9 pin D-plug joysticks through ports on the front of the
machine. The joysticks were of the standard type used on the Atari 2600
VCS.
Although the 800 could be attached to a
standard TV with the hardwired RF cable, it included a 5 pin round DIN
plug on its right side for connecting to a hi-resolution color composite
monitor.
The computer was originally released
standard with 16K of RAM, but could easily be expanded to 48K by plugging
16K RAM
modules into the slots provided under the removable panel on top
of the computer.
The Atari 800 was one of the few
computers of its day not to use a BASIC written by Microsoft,
instead it used a version written in house, this made converting programs
written in BASIC
for other machines a bit difficult. For some
strange reason the BASIC was not included in the ROM
but it had to
be loaded by installing a cartridge into one of the two slots under the
lift up trap door on top front of the machine. It had to be inserted into
the left slot as do most of the cartridges that the 800 uses. I
have found very few cartridges that use the right side. Also, cartridges
from the Atari VCS do not fit in these slots. The 800 had a
built in RF modulator so no special hook-ups or costly monitors were
necessary, it hooked directly to any TV.
