6 ms·

Atari 65XE

73 points by indigodaddy 6y ago

cmrdporcupine 6y ago
I have a Atari Inc 800XL (1983) and an 800 (1979) downstairs that still work great. And an Atari Corp 130XE (1985?) with dead DRAM that doesn't, despite being newer and in much better visual condition. Apparently a very common failure. The XEs were a "rock bottom pricing" innovation from the Tramiels, after creating Atari Corp from some of the ashes of Atari Inc. Cheaper components and my impression is they are not of the same quality. But I was an Atari ST user back in the 80s, so the case design has some nostalgia value to me.
- kabdib 6y ago
  "What you have to realize," said one Atari engineer (I think it was Shiraz Shivji), "Is that DRAMs are really analog components." IIRC the ST was running DRAMs a few tens of nanoseconds (ten to fifteen percent) faster than they were rated. Not sure exactly why, but I think the ST was running cheap parts faster than they were supposed to go, and it largely got away with it. Wonder if they played the same games with the refreshed 6502-based systems.
  - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
    They did that so that they could run the Shifter from the memory on the off-cycle of the CPU, right? I mean, it's crazy because it worked and all my STs I have downstairs have never failed, and I don't recall ever having issues with memory chips on them, and I don't recall them ever being unreliable. As for the XE, from reading the forums it sounds like they just used a bad batch of 4164 DRAMs, something to do with them being American made and not Japanese. I seem to remember this was the era of crazy fluctations in memory prices.
    - kabdib 6y ago
      Oh yeah, in 1986 Reagan administration introduced tariffs for 64K DRAMs from Japan. I remember having a bunch of trouble tracking the chips down so I could upgrade a 128K Macintosh to a 512K "Fat Mac" (which was easy to do, if you had one of the oddball new Torx bits -- also hard to find -- and a soldering iron stalwart enough to defeat the massive and heatsink-like ground plane on the Mac motherboard). 512K for about $240, IIRC. My first major purchase at Fry's, which had recently bifurcated a supermarket into a "chips" side (with dip) and a "chips" side (with sockets).
- hellbannedguy 6y ago
  I was an Atari ST 1200 user too. In college, I told no one. I felt like I was cheating with the word processor. The other students would talk about paying someone $1.00 a page for typing, and I said nothing. I told my college girlfriend she could use it whenever she wanted, but she just didn't like the poor Atari. I remember trying to get her interested in the drawing program, but still nothing. I still have a nice memory of me demonstrating the abilities of the drawing program though. I was fooling around and drew male and female anatomy on the screen. She said, “You’re getting me horny. Turn that box off!” I was astonished on a few levels. I never heard her say anything remotely sexual, and I like it. I remember breaking up with her after we graduated, and I never found anyone even close to her on a lot of levels. I mistakenly thought the grass was greener. I had this irrational fear one teacher might question the dot matrix print, but no one questioned anything. My girlfriend at the time thought I was crazy for spending so much money on a computer. I hated writing papers, but the computer saved me a lot of hassles. I wish now I explored other aspects of computing back then, but in all honestly, I felt like sitting in front of a screen for anything other than writing, or making money, was waste of my 20’s. I even got to the point where I didn’t like computers. I still have a love hate relationship with a lot of tech. I remember looking at the case, and the monitor a few years after graduation, and tossing it all away. At the time, I wished they didn’t use that beige for the case/monitor though. Now—-I wish I kept it. That word processor was everything I needed to write.
NKosmatos 6y ago
I discovered this site just a few days ago while searching something for my still functioning 65XE after 30+ years (my first computer). I wonder if after a couple of decades current computers will still be functioning :-)
- cmrdporcupine 6y ago
  Unfortunately Curt Vendel (the original owner of the site) just passed away fairly recently: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-09-08-gaming-historian-curt-vendel-dies-at-53 https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-09-08-gaming-his... R.I.P.
  - krallja 6y ago
    Ugh, that’s sad news.
mcphage 6y ago
I had one of those growing up! I loved it. My favorite game: Realms of Impossibility.
intrepidhero 6y ago
Serious question to those who still have a functioning retro computer: what do you do with it? My dad still has our old Atari 800 in the closet somewhere and I sometimes wonder if it still works. But I just can't imagine using it for more than few minutes nostalgia hit.
- buescher 6y ago
  You can play Star Raiders and M.U.L.E. - the latter with four human players, which is best.
  - IceCreamJonsey 6y ago
    Yeah! And Warlords for the Atari 800 (or "Castle Crisis," which is a homebrew / arcade-perfect port of the arcade version of Warlords) with some friends and real paddle controllers is a lot of fun.
    - protomyth 6y ago
      If you know something about wiring you can get photocells and wire them to the paddle ports (pin 9 and 5) then move by how much light gets to the photocell. I put two in a piece of wood so I could use my hand to allow or restrict light reaching the photocell. Also fun to write a basic program to take the value and use it for the sound command. Makes some weird noise.
      - ddingus 6y ago
        That seems fun. I have a kid who might love to play with one or two hooked up to the sound registers. Edit: I know what I am going to do. My granddaughter is 5. I am going to write a little basic program that reads these cells wired to a couple paddle ports. I have one set I can take apart for this bit of fun. We have two hands, which makes for a perfect pairing. https://www.atariarchives.org/ecp/chapter_5.php https://www.atariarchives.org/ecp/chapter_5.php Press a key, and something happens on screen. Maybe the color changes with the sound, or it says, "Hello Kiddo", whatever. And the registers, math, change. A couple hours on this should lead to interesting time watching her interact with it all. Thanks for the inspiration. Should be fun. Now all I have to do is get a program into that Atari. Might finally be time to get one of those SD card devices for my Atari, or a FujiNet. Something.
kldavis4 6y ago
The XEGS was my first computer. My parents bought it for me when I was 11. I later got a floppy disk drive and a 300 baud modem. It honestly felt magical to me. Rescue on Fractalus was one of my favorite games. The light gun was not as good as the NES one, but I still had fun with Bug Hunt. I really enjoyed the Infocom text games, though I think the feelies were the best part of those. Later I discovered Ultima IV and played the heck out of that. I had my first experiences in programming with it. I would read the manual for fun and typing in programs from Antic. I eventually started asking my parents for an Atari ST but ended up with a second hand IBM AT. 1988 issue of Antic: https://archive.org/details/1988-06-anticmagazine https://archive.org/details/1988-06-anticmagazine
olliej 6y ago
I had an Atari system growing up (until we lent it to someone and it never worked again), and I'd never been able to recall what it was. According to this site it was an XEGS, and to my mind that is the best console ever :D
lizknope 6y ago
We had an Atari 400 and then an 800 along with the Atari 410 program recorder that used ordinary audio cassettes to store and load data. I learned BASIC on that along with hours of Star Raider, Miner 2049er, Jumpman, and arcade classics like Pac-Man, Centipede, and Missile Command.
skynet-9000 6y ago
My first Atari was a 130XE. I now have 800XL's and a couple more XE's, but my favorite case design is still the XE. It just always seemed like a futuristic case to me, while the XL beige case kinda felt more like the previous era. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. My Atari (no affiliation, but a happy customer since the 90's) still has a ton of (brand new, old stock) parts and (in some cases) brand new computers, and they're stored in beautiful northern California, so they don't get any UV damage. They're also absolute knowledge sinks for Atari's (both 8-bit and ST): http://www.myatari.com/ http://www.myatari.com/
- reaperducer 6y ago
  Web site seems a little outdated. The home page proudly includes "Snow day 12/7/2009!" Almost everything I click displays this message: Last change 08/03/2018 Temporarily not available due to Maintanence. Sorry we we have had several of our Windows XP Systems crash that we use to update our prices list so have not been able to update price and stock levels on many items. I am trying hard to correct this but just do not have the time right now.
  - skynet-9000 6y ago
    Isn't that part of the charm? ;) You can call them or email them for details (http://www.myatari.com/atariord.htm http://www.myatari.com/atariord.htm), or check out their Ebay store: http://www.ebaystores.com/Atari-Sales-and-Service/Atari-8-Bit-800-400-XL-XE-/_i.html?_fsub=5&_sid=2257521&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322 http://www.ebaystores.com/Atari-Sales-and-Service/Atari-8-Bi...
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  Same here, I had an XL and I did find the XE much better looking. Computers were a future thing, a futuristic design was a much better fit than the brown/beige that harked back at the wooden panels of the first-gen home computers.
protomyth 6y ago
I went from the Atari 400 to the Atari 130XE. I was a bit miffed about losing two joystick ports (MULE is everything). The keyboard was so much better. I had the Indus Disk Drive[1] and I swear I opened that cover way too often because of how smooth it rose. I still think MULE is the perfect game. Seven Cities of Gold can never be done again, but it did provide some serious amusement ("See, I can trade only, hey back off, why is that drum playing, I'm one of you, oh crud, well its on now.") 1) https://archive.org/details/run-magazine-20/page/n25/mode/2up?view=theater https://archive.org/details/run-magazine-20/page/n25/mode/2u...
- meepmorp 6y ago
  I'm not sure it's fair to describe the membrane thing on the 400 as a keyboard. I typed in everything in the Basic manual, and thinking about it now makes my hands ache.
  - ddingus 6y ago
    Yes. I got a real keyboard for mine back in the day. Today I have one. It has one purpose: run "Star Raiders." I love that game. And the 400 looks seriously cool. Never fails to get some attention running that game. Then people experience the feel of that cool looking keyboard... oh well. It is fine for the game.
    - PostThisTooFast 6y ago
      The Atari 400 keyboard is where Apple keyboards are going.
- lowercased 6y ago
  Many of those early EA games were so... well done, inventive, and really captured your imagination. MULE, 7 Cities, Archon, Pinball Construction Set, Skyfox, Adventure Construction Set, Music Construction Set, Racing Destruction Set, Heart Of Africa and Bards Tale were all... relatively mind-blowing (although my mind was only... 12-13 at the time!). They seemed to be capable of both pushing the computer past its limits and expanding the idea of what was possible in game (or just... with the 'construction sets'... what was possible).
StanislavPetrov 6y ago
The Timex Sinclair was my first computer. Getting an Atari 8-bit a couple years later seemed like (and was) a massive upgrade. Every time I hear kids complain about load times I think about spending an hour trying to load a text game from a cassette drive only to have it freeze up and being forced to start over.
whyenot 6y ago
In the early 1980s you could buy a 5mb hard disk that connected to the Atari 800 and other models through 2 (4?) of the joystick ports. It was pretty clever, and 5mb was a huge amount of space at a time when a floppy disk held 80k, and loading files from cassette tape could take 10-20 minutes. It was also incredibly expensive.
memsom 6y ago
I had an 800XL that I got for cheap at the end of the 8-bit era. It was an amazing machine. A few years later, my then girlfriend's mum's boyfriend got a new computer, a 65XE. I was shocked when I realised it was basically the 800XL with very little difference. But, hey, I lent them a lot of games. The 65XE was marketed as "new" at the time in the UK, which was quite disingenuous really. A bit like the Commodore 16. Both were a bit past their prime.
GekkePrutser 6y ago
> The 2 piece cases greatly reduced the cost of the product, though their design was rather drab and unappealing compared to the more stylish, yet more expensive XL case designs. The keyboards were another shortcoming of the design. They were mushy and lacked solid tactile rebound to them and this was a major complaint for many users. Don't really agree with this. I had an 800XL and I thought the grey XE series was much more stylish and modern in design. The brown/beige was very old-fashioned. In fact I think the ST series was one of the best looking computers of its time. Definitely much better than the Amiga 500 (which I did own) The keyboards had better feedback on the 800XL but the keys were much heavier there. The XE was more like a modern keyboard.
ofrzeta 6y ago
I recently ordered a SIO2SD device from a polish guy who designs peripherals for Atari 8 bit and such. It's not vintage but emulates Atari disks (ATR files) on an SD card. So you can download ATR files on a PC and then boot or load on the Atari. Can recommend.

73 points by indigodaddy 6y ago

I have a Atari Inc 800XL (1983) and an 800 (1979) downstairs that still work great. And an Atari Corp 130XE (1985?) with dead DRAM that doesn't, despite being newer and in much better visual condition. Apparently a very common failure. The XEs were a "rock bottom pricing" innovation from the Tramiels, after creating Atari Corp from some of the ashes of Atari Inc. Cheaper components and my impression is they are not of the same quality. But I was an Atari ST user back in the 80s, so the case design has some nostalgia value to me.

kabdib 6y ago
"What you have to realize," said one Atari engineer (I think it was Shiraz Shivji), "Is that DRAMs are really analog components." IIRC the ST was running DRAMs a few tens of nanoseconds (ten to fifteen percent) faster than they were rated. Not sure exactly why, but I think the ST was running cheap parts faster than they were supposed to go, and it largely got away with it. Wonder if they played the same games with the refreshed 6502-based systems.
- cmrdporcupine 6y ago
  They did that so that they could run the Shifter from the memory on the off-cycle of the CPU, right? I mean, it's crazy because it worked and all my STs I have downstairs have never failed, and I don't recall ever having issues with memory chips on them, and I don't recall them ever being unreliable. As for the XE, from reading the forums it sounds like they just used a bad batch of 4164 DRAMs, something to do with them being American made and not Japanese. I seem to remember this was the era of crazy fluctations in memory prices.
  - kabdib 6y ago
    Oh yeah, in 1986 Reagan administration introduced tariffs for 64K DRAMs from Japan. I remember having a bunch of trouble tracking the chips down so I could upgrade a 128K Macintosh to a 512K "Fat Mac" (which was easy to do, if you had one of the oddball new Torx bits -- also hard to find -- and a soldering iron stalwart enough to defeat the massive and heatsink-like ground plane on the Mac motherboard). 512K for about $240, IIRC. My first major purchase at Fry's, which had recently bifurcated a supermarket into a "chips" side (with dip) and a "chips" side (with sockets).
hellbannedguy 6y ago
I was an Atari ST 1200 user too. In college, I told no one. I felt like I was cheating with the word processor. The other students would talk about paying someone $1.00 a page for typing, and I said nothing. I told my college girlfriend she could use it whenever she wanted, but she just didn't like the poor Atari. I remember trying to get her interested in the drawing program, but still nothing. I still have a nice memory of me demonstrating the abilities of the drawing program though. I was fooling around and drew male and female anatomy on the screen. She said, “You’re getting me horny. Turn that box off!” I was astonished on a few levels. I never heard her say anything remotely sexual, and I like it. I remember breaking up with her after we graduated, and I never found anyone even close to her on a lot of levels. I mistakenly thought the grass was greener. I had this irrational fear one teacher might question the dot matrix print, but no one questioned anything. My girlfriend at the time thought I was crazy for spending so much money on a computer. I hated writing papers, but the computer saved me a lot of hassles. I wish now I explored other aspects of computing back then, but in all honestly, I felt like sitting in front of a screen for anything other than writing, or making money, was waste of my 20’s. I even got to the point where I didn’t like computers. I still have a love hate relationship with a lot of tech. I remember looking at the case, and the monitor a few years after graduation, and tossing it all away. At the time, I wished they didn’t use that beige for the case/monitor though. Now—-I wish I kept it. That word processor was everything I needed to write.

NKosmatos 6y ago

I discovered this site just a few days ago while searching something for my still functioning 65XE after 30+ years (my first computer). I wonder if after a couple of decades current computers will still be functioning :-)

cmrdporcupine 6y ago
Unfortunately Curt Vendel (the original owner of the site) just passed away fairly recently: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-09-08-gaming-historian-curt-vendel-dies-at-53 https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-09-08-gaming-his... R.I.P.
- krallja 6y ago
  Ugh, that’s sad news.

mcphage 6y ago

I had one of those growing up! I loved it. My favorite game: Realms of Impossibility.

intrepidhero 6y ago

Serious question to those who still have a functioning retro computer: what do you do with it? My dad still has our old Atari 800 in the closet somewhere and I sometimes wonder if it still works. But I just can't imagine using it for more than few minutes nostalgia hit.

buescher 6y ago
You can play Star Raiders and M.U.L.E. - the latter with four human players, which is best.
- IceCreamJonsey 6y ago
  Yeah! And Warlords for the Atari 800 (or "Castle Crisis," which is a homebrew / arcade-perfect port of the arcade version of Warlords) with some friends and real paddle controllers is a lot of fun.
  - protomyth 6y ago
    If you know something about wiring you can get photocells and wire them to the paddle ports (pin 9 and 5) then move by how much light gets to the photocell. I put two in a piece of wood so I could use my hand to allow or restrict light reaching the photocell. Also fun to write a basic program to take the value and use it for the sound command. Makes some weird noise.
    - ddingus 6y ago
      That seems fun. I have a kid who might love to play with one or two hooked up to the sound registers. Edit: I know what I am going to do. My granddaughter is 5. I am going to write a little basic program that reads these cells wired to a couple paddle ports. I have one set I can take apart for this bit of fun. We have two hands, which makes for a perfect pairing. https://www.atariarchives.org/ecp/chapter_5.php https://www.atariarchives.org/ecp/chapter_5.php Press a key, and something happens on screen. Maybe the color changes with the sound, or it says, "Hello Kiddo", whatever. And the registers, math, change. A couple hours on this should lead to interesting time watching her interact with it all. Thanks for the inspiration. Should be fun. Now all I have to do is get a program into that Atari. Might finally be time to get one of those SD card devices for my Atari, or a FujiNet. Something.

kldavis4 6y ago

The XEGS was my first computer. My parents bought it for me when I was 11. I later got a floppy disk drive and a 300 baud modem. It honestly felt magical to me. Rescue on Fractalus was one of my favorite games. The light gun was not as good as the NES one, but I still had fun with Bug Hunt. I really enjoyed the Infocom text games, though I think the feelies were the best part of those. Later I discovered Ultima IV and played the heck out of that. I had my first experiences in programming with it. I would read the manual for fun and typing in programs from Antic. I eventually started asking my parents for an Atari ST but ended up with a second hand IBM AT. 1988 issue of Antic: https://archive.org/details/1988-06-anticmagazine https://archive.org/details/1988-06-anticmagazine

olliej 6y ago

I had an Atari system growing up (until we lent it to someone and it never worked again), and I'd never been able to recall what it was. According to this site it was an XEGS, and to my mind that is the best console ever :D

lizknope 6y ago

We had an Atari 400 and then an 800 along with the Atari 410 program recorder that used ordinary audio cassettes to store and load data. I learned BASIC on that along with hours of Star Raider, Miner 2049er, Jumpman, and arcade classics like Pac-Man, Centipede, and Missile Command.

skynet-9000 6y ago

My first Atari was a 130XE. I now have 800XL's and a couple more XE's, but my favorite case design is still the XE. It just always seemed like a futuristic case to me, while the XL beige case kinda felt more like the previous era. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. My Atari (no affiliation, but a happy customer since the 90's) still has a ton of (brand new, old stock) parts and (in some cases) brand new computers, and they're stored in beautiful northern California, so they don't get any UV damage. They're also absolute knowledge sinks for Atari's (both 8-bit and ST): http://www.myatari.com/ http://www.myatari.com/

reaperducer 6y ago
Web site seems a little outdated. The home page proudly includes "Snow day 12/7/2009!" Almost everything I click displays this message: Last change 08/03/2018 Temporarily not available due to Maintanence. Sorry we we have had several of our Windows XP Systems crash that we use to update our prices list so have not been able to update price and stock levels on many items. I am trying hard to correct this but just do not have the time right now.
- skynet-9000 6y ago
  Isn't that part of the charm? ;) You can call them or email them for details (http://www.myatari.com/atariord.htm http://www.myatari.com/atariord.htm), or check out their Ebay store: http://www.ebaystores.com/Atari-Sales-and-Service/Atari-8-Bit-800-400-XL-XE-/_i.html?_fsub=5&_sid=2257521&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322 http://www.ebaystores.com/Atari-Sales-and-Service/Atari-8-Bi...
GekkePrutser 6y ago
Same here, I had an XL and I did find the XE much better looking. Computers were a future thing, a futuristic design was a much better fit than the brown/beige that harked back at the wooden panels of the first-gen home computers.

protomyth 6y ago

I went from the Atari 400 to the Atari 130XE. I was a bit miffed about losing two joystick ports (MULE is everything). The keyboard was so much better. I had the Indus Disk Drive[1] and I swear I opened that cover way too often because of how smooth it rose. I still think MULE is the perfect game. Seven Cities of Gold can never be done again, but it did provide some serious amusement ("See, I can trade only, hey back off, why is that drum playing, I'm one of you, oh crud, well its on now.") 1) https://archive.org/details/run-magazine-20/page/n25/mode/2up?view=theater https://archive.org/details/run-magazine-20/page/n25/mode/2u...

meepmorp 6y ago
I'm not sure it's fair to describe the membrane thing on the 400 as a keyboard. I typed in everything in the Basic manual, and thinking about it now makes my hands ache.
- ddingus 6y ago
  Yes. I got a real keyboard for mine back in the day. Today I have one. It has one purpose: run "Star Raiders." I love that game. And the 400 looks seriously cool. Never fails to get some attention running that game. Then people experience the feel of that cool looking keyboard... oh well. It is fine for the game.
  - PostThisTooFast 6y ago
    The Atari 400 keyboard is where Apple keyboards are going.
lowercased 6y ago
Many of those early EA games were so... well done, inventive, and really captured your imagination. MULE, 7 Cities, Archon, Pinball Construction Set, Skyfox, Adventure Construction Set, Music Construction Set, Racing Destruction Set, Heart Of Africa and Bards Tale were all... relatively mind-blowing (although my mind was only... 12-13 at the time!). They seemed to be capable of both pushing the computer past its limits and expanding the idea of what was possible in game (or just... with the 'construction sets'... what was possible).

StanislavPetrov 6y ago

The Timex Sinclair was my first computer. Getting an Atari 8-bit a couple years later seemed like (and was) a massive upgrade. Every time I hear kids complain about load times I think about spending an hour trying to load a text game from a cassette drive only to have it freeze up and being forced to start over.

whyenot 6y ago

In the early 1980s you could buy a 5mb hard disk that connected to the Atari 800 and other models through 2 (4?) of the joystick ports. It was pretty clever, and 5mb was a huge amount of space at a time when a floppy disk held 80k, and loading files from cassette tape could take 10-20 minutes. It was also incredibly expensive.

memsom 6y ago

I had an 800XL that I got for cheap at the end of the 8-bit era. It was an amazing machine. A few years later, my then girlfriend's mum's boyfriend got a new computer, a 65XE. I was shocked when I realised it was basically the 800XL with very little difference. But, hey, I lent them a lot of games. The 65XE was marketed as "new" at the time in the UK, which was quite disingenuous really. A bit like the Commodore 16. Both were a bit past their prime.

GekkePrutser 6y ago

> The 2 piece cases greatly reduced the cost of the product, though their design was rather drab and unappealing compared to the more stylish, yet more expensive XL case designs. The keyboards were another shortcoming of the design. They were mushy and lacked solid tactile rebound to them and this was a major complaint for many users. Don't really agree with this. I had an 800XL and I thought the grey XE series was much more stylish and modern in design. The brown/beige was very old-fashioned. In fact I think the ST series was one of the best looking computers of its time. Definitely much better than the Amiga 500 (which I did own) The keyboards had better feedback on the 800XL but the keys were much heavier there. The XE was more like a modern keyboard.

ofrzeta 6y ago

I recently ordered a SIO2SD device from a polish guy who designs peripherals for Atari 8 bit and such. It's not vintage but emulates Atari disks (ATR files) on an SD card. So you can download ATR files on a PC and then boot or load on the Atari. Can recommend.