Tech Nostalgia: 8-Bit (Premium)

Credit Atari for realizing early on that it needed a sequel to the VCS video game system, one that could arrive before more technically sophisticated competitors did. Sadly, management screwed it up by jumping on the home computer bandwagon, delaying a true VCS sequel by several years.

I am referring, of course, to the Atari 400 and 800, 8-bit computer siblings that offered dramatic improvements over the so-called “trinity” of home computers—the Commodore PET 2001, Apple II, and Tandy TRS-80—released in 1977. Indeed, these Atari computers were in many ways more powerful than the more popular computers that succeeded it in the 1980s, including the Commodore 64, which would go on to win the home computer wars, and even the 16-bit Atari ST.

This is particularly impressive when you consider the lackluster nature of the VCS hardware that preceded these machines. The most successful of 1980s video game machines was “powered” by a cost-reduced version of the MOS Technologies 6502 processor, a Television Interface Adapter (TIA) chipset that handled display output, sound, and controller integration, a meager 128 bytes (yes, bytes) of RAM, and 2K or 4K of ROM. And it only came to market because Atari was bailed out by Warner Communications, which acquired the company and poured millions of dollars into the launch.

That investment paid off, big-time, but well before that, and right after the VCS launched, the engineering team responsible for it was already working on a sequel, codenamed “Oz,” with the belief that the VCS would have a three-year life in the market. The goals for the next Atari video game machine were obvious enough: it should be more technically sophisticated, with better graphics, sound, and performance so that it could faithfully reproduce the arcade games that would ship in 1978.

But between inception and release, the “trinity” computers arrived, providing consumers and businesses with the first complete, packaged computers. And in early 1978, Atari’s overlords at Warner Communications hired veteran fabrics industry executive Ray Kassar to be president of the Atari consumer division for reasons that remain unclear beyond professional parental oversight, I guess. And when the company fired Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell later that year, Warner made Kassar the CEO of Atari.

Kassar had no idea what he was doing, and he made two important blunders during his time running Atari. He didn’t value the engineers inside the company who made its games, even going so far one time to refer to them as “high-strung prima donnas” in an interview with the Mercury News. And he ordered Atari’s engineering team to turn the VCS sequel into a home computer instead of a video game machine.

That first blunder triggered the market for third-party video game publishers, as Atari’s best and most disgruntled game makers would leave the company and form Activision, first, and then Imagic and other companies, taking crucial talent and revenues away from Atari. And Kassar’s home computer ambitions would delay the release of a true VCS sequel by almost three years, giving competitors a chance to secure their spots in the market.

The Atari 400 and 800 would go on to spawn multiple families of 8-bit Atari computers and, go figure, video game machines, over several years, all sharing exactly the same architecture. But each would be largely unsuccessful in the marketplace, with the 8-bit computers selling just 2 million units over their six-year run. By comparison, the Commodore VIC-20 sold over 3 million units in 5 years and the Commodore 64 sold an estimated 15 million units throughout the 1980s. In retrospect, it was obvious that Atari’s association with games hurt its chances with consumers who were for the first time looking for home computers. Which was a missed opportunity, as the Atari 8-bit computers were technically more sophisticated than any of its competition over its lifespan.

This advantage started with a multiprocessor design that combined the familiar MOS 6502 microprocessor with the Alphanumeric Television Interface Controller (ANTIC, a 2D graphics chipset), Color Television Interface Adaptor (CTIA, for color and player/missile graphics; later replaced by the Graphic Television Interface Adaptor, or GTIA), Pot Keyboard Integrated Circuit (POKEY, for reading paddle controllers and keyboard, sound generation, and random number generation), and Peripheral Interface Adapter (PIA, based on the 16-bit MOS 6820, for peripheral I/O management, including joysticks, and interrupts) chipsets.

(The key architect of this design, Jay Miner, would go on to create the multiprocessor-based Amiga family of computers. It is not coincidental that both systems were originally intended to power home video game systems that could match the technical prowess of the arcade game machines of their respective eras, and it is a strange coincidence that both became computers instead.)

The Atari engineering team also created a sophisticated C/PM-like operating system (OS) for the 8-bit systems, a feature that was missing from the so-called “trinity” computers, and it contracted with a third-party (Shepardson Microsystems) for a BASIC interpreter and a file management system. Yes, Microsoft was originally contracted to write BASIC for the Atari 8-bits, as it had done for other 8-bit computers, but that project stalled for over a year, necessitating the shift.

Where the VCS was codenamed Stella after a bicycle, the Atari 400 and 800 were codenamed Candy and Colleen, respectively, after two attractive secretaries at the company And their final names were based on the amount of ROM—4 KB for the 400 and 8 KB for the 800—that each was to originally ship with. (But by the time the computers were ready, both had 8 KB of ROM.) Each was basically identical on the inside, with 8 KB of RAM, and each had four VCS-compatible joystick ports and could be connected directly to a normal TV instead of requiring an expensive monitor, a nice cost-saving advantage over the “trinity” computers. Both had cartridge slots—one for the 400 and two for the 800—under closable lids, in keeping with their video game machine beginnings. But the Atari 800 could also be upgraded to 48 KB of RAM and it supported composite-out for traditional computer monitors.

But as any Atari fan can tell you, there was one major difference between the two computers: where the Atari 400 shipped with a membrane keyboard that was literally painful to type on, the Atari 800 provided a full-sized, normal keyboard. This seems anachronistic today, but Atari figured that the 400 would attract video game fans who liked the idea of also having a home computer, while the more expensive 800 would compete directly with other home computers of the era, all while playing the same cartridge-based games.

Atari’s decision to bring personal computers to the home via TV connectivity was the right one, but it also meant that the 400 and 800 were bogged down with excessive and heavy internal shielding thanks to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules aimed at lowering interference. (Rules that were lightened significantly right as those computers shipped, no less.) As a result, the 8-bit Atari machines use a shielded I/O (SIO) interface for expansion that required external devices (as opposed to internal cards) that could be daisy-chained off the computers via large cables and connectors. And those peripherals, like disk drives, needed to have their own microprocessors and other chipsets, making them more expensive.

The Atari 400 debuted in November 1979 at $549.95, while the Atari 800 cost $999.95. Each included an Atari BASIC cartridge with a self-teaching guide, and the 800 also shipped with an Atari 410 Program Recorder (tape cassette drive) for storage. These computers supported multiple character and bitmap modes, with upper limits of 40 columns by 24 rows of text and a bitmapped resolution of 320 x 192 graphics (160 x 96 with 128 colors). The “trinity” computers also support 40 columns of text, but none could compete with Atari’s graphics and sound capabilities.

You will be fascinated to learn that IBM in 1980 briefly considered rebranding the Atari 800 as its first personal computer, a decision that would have dramatically altered the history of our industry. But a visit to Atari’s wild corporate headquarters nixed that possibility. One report claims that visiting IBMers “were literally put in a box and run through the assembly line by unorthodox and sometimes stoned Atari employees,” with the more conservative computing giant quickly realizing that the culture clashes (that later doomed its relationship with Microsoft) would be too much. But IBM’s Bill Lowe argued that a small group could ignore the company’s traditional and slow design processes and get an in-house product to market within a year. And that’s pretty much exactly what he—and IBM—went on to do.

Faced with little success in the market—Atari’s estimated 1980 revenues of $13.3 million were dwarfed by Tandy ($175 million), Apple (118 million), and Commodore ($83 million), and it somehow managed to lose $10 million of it that same year—the company looked at cost-reducing the products by making versions that were easier and less expensive to manufacture. It reduced the price of both repeatedly. And then it finally turned its attention back to video games, where its VCS, still dominant, fared poorly in comparisons with more impressive Mattel Intellivision.

Atari’s solution, which it could have put in the market three years earlier, was the Atari 5200 SuperSystem video game machine, an Atari 400 hidden inside a dramatically different case with no keyboard, a different and incompatible (to both the VCS and 8-bit computers) cartridge port, and a bizarre analog joystick with a numeric keypad that was clearly inspired by the unique Intellivision hand controller. The 5200 was a technical tour-de-force and it was impressive even three years too late, but it coincidentally arrived in the market months after the even more sophisticated Coleco ColecoVision. As such, it sold poorly, with just one million units sold over its two years in the market: by comparison, the VCS—which was renamed to the Atari 2600 and restyled to match the 5200—went on to sell 30 million units. (It didn’t help that the 5200 joystick was notoriously unreliable and easily broken.)

In 1982, Atari also introduced its first XL-branded 8-bit computer, the Atari 1200XL, at $899.95, though it quickly fell to $599.95. The 1200XL featured a striking new modern design that still looks great today, and it offered 64 KB of RAM but just two joystick ports and one cartridge slot (on the side).

It was canceled less than a year later, but it was followed up by the Atari 600XL and 800 XL, which replaced the 400 and 800 in the market in 1983. Both were styled like the 1200XL and had real, full-sized keyboards and a single cartridge port. Atari BASIC was built into ROM, with no need for a cartridge, and each had a new and faster parallel expansion port as well.

Unfortunately, Atari had trouble getting parts to manufacture these computers, and they suffered badly at the hands of the Commodore 64, which had arrived a year earlier, in 1982. With its wide distribution at toy stores and general retailers, and thanks to Commodore’s low-ball pricing, the C64 went on to be the best-selling home computer of the 1980s, while Atari’s 8-bit line, superior in so many ways, tanked.

And with the video game crash of 1983 taking down Atari with it, its new owner—ironically, ousted Commodore founder Jack Tramiel—presided over a series of relative failures into the early 1990s. Tramiel wanted Atari could focus on 16-bit computers, but after announcing the 16-bit ST line, he then introduced the inexpensive (and cheaply made) Atari 65XE and 130XE in 1985, with 64 KB and 128 KB of RAM, respectively, to replace the 600XL and 800XL and take on the C64 and C128.

A repackaged 65XE with a removable keyboard was sold in 1987 as the Atari XE Game System. It was the final 8-bit computing product that Atari ever sold, and it was essentially the same exact computer as all of its predecessors.

I never owned any Atari 8-bit computers—my first real computer was the Commodore 64—and I had only one friend in that era that did. But I distinctly remember the Atari 400 and 800 quite fondly. When I grew up, there was a local retail chain called Lechmere that was an early version of what Best Buy became, but nationally, and I used to visit the Dedham location to play with the video games and home computers on display. One day, a friend and I were there playing Star Raiders—literally the most essential Atari 8-bit title—on a demonstration computer, and a local TV crew showed up to do a bit on the nascent market for home computers during the run-up to Christmas. They videotaped up playing the game and interviewed us, and we raced home through the snow so we could tell our parents and then watch the segment on the news that night.

As a future Amiga user and fan, it was only later in life that I grew to understand and appreciate the technical superiority of the Atari 8-bit computers in their era and the fascinating connection between the two platforms. By all rights, the Atari 8-bit line should have been succeeded by the Amiga—a story we will get to later in this series—and the successor to the C64/C128 should have been something like the Atari ST, a less expensive and less technically proficient computer. History is fascinating like that.

But my unfamiliarity with Atari’s 8-bit computers also means I have fewer classic game titles or applications to recommend or reminisce about than is the case with other machines—the Intellivision, the Commodore 64, and so on—that I am much more familiar with. As noted, Star Raiders was the Atari 8-bit title of its era, so I can only recommend titles I played elsewhere and now understand were likely better looking and sounding on the Atari: Archon (Electronic Arts), Ballblazer (Lucasfilm Games), B.C.’s Quest for Tires (Sierra On-Line), Beamrider (Activision), Choplifter (Broderbund), The Dreadnaught Factor (Activision), Frogger (Parker Bros.), Gyruss (Parker Bros.), Karateka (Broderbund), Lode Runner (Broderbund), Miner 2049er (Big Five), Montezuma’s Revenge (Parker Bros.), M.U.L.E. (Electronic Arts), One-On-One with Larry Bird and Dr. J. (an all-time favorite, Electronic Arts), Pitfall II: Lost Caverns (Activision), Q*bert (Parker Bros.), The Seven Cities of Gold (Electronic Arts), and Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (Origin Systems), the latter of which shipped with a cloth map and a metal ankh.

And of course, Atari brought its stable of arcade classics to the 8-bit computer systems (and to the Atari 5200), including Asteroids, Centipede, Defender, Galaga, Galaxian, Joust, Missile Command, Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Man, Pole Position, Qix, Robotron: 2084, Super Breakout, Vanguard, and so many others. Oddly, some of these games are notably better on the 5200: the Atari 8-bit version of Asteroids, for example, was curiously lackluster despite the VCS version being excellent.

Those wishing to relive yesteryear today will find no major Atari 8-bit (or 5200) hardware emulators for reasons I’ll never understand. (Most Atari nostalgia seems to be centered on the much more popular VCS game system.) But those going the software emulation route might be interested in a USB adaptor for the classic Atari joystick (that I’ve not tried, sorry).

And on that note, there are several Atari 8-bit software emulators out there, each with varying degrees of compatibility across the various generations of computers and video game systems. I took an unsuccessful look at Altirra, which can emulate the 400/800, 1200XL, 600/800XL, 130XE, XEGS, and 5200 systems. But as with the Intellivision emulator Nostalgia, you will need to find system ROMs and disk and cartridge image files, a daunting and complex process of dubious legality.

Those interested in learning more about these home computers should read Breakout: How Atari 8-Bit Computers Defined a Generation by Jamie Lendino and Atari Inc. Business is Fun by Marty Goldberg and Curt Vendel, both of which I own. Unfortunately, I’m not aware of any documentaries that specifically cover the 8-bit Atari computers (or even give them some attention), which is too bad but likely tied to the hardware emulator issue noted above.

Put simply, the Atari 8-bit line deserved more love then, just as it does now.