“Forty years ago, Atari released its first personal computers: the Atari 400 and 800. They arrived in the fall of 1979 after a prerelease marketing campaign that had begun the previous January when the company unveiled the machines at what was then called the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas,” Benj Edwards writes for fast Company:
Atari initially marketed the 800 and its lower-cost counterpart, the Atari 400, as “second-generation” PCs—productivity machines with enhanced graphics and sound capabilities over the 1977 holy trinity of personal computing: the Apple II, Commodore PET, and TRS-80. The company intended them to crunch home budget numbers just as often as they simulated space battles… And due to restrictive FCC rules that precluded the open expansion slots on the Apple II, Atari designed a suite of intelligent plug-and-play peripherals linked together by a serial IO bus that presaged the ease of the much-later USB…
At launch, the Atari 800 retailed for $999 with 16K of RAM (about $3,387 when adjusted for inflation), and the Atari 400 with 8K retailed for $549 (about $1,861 today). Compared to a game console such as the Atari VCS at $190, that was expensive, but it undercut the 16K Apple II’s $1,195 retail price in 1979.
MacDailyNews Take: This is a fun read and, as some of us were original users of our personal trinity — Atari 2600, Commodore 64, Apple II — it brings back very fond memories!
I’m old enough to remember all of the first wave PCs. Never cared for the Atari, but some of the others were cool. 😊
I was a Commodore first had a Vic 20 then Commodore 64 with a floppy drive and a dial up modem – eventually a PC. Honestly I always felt the Amiga was ahead of its time. I went to Apple once Apple switched to Unix. Those days were definitely fun.
Great memories, I had both the 400 and 800, and I think it was 1200XL that came after.
I had the pleasure of owning an Atari 520ST. Which I upgraded to 2.5 Meg RAM, requiring me to hardwire a SIMM expansion card inside it, directly soldering on the motherboard
I bought an 800 through the mail in 79 and it arrived the day I was leaving Everett, WA with my wife and daughter for a 2 week vacation. No fear of connecting it to my moms TV when we got to San Diego.
When the expansion module came out, I spent many a night on month trying to connect to a fellow owner in New Jersey through a Hayes modem. I had a $133 phone bill that month.
They were also ahead of their time with device independent I/O.
My father taught computers (they called it “data processing”) at a vocational high school so he was always bringing early Apple gear home for the summer. As kids we were introduced to the Apple II and then later the Macintosh. It made me an early diehard fan of Apple that has continued for my entire life. We absolutely loved our Atari 2600 game system but I barely remember that Atari had home computers until I saw this post.
Can’t remember if It was an Atari but when I was way small I remember the Pong game
Smack the paddle : ‘Tok”
Wait wait wait wait
Opponent smacks the paddle. : “Tok”
Tok … … … Tok …. … … Tok … … … Tok
We thought that was epitome of excitement
Lol
Amiga 1000 thru Amiga 4000 great OS/Hardware, third party software and hardware (Video Toaster, Lightwave 3D, the Atari was really good for music production in it’s day I miss all of the American companies that designed a OS with hardware.
I was a Commodore user. My father bought a VIC 20. I later got a C64. And I had to save money for a long time to get an Amiga 1000. Sometimes I think how Amiga could have been today if Commodore still existed.
Unfortunately. we know exactly where they would end up with Commodore. I think if Irving Gould had been kidnapped around 1986, and Thomas Rattigan was allowed to keep full control, I would be using my Amiga 10,000 and laughing at all the puny Windows users.
And the screen?
Any TV or monitor with composite input.
I’m not so sure it was even composite? I think it was any tv with a cable coax input, or antennae terminals. That’s what my 800 had, a little box with the cables to connect to the antennae or you could connect the coax direct if the tv had a coax terminal, which mine did not. The you had to tune to the correct channel the Atari was setup to use. Maybe it also had composite but I don’t think those were common yet in early 80’s.
It was a composite signal for connecting to monitors. There was a switchbox for switching between the computer and your antenna.