--- title: Atari 800 categories: - Computers types: - Home Computer origins: - U.S.A. years: - '1979' cpus: - '6502' params: name: '800' company: /companies/atari company_name: Atari specs: - label: NAME value: '800' - label: MANUFACTURER value: Atari - label: TYPE value: Home Computer - label: ORIGIN value: U.S.A. - label: YEAR value: '1979' - label: END OF PRODUCTION value: '1982' - label: KEYBOARD value: |- QWERTY full Stroke keyboard, 62 keys\ 4 function keys (Reset, Option, Select, Start) - label: CPU value: '6502' - label: SPEED value: 1.79 Mhz - label: CO-PROCESSOR value: ANTIC (Scrolling, Sprites, Video), CTIA / GTIA (Color, Sprites, Collisions), POKEY (timers, sound, keyboard, serial I/O), PIA 6520 (I/O, including the 4 joystick ports) - label: RAM value: 8 KB to 48 KB (with memory expansion boards) - label: ROM value: 10 KB - label: TEXT MODES value: 40 x 25 - label: GRAPHIC MODES value: 'several graphic modes, maximum : 320 x 192' - label: COLORS value: |- 16 (each color can have 8 luminances) = 128 colors maximum in the lowest graphic mode (requiring display list interruption to have them simultaneously)\ and up to 256 colors in some specific modes for machines having the GTIA chip instead of the CTIA - label: SOUND value: 4 voices, 3.5 octaves - label: SIZE / WEIGHT value: 40.5 (W) x 33 (D) x 11 (H) cm / 4200 g - label: I/O PORTS value: Monitor RGB output, RF TV video output, 2 cartridge slots, Atari Serial Input/Ouput (SIO) port, 4 controller jacks, 4 internal slots for memory modules - label: OS value: 400/800 OS in ROM - label: POWER SUPPLY value: External power supply - label: PRICE value: $1000 (US, 1979), £300 (UK 1983) tabs: - photos - adverts - hardware - emulators - links - docs - videos photos: - title: LARGE VIEW subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: MOTHERBOARD EXPLAINED subtitle: '' text: |- The mother board is only populated with passive and input/output components. The 'active' daughter cards are inserted into the five slots. Notice the impressive number of resistances perfectly aligned. **(1)** 2 ROM cartridge slots. This is where the Basic language cartridge is inserted.\ **(2)** The 'main' card (Microprocessor and specialized components) is inserted here.\ **(3)** ROM card slot.\ **(4)** Each of these 3 connectors can receive a 16 Kb RAM card.\ **(5)** Switch cutting off the power supply when the cartridge lid is raised.\ **(6)** Composite video output connector (B&W monitor).\ **(7)** D.C. power regulation components.\ **(8)** T.V. channel selector.\ **(9)** Power supply input, provided by an external transformer.\ **(10)** On/Off switch.\ **(11)** Serial connector.\ **(12)** RGB video connector.\ **(13)** Keyboard 'OPTION' key.\ **(14)** Keyboard 'SELECT' key.\ **(15)** Keyboard 'START' key.\ **(16)** Power leds.\ **(17)** Keyboard 'SYSTEM RESET' key.\ **(18)** Keyboard connector.\ **(19)** Four joystick sockets.\ **(20** Loudspeaker.\ **(21)** PIA circuit (Peripheral Interface Adapter) which handles the 4 joysticks.\ **(22)** Specialized Component called ' POKEY', in charge of the keyboard, inputs/outputs, components synchronization and sound.\ **(23)** System clock circuit (frequency generator). image: null - title: DAUGHTERS CARDS subtitle: '' text: |- These five daughter cards form the main part of the system. They are plugged into the five mother board connectors intended for this purpose **(1)** This specialized circuit called CTIA or GTIA handle colors, graphics layers and some inputs/outputs.\ **(2)** These ROM circuits can be replaced with others containing other languages or software.\ **(3)** The Atari 800 can receive up to 3 x 16 Kb memory boards.\ **(4)** Color adjustment potentiometer.\ **(5)** MOS 6502 microprocessor.\ **(6)** Two quartz hidden into this grey metal box, are used to synchronize the microprocessor and video.\ **(7)** Specialized circuit (there are 3 specialized circuits in the Atari 800) handling the graphic scrollings. image: null - title: DUST COVER subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: PROMOTIONAL PICTURE subtitle: '' text: '' image: null adverts: - title: AMERICAN ADVERT subtitle: '' text: '"Atari brings the computer age home"' image: null - title: US ADVERT subtitle: '' text: from Byte magazine (september 1980) image: null - title: AMERICAN ADVERT subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: ADVERT subtitle: '' text: Picture courtesy of [Steve Browning, www.sbrowning.com/vintage](http://www.sbrowning.com/vintage). image: null - title: 'ADVERT #2' subtitle: '' text: Picture courtesy of [Steve Browning, www.sbrowning.com/vintage](http://www.sbrowning.com/vintage). image: null - title: 'ADVERT #3' subtitle: '' text: Picture courtesy of [Steve Browning, www.sbrowning.com/vintage](http://www.sbrowning.com/vintage). image: null - title: 'ADVERT #4' subtitle: '' text: Picture courtesy of [Steve Browning, www.sbrowning.com/vintage](http://www.sbrowning.com/vintage). image: null - title: 'US ADVERT #5 (1979)' subtitle: '' text: |- Advert said: Compare the built-in features of leading microcomputers with the Atari personal computers. And go ahead, compare apples and oranges. Their most expensive against our least expensive: the Atari 400... image: null - title: 'US ADVERT #6 (1980)' subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: 'US ADVERT #7 (1980)' subtitle: '' text: from Popular Science magazine 1980 image: null - title: GERMAN ADVERT subtitle: '' text: More power for less money image: null hardware: - title: INDUS GT subtitle: 5''/14 disk-drive text: The Indus GT Double Density Drive is considered by many the best floppy drive available for the 8-bit Atari's with its digital readouts and smoke plexi cover. image: null - title: ASTRA 2001 FD UNIT subtitle: Dual 5.25 text: Dual 5.25" FDD unit using single side, single or double density floppy drives image: null - title: PERCOM DISC DRIVE subtitle: Advert text: |- March 1983 Advert said: The Percom Data AT-88 offers 88 Kbytes (formatted) in single-density, with plug-in ease of attachment to your Atari. The AT-88 has integral power supply, "no-patch" to Atari DOS and critical constant speed regulation.\ Take advantage of this low introductory price of $488... image: null - title: CORVUS SYSTEMS HARD-DRIVE subtitle: 10Mb hard-drive text: |- This is a 10Mb hard-drive. With up to 8 multiplexers with 8 ports each it's possible to connect up to 64 Atari 800's up to a single 10 or even 20 megabyte Atari system. Still in use Today at the Fordham Prepatory School in the Bronx, NY is a 64 Atari 800 computer network hooked up to a single Corvus Hard drive system ! The Corvus hard disk system also sported a unique and innovative back-up system called "The Corvus Mirror" which was a VCR interface system that allowed you to plug a standard Video Cassette Recorder (VCR) up to the Corvus Hard Drive System to save back-ups of the hard disk onto actual Video Tapes!!! image: null - title: ATARI 830 ACOUSTIC COUPLER subtitle: '' text: |- User had to place the handset of his phone into the "cups" on the modem.\ This type of modem wasn't very reliable as it picked up surround noise and randomly disconnect the communication session Features:\ \- Up to 300 bits per second\ \- Bell 103/113 modem compatible\ \- requires Atari 850 Interface Module image: null - title: TOUCH TABLET subtitle: '' text: The touch tablet was the best tool for drawing and painting. It shipped with the AtariArtist cartridge. image: null - title: ATARI 825 PRINTER subtitle: '' text: The Atari 825 printer was a rebadged version of the 80-column Centronics 727 dot-matrix printer. As it was a parallel printer, it required the Atari 850 Interface. It was able to print all the Atari ASCII character set at 50 characters per second. image: null emulators: - title: Atari800 url: http://atari800.sourceforge.net/ platform: MS DOS text: Atari 800, 800XL, 130XE and 5200 emulator for Unix, Amiga, MS-DOS, Atari TT/Falcon, SDL and WinCE - title: SIO2PC url: http://www.cswnet.com/~nkennedy/sio2pc.htm platform: MS DOS text: PC emulates Atari Disk - title: Altirra url: http://www.virtualdub.org/altirra.html platform: Windows text: Altirra, an 8-bit Atari computer emulator - title: Atari800Win url: http://www.concentric.net/~Twist/atari800win/ platform: Windows text: '' - title: Atari800Win Plus url: http://a800win.atari-area.prv.pl/ platform: Windows text: Atari 8 bit emulator for windows - title: WAHCE Home Page url: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Node/4391/ platform: Windows text: '' - title: XFormer url: http://www.emulators.com/xformer.htm platform: Windows text: '' - title: Chris Lam's Website url: http://www.chrislam.co.uk/ platform: Apple text: homepage for Horizon - title: The Atari 800 Emulator for the Mac url: http://www.serve.com/derekl/atari/atari_emu.html platform: Apple text: '' - title: WACKE url: http://www.ctaz.com/~jlfenton/Wacke.html platform: Apple text: '' - title: ACE url: http://www.csh.rit.edu/~shaggy/software.html platform: Unix / Linux text: '' - title: Atari++ url: http://www.math.tu-berlin.de/~thor/atari++/ platform: Unix / Linux text: Unix based emulator of the Atari eight bit computers, namely the Atari 400 and 800, the Atari 400XL, 800XL and 130XE, and the Atari 5200 game console - title: Atari800 url: http://atari800.sourceforge.net/ platform: Multiplatform text: Atari800 is an Atari 800, 800XL, 130XE and 5200 emulator for Unix, Amiga, MS-DOS, Atari TT/Falcon, SDL and WinCE links: - title: 8-bit ATARI Assembly Language url: http://oort.com/turbots/asm.htm text: '' - title: Antic - The Atari Resource url: http://www.atarimagazines.com/ text: '' - title: APE - Atari Peripheral Emulator for DOS and Windows - Home Page url: http://www.nacs.net/~classics/ text: '' - title: Atari 2600-7800 FAQ url: http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~dzubera/2600faq.html text: '' - title: Atari 8-Bit Computers Frequently Asked Questions url: http://www.chez.com/cmpi/paleo/8bits/atari/faq_atar.htm text: '' - title: 'Atari 8-bit computers: 400/800/XL/XE' url: http://www.santellocco.com/ATARI/ text: dedicated website in italian - title: Atari 8-bit New User, Emulator Help FAQ - v2.1 url: http://www.sonic.net/~nbs/new_and_emu.html text: '' - title: Atari 8-bit SpartaDOS Project url: http://www.celebritybase.net/atari8/ text: '' - title: Atari Gaming Headquarters Main Page url: http://www.atarihq.com/ text: '' - title: Atari Magazines url: http://www.atarimagazines.com/ text: Contains the full text of all issues of ANTIC magazine and moste of the STart ones ! - title: Atari XL-XE Games And Demos Page url: http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/~sgl/atari/ text: '' - title: ATARI.ORG url: http://www.atari.org/ text: Looking for something on any Atari machine ? Follow the links ! - title: ATARIARCHIVES.ORG url: http://www.atariarchives.org/ text: Wow! This site is preserving and archiving information about & software for Atari and other classic computers. Everything here is available with the permission of the copyright holders. - title: Dead Hackers Society url: http://www.dhs.nu/ text: Downloads, tools, news and more - title: Homepage Nyman Atari 8 bit url: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2741/8bit.html text: '' - title: Ken's Atari 8-bit Page url: http://home.columbus.rr.com/ksiders/atari.htm text: '' - title: Mac-Atari Fusion url: http://www2.bitstream.net/~marksim/atarimac/ text: Atari 8bit Resources for Mac Users - title: MacFalkner's XL Homepage url: http://members.aol.com/MacFalkner/atariindex.htm text: '' - title: Personal Atari Web Page url: http://rjespino.tripod.com/atari.html text: jpeg viewer for the Atari 8-bit and some other tools - title: Polish Atari Wikipedia url: http://atariki.krap.pl text: A lot of info about Atari (in polish) - title: Reminiscing 8-Bit Atari Games url: http://www.qlam.com/atari/atari.html text: '' - title: Satantronic Atari Crew, Atari XL-XE and Falcon 030 url: http://www.napri.sk/web/satantronic/ text: '' - title: The Atari 800 XE Laptop url: http://www.benheck.com/Games/Atari_800/Atari_800_laptop_1.htm text: This guy explain how he made a laptop Atari 800 ! - title: The Atari Historical Society url: http://www.atari-history.com/ text: The complete history of Atari Arcade and Home games and computers. Complete site with pictures, commercials (streaming), and full text articles. Amazing site ! - title: www.ataricave.com url: http://www.ataricave.com text: Atari 8-bit Games reviews, original manuals, music, maps and more! - title: XL Search - The Atari 8-bit File Archive Search Engine url: http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/xlsearch/ text: '' - title: Web Wiz CAPTCHA url: http://www.webwizcaptcha.com text: Programming on the Atari computers docs: - title: ATARI 800 OWNER'S GUIDE url: http://www.trailingedge.com/atari8/ cover: null text: |- [**ATARI 800 OWNER'S GUIDE**](http://www.trailingedge.com/atari8/)written by Atari  compiled/archived by David Williams\  type of document : PDF\  source : [www.trailingedge.com](http://www.trailingedge.com/) - title: ATARI SYSTEM REFERENCE MANUAL url: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/atarixe/index.htm cover: null text: |- [**ATARI SYSTEM REFERENCE MANUAL**](http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/atarixe/index.htm)written by Bob DuHamel (1987)  compiled/archived by Ivo van Poorten\  type of document : PDF\  size : 160 KB\  source : [Daves Old Computers](http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield) **... READ THE ONLINE VERSION BY CLICKING BELOW :** videos: - title: Atari 800 in store demo url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgT8279DVGQ text: 'Length: 4 min 42 s' - title: Atari Home Computer laser disc - Introduction url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54mvCo1uq5A text: 'Length: 5 min 20 s' - title: Atari Home Computer laser disc - Conclusion url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQDQWvwZ-2w text: 'Length: 1 min 30 s' - title: Learning french on the Atari 800 url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6cZPY5TXtA text: 'Length: 3 min 49 s' - title: Atari 800 laptop (modern creation) url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID1KsnermXk text: 'Length: 36 s' comments: - author: Doug Taylor (United States) date: Sunday 27th November 2022 text: Thanks for the memories - author: Harvey (New Zealand) date: Tuesday 16th July 2013 text: |- Here is a work in progress of a game/demo which shows that the\ Atari 400/800 etc (48k) computers are still a wonderful computer system\ that can completely dazzle and charm people today,\ even though it may be 30 odd years later on... Here is the actual demo you can download and run: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/ Here is a video of the game demo running... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v$4FSpBW7iRa4$feature$c4-overview$list$UUuS_WWw8gMxmjZSvzbNCElQ - author: GameplayerSpecial date: Tuesday 20th November 2012 text: 'I made a Slideshow, of my Atari 800 with some cool details : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v$Njte9HpjHUs' - author: Michael date: Monday 19th November 2012 text: Just played MULE last night. I love my old Atari 800, it makes a great conversation piece for visitors. The more games you have the more memories you share. - author: Wally date: Thursday 11th October 2012 text: A great test of the sound system was M.U.L.E. God forbid you ever had the time to play it, but it had an epic sound track. The unfortunate NES version sound track is an Easter egg of SPORE. - author: jack (wesley chapel, fl) date: Thursday 30th December 2010 text: now this brings back memories, i remember my atari 400 which had a tape disk drive to install its programs. i remember playing logic games with it that didn''t have graphics but you would type in what you wanted to do and if you did it right you got to go on. what a blast - author: Adam Weisbrod date: Monday 27th September 2010 text: |- I have one of these and a long time ago my dad made a extra altair 88XX type box to just act like a ATARI\ 800 disk drive it had 2 5¼ disk drive units and a altari bus cage card cage and a power supply no screen no screen pcb and a specail cpm boot disk witch booted to cpm Atari emulation disk emulator file and then acted like a atari disk drive I have the connections still for the Atari SIO to disk box connections still on my atari800 but snipped it off when i got a 810 drive LAME I WISH I NEVER DID THAT BUT DID my dad probably threw the box away but it might still be in the basement if it is I will get it back and probably try to get it to work again! it was cool to have this wooden box that acted like two atari drives I could copy files on the Atari from drive 1 to drive 2 fast and could put the 810 on drive 3 and have 3 drives whopdtido anyway it was cool.\ I also have finnaly figured out how to use ultra copy and APE shareware to get all my ORIGINAL Atari basic files onto a CD rom! .. now I can use a laptop as my Atari DRive or use a emulation file as Atari or VS VERSA its cool now I only need a STELLADAPTOR..! $$9786$ have fun. - author: Robin Bithrey (UK) date: Wednesday 7th April 2010 text: |- Amazing to see such great information about this fantastic machine. After progressing from a lowly ZX-81, this was another world being entered in 1983, with colour graphics and an amazing 16k of memory. After buying upgrades to make it 48k and also a floppy disk drive (the original 810 5 1/4" drive), it truly made it an amazing bit of kit and the envy of my friends with their Vic 20''s and C64''s and a tape machine. Having said that though, early days, although fun, were also frustrating and time consuming. I remember waiting 20minutes for Apple Panic to load on cassette and nearly an hour for Jumbo Jet Pilot (which wasn''t worth the wait!!), which is why we bought the disk drive (for another £400!!). Mind you, the worst bit was developing what i can only describe as ''Atari Ankles'' after sitting on them for hours on end playing ''Miner 2049''er'' and Bounty Bob Strikes Back. I used to sell Computers back in the dim and distant past and no matter what came along, my benchmark was this Atari 800 - competing against BBC model B''s, Acorn Electrons and Amstrad CPC464''s etc...Carried on being an Atari fan, buying a 130xe and a 520STFM afterwards, before converting to the ''Dark Side'' and getting an Amiga A600 when Atari finally gave up being popular. My parents still own the Atari 800 and, believe it or not, we had it out the other night. I have an 8 year old son who was fascinated by this ageing technology, but had great pleasure in attempting to play Zaxxon, Pac-Man, Preppie, Mr Robot''s Robot Factory, Rescue at Fractalus (we have the ''pilot'' called Behind Jaggi Lines), Pole Position, Claim Jumper and all of the brilliant games that we still have a box-full of sitting in the cupboard. Best memory has to be my mother sitting playing Centipede one Sunday afternoon and getting over 10million points - must have been some bug in the game, as she managed to find a spot for the little character to sit and all she had to do was keep the fire button pressed to rack up the points, only giving me the joystick when she needed the loo.... The biggest surprise though? I actually managed to get my mother''s telly tuned in to find the Atari!! And here was I thinking modern technology would have simply passed it all by.... Great machine, great memories - bring ''em back and more to the point, bring back some healthy competition between computers that all ran different operating systems and different software.....whoops, we''ve got it - they''re called games consoles nowadays though! - author: Steve Melito (Troy, NY) date: Thursday 1st November 2007 text: |- Yesterday was the anniversary of the shutdown of the last Multics machine! Multics was the first operating system to use a hierarchical file system, and the first OS to use the now-standard practice of per-process stacks in the kernel. For a brief retrospective, check out this story on CR4: The Engineer's Place for News and Discussion. http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/3784/October-31-2000-The-Last-Multics-Machine And don't be shy about leaving a comment, especially if you've worked with Multics! - author: Kroah (France) date: Tuesday 31st January 2006 text: |- Hi,\ If you are a fan of MULE, have a look to my decompilation and reverse engineering page of this wonderful game. You'll find a lot of informations about the hidden rules used and secrets . http://bringerp.free.fr/RE/ - author: adamofevil (usa) date: Monday 17th January 2005 text: |- I am sure that a lot of you Atari users once had an Atari 8-Bit computer back in the day. Maybe you still do. You might remember a classic game called M.U.L.E. A game that you wish would have been ported over to the PC but never was. If you are a M.U.L.E. fan like I am, you probably used to have hordes of your friends over your house to play the best 4-man multi-player game ever written! After playing this game for hours upon hours, days upon days, years upon years, finally everyone grew up or grew apart and stopped getting together to play. If you are a M.U.L.E. fan like I am, you probably have done a bit of M.U.L.E. re-searching on the internet, in hopes for one day someone to create an internet capable version of this great classic. Well, I have some very good news for you. If you run Windows (98/XP) operating system, THE WAIT IS OVER!!! Thanks to the authors of the Atari800WinPlus (http://atariarea.histeria.pl/PLus/index_us.htm) and Kaillera (www.kaillera.com), you can now play the greatest multiplayer game ever made with 4 players OVER THE INTERNET! This is not a clone, it is the ORIGINAL M.U.L.E. un-modified! Same graphics, same sound, same game! The only difference is that it looks a lot better on your computer than it did on your TV back in the day! If this interests you, please hop on over to http://atarimule.neotechgaming.com where M.U.L.E. fans from around the world have been gathering and playing online! Some of our members include the authors of the most popular M.U.L.E. web sites such as World of Mule (http://www.worldofmule.net/index.htm) and Extreme MULEing (http://mule.eichberger.net/index.php) and M.U.L.E. Fans (http://www.100hosting.com/mule/). Even the creator of the recent M.U.L.E. clone game Space HoRSE (www.gilligames.com) has joined up with us! Ahh, the feeling of playing with 4 human players again is quite exhilirating! SO, what are you waiting for? Join us now!! http://atarimule.neotechgaming.com. See you there! Adam - author: Chuck (Odenton, MD) date: Friday 14th January 2005 text: I did my masters final in finance on my Atari 800 in 123. We were supposed to reconstruct the records from a burned out factory. I turned it in and got a "B"! I was at first livid, but the professor didn't know anything about the power of spreadsheets. I walked up and chatted with him, and told him, you don't understand, this is from a program, and I can operate the entire factory as CFO with this. The lights went on and I got an "A". I just found the old box! No power supply, no games, but I also found and remembered that I had modified it with a special chipset that allowed me to hack game code. The first game code I hacked was "Oils Well". In those days you could rent programs. I rented it, viewed the machine code (using this modification) viewed the assembly program, figured out what they were doing and broke the copy protection, and had my own copy. I was pretty proud. I can't even remember what the chipset is called. - author: Keith (Islandia) date: Sunday 27th June 2004 text: |- Here's my tribute:\ From this computer I learned the fundamentals of computers. Bits, bytes... On my own at 15yrs. I'm forever indebted to the Atari for having the right balance of high and low level home computing. BASIC one day, Assembly on another; just change the cartridge! Thank you Atari. - author: Thor Madsen (Chicago) date: Monday 15th March 2004 text: |- The Atari 800 was my first home computer - when I could finally afford it at the tail-end of its life. I created a pong game using the BASIC cart and then pulled the plug - nice! So, since my Mom sold it at a garage sale with the proverbial baseball cards, I am buying another one on eBay today - WITH the accessory tape recorder (program recorder)! So - to answer some parts questions below - Check out eBay. . . - author: Pete (Kentucky) date: Friday 13rd February 2004 text: |- i have an 800 that i picked up at a resale shop\ and it didn't come with any AC adapter.\ i had an AC laying around and when i pluged it into the 800,when i pressed the keys it would make some beeps though it gave off a overheating smell\ after about 1min.what do i do? ps.no monitor - author: Brian (Charlotte) date: Thursday 9th October 2003 text: I have an Atari 800 computer and an Amdek monitor. My question would be what cable would I use to connect the single cable coming out of the back of the Atari to the RCA type connection on the back of the Monitor I know how to hook it up to a TV with a box but not the two audio and Video plug-ins on the back of the monitor any info on what the part or cable is called or where I could source it would be greatly appreciated Thanks - author: Kieran (UK) date: Sunday 21st September 2003 text: My one uses a 9VAC at 3.4A unit. Hope that helps - author: Susan (St. Louis) date: Monday 8th September 2003 text: Does anyone know what kind of power supply this computer uses? - author: Gregory Carter (USA) date: Thursday 28th August 2003 text: |- Poke 559,0 Instant turbo boost. Came in quite handy when running my BBS at 480 Baud!\ Of course, ANTIC gets turned off if you do that, so you do not get a display.\ However, a Poke 559,38 turned the screen back on again, and well, your performance was reduced by a good 40%.\ Or you could do:\ LDA #0\ STA 559\ RTS WOW, been a while since I did that sort of thing! - author: Allen (New York) date: Wednesday 14th May 2003 text: What type of AC adapter is used for the atari 800... i - author: Bill Botzong (Earth) date: Thursday 27th June 2002 text: The 800 was an exciting machine--it could do things the other micros of the time could not, especially in the area of grpahics. But, in NONE of the ads was a single cable ever shown! They would show one or two external drives, a tape unit, monitor and cpu and not one cable. In fact, each component had its own power suppy and plug. When you got it all plugged in, you would have wires running everywhere!! I remember having two 800's for development purposes and having to have extension cords and power strips everywhere. - author: Marcos (Argentina) date: Sunday 9th June 2002 text: |- I have an Atari 800 XL, i did not see it in the museum. I can send to you pictures and information if you want.\ M@rcos - author: don (texas) date: Monday 6th May 2002 text: hi'i was wanting to know if a800s basic cartridge can still be found? related: - /museum/atari-1200-xl - /museum/atari-1400-xl - /museum/atari-1450-xld - /museum/atari-400 - /museum/atari-600-800-xl - /museum/atari-65-130-xe - /museum/atari-65xep-65xem - /museum/atari-800xe oc_id: 460 source: url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230530201247/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=460 date: '2023-05-30' --- The Atari [400](/museum/atari-400/) and 800 were the first home computers to use custom coprocessors and the first to use "sprites" and special video interruptions like display lists; features that would be implemented later on the Commodore [64](/museum/commodore-c64/), then on the Commodore [Amiga](/museum/commodore-amiga-1000/) (Atari 400/800 and Amiga were both designed by Jay Miner). It offered high graphic resolution, lots of colors and great sound capabilities, more than other computers could do then! The two models had same characteristics, but the 800 had 48 KB of RAM (instead of 16 kb), two cartridge ports (only one for the [400](/museum/atari-400/)) and a proper mechanical keyboard (a membrane keyboard for the 400). In fact the very first Atari 800 Computers were shipped with 8 or 16 KB memory, expandable to 48 KB. After initial release, the 800 came standard with 48 KB memory. Prior to production, the 800 was known inside Atari as code name "Colleen". It is rumored that Colleen and Candy (the 400 code name) were actually secretaries at Atari.