yann64andClaude Opus 5.5
b274874139
1,289 discussions, 9,527 archived comments; pages no longer carry the comments themselves. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01YDRjtmAiNpo5mK5N3d7QwZ
365 lines
16 KiB
Markdown
365 lines
16 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Atari 600 / 800 XL
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categories:
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- Computers
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types:
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- Home Computer
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origins:
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- U.S.A.
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years:
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- '1982'
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cpus:
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- MOS 6502C
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params:
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name: 600 / 800 XL
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image: /media/museum/photos/atari_800xl_system_s1.jpg
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company: /companies/atari
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company_name: Atari
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specs:
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- label: NAME
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value: 600 / 800 XL
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- label: MANUFACTURER
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value: Atari
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- label: TYPE
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value: Home Computer
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- label: ORIGIN
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value: U.S.A.
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- label: YEAR
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value: '1982'
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- label: END OF PRODUCTION
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value: January 85
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- label: BUILT IN LANGUAGE
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value: Atari Basic
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- label: KEYBOARD
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value: Mechanical keyboard
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- label: CPU
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value: MOS 6502C
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- label: SPEED
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value: 1.79 (NTSC) / 1.77 (PAL) MHz
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- label: CO-PROCESSOR
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value: GTIA (video), POKEY (sound, I/O), ANTIC (video)
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- label: RAM
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value: 16 KB (600 XL up to 64 KB) / 64 KB (800 XL, expandable to 128 KB)
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- label: ROM
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value: 24 KB
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- label: TEXT MODES
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value: 'five text modes, max: 40 x 24, min: 20 x 12'
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- label: GRAPHIC MODES
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value: '16 graphic modes, maximum : 320 x 192'
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- label: COLORS
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value: 256 (16 colors with 16 intensities)
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- label: SOUND
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value: 4 voices, 3.5 octaves
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- label: I/O PORTS
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value: Composite video output, cartridge slot, peripheral port (SIO), parallel bus, 2 joystick plugs
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- label: POWER SUPPLY
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value: External power supply unit
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- label: PRICE
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value: 183 (december 84)
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tabs:
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- photos
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- adverts
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- hardware
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- software
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- emulators
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- links
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- docs
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- videos
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forum_thread: 46
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photos:
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- title: LARGE VIEW
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subtitle: ''
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text: With the 'Flight Simulator II' cartridge
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image: /media/museum/photos/atari_800xl_withcart_s1.jpg
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- title: KEYBOARD LEFT
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subtitle: ''
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text: ''
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image: /media/museum/photos/atari_800xl_keybcloseup_s1.jpg
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- title: KEYBOARD RIGHT
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subtitle: ''
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text: ''
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image: /media/museum/photos/atari_800xl_fkeys_s1.jpg
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- title: LEFT AND RIGHT SIDES
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subtitle: ''
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text: Two joystick connectors are located on the right side - The first Atari 800 had four.
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image: /media/museum/photos/atari_800xl_leftrightsides_s1.jpg
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- title: REAR CONNECTORS
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subtitle: ''
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text: |-
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From left to right:\
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• 13-pin serial connector, specific to Atari peripherals (disk drives, tape recorder, printers) which can be connected in chain.\
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• Parallel Bus Interface (PBI), hiden by a plastic lid\
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• Video output DIN socket\
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• TV channel selector\
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• Power in DIN socket and switch. A simple jack would be sufficient as only one 5V voltage is supplied by the external PSU
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image: /media/museum/photos/atari_800xl_rearcon_s1.jpg
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- title: OPENED
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subtitle: ''
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text: To meet US FCC rules, all the active components are covered with metallic protection against magnetic fields.
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image: /media/museum/photos/atari_800xl_opened_s1.jpg
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- title: 800 XLF MAINBOARD
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subtitle: ''
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text: |-
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**(1)** 8 x 4264 chips (64K x 1 bit) hold the 64 KB RAM\
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**(2)** Two ROM chips (24 KB) hold the Atari BASIC interpreter\
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**(3)** Keyboard connector\
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**(4)** The POKEY chipset can produce complex sounds; it also manages the keyboard\
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**(5)** 6520 I/O chip\
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**(6)** 6507 8-bits processor, an evolution of the 6502 using the same instructions set.\
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**(7)** FREDDIE chipset, in charge of memory management, only available on the 800XLF version.\
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**(8)**GTIA and ANTIC custom chipsets, manage the various text and graphic modes.
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image: /media/museum/photos/atari_800xl_mainboard_s1.jpg
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- title: 800XL BOX
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subtitle: ''
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text: ''
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image: /media/museum/photos/atari_800xl_box.jpg
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- title: 800XL BOX (2)
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subtitle: ''
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text: ''
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image: /media/museum/photos/atari_800xl_box_1.jpg
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adverts:
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- title: U.K. AD. 1984
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subtitle: ''
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text: |-
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In the same magazine, Robert Hardling, the marketing manager of Atari Corporation said:
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I envisage the situation where each house in 20 years time will have two, three or maybe more computers, ranging from a basic game machine through a home computer for education and home management and culminating in a fully fledged hyghly sophisticated computing work-station.\
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In the future, there may be only 3-4 major worldwide manufacturers. The IBM's, Apple's, Commodore's and Atari's of the world.
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image: /media/museum/pubs/atari_600xl_pub_1.jpg
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- title: GREEK ADVERT (MARCH 1985)
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subtitle: ''
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text: ''
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image: null
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hardware:
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- title: INDUS GT
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subtitle: 5''/14 disk-drive
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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.
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image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_800_indus-gt_disk-drive_1.jpg
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- title: ASTRA 2001 FD UNIT
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subtitle: Dual 5.25
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text: Dual 5.25" FDD unit using single side, single or double density floppy drives
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image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_800_astra2001fd_1.jpg
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- title: PERCOM DISC DRIVE
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subtitle: Advert
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text: |-
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March 1983 Advert said:
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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.\
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Take advantage of this low introductory price of $488...
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image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_800_percomad_1.jpg
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- title: '1090 EXPANSION BOX #1'
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subtitle: ''
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text: |-
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The 1090 is the only expansion or card cage unit ever produced by Atari. It had five internal expansion slots, allowing the user to add five different cards to the PBI bus. Atari was planning to produce many cards for the 1090, but only four - the Atari 1066 CP/M module, a 80-column card, a hard-disk card and a 64K memory board - are known to have reached the prototype stage.\
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A few expansion boxes were built but never sold before the 1090 project was canceled in 1984.
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image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_800xl_1090expansion_2.jpg
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- title: COMPLETE SYSTEM
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subtitle: ''
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text: As very few top covers were built, a complete expansion box is thus a true rarity!
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image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_800xl_1090expansion_1.jpg
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- title: CORVUS SYSTEMS HARD-DRIVE
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subtitle: 10Mb hard-drive
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text: |-
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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 !
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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!!!
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image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_atari800_hd-corvus-systems_1.jpg
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- title: TOUCH TABLET
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subtitle: ''
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text: The touch tablet was the best tool for drawing and painting. It shipped with the AtariArtist cartridge.
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image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_800xl_touchtablet_s1.jpg
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- title: '1029 PRINTER #1'
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subtitle: ''
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text: |-
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This printer was a modified version of the Seikosha GP-500. Atari replaced the standard Parallel Centronics interface with the custom Atari serial connectors.
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It was a 80-column, 50 CPS version with a 7x5 dot matrix head.
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Commodore used same hardware basis for its MPS-801 printer.
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image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_800xl_1029printer_s1.jpg
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- title: '1029 PRINTER #2'
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subtitle: ''
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text: ''
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image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_800xl_1029printer_s2.jpg
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emulators:
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- title: SIO2PC
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url: http://www.cswnet.com/~nkennedy/sio2pc.htm
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platform: MS DOS
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text: PC emulates Atari Disk
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- title: Altirra
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url: http://www.virtualdub.org/altirra.html
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platform: Windows
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text: Altirra, an 8-bit Atari computer emulator
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- title: Atari800Win
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url: http://www.concentric.net/~Twist/atari800win/
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platform: Windows
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text: ''
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- title: Atari800Win Plus
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url: http://a800win.atari-area.prv.pl/
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platform: Windows
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text: Atari 8 bit emulator for windows
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- title: WAHCE Home Page
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url: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Node/4391/
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platform: Windows
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text: ''
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- title: XFormer
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url: http://www.emulators.com/xformer.htm
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platform: Windows
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text: ''
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- title: Chris Lam's Website
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url: http://www.chrislam.co.uk/
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platform: Apple
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text: homepage for Horizon
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- title: The Atari 800 Emulator for the Mac
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url: http://www.serve.com/derekl/atari/atari_emu.html
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platform: Apple
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text: ''
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- title: WACKE
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url: http://www.ctaz.com/~jlfenton/Wacke.html
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platform: Apple
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text: ''
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- title: ACE
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url: http://www.csh.rit.edu/~shaggy/software.html
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platform: Unix / Linux
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text: ''
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- title: Atari++
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url: http://www.math.tu-berlin.de/~thor/atari++/
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platform: Unix / Linux
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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
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- title: Atari800
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url: http://atari800.sourceforge.net/
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platform: Multiplatform
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text: Atari800 is an Atari 800, 800XL, 130XE and 5200 emulator for Unix, Amiga, MS-DOS, Atari TT/Falcon, SDL and WinCE
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links:
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- title: 8-bit ATARI Assembly Language
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url: http://oort.com/turbots/asm.htm
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text: ''
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- title: Antic - The Atari Resource
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url: http://www.atarimagazines.com/
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text: ''
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- title: APE - Atari Peripheral Emulator for DOS and Windows - Home Page
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url: http://www.nacs.net/~classics/
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text: ''
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- title: Atari 2600-7800 FAQ
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url: http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~dzubera/2600faq.html
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text: ''
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- title: Atari 8-Bit Computers Frequently Asked Questions
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url: http://www.chez.com/cmpi/paleo/8bits/atari/faq_atar.htm
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text: ''
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- title: 'Atari 8-bit computers: 400/800/XL/XE'
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url: http://www.santellocco.com/ATARI/
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text: dedicated website in italian
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- title: Atari 8-bit New User, Emulator Help FAQ - v2.1
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url: http://www.sonic.net/~nbs/new_and_emu.html
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text: ''
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- title: Atari 8-bit SpartaDOS Project
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url: http://www.celebritybase.net/atari8/
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text: ''
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- title: Atari Gaming Headquarters Main Page
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url: http://www.atarihq.com/
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text: ''
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- title: Atari Magazines
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url: http://www.atarimagazines.com/
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text: Contains the full text of all issues of ANTIC magazine and moste of the STart ones !
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- title: Atari XL-XE Games And Demos Page
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url: http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/~sgl/atari/
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text: ''
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- title: ATARI.ORG
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url: http://www.atari.org/
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text: Looking for something on any Atari machine ? Follow the links !
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- title: ATARIARCHIVES.ORG
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url: http://www.atariarchives.org/
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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.
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- title: Dead Hackers Society
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url: http://www.dhs.nu/
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text: Downloads, tools, news and more
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- title: Homepage Nyman Atari 8 bit
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url: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2741/8bit.html
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text: ''
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- title: Ken's Atari 8-bit Page
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url: http://home.columbus.rr.com/ksiders/atari.htm
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text: ''
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- title: Mac-Atari Fusion
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url: http://www2.bitstream.net/~marksim/atarimac/
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text: Atari 8bit Resources for Mac Users
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- title: MacFalkner's XL Homepage
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url: http://members.aol.com/MacFalkner/atariindex.htm
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text: ''
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- title: Personal Atari Web Page
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url: http://rjespino.tripod.com/atari.html
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text: jpeg viewer for the Atari 8-bit and some other tools
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- title: Polish Atari Wikipedia
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url: http://atariki.krap.pl
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text: A lot of info about Atari (in polish)
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- title: Reminiscing 8-Bit Atari Games
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url: http://www.qlam.com/atari/atari.html
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text: ''
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- title: Satantronic Atari Crew, Atari XL-XE and Falcon 030
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url: http://www.napri.sk/web/satantronic/
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text: ''
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- title: The Atari 800 XE Laptop
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url: http://www.benheck.com/Games/Atari_800/Atari_800_laptop_1.htm
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text: This guy explain how he made a laptop Atari 800 !
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- title: The Atari Historical Society
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url: http://www.atari-history.com/
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text: The complete history of Atari Arcade and Home games and computers. Complete site with pictures, commercials (streaming), and full text articles. Amazing site !
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- title: www.ataricave.com
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url: http://www.ataricave.com
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text: Atari 8-bit Games reviews, original manuals, music, maps and more!
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- title: XL Search - The Atari 8-bit File Archive Search Engine
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url: http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/xlsearch/
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text: ''
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- title: Web Wiz CAPTCHA
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url: http://www.webwizcaptcha.com
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text: Programming on the Atari computers
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docs:
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- title: ATARI SYSTEM REFERENCE MANUAL
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url: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/atarixe/index.htm
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cover: /media/museum/docs/couvs/doc_atarirefmanual.jpg
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text: |-
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[**ATARI SYSTEM REFERENCE MANUAL**](http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/atarixe/index.htm)written by Bob DuHamel (1987)
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compiled/archived by Ivo van Poorten\
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type of document : PDF\
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size : 160 KB\
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source : [Daves Old Computers](http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield)
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**... READ THE ONLINE VERSION BY CLICKING BELOW :**
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videos:
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- title: Atari Home Computer laser disc - Introduction
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url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54mvCo1uq5A
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text: 'Length: 5 min 20 s'
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- title: Atari Home Computer laser disc - Conclusion
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url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQDQWvwZ-2w
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text: 'Length: 1 min 30 s'
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related:
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- /museum/atari-1200-xl
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- /museum/atari-1400-xl
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- /museum/atari-1450-xld
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- /museum/atari-400
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- /museum/atari-65-130-xe
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- /museum/atari-65xep-65xem
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- /museum/atari-800
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- /museum/atari-800xe
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software:
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- /software/atari-basketball-648
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oc_id: 27
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source:
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url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230605140423/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=27
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date: '2023-06-05'
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---
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The Atari 800XL, together with the 600XL, were successors of the [Atari 400/800](/museum/atari-400/) series and the unsuccessful [Atari 1200 XL](/museum/atari-1200-xl/) in a more compact case. They could use almost the same software, just so long as the program was written correctly, because of some slight differences between OS versions.
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The 800XL had 64 KB of RAM, two joystick ports and kept all the custom chips (Pokey, GTIA, Antic) of the previous models. It also featured the new Parallel Bus Interface (PBI) providing high speed access to the system bus. The new version of the graphic Antic chip offered 16 graphics modes instead of 12 for the 800.
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An enhanced version, called **800XLF**, appeared in summer 1984. It was equipped with the new "Freddie" chip which allowed faster memory management, especially for graphics display. This version was released in Europe with SECAM video interface.
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Alongside the [Commodore 64](/museum/commodore-c64/) and the [Apple II](/museum/apple-ii/), the 600 and 800XL were among the most popular home computers.\
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They would be replaced in 1985 with the [XE](/museum/atari-65-130-xe/) series when Atari launched the [ST](/museum/atari-520-st-st-stm/).
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---
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**Martin Scott Goldberg** says :\
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Regarding the comment "and can use the same software just so long as the program was written correctly", a translator disk was provided with the 1050 disk drive (the drive released with the XL series) that allowed the 600/800xl to run all older software. What it basicly did was load the original 400/800 OS over the XL one in memory.
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