The Story of the Atari 400, An Entry Level Computer to Change the World - Tech Retrospective

now you wouldn't mistake the atari 800 from modern pc but it wouldn't look that out of place sitting in a forgotten corner in your local library nothing about its design feels truly off-putting due to the passage of time that is not true for the atari 400 the entry-level model atari was selling at the same time this thing looks a lot more strange hi i'm jacob with tech retrospective and this is the atari 400. before we get into it please make sure to check out our patreon and join our discord server buying a computer in 1979 was a big ordeal with home computers being sold by companies like radio shack apple and commodore atari had to do something special to court novice consumers to chase them a game company atari tackled this by releasing not one but two computers a premium high-end model which was at least as good if not better than pretty much every other system available at the time but it was quite expensive and a budget model featuring the same great graphics and sound capabilities while cutting features down that wouldn't matter to gamers or those looking for a starter system to learn basic programming this strategy was relatively new for computer platforms but it has lived on decades later in everything from phones to modern game consoles to smart fridges although research and development costs for atari's first computers were astronomically high atari was confident that their system would dominate the computer market filled with low power apple 2s and trs-80s especially the 400 due to its appealing price and atari's great library of first party arcade conversions i went into this in more detail in our 800 video which you can check out here but the platform atari built with these systems was incredibly impressive even at their most basic versions they can rival and some argue can even best the commodore 64 which wouldn't be released for another three years compared to the competition atari had a brand that normal consumers already trusted due to the 2600. and they had the best library of arcade games to convert any company could possibly have at the time and they had a ton of media hype built up to a boiling point as the development of this platform continued the 400 specifically was targeted as a great system for kids between its unique let's say keyboard and it's lowered price it would be a no-brainer for parents to buy it to put in their kids bedroom and before you know it boom little jimmy is a computer wizard which is good because i heard walter cronkite say last night that computers are going to be important for our kids when they have the jobs of the future surely for years to come the first word anyone would think of when they thought of a computer would be atari but then the prices were announced yikes well maybe that's a bit too dramatic people knew these revolutionary machines would be expensive and we're used to paying prices in that same price range for the competition but atari had promised to truly make the computer a household item and at those prices it was going to be an uphill battle what made them so expensive though the price was so high on these systems due to both the forward thinking technology which required quite a few custom chips on board and strict regulations on rf emissions from the fcc which made atari have to conceal the system inside of a full metal case between 1979 and their discontinuation the atari 400 and 800 sold roughly 2 million units which is pretty decent but nowhere near market domination at least 60 percent of those sales were specifically for the atari 400 which by the end had been reduced in price to just 150 which was much more reasonable but newer cheaper machines like the vic-20 kind of stole its thunder over the years many different systems would be released as atari's new entry-level computer filling the bottom end of the market but they'd see diminishing returns due to the industry's rapid technological improvements and race towards the bottom on prices the 600 xl would replace the 400 in 1983 to put in line with the commodore 64 which would then be replaced by the 65e in 85 which was essentially last gen's high-end system the 800 xl in an atari st-styled case which would then sort of be replaced by the atari xe game system which was trying to be an nes and uh easter basket wrapped in one i don't know it's so odd to see atari who were years ahead in computer design constantly play catch-up for the entire life of the 8-bit line but between computers just being seen as a side project for the company and both turbulence in the market and in atari itself it's not really surprising now it's not all doom and gloom the computer line was a success just not a massive one and the 400 itself is a really cool system with some serious tech behind it it's worth noting there are many different configurations for the 400 since atari continued to work on the system and make improvements through the four years it was on sale so to keep things simple we're going to talk about what's under the hood with the original launch model of the system after all that's the configuration that was blowing mines in 1979 later configs were better but not as impressive to the public the atari 400 contains a mos 6502 processor running at 1.8 megahertz 8 kilobytes of ram with a maximum of 48k the ctia video processor able to display up to 128 colors at 160 by 96 and a pokey sound chip with four voices two internal expansion slots four controller ports and one cartridge port for all your favorite games now let's talk about the differences from the 400 to the 800 besides of course the 500 price difference both systems shared the same processor and chipset so performance wise especially for cartridge games there's next to no difference the 400 is somewhat smaller and only offers one cartridge port versus the 800s too another difference is in ram both systems launched with the same amount of ram 8k but by 1983 the 400 sold with 16k and the 800 of massive maxed out 48k last and probably most notable is the keyboard while the 800 features a pretty standard quality keyboard from its time with a key feel that's reminiscent of a typewriter the 400s includes atari's innovative membrane child proof keyboard it was designed to still work with kids peanut butter covered hands and i hate it i really do it also happens to be a much cheaper mechanism and yeah it feels pretty terrible to use but when your goal is just to play games with a joystick on the system it really doesn't matter now for the ratings rarity gets a two out of five the system sold over a million units it's pretty common price gets a four out of five the membrane keyboard does turn some people off so these systems can be picked up for pretty cheap but you may want to pick up a later atari system for about the same price aesthetics get a 3 out of 5. objectively the 800 has a much better aesthetic but the 400 still has some charm and the unique factor of its strange keyboard software gets a 4 out of 5. there's a very good amount of software available for this system though some newer software for later atari 8-bit computers won't be compatible ease of repair gets a 4 out of 5. there is a good amount of resources available for the system they also have really solid build quality so there aren't very many hardware faults well that's all i have for you guys today so please make sure to subscribe let me know if you've ever used an atari 400 do you hate the keyboard as much as i do would you rather have an atari 800 let me know in the comments below uh of course join our discord server you can also support us on patreon to help us continue to grow and uh i'll see you guys next time [Music]

Channel: Newsmakers Tech

Views: 19,938

Keywords: retro computer, Retro Computer Channel, classic, vintage, retro, computing, retro tech, floppy disk, overview, newsmakers tech, old technology, atari 400, atari 800, atari 8 bit, atari, atari 400 800, atari 8-bit, 400, atari 400/800, atari 8-bit family, vintage computing, vintage computer, retrospective, atari 800xl, atari computer, 8-bit, 400/800, 800, atari 800 computer, retro computing, atari 800 vs 800xl, atari 600xl, atari 8 bit computer, home computer, atari 800 review, game

Id: 7CnYI0E_6mk

Length: 10min 13sec (613 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 22 2020