I think I had just the opposite experience growing up with the Atari / Commodore computers, beginning with the Atari 8-bits --> Atari ST. I've recently begun to dabble in the Commodore realm myself and have loved both the 8-bit and Amiga eras. They are both awesome bits of history and it's definitely fun to explore the much more vibrant 1980's computers!

Glueing the Atari 800 back together like the leg lamp. “Not A Finger!”

First Macintosh, now Atari. Does your blasphemy know no bounds?! Before my time, but that Atari looks so cool. A great example of ‘retro futurism’.

Hi. Thom from FujiNet here. Thanks for the shout-out at 9:00 :)

I bought an Atari 400 back in 1981 , upgraded it from 16k to 48k , got a 1050 disc drive, bought the Action cart and programmed the game Midas Maze on it. sure the keyboard was kinda of a pain, but trust me, you get used to it after a while. Now as for build quality , in 1984 , I walked into an electronics store during a bad thunderstorm, lightning hit the powerlines, all the lights in the store went out, and you could smell the burnt electronics. The C64 on display there, the Vic 20 and the apple II's all died, but the Atari 400 and 800 both booted right back up. so I played a game of Star Raiders on the 800. because that was the game on display there. guess that aluminum case really was a good idea. and I still have the 400 48k, and it still works today. by the way, great video, thanks for doin the 400 justice.

Doug !!! I was similar, ATARI VCS 79, ZX81 in 81, Spectrum 82 - then ATARI 800XL in 85 (mate had C64) then from 86 all AMIGA AMIGA (A1000) - but another mate had Amiga and ST. Those were the glory days.

My dad only ever wanted to play one game on my Dragon 32 "Defense" which was a Missile Command game. He had the highest score by far when I sold that system and got my Amiga, that was the last time I ever played a game with my dad.

Given the hardware designer connections, it's as if Atari and Commodore switched engineering brains during the Tramiel transition.

My mom told me, some time ago, that my dad used to stay up till 2am practicing on the VCS in order to keep up with, and occasionally beat, me in my favorite games. I find myself doing the same thing with my kid in minecraft. :)

I swear that membrane keyboard was cast in the fiery pits of Mt. Doom, but I might be approaching hyperbolic with that statement.

An Amiga guy who actually appreciates its true Atari heritage? WHAT?!?😮

The first computer I ever used, Absolutely fantastic 8 and 16k games on cart. Later we got an 800 and loved it! We never knew that Amiga had 400/800 roots but is was too expensive in '86 to afford anyway. We went with the ST and loved it too, but I still always wonder what if the A500 was available right away and what if we knew it really was an 800 on steroids?

Thanks Doug for the visit to the Darkside. I was never tempted to swap my Commodore for an Atari. Cheers

I got one recently and noticed how clear the RF is too thankGod, as the composite mods are a pain (as you have to dismantle a lot). Got a demodulator to get perfect composite out to a small lcd projector for Star Raiders on our rec room wall!

Watching this after they announced a 400 mini I'm excited for it

A lot of good information here. Great job!! For repairing the 800 case, I highly recommend the superglue+baking soda method. Use only glue in the crack, and then behind (inside the case) use both together. The baking soda adds bulk and will reinforce it a lot. Works great! There are how-to's here on youtube that show how to combine them. There is Asteroids Arcade for the A8's that emulates the arcade machine which is of course, nearly arcade perfect. Came out around 2014 iirc. For a proper SID vs POKEY comparison, include Star Wars (arcade 3D-ish one) and how the C64 version sounds like a (cheap?) synthesizer instead of how the arcade machine's music sounds. While SID is a much better synthesizer purposed chip, poor developer implementation meant POKEY was frequently (not always) better in various games. Or alternatively, software developed originally on the A8's often meant developers porting to C64 did not match the original vision or talent (the levity of Spy vs Spy 1's music for example). Love hearing SID when developers have skill.... R Hubard and others as great examples. Hubard's POKEY tunes are also amazing. Compare the sound effects in Blue Max for both. One chip is for sound effects, the other is a synthesizer. POKEY does more than sound. Also handles SIO, paddle controllers and keyboard input. To compete with the VIC20, it's too bad they didn't initially release a $250 A8 with no keyboard, all on one board, no SIO, one joyport, etc etc.. That was a big miss and C= ate Atari's lunch. The original Centipede is okay but I don't like how the bugs animate so chunkily. Millipede fixes that (but it's spiders are maybe even worse in chunky movement). There are several different Centipede variants, each quite different. I think there's also an arcade emulated one for A8. If you get a trackball, press CTRL-T to play either game with that! The arcade Joust also uses POKEY as well so the A8 vers sounds best. =) There is pacman arcade (released 2014+) that plays great. Skywriter was cool. Never seen that before! Yes some XE carts will work on a 48K 400/800 machine because they are 32K carts (Blue Max should). Was also an A500 user.. Got one in 87. ST was not for me but did seem slick at first. Yes please do more A8 vids!

You got me with that coughing bit. Haha.

I have a 48K 800 that still works. Got an SIO to USB so it can play my old favorite games right off of a PC's hard drive. I still have my 1983 Atari 300 baud modem kicking around here somewhere. I always thought it serendipitous that Atari joysticks worked with Amigas. My favorite joystick is still a cheap cut down Atari stick with just the nub of the rubber boot on the tip for my thumb.

As a kid i had the 2600 and a calico vision with c64, but i always lusted after all the atari computers. i guess ill collect them one day lol.

Wait, how did I slip through a portal into an alternate universe where this channel is talking about Atari computers????? ;) #MultiverseOfMadness

"In a couple of (Jay) Miner ways, its better than the Commodore 64". Hidden context. :D

I had a 400 and upgraded it to 48K and a full keyboard in the first year of ownership.

Welcome to the Atari Kid Retrocast!

I like the Atari 8-bit computers a lot. The OS is much better than that on the Commodore 8-bit systems and they are all compatible unlike many of the Commodore 8-bit computers. One complaint is the video RAM is limited to 8 KB. I would have liked to see a 16 KB limit to allow 8 colors per screen or scan-line instead of four. I would have also liked to have seen an 80 column mode that supported color and player/missile graphics. Today's solution is the VBXL or VBXE but few people have them. I would also have liked to have seen the VIC-II with a 256 color palette from which to choose the 16 colors.

The Atari 400/800 use the same Pokey sound chip as the arcade version of Centipede.

The build quality of the 400 looks much better than the Vic for sure but dang that keyboard puts me right off, the 800 on the other hand looks a very nice machine :)

Good video... glad I subscribed ☺️... A friend of mine had a 520 STfm and I nearly bought one until I saw (and heard) the Amiga 500 that another couple of friend had lol 😆

I had a VIC-20, Commodore 64 and then a few Amigas growing up. I wouldn't have been able to get into computing without the low priced VIC-20. If price hadn't been an issue, the Atari 400 and 800 were definitely better systems than the VIC-20 and pretty comparable with the Commodore 64. Of course, the Atari 400/800 are the older siblings of the Amigas, both systems being similarly designed by Jay Miner with the Ataris having the ANTIC, GTIA, POKEY custom chips, and the Amiga having the similar AGNUS, Denise and Paula custom chips. Today I consider myself a Jay Miner fan more than a Commodore or Atari fan. The Commodore 8-bit computers and the Atari 16/32-bit computers don't interest me.

I went the Vic20, C=64, Amiga, route, and have no regrets. They always seemed to be so much more expensive than the Commodore products. My favourite game on the machines of that era (C-64), was Dig Dug, and Pacman. I still have all my 8 bit machines, including a 64 K Sinclair ZX-81, and a C-128. I made lots of modifications to both the Vic20, and the C-64 with the dual MSD drive, but the C-64 was the favourite machine by far. They are not on display, but that is the intention. Did you ever type in those machine language programs from Gazette? They worked quite well.

FujiNet DOES plug into SIO, but the CX85 Keypad DOES NOT! It plugs into the joystick port! That should be pretty obvious looking at its cord.

Bruh! Ataris are great. They are different to be sure and comparing the ST to the Amiga is a waste of time as they both excel in their respective areas, but glad to see you showcasing other computers. But mark my words, you will eventually review the MSX2 machines and find a new religion there.

The irony is the Amiga is the Atari 8 Bit descendant, and the ST is the Commodore 64 descendant... But regardless you would have moved to Apple or PC or early Linux after the temporary, fools gold, advances of the Amiga. Unfortunately Atari and Amiga would both become irrelevant when their respective companies could not longer move forward and compete.

Alley Cat. No.1 Atari 8bit game!

I am an old fart I remember the Atari 8 Bit computers but only knew one person that had one and then he got an ST. Funny thing is I have no memory of seeing them in stores and where I did see them most was on McDonald Promotions as one of the prizes. My family was poor if you wanted to play games you played board or card games. Only computer I got to play with back in 1977 was a DEC PDP system at school which is where I got to play with (shhh) Punch Cards, key punch machines which would make membranes look & feel wicked awesome. Yea to have anything back then in the house to play on would of been awesome. Got to play with more computers in college but getting time on a terminal required the patience of JOB and that's where I learned to type fast. Yes get your programs written, entered saved on the hard drive and 8" Floppies. I talk too much but blame that on COBOL.

Ahh, it's the Atari 5200 with a keyboard!

With a ~1.8 MHz CPU it was certainly more powerful than the C64 in the CPU area but in graphics and sound it wasn't as good. But with that extra CPU power (basically 2x) they leveraged that to close the gap. I own an XEGS and one day I'm going to get some updates to it.