Atari Microcomputers

Please note that unless otherwise stated the screenshots on this page were taken using an Elgato capture card using the composite video connection.

Atari 65XE Microcomputer

Overview

Resources

Peripherals

Atari Touch Tablet

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Atari 65XE Microcomputer

Overview

The 65XE microcomputer from Atari (also known as the 800XE in some countries) was first introduced in 1985 priced $99. The 'XE' in the computer's name supposedly means XL-Compatible Eight Bit with reference to the earlier XL range from Atari. Featuring a 6502C (custom 6502) CPU @ 1.79MHz, the 65XE also has 64KB RAM, and 24KB ROM (OS and Atari BASIC). The computer has 16 display modes (11 graphic and 5 text including support for a text window) supporting 128 colours simultaneously from a palette of 256 colours. The highest resolution it can output is 320 x 192 and it supports at most 40 columns by 24 lines of text. There are 4 programmable independent sound voices, each with 3 1/2 octave range. The computer is 100% compatible with Atari 400/800 and XL software and peripherals.

Take a look at a top view of the 65XE:

The 65XE's keyboard has 62 keys which includes standard keys, 29 of which double up as graphics keys which produce a simple graphical symbol and are accessed by pressing control and one of the keys that has the corresponding symbol on it. The power light is located bottom left and there are 5 function keys (top right) which are Help, Start, Select, Option and Reset. With the exception of Reset which, not surprisingly resets the computer, the other function keys only respond when used by a particular program. Annoyingly , when using BASIC each key press generates a click sound but can be disabled by using the command POKE 731,255 (use 0 instead of 255 to re-enable the key click sound).

The keyboard keys are a bit spongy but certainly not the worse microcomputer to type on. However, as to be expected it's somewhat difficult to use the 65XE's keyboard because of being used to the layout of keys on a modern keyboard and in particular I kept pressing Caps instead of Return when typing on the 65XE, Speaking of Caps, because the 65XE will only recognise BASIC keywords typed in capitals the computer starts up with caps lock on. While on the subject of the keyboard it's worth mentioning that the 65XE supports an alternative, international character set although it has to be enabled with a POKE command.

Next we will look at the various ports at the back of the computer:

From the left we have: peripheral (cassette recorder, printer, modem, etc.), cartridge, expansion (Enhanced Cartridge Interface) , monitor (provides mono audio, composite video, and S-video), RF TV, power, and power switch. The ECI was only present on European 65XE computers and was functionally similar to an Atari XL computer PBI connection; my 65XE came with an addendum stating that the 65XE had been upgraded to include ECI and thus the illustration in the manual is wrong.

At the right of the computer are 2 standard 'Atari' joystick ports.

In the photo below you can see the 65XE power supply (left) which is large and heavy, as was typical of microcomputers of the time. On the right is the XC12 cassette program recorder which plugs into the peripheral port of the 65XE and allows for loading and saving machine code or BASIC programs stored on cassette.

The 65XE does a memory test whenever it's switched on and it can take a few seconds before you are dropped into BASIC and during that time there may be graphical/audible 'glitches'. When in BASIC you can access a built-in self test mode by typing BYE and pressing return or you can hold the Option key while turning the computer on. The tests available are: memory test (tests RAM and ROM), audio-visual (tests the voices by playing various notes while displaying the notes), keyboard (each key press is verified on screen and with sound), and all tests. Note that when performing the keyboard test, to check the shift and control keys are working you must press them with another key e.g. shift and A to test shift works. You can see a screen capture of the audio-visual test below (taken using an Elgato capture card and subsequently cropped to remove the black bars):

Interestingly, if there is no disk drive connected to the 65XE and you type DOS and press return the computer enters the self test mode.

The Atari BASIC supports the cursor keys (accessed with a control key combination) for editing a BASIC program which means you can list a program and then use the cursor keys to move to a particular line to edit it by making the necessary changes before pressing return. The BASIC has dedicated drawing keywords (unlike, for e.g. the C64) which allow plotting and drawing of lines and shapes. Another nice feature of Atari BASIC is that there are shorthands for entering keywords which involves typing 1 or 2 letters from the keyword followed by a full stop (e.g. DR.), and going 1 step further PRINT can be shortened to a '?'.

You can check out a screen grab showing an example command to change the border colour to green and a BASIC program ready to be run:

Some examples of useful BASIC commands:

You can get the amount of user memory available by issuing ?FRE(0) which should return 37879 if no user program in memory.
To test a joystick connected to port 1 use ? STICK(0) to get a value responding to the joystick direction (value of 15 is no direction pressed as logic 0 means the switch is pressed). To test the fire button use ? STRIG(0) with 1 representing no button press. Use STICK(1) and STRIG(1) to test a joystick connected to port 2.
Use POKE 54018,52 to activate the motor of an attached cassette program recorder (useful for testing the cassette player's motor without having to try to load from a cassette).

As was typical of microcomputers of the time programs were typically written in either BASIC or machine language and when loaded from cassette required a certain procedure to be followed which would be included in the instructions of commercial software. The options were as follows:

Machine language programs booting from tape: hold START+OPTION during powering on of the computer then press enter key.
BASIC language programs booting from tape: hold START during powering on of the computer then press enter key.
In Atari BASIC programs saved with CSAVE command: load using the CLOAD command.
In Atari BASIC programs saved with SAVE"C:" command: load using LOAD"C:" or RUN"C:" commands.
In Atari BASIC programs saved with LIST"C:" command: load using ENTER"C:" command.

An unique feature of the 65XE was that when the computer was left idle long enough it would slowly change the border, background and text to different colours until a key was pressed (restoring the previous colours), acting as a simple screen saver. Other Atari computers also had a similar built-in screen saver such as the Atari 400 and 800.

There were at least 2 planned variations of the 65XE that made it to the prototype stage but sadly no further and they both made an appearance in '85: the 65XEP and the 65XEM. The 65XEP was a portable version of the 65XE with built-in 3.5" disk drive, 5" green CRT and battery pack intended to rival the Commodore SX-64. The 65XEM was a music version of the 65XE that would have utilised the ill-fated AMY sound chip as to rival the C64's sound capabilities.

Resources

Atari 65XE manual:

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/737589/Atari-65xe.html

Atari XE service manual (includes the 65XE):

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1248642/Atari-130xe.html#manual

Peripherals

Atari Touch Tablet

The Touch Tablet from Atari is a drawing tablet for Atari computers that have 16K RAM of RAM or more (such as the Atari 65XE) and allows the user to draw digitally both freehand and using predefined shapes in a variety of colours and patterns. A total of 128 solid colours are offered and over 1500 variations of colour patterns, 8 brush widths, and 12 pre-designed patterns. In addition, the ability to zoom, magnify (zooms in x8) and mirror (options for horizontal, vertical, diagonal, and 4 way), and to save your designs to disk or cassette.

I bought a boxed Touch Tablet from ebay which has a date of 1983 on the box and includes:

Touch tablet with stylus.

Atariartist program cartridge (model RX8053).

Owner's guide.

The stylus has a TR plug which connects to the tablet near its lead and the stylus has a small square red button toward the tip called a control button. The tablet has a large rectangular button on either side called control buttons and the tablet has a hard wired lead that terminates in a female DE-9. There is a removable plastic sheet on the tablet surface that can be removed and a drawing placed underneath for tracing. Written on the underside of the tablet is the model number, CX77, and serial number 417B.

The control button on the stylus and the two on the tablet do the same thing when the stylus is not touching the tablet: to switch between the canvas and menu, and space bar on the computer the tablet is connected to does the same thing. If the stylus is touching the tablet and a control button is pressed on a menu item it selects that option (space bar only ever toggles between canvas and menu but the stylus doesn’t have to be lifted from the tablet surface). However, the right control button on the tablet acts as a toggle, rather than having to keep the button pressed when drawing you can press the right control button once and then draw and press again to turn off. You must be pressing on the tablet surface when you press the control button.

After having used the tablet for some while I came to the conclusion that it was well made, being very responsive to the stylus, and in terms of the features that are available for drawing. You can use the keyboard keys as a shortcut for some menu options (the letter is shown onscreen for each menu option), which saves time but there is no undo feature; to erase a mistake you have to go over it with a different colour. As for the colour selection, you artistic creation cannot actually have 128 colours at once, instead you can select from a range of colours for the four colour registers, to be used in your digital drawing. Lastly, as the tablet has a resistive surface it is not necessary for you to use the provided stylus for drawing, you could use something else for drawing, which can even be your finger.

Link to the owner's manual:

http://www.atarimania.com/documents/atari-touch-tablet-owners-guide.pdf

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