Atari  Pong

In the same year, Pong, one of the earliest arcade machines was introduced off the back of the learning experiences of Syzygy's Computer Space, a beautifully crafted but difficult arcade machine inspired by Steve Russell's Spacewar!, an experimental game influenced by students of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  Spacewar! is arguably the world's first video game, at least it has been claimed as such, although that claim is perhaps not quite so clear cut.

Pong not only caught the imagination of a generation because of its playability, but introduced sound chips in its circuitry.  Engineered by Allan Alcorn, it was not made available to the home market until 1975.  

Home Pong established Atari and helped launch the video game industry by being among the first generation of games consoles, along with Ralph H. Baer's infamous Magnavox Odyssey, a console which played a big, albeit controversial role in the beginnings of Atari.  Unequivocally in Pong, Atari launched the notion of the sound chip and sound in games, and followed this through to Home Pong.

There were variations of Pong released by Atari during its lifespan, those being the initial Sears Tele-Games Pong, Home Pong, Super Pong, Super Pong Ten, Super Pong PRO-AM, Super Pong PRO-AM Ten and Ultra Pong Doubles.

Home Pong was my first encounter into video gaming, it was handed down to me from my sisters in my early years growing up in Australia, however somewhere between Australia and moving to the UK the beloved Pong disappeared never to be seen again, gasp, cue dramatic Pong 'blip'.  OK maybe not!

Atari  Touch Me

The interestingly named Touch Me, which I am sure would cause a hashtag social media storm in this day and age, was brought to the home market in 1978.  Its origins began with the 1974 Atari Touch Me arcade version, a game of memory and skill, whereby the player's aim was to repeat the sequence of flashing lights accompanied by sound the Touch Me cycled through.  Sounds familiar right?  That's because the arcade version was the inspiration for the hugely popular Simon game from again Ralph H. Baer.  The Touch Me home edition however was Atari's response to Ralph's Simon game, and is seen as an Atari handheld game system, hence why it takes its place in Atari's computer timeline. 

Atari  Video Pinball

The Atari Video Pinball C-380 introduced in 1977 was a dedicated console which came in three versions, wood grained and cream versions, as well as a Sears version called the Tele-Games Pinball Breakaway.  It offers essentially 3 games, Pinball, Basketball and Breakout, however there are iterations of these games.  On the later cream version of the C-380, there are four Pinball variants, two versions of Breakout and Basketball.  It has bumper controllers on the sides and a dial on the front, all of which are used to control the selectable games.

Atari  Stunt Cycle

Released soon after the  Video Pinball C-380, the Atari Stunt Cycle C-450 was released around one month later in '77.  Again there is a Sears version called the Tele-Games Motocross.  Another dedicated console, it aimed to capture the imagination of the Evil Knevil phenomena in your living room, almost anyway.  By design it takes its inspiration from of course a motorbike no less, and was taken from Atari's own coin-op.  However the dedicated home console was soon to fall off a cliff, sorry Evil, as Atari was focusing its efforts on its next infamous project.

Atari VCS (2600)

In 1976 the Atari Video Computer System (VCS ) was conceived under the codename 'Stella'.  Bushnell saw the potential of the Atari VCS, and knew he needed to raise more funds to market to realise that potential.  Through a mutual acquaintance, he was directed towards Warner Communications Inc. who bought Atari from Bushnell in October of '76.  In 1977 with enough funds, the Atari VCS was launched.  However in 1978, after rising tensions between Bushnell and Warner over the future of the VCS, Bushnell was fired, welcomed by Nolan himself.  Ray Kassar subsequently stepped in as CEO, taking over the responsibility of further marketing the Atari VCS through its games.  

Later to become known as the Atari 2600, it was revised over the years until 1982, with a re-introduction in 1986 as the Atari 2600 Junior.  Spearheading the second generation of consoles, it introduced the iconic Atari joystick, patented the Atari joystick port, and helped popularise the notion of game cartridge based ROMs, sparked by the Fairchild Channel F.  It cemented Atari in the gaming world, and furthered the phenomena that have become the video game and games console industries.  It remains Atari's best selling product, largely due to sales of games such as Yars' Revenge by Howard Scott Warshaw, Atari's own Asteroids, and the Pong influenced Breakout, developed by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs of Apple fame, in fact, the arcade version providing the nucleus for the incorporation of Apple Computers in 1976.  Not forgetting games such as Space Invaders licensed from Taito, and the equally popular Pac-Man licensed from Namco, the latter seen more as marketing successes rather than good arcade conversions.  As such, the Atari 2600 saw Atari at their peek during the late 1970s and early 1980s.  It has been heralded as the console the whole gaming industry is built on.  Whether you agree with that statement or not is a matter of opinion, however one thing is for certain, the gaming industry owes a debt of gratitude to the first generation of consoles, and to the Atari 2600 which followed.

Despite Atari's meteoric rise, in 1983 the video game industry suffered a crash, 'affectionally' known as 'Atari Shock', and yes that infamous E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial video game story which is so wrongly accredited for the same.  Yet amidst this success and chaos, the home computer was born.

8-bit era

Alongside the success of the Atari 2600, Atari entered the equally booming microcomputer market, later to become commonly referred to as home computers, and perhaps later still personal computers (PC).  I prefer the term home computer, the term PC at the time was more synonymous with IBM and the first MS-DOS based computers, which in turn gave birth to the PCs we know today.   

Although these home computers offered gaming, they were intended for more serious use.  Designed with a keyboard they offered more processing power to enable solutions for accounting, database management, word processing, music or sound creation, and computer programming to the end user.

Atari 400 / 800 Series

In 1979, while on the crest of a wave with the success of the 8-bit Atari 2600, Atari presented the first wave of its 8-bit computers, the Atari 400 and 800.  It was from this period that the term 8-bit was more widely used, and generally denotes the consoles and computers of this generation.

The Atari 400 and 800 were the first home computers to offer custom chips, and the first to use sprites.  The 400 was released with a membrane keyboard, 8K of RAM, expandable to 16K  (initially intended to be 4K hence the name Atari 400), and a cartridge port.  The beautiful Atari 800 was also released but with 8K of RAM, expandable to 48K, a mechanical keyboard and two cartridge ports.  They were in direct competition with the '1977 Trinity', and were well received, notably for their build quality where one magazine wrote commenting on the 800, 'it has the strongest and tightest chassis I have seen since Raquel Welch'.  Perhaps not politically correct in this day and age, but a complimentary turn of phrase nonetheless.  I too remember these machines as a young boy in the early to mid 1980s, as for a time in the UK, both were still being sold alongside the popular Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the computer that blew the doors open for gaming and development in the UK, the Acorn BBC Micro, Electron and Dragon home computers to name but a few.  It was perhaps a little later in my young life that I was just as equally in awe of Raquel Welch!  However despite the reception, Atari found it difficult to compete with the likes of Apple, Tandy and Commodore.

Atari 5200 Super System

Meanwhile, on the console front, Atari looked to replace the Atari 2600 with the next second generation games console, the Atari 5200.  This was based on the same custom 8-bit technology as the Atari 400 and 800, using the CTIA and GTIA, ANTIC and POKEY chips.  Production ran from 1982 until 1984 with the first and then second incarnation of the Atari 5200, but due to the lack of backwards compatibility with the Atari 2600, and the 1983 crash, it was ultimately deemed unsuccessful. 

Atari 1200XL

In December 1982, post the release of what would become the best selling home computer in history, the Commodore 64, the Atari 1200XL was released as the next generation replacement to the now ageing Atari 400 / 800 series.  It consolidated many of its predecessors components into one single motherboard, and came with 64K of RAM and what was called a SIO port for peripheral expansion.  It was the first of what would become the XL Series of Atari home computers, but lacked many expansion capabilities which consumers found unforgiving.  As a result the 1200XL was short lived, and production ceased the following year.

Atari 600XL / 800XL

1983 saw both the Atari 600XL and Atari 800XL next generation home computers launched.  The Atari 600XL as the replacement for the Atari 400, with 16K of RAM, and the Atari 800XL as the replacement to the Atari 800 and 1200XL, with 64K of RAM.  Both machines addressed the consumer shortcomings of the Atari 1200XL, RAM expansion and BASIC loaded into ROM as examples, and both were more compact in design than the Atari 1200XL.  The last revision of the Atari 800XL was the 800XLF (unofficial name), which incorporated the FREDDIE chip from the unreleased 1400XL and 1450XLD, and was sold in Europe for a brief time towards the latter part of 1984.

The first home computer I owned was the Atari 800XL, desperate as a young boy to enter the world of computing after a few years of window shopping.  Many of my friends had Sinclair ZX Spectrums, and I wanted to follow suit, yet, as perhaps fate would have it I plumped for an Atari 800XL, as it was more accessible and obtainable for my parents to purchase and pay off by monthly instalments.  I have fond memories playing for hours on Action Biker, Blue Max, Boulderdash, Fort Apocalypse, Kik-Start, The Last V8 and Ninja, to name some of my favourite 8-bit Atari games.  It is the computer I spent hours frustratingly copying lines of code from magazine publishings.  The days of mail order gaming, Silica Shop and Microdeal, the high street micro computer shop, spending hours scouring the budget games shelves from the likes of Mastertronic / M.A.D and Codemasters, and cusp of the development houses.  Little did I realise what impression it would have on me, similarly, little did Atari know that this would become their most successful 8-bit home computer.

Atari 1400XL / 1450XLD

In the same year of '83, both the Atari 1400XL and Atari 1450XLD were announced.  The Atari 1400XL had a very similar casing to the Atari 1200XL, and architecture akin to that of the Atari 800XL, with its Parallel Bus, the same 64K of RAM, a new monitor output, a new FREDDIE chip, and a built in 300 baud modem.  It also incorporated a new speech synthesiser chip, namely the SC-01 from Votrax, incidentally the same SC-01 found in the Alien Group Voice Box and Voice Box II, a speech synthesiser peripheral which was made available for the other Atari 8-bit line of home computers. 

The Atari 1450XLD was to be the flagship of the XL series, essentially a 1400XL, but with an upgraded Votrax SC-02 speech synthesiser chip, less the SIO port from its XL predecessors, but instead with a Parallel Bus disk drive.  All this said however, the 1400XL and 1450XLD never went to market.

Atari 65XE / 130XE / 800XE

In 1984 after having internal disagreements, Jack Tramiel the man behind Commodore decided to quit.  After parting ways with Commodore, Tramiel formed a new company called Tramel Technology in order to build his own next generation home computers.  Within 6 months Jack acquired the struggling post crash consumer division of Atari from Warner, namely the Atari home video game and computer divisions,  and subsequently renamed his own Tramiel Technology to Atari Corp.  This gave Tramiel a reputable name under which to build his computers, while Warner retained AtariTel, and the arcade division of Atari, Atari Coin Op, renaming it Atari Games.

In 1985, late on in the 8-bit era the XE series, or 'XL-Expanded' series was announced with a new look design.  Again, the Atari 65XE (800XE in some parts of Europe) has a very similar architecture to that of the Atari 800XL, less its Parallel Bus Interface, but with the same 64K of RAM, and with the FREDDIE chip from the 1400XL and 1450XLD respectively. 

Also introduced was the Atari 130XE, the 65XE's bigger brother, which came with 128K of RAM, a Parallel Bus Interface like the 800XL, and an Enhanced Cartridge Interface.

Atari 7800 ProSystem

The Atari 7800 ProSystem was launched in 1986, 2 years later than planned due to the take over by Jack Tramiel in 1984 and various related events.  The 7800 was of course intended to replace and improve on the 5200, however Atari chose to focus on backwards compatibility with the 2600, an industry first without additional add ons.   By this time however Nintendo's NES had already entered the market and was proving successful.   Ironically, Nintendo approached Atari to sell their NES under the Atari name in America, however the deal fell through after Ray Kassar left Atari.  Given the late release to market, the lack of forward thinking to capitalise on what was a more powerful console than its predecessors, and the fact Nintendo had released the successful NES, meant that the 7800 wasn't the machine it should have been.

Atari 2600 Junior

At the same time, and under the same circumstances as the Atari 7800, the Atari 2600 Junior was released in 1986 as the low budget slim sibling, and the eventual and last 'of the era' incarnation of the mighty Atari VCS.  Codenamed 'Bonnie', it was aimed at young gamers in what was now a lucrative market.  Plenty can be attributed to the 2600, but Junior here arrived too late to the market giving it a somewhat unfitting end.  Nevertheless as Atari coined, 'it's the 2600 from Atari'!

Atari XEGS

The last of the XE series, the Atari XE Video Game System was introduced the following year in 1987.  Also known as the XEGS, it had the same 8-bit technology as the Atari 65XE but without a keyboard, and as such was of course the games console of the XE line.  However it can be used as a home computer with an additional special keyboard peripheral, as well as the Atari 8-bit peripherals, allowing compatibility with the 65XE.  It kept the look of the XE series, a look which makes me want to own one, and co-existed with the Atari 7800 and Atari 2600 Junior.  By this time though, the 16-bit revolution was already underway, and Nintendo was cornering the games console market.  Ultimately, given the tide had turned for Atari in the games console market, this then, would be Atari's last console for some time.   

16-bit Era

Jay Miner, a previous employee of Atari had left to set up his own company to allow him to explore new chipsets for the next generation of games consoles.  Something he felt stifled with at Atari as they pursued pushing the Atari 2600 at the time.  This company would later become Amiga Corporation.  Atari decided to fund Amiga for their 'Lorraine' project, a Motorola 68000 based computer, for which they had plans to be exclusively the first to use in their next generation of home computers.  This would become known as project 'Mickey'.  In July of 1984 Commodore were suing Atari over 'stealing' many of its predominant employees, with the now ex Commodore boss Jack Tramiel at the helm.  Amidst this Atari were suing Amiga for breach of contract regarding the selling of semiconductors to other companies.  In August of the same year, Commodore acquired Amiga given the strained relationship between Amiga and Atari.  What could have been the Atari Amiga never saw the light of day, but Jack under the Atari brand, sought to develop their next generation home computers along with another ex Commodore employee, Shiraz Shivji.  As the fracas between Atari, Amiga and Commodore continued, under a project which was said to be already underway, project 'Rock Bottom Price', a new machine hailing new technology was born, the Atari ST.  The ST was launched along with the XE series of Atari computers, and for Atari, this would be considered as Jack Tramiel's era.

Atari 130ST / 260ST / 520ST / 520ST+ / 520STM

The Atari ST was introduced in 1985 with the unveiling of the 130ST, which was due to be a 128K RAM machine.  Unlike the 130ST, the 520ST was released to market that year, pipping the Commodore Amiga 1000 which was released a little later.  

The 520ST was an all new Atari boasting 512K of RAM, a Motorola 68000 CPU running at 8MHz, with a 16-bit external, and 32-bit internal bus respectively.  The name 'ST' being an acronym for Sixteen Thirty two.  The Operating System (official) loads by floppy disk, otherwise known as TOS, which some argue stood for Tramiel's Operating System (unofficial).  Soon to introduce TOS 1.0 into ROM, its GUI named the Graphical Environment Manager (GEM) was originally named Crystal, and was developed by third party Digital Research.  It is similar to the GUI of the Apple Macintosh, but also had colour capability, a first at that time.  As such, Atari marketed the ST directly against Apple and their 68000 based computers with the infamous slogan, 'Power Without the Price', as it was priced to undercut the Mac.  In fact, the Atari ST would be nicknamed the low end Mac, or even 'Jackintosh', a blend made up of Jack and Macintosh of course.

It has three graphical resolution modes, low, medium and high resolutions, with low displaying 16 colours, medium displaying 4 colours, and high displaying in monochrome.  High resolution is considered the resolution for professional software applications.  The sound chip, a Yamaha YM2149F has 3 square wave voices, plus 1 voice dedicated to noise.  A chip which is a derivative of the AY-3-8910.  It came with a separate single sided floppy drive, external PSU and built in Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or MIDI DIN ports, to allow connection to professional digital music instruments.  It was also bundled with a certain rodent-esque thing called a mouse, and a DMA, or ACSI (Atari Computer System Interface) port for connecting something called a hard disk drive.  Surely stuff from another dimension!?

The Atari 260ST is a European 512K of RAM version initially destined to have 256K of RAM, hence the name, and the Atari 520ST+ is the 1024K, or rather 1MB of RAM version.  The Atari 520STM is a 520ST but with a TV modulator, hence STM.  This allowed connection to a TV so the consumer did not have to purchase a monitor.

Atari 520STF / 1040STF / 2080STF

In 1986, the ST was repackaged as the STF.  The Atari STF integrates the ST's external PSU into its casing, along with a double sided floppy drive, hence STF, 'F' for floppy.  Myth or fact, it was reportedly going to be called the STD, but as the story goes, once it was realised what this acronym usually represents, Atari decided that would be Somewhat Tragically Dangerous.  The joystick ports were also moved to underneath the case, yes that's right, underneath, which was to make way for the now internal floppy drive.  The 520STF is the successor to the 520ST, and the 1040STF is the successor to the 520ST+, which meant it came with 1MB of RAM.  In the United States, the 1040STF became the first 1MB computer to be sold for under $1,000.  There was reportedly an Atari 2080STF, which was by and large a prototype, and never saw an official release.  However in the then Yugoslavia, and also Hungary, local distributors could update machines with 2MB of onboard RAM and an updated badge.

Atari 260STFM / 520STFM / 1040STFM

Late '86 saw the introduction of the STFM, you guessed it, 'F' for floppy and 'M' for modulator, as this model combined what was introduced with both the STF and STM models.  There is a 260STFM model which happened to be an early model variant.  However the 520STFM which came with 512K of RAM quickly became the base STFM machine.  The STFM cycled through TOS 1.0, TOS 1.02 and TOS 1.04 during its lifespan, and as such it is capable of housing and supporting a BLiTTER chip.

It was at this time that prices really started to drop, as the Amiga 500 started to gain ground after Atari got the 16-bit jump on Commodore.  In the UK Atari were now selling STs in packs, with marketing leaning towards the gamer, offering the iconic Atari CX40 joystick and a bunch of games.  There was the Super Pack, the Explorer Pack, Discovery Pack / Tandy Discovery Pack Plus, Professional Pack, Summer Pack and Power Pack to name some of the bundles for this model.  The 1040STFM came a little later, and was the 1MB version.  

I have engrained memories of the 520STFM Super Pack, as it is the version my beloved parents purchased for me as a Christmas gift in 1988.  I remember selling my Atari 800XL to assist, and since that Christmas this ST has always been set up, and as such has become one of those inanimate objects that I have come to have affection for.  It has become the one object that defines my adolescence, serves as a reminder of my belated father, and which defines my interests to this day.  From a games machine playing those beautiful Bitmap Brothers games, to a study computer using Atari Works and Papyrus for college projects, and finally as a music computer in my music studio using Steinberg Cubase, it has been, and still is a work horse!  I am proud to say my STFM has never been resigned to the loft, and was my sole computer for 15 years until 2003, when I finally caved in and purchased a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo D7830 laptop.  This only meant my ST's sole purpose was to then be a MIDI computer in my home music studio, where it has remained until this day.

Atari Mega ST1 / ST2 / ST4

1987 saw the release of the Atari Mega series.  The series was designed with an external keyboard, much like PC's today, and an expansion port (MegaBus).  Even though the STFM beat it to market, the Mega ST introduced TOS 1.02, aka Mega TOS, sometimes referred to as BLiTTER TOS, due to the introduction of the BLiTTER chip,.  The Atari Mega ST naming convention again was based around the standard memory the Mega came with, so ST1 came with 1MB of RAM, which arrived later than the Mega ST2 and ST4,  and so forth.  It was deemed the ST for the business community, notably Desktop Publishing (DTP), also sparked by the launch of the Atari SLM-804 laser printer which connects to the the Mega ST's DMA port.  The German market was arguably where the Mega had its biggest success, and where perhaps it was more widely used professionally for DTP.

Atari Portfolio

The Atari Portfolio, introduced in mid 1989, was the world first Palmtop PC.  It was conceived by DIP Research Ltd in Guilford in the UK, soon licensing the product to Atari thereafter, with DIP releasing their own DIP Pocket PC at a cheaper price.  It is powered by three AA batteries, and houses an Intel 80C88 CPU running at 4.9152 MHz, and 128K of RAM.  It came with 256K of ROM, which also stores the operating system, namely DIP DOS 2.11, a DOS compatible OS, and an LCD displaying 260 x 64 pixels.  There is an expansion port on the right hand side of the device, for Parallel, Serial, Modem, MIDI and floppy drive modules, and on the left, a memory expansion slot for Bee Card type memory.  Internally it has text editor, spreadsheet, time manager and phone book software.  It could also get you free money from an ATM, piece of cake!  Well at least it could in the movies!

Atari 520STE / 1040STE / 4160STE

In 1989 Atari decided to enhance their ST series with the STE, 'E' of course for enhanced.  Atari built upon the STFM and this time added the BLiTTER chip from the Mega ST, easier to upgrade RAM via initially SIPP memory, and then the more commonly used SIMMs, extra 'enhanced' joystick ports mounted on the side to utilise the Atari Power Pad, an increased colour palette of 4096 colours from the ST's colour palette of 512, genlock support, and 8-bit DMA stereo sound supporting up to 50 kHz of sample playback.  Again the STE was available in 520 and 1040 versions denoting the memory the machines shipped with, and cycled through TOS 1.06 and 1.62.  The Atari 4160STE is simply an STE with 4MB of RAM.  It was never officially released, and was only available to developers.  However it is said Atari shipped 4160STE badges to a limited pool of retailers so they could re-badge memory upgraded STEs.

Atari STacy / STacy 2 / STacy 4

A laptop from Atari, what?  Around September of the same year the STE was released, Atari released a portable ST called the STacy.  Weighing in at around 7kg, it has a built in floppy drive, MIDI ports, trackball, built in joystick ports, a high resolution monochrome LCD backlit display, an ACSI port, optional 20 or 40MB internal hard drive, TOS 1.04, 1 MB of RAM, Modem and Parallel ports, and uses a Motorola 68C000 running at 8MHz, a CMOS version of the Motorola 68000.  It can run on 12 C-sized batteries, or mains power.  The STacy 2 is the 2MB version, with a 20MB hard drive, and the STacy 4, you guessed it, has 4MB of RAM but came with a 40MB hard drive.  Compatibility with ST software, along with the built in MIDI ports, meant musicians had a portable alternative to the ST to lug to the studio. 

Atari Lynx

Meanwhile on the gaming front, and again in September 1989, a new concept was brewing.  Handily named project 'Handy', a venture which began at software company Epyx.  In short Atari was introduced to assist with the project as Epyx lacked the hardware experience and marketing of the same.  This Handy cartridge based handheld games console, would become the Atari Lynx, with Epyx soon to go bust, Atari would become the outright owner.  This was off the back of Nintendo's Gameboy DMG-01, the first cartridge based handheld device launched earlier the same year.   Atari however with the Lynx, introduced a colour 3.5" LCD screen capable of displaying 4096 colours, making it the first colour handheld.  It was also the first 16-bit handheld, introducing the 16-bit Mikey and Suzy CMOS chips, both running at 16MHz, and an 8-bit DAC for each of the 4 channels, with 64K of RAM.  It also has cool features like sprite zooming and an ambidextrous layout meaning it can be played by both right and left handed gamers, another world first.  It was a powerful machine, sporting beautiful games including Shadow of the Beast, and arcade conversions like, APB, California Games, Xybots and Ms Pacman.  However due to the lack of initial software support, and poor battery life, the less powerful Nintendo Gameboy would ultimately prove the champion, ludicrous when you think of the specification difference, but a lesson in how important software is, a lesson Atari knew since the 2600 days.

Atari Lynx II

In 1991, spurred on by the middling success of the Atari Lynx, and the opportunity of the fledging handheld games console market presented, Atari launched the Lynx II.  Power consumption was improved by a claimed 25%, now with stereo output, lighter, a larger and crisper colour LCD and a reduced price.  This helped it compete, at least for a while against the dominance Nintendo was starting to have in this field, as well as the colour handheld offering from Sega in the Game Gear.  The Lynx, sadly a machine that perhaps is now a little forgotten, but has its important place in handheld history.

Atari Mega STE

Released in 1991, the Mega STE sits between the STE and the Atari TT, both released earlier.  It combined features of both machines, comprising of a Motorola 68000 CPU running at 16MHz, although switchable to 8MHz for backwards compatibility, like the STE, a colour palette of 4096 colours, genlock support, 8-bit DMA stereo sound supporting up to 50 kHz of sample playback, MIDI ports, Parallel and ACSI ports, as well as the familiar Yamaha 2149F sound chip evident throughout the ST models, floppy drive, joystick, cartridge, monitor and RF modulator ports.  Similar to the TT, it also boasts support for an optional Motorola 68881 / 2 FPU, RS-232s, Serial LAN RS-422 and a VMEbus.  Again it took its styling from the Atari TT, but in 'Atari grey'.  It initially came in 2MB or 4MB SIMM versions, and an internal SCSI hard drive.  The 1MB version shipped without a SCSI hard drive but could be retrofitted.  Early Mega STEs shipped with TOS 2.05, latter versions shipped with the last TOS version available for the ST models, TOS 2.06.

Atari STBook

A book, what the hell!?  Atari again decided to embark on a laptop based around the ST architecture.  In 1991 the STBook hit the market.  It is slimmer than its predecessor the STacy, has a crisp mono LCD made by Epson, although not backlit, and excludes an internal floppy drive to help keep the weight to a minimum at 1.9kg.  It enjoys the infamous MIDI ports the ST has become notorious for, an ACSI / FDD port, Parallel and Serial ports.  It came with a BLiTTER, TOS 2.06, a VectorPad instead of a mouse, either 1MB or 4MB of RAM, an internal Real Time Clock (RTC), either a 40MB, 80MB or a 120MB hard drive, and has a Motorola 68CH000 CPU running at 8MHz.  This light but beautiful machine would be the last in Atari's 16-bit range.

Enter Stage Right, the Atari PC Range

Towards the end of Atari's 8-bit series, and in parallel to the 16-bit range of Atari home computers, Atari also ventured into the IBM PC compatible market.  By this time IBM compatibles were beginning to gain market share, and Atari wanted to make sure it hedged its bets with initially a series of Intel 8088-2 based PCs.  The 8088, being the microprocessor which arguably gave birth to the PC for the home markets.

Atari PC1

Arriving in 1987, the first of Atari's IBM compatibles was the Atari PC1.  Housed in a Mega ST / Megafile case, it boasts the aforementioned Intel 8088-2 processor running at 8MHz, but switchable to 4.77MHz for improved software compatibility, 512K of RAM upgradeable to 640K, as well as Serial, Parallel, keyboard, monitor, floppy drive and mouse ports.  It came with 256K of display RAM, and is able to provide EGA, CGA, Hercules, and monochrome display capability.  As standard it also houses an FZ-502 5.25" 360K floppy drive from Chinon, internal PCH204 20MB or 23MB hard drive, a familiar looking Atari mouse, named the Atari PCM1, and a PC style keyboard, naturally.  Beautifully it can natively run MS-DOS 3.2, BASIC as well as GEM.

Atari PC2

Soon after the PC1 in 1987, Atari launched the Atari PC2.  It is similar to the Atari PC1 in terms of features sporting the same 8088-2 processor running at 8MHz, but switchable to 4.77MHz, 512K of RAM, again expandable to 640K, along with the same 256K of display RAM, providing EGA, CGA, Hercules and monochrome display connectivity.  As the PC1 it has all of the same ports and the same 5.25" floppy drive, internal PCH204 20MB or 23MB hard drive, the Atari PCM1 mouse, and keyboard.  However the chassis is different to that of the PC1, more 'PC like' in appearance for the time, housing four XT slots.  Again it natively runs MS-DOS 3.2, BASIC as well as GEM.  From an aesthetics perspective, this is my favourite of all Atari PC compatibles. 

Atari PC3

Next up, that's right, the Atari PC3 released early '88!  This machine again came with an 8088-2 processor, however there were both Intel and AMD versions, again running at 8MHz, switchable to 4.77MHz.  As standard it has 640K of RAM, of course a 5.25" Chinon FZ-502 floppy drive, Atari PCM1 mouse, the usual array of ports associated with the previous models, the same EGA, CGA, Hercules and monochrome display features, 256K of display RAM and same display resolutions. Natively it runs MS-DOS 3.21, BASIC as well as GEM.  The differences from the PC1 and PC2 were slight, but notably were its five XT slots, the standard RAM as mentioned, a 30MB Seagate ST-238R hard drive and its redesigned housing.

Atari PC4

The Atari PC4 was realised prior to the PC5, but ironically was released after it in approximately May 1988, around 2 months post the aforementioned.  It is technically the last in the 'Atari PC' series, and the first of the 286 Atari PCs as we will later come to see.  It has an AMD 80286 processor clocked at a switchable 8, 12 or 16MHz, larger 1MB of RAM upgradeable to 8MB, reportedly either a Seagate 30MB, 60MB  or 66MB hard drive, an Epson SD-680L 5.25" or a 3.5" 1.44MB floppy drive.  It could also be configured with a SyQuest 44MB removable media drive.  Again it has the usual ports, as well as a digital monitor port, and again support for EGA, CGA, Hercules and monochrome displays, however now included the now VGA standard, an XT slot, four 16-bit ISA slots and natively runs MS-DOS 3.30, BASIC and GEM, and capable of running OS/2 v1.2.  It is essentially housed in the same PC3 housing, albeit in a different colour scheme.  As a footnote, there is also Mitac manufactured Atari PC4 which runs on an Intel 80286 at 8MHz.

Atari PC5

Introduced to the market at around March 1988, the Atari PC5 was Atari's first 386 based PC, again it is housed in PC3 casing running an Intel i386SX processor at a switchable 6, 16 or 20MHz, 2MB of RAM upgradeable to 4MB, and an Epson SD-680L 5.25″ 1.2MB or 1.44MB 3.5" floppy drive much like the PC4.  It could be configured with a 40MB, 60MB or a 66MB hard drive, same ports as its predecessors, however now supporting a 256K RAM VGA graphics card as well as EGA, CGA, Hercules and monochrome support.   Natively it runs MS-DOS 3.3, BASIC, Microsoft Windows 2.0 and EURIX, a German version of UNIX, and is also capable of running OS/2 v1.2.

The Age of the Transputer

The Trans what now?  The Transputer, a concept which was conceived by INMOS out of the UK.  Its founder, Iann Barron, had the notion to develop a CPU architecture capable of parallel processing, utilising multiple CPUs instead of one.   The first of these processors went into production in 1985, with the T212 and T414.  Of course we are now familiar with such designs, with multi core processors, irrespective of the nuances. 

Atari Transputer Workstation (ATW)

In 1988, embracing Transputer technology, Atari announced the Atari Transputer Workstation (ATW).  Initially conceived as the ABAQ, the technology centres around the INMOS T800-20 processor, plus a Motorola 68000, hence why this system is also known as the ATW800.  It was naturally a high end computer, also boasting an FPU, an upgradable design whereby a further 16 T800 CPUs could be added internally via 'farm cards', with an unlimited number of T800s able to be added externally.  It has four expansion slots via the T800 bus, and one expansion slot via the 68000 bus, 4MB of RAM via the T800, expandable to 16MB of RAM, 512K of RAM via the 68000, expandable to 1MB.  It has a high specification graphics card named 'Blossom', mouse and joystick ports, and standard ports such as an RS-232, MIDI ports, a Parallel port, SCSI and DMA interfaces.  The internal SCSI was 40MB in capacity.  As you may gather, it uses Transputer technology coupled with technology from the ST, namely the Mega ST.  In fact it uses the Mega ST as its I/O subsystem, and as such as a system could either be housed in the ATW tower, or added to a Mega ST as an expansion.  It utilises a HeliOS operating system, a UNIX-esque OS developed by Perihelion Software, again from the UK, designed primarily for Transputers.  This Atari then was very much a UK designed machine, unlike its Atari predecessors.

ABC, it's Easy as...

Unlike the success of The Jackson 5's chart topping hit, Atari seemed to struggle on in their pursuit of a share of the IBM PC compatible market.  This time with a series of PCs marketed purely for the business user, namely the ABC (Atari Business Computer) series.

Atari ABC 286/30 and 286/60

The ABC 286 was initially announced In October at the 1989 PC Show at Earl's Court, London.  There were two models of the Atari ABC 286 introduced to market in 1990, the ABC 286/30 and ABC 286/60, the naming convention of course referring to the 80286 processor, as well as the size of hard drive the models came shipped with, both 30MB and 60MB respectively.  During their lifespan however, both machines could be configured from factory to run at either 8MHz, 10MHz, 12MHz, 16MHz or 20MHz, and could be configured with a SyQuest 44MB removable media drive, and either a 5.25″ 1.2MB or 1.44MB 3.5" floppy drive.  Both had the option of a 80287 co-processor, have 3 AT slots, an AT keyboard and mouse and the usual array of ports the Atari PC series introduced.  The ABC 286/30 has 640K of RAM expandable to 1MB, while the ABC 286/60 has 1MB of RAM expandable to 8MB.  The ABC 286/30 has EGA, CGA, Hercules and monochrome display support, whereas the  ABC 286/60 has the aforementioned as well as VGA support according to brochure literature.

Atari ABC 386 SX II / DX II

Last of the desktop IBM PC compatibles the Atari ABC 386, released in 1991 in two versions, the ABC 386 SX II and ABC 386 DX II.  The Atari ABC 386 SX II has an Intel i386SX CPU running at 20MHz, while the Atari ABC 386 DX II has an AMD Am386-40 CPU, running at 40MHz.  Both have a 1.44MB 3.5" floppy drive, a Parallel port, two Serial ports, a game port, mouse and keyboard ports, and support for SVGA.  The ABC 386 SX II has 1MB of RAM expandable to 8MB, two 8-bit and four 16-bit expansion slots, a Phoenix BIOS and an optional Intel 80387SX co-processor.  The Atari ABC 386 DX II has 2MB of RAM expandable to 64MB, 64K of RAM Cache expandable to 256K, eight 16-bit expansion slots, one RAM card slot, an AMI BIOS and an optional Intel 80387 or Weitek 3167 coprocessor.  Both natively run MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.0.

Atari ABC N386SX

Released circa 1991 to early 1992, the Atari ABC N386SX, aka NABC-11 was Atari's answer to the PC compatible notebook market.  It uses an Intel i386SX running at 20MHz, it has 1MB of RAM expandable to 5MB, a 1.44MB 3.5" floppy drive, 30MB IDE hard drive, Parallel, Serial, PS/2 mouse ports and support for VGA.  It also came shipped with MS-DOS 5.0, and optionally Microsoft Windows 3.0.  It was manufactured by Sotec out of Yokohama, Japan, and badged up as an Atari.  Incidentally Atari were not the only ones on the Sotec bandwagon, as it was reported at the time that many SX based 386 laptops were manufactured by Sotec, such as the Texas Instruments TravelMate 3000, Librex 386SX, Toshiba T2000SX and Goldstar 386SX, so the list goes on.

32-bit Era

During the early 90s, Atari needed to step up their game for the home consumer.  With the Atari infatuation of home PC compatibles now affectively over, Atari sought to advance the TOS range of computers in the wake of developments from Commodore in the shape of their next generation of Amiga, the Apple Macintosh II and NeXT computers.

Atari TT030

Wait a minute, where did the ST go?  As the story goes, Atari wanted to introduce a top of the range system running a Unix Operation System, known as the Atari TT / 030X.  However Atari was delayed porting Unix to the TT, officially known as Atari System V Unix, so eventually Atari decided to abandon the idea and instead the Atari TT was conceived with TOS 3.01, running on a Motorola 68030 in place of the initial 68020 that was intended.  Given this, the TT is essentially a high end ST, and although some will argue this, is a part of the ST family, a collective term for all TOS based machines running a Motorola 680x0 CPU.  Released in 1990, the TT also boasts a Motorola 68882 FPU and came with 2MB of RAM, expandable to 12MB (known as ST RAM), and a 50MB hard drive.  To utilise the speed of the 68030, TT RAM was also introduced alongside the ST RAM, expandable to 256MB.  The CPU was destined to run at 16MHz, as early models testify, but given the 68030's capabilities, it was later clocked to 32MHz, however for backwards ST software compatibility, the system bus is restricted to run at 16MHz.  It came with the familiar ACSI port, but also a new SCSI port for a wider choice of peripherals such as external hard drives and CD-ROMs, MIDI ports, essentially two RS-232s, Serial LAN RS-422, Printer, VGA Monitor (RGB and Mono), Extra Disk drive port, VMEbus for further expansion capabilities such as graphics cards, a detachable keyboard, joystick and mouse ports.  For sound, well that was inspired by the STE with the same YM2149F sound chip, and 8-bit DMA stereo sound supporting up to 50 kHz of sample playback.  All making for a beautiful machine marketed towards business and DTP users, notably in the German market.  The TT was never marketed as a games, multimedia or music production based machine, although the capability of course is there. 

Atari Falcon030

Atari's home computer swan song, the Atari Falcon was released in 1992, with its beginnings stemming from the Sparrow / FX-1 project.  The Falcon arrived with a Motorola 68030 CPU like the Atari TT but running at 16MHz, optional Motorola 68881 or 68882 FPU, again like the TT with the 68882, but with a Motorola 56001 Digital Signal Processor (DSP) running at 32MHz, a YM3429F, a CMOS version of Yamaha's YM2149F sound chip for backwards compatibility, a true colour 'VIDEL'  graphics processor, and RAM expandable from 1MB to 4 or 14MB.  It too has a BLiTTER for backwards compatibility and an optional internal IDE hard drive, available from 65MB stock from Atari.  It has the usual array of ports we have become familiar with, like the enhanced joystick ports from the STE, a Serial port, Parallel port, TV modulator, monitor connector, and also a SCSI II connector, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a 3.5mm microphone jack, a DSP port and a mini LAN port.

It is housed in the familiar Atari ST casing, in particular STE, but in a slightly different grey to that of the ST range, and with a darker grey keyboard.  However there was an early Falcon design with a similar colour scheme to the ST.  There were also Sparrow FX-1 prototypes which were a different grey again, and sporting yellow lettering on the keyboard.  Among the prototypes there was also the Atari Microbox, of which there were a few variations.  Sony acquired the patents of the Microbox for the design of its Sony PlayStation 2, and although sources differ to which is the so called 'Painter' project version, there was also another Atari Microbox prototype with or without a CD-ROM drive.  A lot of information interchanges between these prototypes, however they were speculatively 68030 based, but could be upgradeable to a Motorola 68040.  Lastly, there was the rumoured Falcon040 machine which was apparently nearing release, yet this also never saw the light of day. 

The Falcon had been a long awaited machine, certainly with the delays to market after Atari closed their Tamshui, Taiwan plant, favouring a switch to manufacturing arrangements with various subcontractors.  With the Atari TT marketed towards the business end, the Falcon was marketed as a multimedia machine, and was geared towards video and music production, not an out and out games or business machine as people tend to forget.  What the ST was to MIDI, the Falcon was for audio, being the first affordable computer to be able to record audio to hard disk out of the box (literally with D2D Systems accompanying Falcon D2D software) courtesy of the internal DSP, and again it meant Atari was once again pitted against Commodore in the shape of their 32-bit Amiga 1200, at least it was in the media, if not commercially.

There were the series of NeXT computers unofficially released from late 1989 with the NeXT Cube, sporting a Motorola 56001 DSP like the Falcon, offering audio recording ability, as well as the SRS IRIS Indigo released in '91.  However although these machines pre-date the Falcon, they were not easily affordable, nor were they aimed at the home consumer market with initial prices from $6,500 and $8,000 respectively.  This is compared to the base Atari Falcon launch price of $799, albeit without a hard drive, or with the recommended clock patch update.

During 1989 and '90 there were also hard disk audio offerings for the Mac(s) of the time, via Digidesign and Opcode software, but again these were not out of the box solutions, but required to utilise Digidesign's own Sound Tools DSP (again incorporating a Motorola 56001).  Circa the same time period for such products being released for the ST, such as the ADAP II from Hybrid Arts for example.  This reason alone makes the Falcon a milestone home computer. 

This was the machine I always coveted, as it was familiar to me as an ST owner, but for the time power and a slightly different look which gauged my interest.  It arrived on the scene when my Atari based studio was in its infancy, but with the promise of out of the box hard disk recording for music applications, or DAWs as we know them today, naturally then, this was the home computer I dreamed of but could never really afford.  All that changed circa 2012 when I managed to land a pristine Falcon at a bargain price.

The Falcon turned out to be short lived, given Atari decided to cease production in 1993 to focus on their next generation console, the 64-bit Atari Jaguar.  However that was not quite the end of the Falcon, its video and audio capabilities would be further extended.

IBP 190ST / 190ST 020 / 190STV 30

Early on in 1989, IBP from Germany launched an industrial version of the Atari Mega ST.  IBP essentially took the Mega ST and completely re-designed it into a 3U 19" rack, comprising of three base Eurocard backplane modules.  Supported buses include Euro, ECB and VME, however unlike the Mega ST, no BLiTTER was initially included, but there was inclusion of a 68881 FPU.  The 190ST had the option of running GEMDOS or RTOS, with IBP later releasing two other variants, the 190ST 020 and 190STV 30, which as the names suggest, ran Motorola 68020 and 68030 CPUs respectively.

Image courtesy of ST-Computer magazine.

Milan Computer Milan 040

The Milan 040 from Milan Computer GbR was launched in June 1998.  A TOS compatible from Germany, this time however being technically an Atari Falcon clone.  TOS 4.04 was licensed from Atari and formed the basis for the re-worked 'Milan TOS'.  The Milan, as the name alludes was centred around a Motorola 68040 processor with FPU.  A little less known perhaps by us English speaking folk, is that it again takes its name from a bird of prey, the Milan, or Kite as it is known in English.  It included 4 PCI buses, 3 ISA buses, 2 IDE buses, 2 Serial, AT keyboard and Parallel ports, with an HD floppy drive.  RAM was upgradable via PS/2 EDO modules up to 512MB.  Like the Medusa Hades, expansion possibilities were plentiful, with graphic card expansion via PCI or ISA ports, VME expansion via PCI, SCSI cards and the StarTrack DSP for example.  The Milan could be bought as a motherboard only, or as a complete system, and latterly could be upgraded with a Motorola 68060.  A Milan II was in the making, which was to be a new machine with a 68060 from the outset, but sadly never went into production.