Atari 800XL: First look, clean, and S-Drive Max
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 มิ.ย. 2024
- I've never owned an Atari computer before, and damn - have I been missing out!
In this video we take a look at the machine, given it a clean up, check out the S-Drive Max, and take a look at some games
S-Drive Max how-to: atari8bit.net/everything-sdri...
Melbourne Console Reproductions: melbourneconsolerepros.com/ind...
Music: Komputo by Francis Preve
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Of the vintage computers I used, the 400/800 left the strongest impression. The original 400/800 were built exceptionally well and were great to use.
i modded my wii and put my atari 800 game collection on it. i have the complete collection of everything.
Great Video!!! Am an Atarian. My first computer being in the UK was the ZX Spectrum.
I then moved onto the Atari 800XL and that was it for me, Atari Atari Atari.
I bought two Atari Linx consoles that I loved.
Ended with 1040 STE.
I since purchased a few years ago an 800 it's tape deck and disk drive.
I gave my 800XL away, so I bought one of those too, with it's tape deck and disk drive.
Never had a Woody, so had to get one of those too, found one that was in its box unused.
This was all a few years back before collecting these became a thing.
They all run, but I don't really use them to play games, I tend to use an emulator on my shield TV.
The 800 back in the day was a huge hit. The 400 is a quirky little collector's item.
The 800XL is most likely my favorite machine of all time. It's pretty damn awesome.
I had a C64, and after the 800XL. I loved both, but the basic of the Atari was better and more complete. Example for graphics (Plot, Drawto, pixel by pixel). Commodore, you had to poke everything. Now i know why, commodore basic was made by Microsoft ;)
@@MrPfiset THe C64 was an incredible machine. So many great arcade conversions were made for in in the Uk. They really pushed it to its limits. No one really did that over there with the 800XL, but if they did, it would have had some incredible lase 80's arcade conversions too.
The SIO port could also load drivers from the connected devices to enable unknown devices to integrate into the computer's I/O system. This was done with the 850 Serial/Parallel device and the Atari Disk Drives, so yes, very USB-like.
Jay Miner is not given nearly enough recognition in the industry. Great vid. My 800XL helped get me through university and I should never have sold it. I loved that thing.
Hi from Belgium ;-)
Atari 8bit line is, by far, my fav 8bit kind of computers from that era (including the underestimated TI99/4A if we admit it's a "kind" of 8bit too ^^). I used to program a 800XL from 82 to 87 and then i moved to Amiga 500. Indeed Jay Miner did a lot on the Atari 8bit chipset, including Joe Decuir too (also involved in the Amiga line, designing the Agnus chip). So when you program this machine, using assembly, instantly you have lots of similar schemes & behaviors with Amiga computers... Display List, sprite management (no vertical position register), graphics generated by a true co-processor having its own language to directly drive the display "beam" , ...
You mentioned "Pokey" as the sound generator (and indeed it is), but it's also used for the random number generator, reading keyboard, paddle (A/C built-in), and joystick ports and also involved in decoding data from SIO (like the tape recorder).
When all my friends moved to C64, indeed this machine was far more simple to program, and had a incredible sound chip and also nice games... but wasn't so "ahead" comparing to those old Atari.
So sad, a complete management failure just destroy a computers line which was almost 5 years ahead of its time. But ... history shows us, it's never the "best" technology who wins eventually....
Best regards,
J/M
Ooooh. Agree that the Atari’s were great, but the Ti 99/4a I’m afraid I found that to be a disappointing dog of a computer. So off beat, but never really in a good way.
@@kellypaws Yes it's true "out of the box" the TI99/4A with its TI-Basic is really poor, as there is no way to play with sprites or advanced functionalities (not even able to peek/poke into memory). I realized how capable this machine was, once I discovered the Colecovision console was basically a ... TI99/4A but with a Z80 CPU instead of the TMS9900... Colecovision has the same graphic and sound chips. And according this Colecovision console was seen as the 8bit "arcade" queen machine, I think there was a huge potential with the TI99/4A but with a atrocious implementation... Also I'd like to mention i find the cosmetic design of that computer quite awesome ;-)
Great stuff here. I remember clearly standing in the store having to decide whether to buy a C64 or an 800XL. The Atari really appealed to me but the seller advised me to get the one my friends had. Turned out to be good advice, but the 800XL always remained special. Good to see the insides of one :)
Nice picture quality with your S-video mod, and amazing retro- brite whitening!! It was interesting seeing you tear her down, clean and build back together. The disk drive accessory was pretty cool, I will investigate that. Thanks for the show!
Nice video. My childhood friend had a series of Atari computers including this one, i think the last he had was a 1200xl. I think at first he was loading games off a cassette (CLOAD?) and then later from a floppy drive. I have fond memories of playing games like Canyon Climber and Caverns of Mars in his living room. Also his dad typed in a 'Juggler' program from a magazine which was basically a game where the player slides a juggler's arms through his body like the hands were on both ends of a stick and trying to have the thrown balls land in his hands so they would go into the air again. Kinda simple but it impressed me that you controlled the arm with the joystick and the fluid animation of his legs happening like he was shifting his weight when you moved the arms.
Good info. I'm glad you mentioned this was released up against the Commodore PET and Apple. It must have been epic playing Star Raiders in 1979!
I have always wanted one of those. I was never an Atari 8-bit guy back in the day, but did drool over them quite a bit. Now I want one even more.
Your 800XL cleaned up really, really nice! And nice tip on slightly backing out a couple screws on the back of the keyboard to free up binding keys. I have a couple keys that are still binding on my 800XL and I will need to try that. Welcome to the 8bit Atari!
800XL + disk drive, +Right Writer, + printer interface + smith corona electronic typewriter + TV = perfect University computer.
Cheap, Fast, powerful. Beautifully written papers.
That cleaned up lovely. That Yoomp! game looks great.
I have one of these. It is modded with 4 switches that I can't figure out the use of. It was stored in a garage for years, and I wish I hadn't stored it there. Now some of the RAM seems nonfunctional and the disks are mostly without data. I played with this during my high school years in about 2000 to 2004. I was going to donate it to a computer museum, but now I want to restore it after having seen so many channels of people doing the same.
the overall build quality of the Atari 8-bit computers very impressive relative to Commodore VIC 20 and C64, but then their pricing relative to the Commodore machines reflected that. BTW, the one thing the retro Atari fans really rave about is a peripheral device called FujiNet, which has gone through a number of revisions with feature additions, so would want to pay attention to that in order to be sure to get the latest and greatest. You've got a whole new world to explore by getting your 8-bit 800XL connected to the Internet.
New to your channel, keep up the awesome work Mr Lurch. 👍👍
I still have my 800XL from High School CIB - It was the biggest motivator for taking Computer Science. I recently took it out after purchasing an S-Drive MAX. It took a bit to remember how to navigate DOS, but I connected the old 1050 as well and have been able to save some of my old Pirated disks to .atr's. Needless to say, I've been having fun.
Sadly, as much as I've kept it safe and well stored all these years, yellowing is just what they do. I do want to retro-brite it, but I'm honestly afraid to open it up, lol.
Love how you treated that machine so nice and gave it a make over. I had many Atari 8-bits in the late 80s including the 800XL. I ran a BBS on an Atari 130XE. They certainly got into my 16 year old blood at the time and, I still own and use them. Currently I have a 65 xe with the Scard-max and an Ultimate Cartridge. I also have a 1040 STe with a Gotek and an RS-232 WIFI modem. Surprisingly there are still bulletin boards out there. Unfortunately not well managed any longer.
I ran a BBS on a 130XE as well that I upgraded to 576K. It was a lot of fun having people from all over the country dialing in and chatting.
Quite an entertaining video. I hope your XL has not turned yellow again since this video was made! Thanks for uploading last year.
Yoomp looks like a great time sink! Nice video, that retrobrite really worked out great!
It really is. And both the sound and graphics are really impressive.
What a great pick-up -- and that Retrobrite session worked wonders -- I can't believe how much better it looked. Great stuff. I would enjoy seeing your Retrobrite method, or did I miss that in a previous video? 🤔
This is an excellent machine. I remember thinking about going ATARI in the early eighties, but they were hundreds more than my VIC-20, and I did not like the keyboard on the 400.
I do love my 800XL now that I have it. In a few ways it has some advantages over the C64. My S-Drive Max is also keeping me quite busy...
Lovely video - not been subscribed long. But totally enjoy the videos you've been making. I never had an Atari back in the day - I was a commodore kid - I was saving up for an Atari XL though as that was my computer of choice but mom and dad decided to get us the Commodore instead. I ended up having access to the computer much quicker in the end. It would have taken me about a year and a half longer with the amount of money I managed to scrape together saving up for the Atari.
I only got my Atari back in the early 2000s and my experience fixing mine up is quite similar to yours. :)
Oh my you got some of the original protective plastic on the cartridge door still in place! Wow.
The C64 was quicker than the Atari 8-bit computer? The 6502 in the C64 runs at 1.023 MHz whereas the Atari 6502C runs at 1.79 MHz which is about 80% faster than the C64. Both computers have capable graphics and sound chips.
And also, for a lot of consumer electronics where the serial label was replaced, it was common towards the end of “repairing” electronics to use a brother type label maker to re-label the case. I seem to recall it being an official thing in HP service manuals 😀
Oh man, pealing that plastic, insert picture of Homer drooling here :-)
The original Apple II was not black and white, it had 16 colors and a resolution of 40x40 pixels. It was able to use “hi resolution” (280x192) but with a limited palette of 4 colors
When you removed the protective film I had goose bumps! :-)
Greetings! Doc64!
This is great! Thanks for the intro to the S-Drive Max as well; I've been using a cartridge-based solution that has no interface, this is vastly superior!
Nice job on the restore. I really need to look into picking up some RAM to fix mine (not as critical, as my daily driver is a 130XE, but the keyboard's way better on the XL machines). Nice to see the SDrive in action - it's much nicer than the older SIO2SD devices - especially in usability.
A few other picks (in case you want 'em) - The A8 version of River Raid is by far the best. In fact, the same could be said for a lot of Activision's 2600 ports.
Dreadnaught Factor is a criminally underrated shmup (you'll need to find a fixed version as the raw cartridge isn't compatible with the OS of the XL/XE machines), as is Pastfinder.
Rescue on Fractalus is a must play too - so darn atmospheric, especially later on.
Also, the "prototype" of Blaster is a neat slice of something which could have been.
It's certainly a machine which had I had as a kid instead of my C64? I reckon I could have had a lot of fun times with too.
Lotharek sells a nice 64K RAM replacement board that might work for your 800XL, especially if your original RAM chips are soldered and your SALLY is not. Lotharek's board fits directly underneath the SALLY chip and completely bypasses/replaces the XL's onboard RAM.
@@SS18042 I did see that kit, I'm lucky that the DRAMs are socketed, so replacing them would be a more straightforwards process (doubly so because soldiering irons and me do not mix).
Ahh, I do enjoy some protective plastic peeling on a piece of vintage tech. Mrs Retro Channel insists on leaving the plastic on all our new gadgets, but I guess without the plastic keepers there would be no plastic for us to peel off when we finally get our mitts on these things
The 800XL did not replace the 800. The 1200XL was slated to replace the 800 and the 400 until Jack Triemel came in and revamped Atari's product line.
And according to the ads in computer magazines, the 800 came out in mid 78, missing their mark on being part of the "Holy Trinity of Computers" due to development issues.
But you did well with it. I bet you can get that 65XE fixed and working. Most of the time it is the RAM that dies on those things. Also a couple of the 74LS chip go bad as well, notoriously the 74LS254 (if memory serves me well), when it dies your keyboard stops working.
want the entire atari 800 library. i have all the basic/bios rams for all the atari 800's
Jay Miner who was later involved with the Amiga chipset led the design of the chipset for the Atari 8 bit machines introduced in the 400/800. A series of four articles in 1981 (I think) issues of Byte magazine made me aware that the custom sound and graphics chips in the 400/800 were way ahead of their time for home PCs, a concept later copied by others like Commodore. BTW, it used to piss me off going into Apple stores selling the inferior by comparison Apple IIs and have them turn up their noses when I asked if they carried Atari 8-bit software. Pompous, ignorant jerks selling vastly overpriced hardware...
Everyone I knew that had a computer had an Apple. When I went to get a computer I couldn't afford the Apple BUT the local Sears store was getting rid of their Atari computers so I got an Atari 400 in 1979 that had 16K in it (I bought their demo model). I brought it over to a friend's house and showed him and the other Apple owners the machine. All I had for documentation was the Basic manual and when they read that the most colors the Atari could put on the screen was 4, they laughed and said that I couldn't play games on such a limited machine. Then the more detailed docs came out. I found I could put 128 colors on the screen at the same time (although that wasn't practical for games), I could use display list interrupts to change the colors per display list, it had 4 sprites and 4 missiles (2 bit sprites) that can add 4 more colors and using display list interrupts I could change the horizontal position, the color, and the width of the sprites as well as cutting the sprites into sections giving it even more sprites), multiple graphic modes instead of only 2, I could mix those modes together, I could redefine my character set, it had built in horizontal and vertical fine scrolling along with being able to scroll using byte sized intervals, and it the 6502 ran 80% that the Apple. That's when they told me that the Atari was a game machine and Apple was a business computer (of course the Atari could easily been a better business machine due to being able to put a 40K program on to a 16K cartridge leaving 32K for data compared to the Apple using 40K of RAM leaving 8K for data).
0:26 ... You missed the Atari 400 & 800, from the late 1970's, which were also important early Atari PC's that should be remembered. All the later different 8-bit XL & XE models to me were basically muddled & lumped together & so I usually forget about them. The 400/800 were pioneering in they were basically Atari's first non-console machines meant to compete in the microcomputer niche.
I'm talking about the wider Atari history knowledge. People who weren't/aren't really "into" computers.
#Atari 800 XL - my dream from childhood.
13:08 - what products did you use for "retro brightening"?
Your 800XL turned out great! I've not had any problems retrobrighting keycaps before, even dark ones. I use cream peroxide and an LED grow lamp - is that different to your method? I also have an Atari 800XL, as well as a 400 :-)
Just curious what retrobrite method you used? I have gotten good results with full emersion, but I am always adapting my method for different plastics and situations.
Retro Hack Shack This was just done with the good old fashion cream, wrap, and sunshine routine. I’m still not set up for emersion or indoor work, but it’s something I’m working towards.
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My brother in law had a 65xe briefly, which was my first hands on with an Atari computer. It only had a handful of carts so my first impression wasn't great.
Keep up the good work mate, where are you based in Aust ?
Thanks mate. Canberra.
Sdrive for Amiga 500,600,1200 ..very nice project ..
I realize this is an older video but where might one find that collection you found? :)
Yup... Spring and membrane combination. My prefered keyboard type.
I have wanted an Atari 800xl for ages, but just haven't been able to find one locally. So have gone the MiSTer route, which is turning out to be quite enjoyable.
I'd like to suggest the female/remake of stunt car racer for it.
The single most impressive game, overall, is Atari's own Star Raiders. It was extremely ahead-of-its-time, having been released in 1979.
It was a full 3d space shoot-'em-up, complete with strategy and a points system that has to seen to be believed. It would not be surpassed until 1984's Elite. Do check that out. Also, to see just what the Atari's hardware is capable of, try Lucasfilm Games Rescue on Fractalus - just be sure to find some instructions online.
If you want more technical information about what the Atari 8-bit can do, go here.... www.atariarchives.org/dere/
By the way. If you go to the Atarimania web site look for demo's. You will see a demo called Numen, It's quite impressive!
@Mr. Lurch's Things - Do you have a FujiNet? ;)
Nope. Would like one however
Ooh! Nice find! I've been hunting an Atari 800xl for quite a while. It's one of the few "common" systems I'm still hunting. (The others being an Amstrad CPC system, and, of course, a Microbee)
It's a lot more "exciting" hunting these systems in Aus, isn't it?
probably quite rare to find an Amstrad CPC outside of the UK and parts of Europe - importing one is a pain as you either need the original Amstrad CPC CRT monitor (likely not to survive shipping), an MP1/2 PSU which are uncommon or have to build your own PSU / video out box. I got lucky here in the UK, picking up 2 6128 systems with monitors locally that had faulty floppy drives.
@@markwanklyn4195 I have a friend with two. They did get sold in Australia. They just weren't as popular as in the UK.
I'll probably import one from the UK without the monitor and just make up a video / power adapter.
I'd also fit a Gotek ASAP.
unfortunately the XE series are known for being problematic and were not Atari's greatest hour - congrats on getting the 800XL and must say it has cleaned up nicely.
Did you ever get the tools needed to get the 65XE working? I encourage you not to give up on it.
Replace the 800XL power on LED with another color! I have a yellow one!
The Annoyed Mr Floyd I actually gave it to The Retro Channel and he has started work on it, on his channel.
How did you refurbished the white plastic parts to get it back to so beautiful and white clean...? Please...
michaelscoofield RetroBriting. Heaps of videos out there on the subject 👍
Congrats on your 800XL pickup! Love your expressed excitement and enthusiasm for it! The quality of your retrobrighting is perfect. Originally the underside labels actually were pure white just like your replacement. Some of the labels to this day are still pure white especially if the plastic bag that protects the computer is unopened. The first few of the games you showcased were not great examples of the capabilities of the machine. I'm guessing you know this. There is a 2014 Pacman remake that is top notch. Great games you might want try on this page: www.atarimania.com/top-atari-game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-_G_8_V.html Note that page doesn't seem to include new releases/conversions that are still releasing to this day.
Most original 800's have the same GTIA graphics chip. So the 800XL is not upgraded over the 800 on that front. All 400/800's from November 1981 have the GTIA and there were a good number of refurbished machines that Atari upgraded.
There are a few other keyboard variants for the XL's that are better/different than that one. Personal preference of course.. The power light not working is probably a break in the mylar circuit. Some conductive paint will probably fix it. The original red LED power light looks great imo. Must go... Cheers!
YT suggested I should watch this again for some reason. I guess I didn't really pay attention to the trash 65xe at the start of the video on the first watch. So, thanks for the trash! 😄
TheRetroChannel One mans trash.... something.
Hi
Very interesting video!
Would you mind sharing your recipe for the retro bright?
Thanks
Remy CRICCO Hairdressers peroxide cream, cling wrap, sunshine.
@@MrLurchsThings good,thanks , any brand you can give as an example for the hairdressers peroxide cream?
I really liked this Mr. Lurch. I'm an Atari 8-bitter of OLD, more than 38 years. If you want to play even more with this machine, I recommend the Ultimate 1mb and the Side2 combination. You can get them from Lotharek.pl they will make your machine FLY. God bless! Jeff
Side3 is coming shortly. Look up jazzcat here on YT
@@MessalineApghar Yes, Side3 is on the way, has been awhile now. I doubt the upgrade is worth waiting without a hard disk for your Atari. The Side 2 is an amazing product. I use it with a CF to SD adapter and it works just peachy, as does the Incognito, so the main reason for Side3 is cared for already. The improvements are incremental rather than revolutionary, so I'd just shell out for a side 2 now. Heck, I just did, bought two more, which makes five for me. Each has a CF to SD adapter with a 16gig SD card in it. WOOT! AND you get I/O sound, which is something I missed with other Atari hard disk controllers, like the MIO and the Supra/K-products.
SIDE2 and U1MB are more for experienced users imo. New users want to just see and play the games but have no need for a hard drive beyond loading games. And the SIDE2 hard drive mode is not very compatible with many games since the handler/driver takes up more RAM. SIDE2=frustration and confusion for new users.
I think Drop Zone might have been slightly ill-conceived. Defender's style of gameplay is already brutal, making the player a larger target vertically definitely doesn't help.
Try "Defender", "H.E.R.O.", "Caverns of Mars", and "Rescue on Fractalus!".
You missed one of the best games for the 800XL, M.U.L.E. and Alternate Reality (Alternate Reality also came out on the Atari ST and other systems.
Great video. I always found this to be a very capable computer with a huge wealth of software. I had a C64 which I thought was better (because it was mine) but I would have been happy with this too.
It is so strange. What Atari did wrong, Commodore did right. And the other way around. If you take the best from both companies 8-bit lines of machines and fuse it together. You kind of have the absolute ultimate 8-bit machine.
@@brostenen What Atari did wrong was all in management. If Warner hadn't been so risk averse, several amazing updates to the 8-bit Atari wouldn't have been still-born. The most amazingly stupid thing that Warner Communications's management did was try to stifle third party software. The second most amazingly stupid thing they did was ignore the downward trend in pricing. They should have been re-engineering for cost reduction...the one thing Tramiel got right. All of Tramiel's "improvements" to the 8-bit line were things Atari had abandoned under Time-Waster's, sorry, Waster Communication's ownership. Western Design Center even brought the 65C816 to Atari and management turned their nose up at it. We could have had a 16-bit version of the Atari without Apple's purposely hobbled performance of the Apple IIGS (The only Apple I really ever wanted). So much fail!
@@michaelstoliker971 The sound of the SID is better than what was found in Atari 8-bit's. The video output of the Atari 8-bit's seems better than the C64. Atari went for a better power solution than the C64's combined dc and ac solution. Both platforms seem to have their advantage over each other. If you think one was constructed far better than the other on all counts, then sadly you are blind. There is no universally better solution over the other. Like why on earth did Commodore make such a stubborn VIC-II chip? It will be really difficult to reproduce in FPGA and it have such a poor video signal.
@@brostenen Don't put words in my mouth. I never said one was constructed better than the other on all counts. I said Warner/Atari shooting itself in the foot more than anything else, the reason for Atari's failure. Yes, the SID chips had more capability than the Pokey (if less sound channels) but again, if Atari had gone ahead with the AMY sound chip the SID might not have had as much of a lead.
@@michaelstoliker971 Not putting words in your mouth. It was you who said that the only problem was atari's management.
if you play Arkanoid long enough, you might run into what i'm not sure whether to call a glitch or an easter egg, where the ball will start slowly exiting the game's walls and bouncing very slowly around the rest of the screen as well.
You missed the 1200XL, the 130XE, and the XEGS.
15:00 Make a photo before removing and if needed print it out with a color printer. You get a facsimile then of the sticker (maybe the quality of the video source is good enough? 2k?)
There's an SDrive Max case that looks like an Atari 1050 disk drive!
Out of curiosity, what did you use for Video? Did you use a special cable, or just composite?
(I've been looking at an S-Video mod for the 800xl)
ftp.pigwa.net/stuff/collections/atari_forever/Extension/Super%20Video%202.1XL/
@@MrLurchsThings Cheers for that. (My 800Xl was supposed to be coming across with friends from the UK, so that's been delayed indefinitely)
There's the "Ultimate Atari Video" (UAV) mod that cleans up the video output and adds chroma to the DIN monitor output. I've got great looking svideo from my 800xl using it. thebrewingacademy.com/products/tba-ultimate-atari-video-uav-board-for-400-800-xl-xe
Unpopular (?) opinion: I like this more than the C64 :)
Does the S-Drive also work on the original Atari 800, or does it require an XL/XE model? Thank you.
It works on all 8bit Ataris with an SIO port. www.vintagecomputercenter.com/product/atari-1050-sdrive-max
There are also cartridge-based sdcard solutions. Having both an sdrive and cartridge lets you use pretty much anything available.
Jason Floyd thanks. Actually I bought an s-drive and an ultimate cart a while ago now, and they’re both great.
I have both a 64 and an 800xl and with the exception of the sound chip I think the 800 is a better computer. The disk drives certainly are faster and more reliable. My 810s just keep going and going
That was a great video. I was 10 in 1980 when I saw the first 800 at a friend's house in Salt Lake City, UT. It turned out that computers were very regionalized then, because local stores were brave enough to sell them, and for this kind of thing, that where most people bought them. I had an Apple II+ my dad brought home for Christmas 1979, and while the 800 was not nearly as good as the Apple to an adult, the fantastic games made me really jealous. I was still copying games out of the back of computer magazines, and he had all this cool stuff. The Western US had a pretty loyal 8 bit Atari fan base. But since most publications weren't based there. and there was no internet, I think the Atari 8 bit heyday has never been properly recorded. They were popular, VERY VERY popular. Since most people in the West knew nothing about Commodores, and couldn't swing the Apple, which was about twice as much all in, the Atari 8 bit machines were the Cat's Pajamas.
Some of the games sound “slowed down” - is that because you are running in 50 hz territory? That was an issue on the Commodore 64 games
I would assume so.
I noticed that too, especially Pac-Man was slower with different colors, like you are running an NTSC ROM on a 50Hz PAL screen. But Galaxians seemed perfect! Maybe you can find PAL/ Euro versions of some games like Pac-Man.
Why Atari why did you put the RETURN key up one row???? That killed my hand typing in programs from magazines, back in the day. Otherwise I loved my 800XL.
I solved that problem by constructing a number keypad, plugged into the joystick port. I was quite clever back in the early 80s! Probably should have patented it!
There was also a smaller 600XL.
Good video thank you! Also SIO supports plug & play with devices where it will download a driver ('device handler') from a device. As far as your power LED not working it's probably a circuit break in the keyboard mylar. Some conductive paint will fix it. New better quality replacement keyboard mylars are made today. There other other keyboard variants for the 600XL/800XL's. The one you got is the most common but not the best nor is it the worst. There is a much better and freely available PacMan 2014 that I strongly recommend. There is a modern emulated Asteroids which is arcade perfect except it's not vector graphics. You have a huge collection of games on which to catch up! Here is a good start for a good classic games list www.santellocco.com/atari/info.htm half way down that page. I enjoyed the enthusiasm you expressed at the end of the video!!! I think you're getting what the platform is about!
Try a game called Mediator way ahead of its time.
I had Atari 800XL I even programed a space invaders clone which could seek your bases out ,and destroy them, then it would seek you out and kill you never did it on the C64 the basic could not do it
Great video. I got back into Atari with an 800XL 2yrs ago. Check out Lothareks website for extrs goodies. They are good machines and totally underrated
Give the failed Atari to someone a little more experienced repairing them. Hard to believe it is really not repairable. The are simple machines. Maybe good for a nice cross-channel thing.
I honestly haven't/didn't put *that* much time into it to be honest. I will come back to it eventually.