XLs are the best looking systems.

[Ross PK]

I think the 800XL is the best looking one, and it's the first Atari I ever owned.

 

Also I prefer the cartridge slot being in the top middle because it also gives it a bit of a console/more of a games system feel.

 

Which is EXACTLY why I DON"T like the 800XL, it's an honest work-horse computer just like the Apple II's or C64's of it's day but always got the bad rap of being a GAME MACHINE and that ridiculously positioned slot that makes it LOOK like a gaming console is one of the main reasons for it's disrespect as a real computer. If you like the look&feel of a gaming console, THEN GET ONE! I recommend the 7800 or Jaguar.

 

Steady on dude, no need to blow a gasket.

 

I know that a lot of fans of the A8's seem to be very much into the programming/utility side of them and like to use them as real computers, and I do see them as real computers myself.

 

It's just that when I was a kid and even now I enjoy them for one thing, the games. I'm not too sure if you can get all the games that I like on the A8 on the 7800, and they certainly aren't on the Jaguar.

 

I also like having the 800XL because of the nostalgia factor and I like the way it looks. And I already have three dedicated consoles, so I wont bother with 7800 or Jaguar thanks.

[JamesD]

To each their own

 

So what do other people think are the best looking 8 bits?

There was a thread on that just a few weeks back.

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=101009

Edited March 5, 2007 by JamesD

[+LS650]

I agree with the OP: I had a 400 with a 48 KB memory expansion, and traded up to an 800XL. That machine was a beautiful-looking piece of hardware, and had a really nice keyboard for word processing. At one point I had a 256KB RAM expansion in my 800XL. I'd usually use it as a RAMDISK - man, at the time, that thing would fly.

[Curt Vendel]

I was extremely disappointed when the Falcon030 was released and Atari decided to go back to the 1040ST case instead of continuing with a detachable keyboard to CPU box model.

 

 

 

Curt

 

To this day, I feel that the 1200XL was the best looking home computer ever created. And it happens to be my favorite 8-bit machine too. The Falcon 030 is also the best looking machine from the XE/ST-styling era.

[urborg]

Most of the people thinks that computers which they used are most beautyful, maybe due to nostalgy factor . In my opinion XE line are most beautyful 8 bit computers. There was similar topic on AtariArea forum (Polish site). In Polnad XE series was more popular than XL and most users in Poland declare thet they prefer XE line than XL or 400/800.

Edited March 5, 2007 by urborg

[+poobah]

Amen to that!

 

I have a DDD Falcon (basically, they sawed off the keyboard area and squared it off into a pizza box), it uses a PC style keyboard, But I think I am going to mod it to take a Mega style one. Pics Soon.

 

-Ken

 

I was extremely disappointed when the Falcon030 was released and Atari decided to go back to the 1040ST case instead of continuing with a detachable keyboard to CPU box model.

 

 

 

Curt

 

To this day, I feel that the 1200XL was the best looking home computer ever created. And it happens to be my favorite 8-bit machine too. The Falcon 030 is also the best looking machine from the XE/ST-styling era.

[tjlazer]

Personally I love the XE/ST look better. My first computer ever was the 800XL but I ended up getting a 130XE there after.

[nathanallan]

Personally I love the XE/ST look better. My first computer ever was the 800XL but I ended up getting a 130XE there after.

 

I must agree. I have an 800 (new acquisition) and it has a great look to it but my ST's have a look of "I'm gonna compute your pants off." Kinda foreboding and ready to get scrappin. I am particularly fond of the grill up top, when you look at it from an angle you see that swoop of plastic underneath, offset. Yeah, the ST's to me look great.

Edited March 6, 2007 by nathanallan

[Gunstar]

I think the 800XL is the best looking one, and it's the first Atari I ever owned.

 

Also I prefer the cartridge slot being in the top middle because it also gives it a bit of a console/more of a games system feel.

 

Which is EXACTLY why I DON"T like the 800XL, it's an honest work-horse computer just like the Apple II's or C64's of it's day but always got the bad rap of being a GAME MACHINE and that ridiculously positioned slot that makes it LOOK like a gaming console is one of the main reasons for it's disrespect as a real computer. If you like the look&feel of a gaming console, THEN GET ONE! I recommend the 7800 or Jaguar.

 

Steady on dude, no need to blow a gasket.

 

I know that a lot of fans of the A8's seem to be very much into the programming/utility side of them and like to use them as real computers, and I do see them as real computers myself.

 

It's just that when I was a kid and even now I enjoy them for one thing, the games. I'm not too sure if you can get all the games that I like on the A8 on the 7800, and they certainly aren't on the Jaguar.

 

I also like having the 800XL because of the nostalgia factor and I like the way it looks. And I already have three dedicated consoles, so I wont bother with 7800 or Jaguar thanks.

 

I might have come off a little exaggerative in my response, and of course it's a matter of preference whether one want their computer to look more like a console or not. It's not that I hate the 800XL or 600XL for the top loading cart slots; I still think they look nicer than XE's (I want to remind people that I started with a 130XE, so my opinion is NOT based on what my first Atari was), but I prefer the placement of the cartridge port on the side with the 1200XL, and it's larger, sleek, more professional look over the 800XL. I prefer the look of the 800 over the 800XL too though. Basically, the 600/800XL are only better than the XE's in design IMHO.

[deadmeow]

Imagine if the Atari 400/800's had been built like the Apple II's, with slots for expansion. Just imagine the possibilities.

[mimo]

My 400 arrived this morning

It is now my fave Atari, the styling is so different to any other home computer.

I admit that I have got a soft spot for the 400 because I had so many happy years playing pirate softwear as a kid.

I like the xl range too, for the sleek styling,and I love the colo(u)r scheme if you are lucky enough to have a non yellow one

I never owned an XE, but I am waiting for a NIB one to turn up from B & C. But I did have an ST when they first came out, and liked the styling of that. Times and designs change, and so do opinions, maybe in 5 years everyone will be raving about how much better the XE line look. Hey, 5 years ago no one would buy a black TV, now you are lucky to find a silver one.

 

Guess I'll just sit on the fence and enjoy each one for their own merrits.

[Ross PK]

My 400 arrived this morning

It is now my fave Atari, the styling is so different to any other home computer.

I admit that I have got a soft spot for the 400 because I had so many happy years playing pirate softwear as a kid.

I like the xl range too, for the sleek styling,and I love the colo(u)r scheme if you are lucky enough to have a non yellow one

I never owned an XE, but I am waiting for a NIB one to turn up from B & C. But I did have an ST when they first came out, and liked the styling of that. Times and designs change, and so do opinions, maybe in 5 years everyone will be raving about how much better the XE line look. Hey, 5 years ago no one would buy a black TV, now you are lucky to find a silver one.

 

Guess I'll just sit on the fence and enjoy each one for their own merrits.

 

Did you mean 'now you are lucky to find a black one'?

[mimo]

 

 

Did you mean 'now you are lucky to find a black one'?

 

[JamesD]

Imagine if the Atari 400/800's had been built like the Apple II's, with slots for expansion. Just imagine the possibilities.

There were a lot of computers you could say that about. Sadly, few companies listened to what people wanted and built what would sell cheap.

[JamesD]

Most of the people thinks that computers which they used are most beautyful, maybe due to nostalgy factor .

Imagine that.

 

I'm not sure I found my old gray coco to be beautiful but I sure liked it better than the white colored versions.

There were definitely better looking machines out there. Especially when you plug in an expansion interface and a bunch of cards.

Edited March 6, 2007 by JamesD

[+DarkLord]

I like the 1970's look of the original 800. In terms of retro looks nothing beats it, not even the Apple II's (which I find a bit to bulky). The XL's look very 80's, with it's sharp and clean design. That's fine in it's own right, but just a bit to 'new' for my taste. I guess having lived the pioneering days in the late 70's leaves its marks.

The XE's and ST's have the looks of a slab of concrete, and just seeing the ugliness of any 8-bit Commodore gives me a headache. The Sinclair ZX? You must be joking...

 

Aside the 8-bits, although it could be argued it's just a square box, I do like the looks of the Amiga 1000. I have always admired the way this computer was envisioned and conceived. The designers and engineers really strived to bring out something groundbreaking, which they eventually did. In comparison, the Tramiels had the ST designed just to 'get back at Commodore' for kicking them out and later on acquiring the Amiga design and development team. It only showed how bad a loser they were. Now the original Atari has already been dismantled for more than 10 years, I guess it just makes them losers...

I wonder which industry they're ruining at this very moment.

 

re-atari

 

To follow this thread, I've always thought the 800 and 1200Xls looked best as well.

 

I owned an A1000 too - I thought the recessed keyboard well was brilliant.

 

(as for the other comments)

 

For the record, Commodore went belly up before Atari did so...and as far as ruining things,

its hard to beat Irving Gould and company, eh?

 

[Ross PK]

 

 

Did you mean 'now you are lucky to find a black one'?

 

 

Well, silver ones are all over the place and if anything it'd now be hard to find a black one.

[mimo]

 

 

Did you mean 'now you are lucky to find a black one'?

 

 

Well, silver ones are all over the place and if anything it'd now be hard to find a black one.

oops thats what I ment to say

[Urchlay]

I vote for the 1200XL... though the 800 is a close runner-up. I really like the XL styling, and the side cart port seems somehow more "classy" than the 800XL's top port.

 

I showed the 1200XL and 800 to my friend the art major (and Mac user who buys computers based on looks), and she wants a 1200XL now... though I don't think she quite grasps the concept that she wouldn't be able to run the Mac OS on it

 

I also showed her the XEGS.. she agrees with me: it's tacky looking. The XEGS is actually a pretty cool Atari (detachable keyboard!), but it looks awful to me.

 

She also liked Star Raiders II better than the original Star Raiders... just based on looks, I guess she's right, but the original game is so much better to play...

 

The 800 wouldn't look out of place on the bridge of the starship Enterprise (original series version). I can just picture Chekhov using it to aim the phasers, or Spock using it to scan for life forms... Capt. Kirk would probably just play Star Raiders while pretending to look busy

[JamesD]

The 800 wouldn't look out of place on the bridge of the starship Enterprise (original series version). I can just picture Chekhov using it to aim the phasers, or Spock using it to scan for life forms... Capt. Kirk would probably just play Star Raiders while pretending to look busy

Sorry, I have to disagree here. The 800 didn't have large glowing red, blue, green and yellow buttons or large sliders.

[jaybird3rd]

The 800 wouldn't look out of place on the bridge of the starship Enterprise (original series version). I can just picture Chekhov using it to aim the phasers, or Spock using it to scan for life forms... Capt. Kirk would probably just play Star Raiders while pretending to look busy

Sorry, I have to disagree here. The 800 didn't have large glowing red, blue, green and yellow buttons or large sliders.

And it didn't make noises like a teletype when it was "computing." And it didn't have Majel Barrett's voice.

[JamesD]

The 800 wouldn't look out of place on the bridge of the starship Enterprise (original series version). I can just picture Chekhov using it to aim the phasers, or Spock using it to scan for life forms... Capt. Kirk would probably just play Star Raiders while pretending to look busy

Sorry, I have to disagree here. The 800 didn't have large glowing red, blue, green and yellow buttons or large sliders.

And it didn't make noises like a teletype when it was "computing." And it didn't have Majel Barrett's voice.

Exactly!

[+kheller2]

As for expansion, beside the practical implementations, like the Apple I/II, I think the Ti99/4's silver PEB expansion device looked awesome ( http://oldcomputers.net/ti994a.html ) Far better than the Atari 1090.

 

BTW.. I feel a shortage of 1200XLs on the market all of a sudden.

Edited March 7, 2007 by kheller2

[JamesD]

As for expansion, beside the practical implementations, like the Apple I/II, I think the Ti99/4's silver PEB expansion device looked awesome ( http://oldcomputers.net/ti994a.html ) Far better than the Atari 1090.

At least the Ti box looked cool... even if the cable connection occasionally had issues just like the old TRS-80 Model I and it's expansion interface. Sadly it was really big, heavy and expensive. But, look at their earlier expansion boxes and you had a square flat box on the right of the computer for disk, RAM or RS-232. Not quite so attractive.

 

But then look at other machines.

 

The Tandy Coco multi-pack interface... horrid looking. (and I had one)

NEC TREK / PC-6001's expansion box... only slightly better than the multi-pack.

Amiga 500 and it's hard drive looked kinda odd and you needed a wide desk.

Some of the C64 add ons like it's voice synthesizer or RAM expansions weren't exactly pretty.

The Exedy Sorcerer... it had an external box with drives and monitor if I remember right. Not ugly but I didn't think it was cool.

 

To this day I still think the success of the Apple II line had to do with 2 things. Slots and hi-res color graphics. The colors may have been artifacts but they were there. The screen memory map was horrid but people didn't seem to care because if you programmed in Applesoft or just bought software you didn't have to worry about it.

[re-atari]

 

For the record, Commodore went belly up before Atari did so...and as far as ruining things,

its hard to beat Irving Gould and company, eh?

 

 

Hi,

 

My last line wasn't meant to be vicious, it merely contains a tongue-in-cheek remark, quoting part of an email Curt Vendel found in Atari's emailarchive that was stored on a VAX he acquired some time ago. I should made myself more clear, and probably have concluded with a smiley... If you're interested, take a look at http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=98872 for the entire log. It's good reading.

And you're right of course, the rest of Commodore management didn't necessarily need the Tramiels to ruin the company... In retrospect it's good to see that they did manage to keep Commodore afloat long enough to get the Amiga line on the market.

 

re-atari