Why isn't the 130XE the dominant Atari 8bit?

[kenp]

1 hour ago, chevymad said:

Have to laugh, when I saw the title my first thought was because the 130xe is the ugliest Atari and I wouldn't own one just because of that. Then I click on the thread and very first comment says it's the best looking!  It's all personal taste, but I think the XL"s are some great looking computers.  Chocolate, cream and chrome definitely not appliance white. 

I bought the 800, skipped the 800XL and bought two 130XE in the the old days.  I think the extra memory was likely the selling point.  Even then I modded the 130XE to 320XE.  With the current state of add-ons I'd really like to add an 800XL with some of the add-ons that are available now.  Maybe even an old 800XL case with a brand new remastered 800XL motherboard with some things already built in.  I'll keep watching for such, I think.

[Forrest]

The best features of the Atari 800 was the great keyboard, strong video output (chroma, luma, composite) and even RF output looked good and the 3 expansion slots.

 

The best feature on the 800XL was the much cheaper price, expansion port and many chips were socketed to ease repair and upgrades. The video output was inferior to the 800, and the keyboard was a downgrade also.

 

The best feature on the 130XE was the expanded memory. I recall the video output was about the same as the 800XL, and the keyboard was mushy and inferior to the other Atari’s.

[Beeblebrox]

Just to add to my earlier post the other thing I really like about the 800xl and 600xl lines as opposed to the 65xe,130xe and 800xe is the easy access top loading cart bay. The XE's cart bay is horizontal and at the back, is hard to access and take up more footprint. Carts plug in and often feel loose. Accessing Sdcard's in multicarts such as Side3 or Ultimate cart is a pain also as a result. This has been rectified with the right angle cart adapters available, but going by the original design of the XE's I feel the 800xl and 600xl got it right. 

 

Don't get me wrong still like my XE's, and the keyboards aren't that bad to type on. 

 

Taking of keyboards:

 

Because the 600xl and 800xl keyboards vary as they were sold with 5 x different variants, (a mixture of mylar based or mechanical), some are excellent and a great to type, others hook, jam and rattle and are horrible. Some awc and alps made ones are fantastic. 

 

The 1200xl keyboard, a mitsumi mylar based one, and some 800s which were shipped with mitsumi mylar variations also, are without question the best A8 keyboards. I have an 800 and 1200xl both with these and love em. Until you've typed on one and compared it to other A8's keyboards you won't appreciate it.

 

The more common Stackpole and Hi-tek keyboards you get on the 800 aren't bad either. Feels chunky and very old school, but in a nice way. 

 

The detachable keyboard on the xegs is pretty much the same as the XE line. 

 

 

 

[Dinadan67]

I like the looks of the 130XE very much, but build quality was really bad. I bought the 130XE around '88 to replace my 800XL and quickly realised that the ram disk was not working properly. Fortunately a friend of mine had some soldering skills and replaced a bad ram chip. Later i switched back to the 800XL as my daily driver after sending ist to the compy shop where it was upgraded to 320k and got a second OS with high speed SIO. The reason for upgrading the 800XL instead of the 130XE was the excellent ALPS-keyboard which i preferred over the keyboard of the 130XE.

[+Larry]

10 hours ago, kenp said:

I bought the 800, skipped the 800XL and bought two 130XE in the the old days.  I think the extra memory was likely the selling point.  Even then I modded the 130XE to 320XE.  With the current state of add-ons I'd really like to add an 800XL with some of the add-ons that are available now.  Maybe even an old 800XL case with a brand new remastered 800XL motherboard with some things already built in.  I'll keep watching for such, I think.

That was my path, also.  My 800 was quite adequate until the 128K ram became available (along with instantly switching Dos 2.5!).  But when 800XL's started getting closed out at Zayre, KMart, Ayr-Way and other retailers, I jumped in.  My favorite today -- a seriously upgraded 600XL with a Black Box -- because of it's smaller size.  I do like the looks of the 130XE, and I'm agnostic about the keyboard.

[TGB1718]

Like some others, I first had an 800 and in my opinion still the best of all the Atari 8 bit machines,

however I did buy a 130XE, mainly for the extra RAM, I was developing software using MAC/65

I had a lot of "#INCLUDE" files that were read in during compile time, and it made sense to

pre-load a RAM disk with these files to speed things up.

[+bf2k+]

I prefer the XLs meself... always have since the 80's.  I've owned them all (NTSC) except the 400.

[doctorclu]

Answered this in 2016 and my views are still exactly the same.

[reifsnyderb]

My thought is to imagine it's the 1980's.  You already have an Atari 800 or 800XL.  Maybe you have a 600XL that was upgraded to 64k.  Why do you need to buy an Atari 130XE?  Is the extra memory more important than the tradeoff of the bad keyboard and ridiculous location for the cartridge port?  Most likely, the answer is no.  Most Atari software, in the 1980's, would run on a 48k machine anyhow.

 

If you needed the extra memory, and had an Atari 800, it's probably already upgraded.  If you had an XL, and really needed the extra memory, you may have upgraded it by now.

 

This leaves a smaller number of people who would have bought an Atari 130XE.

[zzip]

On 10/27/2023 at 5:52 PM, nasty niff said:

XE is by far the worst 8 bit for build quality. 

This.   I do like the XE appearance,  but whenever I used one, it felt cheaply made,  I stuck with my 800XL.

[Beeblebrox]

Just to add one factor. Despite my observations and preference for the 800xl and 600xl design and build quality, all XE's are at least more or less the same. Both types of XE keyboard, (plunger or rubber cap), feel more or less the same, and the pcb build quality is pretty much the same, as is video output. 

 

Whereas the 800xl keyboards vary greatly in quality. Some Awc and Stackpole made ones are absolutely awful with key jamming, rattling, etc. 

 

The best 800xl's are ones that are Hong Kong made, this fully socketed, and keyboard wise those with alps keyboards, and some awc. Oddly some Stackpole made ones sometimes are actually better than some awc ones. I think there were two variations on the awc mad ones. 

 

The other thing to factor in is the random chance you'll get an 800xlf. These are the ones with Freddie chip and are effectly XE machines masquerading as 800xl's.

 

The main problem with these is most ebay sellers haven't got a clue if they are stock 800xl or XLF models. So if you get an XLF and had already bought, say the rambo XL 256k upgrade, you can't use it on an XLF. Been there, got the t-shirt. 

 

Gimme a rev A or D Hong Kong made 800xl with an alps keyboard and I am a happy man. 

 

Edit: again as I've mentioned before, on balance the best stock quality video output on PAL machines with say composite is always the 600xl, then 800xl, and then the XE. The 600xl stock video output is always consistantly good, and even better once c109 cap is removed and chroma is hooked up for an svideo cable. 

 

My experience is all based on PAL models btw. 

 

Edited November 1, 2023 by Beeblebrox

[+kheller2]

This all comes down to a few things:

Whatever computer line you started with, you most likely prefer.  I started with the 800XL and yes, compared to the aesthetics and use of a C64, it was pure sex.

Whatever computer line you started with, you also probably upgraded.  RAMBO XL: so there is no need to get a 130XE when you already had more memory than one.

There was a third thing.  But I forget it.  I reserve the right to update this at a later date. 😄

 

[doctorclu]

You know, at the end of the day, I think the reason there are not as many 130 xe users is due to bulk of release and sales.

 

Beige line (400/800) had the earliest run, and as the XL came out, others (like me) found themselves buying the beige line.  Either discounts at a store (like me) or buying from other people upgrading to the XL.

 

The XL came out, and same cycle.  Eventually the XE (or STs) came out, people sold off their XL computer and upgraded.  A lot of my friends who jumped ship to the ST kinda regretted it the early STs might have had 128k or 256k but it was laughable in the 16k world.  Never the less, the XLs became available.

 

Then the XE and XEGS came out in the later days.  Kinda a cool swan song for the Atari 8-bits.  Those that got them were wrapping up with them, or that became their "apex" Atari 8-bit, so fewer were re-sold.  And was not sold as long or in the market as the previous revisions.

 

And so the XE users became slightly more rare than the number of users for the beige or XL lines.

 

Booyah!  (drops mic) 

Edited November 2, 2023 by doctorclu

[+kheller2]

I thought I read on here somewhere that XEGS sales were pretty good.

 

[wildstar87]

I loved the look of the 130XE, because it was the same as the STs, also liked the extra ram.  However, after I got my 600XL upgraded to 256k, with monitor port (by Jeff Popp in my local Atari club), I found myself using that more and more, due to the extra ram, and also, even though it was a Stackpole mylar keyboard, the keyboard was still better than the 130XE keyboard feel wise.  Still liked the looks much better, though it was noticeable that the plastic was cheaper feeling.

 

I'm sure that given the time of release, the 8-bits were on their way out, and the STs were the new shiny pretty thing, so probably didn't help things.

 

These days I can see design choices in both the XL and XE lines I would change, but still consider the 1200XL as the most beautiful of all of them.

[Geister]

I started my Atari journey on the 400 and quickly upgraded it to the B-Key keyboard.  I never turned my nose up on any 8-bit Atari keyboard after living with that mess.  I was selling computers at Sears when the 1200XL came out and the splash-back from the incompatibility debacle soured me on them until recently.  I still think that they are too damn big, but I would have bought a 1450XLD if they had come out with them.

 

The XE series was always Tramiel Trash as far as I was concerned, although I bought one for the extra memory.  I still prefer the 600/800XL computers for their straight-up tuxedo styling.

 

I still want to get an XEGS because I liked the idea of a "feet on the desk, keyboard in my lap" Atari.  That and a blue tooth keyboard would rock!

[pcrow]

I completely agree that I would have loved a 1450 XLD.  I think Atari made a huge strategic mistake in not having a high-end system, but we could all probably do a long post on what we consider to be Atari's biggest mistakes.

 

I started with an 800, just old enough to still have CTIA.  It came with 16K and we got a Mosaic 32K card which was cheaper than two Atari 16K cards, but was a mistake, as it failed twice (and I failed in the repair the second time), but that was in the 90s.  I then bought a new 800 on eBay and stole the memory, but shortly after that my original 800 died: it wouldn't power on, and I found that it was blowing fuses inside the power supplies, so I now have a pile of dead power supplies.  About that time I bought a SIO2PC and began moving away from my disks.  In the mid-90s I went on a nostalgia kick and bought two 800XLs, a 1200XL (which needs repair), a 130XE, and a XEGS.  I didn't see a point in getting a 400, 600XL or 65XE to complete the collection.

 

I almost never encountered software that wouldn't run on my original 800, even with CTIA instead of GTIA.  Now my hardware is in the attic and I run on emulation.  By default, anything released through 1983 I run on a virtual 800, and anything newer on a 130XE.  I've never hit anything that requires something else, though I do have to set PAL or NTSC correctly.

 

For space on the desk, the 800XL is awesome.  For the keyboard, the 1200XL is best, but I would want an OS upgrade at a minimum.  I did love playing four-player Asteroids on the 800.  Now to circle back to the start of my post, I do wish Atari had done a slightly different 1400XL as a high-end system: put in a second PIA for four joystick ports, make it 128K, and instead of voice and modem, put in two 1090-compatible expansion slots and release voice, modem, and fast floppy expansion cards.  I bet a ton of us would love to time travel back to about 1980 and be put in charge of Atari product development.

[Geister]

Yeah, I bet Atari is kicking themselves for not tracking me down back in the day and asking me what they should have come out with.😄

[rdefabri]

16 minutes ago, pcrow said:

I completely agree that I would have loved a 1450 XLD.  I think Atari made a huge strategic mistake in not having a high-end system, but we could all probably do a long post on what we consider to be Atari's biggest mistakes.

 

I started with an 800, just old enough to still have CTIA.  It came with 16K and we got a Mosaic 32K card which was cheaper than two Atari 16K cards, but was a mistake, as it failed twice (and I failed in the repair the second time), but that was in the 90s.  I then bought a new 800 on eBay and stole the memory, but shortly after that my original 800 died: it wouldn't power on, and I found that it was blowing fuses inside the power supplies, so I now have a pile of dead power supplies.  About that time I bought a SIO2PC and began moving away from my disks.  In the mid-90s I went on a nostalgia kick and bought two 800XLs, a 1200XL (which needs repair), a 130XE, and a XEGS.  I didn't see a point in getting a 400, 600XL or 65XE to complete the collection.

 

I almost never encountered software that wouldn't run on my original 800, even with CTIA instead of GTIA.  Now my hardware is in the attic and I run on emulation.  By default, anything released through 1983 I run on a virtual 800, and anything newer on a 130XE.  I've never hit anything that requires something else, though I do have to set PAL or NTSC correctly.

 

For space on the desk, the 800XL is awesome.  For the keyboard, the 1200XL is best, but I would want an OS upgrade at a minimum.  I did love playing four-player Asteroids on the 800.  Now to circle back to the start of my post, I do wish Atari had done a slightly different 1400XL as a high-end system: put in a second PIA for four joystick ports, make it 128K, and instead of voice and modem, put in two 1090-compatible expansion slots and release voice, modem, and fast floppy expansion cards.  I bet a ton of us would love to time travel back to about 1980 and be put in charge of Atari product development.

It's likely we're around the same age.  My original 400 had CTIA / 16K, I installed the GTIA and 48K chips myself.  I believe I purchased the computer in 1980, which would have made me 12 or so at the time.

 

I always felt that Atari got dragged under with the "drama" that was a) Warner and b) the video game collapse.  It was just never taken as seriously as other computer manufacturers.  Tramiel was always willing to wage a price war, that certainly didn't help.

 

I'll never forget my Junior year in High School (1984), I had a Pascal programming class and we were using the first generation Apple Macintosh.  My teacher was this "little old lady" that literally looked like what we call a "school marm", but she was totally cool.  Drove a Monte Carlo SS, which was a pretty fast car in the day.

 

She made a comment that the Macintosh was the first PC that could render images using fractal geometry.  Having owned Rescue on Fractalus, I told her that wasn't true.  She made me prove it, so I brought my Atari into school the next day and demo'd it.  She was duly impressed and the little Atari garnered a little respect that day!

[pcrow]

4 hours ago, rdefabri said:

It's likely we're around the same age.  My original 400 had CTIA / 16K, I installed the GTIA and 48K chips myself.  I believe I purchased the computer in 1980, which would have made me 12 or so at the time.

 

I always felt that Atari got dragged under with the "drama" that was a) Warner and b) the video game collapse.  It was just never taken as seriously as other computer manufacturers.  Tramiel was always willing to wage a price war, that certainly didn't help.

 

I'll never forget my Junior year in High School (1984), I had a Pascal programming class and we were using the first generation Apple Macintosh.  My teacher was this "little old lady" that literally looked like what we call a "school marm", but she was totally cool.  Drove a Monte Carlo SS, which was a pretty fast car in the day.

You were two years ahead of me.  When I took AP Computer Science as a Junior (1985-86), we had these Cromemco computers that were a pain to use, but switched to PCjrs in the middle of the year, and they were much better.

 

My users group did an order of GTIA chips from Atari and a bunch of us upgraded, but I didn't bother.  I'm thinking now having a CTIA computer is cool in a way.  Very little in the way of commercial software required it, as they couldn't then advertise it as being for all Atari 8-bits.

 

Atari clearly wasn't ready for the C64.  If they 800XL had been able to be released at the same time and price, things would have been very different.

[Geister]

13 hours ago, pcrow said:

You were two years ahead of me.  When I took AP Computer Science as a Junior (1985-86), we had these Cromemco computers that were a pain to use, but switched to PCjrs in the middle of the year, and they were much better.

 

My users group did an order of GTIA chips from Atari and a bunch of us upgraded, but I didn't bother.  I'm thinking now having a CTIA computer is cool in a way.  Very little in the way of commercial software required it, as they couldn't then advertise it as being for all Atari 8-bits.

 

Atari clearly wasn't ready for the C64.  If they 800XL had been able to be released at the same time and price, things would have been very different.

Atari (Warner) wasn't ready for a lot of things, but mostly because they were too busy second-guessing themselves.  If they'd just got something out the damn door they might have stood a chance against Commodore whose only advantage was price.  If Tramiel got anything right its that people are cheap and if something is good enough at a lower price, people will convince themselves that its the better choice.  Make no mistake, the C64 was good enough and the price was right.  That made it hard to sell an Atari in Sears back in 84.  If Commodore had had the infant mortality rate of a Coleco Adam it would have been a different story.

[+davidcalgary29]

On 10/28/2023 at 7:05 AM, bf2k+ said:

I prefer the XLs meself... always have since the 80's.  I've owned them all (NTSC) except the 400.

While its aesthetics are somewhat questionable, the 400 is a decent machine. I grew up with all the myths surrounding its supposed lack of utility (I had an 800), and didn't change my mind until I bought a modded unit several years ago. The keyboard is, while not optimal, surprisingly responsive.

 

I "retired" my 800 in 1987 for a 130XE. While the keyboard for the 130XE sucked -- and I did use it almost exclusively for writing papers during my first few years of university -- it wasn't enough of a problem to go back to my 800 for that. I wasn't into memory modding at the time, and the bank-switching elements in AtariWriter + made the 130XE useful for larger projects.

[rdefabri]

2 hours ago, davidcalgary29 said:

While its aesthetics are somewhat questionable, the 400 is a decent machine. I grew up with all the myths surrounding its supposed lack of utility (I had an 800), and didn't change my mind until I bought a modded unit several years ago. The keyboard is, while not optimal, surprisingly responsive.

 

I "retired" my 800 in 1987 for a 130XE. While the keyboard for the 130XE sucked -- and I did use it almost exclusively for writing papers during my first few years of university -- it wasn't enough of a problem to go back to my 800 for that. I wasn't into memory modding at the time, and the bank-switching elements in AtariWriter + made the 130XE useful for larger projects.

I have a 400 and it will do anything the 800 could do, or at least that I would do with it.  I did always envy the 800 keyboard (excellent IMHO) and the expansion slots, but they were never fully leveraged as they could / should have been.

[+slx]

2 minutes ago, rdefabri said:

I have a 400 and it will do anything the 800 could do, or at least that I would do with it.  I did always envy the 800 keyboard (excellent IMHO) and the expansion slots, but they were never fully leveraged as they could / should have been.

If your main activity was gaming a 48K 400 would have been sufficient for most of the 8-bits' commercial life as the installed base of 400/800s mostly kept commercial sellers from offering software that required 64K. The situation was different in Europe where 64K 800XLs were more or less the norm and 400/800s limited to a minority of early adopters.

 

I had experienced a Sinclair ZX81 (Timex 1000) before and compared to that the 400's keyboard was much better. I wouldn't want to type a novel on it, but it was OK for occasional typing.

 

I am still cross that there weren't more "right cartridges" to make use of that unique feature of the 800. I only had Monkey Wrench II (and lost that over the years) and while it wasn't all too useful I first tried my hand at machine language with it and cracked some copy protection.

[Beeblebrox]

7 minutes ago, rdefabri said:

I have a 400 and it will do anything the 800 could do, or at least that I would do with it.  I did always envy the 800 keyboard (excellent IMHO) and the expansion slots, but they were never fully leveraged as they could / should have been.

Thankfully decades later the 800's expansion card slots are now being used to great effect with all the ram upgrades as well as of course incognito and now VBXE. I love my 800.