Introductory prices of Atari 8bits?

[leech]

I was looking around for something and of course ended up on Wikipedia's page, where it lists the introductory prices of the 400 and 800 at $550 and $1000. Were these really that much upon launch? The article goes on about the other prices and how the 1200XL was 100 less than what the initial announcement price was.

 

Of course video game crash prices dropped it down to 149 for the 800XL which is what I kind of recall my parents buying ours for. And I think the 1050 was another 100.

 

Anyone else remember how much their original 8bit set up cost? $250 for so many hours of fun really seems cheap now, but my family was pretty poor.

[ACML]

My father paid $400 in 1981 for a 16K 400, 410 and BASIC cartridge. I paid $599 for my 800 in 1983 and $475 for an 810 in 1983. I think the 1200XL came out at $899.

Edited August 27, 2017 by ACML

[everklear]

My Atari set up, back in the day, cost $1100. That was pretty much the total amount of money I had made working on a farm for the summer. (I think my wage was $3.15/hour) I am reasonably sure that was the summer of 1983, so the computer purchase would have been in the fall - September or October.

 

I purchased an Atari 600XL, a 1050 disk drive and a 1027 printer. No memory what the cost of the individual pieces was.

 

When I think about what I am willing to spend $1000 on today, it makes me laugh.

[gozar]

This is tough because the prices dropped pretty quickly, whole memory increased.

 

I think my 800XL was a little over $100 and the 1050 was around $200 in December of 84.

 

 

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[leech]

My Atari set up, back in the day, cost $1100. That was pretty much the total amount of money I had made working on a farm for the summer. (I think my wage was $3.15/hour) I am reasonably sure that was the summer of 1983, so the computer purchase would have been in the fall - September or October.

 

I purchased an Atari 600XL, a 1050 disk drive and a 1027 printer. No memory what the cost of the individual pieces was.

 

When I think about what I am willing to spend $1000 on today, it makes me laugh.

No kidding! I Pre-Ordered the Note8 with a bunch of accessories... and was all happy at the discounts that kept it under 1200... then saw they charged tax which put it back up above that...

 

This is tough because the prices dropped pretty quickly, whole memory increased.

 

I think my 800XL was a little over $100 and the 1050 was around $200 in December of 84.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm wondering if I got my prices crossed and the 800XL was 100 and the 1050 was 150. I do know the place my parents bought it is now (and has been for at least a couple decades) a jewelry store.

[redman]

Got my father a 48K 800, 410, and Basic cart when that package went on sale for $200. Don't know what year that was. Also got a Frogger tape and he went nuts when he saw the sharp colors of the game.

[+slx]

Got an 800/810 for Christmas in 1982 and it cost about 32.000 ATS which was about ¼ of the price of a well-equipped Volkswagen Rabbit... a color monitor for about 6.000 followed soon after when my mom wanted her kitchen TV back.

Took it way too much for granted then. Now that I earn my own money I sometimes ponder how I would react to my kids wishing for something of similar value...

(at least the 800 was officially an office machine, so the taxman contributed his share to my computer education and my father never had to hire someone to troubleshoot his office PCs years later)

[+davidcalgary29]

The 400/800 and its peripherals were expensive to manufacture and Atari Inc. didn't engage in much deep discounting until after my family bought ours in Spring '83. 800+410+Qix and Asteroids+Dorsett educational crap = $1100 CAD. I don't think Atari even released a MSRP for the 815, did they?

 

FWIW, even the C64 cost $550 at that point and there wasn't much software for it. It was the only other computer in consideration, aside from a Panasonic MSX (for which nothing was available).

[erichenneke]

check this out, Atari 400 box "the basic computer" with the price tag still on it.

 

$269.99

 

Hard to say what year that was though. The serial number is 513621.

 

 

[+DrVenkman]

Probably late t1982 or early '83. Although the machines are long gone, I still have the receipts for both our 400 in October '82 and our 800 in August '83. We paid about that for our 400.

[erichenneke]

I believe the atari 800 i got in 1981 or 1982 was about $450 and the 810 disk drive was about the same. Actually the drive was more than the system itself.

[+tf_hh]

Hi,

 

nice thread :-)

 

I found an old invoice about a complete Atari Computer system dated from September 1984. All prices are in "Deutsche Mark", the former currency before the Euro came over us...

 

All prices are incl. tax. In 1984 the conversion rate was approx 1 USD = 2,84 Deutsche Mark.

 

 

For the english people here the translation:

 

1. Atari 800 XL Computer

2. Atari 1025 Printer

3. Atari 1050 Diskdrive

4. Sanyo Color CRT monitor

5. Atari to monitor cable

6. Two pieces Joystick (I think the CX-40)

7. A game (cart? disk? not known...)

8. A game (cart? disk? not known...)

9. A book (let´s guess... I think it´s "My Atari Computer" (Poole))

10. Paper for the printer

11. Floppy disks, I thin 10 pieces

 

Wasn´t really cheap that time...

 

[+CharlieChaplin]

Hmmm,

 

I thought that I got my 800XL at XMAS 1984, but according to tf_hh's prices it must have been XMAS 1985, because I paid only 349 Deutsche Mark for it (computer only, did not have the money for any peripherals then; took me another 6 months before I bought a 1010 recorder). But maybe I made a super deal at Massa (nowadays real) ...?

 

Anyways, when we were looking for home computers before XMAS 1984 (or 1985 ?), we visited several german department stores e.g. Kaufhof, Horten, Vedes, Massa and a few others. And almost everywhere they told me and my brother it would be better to buy a C64 and not an Atari, since Atari went bankrupt... well, they were all misinformed and Tramiel took over. There must have been many germans that bought a C64 because they were told that Atari is bankrupt - but me and my brother did not listen and still bought an 800XL...

[Ely]

I bought my 130XE for £99 and 1050 for £129 in Nov 1986 in the U.K. from Silica Shop.

[erichenneke]

this website calls out some of the key price moves over time...

 

http://oldcomputers.net/atari800.html

 

 

 

Partial History of the Atari Computers

• 196?: As an engineering student at the University of Utah, Nolan Bushnell liked to sneak into the computer labs late at night to play computer games on the university's $7 million mainframes.
• 1972: Bushnell founded Atari with $250 of his own money and another $250 from business partner Ted Dabney. They then created and commercialized the world's first commercial video game, Pong. Bushnell was 27 years old.
• 1976: Warner Communications buys Atari from Bushnell for $28 million.
• 1977: Atari introduces the Atari Video Computer System (VCS), later renamed the Atari 2600
• 1978: December - Atari announces the Atari 400 and 800 personal computers.
• 1979: October - Atari begins shipping the Atari 400 and Atari 800 personal computers.
• 1979: December - Atari produces the first coin-operated Asteroids game machine.
• 1981: May - Atari announces the 8KB Atari 400 is being discontinued.
• 1982: January - Atari begins shipping all Atari 800 units with GTIA graphics chips, allowing three more graphics modes than previously.
• 1982: December - Atari issues a US$55 rebate on the Atari 400, dropping its retail price to under US$200.
• 1983: January - Atari introduces the 1200XL home computer.
• 1983: May - Atari offers a US$100 rebate on the Atari 800, bringing its retail price to below US$400.
• 1983: June - Atari introduces the Atari 600 XL.
• 1983: June - Atari introduces the Atari 800 XL, with 64 KB RAM.
• 1983: June - Atari introduces the Atari 1450 XL, with built-in 300 bps modem.
• 1983: June - Atari introduces the Atari 1450 XLD, with built-in 300 bps modem and disk drive.
• 1983: October - Atari begins shipping its XL computers.
• 1983: - Atari cancels production of the Atari 1200XL, due to compatibility and other problems.
• 1984: July - Jack Tramiel, President of Commodore International, leaves Commodore in January and buys Atari.
• 1984: - Atari introduces the Atari 7800 ProSystem.
• 1985: January - Atari introduces the 65XE, for US$120.
• 1985: Atari introduces the 130XE, with 128KB RAM.
• 1985: Atari introduces the 130ST for US$400.
• 1985: Atari introduces the 520ST for US$600.
• 1987: January - At the Winter CES, Atari announces a US$1500 laser printer.
• 1988: September - Atari introduces the Atari TT.
• 1989: - Atari Computer introduces the Portfolio, a 1-pound DOS-based PC, which runs on three AA batteries. Price: US$400
• Source: Chronology of Events in the History of Microcomputers

Edited August 27, 2017 by erichenneke

[+DrVenkman]

Ah, found it. Here's what I paid for my 400 in October 1982, the Programmer's Kit, and a few other things (like that PILOT cartridge). This was a pretty good-sized mail order place back then, so these prices were generally cheaper than you'd see at retail by $20 - $50, plus of course back then you never paid sales taxes on mail-order stuff.

 

[AtariGeezer]

I bought my first 800 in May 1982 with a 410, PacMan cart and 32k board for $800. It came with 16k and a CTIA, Distributor replaced it with the GTIA. Even got a joystick for free

 

In 1983 I bought my first 810 for $425 and 2nd 810 a few months later for $400...

[toddtmw]

I posted this in another thread about trying to figure out when I got my first 800:

 

Okay. So, I started looking at ads in Magazine scans.

 

January 1983 Compute! magazine had the Atari 800 with 48K of RAM for $499 - $659

January 1982 Compute! magazine had the Atari 800 with 16k for around $750. (One ad claimed the list price was $1,080.)

 

So, yeah, I'm thinking i got my computer in January of 1983, not January of 1980. But the weird thing is, the RAM and ROM modules were cased. I would have thought that by then, (Given it was almost the end of the 800's life) Atari would have been shipping them with bare boards.

 

Just for fun, I went back to the beginning of Compute! magazine to look for the first listing of an Atari 800 with a price. It was Issue 4 (May/June 1980) and it was $875.

[ClausB]

December, 1980, $600 for 8K 400, 410, BASIC, Star Raiders, and a joystick. What a bargain!

[+davidcalgary29]

Did anyone here get one in 1979?

[leech]

Pretty sure it was mid to lat 1984 when my parents came home with one, since I remember being 8 at the time, and I would have been 9 by Christmas of that year.

 

I am just very happy that a neighbor of mine had an Intellivision with a tape drive. It would take several mlattempts to get it to load things, so we always figured tape drives were terrible, so we got ours with a floppy drive! Though a friend of ours did have an 810, which I always thought sounded awesome during the formatting process.

[+slx]

Eye-watering prices for games. I remember paying 999ATS for my first Star Raiders (maybe about 50 USD). A pack of 10 discs cost the same so my first purchase was for three only, together that ate my allowances for 4 months. Germany was a bit cheaper so I had my parents make quite a detour to Holzkirchen in Bavaria to buy my first floppy games (Shamus and Sands of Egypt) a couple of months later. I think they cost about 35 Deutsche Mark each.

[adam242]

I think my Dad paid $149.99 for my 600XL at Toys R Us in '84. In '86, I had saved paper route money and paid the same for a 130XE.

[AtariGeezer]

I had saved paper route money and paid the same for a 130XE.

Cool, I had a paper route starting in the summer after 5th grade through Senior year of High School. Had 150 to 175 customers over the years depending on promotional months.

My dad bought a 55 Chevy Bel Air for $200 from a neighbor when I was in 7th grade for me and my sister to drive when we turned 16. Most of my money went into that for repairs, missing parts and paint...

[gilsaluki]

Mom sent me a check for the Christmas of '84. Based on a friend's recommendation to buy the Atari, NOT the Commodore. I lived in Tacoma, Wa. Had a helluva time finding a dealer there. Finally did and paid about $250 for the 800XL and $100 for the 1010. I then found an Entertainer Pak (Qix and PacMan with two CX-40s for about $50. I thought that was a great deal. Then I bought the Atariwriter package for about $50. Still have it all, and use it all. Still two of my all time fav programs. Then it was a printer. I chose the 1027 due to college pagers. I loved it too. Then an Indus GT disk drive. I was in heaven....