|
So, you’ve heard
about the famous Atari PCS’ (Personal Computer Systems) called the
Atari 400 and the Atari 800. Both had codenames: Candy for the 400
and Colleen for the 800. Internally their original model #’s were the
C7000 for the Atari 400 and the C8000 for the Atari 800. Their model
#’s would be changed to be their price points: $400 for the Atari 400
and $800 for the Atari 800.
How did the Atari
PCS computers come into existence? Well, sit back and let’s take a
walk back in time to 1977 and discuss their origins, the Atari 2600.
The Atari 2600 VCS (Video Computer System) would make its debut in the
summer of 1977 to rather surprised crowds at the Summer CES (Consumer
Electronics Show) when Atari unveiled their marvel of technology. It
had been kept well hidden so as not to allow it to fall into the hands
of Magnavox, who under a court settlement that Atari agreed to, would
have access to any Atari technology in development up to a certain
date. So the Atari 2600 VCS would be shown after the date and freed
Atari from having to turn over its technological wonder to Magnavox to
exploit at Atari’s cost.
While crowds were
being amazed by the wonders of the Atari 2600 and retailers were
crushing to place orders with Atari to get this incredible new video
game console into their stores, Atari’s engineers who created the
Atari 2600 VCS were happily smiling at how well received their new
creation was, but not content with their creation. They wanted it to
do more.
Something they all
wanted was character generation, better resolution graphics and more
advanced features for input and storage. Steve Mayer, Larry Nicholson,
Joe Decuir and Jay Miner all started to contemplate what would be
possible. Steve Mayer met with Nolan Bushnell and Joe Keenan and
asked what they wanted this new system to be. Nolan and Joe said they
wanted it to be both a computer and a video game system. They wanted
a device to compete against Apple, but also wanted a device that would
be a successor to the Atari VCS.
Project Colleen would
be started. Improve the TIA chip, the Television Interface Adapter
which is the heart of the Atari 2600 VCS, allow it to display higher
resolution graphics and more colors on the screen, give it Player
Missile Graphics capabilities and other advanced functions. The CTIA
would be born. (Computer Television Interface Adapter) and along
with it a DMA (Direct Memory Access) chip called ANTIC which was
short for the Alpha-Numeric Television Interface Chip.
For sound, Keyboard and communications the POKEY chip (Potentiometer
Keyboard) chip was developed. Rounding things out, these
three custom chips would be put together with a full blown 6502C CPU
chip and a 6520 PIA (Parallel
Interface Adapter) which would interface the 4 front controller ports and allow
high speed parallel I/O interfacing as well.
Later Atari would
release an upgrade to the CTIA called the GTIA which would add more
graphics modes and more colors to the Atari PCS computers.
The new chipset was
being defined and developed and the Mechanical engineers and
Industrial Designers got to work to give these new devices a really
great appearance. John Ellis would define the overall designs of the
system while Kevin McKinsey and Atari VCS case co-designer Douglas
Hardy would design the looks for the Colleen and Candy. Kevin
specifically wanted to give users a very familiar and friendly feel to
the Colleen, so the design would be similar the home typewriters of
the day. The design worked out very well, hiding some of its more
advanced capabilities such as its ROM access bay for Cartridge based
software such as BASIC and the Talk and Teach cartridges. Then with
a few simple thumb latches the OS and Memory bay was revealed.
Something the common user wouldn’t immediately notice was the built in
Power-off safety switch in the front cartridge bay, once opened the
Atari 800 would automatically turn off, once the door was closed to
the cartridge bay, the system would boot back up. A very smart
feature to ensure no accidental insertion or removal of cartridges
and/or OS or Memory modules might damage the system or possibly hurt
the user.
The OS and Memory
modules were located in a fortress of an expansion bay, surrounded by
2mm thick aluminum chassis which also doubled as part of the Atari
800’s case structure. The expansion bays would be covered under a
plastic guide cover which only exposed the expansion headers and
completely separated the user from directly coming in contact with the
electronics underneath. A very well thought out design which really
differentiated the Atari 800 from other systems such as the Apple ][
and the early S-100 bus computers which exposed users to live current
when the case was open and direct contact with all of the electronics
and power components within the computers.
While these Expansion
bays were innovative, they were also a major thorn in the over all
design of the Atari 800 because at the time the FCC rules were so
strict and Atari was so cautious to never violate them, to have a
computer system with expansion bays that would emit large amounts of
RF (Radio Frequency,) a form of electronic “noise” that could disrupt
a Television signal and even create audio noise on nearby radios, was
something Atari engineers couldn’t risk. The solution – build a
computer where almost all of its components would be encased inside an
aluminum RF shield that was akin to an electronic EMP (electro
magnetic pulse) bomb shelter, called a Faraday Cage. And with it, its
expansion modules would be inside plastic/metal enclosures nestled in
an expansion bay with a top that also had an aluminum shield under it
to cover and seal the expansion modules in their RF Tomb. Talk about
over engineering a solution.
Candy would have a
scaled down, non-expansion bay version of this same RF cocoon as well.
Atari engineers wanted slots, real slots, like Apple ][ type slots,
but this didn’t happen. Sadly the timing was just wrong for Atari,
just as the Atari 400 and Atari 800 computers would begin production,
the FCC in October 1979 would relax rules regarding Part 15 in regards
to computers. This change in the FCC rule essentially freed Atari to
be able to produce exactly the computer that the engineers had wanted
from the very beginning of the project, ones with fully useable and
externally accessible expansion slots. It was too late, however. Once
the Atari 400 and 800 were completed, Atari engineers Jay Miner and
Joe Decuir had penciled out a block design for the next follow up to
the Atari 400 and 800 that could be ready in 2-3 years. It would be
based on the stunningly powerful new Motorola 68000 processor and the
Atari GTIA, ANTIC and POKEY chipset would all be enhanced further in
the 16 bit realm of computing, giving Atari a future path to continue
to be at the forefront of technology. Atari shot down this request
from the two visionary engineers, since the new computers had just
cost the company over $10 million in development and weren’t even on
retailer shelves yet and Atari was unsure if this risky new venture
into home PC’s was even going to see them recoup all of their R&D
investment. So the two engineers decided to wait till the Atari 400
and 800 began rolling off the assembly lines and then quit to move
onto other ventures, but firmly committed to making the next
generation computer a reality. Eventually they did. It’s called the
Amiga.
Continue to Part 2...
|
