During the final days in 1984 of Atari's ownership under Warner Communications
new designs for Atari 800XL were in the works. One such
design called the Atari 800XLK aka the 800XLCR (Cost Reduced) involved a new motherboard
design which not only incorporated the "FREDDIE" Memory processor, but
also incorporated an entirely new chip design called "Keri". Keri was the codename for the CGIA chip, which was the combined GTIA &
ANTIC chips into one. Many years ago a test
board was found called the "Keri
Performance Tester" and was marked during the Warner days of Atari,
however it was a mysterious since the center of the board had a new chip
holder which was a PLCC type and not a standard chip package that Atari
had used in the past. Project KERI goes all the way back to June 1983 when the
800XL was being publicly shown. Schematics for an 800XL with a CGIA
and FREDDIE were already drawn up for it. (See side bar for
Schematics)
