In 1982 for Christmas, my brother Brian and I managed to convince our parents to buy an Atari 800 computer. At first all we had was a program recorder (i.e. tape deck) and a few cartridges (Star Raiders was awesome), but I was already hooked. Soon we had a disk drive, more cartridges, a modem and a ton of technical information from magazines (ANALOG computing and Antic Magazine especially) and books ("Your Atari Computer" was definitive). Before long I knew the computer inside out, and to this day I’m still impressed by the little machine.

Of course, today I have much more powerful machines to play with, but I still hold on to my old Atari computers and occasionally pick up a piece of equipment for it. Recently, an emulator called Rainbow has convinced me that perhaps it’s time to let go of the physical equipment and hold onto the memories via an emulator instead. I don’t yet know. Still, it’s good to see so many people showing an interest in the old machine.

Some links to check out.

• John Goodman’s Reminiscing Atari 8-bit games
• Rob Funk’s 8-bit page
• Atari 400/800/XL/XE Emulator Page
• Marek Tomczyk’s Atari 8-bit Resort
• The Phoenix Atari 8-bit Connection

Last modified: May 6th, 1997