8 Bit Goodness

I present the first computer I purchased (and still a favorite of mine)…

The 8 bit goodness of the Atari 130xe.

Commodore people were everywhere back then (like Windows now), waiting 23 minutes to load a game, but my Atari rolled fast and stable. I had a disk drive, a modem, and probably a whole 512k of RAM.

Plus leatherette cases!

Atari 130XE — The whole system. I had a 1200 baud modem to access the FreeNet, the BBS’s, and the Gopher servers. Hook into any TV set and phone line and off you go!

I could load an app in under 2 minutes!

So what could this thing do?

I mainly word processed, made a small database, and got onto the early internet at a blazing-fast 1200 baud. It wasn’t called the internet in 1986, it was called Freenet or BBS’s.

I also played some games, I think LodeRunner and maybe Miner 2049er. Super Boulderdash? It even hid a game cartridge port on the side.

It also had a nice soundchip for the time and could get pretty funky midi going (for 1985).