Atari 600

[AtariLeaf]

Ok I've bantered on before about a thrift thats got a few atari computers in the back room. In my mad dash to grab all the 2600 and 7800 games and systems which took most of my attention, I just made a cursory glance at the computers and noticed one called the 600 or 600XL, I'm not sure. I've not heard of this one so please pardon my ignorance but I've only heard of the 400/800 until recently and have heard virtually nothing on this site about the 600.

Anyone know what this is and if its worth getting (of course depending on the price) and how it might be related to the 400/800 series. There was an 800XL, a 130XE and a 600. I'm going to try and get out tomorrow and weasel my way into the back room again. I'm definitely going to nab the other two and the dozen or so carts but I'm not sure about the 600.

Cheers!

[DanBoris]

It's probably a 600XL. The 600XL is almost identical to the 800XL except that it has 16K or RAM instead of 64K and it's physically a little smaller.

 

Dan

[AtariLeaf]

Thanks. So if I pick up the 800XL and the 130XE, I'm not really missing out on leaving the 600XL behind, unless of course it can be had for 50 cents like my 7800

[Gunstar]

No, your not missing out by leaving the 600xl behind...you don't really need the 800xl either, as the 130xe is just a 128k version of the 800xl! Recap: 400/800-16k/48k, 600xl/800xl-16k/64k, 65xe/130xe-64k/128k. All are basically the same computer, the XL and XE's are 100% compatible with software out of the box (as long as you have enough memory for said software, but 99% of the software can run on 64k computers, about 75% on the 48k 800. The 16k machines generally need to be upgraded if you want to run any software newer than about '82. The xl/xe's may have some compatiblity problems with about 1% of 400/800 software, out of the box, but a "translator" disk and/or cartridge is available to make this software compatible too. The advantage of the 800xl is a nicer keyboard over the 130xe, the 130xe of course has twice the memory.

[AtariLeaf]

Thanks for the added info. I didn't know that, which helps a lot if pricing becomes an issue. I wish now I would have had an Atari computer when I was young but we got the Tandy Coco 2 and 3 since we had friends and neighbors to give us loads of software for it.