kevtronics

I think the keyboard quality varied more on which parts supplier Atari was using, than on the design of each machine. I have a 520ST+ and two XEGSes. The ST has the lightest keyboard feel, while one XEGS is actually quite firm and springy, and the other XEGS has medium firmness, inbetween the other XEGS and the ST. My problem with the XE/ST series keyboard is not the typing feel, but rather the shape and spacing of the keys. The keys are too flat and too closely spaced, so it's hard to get a good "feel" of exactly which keys you're hitting. Even if you're not a touch typist, it slows you down and leads to annoying typing mistakes. Even with the shape/spacing issue, I still like the firm version of the XEGS keyboard better than my 800XL. Its keys are very picky about what angle you hit them from. If you're even slightly off-center, the key either makes an uncomfortable "crunch" or just refuses to go down at all. But again, I hear Atari used several different suppliers for the 600XL and 800XL keyboards, and each has its own unique feel. Best Electronics sells a set of springs you can put into your XE or ST keyboard to firm up the keys, but they're a bit expensive ($22 a set) and the job of installing one spring under each keycap is quite tedious.

I remember using LapLink to transfer files between two PCs in the '80s using their serial ports. You could use either a 3-wire cable or a 9-wire cable. The 3-wire cable worked fine as long as both computers were set to the same baud rate and had the same serial port UART chip.

Artifacting takes advantage of the limited color resolution of a composite or RF video signal to create additional colors on the screen. Basically the unwanted "color bleed" or "rainbow fringe" effect that you may see surrounding text on the screen is used purposely to create colors that otherwise wouldn't be available (especially in hi-res 320x192 mode). Games that use artifacted colors will still work with an S-Video output, but instead of colors you'll see shaded areas of black & white. PAL has better color resolution than NTSC, so the artifacted colors aren't as visible (especially when using a SCART connection).

Commodore likely included that to make the monitor compatible with their own VIC-20 computer, which did not include a chroma output either. One good thing about the XE series, though, is that the video output is noticeably brighter and clearer than previous Atari computers. My XE Game System only includes a composite output, but I don't miss having a chroma/luma output because the quality is so good -- it also allows the artifacted colors used by some games.