Why/How Did Atari Screw Up 800XL Video So Bad?

bbking67 · August 22, 2013

My first Atari computer was an 800XL and I noticed early on that the video wasn't as good as my friends' 800's. I always blam3ed it on cost reductions... I used the 800XL mostly on RF, obviously composite is not very good and Croma/Luma doesn't work (unless you mod the unit).

In fact I had a Rambo'ed XL (256K) but switched to a 130XE to get better output (at this time I had a Commodore 1802 monitor). Of course the 800XL ran my BBS... anyhow I found the 130XE output to be acceptable. At that time, I was completely oblivious to the video mods (they seemed pretty easy to do, so I'm sure I would have tried it had I known--ohh the pre-Internet days).

Does anybody know the story about how or why Atari screwed it up? It seems like a colossal failure. In fact, Atari could have easily cashed in and OEM'ed a compatible monitor just like Tandy and Commodore did...