Why did Atari release the 600XL in late 1983? ? ? ?

[ACML]

 

"US 600XL owners jumped to the C64? Hmm."

 

 

Before Sam Tramiel left Commodore (circa 1983), he said Commodore was producing 400,000 C-64s a month! I'd say the jury had spoken. Anyone who wanted a computer and not a game console, was buying C-64s because the price point was too good to consider Apple and Atari. I would speculate that some Atari 600XL owners that were not satisfied with their 600XL (16K) experience, saw the C-64 with 64K and its price as too hard to pass up. Atari was dumping 800s in 1983 with $100 dollar rebates. I know, my brother and I each bought one. From 1984-1988, I knew no one in San Diego, that had a 600XL, it just didn't sell. Federated couldn't give them away. I'm sure some had them, but they weren't the ones showing up at user group meetings.

 

I guess the idea of maintaining a game console version was the target for the US market. I must admit, I like the tiny footprint of the 600XL, but 16K, no US 1064s to buy and no monitor jack was bad business. My guess is that Atari's cost between the 600XL and the 800XL was $30. With Commodore pumping out nearly a half million 64K C-64s a month, what genius thought the 16K 600XL would sell well (in the US) by late 1983/4? Atari management certainly had no problem killing projects, but why push this out? History to me has shown that the 600XL as an ill timed and obsolete computer that should have never seen the light of day. I don't hate the machine, just have no clue why it existed when it did. The 400 in 1979, I get it, but sales figures don't lie. The 600XL was a flop in the US market.

Edited April 13, 2015 by ACML

[bbking67]

Best or B&C had at least a pallet of 1064's... so probably not a prototype. They were allegedly manufactured by Atari and not sold for unknown reasons... who knows how many actually retailed before the close-out resellers got them? Seems like not very many.

[ACML]

"what was the cost of 8K DRAMS in 81/82"

 

I suggest that the cost of DRAM in 1981 is irrelevant. Just because something seemed OK in 1981, it doesn't mean you have to follow through with it if the situation changes. Atari management could have just canned the project when RAM plummeted starting in late 1981. The price of 64K DRAMS collapsed to $4.50 a chip by June of 1983. It was not overnight. The cost differential would have been obvious by mid 1982. Atari just couldn't compete with Commodore when the C-64 came out.

Edited April 13, 2015 by ACML

[+kheller2]

While I find this sort of topic fun and engaging, I don't like to use speculation. I can speculate that some 600XL owners jumped to Apple and [insert some other company] computer as well. The question is still valid, why push out a 16K machine: Get your foot in the door like the 400 or those considering purchasing a Vic20, had to recoup money invested in the development of said product, had said product already stock piled, who cares what Commodore is doing, we're Atari.. on and on... management does strange things thinking it knows best and hindsight arguments are really not fair. (Unless of course one can document that people in management KNEW it was hopeless and went ahead with it anyway. Those are always fun stories)

 

I would much rather have an investigative approach to the question. First, the XL's were delayed from mid 83 to late 83, and basically missed the holiday sales from a production standpoint -- Thanks Morgan. The C64 was already becoming very popular having been out almost a year at this point and the price wars under way. Most Home Computer Companies couldn't compete with the C64 (but then most companies weren't trying to deluge the market). C64 had their earlier on quality issues, lets not forget, just like any massively rushed product. Putting the C64 aside for the moment, Atari put their eggs into the single 1200XL (which I think was already a re-worked version of another more expensive system) with 64K. After that, why even consider a 16K system (other than you can play [almost] all the games on cart and eventually expand it to a full 800XL, sans monitor in the US. The 600 being the smaller of the 1200.

 

We also don't know when Atari made their RAM purchases. I also can't agree that the difference between the 600XL and 800XL was only $30 in total parts. Maybe RAM, but certainly not the entire product. Shipping weight and size alone would be something to account for.

 

All in all, a better question is why did Atari even try anything if the C64 was such a runaway success by mid 83?

Edited April 14, 2015 by kheller2

[ACML]

While I find this sort of topic fun and engaging, I don't like to use speculation. I can speculate that some 600XL owners jumped to Apple and [insert some other company] computer as well. The question is still valid, why push out a 16K machine: Get your foot in the door like the 400 or those considering purchasing a Vic20, had to recoup money invested in the development of said product, had said product already stock piled, who cares what Commodore is doing, we're Atari.. on and on... management does strange things thinking it knows best and hindsight arguments are really not fair. (Unless of course one can document that people in management KNEW it was hopeless and went ahead with it anyway. Those are always fun stories)

 

I would much rather have an investigative approach to the question. First, the XL's were delayed from mid 83 to late 83, and basically missed the holiday sales from a production standpoint -- Thanks Morgan. The C64 was already becoming very popular having been out almost a year at this point and the price wars under way. Most Home Computer Companies couldn't compete with the C64 (but then most companies weren't trying to deluge the market). C64 had their earlier on quality issues, lets not forget, just like any massively rushed product. Putting the C64 aside for the moment, Atari put their eggs into the single 1200XL (which I think was already a re-worked version of another more expensive system) with 64K. After that, why even consider a 16K system (other than you can play [almost] all the games on cart and eventually expand it to a full 800XL, sans monitor in the US. The 600 being the smaller of the 1200.

 

We also don't know when Atari made their RAM purchases. I also can't agree that the difference between the 600XL and 800XL was only $30 in total parts. Maybe RAM, but certainly not the entire product. Shipping weight and size alone would be something to account for.

 

All in all, a better question is why did Atari even try anything if the C64 was such a runaway success by mid 83?

I agree with you 100%. There was a plan for a 600 (not the 600XL), but it was a companion to the other more expensive machine never released machine that you eluded to. I don't know if Atari already had 100,000 cases and packing Styrofoam built for the 600, maybe. If so, that would make the need to use existing stock a compelling business argument and certainly make the sunk cost a lot more than $30 to just forget it. Yes, I am speculating in hindsight. As for when Atari made their RAM purchases, I don't know. That could also have forced their hand in sunk cost again supporting the release of the 600XL (I can see that). As to "All in all, a better question is why did Atari even try anything if the C64 was such a runaway success by mid 83?", it is moot. Nothing could compete with "Business is WAR" Tramiel and a race to the bottom. Tramiel understood market share to a fault. A C-64 and XE look like toys and were made as cheap as humanly possible. The Atari 400, 800 and 1200XL were exquisitely designed machines that I'm sure secretly made a 1979 Jobs and Wozniak jealous. In the end, the customer is always right or at least that's what they say. Price per K made the C-64 unbeatable to the masses. In June of 1983 Atari's cost for 64K was $36. That cost difference between that and two 16Kx4 DRAMS would probably have made the delta ~$20 for RAM. The management at Atari Home Computer Division couldn't get past the "Warner is an entertainment company". In the end it didn't matter what Atari did, they could not compete with Tramiel's monster.

Edited April 14, 2015 by ACML

[fujidude]

Best or B&C had at least a pallet of 1064's... so probably not a prototype. They were allegedly manufactured by Atari and not sold for unknown reasons... who knows how many actually retailed before the close-out resellers got them? Seems like not very many.

 

If Atari never sold them, how can anyone say they were a legitimate Atari product? They were almost a legitimate Atari product.

[SS]

I'll tell you what, I wish that the 800XL was as easily upgradable to 128K as the 600XL is to 64K.

[Marius]

I'll tell you what, I wish that the 800XL was as easily upgradable to 128K as the 600XL is to 64K.

 

Well today it is.... and it was back then, but they did not create it.

 

I have a 576KB 800XL with an external memory expansion. Only problem is that the 800XL lacks a 5V output on the PBI, so I feed the external memory expansion at this time with a wire connected to the joystickport.

 

But I guess you meant back then...

[UNIXcoffee928]

It seems as though the elusive RAM expansion packs were stored right next to the 850s, in the cellar... with a "sign outside the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.".

 

 

= )

[kiwilove]

I find it hard to believe that someone who purchased a Vic-20 would then upgrade to the C-64 - because of the short time frame. Who would have wanted to upgrade so soon at that time?

 

I always thought that the Vic-20 was not a good computer - if it was just to tide you over, until the arrival of the C-64 - it would be better if you just waited it out - until the decent computer turned up.

 

The 600XL is a cool looking computer, with an internal memory upgrade - because it looked so small and compact that way. With the official plug in memory expansion - it looked pretty bad/bloated. If it had decent video output - it would have outclassed the 800XL?

 

Harvey

[tep392]

It's easy to be an Monday morning quarterback. When you consider the reality of trying to predict what is going to sell prior to commiting to a long development cycle, it's really isn't so obvious that the 600XL was a bad idea. If you think they should pull the plug when the market changes, then your ignoring the fact that they have already sunk the dollars into development and production setup. It was probably a reasonable risk to try to sell it to get some of that investment back. Again, it's easy to be an Monday morning quarterback.

[Bill Loguidice]

I find it hard to believe that someone who purchased a Vic-20 would then upgrade to the C-64 - because of the short time frame. Who would have wanted to upgrade so soon at that time?

 

I always thought that the Vic-20 was not a good computer - if it was just to tide you over, until the arrival of the C-64 - it would be better if you just waited it out - until the decent computer turned up.

 

The 600XL is a cool looking computer, with an internal memory upgrade - because it looked so small and compact that way. With the official plug in memory expansion - it looked pretty bad/bloated. If it had decent video output - it would have outclassed the 800XL?

 

Harvey

 

Although anecdotes are more or less meaningless, I was one of those who fairly quickly upgraded from a VIC-20 to a C-64. I believe I got a VIC-20 some time in 1982 and a C-64 less than a year later (selling off the VIC-20). It's important to remember that the price of the C-64 dropped dramatically, with a price/performance/software-accessores-etc-availability ratio that made buying any other low end computer pretty silly unless you really had a specific other brand in mind.

 

In retrospect, and perhaps at the time, it would have made sense for Atari to standardize on 64K 8-bit computers to at least have memory parity with the C-64 for software purposes. As it was, games didn't get ported and/or inferior new releases were created to target the largest possible number of Atari users, meaning 16K. Then of course you had the 48K target to support Atari 800 users. I've said it before and I'll say it again, that one of the major competitive advantages for the C-64 was that it featured a reasonable 64K memory spec to target from its first day of release to its last, whereas whatever region competition, be it Atari, Apple, Spectrum, etc., was all over the place with 8K+ spec machines.

 

With all of that said, my three favorite Atari 8-bits are the Atari 800, 1200XL, and 600XL, the latter thanks to its diminutive size (albeit needing several upgrades to be truly useful), so I'm glad it was made even if it didn't make a lot of sense at the time.

[Magic Knight]

One of the reasons the 600xl with its 16k came up was that there was a requirement to produce an entry level unit but with less bang for buck. Due to demand and rising ram costs, stripping the amount whilst demand was high to have a computer for the first time - means that this indirect type of con wasnt felt so badly back then.. These days stripping an XBOX done a few pegs would be suicidal in the demands these days where we all know better!

 

The Commodore 16 was away to be launched within 12 months or less at some point after so the 600xl and the C16 (and later +4) would be another example of saturating the market with cheap products with poor support from developers

 

:-o :-o :-o

Edited April 14, 2015 by Magic Knight

[Fletch]

I had two cousins that both had 600Xl's. They both got them for Christmas of '84 if I recall correctly. They came in a bundle with a 1027 printer and Atariwriter. They both used the 600XL's like a fancy typewriter as neither had a way to save anything. I would lend them carts from time to time and they borrowed my 1010 on occasion as well.

 

The machine seemed fine for the casual user. It beat using a typewriter and they enjoyed the occasional game.

 

-Pete

[Bill Loguidice]

The Commodore 16 was away to be launched within 12 months or less at some point after so the 600xl and the C16 (and later +4) would be another example of saturating the market with cheap products with poor support from developers

 

 

I agree there are some similarities there, but the C-16 and Plus/4 are disasters worthy of separate discussions. As originally envisioned, they might have offered interesting, if ultimately unnecessary reasons to exist, but obviously as released, there were no redeeming qualities. At least the 600XL was extending an existing product line rather than running a separate, but mostly parallel course. Commodore would have been better off just taking the write-off on those and not releasing them at all, instead focusing on the C-64, 128, and even SX-64.

[oracle_jedi]

The 400 in 1979, I get it, but sales figures don't lie. The 600XL was a flop in the US market.

 

Does anyone have those sales figures? I thought some time back someone posts units shipped of the main Atari products, but now I can't find it. It would be interesting to see today.

 

Judging by the number of 600XLs that show up on Ebay these days, Atari managed to sell quite alot.

 

For the UK market, The Register published this fun, albeit hard to read, graph of the home computer market for 1983. The Atari 400, and the 600XL, maintained somewhat respectable market positions throughout, and of the top five models, three of them were consistently budget/sub 200 pound models, where the 600XL was aimed.

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/03/charted_1983_home_computer_sales_in_uk/

 

As for the note that the 600XL could run DOS, and was unlikely to generate sell-through of peripherals such as disk drives and printers, that might be true (yes I remember the 600XL/1027/Atari Writer bundle too), but it wasn't designed to compete with the C64, it was designed for the super low end of the market, and Atari likely expected such models to generate sell-through sales of the high-margin ROM cartridge games and related peripherals such as the joysticks, light pens, touch pads and track balls.

[Stormtrooper of Death]

The ATari 1064 memory expansion for the 600XL was also sold in the Netherlands. I bought one in 1985/1986 at the Capi-Lux shop in Eindhoven. It cost me about 99 Dutch guilders if my memory is right....

[Rybags]

It was widely available. For me it worked out cheaper to just buy an 800XL and sell off the 600XL.

[Retro Rogue]

Before Sam Tramiel left Commodore (circa 1983), he said Commodore was producing 400,000 C-64s a month!

 

That was May 1984 when he left and that Commodore was hitting those sales, not 1983. And a lot of those sales had to do with being the victor in 1984 of an ultra aggressive war that Jack initiated on the home computer market (low end market) during 1982 before the C64 was even released. In the microcomputer market overall (low and high) Apple, Tandy and Commodore owned the majority of the market already.

 

Your 1200XL history is also a little screwy, the 1200XL was introduced in '82 and was underway long before the C64 was out. Likewise, the "1000" was a series of which the 1200XL was a part of (there were two versions in development). The changes in what became the 1200XL were early on, not as a quick response to C64. Nothing done in the engineering and manufacturing of a consumer device is done quickly or in a snap response to something, it takes time to do those kind of changes.

 

As for the 600XL and 800XL, the 1200XL's compatibility problems caused the immediate sales issues and the creation of the 600XL and 800XL started very shortly afterwords to return back to the two computer high end/low end market model since 400 and 800 sales proved the format was still viable, to join the in progress more expanded higher end models (1400 and 1450XLD). Those were all supposed to hit stores in time for the Christmas season but Morgan's thirty day freeze of all projects and delay in choosing a manufacturing location assured that didn't happen. 600XL and 800XL slowly started to hit during Christmas, but not near capacity to fill all the orders, and Morgan had raised their price, which all drastically hurt sales for the season. Plus he cancelled the rest of the 1000 line (1400 and 1450XLD) among other computer related products.

[spookt]

orpheuswaking, on 13 Apr 2015 - 9:46 PM, said:

 

Greedy ... I've been looking for a reasonably priced 1064 for years

 

http://rewindgames.e...tari-1064-boxed

 

Wish they'd posted a box shot. I never saw the 1064 box even though I've owned a couple.

Edited April 15, 2015 by spookt

[Retro Rogue]

Wish they'd posted a box shot. I never saw the 1064 box even though I've owned a couple.

http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8BITS/XL/xlperipherals/1064.html

[+save2600]

 

US 600XL owners jumped to the C64? Hmm.

Yeah, crazy huh? Totally ridiculous sentiment. As if there were many 600XL owners at the time.

[+DrVenkman]

 

Your 1200XL history is also a little screwy, the 1200XL was introduced in '82 and was underway long before the C64 was out.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong (and I may be!) but I thought I had remembered and/or read that the 1200XL was "introduced" around Christmas time '82 but really not available until late winter or early spring '83, by which time it was apparent that people weren't buying them or even showing much interest, but instead were snapping up 800's as fast as possible - an actual sales surge of 800's. The 1200XL serial number thread here seems to show that many (most?) 1200XL's were made between around January - May '83, and THINK I remember that production stopped sometime in late June '83 with the announcement of the 600XL and 800XL instead. Both my 1200XL's were made in April '83, about two weeks apart.

Edited April 16, 2015 by DrVenkman

[ACML]

 

RR: "That was May 1984 when he left and that Commodore was hitting those sales, not 1983."

ACML: Not according to Jack Tramiel "When I was at Commodore we were building 400,000 C64s a month for a couple of years." Naman, Mard (September 1989). "From Atari's Oval Office An Exclusive Interview With Atari President Sam Tramiel". STart (San Francisco: Antic Publishing) 4 (2): p. 16.

ACML: According to Jack, the 400,000 a month was for a couple years which would have included all of 1983.

 

 

RR: "Your 1200XL history is also a little screwy, the 1200XL was introduced in '82 and was underway long before the C64 was out."

ACML: Not really. Volume production of the C-64 started in early 1982. The 1200XL didn't start rolling off the production line until 1983. So it was the C-64 that was well underway.

 

RR: "Likewise, the "1000" was a series of which the 1200XL was a part of (there were two versions in development). The changes in what became the 1200XL were early on, not as a quick response to C64."

ACML: My facts say the opposite. The C-64 was already out in production in 1982 and Atari had plenty of time to change course. Isn't that why the 1200XL fell far short of the "sweet sixteen"? They had to try and stop the massive market share loss with a get it out now 64K "ME TOO" computer.

 

 

RR: "Nothing done in the engineering and manufacturing of a consumer device is done quickly or in a snap response to something, it takes time to do those kind of changes."

ACML: Well then how do you explain how fast Atari pulled a 600XL and 800XL out of their rear ends in 1983 after just releasing their new flagship 1200XL? Sounds to me like a panic redesign because the 1200XL was a flop. Plus the 1200XL was still too expensive to manufacture and be competitive with the the C-64.

 

I could be all wrong, but that's my take.

 

 

Edited April 16, 2015 by ACML

[Retro Rogue]

Correct me if I'm wrong (and I may be!) but I thought I had remembered and/or read that the 1200XL was "introduced" around Christmas time '82 but really not available until late winter or early spring '83, by which time it was apparent that people weren't buying them or even showing much interest, but instead were snapping up 800's as fast as possible - an actual sales surge of 800's. The 1200XL serial number thread here seems to show that many (most?) 1200XL's were made between around January - May '83, and THINK I remember that production stopped sometime in late June '83 with the announcement of the 600XL and 800XL instead. Both my 1200XL's were made in April '83, about two weeks apart.

 

I understand the confusion. It was introduced in November/December '82 and some sources do say it first shipped in March '83. The problem with that shipping time is the600XL/800XL project started in March as well, and those started because of the 1200XL's performance and issues.

 

RR: "That was May 1984 when he left and that Commodore was hitting those sales, not 1983."

ACML: Not according to Jack Tramiel "When I was at Commodore we were building 400,000 C64s a month for a couple of years." Naman, Mard (September 1989). "From Atari's Oval Office An Exclusive Interview With Atari President Sam Tramiel". STart (San Francisco: Antic Publishing) 4 (2): p. 16.

ACML: According to Jack, the 400,000 a month was for a couple years which would have included all of 1983.

You stated that when Sam left Commodore in '83 they had those sales. He left in May '84 as stated, so that would be the period talked about for those sales. Likewise, regarding Jack's remark that was an off the cuff remark made years later, something that Jack was always known to do. You can't go by a single article that you're miscalculating from. I'm in no way stating the C64 didn't eventually become a big success. Just that your timeframe of sales based around Sam leaving was wrong.

 

RR: "Your 1200XL history is also a little screwy, the 1200XL was introduced in '82 and was underway long before the C64 was out."

ACML: Not really. Volume production of the C-64 started in early 1982. The 1200XL didn't start rolling off the production line until 1983. So it was the C-64 that was well underway.

Yes really. As stated, the series that included the 1200XL project was underway long before the C64 was shipped that August '82 or first shown in January '82. You're jumping to inaccurate conclusions based on a crossover between it and the C64 and bits and pieces that you've read. We (atarimuseum.com and ataribook.com, though some of the information on the atarimuseum page hasn't been updated to bring it in line with the book yet) actually have the internal documents, have done the direct interviews, etc. I.E. we've put in a lot of time and effort gathering these resources in order to present all this as accurately as possible to the public and to answer questions such as your original one.

 

RR: "Likewise, the "1000" was a series of which the 1200XL was a part of (there were two versions in development). The changes in what became the 1200XL were early on, not as a quick response to C64."

ACML: My facts say the opposite. The C-64 was already out in production in 1982 and Atari had plenty of time to change course. Isn't that why the 1200XL fell far short of the "sweet sixteen"? They had to try and stop the massive market share loss with a get it out now 64K "ME TOO" computer.

 

They're opinions based on loose interpretation of whatever stuff you found on the web, not "facts." The changes happened early in the development as stated, along with other changes during development because of FCC issues and what marketing had envisioned for the cost and the "closed system" aspect. And you appear to be completely unaware of what the normal product lifetime cycle is and what it takes to develop, source parts and availability cycles, tooling, manufacturing, distribution cycles and timelines, etc. It's not something that happens "just like that." The final product was the result of a long evolutionary process, not a snap change in response to another company's computer. The first sample 1200 was shipped to the FCC for RF testing on January 6, 1982.

 

 

RR: "Nothing done in the engineering and manufacturing of a consumer device is done quickly or in a snap response to something, it takes time to do those kind of changes."

ACML: Well then how do you explain how fast Atari pulled a 600XL and 800XL out of their rear ends in 1983 after just releasing their new flagship 1200XL? Sounds to me like a panic redesign because the 1200XL was a flop.

Because they were based on already completed hardware designs. Sweet16 got its project name because of the 16K version, which was joined by the 64K version (named Sweet64 though the entire project was still Sweet16). Both based off the LIZ-NY design. The 600XL and 800XL were also based off that design, and in fact the 600XL started based off that 16K version of the 1200XL. We have all the information based off logs, direct interviews with the people involved, etc. in the chapter Atari R&D: Lots Of R, But Not Much D., which covers all the computer developments across '82 to '83.

Edited April 16, 2015 by Retro Rogue