Why did Atari make the 400 have a membrane keyboard?

[Maury Markowitz]

On 10/22/2021 at 8:11 AM, Faicuai said:

I personally cut my teeth on Atari Basic rev.A and a membrane-keyboard 400, with 16K and a totally unreliable 410... Brave times, those were...

I'm always surprised about all the hate for the 400's keyboard. I had this exact setup and I could type up a storm on it. I only saw a 800 some time later, and found the keyboard entirely "meh", I found the short throw of the keys weird after getting used to things like the VT100. Given that I'm typing this on a butterfly I think I would have quickly got used to it, but that doesn't detract from the fact that you could do the same on the 400.

 

I had a problem on my 400 I have not seen elsewhere. The glue under the control key died and the key bubbled up instead of being concave. Over time the plastic started to crack around the white line so I was very careful using it. Never caused any problems in the end, but certainly worried me.

[Faicuai]

7 hours ago, Maury Markowitz said:

I'm not sure one can call it optimized, per se.

Check this out (a vis-a-vs run of Vulcan):

 

Top is C64 Basic (originally from Microsoft and later evolved internally), and bottom is A8 with MS-Basic I / II, as contracted from Microsoft (by someone who should have been fired ON THE SPOT, from a managerial point of view):

 

 

 

Notice the overall similar distribution of execution time across the suite groups, which all conform a "signature" of the underlying Basic engine... 

 

It is interesting to see how a less capable platform (C64), which pretty much always runs slower than A8 on CPU-bound tasks, manages to extract up to 50% higher Interpreter-operations / sec, as shown on unweighted Vulcan score (110.2 vs 81.45).

 

In short: MS-Basic "evolved" vs. MS-Basic "un-evolved" (courtesy of a lousy procurement job in Atari, which should have tested and detected this horrid performance, right from the get-go)

 

I am still waiting for someone with "cojones" to type-in the test-suite on a membrane-keyboard A400 (!) ? 

 

[_The Doctor__]

just list it and then enter it... no need to type

LIST "C:"

ENTER "C:"

 

the results for MS BASIC 1 versus MSBASIC II shouldn't be exactly the same... might want to check the manual and see what options allow for better execution as well.

 

 

Edited October 27, 2021 by _The Doctor__

[Robert Cook]

On 10/26/2021 at 11:02 AM, Maury Markowitz said:

I'm always surprised about all the hate for the 400's keyboard. I had this exact setup and I could type up a storm on it.

Who knows, if things had gone differently for the rest of us, and we had ended up with a 400 to start with, then we might have similarly adapted, despite our thinking to the contrary.

 

On 10/26/2021 at 11:02 AM, Maury Markowitz said:

I only saw a 800 some time later, and found the keyboard entirely "meh", I found the short throw of the keys weird after getting used to things like the VT100. Given that I'm typing this on a butterfly I think I would have quickly got used to it, but that doesn't detract from the fact that you could do the same on the 400.

OK, point taken.  Perhaps we all underestimate the practicality of the 400's keyboard (once we've adapted).  Honestly, can you blame us, though?

 

On 10/26/2021 at 11:02 AM, Maury Markowitz said:

I had a problem on my 400 I have not seen elsewhere. The glue under the control key died and the key bubbled up instead of being concave. Over time the plastic started to crack around the white line so I was very careful using it. Never caused any problems in the end, but certainly worried me.

Yikes!  I'd help if I knew how, but I don't own a 400.  I've brought several computers back to life (including a C128 that was filled with dirt and dead insects--amazingly only one ROM chip and some capacitors were really dead), but a problem like you're describing can be tricky because gluing things (especially plastics) usually is.  The membrane probably cracked because it was being repeatedly flexed farther than it was designed to be.  If a gap opened up, then I might try to experiment with injecting tiny amounts of glue underneath, but it's risky, and I'd probably be too chicken unless I had a completely wrecked 400 keyboard to experiment with first.

 

On 10/26/2021 at 5:00 PM, Faicuai said:

It is interesting to see how a less capable platform (C64),

Not from my point of view as an assembly language programmer of both--I can very easily get either to do things the other can't do or can't do as well.  But yes, concerning the CPU specifically, the Atari is faster by about 15-20% if something with decent resolution is being displayed on both, and by about 75% if the video output is turned off on both.  I could come up with more precise numbers if I were to count all of the available cycles, but it varies a bit anyway, and this is a pretty decent estimate.

 

On 10/26/2021 at 5:00 PM, Faicuai said:

In short: MS-Basic "evolved" vs. MS-Basic "un-evolved" (courtesy of a lousy procurement job in Atari, which should have tested and detected this horrid performance, right from the get-go)

Similarly, perhaps(?), CBM BASIC 3.5 (on the TED series, e.g. the Plus/4) and 7.0 (on the C128), which are both based on MS BASIC and heavily modified by Commodore, run significantly slower than version 2.0 on the C64.  Tested with a simple FOR-NEXT loop on VICE (accurate enough, as I've verified on real equipment in the past), the Plus/4 takes about 43% longer to finish, while the C128 in slow mode (to use the VIC-II) takes another 4% longer on top of that.  I had been led to believe that the Plus/4, with its 1.79 MHz CPU, supposedly operated similarly to the Atari (that's what I've been told, and I've never used one outside of retail outlets and emulators), but unless BASIC 7.0 is faster than BASIC 3.5 (which is possible), it's only 4% faster than the C128 in slow mode (1 MHz and operates like the C64).  Anyway, that's a big difference from 2.0 on the C64, and although I'm not that familiar with the development of these newer versions of CBM BASIC, it sure seems that they are probably based on less-well-optimized, later versions of MS BASIC.

 

On 10/19/2021 at 9:52 AM, oracle_jedi said:

It does not support IF..THEN..ELSE.

Wait a minute, neither does Atari BASIC.

 

On 10/19/2021 at 9:52 AM, oracle_jedi said:

It is why Microsoft released 12K Extended BASIC, and many home computer manufacturers (e.g. Tandy, Dragon, Oric) used 12K BASIC or 16K BASIC as those dialects included a more comprehensive implementation.   Commodore could have delivered a more comprehensive implementation - and indeed they did on the PET (CBM BASIC 4.0), the C16/Plus (CBM BASIC 3.5) and the C128 (BASIC V7) -  but on the VIC20 and C64 we got stripped down bare bones BASIC 2.0 because Jack wanted to keep the costs low.

And now we've discovered that CBM BASICs 3.5 and 7.0 are much slower than 2.0 (on the VIC-20 and C64).  But CBM BASIC 4.0 on later PETs is about the same speed as the original BASIC on the earliest PET and BASIC 2.0.  Perhaps 4.0 was upgraded by Commodore while the 3.5 and 7.0 versions were first upgraded to later versions of MS BASIC before they were modified for their specific platforms.

 

Maybe not everyone thought the speed of BASIC interpreters really mattered.  It's like picking which snail will win the race.

[Robert Cook]

On 10/19/2021 at 9:52 AM, oracle_jedi said:

The VIC was a toy.  Its very development codename was "TOI".

Well, PET was another "cute" name used by Chuck Peddle of MOS, but it didn't mean he didn't take these projects seriously.  The VIC-20 project came out of several projects that evolved over time, or we could consider it Jack Tramiel's final word on the next project, meaning that TOI and the other designs (e.g. Bob Yannes' design) were actually canceled.  It depends on one's point of view.  In any case, "TOI" wasn't intended as some kind of disparaging name or even a relevant name at all.  Originally, the TOI project (which supposedly stands for "The Other Intellect", much like how "PET" supposedly stands for "Professional Electronic Transactor") was to be an advanced PET with both 80 columns and color.  But Tramiel decided to corner the low, low end of the market first instead, so they took a MOS video chip that no one wanted (the original VIC) and combined it with a 6502 (of course) and the large inventory of excess static RAM chips they had on hand (probably from the calculator business that Commodore was in the process of exiting at the time) to quickly develop the VIC-20.  A standard mechanical keyboard was included because it was considered a computer first and a game console second (for which an Atari-compatible joystick port was included).

 

Yeah, it's kind of a toy as a computer, but that's not what "TOI", which originally referred to an entirely different design, meant.  The VIC-20 was a serious stab at the low end of the market that did end up changing the industry, and this would not have been so soon forgotten if it weren't for the C64 totally overshadowing it.  Speaking of which, unlike the VIC-20, the C64 did originally have a membrane keyboard (suspiciously similar to the Atari 400's) as the MAX or Ultimax game console.  That was kind of the rule, at least for Atari and Commodore: computers got mechanical keyboards while game consoles got membrane keyboards (if they had any at all).  The MAX/Ultimax, which was released in Japan first, failed immediately, and this might well have been because of the VIC-20.  Commodore's marketing of the VIC-20 as a "friendly" computer that was priced like a game console but could do so much more was devastatingly effective in the US, as well (thanks in part to William "I've really [if barely] been to space now and Takei is so jealous!" Shatner), so Commodore quickly decided to develop the MAX, with its VIC-II and SID chipset, into the C64, and the rest is history that most people actually remember (this one-two punch, in combination with Atari's mistakes with the 2600 and 5200, and other factors, led to the collapse of the video game market in late 1983).

 

On 10/19/2021 at 9:52 AM, oracle_jedi said:

The Atari 400 was a games machine with aspirations of being more.

The Atari 400 was, to my knowledge, intended as a game console with some kind of keyboard, much like the Magnavox Odyssey 2, for example.  Meanwhile, the 800 was meant to be a computer that happened to be good at games and was based on the same architecture.  Both seemed to sell reasonably well, but I have to wonder whether there was some confusion on the part of marketing and/or consumers.  I simply view the Atari 400 as a cost-reduced version of the 800, with both of them being computers, but maybe it wasn't as clear to everyone, and the type of keyboard it has wouldn't have helped.  Or maybe that's what everyone thought and Atari's marketing took the wrong angle on it.  Who knows at this point?  The message that everyone seemed to get, whether it was deserved or not, was from Commodore that "You don't want just a game console, you want a computer, and our VIC-20 is really inexpensive and has a real keyboard!"  I think that made some serious inroads into non-technical people considering the purchase of a personal or "home" computer.

 

On 10/19/2021 at 9:52 AM, oracle_jedi said:

Neither was a sensible choice for anyone wanting to learn programming.

But either was better than nothing, and they were less expensive than the alternatives, especially the VIC-20, which started showing up in Kmarts and toy (TOI?) stores.  Even if the latter implies that they weren't viewed as serious computers, another serious step was taken in bringing computers into more homes, which really opened up the market (in part, taking it away from game consoles for a while).

[Maury Markowitz]

12 hours ago, Robert Cook said:

CBM BASIC 3.5 (on the TED series, e.g. the Plus/4) and 7.0 (on the C128), which are both based on MS BASIC and heavily modified by Commodore, run significantly slower than version 2.0 on the C64.

Is there any indication of why?

 

From an overview, it seems there are few differences between 2.x and 7.x in overall design. It would appear at first glance they still both use the same chunker/tokenizer, and I can't imagine they removed the basic speedups, so I can't think why this might be.

 

The problems in Atari BASIC are well documented, but I can't seem to find anything similar concerning the CBM versions.

[zzip]

12 hours ago, Robert Cook said:

The Atari 400 was, to my knowledge, intended as a game console with some kind of keyboard, much like the Magnavox Odyssey 2, for example.  Meanwhile, the 800 was meant to be a computer that happened to be good at games and was based on the same architecture.  Both seemed to sell reasonably well, but I have to wonder whether there was some confusion on the part of marketing and/or consumers.  I simply view the Atari 400 as a cost-reduced version of the 800, with both of them being computers, but maybe it wasn't as clear to everyone, and the type of keyboard it has wouldn't have helped.  Or maybe that's what everyone thought and Atari's marketing took the wrong angle on it.  Who knows at this point?  The message that everyone seemed to get, whether it was deserved or not, was from Commodore that "You don't want just a game console, you want a computer, and our VIC-20 is really inexpensive and has a real keyboard!"  I think that made some serious inroads into non-technical people considering the purchase of a personal or "home" computer.

I don't think the 400 was marketed as a games console.   You would see it in the computer section of stores and catalogs, not in the game section.   It might be interesting if Atari had pushed it as a games console,  but I suspect it was always a bit too expensive for that.

 

By the time I was looking for a computer (83) so many of the low-end computers had "real" keyboards that I just wouldn't consider getting anything that had a membrane or chiclet keyboard.  They just didn't seem like serious computers to me or something.    Funny though, in 2021 chiclet keyboards are quite popular, considered "cool" even, so what did I know?  ?    But I don't expect membrane keyboards to make a similar comeback ?

[hwrd]

In '85, a friend loaned me his 400 and modem to connect to the university system to type in my assignments.

The 400 keyboard was definitely inferior to the school terminals, and the tv showed a fuzzy'ish 40 column versus the 80 column terminal monitor, but I was at home, at night in my pyjamas typing at good speed.

 

During the day, there would be terminals available at the university, but too many people on the one system, so it crawled.

It was a nine+ kilometre bus ride or walk to get home, so the 400 was a godsend.

 

My point is that 400 (keyboard and all) could have its uses in a wider context at times.

?

 

[mimo]

Well I still like the 400 keyboard.

It was a big improvement over our previous ZX81 when we were growing up.

Shure it wasn't the best keyboard in the world, but my mum could type in basic programs for us in record speed. She was a touch typist for many years and didn't mind the 400 keyboard

[drpeter]

On 11/16/2021 at 3:07 PM, zzip said:

I don't think the 400 was marketed as a games console.   You would see it in the computer section of stores and catalogs, not in the game section.   It might be interesting if Atari had pushed it as a games console,  but I suspect it was always a bit too expensive for that.

The corporate history of the 400 and its keyboard is well documented and mentioned in previous posts.

 

In a nutshell, the original design concept was for a keyboardless games console with 4K RAM, but when executives realised that the newly-demonstrated Star Raiders game would be a killer app for the 400, but needed a keyboard and 8K RAM, these became part of the design spec.

 

The knock-on effect of those changes was that the 400 could be effectively marketed as a capable general-purpose home computer with emphases on educational packages, programming and gaming.

Edited November 17, 2021 by drpeter

[Faicuai]

On 11/17/2021 at 10:41 AM, drpeter said:

The knock-on effect of those changes was that the 400 could be effectively marketed as a capable general-purpose home computer with emphases on educational packages, programming and gaming.

EXACTLY the reason why I got it as a present, instead of the bad-ass 800 which was "love" at first sight... ?

 

Still have my original 400 sales receipt, including the 410 which made me feel I was being punished arbitrarily...  But that's how I cut my teeth to begin with... and boy, did I type my soul in through that stiff, strange-haptics keyboard... ?

[Robert Cook]

On 11/16/2021 at 6:31 AM, Maury Markowitz said:

Is there any indication of why?

None that I know of in terms of history or inside knowledge.  One potential factor, which I've already mentioned, is possibly being based on newer, slower versions of MS BASIC (with Commodore-specific features back-ported as well as added).  One possible clue is that 3.5 and 7.0 both have ELSE, while 4.0 does not.  Why MS BASIC slowed down so much (it did, according to data in this thread) would still be a mystery, however.  Another potential factor is that both 3.5 and 7.0 do a lot of bank-switching and maybe even some additional CPU "gymnastics" to utilize the RAM "under" the BASIC and KERNAL (sic) ROMs.  Neither 2.0 nor 4.0 do this, they don't have ELSE (i.e. are based on older, stripped-down MS BASIC), and they're both significantly faster than 3.5 and 7.0, all else being equal.

 

On 11/16/2021 at 6:31 AM, Maury Markowitz said:

From an overview, it seems there are few differences between 2.x and 7.x in overall design. It would appear at first glance they still both use the same chunker/tokenizer, and I can't imagine they removed the basic speedups, so I can't think why this might be.

They use the same single-byte tokens for the keywords they have in common, additional frequently used keywords use the leftover single-byte values, and the remaining keywords that don't fit get extended two-byte tokens (escaped as: $FE + new token value).

 

On 11/16/2021 at 6:31 AM, Maury Markowitz said:

The problems in Atari BASIC are well documented, but I can't seem to find anything similar concerning the CBM versions.

The known bugs and quirks in Commodore BASICs tend to involve boundary conditions in the editor, which can be avoided or worked around.  There are some very obscure ones concerning program execution, such as the string garbage collection bug, but they rarely cause noticeable problems, and only do so under the most extreme circumstances.  Overall, Commodore BASICs as distributed tend to be relatively solid, and the obscure bugs were not well known, if at all, back in the day.  The kind of Commodore bug that everyone knows about is the slow disk access of the C64 out of the box.  Yes, this could be considered a bug, as the data transfer rate was always intended to be much, much higher, and the whole story behind that debacle is long and off-topic.  Note that software alone is able to fix that problem, which kind of says it all.

 

It's not like the major bugs in Rev. A of Atari BASIC, or the strange new Rev. B bug that kept growing the file size of BASIC programs with a bunch of extraneous bytes on every save.  Those are well known, and everyone should know that Rev. C is the version to use.  Commodore BASICs are more of a mystery in some ways, but they work pretty well and generally weren't patched once released (only changed between different computer models).

 

On 11/16/2021 at 7:07 AM, zzip said:

I don't think the 400 was marketed as a games console.   You would see it in the computer section of stores and catalogs, not in the game section.   It might be interesting if Atari had pushed it as a games console,  but I suspect it was always a bit too expensive for that.

My general point was that there seemed to be some confusion on the part of the marketers and/or consumers.  Without a doubt, the original intention was for the 400 to be a game console with a keyboard, because the idea is that you need a mechanical keyboard similar to that of a typewriter in order to get any "real" work done.  Maybe that's not strictly, factually true, but it does impact perception, and I think the VIC-20's mechanical keyboard gave it an advantage in an evolving market.  I mean, the C64 flopped as a game console, despite being far more powerful than the VIC-20, while in terms of sales it became a world-beater with a "real" keyboard (and a rapidly falling price point).  The right product "positioning" can be as important as having the right timing.

 

On 11/16/2021 at 7:07 AM, zzip said:

By the time I was looking for a computer (83) so many of the low-end computers had "real" keyboards that I just wouldn't consider getting anything that had a membrane or chiclet keyboard.  They just didn't seem like serious computers to me or something.

That's exactly what I'm saying.  Even as a 6-year-old child when the Atari 400 and 800 were released, the one I wanted was the 800.  I knew they worked alike on the inside, but I had trouble taking the 400 seriously as a computer, which was how I remember it being sold, primarily.  Price was also an issue, of course, but in the US, the Timex Sinclair 1000 (almost identical to the ZX81, and released in 1982) had the lowest price, but people still didn't take it seriously, and it didn't sell well (most were probably purchased to cash in on Commodore's competitor trade-in rebate, which was double the retail price of the TS1000!).  For some reason, the ZX Spectrum with its Chiclet keyboard was crazy-popular in the UK, but that didn't happen in the US.  I guess Americans had more disposable income and/or were more snobbish about computers, I don't know.

 

On 11/16/2021 at 7:07 AM, zzip said:

Funny though, in 2021 chiclet keyboards are quite popular, considered "cool" even, so what did I know?  ?    But I don't expect membrane keyboards to make a similar comeback ?

Well, I'm sure you know this (and was being facetious), but today's Chiclet-style keyboards (I'm typing on one right now on my laptop) are far more functional and usable than the vintage varieties.  They are also more sophisticated in construction and, if all else were equal, would have cost a lot more back in the day, when reduced cost was the main reason for their existence (today it's about compactness and/or aesthetics instead).  I wonder if someday vintage computers with membrane or Chiclet keyboards will demand a premium for the nostalgia value.

[zzip]

On 11/20/2021 at 5:26 PM, Robert Cook said:

That's exactly what I'm saying.  Even as a 6-year-old child when the Atari 400 and 800 were released, the one I wanted was the 800.  I knew they worked alike on the inside, but I had trouble taking the 400 seriously as a computer, which was how I remember it being sold, primarily.  Price was also an issue, of course, but in the US, the Timex Sinclair 1000 (almost identical to the ZX81, and released in 1982) had the lowest price, but people still didn't take it seriously, and it didn't sell well (most were probably purchased to cash in on Commodore's competitor trade-in rebate, which was double the retail price of the TS1000!).  For some reason, the ZX Spectrum with its Chiclet keyboard was crazy-popular in the UK, but that didn't happen in the US.  I guess Americans had more disposable income and/or were more snobbish about computers, I don't know.

Maybe partly that, but also that things were not so globalized back then.   Clive Sinclair may have been famous in the UK, but he was virtually unknown in the US.  Here people recognized Timex from the watches,  Sinclair not so much.   Sure the price was great, but what software would it run?  What software did it run?  What software was even on the shelves for it?  I can't remember seeing any.    I think consumers in both countries bought familiar brands.   In UK  BBC and Sinclair,  in US Apple, Atari, IBM, Commodore.

 

For me when I wanted a computer, it was around 1983.  This was during the early 80s recession and my father was out of work, so we didn't have much disposable income,  given that I was looking at all the options for for what we could get for say under $200 and looking to get the best one we could.   And at first it seemed like a game of trade-offs.   Real keyboard but limited other features, membrane keyboard but with better features.  The 600XL came out just in time.  Real-keyboard, 16K but expandable.   If money hadn't been so tight at the time, I suppose I would have joined the masses and gotten the C64.

 

On 11/20/2021 at 5:26 PM, Robert Cook said:

My general point was that there seemed to be some confusion on the part of the marketers and/or consumers.  Without a doubt, the original intention was for the 400 to be a game console with a keyboard

Yeah I know that the original intent was to be the 2600 successor, but marketing must have changed its mind somewhere along the line.   Too bad because the 400 would have had a nice head start over the 5200 without all the issues.

[desiv]

On 11/20/2021 at 2:26 PM, Robert Cook said:

For some reason, the ZX Spectrum with its Chiclet keyboard was crazy-popular in the UK, but that didn't happen in the US.  I guess Americans had more disposable income and/or were more snobbish about computers, I don't know.

It would have been interesting if the original ZX Spectrum had been released earlier (rather than taking some time to redesign for the TS2068), if it might have gotten any traction.  But, as it was, it didn't hit the US until Nov 1983 at around $200.

 

By then, the C64 price was dropping like crazy.  "In June 1983, Commodore slashed the Commodore 64 to $299, and some retailers sold it for as little as $199."  

So, by the time the US Spectrum (TS2068) was released, it was 48k vs 64k, chicklet keyboard vs "real" keyboard, and around $200 vs around $200.  So just based on disposable income, still made sense to go with Commodore.

Not sure about the "snobbish" comment...  We're not talking Apple here...

 

 

[drpeter]

On 11/20/2021 at 10:26 PM, Robert Cook said:

For some reason, the ZX Spectrum with its Chiclet keyboard was crazy-popular in the UK

The reason was substantially price.  At the time of launch in the UK, a 16K Spectrum was £125, while a 16K Atari 400 was £299 and a 16K Atari 800 was £599.  The 5K VIC-20 was £199. When the Commodore 64 appeared later in the year, it was £345, twice the price of a 48K Spectrum. A 16K BBC was £299.

Edited November 29, 2021 by drpeter

[desiv]

Just a follow up to this one a bit.

At the time of the thread, I had JUST gotten my Atari 400 and hadn't used it (or it's keyboard) that much.

 

Recently with The 400 Mini discussions/videos, I've seen a lot of people slamming the original 400 keyboard...

And I don't get that...

Yes, it's not as nice as the 800 Keyboard was (I'm sure, haven't used it), but that's kind of obvious as the 400 was much less expensive.

 

But the more I've used the 400 keyboard, the more I don't mind it at all...

 

I have a TS1000 with it's membrane keyboard.

I have an Aquarius with it's chicklet keyboard.

I have an Odyssey II with it's membrane keyboard (and I had an O2 back in the day).

 

I'd rate the 400 keyboard above all of those.

For smaller BASIC programs and limited typing, I think it's fine.  And to keep the price down, I think it was absolutely the right choice.

 

I see the Atari vs CBM emotions haven't died either.  Tho to be fair, this is AtariAge, so I'm not surprised... 

 

Personally, I had a Vic-20 back in the day as my first computer.  And I loved it and it got me on my start in IT (and I am about a year away from retirement now). 

 

I think people sometimes forget the price differences.  ( I know they know them, but they don't always factor that in as much as I think they should)

 

When we got the Vic-20, it was after a price drop.  It was much less expensive than the 400.

The Vic wasn't a real competitor for the 400 spec wise, but remember...

The 400 was a scaled down Atari 800 (which was, in my mind, the best home computer on the market at the time).

The Vic was NOT a scaled down C64.  (There was no C64 yet.)

The Vic was built as a low (as low as possible) cost computer.  The 400 was a low cost version of the Atari 800.

As a result, the 400 was a better machine.   No question. 

But also as a result, it costs more than the Vic.  Sometimes (depending on price cuts) about twice as much.

 

I wanted an Atari 800, but there was no way my family could afford one.  Even the 400 was out of the realm of acquisition for us at the time.

I did ask for a US ZX81 kit, but as I didn't even have a soldering iron at the time, my parents wisely refused.

But when the Vic price dropped, they were able to do that.

As for the BASIC discussion, I did a fair amount of BASIC on my Vic, and it was fine.

A huge advantage was the manual that came with the Vic.  That was a great manual and made getting into programming really fun and easy
(And also BASIC came with the Vic-20.  It was an additional cost for the 400.  For some of us, that was important.).

And even with it's limitations, it was a great first machine for me.

 

But, if timing had been different and they got me a 400 after it's price drop, I would have had one of them and been totally happy there too.

 

Both great machines for their markets.

 

And now that I have a 400 and have used it, I can say that the membrane keyboard it has is totally fine.

I really like it.

I'm sure many people got the 400 because they couldn't afford the 800.  That's why it had a membrane keyboard.

And I think that's a great reason.

 

(I do wonder if Atari had been more aggressive with trying to keep the prices down, if the Ataris would have kept Commodore at bay...  But that's one of those what if discussions.)

[rdefabri]

I purchased my 400 around 1981 with my own money.  Wasn't cheap but over time, I upgraded it to 48K, GTIA, etc.

 

Typed in plenty of code, essays, homework, etc. with no issue whatsoever.  As I am in Marketing today, I create a lot of copy and content, and I can type as fast as anyone.  I entered high school already typing pretty fast (typing was a required course then), all from the 400 membrane.

 

It was a vastly superior computer to almost anything other than arguably the C64 when it arrived.  I never needed an extra slot for expansion, and although I'd love an 800 (great keyboard), my 400 is still in my ownership and still works.

 

I was around 11 when I purchased mine, so I never had "keyboard envy" until I got a little older.  By that time, I learned to just deal with it - it was plenty fine for the time.

Edited January 31 by rdefabri

[zzip]

Sometimes in those days "market research" was copying what your copying what the competition was doing, whether it was a good idea or not.   That's how CV and 5200 end up with unergonomic pin pad controllers

 

I believe the thinking at Atari was the Atari 400 was going to be positioned as a game console,  the Odyssey 2 just released the year before and they may have been inspired by its membrane keyboard?

[+Stephen]

3 hours ago, zzip said:

Sometimes in those days "market research" was copying what your copying what the competition was doing, whether it was a good idea or not.   That's how CV and 5200 end up with unergonomic pin pad controllers

 

I believe the thinking at Atari was the Atari 400 was going to be positioned as a game console,  the Odyssey 2 just released the year before and they may have been inspired by its membrane keyboard?

I've heard it said that yes, the 400 was considered as a games machine, and it was because of Star Raiders the cheap keyboard was included.  I have NO idea if this was true or conjecture many years after the fact.

[+MrFish]

On 10/29/2020 at 12:23 PM, drpeter said:

On the other hand, that the essential 800 design was able to endure pretty much unchanged for 13 years in production, and leaves a legacy to this day, is undeniable testament to its brilliance.

This and the fact that we're left with a bunch of different models with styles from 3 different eras to choose from, when we want to go out and buy one. In fact, most want to own a lot (or all) of them.

 

[+MrFish]

On 10/29/2020 at 1:59 AM, Gunstar said:

I think it's the best 8-bit ever.

I know it's preaching to the choir here, but I really think it is the best 8-bit machine. I've looked at all the others closely over the last 20 years, and I really can't find one that's a better overall machine. The Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC are both great machines and the best contenders for top 8-bit.

 

[Gunstar]

1 hour ago, MrFish said:

I know it's preaching to the choir here, but I really think it is the best 8-bit machine. I've looked at all the others closely over the last 20 years, and I really can't find one that's a better overall machine. The Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC are both great machines and the best contenders for top 8-bit.

 

Over the last 5 or so years I've been looking for some other 8-bit brand alternatives that could come close to my expectations I've grown used to from my 

Atari 8-bit. And I too found very few other 8-bits that I'd actually use by not falling too short of my standards set by the A8 line. The C64, of course, fits my criteria. Other than it, I found only the Amstrad CPC and the other 8-bit I did acquire instead of a C64, due to the high prices original C64's and peripherals are going for these days (regardless of being the most common 8-bit of all time!). What I ended up with as my second 8-bit is the RadioShack Coco 2 (with upgrades). I do now have a third 8-bit computer too, though it isn't as powerful as the Atari or Coco 2, I built it myself from ancient vaporware schematics, which is an upgraded Bally Arcade to a full-fledged 32K computer.  

 

I have blogs I started, but have yet to finish on both of my other 8-bits: 

 

 

Though I haven't finished the blog for the Bally Arcade, I do have photos of the finished machine not yet in the blog:

 

 

[Geister]

I got my 400 early, but after much research on what was available.  If the C64 had been available at the time and at the prices it later sold for, I might have owned a C64 before I owned an Atari.  I was in my mid-20's at the time and there was no such thing as computer classes when I was in school.  I was making a living as a mechanic and wanted a computer because I was a huge sci-fi nerd. I just didn't have the money for a maxed out computer and an acquaintance had just bought a 400 computer.  I saw Star Raiders and I was hooked so I went out ang bought one.  I got the Entertainer package with Missile Command and Star Raiders (This was before the Entertainer package had Pac-Man.)  I later got the Programmer Package to get Basic.

 

I didn't think much about it at the time, but I didn't much mind the keyboard.  It kept the price in my range and typing program listings on that keyboard got me a lot of software and taught me programming as well...I had to fix so many listings!

 

I have to beg to differ about Atari's membrane keyboard.  As they went it was the best available at the time like much of the engineering Atari put into their machines.  I learned this later working on Gas Cabinets for Air Products and Chemicals.  We were building explosion-proof gas cabinets and we weren't going to put mechanical keyboards in the control heads.  We spec'ed membrane keyboards and they were the same quality as the ones Atari used but instead of a circuit board backing, we used adhesive backed multi-layered designs that were applied directly to the steel cabinet.  We spent for the raised key ridges and tactile feed back (we even copied the key beep so our customers knew they made the keypress).  Our cabinets were going into fabs at Intel, AMD, Bell Labs, and TI, and they were going to contain etching gases that were poisonous at parts per million, and explosive in contact with oxygen.  we put a lot of research into those keyboards and believe me, like everything else Atari built back in the day, their keyboards were NOT cheap trash.  They were at least as good and probably better than the keyboard Commodore designed for the MAX.  I know they were better than any other membrane keyboard on the market at the time.

 

Atari's PR about sticky fingers and soda spill may have been just schlocky PR hackery, but they made sure you weren't going to wreck your expensive 400 with a little soda spill.  I learned how to program on that keyboard and it got me the job where I was helping to design gas cabinets, laboratory and plant automation equipment and so much more.  Having said that, I replaced that old keyboard as soon as I could afford the B-Key replacement keyboard and I still have that 400 and keyboard to this day.  If I had bought any other computer (including a VIC-20) I would have traded up and out of it in a year.

 

The only other computers I would have considered came much later and I was already convinced the Atari had the most bang for the buck at the time.

[Arnuphis]

Vic-20 Price at launch $299

Atari 400 price $549.

 

So at almost half the price you got a computer with a real keyboard. a bit less memory and a smaller display. But still a great machine with sound and color and loads of software and peripherals. So even though the 400 was a better machine in some areas the VIC killed it on price which was important to consumers. That is why I ended up with one and not an Atari when my parents went to the computer store. I feel the VIC deserves praise for making the market competitive and bringing down the prices for all future machines. It's the machine that changed my life and got me into a computing career. I would still take one over a 400 anyday. Membrane keyboards just suck. But I would never take a VIC over an 800. No sir no. The 800 was the best 8 bit home computer until probably the BBC or C128 or 800XL. If only the 800 had been the price of the 400 at that time. I may have been able to get that instead as it was clearly vastly superior. Then I would be posting with maybe a different bias. 

[Geister]

36 minutes ago, Arnuphis said:

Vic-20 Price at launch $299

Atari 400 price $549.

 

So at almost half the price you got a computer with a real keyboard. a bit less memory and a smaller display. But still a great machine with sound and color and loads of software and peripherals. So even though the 400 was a better machine in some areas the VIC killed it on price which was important to consumers. That is why I ended up with one and not an Atari when my parents went to the computer store. I feel the VIC deserves praise for making the market competitive and bringing down the prices for all future machines. It's the machine that changed my life and got me into a computing career. I would still take one over a 400 anyday. Membrane keyboards just suck. But I would never take a VIC over an 800. No sir no. The 800 was the best 8 bit home computer until probably the BBC or C128 or 800XL. If only the 800 had been the price of the 400 at that time. I may have been able to get that instead as it was clearly vastly superior. Then I would be posting with maybe a different bias. 

Having weighted the options between the VIC and the Atari, I felt the benefits of the Atari were worth the difference in price.  I was spending my money, not Mommy and Daddy's cash.  Plus, seller's at mainstream computer stores were already discounting the Atari just to clear the shelves.  They didn't want to compete with mom and pop computer stores and Sears.  I got my 400 at a deep discount.  I wanted the extra memory, the extra screen area, and the keyboard was just a keyboard.  I later upgraded the memory to 48K and the keyboard to a full-stroke keyboard and had 9/10th's of an 800 at half the price.

A VIC with 3K of memory wasn't the deal you think it was, but everybody has fond memories of their first.

 

Commodore succeeded on price alone.  The specs never stood up to Atari's quality.  Even the cost reduced Atari versions were still better built than the C64 (until some dude named Tramiel did the cost cutting).

Edited February 1 by Geister
fixing horrible, horrible spelling and grammar.