Earliest Atari 400/800 ads?

[Schnurrikowski]

While doing some research I stumbled across two ads for Atari 400 and 800 published in Interface Age ... from May (!) 1979. Although the design looks final there are some minor differences. Are there any older ads?

 

[gilsaluki]

Thanks for posting that.  It really is kind of innocent and shows off the product very well.  I can see people getting excited by that add.  Notice there are no prices displayed.  That would have shocked parents.  The price of the 800 set up would have bought a really nice used car for their teenage kids. 

[StickJock]

Interesting.  The 410s look like they are different colors in the two pictures.  The ATARI is hollow & the 800 is solid, which is the opposite of how they ended up being.  The joystick panel is dark instead of case colored.  The SIO cables look really thin, and have strain reliefs at the plug.  Also, they should have swapped the positioning of the 810+820 & the 410 - as shown, you can't insert disks in the drive!  (But that may have blocked the view of the TV screen, which is probably too close to the floppy drive anyway!).

 

Notice also the disclaimers at the bottom that they product has not been approved yet by the FCC, and cannot be offered for sale until approval.  This likely prevented them from putting the price in the ad.

 

Neat stuff, though.  I remember seeing other old ads that really promoted the expandability of the 800, both RAM *and* ROM (personality board), so it would "never" be outdated.

 

 

Edit:  Hey!  My 500th post!  WooHoo!  ?

Edited February 12, 2021 by StickJock
500th post!

[Schnurrikowski]

The FCC approval was in August.

Edited February 12, 2021 by Schnurrikowski

[+kheller2]

Interesting.. the Atari 400 is listed last model C7000.

 

[+hunmanik]

These same ads had previously appeared on pp. 54-55 of Merchandising, vol. 4, no. 1, January 1979.

[Rybags]

The lighting isn't very good for the photo which I suspect is causing the darkness in the controller jack cover.

 

It's hard to tell but 400 and 800 lettering looks solid whereas most production units are outlined and we've had pictures of a solid 2-tone (brown and orange?) which are assumed to be very early or preproduction models.

 

Also note the text on the monitor - that font doesn't look like ours, I suspect probably an Apple II provided a mockup screen.

Edited February 13, 2021 by Rybags

[Rybags]

For easier reference...

 

[+DrVenkman]

A friend of mine got volunteered a couple years ago to help clean out a neighbor's hobby stuff. The elderly lady's husband had passed and she was trying to clean up and get rid of stuff in the basement. Most of his stuff was cool vintage Heathkit and Zenith/Heathkit Z80 CP/M stuff from the late 70's. Far too heavy and fragile to ship or I would have snapped it up. Anyway, the guy also had a filing cabinet full of interesting vintage computer ads and brochures from the local electronics stores of the era. He had these ads, or a version of them, in some small Atari brochures. My pal stuck those into an envelope and sent them to me, as he knows I'm an Atari guy. 

[+gnusto]

Did anybody see that 410 in production? I was familiar with at least a couple of models personally, but I've never seen that one. Mine would have been right from 1980-1981 (the squarish one and the one with all black control keys).

[Rybags]

For comparison, pic of a close looking 410 model.  But I'm just about sure I've seen a pic before of one with the retractable handle like the ad has.

 

 

[bfollowell]

^ This is what my original 410 from about 1982 looked like. It was all I had until I purchased my first disk drive, a Rana 1000 about a year later.

 

12 hours ago, gilsaluki said:

The price of the 800 set up would have bought a really nice used car for their teenage kids.

 

 

I found your comment pretty amusing. It hit pretty close to home. I went in halves with one of my dad's friends when I was 16 and raised my own small tobacco crop that summer. He expected the proceeds to go toward my first car. Instead, it went to purchase my Atari 800 and 410!

 

Edited February 13, 2021 by bfollowell

[Mark2008]

18 minutes ago, bfollowell said:

^ This is what my original 410 from about 1982 looked like. It was all I had until I purchased my first disk drive, a Rana 1000 about a year later.

 

 

I found your comment pretty amusing. It hit pretty close to home. I went in halves with one of my dad's friends when I was 16 and raised my own small tobacco crop that summer. He expected the proceeds to go toward my first car. Instead, it went to purchase my Atari 800 and 410!

 

My first computer was an Atari 400, I bought it from Sears and it had been a display model.   It came with nothing. No basic, no cassette drive.  And it literally did nothing.  I wish I could turn that into a positive, but it really was truly useless.  I did miss the "expensive" era of Atari computing, only I was so dirt poor, so lets just say it was expensive to me.  I did buy basic cartridge after a month or two, but for  a period, I typed in or more likely ported a text game - and ran it that day, and that was it, then I switched the machine off, and started again the next day.  But over the years, like 1983-1985 I did acquire ust about everything - monitor (amdek 300a amber), disk drive (1050), modem (1030), printer (820 - I think, it was 40 column).

 

The disk drive was the big one - in order to get that, there was a nurse who was a friend of my mom, who took care of the elderly, and they often needed their lawn mowed.  But so as not to 'take advantage' of the elderly right, I had to charge unarguably "fair" rates. That was the deal, she got me business, but it had to be close to free.

 

It's humurous to think about now.  In other words, to not take advantage of the elderly child slave labor was really more appropriate.  I had to charge $5 for like 3 hours of custom yard work.  It was well below minimum wage.  But at the end of the summer I got a 1050, and my goodness, I was very happy with that purchase.

[Sikor]

2 hours ago, Rybags said:

For comparison, pic of a close looking 410 model.  But I'm just about sure I've seen a pic before of one with the retractable handle like the ad has.

@Rybags, it was three different models of Atari 410. First was made in Japan, second -  in Honghong, and model 410a in Taiwan.

But, yes, I never seen real model with red key...

One more - 1010 it also has two version.

Ok, some 410:

http://atarimuseum.com/computers/8BITS/400800/peripherals/StorageDevices/410a/index.htm

 

http://krap.pl/mirrorz/atari/www.atari-computermuseum.de/410.htm

 

[Schnurrikowski]

8 hours ago, hunmanik said:

These same ads had previously appeared on pp. 54-55 of Merchandising, vol. 4, no. 1, January 1979.

I found another early publication: Intelligent Machines Journal, Februar 7, 1979. It seems we see Atari 400 and 800 versions as presented on CES in January.

 

[ClausB]

10 hours ago, Rybags said:

 

"... so it will never become obsolete."

 

We are all proof of that!

[_The Doctor__]

That quote is exactly why liber09, incognito, ramrod, etc are all in keeping with the Atari vision. VBXE, Austin Franklin, Bit 3... Ultimate 1 meg, you name it are all a legacy of this. It's still an Atari because it was designed for this, though the expansion methods changed from cost cutting it is 100% legit to do all of it, so long as the core of the machine is still used as is it's architecture it's still an Atari the way it was intended.

 

I think Stephen will be pleased that his personal favorite spiel about supporting and doing these upgrades is fully validated here. As we've all stated, it was designed for this to be done and happen since inception!

Edited February 13, 2021 by _The Doctor__