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Atari 800 modeled on the Selectric


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I was trying to catch up my listening of Antic podcasts - up to 2016 now! - and in passing it was mentioned that the 800 was designed to look like a Selectric. This is painfully obvious as soon as it was mentioned, but I had never made the connection before.

 

This really needs to be wiki article, does anyone have a solid ref? I couldn't find any in google books, lots of hits for ads with the 800 and the actual typewriter, but nothing connecting the two.

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I doubt there's going to be any concrete stuff still around unless its in the folders of Atari Museum somewhere. It was probably some chat at a designers meeting that probably got to memo stage. I doubt Atari would have wanted to say too much incase IBM had a swipe at them.

 

However, we live in hope.

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2 hours ago, Mclaneinc said:

incase IBM had a swipe at them

Well, they did.

 

It was more IBM's own swipe at the 800, that brought them closer to their product line:

 

6498AE73-4791-40EB-BADE-86847F5719C1.jpeg.92dc4c79abe02db5052426ca4137f868.jpeg

 

And here's the link with id: Tom Hardy's confirming the story:

 

http://forum.6502.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5256

 

So I would say, it is less of Atari and more of IBM's own work to make it really look like such...

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Faicuai
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And the mock-up picture done for a possible IBM-Atari PC deal that fell through looks even more like a selectric! EDIT: @Faicuai be me to it by a moment!?DOH!

IBM-Atari-PC.jpg

Edited by Gunstar
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1 hour ago, mimo said:
1 hour ago, doctorclu said:

Now if someone can just show me a picture of "Colleen" and "Candy", the employees that were the inspirations of for the 800 and 400.

 

 

NO!  We want the 1978 version, not the 2021 version :)

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3 hours ago, doctorclu said:

Now if someone can just show me a picture of "Colleen" and "Candy", the employees that were the inspirations of for the 800 and 400.

 

As for Colleen, my best guess would two versions:

 

 

In the hallways and front-desk:

BDC6B20A-5546-4759-B9EE-3307C1A05CC5.jpeg.c9d4ebb890d57d3fa4a2e292d03efbdc.jpeg

 

 

While working at the cube:

2507AA5B-C521-4004-A9CB-D71434974F9D.thumb.jpeg.0347d5993d654872104a427739c04bc6.jpeg

 

 

Can't yet figure out Candy, though... 

 

 

 

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Funny - I never really considered this, but when typing in BASIC, once you entered a line of a certain length, you'd get the buzzer.  Same as the bell on a typewriter before having to advance to the next line.

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On 5/12/2021 at 10:18 PM, Faicuai said:

As for Colleen, my best guess would two versions:

While working at the cube:

Can't yet figure out Candy, though... 

 

 

 

As some sources claim they were selected for being „well-endowed“ and it seems rather unlikely for that to refer to an inheritance, I suspect that you might have followed a wrong lead...

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