Day in Tech History

Atari-1200XL

1982 – After a decent success of the Atari 400/800 line the company noticed the console was looking a little “old”. After all, the Atari 400 actually discolors upon UV light. The 400′s non-tactile keyboard was replaced with the 800′s raised key keyboard. Still, Atari felt they needed to bring this personal computer into the 80′s.Therefore, the 1200XL was born. It was a hybrid computer – using what they called “Sweet 16″ – a byte language developed by Steve Wozniak.  It was to manipulate 16-bit pointer data from an 8-bit system.

The Atari 1200XL also featured 64 KB of RAM and a redesigned cable port and keyboard layout. Unfortunately the community felt the 1200XL was poorly designed for certain ports were in the wrong place. There was also a color enhancement feature that couldn’t be used because it wasn’t connected to the monitor port.

The Atari 1200XL was $599.99

This Day in Tech History podcast show notes for December 13
Friends of Day in Tech History

• Charles Dickens publishes A Christmas Carol
• Cyrix files lawsuits over others who were using their patented technologies
• Symantec licenses Java from Sun Microsystems.