A brief history of Atari computers.<\p>
Atari entered the home-computer wars in 1979 with the release of the Atari 400 and 800 computers. Powered by the same 6502 processor as the Apple II series and the yet-to-be-released Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore 64 computers, these 8-bit Atari machines distinguished themselves with unique video and audio hardware and an advanced serial peripheral bus.
This line of machines would later be continued with the XL and XE series of computers, including the 1200, 600, and 800 XL, and the 65 and 130 XE.
Atari later folded this technology into their game systems, first with the Atari 5200 in 1982, and then again in 1987 as the Atari XE game system as a response to Nintendo's NES.
In 1984, Warner Communications sold the consumer products division of Atari to former Commodore owner Jack Tramiel, retaining the arcade division. The arcade division would later sell console versions of its games under the Tengen label.
In 1985, Atari released it's first 16-bit Atari ST series computer, the 520 and 1040 ST. Based on the same Motorola 68000 processor as Apple's Macintosh and Commodore's soon-to-be-released Amiga, it was positioned as a low-cost competitor to the Macintosh with color graphics. Utilizing a version of Digital Research's GEM windowing system (which was originally written for DOS-based PCs) and sporting built-in MIDI ports, the ST quickly became the computer of choice for budding digital musicians.
Atari would go on to release many other computers in the ST line, the Mega ST series in 1987 (with a detached keyboard), the STacy laptop in 1989 and a limited STbook in Europe only in 1991.
In the late 80's, Atari was much more popular in Europe than in the United States, despite a higher price-tag. Still, Atari's un-expandable architecture and relatively un-upgraded architecture eventually were their undoing. Despite the release of the 32-bit 68030 based TT030 in 1990 and Falcon 030 in 1993, Atari computers all but disappeared by the early nineties. However, as of this writing (2003) clones of the machines are still being built and sold in Germany under the names C-Lab Falcon, Medusa, Hades, and Milan.
In 1996, flush with $50-million in cash following a successful patent-infringement lawsuit against SEGA, but still floundering with their Jaguar video-game system, Atari sells itself to hard-disc drive maker JTS and discontinues all products. The age of Atari personal computers has ended.<\p>