My First Atari Computer: The Atari 400
A unique design with a terrible keyboard
Thanks for reading Goto 10! This is a free article, but if you want more great retro content, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Since I was getting bored with the Atari 2600, after a while I again started bugging my parents to get a real computer. This time it worked, because at some point my Dad came home with an Atari 400.
This would have been sometime in 1983 as that’s when prices for home computers started dropping significantly. I’m pretty sure my Dad got the Atari 400 at Service Merchandise, which had a great electronics department back then (I actually ended up working there for a bit when in college). I suspect the Atari 400 was on closeout as there was a price war with the Commodore VIC-20 and 64, plus newer Atari computer models had been recently announced.
At first it didn’t have BASIC, which was a separate cartridge purchase (unlike the Commodore VIC-20 and 64, which had BASIC built in). This meant I couldn’t really do much with this “computer”. If you turned it on without a cartridge it went into a “Memo Pad” mode where you could type, but that’s all it did.
Memo Pad did prove to be somewhat useful because I really had no idea how to type. The Atari 400 came with a horrible membrane keyboard so you had to press very hard on each key to get it register. It was helpful to be able to practice with it.
We did get a few cartridges for it, which means at the beginning it served as a fancy version of the Atari 2600. And it certainly was an improvement! The Atari 400 version of Donkey Kong looked amazing compared to the ugly, blocky version of Donkey Kong on the 2600.
I was excited when we did get BASIC because I could type in and run programs, initially from the Atari magazines we had. But I had no way to save them! I remember typing in programs from magazines and leaving the computer on for days so that I wouldn’t lose them. At some point we got the Atari 1010 cassette recorder which allowed me to save programs so I could reload them later.
If you’ve never used a cassette recorder with a computer, consider yourself lucky. Those things were slow and temperamental. It would take several minutes to save a program and a similar amount of time to reload them. Loading commercial games from cassette could take 10 or 15 minutes! And sometimes it wouldn’t work and you’d have to try again. You also had to carefully keep track of the tape counter so that you could position the tape properly before loading. And the TV made a horrible screeching noise while the program was loading.
Still, I was able to use the 400 to begin learning BASIC programming. In my binder of old programs, I found this BASIC program, dated January 21, 1984, that plays music from a cassette in the cassette recorder through the TV speakers.
Other Articles You Might Like
My First BASIC Programs
Our family got our first computer in 1983 (an Atari 400), but unlike most computers of the time the Atari computers did not come with BASIC built-in. So we mostly used it as a fancier version of the Atari 2600. Eventually in the late 1983, perhaps for Christmas, we got the Atari BASIC cartridge which meant I could finally type in and run actual programs.…
How I Learned to Program and the Old Blue Binder of Programming
I first became aware of programming as a thing in 1982 or so when one of my Dad’s friends brought over his Atari 800. At some point in 1983 we got our own Atari 400 with Atari BASIC. I started off by typing in programs from Atari computer magazine BASIC program listings
The Terribleness of using Cassettes for Data Storage
Who else started using computers with a cassette drive? When we got our first computer, an Atari 400, it didn’t have any way to save BASIC programs at all. I would have to leave it on for days at a time to save something I was working on. I then would hand-write it on paper to “save” it.
“I remember typing in programs from magazines and leaving the computer on for days so that I wouldn’t lose them.”…
Wow, reading that gave me a flashback to my days with an Atari 400 and no storage device as well. I left mine on for days as well.