Atari family - ATARI 800XE

The Atari 800XE was the last 8-bit machine produced by Atari. It was almost the same machine as the 800XL with a case almost the same as the 130XE. It was only sold in East European countries, mainly Germany and Poland. The main hardawe difference with the 800XL was FREDDIE, a new memory management custom chip (also found in the 65XE) allowing to address up to 128 KB of RAM and to better share RAM area with ANTIC, the graphics chip.

The 800XE could be easily upgraded to 128 KB by adding two memory chips on board. The layout of the I/O connectors was exactly the same as the 130XE. Some games which were developed for the 130XE were compatible with the 800XE, but not backwards compatible with the 800XL.

The 800XE had a short life, it was sold for less than one year.

Image, description and specification taken with permission by

System unit	Description
Processor	MOS 6502C
Clock speed	1.79 MHz (NTSC) / 1.77 MHz (PAL)
RAM	64 KB
ROM	24 KB (16 KB for OS, 8 KB for Atari BASIC)
O.S. version(s)	XE O.S.
Built-in software	Self-Test, Atari BASIC Revision C
Colors	16 colors with 16 intensity level each
Sound	4 voices, 3.5 octaves (POKEY chip)
Text modes	Five text modes, max: 40 x 24, min: 20 x 12
Graphics modes	16 graphic modes, maximum: 320 x 192 pixels
Co-processor	GTIA (video output, sprites), POKEY (sound, I/O), ANTIC (video, display lists), FREDDY
I/O ports	Composite video output, Cardridge port (1 Adress space : 16 KB), Expansion port, SIO peripheral port (tape, disk, printer, modem), 2 x joystick connectors
Controller port(s)	2
Parallel Bus Interface	No
Power supply	External power supply unit (1A, 5v cc)
Keyboard	Full-stroke keyboard, 57 keys, 5 function keys (Help, Start, Select, Option, Reset)