Atari 1200XL Stacked Up Against a Dell Inspiron

Bill Kendrick writes "My first computer was the short-lived 1200XL model of the Atari 8-bit computer line. I finally got ahold of one again, after having to settle with a lesser Atari system. My immediate reaction was: 'Damn, it's as big as my Dell Inspiron laptop!', and I couldn't resist doing one of those side-by-side comparisons, complete with photos of one system sitting atop the other. (I also put the 1983 storage and speeds in 2009 terms, for the benefit of the youngin's out there.) While in many ways the Atari pales in comparison to the latest technology they cram into laptops, I do get to benefit from SD storage media. It also still boots way faster than Ubuntu on the Dell, has a far more ergonomic keyboard, and is much more toddler-proof."

Comments

Re:Missile command

[idontgno]

If you want to play a real game of Missile Command, you need an Atari 5200, and it's giant ass trackball.

0_o

Oh, ok. I get it. English isn't your native language, so it's natural to drop those pesky indefinite articles.

Here's your sentence, expanded and grammatically correct:

...you need an Atari 5200; it is a giant ass trackball.

Now, I was always partial to the Amiga back in the era of the Atari ST/Amiga flamewar, but I'd never call the 5200 a trackball. It was a legitimate console.

Wait. I think I misinterpreted that. You're saying that the Atari 5200 was a very large trackball intended to be manipulated by the user's butt. Am I right? That would be quite a peripheral, kinda like a ur-Wii Fit controller.

BTW, if I recall correctly, the original Missile Command controller was digital (rotary quadrature encoding, like optomechanical mice). The Atari 2600 Trackball was also quad-encoded digital, and pretty easy to retrofit for use with the Amiga, the mouse interface of which was based on quad encoding.