Ah yes, the company that just couldn't die.  Atari made some wonderful game consoles and home computers.  In fact, they were well known for their innovation.  Alas, it didn't last.  The last of the original Atari disappeared into the ether back in 1994, and disolved into being a mere bunch of intellectual property passed around like an Amsterdam whore.  The Atari of today is not the same company.

Nevertheless, the Atari of old still has its loyal fans, and these people still appreciate the technological marvels that so occupied their childhood and adolescence.  Today, you can still see the Atari equipment sold on ebay and someone anxiously bidding on them.  People still write software for these now vintage machines, and manufacture and create add-ons only dreamed of in Atari's hay-day.

I am one such individual.  I have quite a few projects in the works, and I invite you to follow along with me.

My collection, so far, consists of:

• 2 Atari Jaguar game consoles.  I recently had to install a PC power connection to one of them as the internal voltage regulator chip died.  So now it runs off of a PC power supply.

• Atari 65XE computer.  My current project.  I am expanding its memory to 320K from its original 64K.  I have also added a nifty MultiOS devices to choose via a menu from every possible OS variation released for that computer from a FLASH device.

  I have also improved the S-Video output of the system to give a crisp and clear picture for today's digital TVs.  It actually worked very well.  I am also awaiting the delivery of a nifty new VBXE2 device that vastly improves this little computer's video capabilities.

• Three Atari 130XE computers.  These are essentially the same machine as the 65XE, but with 128K RAM built in.  I haven't decided yet what to do with them beyond doing the S-Video fix.

• Two Atari 800XL computers.  This was the first Atari computer I owned.  They are about the same thing as the 65XE, but look very different.  They are also due for some video enhancement.

• Atari 1040STFM computer.  This is a much more advanced computer.  A 32 bit machine when PC's were still 16 bit.  They were nicknamed the "Color Mac", as Apple's Macintosh was only a small machine with a black and white display.  Right now this will merely get a hard drive and be able to play Atari ST games.

• Atari TT computer.  Atari's "Enterprise" machine.  It was quite a performer compared to its competition.  Mine has 4MB ST RAM and 16MB of TT FastRAM, but it will soon have 64MB TT FastRAM.

• Two working Atari Falcon030 computers; as well as one that isn't working, but I am repairing that one.  The apex of Atari's technology before it shortly disappeared into intellectual property hell.  This was the favorite of many professional and amateur musicians in the 1990's, including Fleetwood Mac.  Its multimedia capabilities, at the time, were far superior than anything on the PC or Mac.  Atari was the musician's choice.

  These machines are getting a major supe-up job.  Their 16MHz Motorola 68030s will be put to pasture and replaced with a Motorola 68060 running at 233MHz, which is a lot for these machines!  Now some of you people out there may say "Only 233MHz?" and I must remind you of something about programming old computers.  They had to be coded in assembly code and efficient C code.  much of the software developed for the machine runs incredibly fast on a mere 233MHz CPU.  Enough to play complex games on, run Internet software on, and to watch movies with.  All with quite an advanced and snappy multitasking OS similar to Linux, but much funner to use.

Here's a bit of trivia for you (click on the question for the answer):

• Every line of computers has its next logical step, or a big brother.  Which computer was the next evolutionary step from the Commodore 64 line of computers, and which was for the Atari XL/XE series of computers?  Place the mouse cursor over this question for the surprising answer.

  Jay Minter, the chief designer of the Atari XL/XE series of computers and their fancy chips, got frustrated with Warner Communications (the owners of Atari at that time) saying "NO" to all of his ingenius ideas for new computers and chip designs, that he quit Atari to start his own company, which was eventually called "Amiga Corporation".  He also took many of Atari's engineering staff with him.

  Jack Tramiel founded a relatively obscure typewriter company, Commodore, and turned it into an agressive computer manufacturer.  Soon after, a disgruntled Jack Tramiel left Commodore Business Machines to start another company called "Tramel Computers".  He and his engineering team were the creators of the Commodore 64 and its various siblings.  Jack Tramiel found that Warner Communications was offering Atari Computers for sale.  He bought it, and brought his Commodore 64/128 engineering team with him.

  Unknown to anyone at Atari at the time, Jay Minter and his team had many amazing and advanced 16 and 32 bit computer designs archived in the Atari mainframe, but those that knew now worked for Amiga and were not going to give that information to what was now a competitor.

  Jack knew of Jay's brilliance and found out Amiga Corporation was in dire need of cash, so Jack made an offer to buy them for only $1.00 a share (kind of a rude offer for such a genius).  What Jack forgot was that there was his nemesis still dogging him, Commodore.  Commodore, at the last minute (almost literally) made Jay an offer that was much better, just when Jack thought he had Amiga locked in.  Commodore snatched Amiga from him and Atari was left with the former Commodore engineers and now Commodore had much of the old Atari engineers.

  Jack, knowing the Amiga was going to be an awesome machine tasked his new engineering team to come out with something before the Amiga came to the market.  In just 6 months, the new engineering staff (the former Commodore engineering staff) came up with the 520ST based on Digital Research's Graphic Environment Manager as an OS they called "TOS".  The Amiga, meanwhile, suffered some delays and some quick redesigns and came out later than the Atari 520ST.

  So, to answer the question, the Atari ST series are the big brothers to the Commodore 64/128 series, and the Commodore Amiga series are the big brothers to the Atari XL/XE series of computers.  Funny how things turn out!  The even greater irony is the magnificent designs Jay had archived into the Atari Mainframe, and almost lost to history, were unknown to Jack Tramiel the entire time he owned Atari.  It has only been revealed recently, when someone came into possession of all the Atari Mainframe backup tapes that this treasure trove was discovered.  Had Jack known about this, the ST might have been quite a different machine.

• Does Atari exist today, and what is it's relation to the original Atari?

  The Atari of today is nothing like the company it originally was.  When Jack Tramiel bought Atari, he put his son Sam in charge of Atari and Sam basically made every bad decision you could make with a struggling company and brough Atari deeper and deeper into the mud hole.  His (alleged) belief that "video games are evil" didn't help the former video game giant either.  Sam bought (in cash) a fledgling "The Federated Group" a major consumer electronics chain to sell Atari computers, but failed to notice that $14 million in inventory was "missing" and the former owner now lived in luxury in Brazil.

  Jack's other son Leonard was placed in charge of Federated.  Leonard (in my opinion) was a poor businessman and knew nothing about sales and could never make Federated profitable.  Many say Federated was the last straw to cause Atari's inevitable downfall.  Many former Atari and Federated employees will tell you it was Sam's and Leonard's gross incompetence, ego, and bizarre behavior that was the cause of Atari's growing problems.  Being a former Federated employee myself, I must agree.

  When Sam had a heart attack, Jack came back in and tried to rescue the company by downsizing and concentrating on video games.  The new Jaguar console was a failure.  Jack, seeing his investment dwindling, because of his son's poor management, decides to rescue what he has left and does a reverse merger with disk drive company called "Jugi Tandon Storage" and renames the company "JTS Corporation".  Atari was now a small division of JTS until Atari was purchased by Hasbro in 1998.  Hasbro attempted to capitalize on the name with electronic toys, but failed.  Hasbro shut down Atari (which it had renamed "Hasbro Interactive") and sold it off as Intellectual Property to video game maker "Infograms", which promptly renamed itself "Atari".

  The Atari of today just makes video game software.  It is not the company it was.  The operators of Infograms, being former Atari computer and console owners, appreciated the retro community and released the computer and console hardware designs, as well as the Jaguar cryptographic keys, to the public under a private use only license.

  Now here's the irony of irony's.  Infograms founder and president stepped down and was promptly replaced by ... (wait for it) ... Nolan Bushnell, Atari's original founder and creator.  Atari has come full circle, the prodigal son has again returned to his father.