Atari machines

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A number of machines have been manufactured by Atari, aimed at a variety of markets, since it was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell (Nolan's story thus far). Atari has manufactured arcade machines, gaming consoles, portables, personal computers, and workstations aimed at the business market. Third parties have also manufactured Atari-ompatible machines, which are also included in the listing below.

Personal Computers

For the majority of Atari's life as a hardware manufacturer, personal computers were its focus. This began with the introduction of an 8 bit platform in the late 1970's, included the 'glory days' of the 1980's and the success of its ST computers range, the manufacture of PC compatibles, and ended with the Falcon 030 in 1993.

TOS Family

The TOS family included the most commercially successful of Atari's machines in the ST range, as well as later unsuccessful but innovative machines towards the end of its life as a commercially supported platform.

TOS clones

Some third parties manufactured TOS-compatible machines after Atari abandoned the platform.

IBM Compatibles

  • PC1, PC2, PC3, PC4, PC5
  • ABC 286/30, ABC 386SX II, ABC 386DX II, ABC N386SX
  • Atari Portfolio (1989, portable equipment)

8 bit

  • Atari 400 and Atari 800 (29 August 1979)
  • Atari 1200XL (1982)
  • Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL (September 1983)
  • Atari 65 XE, 800XE and Atari 130 XE (April 1985)
  • Atari XE Game system (November 1987)

Portables

Portables Game Console

  • Touch ME (1978)
  • Super Breakout (1980)
  • Space Invaders (1980)
  • Lynx console

Workstations

Consoles

Ataris first console, the VCS 2600, catapulted Atari into homes across the world and is still arguably the reason Atari become a household name. Atari monopolised the home console market in the late 1970's and early 1980's until the computer game crash of 1984 (for which Atari was largely responsible).

  • Home Pong (1975)
  • Super Pong (1977)
  • VCS 2600 (1977)
  • 2800 (1982, mainly sold in Japan)
  • 5200(1982), 7800 (1986)
  • Panther (1991) (prototype, never appeared)
  • Jaguar (1993)
  • Flashback (2004) and Flashback 2 (2005)

Consoles Prototypes

  • Atari 2000 "Val" (1981)
  • Atari 2200 "Bonnie" (1983)
  • Atari 2500 (1981)
  • Atari 2700 "RC Stella" (1982)
  • Atari 3200 "video system X" (1982)
  • Atari 3600 "Maria" (1983)
  • Atari Panther (1991)
  • Atari chase duo (1995)
  • Atari Jaguar2 (1996)

Arcade machines

The first machine ever manufactured by Atari was an arcade machine, and it was arcade machines that sustained Atari as a company in its infancy. Atari continued to produce arcade machines throughout the 1980's and early 1990's, however they ceased to be core business.