Atari Consumer Test Engineering 800XL

 

Here's an interesting 800XL I've just acquired:

 

 

It has a 'Consumer Test Engineering' sticker on the front:

 

 

And there's some additions to the bottom:

 

 

Note the OS selector switch on the back:

 

 

This 800XL has a Newell 256K memory upgrade, as well as a homemade 'daughterboard' holding the OS's:

 

The board is marked 'Chelco 1983 P/N 150800011 Rev. A2 800XL'

I contated Curt Vendel at http://www.atarimuseum.com after winning the auction to get an idea of what this computer might me...here was his reply:


"It is certainly an out-of-Atari unit, I have a VCS with similar label attached. However... it is my opinion that while it may be an Atari unit, the label is Warner-era up to 84' and the Tramiels from July 84 onward used very different labels, so what this may be is someone post Warner sale was tinkering around in the lab and examining various OS' (as you notice there is XE OS, so that right off the bat says that any work done on it was late 84 to 85 the earliest) and this could've been within Atari by an engineer or taken home by an engineer and done for personal use or sold off/thrown away and a hobbyist did various upgrades. Now the striking feature is the fact that is has the elusive Rev "B" Basic (Rev "A" was in nearly every Atari computer and Rev "C" was released later in cart form and only the 800XLF's shipped in Aug 84' in Europe had Basic Rev "C" internal."


Curt asked for pictures of the internals after I received the unit, which I sent, along with the following information:


Here's what I found after removing the cover: The motherboard isn't labeled as Atari...it's labeled as 'Chelco 1983 P/N 150800011 Rev. A2 800XL.' There's also a Newell Industries 256K memory upgrade. The OS's aren't stacked, they're all on a 'daughterboard' that's in the OS socket and wired to the OS selector switch. It's labeled 'ROS 10002.' There's also two empty sockets for other OS's. The processor, GTIA, ANTIC, PIA, POKEY, and BASIC chips are etched as such.


And here's his reply:


"Production of the 600/800XL ramped out to full steam in Oct 83' after a 30 day delay due to change in management and new management wanting to examine projects first, so everything was put on hold, then came a debate on where to manuafacture the XL's, one plant was ready to go, but more expensive, a new plant would take time, but costs would be cheaper... Chelco was the first firm to make the XL computers for Atari, I even have a couple of proto 600XL sample mock-ups that Chelco did for Atari. So there is a stamp of Jan 84' which is right in line and most likely this was a sample that came into the labs for testing purposes and Quality Control (Gene Kuczynski's "Shake & Bake" Group) and judging from the OS board, I'd guess it is a home made board (looks like an etching kit and hand drawn traces, nice board, very nice indeed) and then the additional of the Newell add-on. Whomever did the work seems to be well versed in soldering, looks like the connections at the PIA are very clean and well done indeed."

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