The ATARI 800XL has arrived

Sometime in early August I contacted a German seller on eBay about an ATARI 800XL because it looked well preserved and was being offered in its original packaging. I had encountered this computer at a friend’s house as a child, although its appearance did not particularly appeal to me at the time. The cartridge is inserted from the top. The computer has 64 KB of RAM.

Judging by the date, the advert had already been online for quite a while. I tried contacting the seller directly to ask whether he would accept a lower price. During the day I received a message in which he countered with an amount roughly halfway between his asking price and my offer — a win-win for both of us. I agreed and asked for his bank-account details.

The seller replied, however, that he was currently away on holiday with his entire family until the end of the summer holidays. We agreed to complete the deal once they returned. That happened on 28 August 2018, and I could finally start looking forward to another ATARI for the collection. I also asked him to pack it carefully so that the original box would not be unnecessarily damaged.

Yesterday, 5 September 2018, the carrier delivered the long-awaited parcel to my workplace and I could hardly wait to unpack it. The box had been packed very carefully and the photographs had not lied. After 30 years, the entire computer and its accessories looked almost new. I am extremely pleased.

Unfortunately, the original boxes for the XL-series computers were not really designed for repeated use simply to store the computer. That is why so few survive in adverts, and those that do are often in very poor condition. A common blemish is deeply torn corners caused by users trying to push the computer back into the box together with its protective polystyrene inserts.

I managed to remove the brown adhesive tape from the box without causing damage and cleaned away the residue with thinner. I glued the torn sections from the inside with Herkules glue, and the box now looks young again. For now I have the computer on display while still packed away, but its time will certainly come for a closer examination and some gaming with the children.