This mini forum is intended to provide a simple means of discussion about the Atari  65 / 130 XE computer. If you want to share your own experience or memories, or add relevant information about this system: post a message!

The different colors are the result of a bad video connection to you monitor. Try changing out the interface that connects to your monitor

I am a owner of a 130XE since new in 1985, it was in the box for over 20years when decided to see if it still works.
I was surprise to see it did but after a hour I had it running as I was doing the self test, the video started to show and different colors...and still even after I turn it on and off...
Anyone has any idea what is happening?

i have one in 1988 but i do anything with it

The 800XE was actually a 130XE with half the RAM, and not a modified 65XE. The 130XE and 800XE both used the same motherboard with the ECI port next to the cartridge slot. The 65XE did not have this expansion port so it is not the same machine as the 800XE.

A cousin owned one of these, with the Amy chip, and I have to agree that this chip did sound better, but not by too much.

Also, there were ROM and other hardware differences which made it incompatible with some games and other software on diskette, necessitating the use of a special DOS patch.

Still, this was an interesting and fun system to program and use.

I spent my youth on atari & commodore. Started on Atari 2600, had commodore 64 for a while and when that died I had an 800xl which I soon upgraded to a 130XE which I still have. Now I've been using Atari computers for 20 years straight and have a decent collection now. I still have the same 130XE and it's still used alongside its 600XL and 800 brothers. And I'd like to say Hello to any members of TAF (Toronto Atari Federation) who happen to visit this page.

The 65XEM machine did have the AMY chip, but nobody at Atari knew how to program the Amy soundchip, so the machine was abandoned before it was released. The specs of the chip were indeed very interesting. It was very powerfull, with several polyphonic channels and also the ability to play samples, without slowing down the main 6502C CPU.

yeah, and people still modify it too! Even today on allegro.pl (Polish ebay :) you can find a 65XE with 4 MB of RAM, dual pokeys (stereo), a ~1GB HDD, and an RGB output.

My first Atari was an 600XL with 1064 ram extension, later i got an 800XL and finally an 130XE. I made several demos and games for this machine in assembly language with Atmas II. After all a very good and reliable machine, that always worked (not unlike MS Windows machines...). Even today, some people make games for this machines, like Jurasic Park II and Robocop.

Like Thomsonicus, my first home computer was Atari 130 XE with XC12 tape recorder. I had nothing else so I started to make a useful OS, cyrillic driver, cyrillic fonts and some functions of graphic user interface. Was a great time!
Then the PCs ate everithing...
By the way I keep my system yet and some times I enjoy to play with it :)

65XE was my first computer as well. I had a XC12 casette recorder too and, just like Kamil XXL, I also had the Turbo2000R installed. It featured a cartridge and a modification to the XC12 thanks to which it could run both the turbo and the normal version cassettes. Once I've read that the Turbo2000R cassette player was able to read data at the speed of 5 kbods (whatever that meant, maybe 5kbps?).
I also had a memory upgrade to 128kb RAM and in tests the computer was recognised as a 130XE system! Great stuff, still 100% working in 2006 :D
@Ashley: sure I remember! Joust was the first trackball game (woman made)

Hi, I'm looking for a power connector for ATARI 130XE.
Somebody can help me to find it?
Thank you...I'm sorryu for my language....

I had an Atari 600 XL and for some reason we upgraded to the 130XE. It was superior to the 600XL and 800XL in all aspects until the ST came out. Ran some great games until it fried one day playing Summer Games. Anyone remember: Spelunker, Murder on the Zinderneuf, Spy vs Spy, Infiltrator, SWAT, Mule, Decathalon, Ghostbusters, Gauntlet, Karate, Karateka, Boulderdash, and all the other usual ones like Joust, Frogger. I've been looking to buy a replacement off of ebay but they are rare now.

My first computer ;-) I got it also with two joysticks "Quickjoy", cassette recorder CA-12, cartridge called Turbo 2000 which sped up and made easier operations on tapes and also had a build-in BASIC interpreter and cable to connect computer to TV. Great stuff... I still have this machine and it still works... But off course I'm using PC now...

I had an Atari 64 XE which I believe was the european version of the 65 XE. I dont have much to add apart from the fact it NEVER went wrong, and I had a small device that allowed it to connect to a standard centronics parallel port. The bable had the tape drive plug one one end and a centronitcs plug on the other with a chip and a set of dip switches inside. I also had a number of cartridges for it icluding Atari Writer which was a word processor wor it and allowed you to save your work to tape. However trying to find stuff again in the middle of a tape was always interesting.

I have both an Atari 800XL and a 130XE - the video output on the 800XL is much superior than that of the 130XE. The fidelity of the image is far more presentable. An interesting thing to note.