Vanessa Sigiane da Mata Ferreira (born February 10, 1976), professionally known as Vanessa da Mata, is a Latin Grammy Award-winning Brazilian MPB singer, songwriter, and novelist. She has released four studio albums and the songs "Ai, Ai, Ai", "Boa Sorte/Good Luck" and "Amado" became number-one hits in Brazil.

Biography
Vanessa Sigiane da Mata Ferreira was born on February 10, 1976, in Alto Garças, a small town in Mato Grosso located 399 km (248 miles) from state capital Cuiabá. Her article in the Portuguese Wikipedia stated that she has Xavante ancestry through her maternal grandmother. Vanessa has denied these claims, but said that her grandmother has indeed Native Brazilian ancestry, although she "can't identify from which tribe".

An autodidact in music, Vanessa listened to very different genres in her childhood; from Luiz Gonzaga to Tom Jobim, and from Milton Nascimento to Orlando Silva. She would also listen to regional music like carimbó through the records brought by an uncle who travelled to the Amazon. She was also familiar with samba, sertaneja music, and even brega Italian music, which were available to her through a local AM radio station. In several interviews, she cites deceased samba singer Clara Nunes as an influential figure in her compositions and image.

At age 14, Vanessa moved alone to Uberlândia, Minas Gerais, 1,199 km (745 miles) away from Alto Garças, to prepare for her vestibular exam, through which she intended to join a Medical school. There, she discovered that her real passion was singing, and by the following year was already performing in local clubs.

In 1992, at age 16, Vanessa moved to São Paulo, where she started performing with Shalla-Ball, a female reggae band. Three years later, she toured Brazil with the Jamaican band Black Uhuru, for which she served as a backing vocal. She then became a part of regional rhythms band Mafuá. She also had careers as a professional model and basketball player around that time.

In 1997, Vanessa met singer-songwriter, Chico César and wrote the song "A Força que Nunca Seca" with him. It was later recorded by Maria Bethânia in her 1999 album of the same title. The song was nominated for a Latin Grammy Award and later re-recorded by César in his album Mama Mundi. Vanessa then became a renowned songwriter. She wrote "O Canto de Dona Sinhá" for Bethânia and Caetano Veloso and "Viagem" for Daniela Mercury. She also wrote the song "Me Sento na Rua" with Ana Carolina. She started performing as backing vocal in concerts of artists such as Milton Nascimento, Bethânia and the late Baden Powell.

In 2002, Vanessa released her eponymous first album through Sony Music. The album's biggest hit was the song "Não Me Deixe Só", which reached a peak position of 25th in the Brazilian chart and 42nd in the Portuguese. Two other songs from the album, "Nossa Canção" and "Onde Ir", both included in the soundtrack albums of two Rede Globo telenovelas, became minor hits, reaching peak positions of 40th and 69th in the Brazilian chart, respectively.

In 2004, Vanessa released her second album, titled Essa Boneca Tem Manual. The album produced the singer's first number-one hit in Brazil, the song "Ai, Ai, Ai", which also peaked at 13th in the Sweden chart. Other hits include a remix version of the same song, which reached the 3rd position in the Brazilian chart and "Ainda Bem", which reached the 21st position.

On May 28, 2007, Vanessa released her third album, titled Sim. The two singles released from the album, "Boa Sorte/Good Luck", a duet with American singer Ben Harper, and "Amado", both became number-one hits in Brazil. "Boa Sorte/Good Luck" also became a number-one single in Portugal. She received her first Latin Grammy Award, in the category of Best Contemporary Brazilian Pop Album, for the album.

In May 2009, Vanessa released her first live album and DVD to commemorate her six years of career. The CD and DVD Multishow ao Vivo – Vanessa da Mata was recorded in partnership with cable television channel Multishow. The first single from the album is "Vermelho", a live version of a track from the previous album.

In October 2010 Vanessa da Mata released the CD Bicicletas, Bolos e Outras Alegrias, from which the song, "O Tal Casal" was pre-released as a single.

In 2011, she collaborated with Seu Jorge and Almaz on the song "Boa Reza" for the Red Hot Organization's charitable album Red Hot + Rio 2. Proceeds from the sales were donated to raise awareness and money to fight HIV/AIDS and related health and social issues.

From April to June 2013, Vanessa da Mata collaborated with and was sponsored by cosmetics brand Nivea to produce a series of free concerts, presented throughout various large Brazilian cities. These featured the music and songs of renowned Brazilian singer and composer Tom Jobim, and had the purpose of raising awareness and appreciation of his work and cultural importance in Brazil. Da Mata continued the tour after the sponsorship ended, due to the popularity of the concerts. On July 1, 2013, she released the album Vanessa Da Mata canta Tom Jobim, a compilation of the work presented in the concerts.

Up until early 2013, Da Mata was married to Brazilian actor and photographer Geraldo Pestalozzi, with whom she adopted three children. They separated on amiable terms.

Her first novel "A Filha das Flores" was released in Brazil on the October 18, 2013.

Discography

Albums

 2002: Vanessa da Mata
 2004: Essa Boneca Tem Manual
 2007: Sim
 2009: Multishow ao Vivo: Vanessa da Mata (live)
 2010: Bicicletas, Bolos e Outras Alegrias
 2013: Vanessa da Mata canta Tom Jobim
 2014: Segue o som
 2019: Quando Deixamos Nossos Beijos Na Esquina

EPs
 2007: Sim

DVDs
 2009: Multishow ao Vivo – Vanessa da Mata

Soundtracks

Telenovelas
 Cama de Gato (Rede Globo, 2010) – "Um Dia, Um Adeus"
 A Favorita (Rede Globo, 2008) – "Amado"
 Pé na jaca (Rede Globo, 2006) – "Ainda Bem"
 Belíssima (Rede Globo, 2005) – "Ai, Ai, Ai"
 A Lua me Disse (Rede Globo, 2005) – "Eu Sou Neguinha"
 Celebridade (Rede Globo, 2003) – "Nossa canção"
 Esperança (Rede Globo, 2002) – "Onde ir"

Films
 Muito Gelo e Dois Dedos D'Água (2006) – "Música"
 Garoto Cósmico (2007)

Songs recorded by other artists
"A Força que Nunca Seca" – Maria Bethânia (A Força que Nunca Seca, 1999)
"Viagem" – Daniela Mercury (Sol da Liberdade, 2000)
"Me Sento na Rua" – Ana Carolina (Ana Rita Joana Iracema e Carolina, 2001)
"O Canto de Dona Sinhá" – Maria Bethânia (Maricotinha, 2001 e Maricotinha Ao Vivo, 2002)

Awards
Multishow Brazilian Music Award
2009: Best Song – "Amado"
2008: Best Song – "Boa Sorte/Good Luck" (shared with Ben Harper)
2006: Best Song – "Ai, Ai, Ai"

Latin Grammy Award
 2008: Best Brazilian Contemporary Pop Album – Sim
 2014: Best Brazilian Song – "Segue o Som" (nominated)

References

External links

1976 births
Living people
Música Popular Brasileira singers
Afro-Brazilian women singers
Afro-Brazilian women singer-songwriters
Brazilian women singers
Brazilian women songwriters
Brazilian people of indigenous peoples descent
People from Mato Grosso
Latin music songwriters
21st-century Brazilian singers
21st-century Brazilian women singers
Women in Latin music
Women songwriters

Vanessa da Mata


Noronhomys vespuccii, also known as Vespucci's rodent, is an extinct rat species from the islands of Fernando de Noronha off northeastern Brazil. Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci may have seen it on a visit to Fernando de Noronha in 1503, but it subsequently became extinct, perhaps because of the exotic rats and mice introduced by the first explorers of the island. Numerous but fragmentary fossil remains of the animal, of uncertain but probably Holocene age, were discovered in 1973 and described in 1999.

Noronhomys vespuccii was a fairly large rodent, larger than the black rat (Rattus rattus). A member of the family Cricetidae and subfamily Sigmodontinae, it shares several distinctive characters with Holochilus and related genera within the tribe Oryzomyini, including high-crowned molars with simplified crown features and the presence of several ridges on the skull which help anchor the chewing muscles. Although a suite of traits suggest that Holochilus is its closest relative, it is distinctive in many ways and is therefore classified in a separate genus, Noronhomys. Its close relatives, including Holochilus and Lundomys, are adapted to a semiaquatic lifestyle, spending much of their time in the water, but features of the Noronhomys bones suggest that it lost its semiaquatic lifestyle, after arrival at its remote island.

Discovery and taxonomy
Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci may have seen this animal on his fourth voyage, which took him to Brazil; the Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci delle Isole Nuovamente in Quattro Suoi Viaggi recorded that he visited an island just south of the equator on August 10, 1503. On this island, identified as Fernando de Noronha, he saw "very big rats and lizards with two tails, and some snakes". The Lettera purports to be an account of Vespucci's voyages, but it is unlikely that he produced it himself and, additionally, his fourth voyage may never have taken place. The biological details given in the Letteras account of Fernando de Noronha agree with what is known of the natural history of the island, lending weight to the view that it derives from a visit, whether by Vespucci himself or by another explorer. The lizard is probably Trachylepis atlantica and the record of snakes most likely refers to Amphisbaena ridleyi, which is actually an amphisbaenian instead of a snake.

During excavations conducted in 1973, American ornithologist Storrs L. Olson found fossils of a moderately large rat on Fernando de Noronha, which were described as a new genus and species in a 1999 publication by Olson and his colleague, mammalogist Michael D. Carleton. The material is now in the United States National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., and in the museum of the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul. The generic name, Noronhomys, combines the name of the island of Fernando de Noronha with the Ancient Greek  mys "mouse" and the specific name, vespuccii, honors Amerigo Vespucci. Noronhomys would have been larger than the black rat (Rattus rattus), which was common on ships and which Vespucci would have been familiar with, consistent with his description of "very large rats".

Noronhomys is a member of the tribe Oryzomyini, which includes over a hundred species distributed mainly in South America, including nearby islands such as the Galápagos Islands and some of the Antilles. Oryzomyini is one of several tribes recognized within the subfamily Sigmodontinae, which encompasses hundreds of species found across South America and into southern North America. Sigmodontinae itself is the largest subfamily of the family Cricetidae, other members of which include voles, lemmings, hamsters, and deermice, all mainly from Eurasia and North America.

Carleton and Olson performed a detailed comparison of Noronhomys to members of the mainland genera Holochilus and Lundomys on the basis of both general morphology and morphometrical data, concluding that the Fernando de Noronha rat is distinct from both other animals.
They used a cladistic analysis to examine its relationships within Oryzomyini, also including two species of Holochilus, Lundomys, and five other oryzomyines. They found that Noronhomys appeared closest to Holochilus, with Lundomys more distantly related. Eighteen shared characters (synapomorphies) supported the grouping of Noronhomys with Holochilus. Another form described as a species of Holochilus, Holochilus primigenus, may also be related, but is likely to fall outside the Holochilus–Noronhomys clade.

In 1998, a fragmentary fossil of another species of this group of oryzomyines was found in eastern Argentina. It was initially identified as a possible second species of Noronhomys on the basis of the presence of a crest on the upper first molar, the mesoloph, but the specimen is different from Noronhomys vespuccii in other respects, and in 2008 it was described as a new genus and species, Carletonomys cailoi, related to Noronhomys and associated genera.

Description

Noronhomys vespuccii is known from bone fragments, including five skulls, damaged to various degrees, and many isolated jaws and other bones. This material documents that, with a skull of about  (occipitonasal length), Noronhomys was a moderately large oryzomyine, smaller than Lundomys but well within the range of Holochilus. It shares a number of the features that characterize the group of Holochilus and related genera, including a reduction in the complexity of the chewing surface of the molars, simple posterolateral palatal pits (perforations of the palate near the third molar), and a similarly shaped interorbital region of the skull. Noronhomys is distinctive, among other characters, in its lack of a spinous process on the zygomatic plate, the flattened front portion of the zygomatic arch (cheekbone); the short palate, which does not extend behind the third molars; and the presence of an accessory crest, the mesoloph, on the upper molars.

Analysis of morphometrical data from the known material of Noronhomys suggests that growth continued in adults—the older the animal, the larger the depth of the mandible and the size of the lower incisor—and does not provide evidence for a difference in size between males and females. Skull shape is strikingly different from both Holochilus and Lundomys, resulting in a clear separation from both of these taxa in statistical analyses of measurement data. In three individuals measured, the occipitonasal length, a measure of skull length, varies from , averaging . The width of the braincase is , averaging . Between the first molars, the width of the palate is  in four specimens, averaging . The lower molars have a total length of , averaging , in 39 specimens with intact molar rows. The femur (upper leg bone) is  in length in nine specimens, averaging . Carleton and Olson estimated that body mass in Noronhomys was similar to that of some populations of living Holochilus sciureus at about .

Skull

The skull is flattened in general shape. The front part is short and broad. The broad interorbital region (located between the eyes) is hourglass-shaped, with squared edges and weakly developed beading. A postorbital ridge is present, obscuring the suture (joint) between the frontal and squamosal bones, a feature shared only with Holochilus among oryzomyines. The braincase is squarish. The interparietal bone is wide, but does not reach the squamosals on the sides. The zygomatic arches, which are well-developed, are furthest apart at the back and converge toward the front. The jugal bone is small.

The back margin of the zygomatic plate is located close to the front of the upper first molar. The incisive foramina do not extend between the molars. Unlike in both Holochilus and Lundomys, the palate is flat, lacking a distinct ridge at the midline. The parapterygoid fossae, which are located behind the palate at the level of the molars, are excavated somewhat above the level of the palate. A strut of the alisphenoid bone is present, separating two openings in the skull, the masticatory–buccinator foramen and the foramen ovale accessorium. The subsquamosal fenestra, an opening at the back of the skull determined by the shape of the squamosal, is present but small. The squamosal probably lacks a suspensory process that contacts the tegmen tympani, the roof of the tympanic cavity, a defining character of oryzomyines.

The mandible (lower jaw) is robust. The two masseteric ridges, which anchor some of the chewing muscles, are joined together as a single crest for a portion of their length and extend forward to a point below the first molar. The capsular process, a raising of the mandibular bone at the back end of the lower incisor, is well developed.

Teeth
In the upper incisors, the chewing edges are located behind the vertical plane of the incisors; thus, they are opisthodont. The microstructure of the enamel of the lower incisor was reported in a 2005 study. The inner portion (portio interna, PI) is much thicker than the outer portion (portio externa, PE). The PI consists of Hunter-Schreger bands, which are uniserial (consisting of a single enamel prism), as in all myomorph rodents. The PE consists of radial enamel, with flattened prisms that are almost parallel to the junction between the enamel and the dentine. The microstructure is similar to that of Holochilus brasiliensis and displays several characters seen only in Myomorpha.

The molars are high-crowned (hypsodont) and planar, with the main cusps as high as the crests connecting them, a configuration shared only with Holochilus and Carletonomys among oryzomyines. The first molars are the longest and the third molars are longer but narrower than the second molars. The molars lack many accessory ridges, including the anteroloph on the first upper molar, the posteroloph on the first and second upper molar, and the anterolophid and mesolophid on all lower molars. The first and second upper molar have a short mesoloph and the front cusp of the first lower molar, the anteroconid, encloses a large internal pit. Most of the folds between the cusps and crests are open at the margins of the molars, but two—the posteroflexid on the lower second molar and the entoflexid on the lower third molar—are closed by a wall, or cingulum, at the inner margin of the tooth. As in most oryzomyines, the upper molars all have one root on the inner (lingual) side and two on the outer (labial) side and the lower molars have a single root at the front and back of each molar; in addition, the first upper molar has another labial root and the first lower molar has a small labial and usually also a small lingual root located between the main roots.

Postcranial skeleton
The entepicondylar foramen is absent, as in all members of the Sigmodontinae; if present, as in some other rodents, this foramen (opening) perforates the distal (far) end of the humerus (upper arm bone). The pelvis and the bones of the hindlimbs are heavily built. The femoral tubercle of the acetabulum (part of the pelvis), which anchors the rectum femoris muscle, is reduced relative to Holochilus and Lundomys.

Distribution and origin

Noronhomys is known only from Fernando de Noronha, a small archipelago of volcanic origin off northeastern Brazil, consisting of a main island and several associated smaller islands. The formation of the archipelago, which has never been connected to the mainland, began about 11 million years ago; active vulcanism ceased about 2 million years ago. Remains of Noronhomys were found in association with remains of various reptiles, birds, and snails, several of which are also restricted to the archipelago, in sand dunes near the northeastern tip of the main island. The age of the deposits is unknown, but is likely late Holocene, at most a few thousand years old.

The ancestor of Noronhomys may have been a semiaquatic animal, similar to living Holochilus or Lundomys, that arrived on Fernando de Noronha by chance on a floating log. The morphology of the limb bones in Noronhomys suggests that the animal was not semiaquatic like its relatives, but terrestrial, consistent with its occurrence on a small island, where streams and pools are rare or absent.

Extinction
Vespucci's account suggests that Noronhomys was common when the island was first visited, but it was not encountered by the first biological explorers of the island, who conducted their research in the late 19th century. The introduced black rat and house mouse (Mus musculus), which became very common on the island, may have driven it to extinction by directly competing for food, preying on young Noronhomys, or transmitting diseases. Other factors that may have played a role include modification of its habitat, introduction of predators such as cats (Felis catus), and predation by visiting sailors. These extinction mechanisms are common for island endemic species. As early as 1888, Henry Nicholas Ridley suggested that the rat Vespucci had seen had been driven to extinction by the introduced black rat. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists it as "extinct".

References

Bibliography

External links

Oryzomyini
Monotypic rodent genera
Extinct rodents
Extinct animals of Brazil
Extinct mammals of South America
Fernando de Noronha
Rodents of South America
Rodent extinctions since 1500
Cenozoic genus first appearances
Species endangered by invasive species
Species made extinct by human activities
Mammals described in 1999

Noronhomys


Stansted Express is a sub-brand of Greater Anglia. It is the direct train service linking central London (Liverpool Street station) to Stansted Airport, one of London's major airports. Before February 2012, Stansted Express was operated by National Express East Anglia. Until 2004 Stansted Express was part of the WAGN franchise.

Rail transport in England

Stansted Express


Vismon was the Bell Labs system which displayed authors' faces on one of their internal e-mail systems. The name was a pun  on the sysmon program used at Bell to show the load on computer systems. It can also be interpreted as "visual monitor". The system inspired Rich Burridge to develop the similar but more widespread faces system, which spread with Unix distributions in the 1980s.  This in turn inspired Steve Kinzler to develop the Picons, or personal icons, which have the goal of offering symbols and other images, as well as faces, to represent individuals and institutions in email messages.  Other systems such as the faces available on the LAN email functions of the NeXTSTEP platform also seem to have been influenced by the original Vismon capabilities. The faces program in Plan 9 is the direct descendant of this system.

Vismon was the work of Rob Pike and Dave Presotto. It was based on some early experiments by Luca Cardelli.  Many other scientists and engineers of the Computing Science Research Center of the  Murray Hill facility were also involved.  All had been spurred by the introduction in 1983 of the new Blit graphics terminal developed by Pike and Bart Locanthi and marketed by Teletype Corporation of Skokie, Illinois as the DMD 5620.  Pike was eager, along with his colleagues, to exploit the new graphic capabilities.

Pike and company went around their Center, convincing everybody, from directors and administrative assistants to engineers and scientists, to pose as they got out a 4×5 view camera with a Polaroid back and took black-and-white photos (Polaroid type 52) of their faces. Their efforts yielded nearly 100 faces, which they digitised with a scanner from graphics colleagues. They wrote several programs to transform the faces, store them and serve them on several machines at the lab. As time went by, they added faces from outside their Center and outside Bell Labs. This database also led to the pico image editor (originally named zunk) which was used for image transformations, many of them with colleagues as the preferred target.

The first programs built around vismon were used to announce incoming mail in a dedicated window, using the 48 by 48 pixel faces.  Later on the faces were also used to decorate line printer banners.

See also
X-Face

References

Notes
Pike, Rob and Presotto, Dave.  "Face the Nation".  USENIX Summer 1985 Conference Proceedings.  Portland Oregon 1985.
Holzmann, Gerard. "Beyond Photography - the digital darkroom". Prentice Hall, 1987.

Bell Labs
Face
Graphics software
Email

Vismon


The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 with the Atari 400 and Atari 800. As the first home computer architecture with coprocessors, it has graphics and sound more advanced than most of its contemporaries. Video games were a major appeal, and first-person space combat simulator Star Raiders is considered the platform's killer app. The "Atari 8-bit family" label was not contemporaneous. Atari, Inc., used the term "Atari 800 [or 400] home computer system", often combining the model names into "Atari 400/800" or "Atari home computers".

The Atari 800 was packaged as a high-end model, and the 400 was more affordable. The 400 has a pressure-sensitive, spillproof membrane keyboard and initially shipped with  of RAM. The 800 has a conventional keyboard, a second (rarely used) cartridge slot, and allows easy RAM upgrades to 48K. Both use identical technology: the MOS Technology 6502 CPU at  ( for PAL versions) and the same custom coprocessor chips. The plug-and-play peripherals use the Atari SIO serial bus, and one of the SIO developers eventually went on to co-patent USB (Universal Serial Bus). The core architecture of the Atari 8-bit family was reused in the 1982 Atari 5200 game console, but games for the two systems are incompatible.

The 400 and 800 were replaced by multiple computers with the same technology and different presentation. The three models of the XL series were released in 1983: the 1200XL, 600XL, and 800XL. After the company was sold and reestablished, Atari Corporation released the XE series in 1985: the 65XE, also sold as the 800XE, and 130XE. The XL and XE are lighter in construction, have two joystick ports instead of four, and Atari BASIC is built-in. The 130XE has 128 KB of bank-switched RAM. In 1987, Atari Corporation repackaged the 65XE as a console, with an optional keyboard, as the Atari XEGS. It is backward compatible with computer software.

Two million Atari 8-bit computers were sold during its major production run between late 1979 and mid-1985. In 1984, Atari reported 4 million owners of its computers and its 5200 game console combined. The 8-bit family was sold both in computer stores and department stores such as Sears using an in-store demo to attract customers. The primary global competition came when the similarly equipped Commodore 64 was introduced in 1982. In 1992, Atari Corporation officially dropped all remaining support for the 8-bit line.

History

Design of the 8-bit family started at Atari as soon as the Atari Video Computer System was released in late 1977. While designing the VCS in 1976, the engineering team from Atari Grass Valley Research Center (originally Cyan Engineering) said the system would have a three-year lifespan before becoming obsolete. They started blue sky designs for a new console that would be ready to replace it around 1979.

They developed essentially a greatly updated version of the VCS, fixing its major limitations but sharing a similar design philosophy. The newer design has better speed, graphics, and sound. Work on the chips for the new system continued throughout 1978 and focused on much-improved video coprocessor known as the CTIA (the VCS version was the TIA).

During the early development period, the home computer era began in earnest with the TRS-80, Commodore PET, and Apple II—what Byte magazine dubbed the "1977 Trinity". Nolan Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications for  in 1976 to fund the launch of the VCS. In 1978, Warner hired Ray Kassar to become the CEO of Atari. Kassar said the chipset should be used in a home computer to challenge Apple. To adapt the machine to this role, it needed character graphics, some form of expansion for peripherals, and run the then-universal BASIC programming language.

The VCS lacks bitmap graphics and a character generator. All on-screen graphics are created using sprites and a simple background generated by data loaded by the CPU into single-scan-line video registers. Atari engineer Jay Miner architected the two video chips for the Atari 8-bit family. The CTIA chip includes sprites and background graphics, but to reduce load on the main CPU, loading video registers and buffers is delegated to a dedicated microprocessor, the Alphanumeric Television Interface Controller or ANTIC. CTIA and ANTIC work together to produce a complete display, with ANTIC fetching scan line data from a framebuffer and sprite memory in RAM, plus character set bitmaps for character modes, and feeding these to the CTIA. CTIA processes the sprite and playfield data in the light of its own color, sprite, and graphics registers to produce the final color video output.

The resulting system was far in advance of anything then available on the market. Commodore was developing a video driver at the time, but Chuck Peddle, lead designer of the MOS Technology 6502 CPU used in the VCS and the new machines, saw the Atari work during a visit to Grass Valley. He realized the Commodore design would not be competitive but he was under a strict non-disclosure agreement with Atari, and was unable to tell anyone at Commodore to give up on their own design. Peddle later commented that "the thing that Jay did, just kicked everybody's butt."

Development

Management identified two sweet spots for the new computers: a low-end version known internally as "Candy", and a higher-end machine known as "Colleen" (named after two Atari secretaries). Atari would market Colleen as a computer and Candy as a game machine or hybrid game console. Colleen includes user-accessible expansion slots for RAM and ROM, two 8 KB ROM cartridge slots, RF and monitor output (including two pins for separate luma and chroma suitable for superior S-Video output) and a full keyboard. Candy was initially designed as a game console, lacking a keyboard and input/output ports, although an external keyboard was planned for joystick ports 3 and 4. At the time, plans called for both to have a separate audio port supporting cassette tapes as a storage medium.

A goal for the new systems was user-friendliness. One executive stated, "Does the end user care about the architecture of the machine? The answer is no. 'What will it do for me?' That's his major concern. ... why try to scare the consumer off by making it so he or she has to have a double E or be a computer programmer to utilize the full capabilities of a personal computer?" For example, cartridges were expected to make the computers easier to use. To minimize handling of bare circuit boards or chips, as is common with other systems of that period, the computers were designed with enclosed modules for memory, ROM cartridges, with keyed connectors to prevent them being plugged into the wrong slot. The operating system boots automatically, loading drivers from devices on the serial bus (SIO). The DOS system for managing floppy storage was menu-driven. When no software is loaded, rather than leaving the user at a blank screen or machine language monitor, the OS goes to the "Memo Pad" which is a built-in full-screen editor without file storage support.

As the design process for the new machines continued, there were questions about what the Candy should be. There was a running argument about whether the keyboard would be external or built in. By the summer of 1978, education had become a focus for the new systems. The Colleen design was largely complete by May 1978, but in early 1979 the decision was made that Candy would also be a complete computer, but intended for children. As such, it would feature a new keyboard designed to be resistant to liquid spills.

Atari intended to port Microsoft BASIC to the machine as an 8 KB ROM cartridge. However, the existing 6502 version from Microsoft was around 7,900 bytes, leaving no room for extensions for graphics and sound. The company contracted with local consulting firm Shepardson Microsystems to complete the port. They recommended writing a new version from scratch, resulting in Atari BASIC.

FCC issues

Televisions of the time normally have only one signal input, which is the antenna connections on the back. For devices like a computer, the video is generated and then sent to an RF modulator to convert it to antenna-like output. The introduction of many game consoles during this era had led to situations where poorly designed modulators would generate so much signal as to cause interference with other nearby televisions, even in neighboring houses. In response to complaints, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) introduced new testing standards which are extremely exacting and difficult to meet.

Other manufacturers avoided the problem by using built-in composite monitors, such as the Commodore PET and TRS-80. The TRS-80 has a slightly modified black and white television as a monitor. It was notorious for causing interference, and production was canceled when the more stringent FCC requirements came into effect on January 1, 1981. Apple Computer famously left off the modulator and sold them under a third party company as the Sup'R'Mod so they did not have to be tested.

In a July 1977 visit with the engineering staff, a Texas Instruments (TI) salesman presented a new possibility in the form of an inexpensive fiber-optic cable with built-in transceivers. During the meeting, Joe Decuir proposed placing an RF modulator on one end, thereby completely isolating any electrical signals so that the computer would have no RF components. This would mean the computer would not have to meet the FCC requirements, yet users could still attach a television simply by plugging it in. His manager, Wade Tuma, later refused the idea saying "The FCC would never let us get away with that stunt." Unknown to Atari, TI used Decuir's idea. As Tuma had predicted, the FCC rejected the design, delaying that machine's release. TI ultimately shipped early machines with a custom television as the testing process dragged on.

To meet the off-the-shelf requirement while including internal TV circuitry, the new machines needed to be heavily shielded. Both were built around very strong cast aluminum shields forming a partial Faraday cage, with the various components screwed down onto this internal framework. This resulted in an extremely sturdy computer, at the disadvantage of added manufacturing expense and complexity.

The FCC ruling also made it difficult to have any sizable holes in the case, which would allow RF leakage. This eliminated expansion slots or cards that communicated with the outside world via their own connectors. Instead, Atari designed the Serial Input/Output (SIO) computer bus, a system for daisy-chaining multiple, auto-configuring devices to the computer through a single shielded connector. The internal slots were reserved for ROM and RAM modules; they did not have the control lines necessary for a fully functional expansion card, nor room to route a cable outside the case to communicate with external devices.

400 and 800 release

After Atari announced its intent to enter the home computer market in December 1978, the Atari 400 and Atari 800 were presented at the Winter CES in January 1979 and shipped in November 1979.

The names originally referred to the amount of memory: 4 KB RAM in the 400 and 8 KB in the 800. By the time they were released, RAM prices had started to fall, so the machines were both released with 8 KB, using 4kx1 DRAMs. The user-installable RAM modules in the 800 initially had plastic casings but this caused overheating issues, so the casings were removed. Later, the expansion cover was held down with screws instead of the easier-to-open plastic latches. The computers eventually shipped with maxed-out RAM: 16k and 48k, respectively, using 16kx1 DRAMs.

Both models have four joystick ports, permitting four simultaneous players, but only a few games (such as M.U.L.E.) use them all. Paddle controllers are wired in pairs, and Super Breakout supports eight players. The Atari 400, with a membrane keyboard and single internal ROM slot, outsold the Atari 800 by a 2-to-1 margin. Only one cartridge for the 800's right slot was produced by March 1983, and later machines in the family have only one slot.

Creative Computing mentioned the Atari machines in an April 1979 overview of the CES show. Calling Atari "the videogame people", it stated they came with "some fantastic educational, entertainment and home applications software". In an August 1979 interview Atari's Peter Rosenthal suggested that demand might be low until the 1980–81 time frame, when he predicted about one million home computers being sold. The April 1980 issue compared the machines with the Commodore PET, focused mostly on the BASIC dialects. Ted Nelson reviewed the computer in the magazine in June 1980, calling it "an extraordinary graphics box". Describing his and a friend's "shouting and cheering and clapping" during a demo of Star Raiders, Nelson wrote that he was so impressed that "I've been in computer graphics for twenty years, and I lay awake night after night trying to understand how the Atari machine did what it did". He described the machine as "something else" but criticized the company for a lack of developer documentation. He concluded by stating "The Atari is like the human body – a terrific machine, but (a) they won't give you access to the documentation, and (b) I'd sure like to meet the guy that designed it". Kilobaud Microcomputing wrote in September 1980 that the Atari 800 "looks deceptively like a video game machine, [but had] the strongest and tightest chassis I have seen since Raquel Welch. It weighs about ten pounds ... The large amount of engineering and design in the physical part of the system is evident". The reviewer praised the documentation as "show[ing] the way manuals should be done", and the "excellent 'feel of the keyboard. InfoWorld favorably reviewed the 800's performance, graphics, and ROM cartridges, but disliked the documentation and cautioned that the unusual right Shift key location might make the computer "unsuitable for serious word processing". There is an "Atari key" between the  and shift, whereas a typical keyboard would extend the shift key into this area. Noting that the amount of software and hardware available for the computer "is no match for that of the Apple II or the TRS-80", the magazine concluded that the 800 "is an impressive machine that has not yet reached its full computing potential".

Sweet/Liz project

Though planning an extensive advertising campaign for 1980, Atari found difficult competition from Commodore, Apple, and Tandy. By mid-1981, it had reportedly lost $10 million on sales of $10–13 million from more than 50,000 computers.

In 1982, Atari started the Sweet 8 (or Liz NY) and Sweet 16 projects to create an upgraded set of machines that were easier to build and less costly to produce. Atari ordered a custom 6502, initially labelled 6502C, but eventually known as SALLY to differentiate it from a standard 6502C. A 6502C was simply a version of the 6502 able to run up to 4 MHz. The A models run at 1, and the B's at 2. The basis for SALLY is a 6502B. SALLY was incorporated into late-production 400 and 800 models, all XL/XE models, and the Atari 5200 and Atari 7800 consoles. SALLY adds logic to disable the clock signal, called HALT, which ANTIC uses to shut off the CPU to access the data/address bus.

Mirroring the 400/800, two systems were planned, the 1000 with 16 KB and the 1000X with 64 KB, each expandable via a Parallel Bus Interface slot on the back of the machine.

1200XL

The original Sweet 8/16 plans were dropped and only one machine using the new design was released. Announced at a New York City press conference on December 13, 1982, the 1200XL was presented at the Winter CES on January 6–9, 1983. It shipped in March 1983 with 64 KB of RAM, built-in self test, a redesigned keyboard (with four function keys and a HELP key), and redesigned cable port layout. The number of joystick ports was reduced from 4 to 2. There is no PAL version of the 1200XL.

Announced at a retail price of $1000, the 1200XL was released at . This is $100 less than the announced price of the Atari 800 at its release in 1979, but by this time the 800 was priced much lower.

The system uses the SIO port again instead of the Parallel Bus Interface. The +12V pin in the SIO port is not connected, which prevents a few devices from working. The +12V was typically used to power RS-232 devices, which now required an external power source. An improved video circuit provides more chroma for a more colorful image, but the chroma line is not connected to the monitor port, the only place that could make use of it. The operating system has compatibility problems with some older software.

The 1200XL was discontinued in June 1983.

Compute! stated in an early 1983 editorial that the 1200XL was too expensive; John J. Anderson of Creative Computing agreed. Bill Wilkinson, author of Atari BASIC, co-founder of Optimized Systems Software, and columnist for Compute!, criticized the computer's features and price. He wrote that the 1200XL was a "terrific bargain" if sold for less than $450, but that if it cost more than the 800, "buy an 800 quick!"

600XL and 800XL

In May 1981, the Atari 800's price was , but by mid-1983, because of price wars in the industry, it was  and the 400 was under . The 1200XL was a flop, and the earlier machines were too expensive to produce to be able to compete at the rapidly falling price points.

A new lineup was announced at the 1983 Summer CES, closely following the original Sweet concepts. The 600XL is essentially the Liz NY model and the spiritual successor of the 400, and the 800XL would replace both the 800 and 1200XL. The machines follow the styling of the 1200XL but are smaller from back to front, and the 600XL is more so.

Atari had difficulty in transitioning manufacturing to Asia after closing its US factory. Originally intended to replace the 1200XL in mid-1983, the new models did not arrive until late that year. Although the 600XL/800XL were well positioned in terms of price and features, during the critical Christmas season they were available only in small numbers while the Commodore 64 was widely available. Brian Moriarty stated in ANALOG Computing that Atari "fail[ed] to keep up with Christmas orders for the 600 and 800XLs", reporting that as of late November 1983 the 800XL had not appeared in Massachusetts stores while 600XL "quantities are so limited that it's almost impossible to obtain".

After losing  in the first nine months of the year, Atari that month announced that prices would rise in January, stating that it "has no intention of participating in these suicidal price wars". The 600XL and 800XL's prices in early 1984 were $50 higher than for the VIC-20 and Commodore 64, and a rumor stated that the company planned to discontinue hardware and only sell software.

ANALOG Computing, writing about the 600XL in January 1984, stated that "the Commodore 64 and Tandy CoCo look like toys by comparison." The magazine approved of its not using the 1200XL's keyboard layout, and predicted that the XL's parallel bus "actually makes the 600 more expandable than a 400 or 800". While disapproving of the use of an operating system closer to the 1200XL's than the 400 and 800's, and the "inadequate and frankly disappointing" documentation, ANALOG concluded that "our first impression ... is mixed but mostly optimistic". The magazine warned, however, that because of "Atari's sluggish marketing", unless existing customers persuaded others to buy the XL models, "we'll all end up marching to the beat of a drummer whose initials are IBM".

Unreleased XL models

The high-end 1400XL were announced alongside the 600XL and 800XL. They added a built-in 300 baud modem and a voice synthesizer, and the 1450XLD has a built-in double-sided floppy disk drive in an enlarged case, with a slot for a second drive. Atari BASIC is built into the ROM and the PBI at the back for external expansion.

The 1400XL and the 1450XLD had their delivery dates pushed back, and in the end, the 1400XL was canceled outright, and the 1450XLD so delayed that it would never ship. Other prototypes which never reached market include the 1600XL, 1650XLD, and 1850XLD. The 1600XL was to have been a dual-processor model capable of running 6502 and 80186 code, and the 1650XLD is a similar machine in the 1450XLD case. These were canceled when James J. Morgan became CEO and wanted Atari to return to its video game roots. The 1850XLD was to have been based on the Lorraine chipset which became the Commodore Amiga.

Tramiel takeover, declining market

Commodore founder Jack Tramiel resigned in January 1984 and in July, he purchased the Atari consumer division from Warner for an extremely low price. No cash was required, and instead Warner had the right to purchase  in long-term notes and warrants, and Tramiel had an option to buy up to  in Warner stock. When Tramiel took over, the high-end XL models were canceled and the low-end XLs were redesigned into the XE series. Nearly all research, design, and prototype projects were canceled, including the Amiga-based 1850XLD. Tramiel focused on developing the 68000-based Atari ST computer line and recruiting former Commodore engineers to work on it.

Atari sold about 700,000 computers in 1984 compared to Commodore's two million. As his new company prepared to ship the Atari ST in 1985, Tramiel stated that sales of Atari 8-bit computers were "very, very slow". They were never an important part of Atari's business compared to video games, and it is possible that the 8-bit line was never profitable for the company though almost 1.5 million computers had been sold by early 1986.

By that year, the Atari software market was decreasing in size. Antic magazine stated in May 1985 that it had received many letters complaining that software companies were ignoring the Atari market, and urged readers to contact the companies' leaders. "The Atari 800 computer has been in existence since 1979. Six years is a pretty long time for a computer to last. Unfortunately, its age is starting to show", ANALOG Computing wrote in February 1986. The magazine stated that while its software library was comparable in size to that of other computers, "now—and even more so in the future—there is going to be less software being made for the Atari 8-bit computers", warning that 1985 only saw a "trickle" of major new titles and that 1986 "will be even leaner".

Computer Gaming World that month stated "games don't come out for the Atari first anymore". In April, the magazine published a survey of ten game publishers which found that they planned to release 19 Atari games in 1986, compared to 43 for Commodore 64, 48 for Apple II, 31 for IBM PC, 20 for Atari ST, and 24 for Amiga. Companies stated that one reason for not publishing for Atari was the unusually high amount of software piracy on the computer, partly caused by the Happy Drive. The magazine warned later that year, "Is this the end for Atari 800 games? It certainly looks like it might be from where I write". In 1987, MicroProse confirmed that it would not release Gunship for the Atari 8-bits, stating that the market was too small.

XE series

The 65XE and 130XE (XE stands for XL-Compatible Eight-bit) were announced in 1985 at the same time as the Atari 520ST, and they visually resemble the ST. The 65XE has 64 KB of RAM and is functionally equivalent to the 800XL minus the PBI connection. The 130XE has 128 KB of memory, accessible through bank switching. The additional 64K can be used as a RAM drive.

The 130XE includes the Enhanced Cartridge Interface (ECI), which is almost compatible with the Parallel Bus Interface, but physically smaller and located next to the standard 400 and 800 compatible cartridge slot. It provides only those signals that do not exist in the latter. ECI peripherals were expected to plug into both the standard Cartridge Interface and the ECI port. Later revisions of the 65XE contain the ECI port.

The 65XE was sold as the 800XE in Germany and Czechoslovakia to ride on the popularity of the 800XL in those markets. All 800XE units contain the ECI port.

XE Game System

The Atari XEGS (XE Game System) was launched in 1987. A repackaged 65XE with a removable keyboard, it boots to the 1981 port of Missile Command instead of BASIC if the keyboard is disconnected.

Design

The Atari machines consist of a 6502 as the main processor, a combination of ANTIC and GTIA chips to provide graphics, and the POKEY chip to handle sound and serial input/output. These support chips are controlled via a series of registers that can be user-controlled via memory load/store instructions running on the 6502. For example, the GTIA uses a series of registers to select colors for the screen; these colors can be changed by inserting the correct values into its registers, which are mapped into the address space that is visible to the 6502.  Some of the coprocessors use data stored in RAM, such as ANTIC's display buffer and display list, and GTIA's Player/Missile (sprite) information.

The custom hardware features enable the computers to perform many functions directly in hardware, such as smooth background scrolling, that would need to be done in software in most other computers. Graphics and sound demos were part of Atari's earliest developer information and used as marketing materials with computers running in-store demos.

ANTIC

ANTIC is a microprocessor which processes a sequence of instructions known as a display list. An instruction adds one row of the specified graphics mode to the display. Each mode varies based on whether it represents text or a bitmap, the resolution and number of colors, and its vertical height in scan lines. An instruction also indicates if it contains an interrupt, if fine scrolling is enabled, and optionally where to fetch the display data from memory.

Since each row can be specified individually, the programmer can create displays containing different text or bitmapped graphics modes on one screen, where the data can be fetched from arbitrary, non-sequential memory addresses.

ANTIC reads this display list and the display data using DMA (Direct Memory Access), then translates the result into a pixel data stream representing the playfield text and graphics. This stream then passes to GTIA which applies the playfield colors and incorporates Player/Missile graphics (sprites) for final output to a TV or composite monitor. Once the display list is set up, the display is generated without any CPU intervention.

There are 15 character and bitmap modes. In low-resolution modes, 2 or 4 colors per display line can be set. In high-resolution mode, one color can be set per line, but the luminance values of the foreground and background can be adjusted. High resolution bitmap mode (320x192 graphics) produces NTSC composite artifact colors; these colors do not occur on PAL machines.

For text modes, the character set data is pointed to by a register. It defaults to an address in ROM, but if pointed to RAM then a programmer can create custom characters. Depending on the text mode, this data can be on any 1K or 512 byte boundary. Additional registers flip all characters upside down and toggle inverse video.

The ANTIC chip allows a variety of Playfield modes and widths, and the original Atari Operating System included with the Atari 800/400 computers provides easy access to a limited subset of these graphics modes. These are exposed to users through Atari BASIC via the "GRAPHICS" command, and to some other languages, via similar system calls. Oddly, the modes not directly supported by the original OS and BASIC are the modes most useful for games. The later version of the OS used in the Atari 8-bit XL/XE computers added support for most of these "missing" graphics modes.

ANTIC text modes support soft, redefineable character sets. ANTIC has four different methods of glyph rendering related to the text modes: Normal, Descenders, Single color character matrix, and Multiple colors per character matrix.

The ANTIC chip uses a Display List and other settings to create these modes. Any graphics mode in the default CTIA/GTIA color interpretation can be freely mixed without CPU intervention by changing instructions in the Display List.

The actual ANTIC screen geometry is not fixed. The hardware can be directed to display a narrow Playfield (128 color clocks/256 hi-res pixels wide), the normal width Playfield (160 color clocks/320 hi-res pixels wide), and a wide, overscan Playfield (192 color clocks/384 hi-res pixels wide) by setting a register value. The operating system's default height for creating graphics modes is 192 scan lines, and ANTIC can display vertical overscan up to 240 TV scan lines tall by creating a custom Display List.

The Display List capabilities provide horizontal and vertical coarse scrolling requiring minimal CPU direction. Furthermore, the ANTIC hardware supports horizontal and vertical fine scrolling—shifting the display of screen data incrementally by single pixels (color clocks) horizontally and single scan lines vertically.

The video display system was designed with careful consideration of the NTSC video timing for color output. The system CPU clock and video hardware are synchronized to one-half the NTSC clock frequency. Consequently, the pixel output of all display modes is based on the size of the NTSC color clock which is the minimum size needed to guarantee correct and consistent color regardless of the pixel location on the screen. The fundamental accuracy of the pixel color output allows horizontal fine scrolling without color "strobing"—unsightly hue changes in pixels based on horizontal position caused when signal timing does not provide the TV/monitor hardware adequate time to reach the correct color.

CTIA/GTIA

The Color Television Interface Adaptor (CTIA) is the graphics chip originally used in the Atari 400 and 800. It is the successor to the TIA chip of the 1977 Atari VCS. According to Joe Decuir, George McLeod designed the CTIA in 1977. It was replaced with the Graphic Television Interface Adaptor (GTIA) in later revisions of the 400 and 800 and all later 8-bit models. GTIA, also designed by McLeod, adds three new playfield graphics modes to ANTIC which enable more colors.

The CTIA/GTIA receives Playfield graphics information from ANTIC and applies colors to the pixels from a 128 or 256 color palette depending on the color interpretation mode in effect. CTIA/GTIA controls Player/Missile Graphics (sprites) including collision detection between players, missiles, and the playfield; display priority for objects; and color/luminance control of all displayed objects. CTIA/GTIA outputs separate digital luminance and chroma signals, which are mixed to form an analog composite video signal.

CTIA/GTIA reads the joystick triggers and the Option, Select and Start keys, and controls the keyboard speaker in the Atari 400 and 800. In later computer models the audio output for the keyboard speaker is mixed with the audio out for transmission to the TV/video monitor.

POKEY

POKEY is a custom chip used for reading the keyboard, generating sound and serial communications (in conjunction with the Peripheral Interface Adapter chip) commands and IRQs, plus controlling the 4 joystick movements on the 400 and 800 models, and later RAM banks or ROM (OS/BASIC/Self-test) enables for XL/XE lines. It provides timers, a random number generator for generating acoustic noise and random numbers, and maskable interrupts. POKEY has four semi-independent audio channels, each with its own frequency, noise and volume control. Each 8-bit channel has its own audio control register which select the noise content and volume. For higher sound frequency resolution (quality), two of the audio channels can be combined for more accurate sound (frequency can be defined with 16-bit value instead of usual 8-bit). The name POKEY comes from the words "POtentiometer" and "KEYboard", which are two of the I/O devices that POKEY interfaces with (the potentiometer is the mechanism used by the paddle). The POKEY chip—and its dual- and quad-core versions—was used in many Atari coin-op arcade machines of the 1980s, including Centipede and Millipede, Missile Command, Asteroids Deluxe, Major Havoc, and Return of the Jedi.

Models

Atari, Inc. shipped three updated versions of the 400/800 using the same chipset and with a different case aesthetic: the short-lived 1200XL, then the 600XL and 800XL. Numerous other, wide-ranging projects to develop successors to the 8-bit line were cancelled. After the re-establishment of Atari as Atari Corporation, three more systems were released using largely the same technology as earlier machines: the 65XE and 128 KB 130XE in 1985, and finally the game console inspired Atari XEGS in 1987.

 400 and 800 (1979) – original machines in beige cases. Both have 4 joystick ports below the keyboard and a cartridge slot covered by a door on the top of the machine. The 400 has a membrane keyboard. The 800 has full-travel keys, a second, rarely used, cartridge slot, and monitor output. Both have expandable memory (up to 48 KB); the RAM slots are easily accessible in the 800. Later PAL versions have the 6502C processor.
 1200XL (1983) – new aluminum and smoked plastic case. Includes 64 KB of RAM, two joystick ports, a Help key, and four function keys. Some older software was incompatible with the new OS. Starting with the 1200XL, the single cartridge slot is on the side of the case, and there are only 2 joystick ports.
 600XL and 800XL (1983) – the 600XL has 16 KB of memory and PAL versions have a monitor port. The 800XL has 64 KB and monitor output. Both have built-in BASIC and a Parallel Bus Interface (PBI) expansion port. The last produced PAL units contain the Atari FREDDIE chip and Atari BASIC revision C.
 65XE and 130XE (1985) – the 130XE has 128 KB of bank-switched RAM and an Enhanced Cartridge Interface (ECI) instead of a PBI. The first revisions of the 65XE have no ECI or PBI, and the later ones contain the ECI. The 65XE was relabelled as 800XE in some European markets, and was mostly sold in West Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
 XE Game System (1987) – a 65XE styled as a game console. The basic version of the system shipped without the detachable keyboard. With the keyboard it operates just like other Atari 8-bit computer models. The cartridge slot is on the top, like other consoles.

Production timeline

The production timeline is from 1979 to 1987.</ref>

Prototypes and vaporware

 1400XL: similar to the 1200XL but with a PBI, FREDDIE chip, built-in modem and a Votrax SC-01 speech synthesis chip. Cancelled.
 1450XLD: a 1400XL with built-in ″ disk drive and expansion bay for a second ″ disk drive. Code named Dynasty. Made it to pre-production, but was abandoned by Tramiel.
 1600XL: codenamed Shakti, this was dual-processor system with 6502 and 80186 processors and two built-in ″ floppy disk drives.
 1850XL: codenamed Mickey, this was to use the "Lorraine" (aka "Amiga") custom graphics chips
 65XEM: 65XE with AMY sound synthesis chip. Cancelled.
 65XEP: "portable" 65XE with " disk drive, 5" green CRT and battery pack.

Peripherals

During the lifetime of the 8-bit series, Atari released a large number of peripherals including cassette tape drives, 5.25-inch floppy drives, printers, modems, a touch tablet, and an 80-column display module.

Atari's peripherals use the proprietary Atari SIO port, which allows them to be daisy chained together. A primary goal of the Atari computer design was user-friendliness which was assisted by the SIO bus. Since only one kind of connector plug is used for all devices the Atari computer was easy for novice users to expand. Atari SIO devices use an early form of plug-n-play. Peripherals on the bus have their own IDs, and can deliver downloadable drivers to the Atari computer during the boot process. The additional electronics in these peripherals made them cost more than the equivalent "dumb" devices used by other systems of the era.

Software

Atari did not initially disclose technical information for its computers, except to software developers who agreed to keep it secret, possibly to increase its own software sales. Cartridge software was so rare at first that InfoWorld joked in 1980 that Atari owners might have considered turning the slot "into a fancy ashtray". The magazine advised them to "clear out those cobwebs" for Atari's Star Raiders, which became the platform's killer app, akin to VisiCalc for the Apple II in its ability to persuade customers to buy the computer.

Chris Crawford and others at Atari published detailed technical information in De Re Atari. In 1982, Atari published both the Atari Home Computer System Hardware Manual and an annotated source listing of the operating system. These resources resulted in many books and articles about programming the computer's custom hardware.

Because of graphics superior to those of the Apple II and Atari's home-oriented marketing, games dominated its software library. A 1984 compendium of reviews used 198 pages for games compared to 167 for all others.

Built-in operating system

The Atari 8-bit computers come with an operating system built into the ROM. The Atari 400 and 800 have two versions:
OS Rev. A – 10 KB ROM (3 chips) early machines
OS Rev. B – 10 KB ROM (3 chips) most common

The XL/XE all have OS revisions, which created compatibility issues with certain software. Atari responded with the Translator Disk, a floppy disk which loads the older 400 and 800 Rev. 'B' or Rev. 'A' OS into the XL/XE computers.
OS Rev. 10 – 16 KB ROM (2 chips) for 1200XL Rev A
OS Rev. 11 – 16 KB ROM (2 chips) for 1200XL Rev B (bug fixes)
OS Rev. 1 – 16 KB ROM for 600XL
OS Rev. 2 – 16 KB ROM for 800XL
OS Rev. 3 – 16 KB ROM for 800XE/130XE
OS Rev. 4 – 32 KB ROM (16 KB OS + 8 KB BASIC + 8 KB Missile Command) for XEGS

The XL/XE models that followed the 1200XL also have the Atari BASIC ROM built-in, which can be disabled at startup by holding down the silver OPTION key. Originally this was revision B, which has some serious bugs. Later models have revision C.

Disk Operating System

The standard Atari OS only contained very low-level routines for accessing floppy disk drives. An extra layer, a disk operating system, was required to assist in organizing file system-level disk access. This was known as Atari DOS, and like most home computer DOSes of the era, had to be booted from floppy disk at every power-on or reset. Atari DOS was entirely menu-driven.
DOS 1.0
DOS 2.0S – Improved over DOS 1.0; became the standard for the 810 disk drive.
DOS 3.0 – Came with 1050 drive. Uses a different disk format which is incompatible with DOS 2.0, making it unpopular.
DOS 2.5 – Replaced DOS 3.0 with later 1050s. Functionally identical to DOS 2.0S, but able to read and write enhanced density disks.
DOS XE – Designed for the XF551 drive.

Third-party replacement DOSes were also available.

Legacy

At the beginning of 1992, Atari Corp. officially dropped all remaining support for the 8-bit family. In 2006, Curt Vendel, who designed the Atari Flashback for Atari in 2004, claimed that Atari released the 8-bit chipset into the public domain. There is agreement in the community that Atari authorized the distribution of the Atari 800's ROM with the Xformer 2.5 emulator, which makes the ROM legally available today as freeware.

See also

List of Atari 8-bit family emulators

References

Bibliography

External links

 Atari 400/800 Peripherals
 "A History of Gaming Platforms: Atari 8-bit Computers" at Gamasutra
 Atari XL Series Systems & Prototypes
 Technical chipset information
 Atari Mania database of Atari 8-bit family games and other software
 Atari Archives text of Atari 8-bit family books
 Atari SAP Music Archive POKEY music and players
 More K's. Less £'s Britisch brochure for Atari 400 and 800.

6502-based home computers
Home computers
Computer-related introductions in 1979

Atari 8-bit family


Turnham Green Station is a underground station on the Piccadilly Line and District Line  on the London Underground system. It is next to Chiswick Park, Gunnersbury and Stamford Brook.
Piccadilly Line services operate to this station Early Mornings and Late Evenings. If the District line is closed Piccadilly trains will stop here.

Railway stations in London

Turnham Green station


Donald Campbell Dewar (21 August 1937 – 11 October 2000) was the first First Minister of Scotland from 1999 until his death in 2000. He was the first person to hold the position of First Minister following the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999.

Early life
Dewar was born and raised in Glasgow.

In government
After the 1997 General Election, Dewar was in a position which John Smith (leader of the Labour Party, 1992-1994 and a good friend of Dewar) would never have thought possible. He was able to start the process to split Scotland from the United Kingdom, and worked endlessly on creating the Scotland Act, popularly known as Smith's "unfinished business". When ratified, this was to give Scotland its first Parliament for nearly 300 years.

First Minister of Scotland
The first elections to the Scottish Parliament were held on 6 May 1999, with Dewar leading the Scottish Labour Party against their main opponents, the SNP under Alex Salmond. He was elected as the MSP for Glasgow Anniesland. Although Scottish Labour won the most seats, they did not have a majority in Parliament to allow them to form an Executive without the help of a smaller party. A deal was agreed with the Scottish Liberal Democrats to work together, with Dewar agreeing to their demand for the abolition of up-front tuition fees for university students.

On 13 May, Dewar was nominated as First Minister, and was officially appointed by the Queen on 17 May at a ceremony in the Palace of Holyroodhouse. He later travelled to the Court of Session to be sworn in by the Lord President and receive the Great Seal of Scotland.

On 16 June, Dewar set out the legislative programme for the Executive which included: an Education bill to improve standards in Scottish schools; land reform to give right of access to the countryside, a bill to abolish the feudal system of land tenure; and a bill to establish National Parks in Scotland.

Death and funeral
In April 2000, Dewar was admitted to hospital for tests on his heart, following a previous test where a minor irregularity was discovered. In May 2000, he later had surgery to repair a leaking heart valve, and was forced to take a three month break from Parliament, with Deputy First Minister, Jim Wallace taking over as Acting First Minister. He returned to work on 14 August 2000.

Dewar dealt with the exams results fiasco and the lorry drivers strike, and attended the Labour party conference in Brighton in September, but at the end of September told the historian Tom Devine in Dublin that if there was no surge of the energy of old, he would have to reappraise the situation within a few months time.

On 10 October 2000 around lunchtime, Dewar sustained a fall. He seemed fine at first but later that day suffered a massive brain hemorrhage which was possibly triggered by the medication he was taking after the heart surgery. Donald Dewar died the following day, at 12.18pm, in Edinburgh's Western General Hospital. He was 63 years old.

Dewar's funeral service was held at Glasgow Cathedral, amid scenes of mourning unknown for a politician in Scotland's largest city. He was cremated on 18 October 2000, and his ashes were scattered at Lochgilphead.

Although he has become something of a political legend, Donald would have abhorred any attempt to turn him into some kind of secular saint. He would have been horrified at a Diana-style out-pouring of synthetic grief at his untimely death. -- Iain MacWhirter, Sunday Herald, 15 October 2000.

References

1937 births
2000 deaths
British lawyers
Deaths from cerebral hemorrhage
First Ministers of Scotland
Labour Party (UK) MPs
Members of the British House of Commons for Scottish constituencies
Politicians from Glasgow
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Labour Party (UK) members of the Scottish Parliament
Secretaries of State of the United Kingdom
UK MPs 1966–1970
UK MPs 1974–1979
UK MPs 1979–1983
UK MPs 1983–1987
UK MPs 1987–1992
UK MPs 1992–1997
UK MPs 1997–2001

Donald Dewar


Direct memory access  (usually shortened to DMA) is a technology used in Computers and microprocessors. With it, certain hardware components can use parts of the main memory for their applications, without the need to ask the CPU. The CPU will request data from memory once and the DMA will continue to fetch the data, freeing the CPU to do other work. This way, the CPU does not have to request every byte.

Computing

Direct memory access


Ivo Milazzo (born 20 June 1947) is an Italian comic book artist.

Born in Tortona, Milazzo worked mainly for Sergio Bonelli Editore. He debuted in 1971, drawing some Tarzan stories for the French market. Together with his friend, writer Giancarlo Berardi,  he created a number of characters, including in 1974 Ken Parker, one of the most appreciated western characters of European comics.

His style is somewhat reminiscent of that of Hugo Pratt.

References

External links

Page at lambiek.com

Italian comics artists
1947 births
Living people
People from Tortona

Ivo Milazzo


Pailin () is a province (khaet) in wastren Cambodie at the northren edge o the Cardamom Muntains near the border o Thailand. This province is surroondit bi Battambang Province, an wis offeecially carvit oot o Battambang tae acome a separate admeenistrative diveesion efter the surrender o the Ieng Sary faction o the Khmer Rouge in 1996.  Pailin is kent tae hintle o the warld for haein lang been a stranghauld o the Khmer Rouge, remainin unner thair control lang efter thay wur defeatit in 1979 an servin frae 1994-1998 as the caipital o the "Proveesional Govrenment o Naitional Union an Naitional Salvation o Cambodie."

On 22 December 2008, Keeng Norodom Sihamoni signed a Ryal Decree that chyngit the municipalities o Kep, Pailin an Sihanoukville intae provinces, as well as adjustin several provincial borders.

History
Pailin wis oreeginally a smaw forest zone full o ainimal an several precious stones. Pailin is the transform wird frae the oreeginal Pan Len (Khmer:ភេលេង), referred bi a tale aboot aroond the 18t or 19t century, thare war a group o hunters who chased the wild ainimals farther an farther until thay reached the present-day Pailin whaur, then, wis o jungles o heich trees an some fields bi the canal which wis cried smaw river sic as Tong smaw river. The hunters saw otters that war swimming an thay ran away whan thay saw people. Then, the hunters went to see the place whaur the otters played thegither. Thay saw smaw bricht rocks an everybody teuk a rock to shaw thair friends an thair relatives in thair home land. Arrivin in the home land, thare war residents (it wis said thay war Kula people in Chanthaburi Province  Siam) knew that the rocks war valuable sae thay teuk an broke the rocks to polish intae gems wi good purity. That wis why thay went to buy gems frae the hunters. The hunters knew that it wis way o earnin a livin, thay eften tried to go to tak the rocks frae the auld place. At that time, Pailin began to faced as the business place.

The frequent going an coming frae that place made them caw Phee Leng (Khmer:ភេលេង) due tae the playin o the otters that thay saw at the first time. But the residents in Siam pronoonced Phee as Phai(Khmer:ផេ) an Leng as Len (Khmer:ឡេន) or Lin wi thair Siamese soond as Pea Lean (Khmer:ផេឡេន). Durin the control o Fraunce o that aurie, it wis written in Laitin wi the soond an morphology o the wirds as Phailin. Later the wird wis shortened as Pailin bi omittin " H "ាaim o a difficult pronunciation.

In the late 1970s, Pailin wis a prosperous toun stemmin frae the extensive gem deposits in the surroondin kintraside. Acause o its resoorces, it wis ane o the first ceeties invadit bi the Khmer Rouge whan thay began thair major affensive against the naitional govrenment. The ceety affered nae resistance an the Khmer Rouge sodgers wur greetit as leeberators as thay maircht intae toun. At this pynt, the deposed keeng haed allee'd hissel wi the KR an maist residents believit that the KR wur fechtin tae restore him tae pouer.  It wis no lang, tho, afore maist residents wur roondit up for a forcit mairch tae the kintraside tae wirk in rice paddies.  Those believit tae hae connections tae the govrenment wur killed.  The KR uised proceeds frae minin in the Pailin aurie tae fund thair affensive an later thair govrenment ance thay gained naitional pouer.  When the invadin Vietnamese Airmy threw them frae pouer, thay retreatit tae Pailin, whare mony umwhile KR leaders haed remained.

Some leaders went intae hidin in fear o punishment for thair creemes, awtho ither leaders livit openly in the province. It is said that 70% o the aurie's aulder men wur fechters for the Khmer Rouge, but nane o the regular fechters hae yet been brocht tae juistice. As o September 2007, Pailin's remainin Khmer Rouge leaders wur bein roondit up tae face juistice bi an internaitional tribunal, includin Khieu Samphan an Nuon Chea.

In the recent years, Pailin suddenly meet the decline o Economy an Business. Housomeivver, a new wave o tourism began foond depend on its auncient temple, naitural forest, ainimals an especially the precious stanes.

Tourism Attractions
Wat Phnom Yat
Wat Rattanak Sopoan
Phnom Kiev Waterfaw (Blue Muntain)

Cultur
Pailin's cultur is distinctly different frae maist o Khmer cultur. Accordin tae some data, Pailin's cultur is predominantly Burmese, an haes hintle in common wi that o the kintra o Burma. This affinity is shawn in the region's cuisine, dress, temple airchitectur, festivals an airts.  The cultur can be seen as seemilar tae the cultur in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  The fowk o Pailin are predominantly Kola.  The Kola fowk oreeginally migratit frae Burma beginnin in 1876.  Thare is some dispute as tae frae wha region o Burma the Kola oreeginatit, as thare is nae group in modren day Myanmar kent as the "Kola".  Anither wave o migrants, the Shan arrivit frae Burma in the 1920s.  Baith groups are kent for thair wirk in the precious gem business, which likely is wha attractit them tae Pailin.

Thare are several dialects spoken locally includin Khmer, Shan an Kola.  The local Khmer dialect shows influence in tone an pronunciation frae the Burmese leids as well as Kham Muang an Mon leid.

In Pailin, thare are a few different kynds o fuids.  Kola's fuid is destinct frae Burma's Cuisine as well. The maist popular Burmese style ane is Mee Kola (មីកុឡា) which is a vegetarian noodle dish made frae thin rice stick noodles, steamit an ceukit wi soy sauce an garlic chive, whiles mixed wi some meats an sma lobster. Ither dishes include Tom yum frae Thailand an Mon bananae puddin o Burma. Thir hae aw spread tae ither pairts o Thailand an Cambodie, but normally in versions which are flavored mair sweetly than the Pailin version, especially in Phnom Penh.

The Traditional claes o Pailin is Longyi, kent as Sarong an aw. The cloth is aften sewn intae a cylindrical shape. It is worn aroond the waist, runnin tae the feet.  It is held in place bi fauldin fabric ower, athoot a knot. It is whiles fauldit up tae the knee for comfort an aw.  Thir traditional "longyi" hae aboot 2 meters o in lenth o swan. The cloth is made o cotton an whiles frae silk. Kola men wear ankle-lenth patterns o checks, plaids or stripes "Longyi" in ony kynds o colour.  The Men aaweys wear thair white eingyi shirt which haes a mandarin collar an whiles wear a traditional jacket cried taik-pon ower thair eingy an aw. It haes white, grey, black or terracotta colours. Thay put the gaung baung turban on thair heid an on thair feet wear semple rubber or velvet slippers.

For Kola weemen's cauf-lenth longyi are in solit colours, flouer prints an mony kynds o designs.  Thay soften hae a reid based colour, wi pairtial stripes or vera sma checks seemilar tae what Mon wear.  Thay aften hae horizontal or vertical stripes at the middle pairt an aw. Ryalty tradeetionally wore a lang dress cried "thin-dai" decoratit bi mony threads.  It wis aaways worn bi a laird's dochter an the keeng o the province's lady. The weemen wears a bonnie blouse an a lovely shirt which is kent as eingyi.  The shirt is decorated wi several colours an mony piece o siller.  The shirt haes horizontal or vertical stripes at the middle pairt in some brawnnie colour an aw. Kola weemen tee a traditional shawl on thair eingyi as well as thay put the shawl on thair shoulders.  Weemen tee a lovely baund on thair heid an wear brawnnie flouers in thair hair, allouin thair hair tae drop as a ponytail abuin thair shoulders. Thay whiles teuk a traditional umbrella made frae baboom wi them. The fuitwear is semple slippers o leather or velvet cried Hnyat-phanat.

Aw o thir costumes wur shiny wi bricht colours durin celebrations.  The clothin is vera seemilar tae wha is worn bi the Shan in Burma.

The hooses in Pailin are biggit frae firth, aboot 8 cm tae 1 meter includes a wide door an in the middle o hoose, thare are the hermitages o Buddha an anithers spirit hoose. The Kola Fowk are fond o plantin roses in front o thair hames.

Economy
The surroondin aurie wis rich in a variety o gemstanes which wur mined amiast clean tae support the Khmer Rouge. Thay loggit the aurie extensively an aw, creatin great environmental damage.

Unlik maist o Cambodie, Pailin is componed primarily o uplands whare little rice is grown.  This maks it vera difficult for fermers to rely on subsistence agricultur.  Crop failurs trigger collection o fuid an gems frae the forests, increasin the nummer o land mine accidents.  Mony fermers produce nan-traditional crops for the mercats, includin sesame, mung an soya.  In 2003-04 it producit 17,204 tons o maize, the seicont-heichest production in the kintra.

Land mines
Pailin wis ane o the maist hivily mined aurie in the warld. Travellers are cautioned tae stay on markit roads. De-minin is ongoin wi UN help, which brings in some o the few foreigners that the locals encoonter.

Traders in Pailin will accept Cambodie riels, Unitit States dollarUS dollars, an Thai baht; US dollars are preferred.

Till 2001 Pailin wis pairt o Battambang Province, then elevatit tae ceety status, an then again tae provincial status an sicweys became an autonomous zone o its awn.

Admeenistration
The province is dividit intae twa destricts:
2401 Pailin (ប៉ៃលិន)
2402 Sala Krau (សាលាក្រៅ)

References

See an aw

Municipalities o Cambodie
Provinces o Cambodie
Populatit places in Cambodie

Pailin