Atari 65XE (Poland)
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| An Atari 65XE. Polish-market machines are standard PAL 65XEs. | |
| Specifications | |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Atari Corporation; imported and serviced in Poland by Logical Design Works / P.Z. Karen |
| Type | Home computer (regional distribution) |
| CPU | MOS Technology 6502C @ 1.77 MHz (PAL) |
| Memory | 64 KB RAM; 24 KB ROM (16 KB operating system + 8 KB Atari BASIC Rev. C) |
| Storage | Cassette (410/1010, or the Polish-made CA12/XCA12) or 5.25" floppy disk drive over SIO |
| Display | 40 x 24 text, up to 320 x 192 pixels |
| Sound | POKEY: four audio channels |
| OS / Firmware | Atari XE Operating System; Atari BASIC Rev. C in ROM |
| Model no. | 65XE |
Atari 65XE (Poland) covers the Atari 65XE as it was imported, sold and serviced in Poland during the 1980s. The machines themselves are ordinary PAL 65XEs; what makes the Polish story worth a separate page is the distribution arrangement behind them and the size of the installed base it produced.
Distribution
[edit | edit source]In 1983 Lucjan Daniel Wencel, a Polish businessman living in the United States, founded Logical Design Works, Inc. of San Jose, California, and with it a Polish foreign enterprise, P.Z. Karen. The original purpose was the opposite of what the company became known for: to employ Polish programmers whose skills had no local market and sell their software in the West, which it did under the California Dreams label.[1]
LDW went on to become the exclusive distributor of Atari computers in Poland. Under that contract Atari machines were sold through the Pewex chain - the state-run hard-currency shops that sold Western goods for dollars rather than zloty - and P.Z. Karen ran the Atari service operation in Poland for both the 8-bit and the 16-bit machines. The first head of P.Z. Karen was Bogdan Wisniewski, and the service department was built by Zygmunt Boguszewski, Stanislaw Gmaj and Tadeusz Pekacz.[1]
In total, more than 160,000 pieces of Atari hardware reached the Polish market through P.Z. Karen.[1]
Under the California Access label the same group also manufactured peripherals for the 8-bit Atari in Poland: the XCA12 and CA12 cassette recorders, the CA-2001 disk drive and joysticks. LDW ceased trading in 1993.[1]
Examples of the Polish-market set are held in public collections, including the Museum of Municipal Engineering in Krakow.[2]
The machines
[edit | edit source]Polish-market 65XEs are standard PAL machines and carry no Polish-specific hardware. The hardware is documented in Atari's field service manual for the XE line, which covers the 65XE directly.[3]
- 6502C at 1.77 MHz (PAL), with ANTIC, GTIA, POKEY, the PIA, FREDDIE and the MMU1
(C061618)[3]
- 64 KB RAM - eight 64K x 1 devices on the CO70025 and CA20097 assemblies, two 64K x 4
devices on the later CA200519 assembly[3]
- 24 KB ROM - 16 KB operating system plus 8 KB Atari BASIC Rev. C[3]
- +5 V DC through a 7-pin DIN power jack, from a brick containing the transformer,
bridge rectifier, LM78S05 regulator, 4700 uF reservoir and 100 uF output capacitor, rated 5 V +/-5% at 1.5 A maximum. There is no regulator on the board.[3]
- Master oscillator 14.187576 MHz (PAL)[3]
Atari documents three 65XE board assemblies - CO70025, CA20097 and CA200519 - and the CA200519 assembly is shared with the 130XE and the 800XE.[3] Claims that Polish units used four distinct revisions, or that later units were 130XE boards with half the RAM fitted, could not be corroborated against any published source and are not repeated here; identify the board in front of you from its assembly number and its fitted RAM devices.
Cultural note
[edit | edit source]The Commodore 64 was not generally available in the Eastern Bloc, and in Poland the Atari 8-bit occupied the position the C64 held in the West. A large software and demoscene community grew up around the machine and long outlived its commercial life. The scale of that community follows directly from the 160,000-plus machines that P.Z. Karen placed in the market.[1]
Related pages
[edit | edit source]- Atari 65XE
- Atari 65XE General Maintenance
- Atari 65XE Troubleshooting Guide
- Atari 65XE Capacitor Replacement Guide
- Atari 130XE
- Atari 800XE
References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 "LDW", Atariki, the Polish Atari community wiki. Secondary source, but it carries a contemporary bibliography: Elzbieta Bobrowska, Zenon Rudak and Stefan Szczypka, "Komputery ATARI w Polsce", Komputer 8/1986, pp. 11-12; Elzbieta Bobrowska, "Pelen serwis", Komputer 8/1986, p. 12; a letter from Lucjan D. Wencel, Komputer 9/1987, p. 44; Grzegorz Onichimowski, "Gonimy za rynkiem", Bajtek tylko o Atari 2 (1988), p. 3; and Jaroslaw Mlodzki and Wojciech Zientara, "Nie tylko Atari", Moje Atari 4/1991, pp. 8-9. Source for the founding of LDW and P.Z. Karen, the exclusive distribution arrangement, the Pewex retail channel, the service operation and the 160,000-unit figure.
- ↑ "Atari 65XE computer set", Museum of Municipal Engineering, Krakow. Catalogue entry for a Polish-market 65XE set.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Atari, 130XE Personal Computer Field Service Manual. Section 1 (theory of operation, chip pin assignments, external power supply schematic and rating, connector pinouts), Section 2 (schematics and silkscreens for all seven XE board assemblies), Section 3 (self test and production-test diagnostic error codes). Despite its title it covers the 65XE, the 800XE and the XE Game System as well. Hosted on this wiki: File:Atari 130XE Field Service Manual.pdf.