Why I hope the Atari 400 Mini will bring respect to Atari’s most underrated platform

Enlarge / Retro Games’ THE400 Mini console. (credit: Retro Games / Benj Edwards)

Last week, UK-based Retro Games, Ltd. announced a mini console version of the Atari 400 home computer, first released in 1979. It’s called “THE400 Mini,” and it includes HDMI video output, 25 built-in games, a USB version of Atari’s famous joystick, and it retails for $120. But this release means something more to me personally because my first computer was an Atari 400—and as any other Atari 8-bit computer fan can tell you, the platform often doesn’t get the respect it should. This will be the first time Atari’s 8-bit computer line has received a major retro-remake release.

My Atari 400 story goes a little something like this. Around the time I was born in 1981, my dad bought my older brother (then 5 years old) an Atari 400 so he could play games and learn to program. My brother almost immediately found its flat membrane keyboard frustrating and the Atari 410 cassette drive too slow, so my dad ordered an Atari 800 and an Atari 810 disk drive instead. This began our family’s golden age of Atari 800 gaming, which I’ve written about elsewhere.

I’ve often said if a modern game designer wants to learn how to make games, just dive into the Atari 400/800 game library. There are some priceless gems there you can’t find anywhere else, plus others that play best on the platform. OK, I’ll name a few: The Seven Cities of Gold, Archon, M.U.L.E., Wizard of Wor, Salmon Run, Star Raiders, The Halley Project, and so much more.