Well, I already knew how to program, but the articles one of their lead developers kept writing about how to program games for the Atari 400/800 inspired me to write some games on my own. I never finished any, and once I got a good job, I replaced it with more conventional computers, but I really enjoyed my time with my 800. Even though I’m not sure what happened to it. Some move or other.
Anyway, when I saw this, it wasn’t really a question of whether or not I’d be getting it. Even for nostalgia reasons, that was reason enough. The 400 Mini would come with a bunch of old games, and is fully hackable to load into it anything you might ever want to play, game-wise. It doesn’t come with a cartridge slot, so my old Atari BASIC cart won’t fit in it, and I don’t think it simulates the disk system, so my old Forth programs wouldn’t work (if I could find them), but… games… those it has. And we can get more.
The company that currently owns the Atari trademark wasn’t actually responsible for the 400 Mini, though they will gladly sell one to you. Retro Games, the makers, adds the THE400 Mini, to the THEA500 Mini (a clone of the Commodore Amiga 500), THEC64 (a clone of the Commodore 64), and THEVIC20 (a clone of the Commodore VIC 20). The Atari 8 bit home computers shared a lot of the DNA with the Amiga, both having chipsets designed by Jay Miner, so it’s not super surprising that Retro Games would target the Atari after the THEA500.
The THE400 Mini is about half the size of the actual Atari 400. Although it faithfully recreates the looks of the membrane keyboard and cartridge port cover, they are completely non-functional. The console is very light, and is likely almost entirely empty inside.
The box contains the THE400, a USB joystick that mimics the look of the original Atari joysticks, an HDMI cable, a USB A to USB C cable, and a very thin instruction booklet that explains how to use the additional buttons on the joystick to simulate the start, select and reset buttons unavailable from the actual console.
There is no power cord; the THE400 Mini takes so little power that it can be powered from a powered USB hub with the included cable. To give it a spin, I plugged it into one of my PC’s USB slots, plugged the HDMI cable into my HDMI to USB converter, plugged the joystick into the front of it, fired up OBS and it was up and running.
There were some of my old favorites, such as Star Raiders and Miner 2049er, some arcade ports I didn’t own because I went to the actual arcade a lot at that point and didn’t need them at home as well, and some games like 7 Cities of Gold and M.U.L.E. that I never got around to playing back in the day. A lot of games I did play are missing, though. Games like Archon, Bill Budge’s Pinball Construction Set and many others are not included (although they can be loaded).
While I was playing through the included games this afternoon, I found it strange that almost all the games featured the same nefarious villain. Platformers, shooters, racers, all had the same evil entity as the final and most insidious boss.
The frickin’ JOYSTICK. Decades later and I can still feel my hand cramping up from extended Defender games. Today brought it all back to me. There were a lot of games that wanted perfect diagonal movement, but any way I thought I was pushing the stick, the game thought it was some other direction. Crystal Castles was pretty forgiving, but there were a bunch of games where the stick would give me a little evil look and then give me a little extra push in a random direction.
Frustrating.
None of the games come with any instructions, so unless you have a vivid memory of playing them from way back when, you’ll need to find the instruction manuals online somewhere.
So the verdict: The games look better than they ever did on the actual computer, without having to worry about floppies or cartridges or tape drives or anything. The console can be loaded with any Atari 400 or Atari 800 game you can find. I haven’t attached a keyboard, though I imagine it would work. You can replace the janky joystick with a modern gamepad and it will work fine, they claim, though I haven’t tried that yet.
That said, unless you have that early 80s gaming nostalgia going on, there’s not much here. But some of those games were so good. I’m looking forward to getting Rescue from Fractalus on here, for one 🙂 Actually, I think a few of those old LucasFilm games want me to play them again…
Bard’s Tale!
Yeah, emulators are a thing and can play all those games, so… you don’t really need THE400 Mini. But maybe you want it anyway.
Oh, 7 Cities of Gold is tempting. But I’m always worried I’ll go back to some old game and it won’t be as good as I remember it being!
I remember having bruised fingertips from that danged keyboard. When I finally upgraded from the 400 to an 800XL I was SO happy!
Me, I was going to be a Serious Computer Using Person so I saved up to afford the 800, with the Real Keyboard. Wow, that cost $900 back then? That was as much as a semester of college. WOW THAT WAS A LONG TIME AGO I GUESS.
Also, you can get these games on emulators, so… can always try for free 🙂