Atari 800XL (Computer Direct, 1985)

The above ad is from the October 1985 issue of Compute! In 1985, the Atari 130XE had recently been introduced as the successor to the Atari 800XL. Here, it looks like we have Computer Direct trying to unload the rest of their 800XL inventory...

As I recall, I had pretty good results dealing with Computer Direct back in the day, though it was for Commodore related stuff, not Atari. Their advertising is a little questionable though. I like how they advertise the 800XL as an "88K Computer". I believe they are just combining the 64K RAM size with the 24K ROM size but that's a weird way to do things.

Even though the 130XE is newly released, it is the 800XL being pushed in this ad, particularly as a package with a bunch of XL themed peripherals. While XL peripherals were generally compatible with the 130XE, the color scheme changed from browns to greys. They were offering the same deal for $50 more with the 130XE instead of the XL. This would have still been with the older peripherals though. No doubt they were also trying to unload their remaining XL stock before it became too hard to get rid of.