It was discovered on December 18, 1998 that everything thought to be known about the Atari 600 was incorrect.   This was NOT the prototype of what was to be the Atari 600XL.   In fact the Atari 600 prototype show on this page is actually the low end companion to the Atari 1200XL series.  The Atari 1200XL was a project codenamed "Sweet-16" and a low cost version of the Atari 400 was codenamed "Sweet-8" and "Liz".    After a thorough examination of the Atari 600 prototype it was discovered that this is in fact a "Sweet-8" prototype and in fact it contains a flush-edged Parallel Bus Interface (PBI) Connector.
 

     It has a single ROM OS, the keyboard is marked Mitsumi Prototype sample, there is a BASIC ROM chip on the motherboard but it does not load up, instead Atari Memo Pad loads up.   The Reset/Option/Select/Start/Help keys do not fucntion.   Several cartridges were tested, BASIC worked, AtariWriter worked, Telelink II did not work and a prototype of Super-Pac Man did not work.
 
 

    There are several switches placed on the back of the casing.   They are wired into the Option Key and several other chips on the board.   However after an hour of trying dozens of various combinations and keypresses, nothing happened.    As soon as we can, some images will be taken of the inside of the unit, it is completely foreign to any arrangement in an Atari computer ever seen.   Also the underside of the motherboard will be shown where it says ATARI LIZ NY on it.

    This discovery is a true eye-opening find.   The fact that this is actually the low end counterpart to the Atari 1200 explains something never questioned or debated before:   Why was the XL replacement for the Atari 800 called the Atari 800XL and the replacement for the Atari 400 called the 600XL and not the 400XL?   The answer is simple, the 600 was to be 1/2 of the 1200, just as the 400 was 1/2 of the 800 model number designation.   So the silent mystery of the number designation of 600XL for the 400 replacement has been answered.