"Were it not for COMPUTE! it is quite possible that I would not have chosen the Atari in the first place, or having done so, that I would not have kept it. COMPUTE!, for a novice like me, who does not have time to be a hobbyist, is without peer the finest computer magazine I have encountered; and it appears to be getting better. I anxiously await its arrival every month.

I am considering upgrading my Atari 800 with more memory and a disk drive. While canned programs are very nearly all written for the 810 disk drive, the 815 double density/double disk is attractive because of its capacity. The questions are these: will the 810 and 815 disk drives work together in a system? Will the canned programs (Visicalc, wordprocessing, etc.) operate with an 815 disk drive?"John Thrash

You are clearly a man of taste and acute judgment. We cannot recommend the 815. Atari has cancelled its production. Because it is double-density, the disk operating system would need to be different from the 810 and having them work together would be very difficult indeed. Although we're sure Atari will continue to support the 815, the cancellation would raise a question in our minds regarding continued support by outside software houses.