Let’s face it. The Atari community has been jealous of their usual enemies for years. The Speccy enthusiasts have the ZX Spectrum Next, and the Commodore fans have the Mega65 and the Commander X16. Meanwhile, the Atari people could only dream about a modern Atari machine.

Hold your breath, this is still the case, but there is a new hope that was announced yesterday all around social media. A company called Revive Machines, based in Poland, is showing rendered images of what they are calling the RM 800XL.

Visually, the RM 800XL looks precisely like the Atari counterpart, with a few differences to allow the machine to meet some of the modern requirements.

The RM 800XL is a transfer of the original design with all of its fantastic features into the 21st century. It is a combination of tradition and modernity at a level that has not been achieved by anyone before.

The RM 800XL will support the original cartridges, joysticks, and SIO. In addition to that, it will have standard USB ports for modern controllers, an HDMI port for video, and a USB-C to power it on.

According to the Revive Machines page, the RM 800XL will be based on FPGA technologies and not “cheap” emulation.

The page doesn’t contain any concrete information about the project, like prices or when it will be available. It could be vaporware from what we can see at this time, but hopefully, that is not the case, and there is, in fact, serious work going on behind the scenes. We will have to wait and see.

Link: Revice Machines