The spawn of AtariLab and the Universal Laboratory Interface

Wow I remember wanting one of these back in the day... never got to see one but this article covers everything you ever wanted to know about the product.<p>At the time it seemed that Atari had their hands in everything. There was the AtariTel video phone, Mindlink brain interface, AtariLab, and many other oddities that nearly&#x2F;barely made it into production. They even had a device that connected their 8bit computers to Atari coin-ops to add up the quarters in the cash boxes and print reports (I think it was called the Coin Executive or something). There was something magical about that era, it seemed the future was right around the corner.

Interesting that the article mentions that the Atari had access to PLATO[0]. I very very vaguely remember that in promotional material. I see there are threads about it on Atari forums, and also a page in a wiki[1].<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;gadgets&#x2F;2023&#x2F;03&#x2F;plato-how-an-educational-computer-system-from-the-60s-shaped-the-future&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;gadgets&#x2F;2023&#x2F;03&#x2F;plato-how-an-educati...</a> [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;atariwiki.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Wiki.jsp?page=PLATO" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;atariwiki.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Wiki.jsp?page=PLATO</a>

I had one of these AtariLab kits, probably leftovers from the school library(the source of a lot of retro gear and books in my youth). And yeah, it was badly misreading the room temperature in the early 90&#x27;s, too. I was hardly prepared to figure out how it might be calibrated and the deep dive here would test me even now. Just one of those interesting curiosities where the intent got ahead of the practical utility.