Atari 400 User Manual page 13

CHAPTER 2
GETTI' N G STARTED
All you need to start computing is an Atari com-
puter, a 1V set or monitor (preferably color), and
software. You may also have purchased some
sort of device to load programs into the com-
puter (such as a cassette recorder or a disk drive)
or some controllers for playing games (such as
joysticks or paddles). If you are interested in
learning more about various types of equipment
(called peripherals) that you can use with your
computer, see Chapter 4, " Peripherals."
YOU NEED A TV OR MONITOR
It's likely that you already own a TV set that you
can use with your Atari computer. In most cases,
any color or black-and-white set will work fine
as a video display for your games or other pro-
grarris. The only problem you may run into is
called excessive overscan. If it becomes evident
that you aren't seeing a lot of the edges of the
video image your computer is generating and
the TV is hooked up properly, you have an over-
scan problem. This sometimes occurs in older TV
sets, and there 's not much you can do about it
other than buying a new TV All TVs have some
overscan; however, if the overscan starts to
interfere with playing games or using other
types of programs, you may want to consider
replacing your TV
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