It was not often that the Atari 800 computer was mentioned in a non-Atari magazine without it being called a home computer or game machine. In the September 1984 issue of American Labaoratory the article “Interfacing a microcomputer and robot to a pulsed NMR Spectrometer” simply stated that “the Atari 800 computer was selected for economic reasons.”
Let's do the math. The computer system is reported to be made up of an Atari 800, two – 810 disk drives, 850 Interface and Atari BASIC. I'm going to estimate its cost from advertisements in the December 1983 issue of COMPUTE! Magazine. That should be enough time to build the interface, program and test it, write the article, submit it and wait for it to be published.
$249.95 - 800 computer
$798.00 - 2 - 810 disk drives
$179.00 – 850 interface
$40.00 - BASIC language
for a total of
$1266.95 (no tax) and in today's dollar that would be--> $2964.95
Now if you're trying to build a robot to feed samples to your IBM PC-20 Multispec( “low-resolution, pulsed proton spectrometer with a permanent magnet operating at 0.47 Tesla”) that Atari 800 would be even more cost effective at today's prices. You just have to be sure to keep your disks away from that permanent magnet operating at 0.47 Tesla.