sets by pressing . Later XL and XE models required the user to update a register in RAM (e.g., via a POKE command in BASIC).

In some regions, a different character set was included instead of the default international character set, in order to better accommodate the target market, including Polish, Arabic, and Hebrew. Atari 192XT and 256XT systems distributed in Eastern Europe by P.Z.Karen had a Polish character set in place