As mentioned in a previous post, I was doing some loft-digging and I "found" some old Atari hardware that I believe I purchased around the 2007/2008 timeframe and they have sat in boxes (and a house move) ever since.
As these are sturdy, good old fashioned pieces of kit, I fully expect them to still work absolutely fine - unlike todays hardware that, if you had the right power supply available would attempt to connect to an out-dated WiFi protocol to get to the internet to download updates before allowing you to use it - think about that more for a moment. The Atari 800 XL devices were primarily "invented" in about 1979, as you'll see in a photo later - I have one of those, and then were made for about 5 more years, up until 1984-ish. We're now in 2022 (on the cusp of 2023), 2023-1979 = 44. That means this hardware was made between 35-45 years ago - I'm including the tape-drive(s) and the disk-drive(s) in that range band.
I will be the first to admit, the original PSU does not fill me with confidence, it does make a bit of a buzzing noise - I do have 2 of them, so if one does go kerput! then I can always use the other - however, I have done a bit of research and found that I can just replace the original PSU with a modern USB cable with a custom adaptor on the end that plugs into the Atari, as all the device needs is 5v at 1.5amps-ish.... well, that's a couple of those ordered off eBay.... they'll arrive at some point.
Anyway, back to my point - I can just plug this hardware into a monitor, admittedly it is a bit of a special LCD monitor in the fact that it has ALL of the connectors on the back, including a TV antenna, so it is perfect for Retro-computer usage. I was using it with the SCART cable for the Atari ST, but have now switched to using the composite for the Atari 800XL. I can get a SCART cable, I wonder if I ordered one of those too? Will need to go check later. (update: yes, yes, I did - I got the last one).
The question is - we all know "modern day hardware" is a bit naff and is not built for a shelf-life, it is built to expire, even though there is nothing wrong with it. I have a stack of Android / Amazon 7" tablets in a pile over there - I'm reluctant to get rid of them, there is nothing wrong with them, they just don't run the "latest OS version", so they cannot use the new software, even though there is/was nothing wrong with the old software... well, that didn't take long to digress, did it?! :-D
Back to the task at hand - I thought I would unscrew the 3 x 800XL devices and take a look inside and do a little bit of a check to see how they differ. I actually think I only took 2 of them apart fully as I was using the 3rd one! It did prove a little interesting. I have one device that looks immaculate, it looks like it has been retro-brighted whereas the other two are grot-balls dirty and tobacco style yellowed. However, as we shall see, the insides give away more than the outsides!
So, this is Atari 800XL number 1 "naked".... it is actually in rather good condition - I did get the toothbrush style cleaner out and give everything a light rub over, nothing was really needed, they were in this condition already: no rust, no blown capacitors, no leaks, no mis-fitted chips...
I do love how "simple" the board / layout / schematic / design is. Memory chips over in a row on the left; BASIC and OS(?) chips on top-right, then the big bad boys along the bottom do the Graphics, Sound, IO Processing and then the main 6502 CPU is one of them - all with a bunch of resistors between them all - if you look at it in the raw components, it is awesome what this device can actually do with so little (okay, we cannot see "inside" the chips, but they will only have logic gates inside, glorified "if..then..else" conditions, [okay okay, it's more than that, but I'm not going to describe XOR, NAND, AND, OR gates etc.. here])
I note some odd bubbling type effect, but it doesn't look like an issue.
The keyboard connector is so simple - just one big connector wedged into the main board, super easy to remove and re-connect, not fiddly or easy to break.
Talking of keyboards, I noticed that the 2 devices I took apart had slightly different style keyboards. The retro-bright version on the bottom is subtlety different to the top one. Doesn't affect it at all, but it is clear that it is a different revision / version.
The underside of the retro-bright keyboard is, again, super clean - whether this was a restoration or original, I'll never know.
Again, the underside of this board is super clean with no indications of damage or breaks in the solder / connections.
Again, the layout from the top of the retro-bright version.
That's where I started to have a closer look at the actual chips, I noticed the retro-bright version actually has chips stamped with 1979 on them and the grot-balls device has 1984 stamped on them - so the grottier device is actually 5years younger!
I also noticed on the back (on the retro-bright) and device number 3, they had this extra tab - it is sealed into place, so it doesn't come on/off like the parallel port cover.
I then realised that I screwed the parallel port thingy the wrong side - does it matter? well, it depends - do you actually want to be able to connect the monitor adaptor or not? if you put it on the wrong side, it pushes the motherboard upwards and then the monitor adaptor is raised inside the casing.
Keyboard of device number 3. You'll note it is the same as the grot-balls device and you'll notice that the retro-bright keyboard has an extra covering to protect the keyboard circuitry. I really do wonder if the retro-bright device is a mishmash. who knows?
I actually don't even remember why I bought these back in 2007/2008, they weren't actually on my radar, I never used one as a kid, wasn't even really aware of them -
I had an Amstrad CPC464 in 1985 and was vaguely aware that "everyone else" had a ZX Spectrum or a Commodore 64...it wasn't until 1988/9 that I became aware of the Atari 520ST (and that one I became aware of, I now own) and then I moved into the PC World (so to speak).
Setting up and using the Atari 800XL fills a gap and does fill me with a little bit of awe - I suppose it makes sense that Atari, coming from the video arcade cabinet hardware perspective should have an awesome hardware driven sprite capability, rather than software, which makes it awesomely impressive visually and performance-wise... anyway, digressed again.
I also had some Atari 1010 and Atari 1050 tape and disk drives in the same box - it looks like I had 2 x 1010 tape drives, a 410 tape drive (missing PSU) and a generic tape drive as well. I wonder if I can clean them up and get them working too....
BEFORE venturing down that road - I do have to confess that I did order / purchase one of these devices:
From the blurb:
"Here we have the excellent Atari SDrive-Max. This works just like the sio2sd but better, It has a touch screen for easy use and emulates 4 disk drives and the tape deck. It comes with a 3d printed case and a 3d printed sio cable so all you need to do is put a micro sd card in with your favorite games on and away you go. The SDrive-Max is powered by the Atari so there is no need for an extra power supply.
Here's a link to the sdrive.atr
it goes in the root directory on your sd card.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/884b7v0s17bs5x8/sdrive.atr?dl=0
Instructions on how to use is at
8bit-tronics.com "
As that will not arrive in the post until Jan 2023, I will have to write a new article on my usage of that device, until then....back to the REAL HARDWARE.
DISK / TAPE DRIVES
Yep, I have 2 of these chunky monkeys - they look good and sturdy - they look like they mean business!
The true age is shown by the label underneath!
Okay, I got distracted whilst I was opening up the 1050 Disk drive and I was attempting to LOAD Arkanoid from tape on the 1010 tape drive... hmmm.... might need a tape cleaner?
anyway, back to the disk drive - wow!just wow! it is sooooooo clean inside here!
As you would expect, I don't have any 5 1/4" DSDD disks to hand - oh, except I found a folder with a load of literature and a small book with some software on it (orange disk), I also "found" a battered / beaten (green disk) inside the other drive - will come back to that shortly.
Booting up from the orange disk, I see a DOS menu screen!
After figuring out to press [A] and then just press [Return] afterwards I get shown a list of files on the floppy disk! that is friggin' awesome, it just works.
What was on the Orange disk? Well.... this was the software, hence the name of the files: ASTROZ.BIN and ASTRO.BAS
I then opened up the "other" disk drive....and it was just as clean inside
Damn.... that is cleaner than most "brand new" equipment that I have.
Again, the drive-belt is in good shape. I did notice that there were some sublte differences between the 2 drives though, slightly different motors, etc...
I then had a crazy thought...There was the command to "WRITE DOS FILES", so I inserted the (green disk) and selected that option. It did indeed write the DOS.SYS files from memory onto the (green disk)
Not sure if you can see it, but the casing of the (green disk) is actually cracked / broken at the top - that should not really cause a problem, as it's the disk inside that matters. I was a little stumped at this point. Yes, I have 2 x working 1050 Disk drives... but I have 1 (orange disk) with a Astrology app on it and I have another (green disk) that boots to DOS.... and that's about it. I've ordered some more DSDD 5 1/4" disks off good old eBay (they are very rare now!), so I'll see later if I can format / use them in the future.
Then I got distracted again...as you can see, I hooked up the 1010 tape-drive and attempted to load another game from cassette (was the Arkanoid one just faulty?)
..and there it is! It loaded fine.
Because the law is, if it wasn't video'd it didn't happen - here are some moving pictures to prove it did indeed happen:
In the next article, I'll look at making my own SIO2PC USB cable - connecting an UBuntu Linux laptop to the Atari 800XL to emulate a Disk / Tape drive (with files found on the internet).... as well as sharing a few other videos / links I found along the way.
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