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About this blog

Mostly Atari-related projects, and other ramblings. Home of the Artie the Atari comic strip.

Entries in this blog

7800 repair

The 7800 Mod Mess Mixup Fixup - pt. 4

So... the 7800 isn't back to "working" yet, although I have made some progress. In the sense that "I've spent more money on it" and "I took it more apart".   Let's look at the pretty pictures! Here are some fresh parts from Mouser: I may not use the RCA jacks... I'm more inclined to use the short "pigtail" type cables I used on my own 2600 as well as John's. You just plug them into your monitor's (or AV system's) cables using barrel connectors, saving wear-and-tear on 40-year
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum in 7800 repair

4
7800 repair

The 7800 Mod Mess Mixup Fixup - pt. 3

When we last left the 7800 Mod Mess Mixup Fixup™, alex_79 helpfully suggested: We'll get back to the transistors in a minute. Meanwhile, I decided to rip out the HDMI "mod" as a first step, because: 1) It's horrible, and 2) I did find a short between ground and the composite video output that I traced back to that mess. I didn't take pics of the process, suffice to say it involved cutting wires, desoldering and re-soldering, chewing through a glued-down HDMI connector with side-cutters, a
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum in 7800 repair

3
7800 repair

The 7800 Mod Mess Mixup Fixup - pt. 2

So when we last left "John's" 7800 , I still needed to test the audio, and look into the joystick problem.   To hear audio on my Sony monitor, I have to munge any stereo signals together into mono (each input has only a single audio connector). Since this 7800 has a stereo mod (or two audio outputs anyway), I needed such an adapter. My other two inputs on the monitor already have adapter cables plugged into them that I made, but now I'm using the third input, and I want to minimize ca
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum in 7800 repair

2
7800 repair

The 7800 Mod Mess Mixup Fixup - pt. 1

The 7800 really needs a nickname. The 2600 has several: Heavy Sixer, Vader, Jr., etc.   The 5200 is... uh... the Boat Anchor? Well, we'll go with that for now. But the 7800? As far as I know, it never got a nickname.   So I'm going to bestow one upon it: The Wedge.   It's cool. It's hip. It's trendy. And I'm sure that nothing ever nicknamed The Wedge ever had any bad connotations whatsoever.     Anyway, it's time to 7800-up my blog with my next fixit proje
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum in 7800 repair

2

The (almost) return of Starcade

As I'd pointed out in the comments of this blog entry (it'd be really nice if there were a way to link directly to a particular comment... ), the once-great Starcade video arcade at Disneyland had become a sad shadow of its former self. Back in the early 80's, it was an amazing arcade, jammed full of video games, spanning two floors.   When Disney released Tron: Legacy, they opened up Flynn's Arcade as part of ElecTRONica in California Adventure. I never managed to get over and see it though,
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

1

The "Weird Al" Curse

The is nearly upon us. And if you're a pop culture icon... be afraid. Be very afraid.  Of course, if you are a pop culture icon, the odds of you actually reading this blog right now are pretty-much zero.   Anyway, you've heard of the "Superman" Curse, the "Diff'rent Strokes" Curse, and the "Poltergeist" Curse, right? Where a string of seemingly improbable deaths or tragedies are all coincidentally related to a single pop culture event or phenomenon?   Well, I've got my own theory: The
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

1

Temporary title

In case you're wondering.... I started writing this a couple of weeks ago under the title: "Temporary title". I got used to it, and don't feel like coming up with something else. Every year around this time, for the past... well, it's been awhile, and I'm too lazy to look through my old blog posts... we'll just say several years, I've posted a recap of the Character Animation shows I edit together as part of my job at CalArts. Some random website thinks we're one of the best animation sch
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

1

Technology steps backwards

Sony finally announced the new, long rumored, slimmer, cheaper, PS3.   Uh... wait a sec.   Cheaper isn't the right word... what's the word I'm looking for?   Oh right... pricier. The base PS3 now costs $269, instead of $249.   I suspect most people were expecting $199. I certainly was.   After all, they did away with the slot-loading Blu-ray drive, for a (presumably) cheaper top-loader. Generally the reason products like this are re-engineered, are to make them more cost-effective to p
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

12

Tales from... THE FUTURE! (revisited)

So, it's January. Funny, it seems like it was January just a few weeks ago.   The MacWorld Expo (Apple's big annual show-and-tell) is coming up in a couple of days. They almost always announce some new product at it. The question is - what will they release this year? (That would be 2008, by the way. I don't know about you, but I find that rather hard to believe.)   With that, I'll once again display my incredible wealth of ignorance, by making Technology Predictions for 2008. But first, it'
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

42

Tales from... THE FUTURE!

Working at a film school, dealing with technology every day, means I have to try and keep up on what's happening in video, computers and software as a regular part of my job. I seem to spend more time every year just trying to get a handle on new technology coming down the pike.   Also, I'm a Mac user, which is an interesting pursuit because of the whole rumor community that has popped up around Apple and its products. Trying to predict where they're going next seems to be a past-time for some
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

2

Taking a Detour

Coming in 2013, from the makers of Robot Chicken...   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yRNXFhboBI   What's particularly cool, is that even though Robot Chicken's Star Wars specials were done with the permission of Lucasfilm, this is being created by Lucasfilm.   More videos at the official website.
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

3
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