Forrest

Great - thanks for quick response.

Do composite and chroma/luma video output still work after the HDMI upgrade?

Thanks for the update. A Raspberry Pi Zero W costs $15 and is widely available. Microcenter is has it on sale for $9.99, but you can only get 1 at that price.

Saw this today. Total cost is $39+$55+$15 = $109+shipping

The best features of the Atari 800 was the great keyboard, strong video output (chroma, luma, composite) and even RF output looked good and the 3 expansion slots. The best feature on the 800XL was the much cheaper price, expansion port and many chips were socketed to ease repair and upgrades. The video output was inferior to the 800, and the keyboard was a downgrade also. The best feature on the 130XE was the expanded memory. I recall the video output was about the same as the 800XL, and the keyboard was mushy and inferior to the other Atari’s.

There’s a section of this forum that discusses RespeQT - free SIO2PC that’s posted on GitHub. Link https://forums.atariage.com/forum/184-respeqt-sio2pc-software/ The hardware is $20-$25. Here’s a post on how to build the hardware

You might try watching GenXGrownUp YouTube - it’s a good YouTube site.

I went to the link with Digikey list of parts. The parts for the Uzebox was about $67 plus the cost of the PCB. As mentioned in the link, the two Nintendo connectors need to be purchased elsewhere.

FYI, a note I saw on the brewing academy site recently https://thebrewingacademy.com/blogs/news/change-of-pace-read-me

Glad you got the computer working. Now clean off those cartridges for some game time AKA testing

IPA and a toothbrush may work better at cleaning the board. You’ll probably need to spend extra time cleaning the white residue off the solder joints on the bottom side of the board. The case looks like it needs a good cleaning also. Warm water with some dishwashing soap should work.

Typical range for Bluetooth is 10 meters (33 ft) according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth

I would dust off the computer inside and out. Also, you can remove the metal shield for a more thorough cleaning. It’s a couple of metal fasteners around the edge of the shield that need to be twisted and 2 screws removed.

You’re not comparing apples to oranges, er Atari’s. in 1983, the Apple IIe cost a LOT more than a C64 or Atari 600XL/800XL. I looked thru the December, 1983 issue of Compute! Magazine and the 600XL was $149, the 800XL was $269, the C64 was $219. Prices were not listed for the Apple IIe, but I recall it being over $1000 at the local computer store. The II+/IIe was a popular computer in schools, but not a computer the average high school or college student could afford in my opinion. Heck, my first car cost less than an Apple IIe.

Ladyada is very well respected engineer - maybe you should research her company Adafruit.

I watched the Floppy Featherwing video I posted above and Ladyada mentioned it doesn’t work reliably at WRITING floppy disks at this time. If you want toWrite floppy disks, the Greaseweazle hardware is probably the best choice.

Ijor you are correct about converting the voltage levels. Ladyada directly connected the Pico for development purposes only. Adafruit has since released Floppy Featherwing board that converts the voltages for $4.95 https://www.adafruit.com/product/5679 The video in that link is also worth watching.

FYI Ladyada has ported Greaseweazle to the $4 Raspberry Pi Pico. Adafruit has posted their files on GitHub https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_Floppy Check out the YouTube link on that page under Follow our Progress. These short video’s give you a good idea how Greaseweazle works.

From the Altirra Basic documentation: “A program saved from Atari BASIC can be loaded into Altirra BASIC, without issues.” “The Altirra BASIC language is a subset of that supported by OSS Basic XL and intentionally uses the same token values for compatibility. An Altirra BASIC program can therefore be loaded and run by Basic XL or Basic XE.” New commands from Altirra Basic/BasicXL: %, !, & DIR $hhhh (hex) DPEEK() BGET DPOKE BPUT ELSE BUMP() ENDIF ERASE ERR() HEX$() HSTICK() LOMEM MISSILE MOVE PMCLR PMCOLOR PMGRAPHICS PMMOVE PROTECT RENAME UNPROTECT VSTICK()

Or just download the ATR image and copy it to the SDriveMax

I highly recommend Altirra Basic. It’s always been offered at no charge and it’s highly compatible with BasicXL, which I purchased and used for many years. There is a full manual for download at https://www.virtualdub.org/altirra.html I recommend you read pages 62 and 63 first, which compares Atari Basic and BasicXL and lists the additional commands with Altirra Basic.

I highly disagree the Atari 8-bit was barely sufficient for productive work. I wrote many, many papers in college with AtariWriter and it never let me down. The text was sharp on a color TV.

The XEP80 is a box that attaches to your joystick port and the box has a composite output port. An original XEP80 will set you back a few hundred $. There are two modern alternatives: 1. Mytek’s XEP80 II that recreates and improves on the original. The progress of this is detailed in the XEP II thread on this forum. You can buy an assembled and tested unit for $175 at https://thebrewingacademy.com/collections/atari-800-xl-xe-xel-xld/products/xep80-ii-by-mytek?variant=39492098523238 Currently they are out of stock. 2. You can experiment with the XEP80 emulator running on a Raspberry Pi Pico. You build this on a breadboard for $25 in parts, program the Raspberry Pi Pico and it almost works with AtariWriter 80 - see https://forums.atariage.com/topic/350451-xep-80-on-raspbery-pi-pico/

I’m guessing there are two disk images in the download - side 1 and side 2

The link at Atarimania shows a floppy disk label that says boot side 2 of this disk for documentation.