hunmanik

Relevant story from the August 1995 issue of ST Format: http://www.stformat.com/stf73/pages_nx1500/stf73_011.jpg

Here is the earliest appearance of Adventure I've found in newspaper ads. 178451128.pdf

I have freshly revisited the issue, this time primarily using analysis of dozens of newspaper ads. This is hard work, keeping in mind that "release dates" could be gradual events spread out over multiple weeks. And advertisements may or may not list items before their actual availability. Atari widely announced in January 1980 (see coverage and Atari ad in Merchandising magazine, and media kit at Atarimania) that they planned to release 6 new VCS titles, one title per month, over the first half of 1980: Space Invaders, 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe, Night Driver, Golf, Circus Atari, Adventure It's clear to me now that they did not stick with that plan. Space Invaders was certainly first, released winter 1980. It appeared in ads starting in February. 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe, Night Driver, Golf, and Circus Atari were all still promised soon in late June. I now believe they all came out at about the same time in summer 1980. Adventure was, interestingly, less prominent in newspaper ads than any of the above titles. It does turn up in ads starting in early May (alongside Space Invaders). My conclusion now is that Adventure came out in spring 1980, shortly after Space Invaders but largely overlooked because Space Invaders commanded all the market attention in the first half of the year. One may speculate that Atari may have delayed releasing 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe, Night Driver, Golf, and Circus Atari as a result of diverting resources to satisfy demand for Space Invaders. If true, perhaps early production of Adventure would have been limited for the same reason.

I was going to say it would make sense as the UK box, but reading the small print about the "Atari Advantage" and "great value ... great games", both slogans used in the US, that makes me think it could be a late version of the NTSC box, despite the PAL console pictured. Your second picture tangentially shows that another side of the box has what looks like a UPC symbol, along with more fine print. There might be a copyright date in that fine print. If we had a good picture of that side, maybe that would settle it. Thanks for sharing!

The Freddie is the C061991 chip on the 65XE motherboard pictured in post #1 in this thread.

Blackjack and/or Biorhythm might sorta count, both were cassette releases and both were categorized as "home entertainment" by Atari in the Rev C catalog (1982) I'm looking at.

I understand "2600AR" to be the 1983-1984 package including NTSC "vader" 2600A console, two joysticks, and both Combat and Pac-Man (but no paddle controllers).

The 65XE usually (always?) shipped with a 1 amp power supply, while the 130XE usually (always?) shipped with a 1.5 amp power supply. If yours is a 1 amp, if I were you I'd get my hands on one of the XL/XE 1.5 amp supplies to see if that helps anything.

Similar thread: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/153187-not-intended-for-resale-sticker/

I have a driving controller that is looking forward to playing Tempest Elite someday!

Popcorn is from Analog #26, pages 27-36. From the source code, I think I can see that it's only for joystick, not paddles.

Ad from Antic v2n9 p114 indicating Body Parts requires two paddles.. Maybe they were talking about a different kind of paddle??

I now see that Broderbund catalogs http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Broderbund/Broderbund.Software.1982.102646180.lg.pdf http://www.mocagh.org/broderbund/broderbund-catalog.pdf are clear that the Atari version of AE is joystick only.

It is my understanding that Atari Corp. continued to produce the C017945, even though they all have "A Warner Communications Company" on the top piece. This, based on what I understand to be manufacturing date codes on the bottom of the units. So, perhaps they did inherit a giant supply of the top piece that they decided to use rather than discard. Interesting trivia to me!

Like kheller2 I used AW80 as my word processor throughout my college career, and first grad degree too. The OP's issues perfectly matched behavior on real hardware, including both the screen refresh weirdness and also the disk access issues. The screen refresh behavior, accurately described above, was indeed strange, but entirely predictable, and thus easy to get used to and work around. The disk access issues I relate to the challenge of getting AW80 to run under alternate DOS versions. It wasn't copy-protected, but just finicky about operating under the DOS I wanted to use. I was eventually able to run it successfully under my SpartaDOS X cartridge. The number of people who did that was probably extremely small. ​Also, I used a dedicated hi-rez 80 column monochrome monitor, so overscan was not an issue. It looked great. I had tried Micromiser Turboword before moving on to AW80. Turboword was very interesting, but just too slow and buggy for real work. AW80 had its quirks for sure, but was solid overall.

Percom drives for the Atari, the first alternatives to the 810, came out in spring 1982. Antic announcement; InfoWorld review.

I believe the second set of pics are from the original release of the C016555 "Technical User's Notes" published November 1980 and rather rare, consisting of the original releases of the Hardware Manual and the Operating System Users Manual. The Hardware Manual was only slightly revised in common later versions of the documentation (which all carry the same Nov. 1980 date), while this early version of the OS Manual is not well known and quite different from later common versions. I've never seen the Atari Institute documents you have there, an even greater find IMO. I'd love to see full scans of them and the un-pictured press releases you mention, if you're willing to share.

I also had the question, is there a list of Atari diagnostic cartridges? I now know of Star Raiders and Basketball. I have no idea whether many Atari carts were diagnostic carts, or whether only a very few were. I was curious whether diagnostic carts run on an 800 with the OS ROM module removed, so I just tried it. Answer: Nope, neither Star Raiders nor Basketball start up in that scenario. So that foils one way to identify diagnostic cartridges. I suppose even with a diagnostic cart you still need the OS for the one task of handing control over to the cart?

3 units here, all NTSC, all made in Sunnyvale G 16K 481 5208 (G 161 AW202121-16 11/23 L40 P) G 16K 022 5173 (G 144 AW201792-16 12/29 L40 P) AW 332067 / 182 (G 155 AW230681-16 4/28 L114 H)

In comparing the older Service Manual to the later FSM, parts I see exclusively in the earlier one include the extensive setup and operations section at the beginning, including descriptions of all the peripherals planned at that time, the preventative maintenance section, and the troubleshooting section. In the FSM the setup and operations stuff was replaced with the "theory of operation," maintenance was dropped, and troubleshooting was completely re-written as far as I can tell. Maybe to better integrate with the SALT Stand-ALone Test cartridge? I see very little content exactly the same, though I noticed the disassembly is the same, including most of the illustrations. Oh, how about Figure 5-2 "Stand Alone Test Special Tools" on page 5-8 in the older manual. The Peripheral Port Test Connector and the Hand Controller Jack Test Connector are mentioned in the later FSM, but the pictures of these were removed. So I, for one, don't think I ever knew what these devices looked like before seeing them now. I find it fascinating to see how a document like this evolved over time. There are probably more gems of unique info contained the the old manual that will take a while to spot. No question the older manual was the predecessor to the later FSM, with many of the same objectives, but for the most part it was a total re-write from the earlier to the later document.

That's really awesome, thanks for sharing!

The 400/800 Field Service Manual we all know, FD100001, came out as Rev. 1 in Jun 1982, and Rev. 2 in May 1983. This "Personal Computer System Service Manual" appears to be a completely different document, that would have been superseded when the FD100001 came out. We can see that this version is from from May 1981, and that an earlier original version came out in August 1980. Maybe they're around somewhere, but I know I've never encountered these before. Yes I think you have a real find, and I for one would love to see the whole thing scanned and shared somewhere, if you're willing!

Yes, please post a few pages so we can tell what it is for sure. I know I've never seen a cover like that!

I don't have any of my own copies of Merchandising. Libraries can be great.

The launch list price: $189.95 This is from page 88 of the June 1977 issue of Merchandising.