bfollowell

Both machines powered up and worked, to a point. The one I plan to keep worked flawlessly for a quick and dirty test. The other one, the one that I'd mentioned has visible keyboard issues, the keyboard doesn't work at all, so it'll obviously need a little more work. They both boot to BASIC and Star Raiders starts on both. The one I'm calling mine has Rev A NTSC OS and a GTIA. The screen turned black but the text got all fuzzy and unreadable, so I'm wondering if I have one of the defective GTIA chips. Since I can't type anything on the other 800, I obviously can't tell as much about it but, since it's over a year newer and towards the end of the original 400/800 run, I'm kind of assuming Rev B NTSC OS and GTIA.

Well, the two 800s arrived just fine. They were packed very well. There was probably $25 in bubble wrap alone and there were at least 3 fragile stickers each side of the box. The box was very sturdy as well. As I'd expected, they are very, dirty and, from my memory, discolored. Whether from dirt, age, smoking, plastic discoloration, or some combination of these, I'm not sure. They are very smelly and stink of smoke. They will definitely be getting a very good cleaning and spend some time airing out. They both have 48K and unexpectedly, they both had a cartridge installed when I opened them. One had BASIC and one had Star Raiders. I'm assuming the seller didn't even know. One is exactly like the one that I had as a teen. It has the cased OS card and RAM cards. The other has the newer caseless cards. I haven't had a chance to check them out yet, but plan to later this evening. The one machine with the caseless OS & RAM cards, the dirtier of the two, definitely has some visible keyboard issues, as two or three of the keys are sitting considerably lower than the rest of the keys, probably half the height of a key cap. So, assuming they both power on, I have my winter projects lined out. They both need a lot of TLC and one may need an eventual rehoming. I'll be posting pictures over in the Calling All 800s thread later.

I ordered two Atari 800s from a retro-dealer on ebay that had picked them up from an estate sale. The two 800s arrived just fine. They were packed very well. There was probably $25 in bubble wrap alone and there were at least 3 fragile stickers each side of the box. The box was very sturdy as well. As I'd expected, they are very, dirty and, from my memory, discolored. Whether from dirt, age, smoking, plastic discoloration, or some combination of these, I'm not sure. They are very smelly and stink of smoke. They will definitely be getting a very good cleaning and spend some time airing out. They both have 48K and unexpectedly, they both had a cartridge installed when I opened them. One had BASIC and one had Star Raiders. I'm assuming the seller didn't even know. One is exactly like the one that I had as a teen. It has the cased OS card and RAM cards. The other has the newer caseless cards. I haven't had a chance to check them out yet, but plan to later this evening. The one machine with the caseless OS & RAM cards, the dirtier of the two, definitely has some visible keyboard issues, as two or three of the keys are sitting considerably lower than the rest of the keys, probably half the height of a key cap. So, assuming they both power on, I have my winter projects lined out. They both need a lot of TLC and one may need an eventual rehoming. If I understand the numbering system, it looks like the one I'd like to keep, the one with the cased OS & RAM cards, was built the 4th week of 1982 and the one with the caseless cards was built the 20th week of 1983. This would make sense since I remember buying my original in 1982 and it also had cased cards. It wasn't until the Internet and my reintroduction to A8s that I found out that, later in its life-cycle, 800s started coming with caseless cards due to heat problems. I haven't had a chance to turn them on yet, but hopefully both work well and just need a good cleaning. I'll have to confirm, but I'm assuming both will have GTIA. I do have an older 400 that has a CTIA.

Well, UPS just delivered the two 800s to my front door. I'm working today, but my wife said they were in one big, heavy box. There were no PSUs to flop around in there and cause damage, but these are still two big, heavy machines. Say a prayer that they're packed well! I guess I'll find out when I get home from work this afternoon.

Yeah, I wondered the same. I didn't see it mentioned.

Ask and you shall receive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Fox

A lot of people would've bought one, depending on the price. It is an awesome retro/emulation rig and, once hacked, a lot can be done with it. I got one when a neighbor was giving theirs away and have been really pleased with it. Having done a lot with it, and knowing what it is capable of, I would have bought one had I not received this one for free, though I certainly wouldn't have paid new prices for one.

Yes, xex files are just executable files that would've been named exe, obj, or something along those lines back in the day, and ran from DOS using a binary load option. They were just renamed when modern emulators started coming into play in the mid-90s, so as to not confuse them with DOS/Windows executable files.

I just did an impulse buy on two 800s a retro-seller picked up from an estate sale. Supposedly they're untested with no power supplies. The no power supplies thing seems a little odd since the seller has 400/800/1050 PSUs for sale elsewhere. Still, the one in the pictures looks to be in relatively decent shape, if a little dirty. There were no pictures of the second unit but it was described as being in similar condition. Compared to what I've seen 800s going for recently, it didn't seem like a bad gamble. Hopefully, they'll be running just fine. If not, hopefully they'll be relatively easy to fix. The 800 was my first computer that I stupidly threw away in the mid-80s because of a broken keyboard. This was a decade away from the start of the Internet as we know it and I lived in a small area with almost no other Atari users. I wish I'd known then what I know now. Anyway, hopefully, I can get at least one of these going and add an 800 back to my collection. If I can get the other cleaned up and running, I may sell it off in a few months. https://www.ebay.com/itm/325842892444

Yes, that is how mine is. The picture just shows the label piece in place. The front half of the case and the label are two separate pieces though.

I finally received the case I'd had printed. Purple like Robin's was crazy expensive and being from Kentucky originally, Wildcat Blue is my favorite color anyway, so blue it was. I decided to use a uni-bit to drill an access hole for the BOOTSEL button so that I don't have to disassemble the cart every time I want to update firmware. My only mixed feelings are about the characters on the label piece. Robin's looked so good. I'd thought I'd take a small model paintbrush and lightly go over the characters on mine, but they're barely raised. The hairy strands on the characters showing in this image rubbed off fairly well but the characters are barely raised, so I'm not sure how they'd turn out. I've not made my mind up if I want to chance bodging it up or not.

That same article goes on to state: As of February 2022, Benioff had an estimated net worth of US$8.31 billion according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. So, I'd say he's done very well for himself, wealth-wise anyway. He's came a long way from his humble Atari 8-bit beginnings!

I'm not sure why the flash_nuke program seemed to cause issues with the re-flashing of the A8PicoCart firmware afterwards, but I did find out that the original problem I was using it to try and diagnose wasn't with my Pico clone or my soldering. The problem appears to be just a little sloppy play in the PCB/cartridge slot on the 600XL I was using to check it out. I have to have it entered just right for it to pickup the cartridge properly. If I don't, it will typically just not pick it up at all and will boot straight into BASIC, but occasionally the computer will lockup. Hopefully, getting it installed in the case I've had printed and is on the way will help with that. Anyway, it looks like, other than not being a 100% perfect fit for this particular cartridge slot, my A8PicoCart is fine.

Yes, you can. The Gotek is just a drive emulator. The disk image is read, or written to, right off of the USB drive plugged into the Gotek just like it would be from a floppy. There's no reading into memory.

Yeah, something about that flash_nuke didn't quite work with mine. I made up all of my A8PicoCarts and the one I kept for myself isn't wanting to work for some reason. I was trying to narrow the problem down to the Pico clone or the PCB or my soldering job. These came at a perfect time to help me. The blink firmware flashed perfectly and worked, so my Pico clone appears to be good. The problem came in when I tried the flash_nuke. It appeared to work properly, unmounting itself after flashing, but upon reconnecting the Pico clone and trying to flash with the A8PicoCart firmware, it wouldn't flash. The copy would only make it over to about 57% and then it would hang and eventually fail. If I just went straight from the blink firmware to the A8PicoCart firmware without nuking in between, it seemed to work just fine. Has anyone else tried these and ran into something similar?

I guess I could kind of see the point, but it wouldn't be worth it for me. If I need to update files on an SD card, I just take the card out, take it to my PC and do whatever I need with it. No big deal for me. Of course, I'm not like a lot of users that have 8-bits spread all over the house, own 12 Ultimate Carts, 9 AVG carts and 6 FujiNets. My needs are much simpler.

Yes, your post, and other previous posts have helped considerably. I'm watching future development very closely.

For me, when the "upgrade" replaces pretty much everything inside the original device that made it what it was, and basically turns the original device into a dumb terminal for accessing a new and different computer, a Raspberry Pi in this case, running emulation software, then the upgrade is no longer an upgrade. It's a replacement, and the classic device is completely wasted. Now, I'm not certain that this is the case with the PiStorm, which is why I said that I'm interested in finding out more and watching the future development. If this is the case with the PiStorm, then I really fail to see the point. It would be no different than opening a SNES case, installing a RPi 3b+, running RetroPi on it while somehow interfacing the original controller ports into it and calling it an upgrade. Is it really an upgrade at that point? I mean, what is left of the original device that's actually still doing anything? If that's what's going on, I already have an excellent emulator setup using Hatari on my modern gaming rig. I mean, if that's what others want to do, fine, whatever floats their boat, but it wouldn't be for me. To me it would just be a waste of a good old retro computer that would be better off running on its own. Again, I'm not saying this is the case with PiStorm, and I definitely plan on reading through the Github and other related sites to learn more. I'm all for retro emulation and do quite a bit of it myself. I just don't want to sacrifice a classic old system to do it. I look forward to learning much more about PiStorm and it's Atari ST implementation.

Yes, Gavin is one of the best! He had some personal issues come up and had to step away from the Atari scene for a while. Let's hope he gets to come back some day soon, in one form or another. If not, I know we all wish him well and I thank him for the many excellent products he sold me over the past few years.

Not just CIB, but with extras too. That's an excellent deal, especially in today's market. Congratulations!

I was wondering the same thing. I really don't care for glorified emulators that try to pass themselves off as upgrades, if that's truly what this is. If that's the case, it really isn't a whole lot different than this emulator: The main difference being that Rastari never really tried to pass itself off as more than what it is. Still, I'm very interested in watching this develop. It's not like I'm opposed to emulators and haven't used them for years.

At this time, I have no need for a second FN, and I certainly have no issues with anything Gavin made when he was running Vintage Computer Center, but this new, Professional Fuji Net '23 is darned sweet! You can rest assured that, if I ever have a need or desire for a second one, this will be the one I'll get. Awesome job, as usual!

I would think you should be able to do the internal RAM upgrade for about $10, assuming you were comfortable opening your machine and soldering a couple of wires. If not, you'd need to find someone to do it for you. Since it sounds like this is outside of your comfort zone, you would probably be better off spending the extra $20 to get the external plug-in RAM upgrade.

While technically true, this statement is still not 100% accurate. Your statement makes it sound like the SDrive-Max uses SD cards and the FujiNet doesn't, but that isn't true. The both use SD cards, but only the FujiNet can access files stored on a computer wirelessly, or can access files across the Internet. In basic form, they are both disk/cassette drive emulators. The FujiNet just does much more as far as emulating other devices such as modems, printers, etc.

It sounds very interesting. I'll have to research further and watch for updates. Thanks!