What do you do with you Atari computer?

[carmel_andrews]

Sorry, mines in the spare room (several xe's and a sort of working a800 and an o/s and mem upgraded 800xl) catching cobwebs/dust etc...until i can find a couple of those elusive modded Atari 1050's (pref Lazer/USD and SA2)

[Pengwin]

Unfortunately, since I moved house, my 800XL has been boxed up. I just don't have the room at the moment.

 

Before the move, I was using it for keeping track of my finances in Visicalc and a diary in various word processors (more latterly AtariWriter).

I would also code directly onto the 800XL, rather than emulators.

 

Now, I am relegated to using Atari800MacX, so I now use native mac apps.

[themrfreeze]

Amiga 4.0 only runs on expensive (and unavailable) PPC hardware and doesn't run "classic" Amiga software. There's not much OS 4.0 software available. I don't see much point to it then. Imagine if somebody made a "Atari 800-like" OS that didn't run Atari programs. It doesn't matter if the OS works the same if there's nothing to run on it.

 

Really? I seem to recall that either 4.0 or MorphOS had an "Amiga Emulator" in it that would allow you to run the old stuff. Maybe it was MorphOS. They also have it running on something called an "EFICA", which is a computer the size of a paperback book. Not terribly powerful, but decent enough for a lot of stuff.

[Ross PK]

I don't get to use my A8 much either, as there isn't really anywhere where I can set it up and leave it set up, hopefully one day I'll get a bigger cabinet or table for my tv.

 

Anyway, when I do use it I use it mostly for playing games, and on the rare occasion I'll type a type in game out of a magazine, which is exactly the same as how I used to use it when I was a kid.

Edited September 24, 2007 by Ross PK

[ApolloBoy]

I just use my XEGS for games. I honestly don't see the point in using an old 8-bit computer for the kind of mundane stuff (typing up essays, keeping track of finances, etc) that I can do better on say, my MacBook.

[atari8warez]

Ahh... I love the days of dot matrix printing. Printing was so easy and cheap then. There weren't overpriced ink cartridges with stupid chips in them telling the computer you're out of ink when it's still half full. Leave the printer for a couple weeks without printing and the chips insist you've run out of ink (deliberate timed ripoff!). I've got a printer now that I never use because when I run out of one colour, it refuses to work until I replace the colour cartridge. It won't even print damn plain black text (brand new black cartridge) until I replace the colour! Also, with the old printers you could add the ink youself (whatever brand), not be forced to buy proprietory cartridges.

 

Is your printer an Epson or a printer with cartridges with built-in chips. If so there may be hope for you. You can print with black only again if you reset the color cartridge(s) and make them look like they are full. There are chip resetters out there that do the job.

 

The big ripoff with the inkjet technology (and particularly with Epson printers) is the requirement for cleaning the heads often. Every time you clean the heads the printer consumes expensive ink. If you don't clean them regularly and if you don't use your printer often the printheads will be clogged with dried ink and cleaning them so they perform like before will require several head cleaning cycles. This way your ink gets consumed very fast and often you don't get the same quality back.

 

I have unclogged several Epson printers and took me days to bring them back from oblivion, a lot of people simply throw them away once they get clogged. My local second hand store has plenty of Epsons for a few dollars each looking for unaware customers :-)

[JamesTheOrangeCat]

Mostly I lay on my Atari to keep warm during the winter.

[Beetle]

hehe, most cats will do

 

Just don't lay down on a MegaST. I heard of a cat loosing several lives due to shock

when the MegaST's internal power supply died with the explosion of a capacitor.

[Mr.Amiga500]

Is your printer an Epson or a printer with cartridges with built-in chips. If so there may be hope for you. You can print with black only again if you reset the color cartridge(s) and make them look like they are full. There are chip resetters out there that do the job.

 

The big ripoff with the inkjet technology (and particularly with Epson printers) is the requirement for cleaning the heads often. Every time you clean the heads the printer consumes expensive ink. If you don't clean them regularly and if you don't use your printer often the printheads will be clogged with dried ink and cleaning them so they perform like before will require several head cleaning cycles. This way your ink gets consumed very fast and often you don't get the same quality back.

 

How'd you guess? Yes, it's an Epson printer (C62). And yes, I constantly had to "clean the heads". What a piece of crap. I thought it was great that my Amiga print software could support such a modern printer. Now I think it's probably better if I just get a 1982 dot matrix printer and print from my Atari 800 XL.

 

Back in the early '80s I thought future technology would be amazing. Instead, we have technology that had the potential to be amazing, but has been severely crippled and limited by corporate greed. Companies now constantly search for ways to lock in users, limit their freedom, control their actions and milk them for every penny they've got.

[nathanallan]

Back in the early '80s I thought future technology would be amazing. Instead, we have technology that had the potential to be amazing, but has been severely crippled and limited by corporate greed. Companies now constantly search for ways to lock in users, limit their freedom, control their actions and milk them for every penny they've got.

 

Not only do they do that, but most people are convinced we're at the bleeding edge of tech, and think it's the absolute best. From what they're told, anyway.

 

It's been almost 10 years since I heard about quantum computing and film screens. And still they are not here.

[Gregory DG]

The big ripoff with the inkjet technology (and particularly with Epson printers) is the requirement for cleaning the heads often. Every time you clean the heads the printer consumes expensive ink. If you don't clean them regularly and if you don't use your printer often the printheads will be clogged with dried ink and cleaning them so they perform like before will require several head cleaning cycles. This way your ink gets consumed very fast and often you don't get the same quality back.

Have you ever used the cleaning kits with the little velcro-like strips? Other than a little bit of ink used to draw the boxes where the velcro strips go, very little ink is actually used.

[MEtalGuy66]

You wanna talk about a "1982 technology" printer that has been severely improved by modern technology?

 

I got a pair of Epson FX-980 printers about 2 years ago for free from a company that closed down.

 

 

These things print at 580 cps, have dual tractor feeds, front, rear, and bottom paper-paths, single-sheet/auto form-feed support, paralell and serial inputs, and are completely backward compatible with all previous epson and IBM dot matrix printer "language" standards.

 

Its just a 9-pin, 80 column printer, but it's built bullet-proof, never jams or screws up the paper feed, and most of all, it SCREAMS..

 

I hooked one up to my MIO, and the printer almost prints faster than the atari can dump data to it. heheh.

[nathanallan]

Yep. This is mine. While it doesn't have a serial interface, the ppt works fine for me. I actually need the piece of plastic that's missing from the top, if anyone knows where I can get the plastic feeder parts.

 

Absolutely the best printer I have ever owned. Regardless of color.

 

/edit BTW, is there a parallel port interface so I can use this printer on the 800XL??

Edited September 25, 2007 by nathanallan

[MEtalGuy66]

Yep. This is mine. While it doesn't have a serial interface, the ppt works fine for me. I actually need the piece of plastic that's missing from the top, if anyone knows where I can get the plastic feeder parts.

 

Absolutely the best printer I have ever owned. Regardless of color.

 

/edit BTW, is there a parallel port interface so I can use this printer on the 800XL??

 

Yeah that one is a 24-pin.. And only 337cps draft, 112cp in letter quality... But thats still lightning fast comapared to any of the printers back in the day..

 

Since it is Epson, I would assume that it can be configured to use the early "epson" emulation.. I dont see why it wouldnt...

 

And yep. You can use it with the 800XL.. Just get a P:R: connection, Atari 850 interface, Xetec Graphics AT, CSS Black Box, ICD Multi I/O, or any other device that gives you a standard paralell port.

[atari8warez]

Have you ever used the cleaning kits with the little velcro-like strips? Other than a little bit of ink used to draw the boxes where the velcro strips go, very little ink is actually used.

 

Nope I haven't but in some cases that won't really help either. For instance most (if not all) Epson printers suck the ink with a pump when they do cleaning, so the amount of ink used is determined by that little pump that sucks the ink through the jets. Also my Epson printer (and probably most other Epsons) will automatically go into head cleaning cycle if the printer was sitting idle for a given period of time. Ooops there goes 1/10 of my expensive ink TO WASTE again!... Now the latest Epson printers found another ingenious way to milk the unsuspecting customer. There is now a sensor monitoring the waste ink bin of the printer. When your smart Epson thinks that the waste bin is full it will stop printing until you get the printer SERVICED (yes serviced you can't do it yourself as there's another damn chip to be reset by a service technican). Wowww, that's the mother of all ripofs if you ask me. Thanks GOD there's a fix (read hack) for that too.

 

It's sometimes impossible not to appreciate heckers, without them we (the customers) would be the biggest suckers of the corporate high tech world.

Edited September 25, 2007 by atari8warez

[atari8warez]

Back in the early '80s I thought future technology would be amazing. Instead, we have technology that had the potential to be amazing, but has been severely crippled and limited by corporate greed. Companies now constantly search for ways to lock in users, limit their freedom, control their actions and milk them for every penny they've got.

 

You've got it. That's mostly why I no longer work for Corporate World. After my long contract (7 years) expired, I washed my hands of off that world. Much happier now with less income but a lot more freedom and away from daily corporate BS.

[atari8warez]

[And yep. You can use it with the 800XL.. Just get a P:R: connection, Atari 850 interface, Xetec Graphics AT, CSS Black Box, ICD Multi I/O, or any other device that gives you a standard paralell port.

 

Can you not also use it connected to the PC and through APE? This way it wouldn't it be available to both computers?

 

Since it's the showtime here are my warez too.

 

A Roland RAVEN 24 pin. It's basically a Panasonic.

 

The second pic is my current challenge, an Epson Stylus C64. I've got the black working so far. Color is still insisting to print with streaks.

I usually choose the "brute force" approach with these Epsons. I inject an ammonia based solution (basically Windex) into the jets with a small pump made of an injector and a small piece of flexible rubber tip. Gotta be careful though, too much pressure and the jets are gone forever, requires a lot of patience.

 

By the way, how do we delete a posted message here at AtariAge (one of mine of course). Is it possible?

Edited September 25, 2007 by atari8warez

[danielb]

I thought I would just provide a bit of balance on the new technology front.

 

The computers I've owned are Vic-20, Atari 400, 800 XL, Amiga, Amstrad PC (running Dos), PC (running Windows XP).

 

I terms of sheer enjoyment, my Ataris hold the fondest memories, but for things like: clearing your flat of stuff you can't take to America using eBay (I'm arriving on Friday from UK!) or watching some free Batman cartoons posted on the Internet or working out where the car dealer is that has a 2005 Ford Mustang with Google Earth etc etc, modern computers do have one or two things in their favour.

 

The reliability issues (PCs) were solved with the introduction of Win NT, although sligthly watered down in XP (for improved performance), it's still rock solid (security holes / viruses asside) unless you get a dodgy hardware driver (for graphics card etc). I consider Windows has come of age in XP.

 

That is not to say this is any sort of computing nirvana, but simply that you can get things done, with relative ease.

 

I would agree Ink Jets are a con (the printer with built in scanner etc appears to be a bargain until you realize the ink cartridges last five minutes and cost half the price of the printer). As others have mentioned, there are ways to cheat, such as using inexpensive refill kits.

[PacMan]

One of my 600XL's is running the furnace burner in the basement.

It is a rather simple setup. I wired together a small expansion board which connects to the expansion port of the 600. It contains a 6821 PIA and a ADC0804. The control software was written with cc65 and programmed into an EPROM in a cartridge. Great fun project to do =)

[+bob1200xl]

This is kind of a spinoff on my last thread here. I'm kind of curious what you guys actually use your 8-bits for. I know we all play a lot of games and such, as the Atari's were/are a killer game platform.

 

But what else do you do with them? I'd like to know. Anyone still use them like a real computer? I'm kind of curious what the community actually uses them for.

 

For myself, I play games, and do the odd bit of Basic programming. I like using a simple system like the atari to hande small, customized programs for things that don't require a new PC. The old systems are far more stable, so I use them for small databases, visicalc spreadheets etc.

 

I'd really like to get one set up on with printer, as I *LOVE* writing on the XL series keyboards. So much nicer than this mushy, flimsy PC keyboard. I'd like to keep my poetry and short stories on the Atari at some point.

 

I've also always wanted to start an Atari BBS for kicks.

 

So, how about you guys. What do you do with your Atari computers?

 

The grandchildren play games on mine when they come over. I don't have to set up a system just for them like I do on the PC...

 

I use it on a regular basis for check printing on an HP 4MP laser printer.

 

Older HP laser printers are very cheap and reliable. If you get one with an operator panel you can set the fonts and such without sending any control codes from within your programs. They all pretty much use the same codes, which is nice if you sometimes want to print on something big, like an HP 8000 (which will duplex).

 

You might try an IBM P/S2 keyboard on your PC.

 

Bob

[nathanallan]

Can you not also use it connected to the PC and through APE? This way it wouldn't it be available to both computers?

I would do this but I have space issues, I have a pretty large PC setup here, and it takes up most of the room by itself and have to have anythng else in the other room. definitely an idea, though, I haven't thought of. I *may* be able to work from both rooms, or something. I'll think on it. I havd to downsize my setup for the pc already, I had a scanner and both printers hooked up and could choose but I ran out of room (plus my wife didn't like the decor )

 

Nathan

[tcropper]

Thought I would post my thoughts on this. Since I am both an old Tandy computer fan, and Atari Fan, over the years, and even now, I can do almost anything I want on my Atari or Tandy computers. With a telnet-based internet connection, you can telnet to bbses, email, etc, all of that, even view pages with the lynx text-based website viewer.

 

I have plenty of software that runs on my Atari that is more than enough to do databases, accounting work, etc.

 

I wonder if someday there will be a world when some virus hacks out the Pentium chips, and the old stuff is all that's left! Interesting thought!