thoughts on mythical Atari 6402A motherboard

[jonathan]

hi,

 

I'm an A8 user since 1987.

 

Some time a while back, I saw on here about a strange Atari motherboard marked 6402A, which no one knows what it was for.

 

http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8BITS/XL/xl_protos/6402a.jpg

 

 

I'm just thinking, the original Amiga A1000 computer had what looked like a 5.25" drive bay on the front in the middle. In actual fact this computer have this bay as an unusual place behind a plastic cover as a memory for RAM.

 

the 6402 has a front mounted bus which could be similar. Given that the Amiga was developed by Atari engineers could the 6402 be maybe not an actual 16 bit computer or Amiga, but some kind of A8 computer with a seperate keyboard in slim desktop case?

[+Stephen]

It's definitely an A8 computer, given the PBI bus, 64k of RAM, and SIO port. It looks like just another motherboard variant that never made it to production.

[Retro Rogue]

Given that the Amiga was developed by Atari engineers could the 6402 be maybe not an actual 16 bit computer or Amiga, but some kind of A8 computer with a seperate keyboard in slim desktop case?

 

The people who later did the Amiga left Atari by 1979. Long before the XL series was even created.

 

[Rybags]

Floppy disk interface - interesting. PBI at the front - a mystery. Maybe the intention was for the system to have a tethered keyboard.

[BillC]

hi,

 

I'm an A8 user since 1987.

 

Some time a while back, I saw on here about a strange Atari motherboard marked 6402A, which no one knows what it was for.

 

http://www.atarimuse...rotos/6402a.jpg

 

 

I'm just thinking, the original Amiga A1000 computer had what looked like a 5.25" drive bay on the front in the middle. In actual fact this computer have this bay as an unusual place behind a plastic cover as a memory for RAM.

 

the 6402 has a front mounted bus which could be similar. Given that the Amiga was developed by Atari engineers could the 6402 be maybe not an actual 16 bit computer or Amiga, but some kind of A8 computer with a seperate keyboard in slim desktop case?

Maybe it was an early 1400XL/XLD variant/prototype. It fits with the cartridge/joystick ports on the left side, although the PBI on the front is a bit strange.