Does anyone know where all the caseless 810's came from?

[Bryan]

I saw this on ebay:

 

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 262463178829

 

...and it reminded me of all the 3rd parties selling 810's in aftermarket cases during the transition to the XL line. I remember a friend of mine telling me that the rumors were that the 810's replacement (1050) was going to be horrible and it created a bit of a bubble for the 810.

 

Someone must have gotten into a warehouse of 810 guts for there to be several sources selling them in alternate cases. My friend actually had bought an 810 in a wooden enclosure during that time. Does anyone know more about the story?

[+mytek]

I met Bruce Carson from B&C ComputerVisions this last weekend and he talked about this specific thing. So here's the story...

 

Atari stopped production on the 810 in anticipation of the 815 being ready to hit prime time. Which resulted in Atari putting all their resources behind that project. So the 810 production line was shut down, and parts orders associated with this line had not been renewed. This oddly left a bunch of drive mechinisms, but no enclosures. So Bruce who had been working with Atari as an authorized service center and distributor, was offered the chance to buy what was left of the 810 production line, which he did for quite a steal. And I think the original idea was to do this for the potential servicing aspects that the remaining inventory would provide.

 

So from what I understand, the 815 dual drive product turned out to be quite a flop. Apparently it suffered from massive reliability issues where some drives would work, and others would mysteriously not. And in the end Atari was forced to cancel it's release, thus leaving them with no disk drives what so ever to sell. So they had to quickly switch tracks and redirect their resources into a new drive that would eventually be released as the 1050.

 

So while all this was going on, Atari's failing was everyone else's opportunity, with 3rd party drives filling the gap. This created a major influx of non-Atari drives entering the market during this time period. Bruce because of his previous purchase of the 810 line, seeing a similar opportunity, decided to market the 810 mechanisms he had. So he contracted out to have a machined aluminum enclosure made, and then began selling what was called the B&C 810 for a period of time. And the rest is now history.

 

Not sure where the ones with the wooden enclosures came from. Perhaps Bruce sold some of the bare mechanisms as well.

 

 

- Michael

 

EDIT: IIRC only the bottom piece of the B&C 810 enclosure was aluminum. I think the original plastic top piece he got with the production line purchase, with only the bottom pieces missing. But this part of the story is a bit fuzzy, so I might be mistaken. Anyone have a picture of one of these drives?

Edited June 1, 2016 by mytekcontrols

[+mytek]

And here's a look at that B&C ComputerVisions repackaged 810 disk drive (pictures originally posted in this thread: "What aftermarket floppy drives were made for the 8-bit?")

 

 

 

 

 

So it looks like B&C's enclosure was a complete top and bottom custom enclosure.

 

- Michael

[Paul Westphal]

He turned a lot of them into archivers. I finally got one.

[+mytek]

He turned a lot of them into archivers. I finally got one.

 

Does yours look the same as the one pictured?

 

BTW, when Bruce Carso and I met this last weekend, it quickly became apparent to me that he is a treasure chest of Atari information relating to all of the behind the scenes purchasing of Atari new/used stock as they cleared out warehouse after warehouse during the decline of Atari Corp in the 90's. Bruce was apparently the primary contact and interface to inside sources within Atari, and along with Brad Koda (Best Electronics) and one other person who's name escapes me, made major hauls, dividing up the loot between themselves. In this Antic Podcast Interview with Bruce back in December of 2014, I'm afraid only the surface got revealed, with much more history still to tell. I only hope that the rest of his stories do get recorded some day.

 

- Michael

[Paul Westphal]

A little dirty, but yep.

[Paul Westphal]

I swear the Vaseline in the background is strictly just for disk drive rails...

[+mytek]

I swear the Vaseline in the background is strictly just for disk drive rails...

 

[+Stephen]

That's a damn sexy drive case. I would have vaseline around it too

[SumerNivek]

Awesome info in this thread! I just had my first experience buying from Bruce on eBay (got a XEGS from him) and it was a pleasure doing business with him. He even threw in a free Star Raiders cart and manual since my shipment was delayed. Great guy!

 

Thanks for sharing this inside scoop!

[ricortes]

Just a bit more info. IIRC the way the naked 810s were marketed was "810 on a Plate".