Old pictures of our Atari 8-bit setups

[+DarkLord]

4 hours ago, Mclaneinc said:

You might say it's nothing that a wipe and a toothbrush can't fix, but while dust is a pain, mildew is not something you want to leave rotting away at your machine, with mildew comes rust and that WILL destroy stuff. They are your machines to do as you please with but I urge you to give them a good going over and then box them etc. Most certainly get to the root of the mildew and nuke it, not only does it stink but untreated it starts to eat away at the house. I have had a pipe gushing water down my outside wall for months and my landlord is in dispute with the council about who is right to fix it, meanwhile, I have damp and mildew destroying my wall inside and  my window sill is now cracking with where the damp is ruining the wood.

 

And boy does it stink and I'm powerless to do much incase anything goes wrong and I get the blame..

 

That can also be a very serious health issue. You might want to mention that to them...

 

[Mclaneinc]

I did but all I got was "we will inform the landlord"...Without going in to it all (not for here) the landlord uses a management company to deal with the duties, I could not tell you who the actual landlord is. Royal pain..

[Keatah]

1 hour ago, DarkLord said:

Emulation is nothing more than a substitute...

A superior substitute that brings a host of features we could only dream about in the 70’s and 80’s.

 

Reliability, convenience, versatility, elegance..

 

Savestates, portability, variable speed, customizable controls and display settings..

 

Ability to have an All-In-One setup. And so much more!

 

Quote

Ya know, don't take this personally, but I sense a real lack of enthusiasm on your part for the retro scene. 

I’m a diehard scenester and enthusiast, beginning with the VCS and Apple II, from 1977.

 

Earlier if you count RED LED calculators and dedicated Tennis, Tank, Pong, and Hockey “consoles”.

 

I simply choose emulation today for all the aforementioned benefits.

Edited June 13, 2022 by Keatah

[Mclaneinc]

I'm pretty much the same, I have had standing in the scene, the emulation scene and the use of real machines, all of them have benefits. It pains me when I see someone say that a person who uses emulation isn't a proper retro person. My setup is totally mixed and I'm happy with that. I don't have room or the inclination to get all the real hardware, especially if it's only going to get limited random use..

[machf]

8 hours ago, Mclaneinc said:

You might say it's nothing that a wipe and a toothbrush can't fix, but while dust is a pain, mildew is not something you want to leave rotting away at your machine, with mildew comes rust and that WILL destroy stuff. They are your machines to do as you please with but I urge you to give them a good going over and then box them etc. Most certainly get to the root of the mildew and nuke it, not only does it stink but untreated it starts to eat away at the house. I have had a pipe gushing water down my outside wall for months and my landlord is in dispute with the council about who is right to fix it, meanwhile, I have damp and mildew destroying my wall inside and  my window sill is now cracking with where the damp is ruining the wood.

 

And boy does it stink and I'm powerless to do much incase anything goes wrong and I get the blame..

Sounds pretty bad. Fortunately, this here is pretty much superficial. The worst offender yet is the 130XE, back then when my cousin gave it to me some time after her husband died, I opened it up, I think it may have been lying in the garage for quite a while (they were separated for some years by then, and he didn't take the 130XE with him, was using a PC at the time - in fact, I was supposed to accompany him to get it serviced the same week he died, but this isn't the place to tell the whole story), since the RF shielding had begun to rust in the area right underneath the diagonal slits (as well as the parts of the RF modulator which weren't covered by the shield). I removed the RF shield back then and bagged both halves (that's why in the photo I took from the bottom you'll notice there are no screws). Aside from that, there's no damage to the board itself or its components. I think I'll take the RF shielding out of the bags and remove the rust while there's still some daylight left.

[+DarkLord]

2 hours ago, Keatah said:

A superior substitute that brings a host of features we could only dream about in the 70’s and 80’s.

 

Reliability, convenience, versatility, elegance..

 

Savestates, portability, variable speed, customizable controls and display settings..

 

Ability to have an All-In-One setup. And so much more!

 

"Superior", in *your* opinion. Not mine, and I'm sure I'm not the only one with that opinion.

 

"Reliability"? My Mega ST4 that runs my BBS, 24/7, 365 days a year, has been in near

continuous operation since 1992 (the machine itself is dated 1987). How long has the

machine that you've got running your emulator been running? 

 

"Host of features". I agree, our ST's now have multiple options that would have put me

into a semi-orgasmic state in the machines' early life cycle. We now have accelerators,

increased RAM, HDMI output, many, many mass storage options, USB options, replacement

mice including wireless mice, new replacement cases are being worked on, blah, blah, blah.

 

Save states? Thanks to P.Pera's amazing efforts, darn near every ST game in existence has

been adapted to run from mass storage as well as compatibility with newer TOS versions,

increased memory, and even accelerators. Oh....there are save states and trainers too.

 

I guess it works for you but I would never want -1- computer to rule them all. My Mega ST4 runs

my BBS, my Mega STe is for day-2-day operations and games, while my STacy gives me real nice

"portability". 

 

That's just to mention a few...

 

2 hours ago, Keatah said:

 

I’m a diehard scenester and enthusiast, beginning with the VCS and Apple II, from 1977.

 

Earlier if you count RED LED calculators and dedicated Tennis, Tank, Pong, and Hockey “consoles”.

 

Congratulations! So whadda ya want, a cookie? 

 

2 hours ago, Keatah said:

 

I simply choose emulation today for all the aforementioned benefits.

 

/sigh... We'll never ever see eye-2-eye on this issue. Picture this (no really, try),

I walk into a room. There's a basic, bland, generic, 1 of millions style Windows

PC sitting there. I turn it on and logon to a Windows account where I start an

emulator to play some retro Atari ST stuff... Nice.

 

I walk into a second room. There's a few old machines, actual hardware from

"back in the day", obviously well taken care of and functioning perfectly. I turn

one of them on and smile as the LED's come on and an Atari symbol flashes

across the screen. I run my hands lovingly across the top of the ST,  as sounds

issue from either the hard drive or the floppy drive clanks away, loading a

program or game.

 

Substitute the Atari 8bits, an Amiga, or C64...whatever. The point is, it's *real*.

 

Emulation will never replace that "feel" from using actual hardware, the real thing.

 

Perhaps someday when holodecks are a common thing, we'll be able to program

in a real feeling retro experience ...but until then, nope, ain't nuthin' like the real

thing baby!

 

So you just go ahead and stick with your soul-less emulation, the imposter in the

room as it were, and I'll hang on to the real deal... See ya.

 

 

[+DarkLord]

3 hours ago, Mclaneinc said:

I'm pretty much the same, I have had standing in the scene, the emulation scene and the use of real machines, all of them have benefits. It pains me when I see someone say that a person who uses emulation isn't a proper retro person. My setup is totally mixed and I'm happy with that. I don't have room or the inclination to get all the real hardware, especially if it's only going to get limited random use..

 

Now hang on a second. I didn't say he wasn't a "proper" retro person. I just commented that (from my perspective) his enthusiasm seems somewhat suspect.

 

Not a judgement, criticism, or anything like that.

 

It's obvious that people who love emulation (like him) and people who love the real thing (like me) are never going to fully agree.

 

That's fine. There's room enough for all of us I think. I have nothing but admiration for the people who are

talented enough to make emulation work as good as it does. Hats off! to their mad skills, I say.  

 

[MrMaddog]

It doesn't matter if anyone uses real hardware or emulation, they all do the same thing...

 

Now let's post some more 8-bit pics!

[Mclaneinc]

12 hours ago, DarkLord said:

 

Now hang on a second. I didn't say he wasn't a "proper" retro person. I just commented that (from my perspective) his enthusiasm seems somewhat suspect.

 

Not a judgement, criticism, or anything like that.

 

It's obvious that people who love emulation (like him) and people who love the real thing (like me) are never going to fully agree.

 

That's fine. There's room enough for all of us I think. I have nothing but admiration for the people who are

talented enough to make emulation work as good as it does. Hats off! to their mad skills, I say.  

 

Darklord, I didn't mention you because it wasn't aimed at you, it's a general sentiment that's been expressed quite a few times on here over the many years. If it looked that way and rereading it, it sort of does look like I'm referencing you then my humble apologies. I'm just saying that using emulation does not make me a lesser retro person, I expect many of us would like to have Archer Mclean's cellar with his 100 and 1 real arcade machines or the late Curt Vendels (RIP) horde of Atari gear but in general that isn't possible so if someone has to rely on emulation then fair play to them, they are still living the retro dream. Of course it's nice to have real hardware and to those that have the money, space and time for it, good for you. I have a bit of both real and emulated and it works for me, when I lost all my gear many years ago I used emulators, I still got a great buzz from them, when I started to get some gear back I enjoyed it. The joy with my emulated stuff is that I don't need to worry about it going up in smoke or expensive repairs, it never needs a good wipe down and if I move house it isn't breaking my back to move it.

 

Anyway, enough of all this, whatever way you enjoy the retro scene is right for the person, playing it on real gear is more immersive for the rose tinted stuff but being able to play with emulated hardware I don't own and never did is just as immersive to me, just in a different way.

 

However you do it, it is all good..

 

Paul..

Edited June 14, 2022 by Mclaneinc

[Keatah]

On 6/13/2022 at 4:54 PM, DarkLord said:

"Superior", in *your* opinion. Not mine, and I'm sure I'm not the only one with that opinion.

 

It is superior for me.

 

On 6/13/2022 at 4:54 PM, DarkLord said:

"Reliability"? My Mega ST4 that runs my BBS, 24/7, 365 days a year, has been in near

continuous operation since 1992 (the machine itself is dated 1987). How long has the

machine that you've got running your emulator been running? 

I keep a couple of vintage PCs around. The oldest useful-for-emulation one was made in 2004.

 

But here reliability of the hardware is a non-issue. Something breaks or fails, just replace it. Oftentimes the replacement is better and faster, with more features. The emulation software itself is good forever essentially.

 

On 6/13/2022 at 4:54 PM, DarkLord said:

I guess it works for you but I would never want -1- computer to rule them all. My Mega ST4 runs

my BBS, my Mega STe is for day-2-day operations and games, while my STacy gives me real nice

"portability". 

I wouldn't want anything but. An AIO system is a childhood dream come true and made manifest by the various emulators we all know and love.

 

On 6/13/2022 at 4:54 PM, DarkLord said:

Congratulations! So whadda ya want, a cookie? 

Yes I do!

 

On 6/13/2022 at 4:54 PM, DarkLord said:

/sigh... We'll never ever see eye-2-eye on this issue.

That may be. And that is ok.

 

On 6/13/2022 at 4:54 PM, DarkLord said:

Picture this (no really, try),

I walk into a room. There's a basic, bland, generic, 1 of millions style Windows

PC sitting there. I turn it on and logon to a Windows account where I start an

emulator to play some retro Atari ST stuff... Nice.

Indeed. Nice and elegant. And still amazing that Processor X can run Processor Y's software.

 

My emulation setup is a little but more streamlined because no need to logon. And the PC appearance..? Some can definitely be bland. I'll give you that. Others can be timeless and just fit in completely unobtrusively.

 

On 6/13/2022 at 4:54 PM, DarkLord said:

I walk into a second room. There's a few old machines, actual hardware from

"back in the day", obviously well taken care of and functioning perfectly. I turn

one of them on and smile as the LED's come on and an Atari symbol flashes

across the screen. I run my hands lovingly across the top of the ST,  as sounds

issue from either the hard drive or the floppy drive clanks away, loading a

program or game.

 

Substitute the Atari 8bits, an Amiga, or C64...whatever. The point is, it's *real*.

I get that. I continue to maintain my 1970's & 1980's Apple II material till today.

 

On 6/13/2022 at 4:54 PM, DarkLord said:

Emulation will never replace that "feel" from using actual hardware, the real thing.

 

Perhaps someday when holodecks are a common thing, we'll be able to program

in a real feeling retro experience ...but until then, nope, ain't nuthin' like the real

thing baby!

I get that too.

 

On 6/13/2022 at 4:54 PM, DarkLord said:

So you just go ahead and stick with your soul-less emulation, the imposter in the

room as it were, and I'll hang on to the real deal... See ya.

Can't agree here because the better emulators capture the essence and soul with high fidelity. And in a timeless fashion that transcends the ages. 

[Keatah]

As enthusiastic videogamers when we were kids, I always wanted to bring the arcades home. Came pretty close with the Atari 400/800 and Colecovision. But of course there were differences. And arcade hardware was dedicated and usually a couple years ahead of home stuff anyways.

 

By the mid/late 1990's most arcades in my state were closing up. And we were getting antsy that we'd never play them again. Ever. But emulation came along and all of a sudden we could play arcade machines at home and on one piece of hardware. 

 

18 hours ago, Mclaneinc said:

I expect many of us would like to have Archer Mclean's cellar with his 100 and 1 real arcade machines or the late Curt Vendels (RIP) horde of Atari gear but in general that isn't possible so if someone has to rely on emulation then fair play to them, they are still living the retro dream.

I thought of this. And I'm not so sure it'd be for me.

 

Many people tend to assume that those that use emulators have no other choices, because finances or living arrangements or just plain old enough space. That couldn't be further from the truth.

 

I had gone as far as accumulating cabinets and preparing for a basement arcade, during the dotcom epoch. And then I became mentally overwhelmed trying to make it all work in a cozy rustic flavor. Not to mention the sheer bulk of the hardware! The maintenance, the CRT adjustments.. Everything! Just. Too. Much. These cabinets were designed as professional amusement devices. And constructed with a 4 year life-span in mind - after that out to the curb! Or and ever increasing amount of maintenance.

 

With emulation, what was going to consume 3,000 sq ft suddenly fit on a desk. And generally maintaining one machine meant maintaining ALL machines. Huge advantages.

 

18 hours ago, Mclaneinc said:

The joy with my emulated stuff is that I don't need to worry about it going up in smoke or expensive repairs, it never needs a good wipe down and if I move house it isn't breaking my back to move it.

Yup. And if it did blow up, it's easily replaced. Just restore from backup.

[+DarkLord]

Okay, as I mentioned, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

It's like virtual sex. Oh yeah, baby baby oh! Nope. Just not like the

real thing and never will be. But there will be people who think it's

the greatest thing since sliced bread. 

 

Running "sim-ulation" from an emulator on a Win-box (or even Linux,

which is infinitely preferable IMHO) will never do it for me. I know I'm

not the only one either.

 

Seeing it, touching it, feeling it, handling it all directly, that's the ticket.

 

Cya... 

 

[MrMaddog]

Maybe if the Tramiels actually supported & updated their computers in the 90's instead of taking customers' money and blowing it on making ill-fated game consoles, we wouldn't have to resort to cheap blow up PCs.

 

Just saying...

[Keatah]

In my eyes the Atari 8-bit line never really evolved much beyond the 400/800. 
 

The 5200 was a regurgitation of the old 8-but stuff. The XL/XE didn’t push any boundaries either. 
 

The 7800 was late enough to cause question to its necessity. And the Jaguar was fraught with unnecessary intrusive complexity, for its time.

 

16-bit ST series was better. But like Amiga it could not succeed. Not with PC advancing by leaps and bounds. 

[+slx]

8 hours ago, Keatah said:

In my eyes the Atari 8-bit line never really evolved much beyond the 400/800. 

True, though there would have been easy and obvious upgrades (such as adding BASIC XL/XE as built-in) but those would need to have happened in the Tramiel era when cost was king and the goal was to get as much revenue out of an old product as necessary. But it's unfair to point at the Tramiels when the real chance to evolve was missed by Warner Atari when they did not give Jay Miner and Joe Decuir (et.al.) the go-ahead on making what was to become the Amiga the next Atari. 

 

The eventual rule of the PC wasn't that obvious for a long time, at least in Europe. There were many dedicated solutions based on STs around well into the early 90s.

 

For the consoles methinks it was mainly about content (which Tramiel Atari did not procure in sufficient quantity and even more important, quality).

[Jeffrey Worley]

On 5/3/2019 at 2:07 AM, Agent570 said:

Great thread.

 

Here's my then-new setup from September '82, complete with black & white TV.. Not sure what joystick I had there, possibly one of these? My 13 year-old self was definitely loving life.

 

I think that's an Atari stock joystick with one of those add-on tips (the ball).

[gilsaluki]

9 minutes ago, Jeffrey Worley said:

I think that's an Atari stock joystick with one of those add-on tips (the ball).

It looks to be a standard Atari joystick with a stick grip ball added.  Nice pic.  I still kick myself for selling the mint-condition Atari 400 that I got at a thrift store for $2.49.  I doubled my money and sold it for $5 at a garage sale because I really didn't "need it" at the time.  Darn, darn, darn! I spy Centipede on the screen.  Wonder what a 13-year old is drinking in that paper/foam cup?

[Jeffrey Worley]

On 4/7/2022 at 2:56 PM, Jeffrey Worley said:

It's funny, really.  In 1992/93 you could buy as many 825's, New in the Box, as you liked, for $19.95 each.  That printer is a TANK.  It is actually a Centronics 733-series with an Atari enclosure.

 

Do you have the ATR8000 up and running?

 

 

[Jeffrey Worley]

On 4/11/2022 at 3:58 PM, slx said:

8 is better than the 7 used on the more elegant but very loud and rather slow 1029. At least the 825 had some semblance of descenders. You really wonder why they picked an OEM unit that couldn’t even print the ATASCII character set. (In the 825‘s days there wasn’t much to pick.)

The 825 is a Centronics 733 mech in Atari livrey.  Since the printer is Centronics, and the card-edge interface on it is Centronics, I tried to connect the 825 to the Pea Sea, several times.  Each time I connected a perfectly made cable from the DB25 on a Pea Sea to the 825, the 825 caught fire.  After the second fire, I quit the experiment.

[Leonard Smith]

23 minutes ago, gilsaluki said:

Wonder what a 13-year old is drinking in that paper/foam cup?

Probably Kool Aid or Tang!
I was just going to comment about the disposable cup...that takes me right back to my childhood as well!

[billyc]

Hi folks! So I retrieved a very old box of photos from my parents house last week, and this is the only surviving photo of my Atari 800, with my very-angry-looking sister glaring at me for taking her photo.

 

November, 1984.

It was the "family computer" for years, so we all wrote our high school assignments on it, my Dad did all his dental office payroll accounting on it (using payroll software that I wrote myself in BASIC!), etc -- but the Atari was in MY bedroom because everyone knew it was really "my" Atari ?

 

In the same box I found about twenty 5-1/4" floppies, and miraculously almost all of the files are still readable with my current setup. (Note my current setup has none of the original hardware, which all disappeared in various stages after I went away to college and didn't/couldn't bring it with me).

 

The disks include tons of pirated games of course -- after all, I was 13 and without any income at the time hehe -- but I've also found:

• countless old assignments from being on the school Debate Team,
• the original copy of my father's "Get rich playing Blackjack in Atlantic City" booklet which he self-published (!),
• all of that payroll code and data from the early 1980s through 1988,
• a BBS program I wrote for a friend (he had four Atari 1050s -- what a jerk!), although I couldn't run it myself because my MPP-1000c joystick-port modem didn't use the standard R: handler, and besides we only had one phone line for a house of five people including three teenagers so I could only use the modem after midnight...
• some terrible games I submitted to Compute! which never got accepted,
• a 6502 disassembler which I wrote myself using MAC/65, which I used to learn 6502 and how commercial games were written.
• And that's just on the first five floppies ...

Needless to say, that computer changed the trajectory of my life, permanently. It's weird how so much of these details are still crisp in my mind. Formative years and all that.

 

I miss the keyboard on that 800. My current 800XL has one of the wobbly miserable Mitsumi keyboards; I probably never would have learned to touch-type back then if I had started on the 800XL. I'd give my right kidney to find a good replacement keboard for my 800XL now..

 

 

 

[+Allan]

Can you make disk images of what you? Would love to see them.

[billyc]

2 hours ago, Allan said:

Can you make disk images of what you? Would love to see them.

Surely even the IRS has lost interest in these old data files by now, don't you think? ?

But if I can get the games or other bits and bobs into an ATR, I will do so.

[+slx]

4 hours ago, billyc said:

Surely even the IRS has lost interest in these old data files by now, don't you think? ?

But if I can get the games or other bits and bobs into an ATR, I will do so.

Sounds like you put that computer to good use!

[Tillek]

I know there are a few who would love to take a look at the BBS especially.  Written in Basic I assume?