Authentic Reproduction ATR8000 Interest?

[sanny]

Count me in for one board.

[JohnBlbec]

interesting project. i always wanted to have atr8000 ?

[svhovater]

However... as a current ATR8000 owner, it's devilishly hard to get floppy drives. Sure, you can get a used one from EBay (I did), but they're frightfully expensive.

Also, no one has mentioned it, but there was once a hard-drive interface for the ATR as well. That would be welcome!! Getting a hard disk for that vintage might be

hard (no pun intended) too.

[Bill Lange]

52 minutes ago, svhovater said:

it's devilishly hard to get floppy drives

There is a company in the Dallas area that sells never used new-in-the-box IBM PCjr floppy drives that work perfectly with the ATR8000. 

Edited November 6, 2020 by Bill Lange

[svhovater]

15 hours ago, Bill Lange said:

There is a company in the Dallas area that sells never used new-in-the-box IBM PCjr floppy drives that work perfectly with the ATR8000. 

 

Ooh la la - company name/contact? 

thanks,
Steve

[Bill Lange]

 

3 hours ago, svhovater said:

 

Ooh la la - company name/contact? 

thanks,
Steve

Oh no. I was just checking the company's contact info and it appears that they have recently closed. ?

http://www.tannerelectronics.com/

 

[scitari]

This would be so freaking cool! Count me in!

[ballyalley]

This thread is pretty cool.  I new very of the ATR8000; who would have thought about it?  I only just ran across this thread in the last couple of days as I was making a video about my ATR8000.  I figured that I may as well post a link to my video overview of my ATR8000 and my CP/M book collection here:

 

 

Check out the video's notes to see what exactly is covered in the 1 hr 20 min video.  It's a bit long, but I'm sure that you'll find it interesting.  Basically, I give some time to the following:

 

Two disk drives:

 

1) Radio Shack TRS-80 Mini-Disk System
2) Percom Duel Disk Drive, Model RFD40-S2

 

Two CP/M Magazines and Six CP/M Books:

 

1) The User's Guide to CP/M Systems and Software magazines
2) CP/M 2.2 (Original Disk, Manual and Slipcase)
3) CP/M Bible: The Authoritative Guide to CP/M by Mitchell Waite and John Angermeyer (1983)
4) Mastering CP/M by Alan R. Miller (1983)
5) The Programmer's CP/M Handbook by Andy Johnson-Laird (1983)
6) Osborne CP/M User Guide, Second Edition, by Thom Hogan (1982)
7) The Amstrad CP/M Plus by David Powys-Lybbe and Andrew R M Clarke (1986)

 

ATR Documentation

 

1) ATR8000 Owner's Manual and Newsletters
2) ATR8000 Magazine Reviews and Advertisement

 

Plus, of course, I open the unit and take a look at the hardware's PCB.  However, I don't actually get the unit up and running.

 

Maybe some of you noticeed that some new ATR8000 documentation has been added to Archive.org in the last couple of months by Allan.  That was all from my collection; he scanned it in for me.  So, thanks, Allan!  There are links to it all is in the newly uploaded material in the notes for the video.

 

I've looked around for a video of someone showing off their ATR in up-and-running order, but if such a video exists, then I can't find one.  Maybe my video will inspire someone to drag their ATR8000 out of their closet, garage, or dungeon and show it off to us all.

 

Adam

[Gunstar]

I did want an ATR-8000 for many years, until I got my CA-2001 with built-in CP/M. I'm happy with it now since I can just run CP/M with it without worrying about extra components that the ATR requires. I know there is a lot more to the ATR,-8000, but I'm satisfied enough with my CA-2001 these days, and I didn't even need to upgrade it like Indus GT's require (so also no plans to upgrade my 2 Indus drives now either).

[shirsch]

Interesting thread!  I have two Copower-88 board sets here and an ATR-8000.  The ATR was from a different source than the CP88s and I don't think either of them were actually connected to one.  Currently trying to troubleshoot the boards on a Kaypro CP/M machine.  To help figure things out I'm going to start with a disassembly of the CP/M application that boots the board into MS-DOS.  Would love to hear from anyone with a CP88 who's delved down into either the hardware of software.  I did find a schematic of the CP and it was very helpful to understand how it communicates with the host.  One of the CP88 boards will let me setup a ramdisk on it, so something is alive.  Attempts at booting MS-DOS result in "Bad or missing command interpreter".  I suspect the ATR CP/M utilities are similar.

[Lynxpro]

On 10/28/2020 at 9:22 AM, Spancho said:

Do you think that the PCBs size can fit into Mega ST chassis?

And if the interfaces still could fit to the positions of the Mega ST, we had a perfect fit.

At least for the XE line of computers.

 

Please do not butcher Atari ST gear. Except the SF354. By all means with that one. 

[Lynxpro]

On 11/2/2020 at 2:26 AM, Larry said:

I'm surprised at the interest in the Co-Power 88 add-on.  What is of interest?  (How would you use it -- or is it just because it once existed?)

 

-Larry

 

Why question it? There's a lot of pre-Windows 95 PC enthusiasts out there based upon LGR's subscriber numbers on Ye Old YouTube. Despite the PC having been such a horrible platform prior to Win95.

[Dmitry]

Let me ask, are you all talking about running the ATR8000 to use cp/m which most software expects 80-columns and then use it in a 40-column moveable window?  Or some other software scheme?

 

I understand that Atari 800 owners could've used the bit-3 to get hardware 80-column.  But there is no source for that today, as far as I know.

 

It's interesting to me...all the retro computing has put me right back into the 80-column angst that I also had back in the day.  I wanted 80-columns and nothing has changed, lol....oh well, at least I have some 80-column on the VBXE card.  I could also obtain a XEP80.  But....I just wanted to clarify, is there any hope of getting hardware 80-column with this device?  If not, understood, it's still a remarkable undertaking.

 

 

[ballyalley]

7 minutes ago, Dmitry said:

It's interesting to me...all the retro computing has put me right back into the 80-column angst that I also had back in the day.  I wanted 80-columns and nothing has changed, lol....

 

Who needs more than 40 columns?  That's like saying we'll ever need more that 640K of RAM or that someday we'll be able to fill up and use all of the room on a CD-ROM.  It's impossible, I say!

Honestly, since CP/M is adaptable, I suppose a module (is that what a "driver" is called under CP/M?) could be written to support any current 80-column method used on an Atari 8-bit computer.  Also, I always liked the 80-column software method that is used in the terminal program Flickerterm.  That program is, obviously, a bit "flickery," but it's okay on real hardware, though it doesn't quite look right under emulation.

 

Adam

[Subby]

AIRC, the board used in the ATR8000 was a "generic" CP/M board that was used in several other non-Atari machines.
I wonder if going down that rabbit hole would lead to any additional technical information?

[atariportal]

Please count me in for one!

[nemike]

I have an update, I was able to score an ATR-8000 that appears to include the 8088 addon, I will be receiving it shortly, this will help with reproducing the ATR-8000 and now maybe the 8088 add-on also.  I plan to use this to confirm my schematic and then I will send out for the first board run!

 

Mike

[shirsch]

Can anyone point me to the software and documentation for the ATR8000 8088 add-on board?  I've found only the Kaypro support in the wild.  On a related subject, I have reverse-engineered the PLD used on later Copower-88 adapter boards (the one that plugs into the Z80 socket).  If this is of interest please PM me?

[TGB1718]

On 12/13/2020 at 3:10 AM, Lynxpro said:

Despite the PC having been such a horrible platform prior to Win95.

I only bought one because at the time I was a freelance programmer and that's what most businesses used.

I learnt C on my ST, easy to use, but on a PC it was much harder dues to the way memory is organised, hated it so much.

[krap]

19 hours ago, nemike said:

I have an update, I was able to score an ATR-8000 that appears to include the 8088 addon, I will be receiving it shortly, this will help with reproducing the ATR-8000 and now maybe the 8088 add-on also.  I plan to use this to confirm my schematic and then I will send out for the first board run!

 

That is great, count me in for the one with 8088.

 

[TXG/MNX]

On 2/26/2021 at 10:21 PM, nemike said:

I have an update, I was able to score an ATR-8000 that appears to include the 8088 addon, I will be receiving it shortly, this will help with reproducing the ATR-8000 and now maybe the 8088 add-on also.  I plan to use this to confirm my schematic and then I will send out for the first board run!

 

Mike

Hi Mike I own an original ATR-8000 without the 8088 addon card. Would it be possible to connect the new 8088 board you may add also be used in the original ATR8000 ?

[Faicuai]

On 12/12/2020 at 10:10 PM, Lynxpro said:

Despite the PC having been such a horrible platform prior to Win95.

A ton of LGR of subscribers because... it never was such a "horrible" platform, to begin with.

 

That's all.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Faicuai

[Nezgar]

On 12/13/2020 at 12:57 PM, Dmitry said:

Let me ask, are you all talking about running the ATR8000 to use cp/m which most software expects 80-columns and then use it in a 40-column moveable window?  Or some other software scheme?

On the XL/XE at least, a program called "ATRMON" could be used with the Omniview replacement OS for a software 80 columns terminal for the ATR8000. Not sure if this also worked for the 800 Omniview OS - probably.

[zeke7237]

There’s not been much activity here for a while .. is the ATR8000 repro project still a thing? I had one back in the early 80s and I’ve been getting the itch lately to pick up an 800 from eBay and get it going. The Atari is the only game machine my SO ever liked, so she may let me invest ..

 

john d

[hsnewman]

Yes count me on on one of the pcb boards